davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Her Face Her Fortune

For a year the charms of Marie kept the money flowing in a steady stream into the coffers of NJ. Le Blanc. Every body in Paris had, by this time heard of Marie Roget-the beautiful shop girl Then, one day, Marie was missing. 1-e Blanc was frantic because of the loss of his great attraction-probabl with Marie selling them he could dispose of some exceedingly poor specimens of perfume and Mime. Roget was distracted with grief anxiety and terror.
 The newspapers at once took up the case of the disappearance of the beauti- fui shop girl. She had become char acter," almost an institution" in Paris
 The police were just upon the point of beginning some serious investigation when Marie appeared at her accustomed coun- ter again.
 She seemed to be in good health but had somewhat saddened air. She would not tell Le Blanc where she had been the last week, but referred him. and all sthers, to her mother Madame said that aiarie had been on a visit to relatives the country
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Arguments Disposed Of

This is the whole philosophy of the subject and all experience does not show that drowned bodies require from six to 10 days to rise to the surface. Both science and experiment show that the period of their rising is, and neces- sarily must be, indeterminate
 Also let us consider the difference between drowned bodies and bodies thrown into the river Immediately after death by violence.
 Tn the latter case the body as a rule. would not sink at all after so much decomposition had taken place as 10 allow an escape of the gases and the dropping of the flesh from the bones"
 Thus did the Chevalier dispose of the argument of LEtoile that the body round floating in the river could not have been that of Marie Roget because, at most she had been but three days dead.
 And further he pointed out that Etoile, while trying to prove that Marie Roget had not been assassinated did not deny that the young woman whose body had been picked up had been assassinated-the marks of vio- fence were only too plain.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Marie Roget

Marie Roget was the only daughter of the widow Estele Roget, The father had died during the girls infancy, and un- til within IS months before the tragedy which was now the subject of investi- gation, the mother and daughter had dwelt together in the rue Pavee St. Andree.
 Mime. Roget kept boarding house there assisted by Marie.
 When Marie became 22 her great beauty attracted the attention of a perfumer who occupied one of the shops in the basement of the Palais Royal-Le Blanc by name.
 The perfumer was not unaware of the advantages which would accrue to his shop from the presence of Marie and made very liberal proposals, which were eagerly accepted by her but with some misgivings by her mother.
 It was not long before NJ. Le Blanc s shop became notorious through the charms of Marie Roget. She had many admirers. but seemed to keep them all at a safe distance, though not indisposed to a little harmless coquetry.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Sleeping Through the Hours

He compimented Dupin upon what he had done in the matter of the murder in the rue Morgue. Dupin put these com rliments lightly aside with a sign of annoyance.
 Then he made a very substantial offer and remember Dupin was poor-if he would devote his talents to the mystery which he was now about to place be- fore him.
 Iupin assented, and the prefect talked for hours, giving not only the story of the murder as far as known, but his own theories and what he had done in the premises.
 Dupin, sitting steadily in his accus- toned arm chair, was the embodiment Of respectful attention.
 He wore green spectacles during the interview-and an occasional glance be- meath the glasses convinced his friend that he slept not the less soundly be- cause silently through the seven or eight leaden-footed hours which preceded the departure of the prefect.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Rummaging Ahnut

However, a M, Beauvais. who had been one of Marie's admirers when she Was employed in the perfumer's shop and was natural busybody, took a more active interest in discovering the whereabouts of the beautiful shop girl
 He had some sort of an undefined business in the downtown district and Marie had leased him and flirted with him, taking mischievous delight in ''stringing him."
 Beauvais, with a friend who had also Known Marie in the perfumer's shop, went rummaging all about, making the matter of tracing up Marie a sort of pastime-curiosity, as much as any thing else, impelled them.
 On Wednesday, June 25, they went over to the Barriers du Roule on the shores of the Seine, opposite the rue St. Andree "nosng about"
 "They heard that the body of a young woman had Just been lowed ashore by some fishermen, who had found 1t floating in the river and went to see it.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
The Tardy Lover

Jacques did not go to the aunt's house that evening. It came on to rain heavily as the night approached and the young fellow, rather ungallantIy. as it would seem, concluded to stay in the comfortable quarters of the boarding mousse reasoning that Marie would spend the night with her aunt rather than walk home through the rain.
 Mime. Roget was an infirm old lady. as has been said, and, as night drew on, she was heard to say mounfulIy that she feared she would never see Marie again.
 On Monday Jacques St. Eustache-the rain was probably over by this time went to the house of the aunt in the res des Dromes and found that Marie had not been there the day before.
 A tardy search was begun on Tues day for Marie. Why tardy? Well, you must remember that Marie had disap- peared before and had returned in safety.
 St. Eusta ache-according to the chron- icles of the veracious AIr. Poe and the no less reliable records of the New ork newspapers of the day-seems to have been rather weak sort of person With little Ego" to him. He seems to have done little but moan and lament.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
The Sensation Begins

A piece of lace was found tied so tightly around her neck that 1t was buried in the flesh and would have of itself been enough to produce death
 piece of her dress, about IS inches wide, had been torn off and was found hanging loosely about her neck A piece of dress also. which had been torn off, was found wound three times around her waist, secured behind in sort of hitch.
 Her bonnet still hung by its strings, and the knot with which these strings were fastened beneath her chin was not a knot such as a woman would tie.. but a sailors knot.
 Through the exertions of Nj. Beauvais the matter was hushed up as far as pos sible and the body hastily buried in graveyard near the place where it had been lowed ashore.
 Mt was several days before any public emotion was excited. Then a weekly paper, having heard rumors of the find ing of the body, took the matter up and the sensation began.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
A Secono Disappearance

The affair died away and was forgot ter. For the girl, in order, as she said, to relieve herself from the impertinence of idle curiosity, resigned her position in the perfumer's shop and went back 70 her aged mother to help her run the boarding house in the rue Pavee St. An dree.
 Five months later Marie disappeared again. Three days passed and nothing was heard of her.
 On the fourth day her dead body was found floating in the waters of the Seine near the shore which is opposite to the uuartier of the rue St Andree and at a place not far distant from the Barriere du Roule.
 it was evident that Marie had been nurdered and that the murder had been most atrocious one. The previous mo- toriety of the girl ana her beauty, as well as her horrible death, conspired to produce sensation among the sensitive Iaris.ans
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Too Familiar a Place

Tn respect to the grass having grown around some of them, it Is evil dent that that statement depends upon the recollection of two small boys-for these boys removed the articles and took them home before they had been seen by anyone else.
 As to the mildew-what is the na- ture of mildew? It is a fungus growth and the most ordinary feature of its ex- istence is it's uprising and decadence within 24 hours
 Now how could these articles have remained in that thicket for any great number of days? The boys of Madame DeLuc-if they were like other boys doubtless sought that thicket with its peculiar stone formation every day or two in their playing through the woods.
 "On Sundays it would be just the place which would be sought out by the gangs which cams across the river where, either at the roadside or in the woods, they indulge in those mad eXcesses of counter felt hilarity-the joint offspring of liberty and rum.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19

salons" Paris demanded that the police
 do something.
 In response the police tried-and failed. But when a great city demands that the police do something something has to be done.
 Hence the visit of the prefect to the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin in his gloomy quarters in the Faubourg St Germain.
 In the meantime great rewards had been offered for the discovery of the murderer. At first the city had offered 4 small sum. but finally the reward amount ed to So,ooo francs whic.l, considering the humble condition in life of the girl. Was large amount.
 Arrests had been made and the arrest ed discharged, when the prefect visited the cheValier. That was about all of the prefeet's story that Dupin cared to hear.
 Then he ent to sleep and woke up after that cal had ceased talking. to politely him out of the house.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
The Scene of the Murder

Between the thicket and the river the fences were found taken down in places and the ground bore evidence of some heavy burden having been dragged along it.
 The things" commented Le Soleil, had evidently been there three or four weeks. They were all mildewed down hard with the action or the rain and stuck together. The grass had grown around and over some of them.
 The silk on the parasol was strong but the threads were rovten within. Ths pieces of the frock torn out by the bushes were about three inches wide and six Inches long.
 "One part was the hem of the frock and it had been mended The other piece was part of the skirt-not the hem. They were upon thorn bush about a foot from the ground
 There can be no doubt, therefore, that this spot was the scene of the appalling murder"
 This caused a new investigation, and Mime. DeLuc testified substantially as follows:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Highly Improbable

All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into the water immediately after death by violence, re- quire from to 10 days for sufficient de- composition to take place to bring them to the top of the water.
 Even when a cannon is fired over a corpse and it rises before at least five or six days immersion it sinks again if left alone. Now we ask, what was there to cause this departure from the ordinary courdse of nature?
 And furthermore it is highly improb- able that any villains committing a crime such as here supposed would have thrown the body into the river without weights to sink it, when such a precaution would have been easy
 Then the paper spoke about the sup posed apathy of Maries mother and St. Eustache. Dupin ngufdly commended upon this article Tt is the puspore of the journalist to say, apparently. that it is folly to suppose that at whatever hour of the day or night this murder was com mitted the assassins would have thrown the body into the river before midnight.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Recognized at Once

Beauvais, with some hesitation, re- cognzed it as the body of the missing Marie Roget. His friend recognized it more promptly.
 The face of the drowned woman was suffused with blood, but no foam was seen upon the lips. as in the case of those merely drowned.
 There was no discoloration of the cellular tissue. It is unnecessary to go into all the details which made 1t ap- parent that the girl had been murdered and then her body thrown into the river.
 Suffice 1t that there were no cuts or discoloration which showed that Marie had died by being stabbed or hit, but enough to show that she had died in a fierce physical struggle to protect her honor.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Few Facts to Build unon

The next morning Dupin dispatched his friend to the prefecture to procure a full report of all the evidence which was on record there. The evidence collected by the police which had i,ot been absolutely d1sproved was about as follows:
 Marie had left the boarding house Of her mother at about g o'clock on the morning of Sunday, June 22. As she went out she said to Jacques St Eus- tache, her accepted suitor. who lodged and boarded with Mime. Roget, that she was going to visit her aunt, who lived in the Rue des Dromes
 She asked him to call for her at dusk and escort her home. She did not men, tion her intended visit to anyone else in the house.
 The rue des Dromes is short. mar row. but populous thoroughfare, situat- ed not far from the banks of the Seine, and is distant about two miles from the residence of Mime. Rogets.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19

that when he walks abroad in the beaten track of his daily exercise peo- pie know him and greet him.
 Now this could only be the case with Marie were hen walks unvarying. But the walks of Marie may be sup posed to have been discursive.
 "Le Commercial says that at o'clock in the morning the streets of Paris are thronged with people. This is true ex- cept on Sundays. On Sunday at 9 o'clock they are nearly deserted. But we will waive some of these minor de- tails.
 As to the suicide of St EuSfache His suicide, however corrob orative of suspicion. were there found to be de- fects in the afidavits which he pro- cured as to his whereabouts on that fatal Sunday, is, without such defects, absolutely no proof and need not cause us to defect from our present line of inquiry.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
What the Papers Told

His friend and Dupin carefully read the newspaper accounts. They would have been bewildering to a less gifted man than the Chevalier Dupin, for each paper seemed to have a pet theory to which they were trying to make the facts eonform-a not uncommon failing, either with newspapers or individuals
 One paper. l. L'Etoile-conducted generally with much ability-was obsessed with tue idea that the body found was not that of Marie Roget-that she still lived and had absented herself with the connivance of her intended husband and her mother
 l. 'Etoile figured it out that if Marie Roget had been murdered the deed would not have been committed before Sunday night, and that it would probably have been midnight before the murderers would steal through the dark to throw the body into the river
 Thus they made it out that the body could not have been in the water more than three days when it was found, and added:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
To Sink or Float

But leaving this aside, it maay be said that very few human bodies will sink, even in fresh water, of their own accord Almost any one falling into a river will be enabled to float if he suf- fers the specific gravity of the water fairly to be adduced in comparison with his own-that is to say. if he suffers his whole body to be immersed.
 The proper position for one who cannot swim is the upright position of a walker with the mead thrown back and fully immersed; the mouth and nos trils alone appearing above the surface. Thus circumstanced we will find that we float without difficulty and without eXertion.
 Tt is evident, however, that the gray ities of the body and the water are very nicely balanced and the slightest trifle will cause one or the other to predom- nate. An arm. for instance. lifted above the water and thus deprived of its sup port. is an additional weight sufficient to submerge the whole head"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Disregarding the Irrelevant

But let us discard the interior points of this tragedy and fix our attention upon its outskirts.
 Not the least usual error in ir- vestigations such as this is the limiting of the inquiry to the immediate, with total disregard of the collateral. or cir cumstantial evidence. It is the malprac- tice of courts to confine testimony to the bounds of apparent relevancy
 Yet experience has shown, and true philosophy will always show. that a vast, perhaps the larger, portion of truth arises from the seemingly ire levant.
 But let us now take consideration of the articles found In the thicket. There is circumstantial proof that they could not have been there for the 70 days which elapsed between the murder of Marie Roget and the-~discovery made by the boys of Madame DeLuc.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Theory and Facts

Now this assassination might have taken place upon the rivers brink or upon the river itself, and thus the throwing in of the body might have taken place iIn- mediately.
 Every paper in Paris, with the excep- tion of the Moniteur, has tacitly agreed to the assertions of L'Etoile regarding drowned bodies
 The Moniteur makes a feeble attempt at refutation by citinS exceptions to the rule laid down by l. Etoile, a theory gen. erally accepted by the general public.
 'The truth is that the human body is in general, neither much lighter nor much heavier than the waters of the Seine: that is to say, the specific gravity of ths human body in it's natural condition is about equal to the bulk of fresh waJer which 1t displaces.
 'The bodies of fat or feshy persons Isith small bones and of women generally arg lighter than those of lean, large bonei men, and the specific gravity of the water in the river is somewhat influenced t.y the presence of the tide from the sea.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
EDGAR ALLAN POE

Now, where is that rudderless boat? Who Is the naval officer who is said by one of the papers to have been a com panion of Marie upon her first disan- pearanee?
 Let us find that naval officer and compare his handwriting with that of the various letters which have been sent to the press in an endeavor to fix the crime upon a gang Corroboration will arise upon corroboration and the murderer will be found.
 Tt must be understood that I sneak of cofncidences-and no more. I have no faith in praeter-nature That Ma lure and God are two no man who thinks will deny. That the latter. ere ating the former, can modify it at will or control it is unquestionable.
 Now let us see. We have demolished many theories and have evolved new one. We have made it out of facts and of imagination We have not tried to mold the facts to our preconoeived the ories but have put ourselves In sym pathy with these facts--and let ous imagination do the rest.
 Tn that boat. and in Mme DeLuc's. lies the solution of the mystery of Marie Roget"
 Dupin made his report to the prefect and, acting upon the dreamer's hy- pothesis. the wheels of the law were set again in motion. The murder had been, committed in the house of Mme. DeL.uc and by a. naval officer.
 Copyright, 1914, by Irving King)
 
 Next weeks one-page classic will be: He Knew He Was Right" by Anthonny Trollope.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Reproducing the Tragedy

''Then he shudders and returns not to the place of his outrage-he fees That slip which was torn. out and wound around the body was designed to act as a handle to carry the ghastly burden
 That piece of cloth hanging loosely about the neck and tied with a sailors knot was at first designed to be a means of dragging the body.
 Now, as to the evidence of Mme. De- Luc-it is certainly unsatisfactory. Now we have attained the idea. of a fatal accident under the roof of Mme. DeI4uc. Mt was perpetrated by lover or at least an intimate associate-of the deceased.
 'Then take the sailors knot and the hitch which is spoken of in one of the papers. Everything points to a sea- man. His companionship with Marie Roget. gay but not abject girl. points him out as being above the grade of an ordinary sailor.
 "The man who has been proved ta have been with Marie upon that Sum day was of dark complexion.' What about the continual absence of him of the dark complexion?
 Now, as to the sailboat found under the barge office. There was no adver- tisement of the loss of any such boat. and it suddenly dLsappeared.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19

bottom of the river. It will remain there until, by decomposition or other wise, its specific gravity becomes less than that of the water. This may be brought about by the expansion of the cellular tissues or by the generation of gases, which cause an increase in bulk without a corresponding increase in weight.
 As to the firing of a cannon, this is simply to cause the body to rise by the jar loosening it from some subaqueous growth in which it has become en- tangled, or the mud or ooze, in which 1t has become imbedded.
 "Or the jar may break some putres- cent portions of the cellular tissue, all lowing the cavities to d1stend under the influence of gas.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19

an obscure part of the Faubourg St. Ger main which his young and romantic American friend-whose circumstances were rather better than the chevalier's- had fitted up for the joint occupancy when the prefect of the Seine came to see him.
 Dupin and his fdus Achates were dis cussing, as usual, some trihing matters such as the Pythag gorean doctrine of the metempsychosis of the soul, the duality of man. or the relative merits of the in- ductive and the deductive systems of philosophy.
 As a rule they did not allow visitors to bother them. Put Dupin had made such reputation for himself in the mat ter of the murder in t-i- rue Morgue as a detectve-had had so much to do with the prefect in that matter-that it was decided to let that official come in.
 The prefeet said that his reputation wes at stake A most mysterious mur- der had been committed and all Paris had it's eyes upon hins. But he had so far vainly endeavored ts unravel the mys- tery
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
Startling News

How absurd.' said Dupin. "Yet the connection between theAe two crimes has much of the palpable in it to the un- thanking person Now it would have been miracle. indeed, if while gang of ruffians were committing crime at a given locality there should have been another gang committing an atrocity of the same aspect at precisely the same roint of time.'
 As Dupin read and pondered there ap- peared in the papers some rather start ling news with regard to what had now become known as the mystery
 Two small boys, the sons of Mime pel.uc. who kept public house near the river in the Barriere du Roule, chanced to penetrate close thicket above the banks of the river. in which were found large stones forming sort of seat with a back and footstool
 On the upper stone lay a white petit coat; on the second q silk scarf par asol, gloves and a pocket handkerchief were also found. The handkerchief bore