The Daily Tribune

CLEVER WOMAN DETECTIVE.

MISS ADELAIDE C. RUSSELL AMONG MOST SUCCESSFUL OF MODERN SLEUTHS.

Assumes Many Peculiar Disguises and Visits Little Known Sections-Is Talented Musician and Accomplished Linguist.

Equipped with a personality as charming as it is distinctive Miss Adelaide C. Russell has joined the army of women workers, but in such a unique way that her accomplishments cannot fail to interest other women throughout the entire country. Miss Russell is a detective, but the many disagreeable attributes which are commonly supposed to go hand in hand with this profession are wanting in the case of this interesting young woman who follows it, rather from a love of its adventures than for the results which it brings about. Six years' service in connection with the New York Pinkerton forces and on private work have given to Miss Russell a fund of interesting experiences which have made her life a succession of incidents well calculated to weave themselves into a score of melodramas if she would only relate them. Miss Russell is still in her twenties but during the six years she has been a detective; she has been all around the world and has adopted many different disguises. She never works through her own personality, but adopts the various disguises as the occasion warrants. Further than this she has the remarkable record of never having known failure. Of the hundreds of cases on which she has worked she has obtained the results for which she started and to-day her record is one of continual successes.

Has Figured in Famous Cases.

If one were given a thousand chances to name Miss Russell's profession, that of detective would never figure on the list. One might take her for a singer probably for an actress, maybe for a newspaper woman, but never class her as a clever sleuth who has figured in some of the most famous cases in this country and Europe. During the Paris Exposition Miss Russell worked on several forgery cases which had their locale in Paris. In order to gain knowledge to be used as evidence in these cases Miss Russell, who is a talented musician and plays the harp skillfully, dressed as a street musician, again as a newsboy and still again as a hotel waitress. One of the most celebrated divorce cases this country has ever known was brought to a climax through evidence secured by Miss Russell. The husband was the offender and went to Mexico. Miss Russell followed him there, hired herself as a maid and traveled with the people all over Europe. She was gone eight months and when the case finally came to trial and the man found that he had been paying the expenses of a detective for nearly a year he attempted to kill Miss Russell. Her ready use of a small pistol which she always carried saved her life. Miss Russell admits that for once her heart was in her mouth, although the fright was only momentary.

Disguised as a Newsboy.

In New York Miss Russell has sold dozens of newspapers among the crowd of "newsies" about Wall Street. She acknowledges that in nearly all the divorce cases which fall to her share her sympathy is with the wife. Recently she had such a case to follow up and having located her people in the outskirts of a certain large city Miss Russell visited the house nearly every day, but always in a different disguise. First she went as a man, wearing a little light mustache; again she went as a little old German woman selling herbs. Her accent was so broken that she could hardly be understood and she put up such a story of hard luck that she was invited to come again, which of course, she did. The lady has a particularly charming personality. Her voice is soft and cultivated, but can be made to change almost instantly. She is handsome and has a most striking individuality. She speaks a half dozen languages fluently, is a gifted musician, and has a keen sense of a clue which would do honor to the best men detectives in the business. On one occasion when she was on the scent of a forger in New York, she was obliged to follow him from the house in which they were both stopping to a railroad station. He took the train for Philadelphia, and although Miss Russell had not time to put on her hat and coat she, too jumped on the train. Her badge carried her, but when she got to Philadelphia she gave the tip to a depot detective to watch the man while she hurried into the ladies' waiting room and paid the maid two dollars for the latter's hat. Miss Russell declares it was not the most modish hat she ever known, but it covered her head and gave her an opportunity to continue "shadowing" her man, whom she finally ran to cover, and made her case.