Another great crime is of about the same date, but of a very different character,--the theft and misappropriation of gigantic sums by the chief cashier, Rudolf Jaeger, of the Rothschild banking-house at Frankfurt-on-the-Main. The story will be best understood by an extract from the indictment on which he was eventually charged. It stated that on Good Friday, April 15, 1892, the chief cashier of the banking-house of M. A. Rothschild and Sons disappeared, but was not missed until April 20th by reason of intervening holidays, both Christian and Jewish. The suspicion of his flight was confirmed by two letters from him posted at Darmstadt. One was to a Frau Hoch, who sent it to the Rothschild house; the other was addressed to Baron Rothschild’s private secretary, Herr Kirch. In both letters Jaeger stated that he had been guilty of embezzlement and that he meant to take his own life. In the letter to Kirch he carried the comedy to the extent of sealing his letter with black, using a black-edged envelope and placing a memorial cross under his signature. He confessed that he had lost 1,700,000 marks by unlucky speculations on the bourse with money entrusted to him in the course of business by others, including the bank. The money was gone, he declared briefly, and he meant to expiate his deed by death, hoping for mercy from God alone. Rudolf Jaeger first entered the Rothschild house as assistant to his father, then chief cashier, and on his father’s death he succeeded to the position. His salary was 4,500 marks; besides this, he received other payments for keeping the private accounts of the Barons Wilhelm and Mayer Karl Rothschild, as well as the New Year’s bonus, and such other extras, so that his circumstances were easy. He married in 1877. His first wrongdoing was when he embarked upon an egg-trading business in partnership with one Heusel, who subsequently entered the dock by his side. Heusel was always in financial straits, insatiable in his demands for money, and although Jaeger had advanced the sum of 102,000 marks, he clamoured incessantly for more, and to satisfy him Jaeger made his first fatal dip into the Rothschild safe, which was in his keeping. For a long time he managed his depredations most skilfully, and his methods of throwing dust into the eyes of the clerks under him by manipulating the books of the bank were extremely clever. Even when a revision of the books took place, after he had gone so far as to falsify them, his dishonesty was not suspected. However, he only narrowly escaped. He felt he was on the verge of being discovered and began his preparations for flight, in company with Josephine Klez, with whom he had been intimate for some time.