The mystery of Central Park

But Tolman Bike was not easily found.

Richard Treadwell got up early and went to the box factory, only to be told that Mr. Bike, suffering from ill-health, had gone out of the city for a time.

The people in charge of the shop either feigned ignorance or did not know when he was to return, but Dick knew, in view of Mr. Bike’s approaching marriage, on the evening of the 7th, that he could not be absent from the city more than two days at the very most.

But one thing he determined on. He would see Tolman Bike before his marriage to Miss Chamberlain, and for Maggie Williams’s sake he would know the whereabouts of her sister. And also for Maggie’s sake would he do what he could for the sister to induce her to return to her home.

In the meantime Richard intended to make an extra effort to learn something about the Park mystery girl.

He drove to the Morgue, and after some persuasion he got the bundle of clothes the pretty dead girl had worn when found in the Park.

He took the gloves and gown and left the remaining articles with the keeper.

He decided from the appearance of the dress that it had been made at some expensive establishment. He further decided that he would make a round of the fashionable dressmaking places and see if some one in them would not be able to recognize the work.

If they recognized the work, tracing the owner home should be very easy, he thought.

He took the gloves also, but like the dress, they had no mark that would assist him in his search.

After trying several glove stores he abandoned this as impracticable, for no one claimed the gloves as having been bought from them, and even if they had known the gloves were from their stock, it would have been impossible to tell who bought them.

Carefully he made a tour of the fashionable dressmakers. He felt dreadfully embarrassed as he entered the different establishments with the large parcel in his arms. The women in waiting, as well as the women customers, looked at him curiously, and when he asked, in a hesitating way, to see the proprietor or the forewoman, he could hardly endure the amused smiles of those who were eagerly listening to hear him state his business.

He thought all sorts of things which made him uncomfortable. First, the idea came to him that they would think he had brought a dress to be made to wear in amateur theatricals, or at a masquerade. But that was not half as bad as to imagine they thought he had a wife who was displeased with a dress which she had returned by him.

The worst part of all was, when he showed the crumpled gown to the persons in charge and inquired if they had made it, to have them first show surprise at the unusual proceeding, then quiet indignation when they found that if Richard had a secret concerning the gown he meant to keep it, and when he guarded well his reasons for such a strange visit they bowed him out with such an air of injured dignity that Richard felt very small and unhappy.

There were a few that instead of assuming an injured air, laughed at Richard, and one familiarly asked him if his wife refused to tell where she got it.

The majority of the dressmakers denied the gown so emphatically that Richard began to have a dim idea that the workmanship was not so fine as had been thought and that the dress had come from a humbler shop. He, not being a woman, did not know that one dressmaker never saw any good in another dressmaker’s work.

When he reached the last establishment of any note and importance it was almost dinner time. There were no customers about, and the employees were making preparations for closing the shop. A girl came forward and politely asked Richard his business.

He told her he wished to see whoever had charge of the place. Requesting him to be seated she left soon to return with a man.

Richard felt more comfortable than he had all day. He explained to the man, who listened kindly and politely, showing neither surprise nor curiosity, that he wished to find the persons who had made the gown he had with him, in order to find out who had paid for the dress and where it had been delivered.

The man took the gown and went to the workroom. Later he returned and went inside the small office.

Richard waited impatiently, and for the first time a hope of solving the mystery of Central Park entered his heart. Surely when the man took so much time he had discovered something.

Still Richard tried to keep his expectations from running away, lest he be compelled to suffer a severe disappointment; so when the man came towards him with the crumpled gown flung across his arm Richard offered the consolation to himself that he had still left for his inquiry the less fashionable dressmakers.

“The dress was made here,” the man said. Dick’s pulse started off at a two-minute gait. “A letter was sent here containing an order for a dress. The measurements were inclosed and with them over half the price of the dress in bills. The letter stated that the person for whom it was intended was out of town, and that in ten days the dress would be called for.

“We often have customers order dresses from a distance,” the man continued, “and we make them from measure. Ten days afterwards a messenger boy came in with an order for us to receipt for the price of the dress and a $100 bill, from which I took the rest of the price and gave him the dress and the change.”

“Have you the letter that was sent you with the measurements and order?” asked Richard, with a calmness that covered his excitement.

“No. The boy said he must have the letter containing the measurements, and I sent up to the forewoman in the workroom. She had transferred the order to her book, but had the letter pinned to the same page, so she sent it down and I gave it to the messenger.”

“Have you not even the name and address of the person who ordered the dress?” asked Dick, very much cast down by the turn things had taken.

“The name we have—it was Miss L. W. Smith—but there was no address. It was an unusual thing for us to do, but as I told you, we have many customers who send us orders for dresses when they are away from town, and ladies are not always careful and exact about addresses. They are liable to fall into the error of thinking that if we have once made a garment for them, by merely signing their name we are sure to recall their address and histories. We keep very satisfactory books, which contain little histories of every garment we make, so we always refer to that when a lady forgets to write us as much as is necessary for us to know.”

“Had you ever made a dress for Miss Smith before?” Dick asked, still a faint hope stirring his pulses.

“We thought so, but on consulting our books found the measurements showed that one was for a large woman and the other woman must have been slender.”

“I suppose it is absurd to ask if you have any idea of where the messenger was from,” Dick said, rather faintly.

“I do not know, of course, but there is a messenger office on the block above, where you might inquire. It is almost useless, though, for the lady doubtless got the boy in her district, and as you are aware, this is not a district of residences. Still, you would not lose anything by asking. They may be able to offer you some assistance. I can give you the date the boy called for the gown and I am very sorry I cannot do more for you.”

The man had the gown put in a box for Richard, who left the establishment feeling happier than he had since he and Penelope had found the dead girl. He was on the track of her identity at last, and, though it was a faint clue he possessed, he felt it a very sure one.

They did not show much inclination to help Richard at the District Telegraph office. At first they said it was impossible to tell which messenger it was, even if he had been from that place, and then, after a fashion, they did make a search, but with no success.

“I know it,” said one of the messengers, who was standing at the counter. “I had stopped out front to scrap with Reddy Ryan, who was takin’ a basket of clothes home, and a duffer drove up in a carriage and asked if I’d do a job for him, ’n I told him I’d been sent on a call, so he said he’d give me a dime if I’d run an’ get him a messenger. I came, an’ Shorty, No. 313, was sent out. I remember it ’cause he told me the man just sent him into Moscowitz’s to get a dress an’ pay a bill, an’ gave him a dollar for doin’ it.”

“Where is No. 313?” asked Dick, his spirits rising fifty per cent.

“He’s off on a call. No, here he is,” said the messenger who knew something. “Come here, Shorty, you’re wanted.”

Shorty was a red-headed boy with a freckled face and one eye. The other messenger recalled the circumstances to him, and he sniffed his nose and said he remembered.

Richard then asked if there was a lady in the carriage, but No. 313 thought not. Then Richard asked him what the man looked like, but No. 313 could not say, except that he had a mustache and wore a soft felt hat. No. 313 had no opinion as to whether the carriage was private or hired, but he “guessed” it wasn’t a livery hack, “cause the harness jingled.”

The other and brighter messenger said the man was young, denied the soft felt hat and pronounced the carriage a hired one.

Richard hurried through his dinner, possessed of an unusual feeling of happiness, and went for Dido Morgan to spend their last evening in their peculiar search for Maggie’s sister.

To-morrow Penelope would be home, and he had learned something. If ever so little, still it was something, and now that he had made such a successful start he began to feel hopeful of a final success. He knew now where the dress had been made and he knew a man had called for it. He had engaged the two messenger boys, and with them he intended to search the town over for the man who got the dress which the dead girl had worn. Once he found the man, then the rest would be easy.

Richard took Dido to the Eden Musée, and after she had seen all the figures that interested her, Dick took her up to the cosy retreat above the orchestra, where the tall green palms cut off the glare of the electric light. He ordered some ice cream for Dido and some Culmbacher for himself, and lighting a cigarette he gave himself up to the influence of the beautiful Hungarian music and dreams of Penelope.

The music sobbed and sighed, and Dick drifted on dream-clouds and was lazily happy. He would solve the mystery, he felt sure, and then what years of happiness with Penelope stretched before him. What a great thing it was to be happy; life is so short, why should people allow themselves to be unhappy for a second if they can possibly avoid it? An unusual tenderness filled his heart, a peaceful happiness stole over him, making him very gentle.

And poor little Dido, how dreary life loomed up before her! Dick’s heart swelled with pity, and he sympathetically took the girl’s hand in his and looked tenderly into the soft, brown eyes that looked at him so trustingly.

There was so much happiness and love in waiting for him and Penelope, but what did life offer to poor, lonely Dido?

And as the sobbing music ended in one long thrill, Richard, raising his eyes from the richly tinted face of this sweet girl companion, saw standing before him, with white face and stern eyes—

Penelope.