A ROMANCE OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2355, 13 April 1899, Page 56

A ROMANCE OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

The ox Marquise de Paiva to-day, Comte3se Henckel de Dr-nnesmarck, has her revenge. It is a costly and not very noble on«j, but she La-3 succeed beyond liar most exalted hopes, for a regular c&ravan of " gens dv monde " has just been organised to go and see the grand work of her vengeance. The Marquise de Paiva, nee Therese Lachmann, had her days of great splendour under the Second Empire. She had leifc G-crmar.y, her native country, to escape from her husband, a poor tailor, Herr Villung, who vped to beat her regularly every evening as a fair payment for her daily ffirts. Her beauty was great, and Paris seemed to her the very frame for it, and she arrived there at last, exhausted, ill,

and faded, bub not discouraged. . One evening, owing to want of food, she fainted on a bench in the Champs Elysees, and wan picked up by a passer-by, who "was no less than M. Hermann, the favourite pianist of Queen ( Amelie, Louis Philippe's wife. He took her 'to his house, fell in love with her, and married her, all in ci week, for Frau "Villung had carefully omitted to mention her tailor husband. She insisted on being presented to the Queen by her husband, who, however, entertained some scruples at the idea of introducing to his patron an unknown ben.uty whom he had picked up on a garden seat. Ho tried his best, though, but in vain, and Therese, Peeing that he was not able to help her up, coolly left him. Almost at the same time Ihe monarchy of July fell, and, unable to bear this dmible shuck, Herrn.-inn died of sorrow.

For a few years no one knows what became of Hermann's widow, but she reappeared on the scene very soon after the accession of Napoleon HI. She was then completely free, for her tailor had passed away also, and she found a third fool to many her, a Portuguese Grandee, the Marquis Aranjo de Paiva, who laid at her feet his large fortune, and, according to her defiire, built for her on the Champs Elysees, just opposite the very bench on which she had fainted, the magnificent Hotel Paiva, which became one of the curiosities of Paris.

Now the tiwle had come when she ctrnld at last see the coveted doors of the Tuileries open before her. Eugenic had jKme of the narrow prejudices which rendered Queen Amelie so disagreeable, and she was sure of her triumph. Madame la Marquise, who was more dazzling than ever, prepared herself with a feverish joy for the great event, and she was a sight for the gods when she ascended the grand staircase leading to the Salle dcs Marechaux, followed by murmurs of admiration from the men and jealous glances from 'the women.

But her success was to go no farther, for at the door an usher advanced tow&rd the couple, took the cards from the Marquis's 'hand, and, turning to the exultant lady, said, in a not too low tone of voice : " I am afraid, madame, that .you have made a mistake ; this is not the right door for you." Paiva blanched to the lips and dragged away his enraged spouse, who swore that one day she would enter the Tuileries quand meme. They say that the Empress, who had met the Marquise once or twice in the Bois, had made mp her mind that such a lovely woman should not come to her Court to eclipse her own beauty, and liad given orders at the last moment not to let her in.

Aranjo de Paiva died, and his widow sold her properties in Paris, where she felt that her star was on the decline. Most of the proceeds went to her creditors, but still she was beautiful, and apparently possessed the mysterious charms of the magicians, for she found a fourth fool to marry her, the Count yon Donnesmarck, who brought her an immense fortune.

Now, with his money, in the middle of a wild Silesian steppe, Madame la Comtesse has built a palace which is an exact copy of the Tuileries, outside as well as inside. She has her Throne Room, and there she receives the tourists who come, not only from the neighbourhood, but from all parts of the country, even from Berlin, to see this marvel. She accepts their homage in the grandest style. Then, after the first compliments, she graciously descends from her exalted seat and says: "Now, 1 will show you the rooms of our poor Empress. I have made them a worthy souvenir of the dear lady." She leans on her tall ivory stick, for she is 75 now, and proceeds along a pa.sssage, at the end of which is a door whicli is opened by an usher in the dress of the Second Empire. A dreadful smell at once startles the visitors, and there, in the apartments exactly copied from those

once occupied by the beautiful Empress of the French, they see a herd of pigs of all ages and breeds disporting among the furniture.

Madame de Donnesmarck laughs heartily, no one dares say anything, and she takes her guests downstairs to a grand lunch, which is prepared every day for those who choose to come, provided they arrive in good style and in a carriage and pair. This is her revenge. BIG CLUES THAT HAVE FAILED. LUCK SEEMS TO FAVOUR CARELESS CRIMINALS. Everyone has heard of the "Black Museum " at Scotland Yard. Here, as most people are aware, is to be seen a varied collection of criminal relics — jemmies, revolvers, burglars' masks, etc. Many of these have Constituted valuable clues in important cases. There is, for instance, the, little tin lantern that hung Milsom and Fowler ; the chisel that convicted Orrock of the murder of Police-constable Cole, and many other equally interesting pieces of evidence.

What is not on exhibition, however, is the Bimilar collection of clues that have failed. These arc preserved, and' carefully labelled and catalogued. But, as they reflect neither honour nor glory on the Detective department, they are kept religiously in the background. Here, for instance, is the identical pestle with which Miss Camp was murdered while riding in a London and South-Western railway carriage samt little time back. A brokon diamond stud recalls the strange robbery at Hatton Garden on September 13, 1894, when Hen* Spyzer, an Antwerp dia-' mond merchant, was' decoyed into a bogus office, attacked by tliree men, chloroformed, and then robbed of gems valued at £20,000.

This latter clue was at one time con-sidr-red a really valuable one, for there is little doubt that the stud did actually belong to one of the Jhievcs ; but nothing came of it in the end, and it remains to this day in the hands of the police, a mute witness that there are mysteries whose elucidation baffles even the best detective skill in the world.

It is passing strange to light upon a Christmas card in this weird museum. It is but a common thing, costing probably no more than a couple of pence. Nevertheless, it possessed at one time an extraordinary value in the eyes of the police ; for this liny bit of bloodstaind pasteboard was found on the body of a woman named Harriet Buswell, who was murdered on Christmas Eve, 1878, at her house in Great Corara street, and on it was scrawled by some unknown mi&eieant what probably constitutes the most gruesome Christmas greeting on record : " From your despairing and broken-hear-ted Harry. Beware. This is the last Christmas card you will ever receive." And the writer' kept his word. Who "Harry" was, or why he executed so fearsome a vengeance on poor Harriet Buswell, none ever knew. The card constituted a clue. But it failed.

A fragment of a woman's cuff and a broken .sleeve-link are reminiscent of the once notorious Stoke Ncwingtou myslry. They were found clenched in the riglTt hand of poor Mr Tower, who was murdered and thrown into the reservoir one dark night in the winter of 1884. Near by, covered with dust and cobwebs, are sundry pieaes of twisted metal and fragments of shattered woodwork, relics of the terrible explosions which took place at Aldersgate street Station in March, 1897. Half the detectives in Europe have puzzled their brains over these bits of wreckage — for it was thought the outrage might havo been the work of some foreign Anarchist ; and the late Colonel Majendie made more than a dozen minute examinations of them. But to no purpose ! The collection is especially rkh in knives. Here is the long stiletto-like blade, obviously of foreign design and manufacture, which was found, in the summer of 1880, transfixed in the heart of a young and beautiful woman in . the cellar of a house in Havley street. There, with dark dried clots of what once was wet blood still staining the rough wooden handle, is the big butcher's knife used by the Hoxton murderer on Mrs Squires and her daughter! Close to it is the tiny pearl-handled knife with which, if the police theory is correct, an unknown boy was hacked to* death on Hackney Marshes a few years back. All valued clues once!

Yet some of these mute witnesses have come very near catching (and hanging) their one-time owners. There is, for instance, a pistol which was traced, after months of arduous work and patient inquiry, to a certain high-born murderer who shall be nameless. That the clue failed in this case was due, not to the detectives, but to the criminal himself, who committed suioide a few hours before the arrival of the warrant for his arrest.

Another piece of evidence that came near to furnishing a solution to one of the most mysterious crimes of the century is a child's rattle. It was found near the body of poor little Georgina Moore, and was naturally supposed to have had an important bearing on that revolting crime. But its ownership was traced a fraction of an hour too late. Twenty minutes or so before the detectives called at the suspect's house for an explanation, that astute individual disappeared. A peculiar interest Attaches itself to an ordinary seaman's clasp knife, which rests apart from its fellows on a small wooden pedestal, m that it came precious near to hanging the wrong man. It was found on the person of James Sadler, arrested for the murder of Frances Coles. This unfortunate woman, it will be remembered, was discovered, in the early morning of February 13, 1891, under an archway in Orman street, Whitechapel, with hex throat cut from ear to ear. Nearly, everyone jumped to the conclusion that it was another "Ripper"' murder, and there was consequently no little excitement when Sadler was arrested and charged with the crime. Time after time the unlucky man was brought .up and remanded ; but at length it was clearly shown that the knife, upon which everything turned, was not in his possession on the da}' of the murder. Many of the nieces of evidence, although

insignificant enough in themselves, would have proved amply sufficient to have fixed the blame on the guilty person if only tha identity of that individual could have- been ascertained. A fragment of a man's trou-ser-leg, for example, found in the room of an officer murdered at Brompton Barracks', Chatham, some years back, undoubtedly belonged to the assassin j but although, dozens of suspects were shadowed, the owner of the incriminating bit of cloth was never discovered.

Similarly with the dried and withered fragment of apple found beside the body of Rose Millet, or Davis, who was strangled at Poplar by some unknown miscreant in December, 1888. Only a few minutes prior to the time the murder must have oeen committed, a mysterious stranger was seen in her company eating apples out of a paper bag. Now, it was proved that the deceased woman detested afl kinds of fruit. Evidently, then, that piece of half-eaten apple formed the connecting link between crime and criminal.

A slight clue! But even slighter ones have brought men to the gallows ere now. This particular one, however, failed, and the bit of mummified fruit reposes side by side with a plaster cast which shows how it looked when it was first' found, objects both for the curious to gaze upon. But undoubtedly the ghastliest relic m this ghastly museum is a , human finger preserved in spirits of wine. Deeply indented in its semi-mummified substance are three teeth-marks, and it is noticeable that the point of severance is not clean-cut, but torn and jagged. As a matter of fact, indeed, it is not cut from the hand of its original owner, but was bitten off by an unfortunate girl who was murdered in Soho some five-and-twenty years ago by strangulation.

The assassin made his escape, but left the greater portion of one of his forefingers clenched between the fixed tenth of his unhappy victim ; and for weeks afterwards all the police in London were on the look-out for a man with one of his hands in bandages. He eluded them all, however ; and that is why the missing portion of his anatomy is retained in this dusty garret, instead of "graci-ng" Scotland Yard's collection of criminal relics.