The Long Arm of Coincidence. Saxony, a minute description of whose per son it contained, similar to that in the pass port. There were also two certificates, one of birth and one of baptism, both bearing the name of Johann Carl Franz. The other three papers had apparently no connection with Franz. One was a letter without address, soliciting relief from some lady of quality, signed " Adolphe Krohn." Another, dated June 7 (three days before the murder), was in the handwriting of Madame Tietjens, addressed to Mr. Kroll of the Hamburg Hotel, America Square, requesting him to send the bearer, a desti tute fellow-countryman, back to Germany at her expense. The third was a slip of paper with a number of addresses jotted down upon it, among them that of Madame Goldschmidt (Jenny Lind). Besides the papers, there was found in the room a roughly shaped bludgeon of beechwood, not long cut from the tree. This, however, had not been used, for the woman's body bore no marks of blows, and it was evident that death had been caused by suffocation, for the stocking had been rammed into her mouth with such force that the tongue was forced back over the glottis or narrow opening at the upper part of the windpipe. The footprints on the flower beds under the windows were of different sizes, and showed that two persons at least had been concerned in the crime. The motive was doubtless robbery, but the men were probably frightened when they found that the)' had killed the woman, whose re sistance necessitated violence, or else they were alarmed by some sound outside, for they decamped without taking anything from the house. With such an important clue as the packet of papers to start with, the task set the police seemed an easy one. It was soon discovered that two foreigners, one short and dark, the other tall and fair, had been seen in the neighborhood of Kingswood on the day before the murder (Sun
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day, June 9). They had applied for lodg ings at the Cricketers' Inn, Rcigate, and had slept there on the Sunday night, remaining in the house till four o'clock on the Monday afternoon, when they left. During their stay they had only quitted the inn twice to make some purchases, and on each occasion had only been absent a few minutes. The pot man was certain he should recognize them both again, because, hearing them talk in an outlandish tongue, he had taken particular notice of them. Then a laborer remembered having seen two foreigners in a beech wood not far from Kingswood, about seven o'clock in the even ing of the day of the murder. He passed within a dozen yards of them and knew they were foreigners, because they were speaking in a language which he did not understand. This was an important piece of evidence for, on examining the wood, it was found that a branch had been newly torn from one of the trees, which exactly corresponded with the bludgeon found in the room. But the most startling evidence was that supplied by the wife of a brush-maker at Reigatc, who remembered that on the day of the murder, two foreigners came into her shop and bought a ball of string of a peculiar make, very seldom manufactured, known as "rublay cord." One of them could speak broken English, but when they conversed together it was in a foreign language. She showed them several different kinds of string before they selected this particular one, which was precisely identical with that found round the murdered woman's hands and feet. The only other fact of importance was that two men, apparently foreigners, had been stopped by a policeman at Sutton, some eight or ten miles from Kingswood, about two o'clock on Tuesday morning, that is to say, presumably two or three hours after the murder was committed, and in reply to the constable's question, " Where are you going?" one of them said, in a
