A terrible but at the same time exceedingly common-place murder
was committed in Park Lane on Sunday. Mademoiselle Riel, the actress, returning from Paris on Monday, found the housemaid greatly agitated, and her own mother, the owner of the house, apparently absent. She opened the pantry, a room which her mother had used to write letters and keep accounts in, and there found Madame Riel's body. She had been strangled with a stout cord. Suspicion at once fell on the cook, a powerful and de- termined woman, named or nicknamed Marguerite Dixblanc, and reported to be a Communist. She had on Sunday stated that her mistress was out, then sent out the housemaid, and then absconded herself. It is believed that she strangled her mistress in the kitchen, carried the body into the pantry, and then robbed the safe of all the money and bonds in it, leaving, however, some jewels untouched. The Coroner's jury returned a verdict of "Wilful murder" against her, but up to Friday evening she had not been arrested.
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