Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1870-07-28
singular Detection Of n Murderer.

As illustrating quick perception and rare pres
ence of mind, Chambers Joaf'adt vouches for
the truth Of the following story, which was orig
inally published in the guise Of fiction
Caroline G., good looking, finely proper
toned young girl living as lady's maid with
fashionable young widow, rather pdsse. One
evening, after having assisted at her mistress
toilet for dinner party, she amused herself,
before putting away tho various articles scatter
ed about the room, in trying on pair of silk
stockings and dress shoes belonging to her mis-
tress, and having done 80, she viewed her well
turned limbs with complacency saying aloud !:
There's leg for stocking, and there's foot
for shoe,' Having satisfied herself as to their
symmetry, she divested herself of her borrowed
pumes, put the room to rights, and awaited the
return of her mistress, whom she saw into bed
That was the last time she saw her alive. She
was found i'll the morning murdered in her bed,
the jewel case and plate chest broken open and
robbed. The robber and murderer left no trace
by which he could be captured, and in spite of
the most diligent search escaped. Three years
after Caroline was engaged in similar capacity
by lady who took her to Paris. She had al
most forgotten the murder, and, if she thought
of it, it was not with any hope of discovering the
criminal
1t happened that she was walking in one of
the public promenades one afternoon. when, as
she passed group Of men, she heard these
words
"Theres leg for a stocking, and there's a
foot for a Shoe" In moment the events of
the evening De1Ore her mistress was murdered,
flashed on her memory And now for her mar
velous presence of mind pretending not to
have heard anything, she glanced sideways at
the group of men. She saw there was three,
but she could not tell which of them had
spoken. She walked slowly past them; then
she stopped in an undecided manner, and finally
turned back, and walking up to them, she asked
to be directed to certain street. As she ex-
pected, all Of them had word for her, and
among the voices she easily recognized the one
that had just spoken. Their language and looks
were both very free, but she only told them that
they We're very impertinent, and that she would
get the information she wanted from the first
gendaime. She thus averted suspicion if they
| watched her speaking to policeman. The next
difficulty was how to inform gendarme what
she wanted; she had only been a fortnight in
France, and knew scarcely word of French.
She, however, carried pocket dictionary with
| her, to assist her in making purchases, and as
| means of acquiring a little French. Going
| over to a bench, she sat down, and searching
| through the dictionary, found the words she
wanted, and she then wrote them with pencil
on the lily leaf of the dictionary. The sentence
ran thus :. Genddrnies je dpoir besoin cdus ar
reter on n,eurtrier" The grammar was not very
| correct, as dictionaries do not teach syntax, but
the gendarme understood it, and in another
minute held the murderer in his grasp. He was
afterwards convicted and hung on the girli
testimony,