The New York Herald-Times, May 31, 1922

TIT AND TATTLE, BY PATTY CAKE

As promised, the scrumptious Mr. Octavian Rofrano climbed into the witness box of the Trial of the Century this morning, electric and refreshing as one of those thunderstorms that tumbled over the horizon late yesterday afternoon, breaking the heat at last.

Much to everyone’s disappointment, he showed no sign of the wounds he sustained early last February, when the whole affair came to the attention of the public and the police department. His refusal to press any charges against the accused, you remember, has remained one of the most celebrated (and speculated-upon) facts of the whole case. Nonetheless, here he is, called as a witness by the prosecution, so I suppose he had a greater scheme in mind.

Mr. Rofrano is one of those rare specimens, a very young man—he was one of our greatest aces in the late war, counting eleven enemy planes to his credit—who has the self-possession of the middle-aged. I would not actually call him handsome. His face is a little too lean and hungry for my drawing-room taste. But his eyes are an arresting shade of aquamarine blue, his hair is dark and glossy, his complexion is somewhat swarthy, and he exudes a great deal of energy without moving an inch. There you have it.

He answered the attorney’s questions with ready honesty, if not exactly an excess of words. As a friend of the lucky Mrs. Marshall, he told us, he was asked by that lady to do a little quiet investigation into the nether branches of the Fortescue tree, because not every girl, however dazzlingly wealthy, makes a suitable bride for a family so old and august as the Ochsners, who have led New York society since the Revolution. (This last observation is mine, by the way: Mr. Rofrano answers all questions with utmost economy and no opinions whatsoever; the prosecuting attorney, like a surgical dentist, is made to work hard for every fact he draws out.) He undertook his appointed task in the usual underhanded manner, by insinuating himself into the friendship of the Fortescues, until he was able to discover that they were not, in fact, Fortescues at all. That Mr. John Ephraim Fortescue was really none other than Mr. Montague Charles Faninal, who had disappeared from public notice sixteen years earlier following the murder of his wife in the family home in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Upon further questioning, Mr. Rofrano admitted that his interest in the case was more than casual, for he himself had been raised to manhood within that same unfortunate building. He would not otherwise have made the connection, it seems, because when asked how his suspicions were first raised—considering, that is, how well the accused had covered all traces of his previous existence—Mr. Rofrano replied simply, “His ears.”

(Having been presented with an unobstructed prospect of said organs—perhaps wings will provide the reader with a more accurate description—for the past three days, I can confirm that no amount of careful disguise, by beard or by hat, could obscure this singular and unfortunate feature of the accused’s person. If, as Mr. Rofrano admits, he has studied this case from childhood—photographs, newspaper articles, and the like—I don’t wonder that he should look upon those ears with the same familiarity as a long-lost relative.)

In any case, once the first alarm was rung, Mr. Rofrano’s quick intellect began to gather other telling details: the names and ages of the daughters, the long absence of a mother, the curious reclusiveness of the family despite its riches. The singular profession of the accused, and his habit of disappearing for fathomless hours into his workshop. Further inquiries—such as that made of Mr. Philip Schuyler—soon hardened his suspicions into certainty.

The prosecution then attempted a line of questioning to do with Mr. Rofrano’s childhood memories of the case, to which the defense objected—Hearsay!—on the grounds that he had obtained his information from a neighbor, unreliable because of their mutual youth and the dozen or so years that had passed in the meantime. The defense then took over cross-examination of the witness, to which Mr. Rofrano responded—to the extent one can determine Mr. Rofrano’s emotional state at all—with some relief.

Why, the defense wanted to know, having formed this startling suspicion, did Mr. Rofrano not immediately report his discovery to the police? Mr. Rofrano replied that he had no proof at all, that the crime had occurred nearly two decades earlier, and that he had no wish to inflict such an ordeal upon the family of the accused, who were only young girls at the time of the awful event, and who would be greatly disturbed to learn all the grisly details of their poor mother’s demise. As the younger Miss Fortescue was engaged to be married, and the elder was already bound in matrimony, they would soon be removed from their father’s immediate physical influence in any case. On the other hand, Mr. Rofrano worried the threat of prosecution could inspire the heretofore complacent Mr. Fortescue—if, indeed, he were the killer—to commit some desperate act that might place the young ladies in danger.

Weighing all these considerations, and with due respect for the presumption of innocence, Mr. Rofrano said he decided that the safety and happiness of Miss Fortescue and her sister must, in this case, be placed above the demands of criminal justice.

Mr. Rofrano uttered this speech—longer by many degrees than any previous statement—without a single glance toward the two ladies in question, nor the accused himself. As to whether his words elicited any emotion from the former Misses Fortescue, I had no way to determine, other than the fact that both remained quietly in their seats, and disdained any audible reaction.

The defense, perhaps not surprisingly, did not dwell upon the dramatic events of the fourth of February, and Mr. Rofrano was dismissed with the admonition to hold himself ready for recall, should either side require further testimony from him.

Adjournment was then called until the next morning. As the temperature in the courtroom had, by this time, descended to a more habitable height, there was some disappointment that we would not have the opportunity to hear from Mrs. Lumley, the Scarsdale housewife who once served as a humble char in the Faninal household in Greenwich, now raised to respectability by a munificent husband, and on whose testimony the prosecution’s case is expected to hinge.

I suppose that in criminal justice, as in all else, such good things must come in their own time.