On the evening of May 29, 1901, Sumner Paine entered his Chestnut Street apartment in Boston’s tony Beacon Hill neighborhood and found, to his considerable consternation, that his wife, Salome, was not alone. She was in her bedroom in the company of Peter F. Damm, a musician ostensibly on the premises to give a violin lesson to seven-year-old Elsie, who was asleep in the next room.
Newspapers later noted that Damm was “without a coat, waistcoat and collar” (though subsequent reports generally mentioned just the absence of his coat, presumably for decorum’s sake). Damm would explain his presence in the bedroom and his lack of gentlemanly attire by saying he was looking at an opera Mrs.