o the reading public, and I
pass them by here.

But the Detectives are not always successful in their efforts. If they
are ingenious and full of resource, the criminals they seek are equally
so, and they find their best efforts foiled and brought to naught by the
skill of this class in "covering up their tracks." To my mind the most
interesting cases are not those in which the Detective's labors have been
crowned with success, but those in which he has been baffled and
perplexed at every step, and which to-day remain as deeply shrouded in
mystery as at the time of their occurrence.

Inspector James Leonard, in the spring of 1869, related the following
case to Mr. Edward Crapsey, in whose words it is presented here:

"One spring morning, during the first year of the war, a barrel of pitch
was found to have disappeared from a Jersey City pier, and the porter in
charge, when reporting the fact to his employers, took occasion to speak
of the river-thieves in no very complimentary terms.

"On the same day, Ada Ricard, a woman of nomadic habits and dubious
status, but of marvellous beauty, suddenly left her hotel in New York,
without taking the trouble to announce her departure or state her
destination. The clerks of the house only remarked that some women had
queer ways.

"A few days after these simultaneous events, the same porter who had
mourned the lost pitch, happening to look down from the end of his pier
when the tide was out, saw a small and shapely human foot protruding
above the waters of the North River. It was a singular circumstance, for
the bodies of the drowned never float in such fashion; but the porter,
not stopping to speculate upon it, procured the necessary assistance, and
proceeded to land the body. It came up unusually heavy, and when at last
brought to the surface, was found to be made fast by a rope around the
waist to the missing barrel of pitch. There was a gag securely fastened
in the mouth, and these two circumstances were positive evidence that
murder had been done.

"When the body was landed upon the pier, it was found to be in a
tolerable state of preservation, although there were conclusive signs
that it had been in the water for some time. It was the body of a
female, entirely nude, with the exception of an embroidered linen chemise
and one lisle-thread stocking, two sizes larger than the foot, but
exactly fitting the full-rounded limb. The face and contour of the form
were, the