| The crime was straightforward. On 28 June 1906, Harry Kendall Thaw shot and killed Stanford White, the sandy-haired red-faced internationally famous architect whose sex life was as florid as his design for Madison Square Garden. The shooting took place, appropriately enough, on the roof of the Garden, at the opening of a review called Mam'zell Champagne. Behind it lay an extraordinary story which was slowly unfolded to fascinated newspaper readers at Thaw's two trials. It became clear that his wife Evelyn had not overstated the case when she said: 'Harry, I'll stick to you, but my, you're in an awful mess.' Evelyn did her best for her husband by telling on the witness stand how Stanford White had seduced her when she was a showgirl in the 'Floradora' company, and only fifteen years old. There had been a room with a red velvet swing in which White had pushed her almost up to the ceiling, a studio where she had posed in a 'gorgeous Japanese Kimono', then a fateful night when she had been given too much champagne, had fainted, and found herself in a room where the walls and ceiling were covered in mirrors. She had, she learned, been seduced. | |