The mystery of Central Park

Richard Treadwell was not mistaken.

The golden-haired girl was dead.

The fair young form was taken to the Morgue, and for some days the newspapers were filled with accounts of the mystery of Central Park, and everybody was discussing the strange case.

And what could have been more mysterious?

A young and exquisitely beautiful girl, clad in garments stylish and expensive, although quiet in tone, and such as women of refinement wear, found dead on a bench in Central Park by two young people, whose social position was in those circles where to be brought in any way to public notice is considered almost a disgrace.

And to add to the mystery of the case the most thorough examination of the girl’s body had failed to show the slightest wound or discoloration, or the faintest clue to the cause of the girl’s death.

The newspapers had all their own theories. Some were firm in their belief of foul play, but they could not even hint at the cause of death, and how such a lovely creature could have been murdered, if murder it was, in Central Park and the assassin or assassins escape unseen, were riddles they could not solve.

Other journals hooted at the idea of foul play. They claimed the girl had, while walking in Central Park, sat down on the bench, and died either of heart disease or of poison administered by her own hand.

The police authorities maintained an air of impenetrable secrecy, but promised that within a few days they would furnish some startling developments. They did not commit themselves, however, as to their ideas of how the girl met her death. In this they were wise, for the silent man is always credited with knowing a great deal more than the man does who talks, and so the public waited impatiently from day to day, confident the police would soon clear the mystery away.

Hundreds of people visited the Morgue, curious to look upon the dead girl.

Many went there in search of missing friends, hoping and yet dreading that in the mysterious dead girl they would find the one for whom they searched.

People from afar telegraphed for the body to be held until their arrival, but they came and went and the beautiful dead girl was still unidentified.

Penelope Howard and Richard Treadwell were made to figure prominently in all the stories about the beautiful mystery, much to their discomfort. The untiring reporters called to see Penelope at all hours, whenever a fresh theory gave them an excuse to drag her name before the public again, and poor Richard had no peace at his club, at his rooms, or at Penelope’s home. If the reporters were not interviewing him, his friends were asking all manner of questions concerning the strange affair, and pleading repeatedly for the story of the discovery of the body to be told again. Some of his club acquaintances even went so far as to joke him about the girl he had found dead, and there was much quiet smiling among his immediate friends at Dick’s fondness for early walks, a trait first brought to light by his connection with this now celebrated case.

Not the least important figure in the sensation was the Park policeman who found Penelope and Richard bending over the dead girl. He became a very great personage all at once. The meritorious deeds which marked his previous record were the finding of a lost child and the frantically chasing a stray dog, which he imagined was mad, and wildly firing at it—very wide of the mark, it is true—until the poor frightened little thing disappeared in some remote corner.

This officer became the envy of the Park policemen. Daily his name appeared in connection with the case as “the brave officer of the ‘Mystery of Central Park.’” Daily he was pointed out by the people, who thronged to the spot where the girl was found, curious to see the bench and to carry away with them some little memento. He always managed to be near the scene of the mystery during the busy hours of the Park, and the dignity with which he answered questions as to the exact bench, was very impressive.

But the officer’s pride at being connected with such a sensational case was not to be wondered at.

Rarely had New York been so stirred to its depth over a mysterious death. The newspapers published the most minute descriptions of the dead girl’s dainty silk underwear, of her exquisitely made Directoire dress, of her Suéde shoes, the silver handled La Tosca sunshade, and more particularly did they dwell on descriptions of her dainty feet and tiny hands, of her perfect features and masses of beautiful yellow hair.

There was every indication of refinement and luxury about her.

How came it, then, that a being of such beauty and grace could have no one who missed her; could have no one to search frantically the wide world for her?

The day of the inquest came.

Penelope, accompanied by her aunt and Richard, were forced to be present. Penelope in a very steady voice told how they found the body, and she was questioned and cross-questioned as to the reason why she should have become so interested in the sight of an apparently sleeping girl as to accost her.

It was a most unusual thing.

Did she not think that it had been suggested by the young man who accompanied her?

Penelope’s cheeks burned and she became very indignant at their efforts to connect Richard more closely with the case, and she related all that had transpired after they spoke of the girl with such minuteness and ease, that it was hinted afterwards that she had studied the story in order to protect the culprit.

Poor Richard came next.

His story did not differ from Penelope’s, and while no one said in so many words that they suspected him of knowing more than he divulged, yet he felt their suspicions and accusations in every question and every look.

A very knowing newspaper had that same morning published a long story, relating instances where murderers could not remain away from their victims, and always returned to the spot, in many cases pretending to be the discoverer of the murder. The story finished by demanding that the authorities decide at the inquest whose hand was in the murder of the beautiful young girl.

Dick, remembering all this, felt his heart swell with indignation at the tones of his examiner.

Penelope was more indignant, if anything, than Dick, but she had read in a newspaper that repudiated the theory of murder, a collection of accounts of deaths which had been thought suspicious that were afterwards proven to be the result of heart disease or poison, and she quietly hoped that the doctors who held the post-mortem examination would set at rest all the doubts in the case.

The park policeman, in a grandiloquent manner, gave his testimony.

He told how he found the young couple bending over the dead girl, who was half lying on a bench. When the officer asked what was wrong, the young man, who seemed excited and frightened—and he laid great stress on those words—replied “The girl is dead.” The officer had then looked at the body but did not touch it. The young people denied any knowledge of the girl’s identity, and then his suspicions being aroused he asked the young man why he had replied “The girl is dead,” if he did not know her?

The young man repeated that he had never seen the dead girl before, and his companion gave him a quick, frightened glance; so the officer said sternly:

“Be careful, young man, remember you are talking to the law; I’ll have to report everything you say.”

And then the officer paused to take breath and at the same time to give proper weight to his words. Everybody took the opportunity to remove their gaze from the officer and to see how Dick Treadwell was bearing it. They were getting more interested now and nearly everyone felt that the elegant young man would be in the clutches of the law by the time the inquest was adjourned.

The officer cleared his throat and in a deep, gruff voice continued his story.

At his warning the young man had flushed very red, then paled, and then he called the officer a fool.

Still the conscientious limb of the law determined to know more about two young people, who, while able to drive, were doing such unusual and extraordinary things as walking early in the Park and happening upon the dead body of a young girl; so he asked the young man why, if he did not know the girl, he did not say “a girl is dead here,” instead of “the girl is dead,” whereupon the young man told the officer again that he was a fool, adding several words to make it more emphatic, and at this the young girl, who stood by very gravely up to this time, had the boldness and impudence to laugh.

Richard Treadwell was called again, and had to repeat the reason of his early walk in the Park, and had to tell where he spent the previous evening, which was proven by Penelope and her aunt. He was questioned why he used the definite article instead of the indefinite in answering the officer’s question. He could offer no explanation.

That a man should say “the girl” instead of “a girl,” and that he should be excited over finding the body of a girl unknown to him, were things that looked very suspicious to the law, and those in charge of the inquest had no hesitancy in showing the fact.

A few persons whose testimony was unimportant were called, and then came the doctors who had made the post-mortem examination. Nothing was discovered to indicate murder or suicide, nor, indeed, could they come to any definite conclusion as to the cause of death.

The coroner’s jury brought in an indefinite verdict, showing that they knew no more about the circumstances or cause of the girl’s death than they did at the beginning of the inquest. With this unsatisfactory conclusion the public was forced to rest content.

They did know that the girl had not been shot or stabbed, which was some satisfaction, at any rate.

Penelope persuaded her aunt and Richard to accompany her through the Morgue. She was deeply hurt at the way in which Dick had been treated. Still she wanted to look on the face of the fair young girl, the cause of all the worriment, before she was taken to her grave.

“How dreadful!” exclaimed Penelope’s aunt, as the keeper unbolted the door and waited, before he closed it, for them to enter the low room.

She tiptoed daintily over the stone floor—which, wet all over, had little streams formed in places flowing from different hose—holding her skirts up with one hand, and with the other hand held a perfumed handkerchief over her aristocratic nose. Penelope, with serious but calm face, kept close to the keeper, and Richard walked silently with the aunt.

“I thought the bodies lay on marble slabs,” said Penelope, glancing at the row of plain, unpainted rough boxes set close together on iron supports.

“They did in the old Morgue, but ever since we’ve been in this building we put them in the boxes. They keep better this way,” explained the keeper, delighted to show the sights of the Morgue to persons of social prominence.

“Do you know the history of all these dead?” asked Penelope, counting the fifty and odd coffins which came one after the other.

“We know somethin’ about most all ’cept those found in the river, and the river furnishes more bodies than the whole city do. We photograph every body and we pack their clothes away, with a description of ’em, and keep them six months. The photographs we always keep, so that years after people may find their lost here. Would you like to see them, miss?”

“You see,” continued the man, lifting a lid, “we burn a cross on the coffins of the Catholics, and the Protestants get no mark. The boxes with the chalk mark on are the ones that’s to be buried to-morrow. This man here, miss,” holding the lid up, “was a street-car driver; want to see him, mam?”

Penelope’s aunt shook her head negatively.

“He struck, and could not get work afterwards, so as he and his family was starvin’, he made them one less by committing suicide.”

“It is so hard to die,” Penelope said with a shudder.

“Hard? Not a bit, miss; death’s a great boon to poor people. This ’ere fellow,” holding another lid while Penelope gazed with dry, burning eyes down on a weather-beaten face, which, seared with a million premature wrinkles, wore a smile of rest, “he was a tramp, they ’spose. Fell dead on Sixth Avenue, an’ he had nothin’ on him to identify him. And this ’ere woman who lies next the Park mystery girl, though she do smile like she got somethin’ she wanted—an’ they nearly all smile, miss, when they’ve handed in their ’counts—she were a devil. She’s done time on the island, and they’ve had her in Blackwell’s Insane Asylum, but ’twan’t no good; soon as she got out she was at her old tricks. Drink, drink, if she had to steal it, an’ fight an’ swear! They picked her up on a sidewalk the last time and hauled her to the station-house, but when mornin’ come an’ they called her she didn’t show up; an’ when they dragged her out, thinkin’ she was still full, they found she’d got a death sentence and gone on a last trip to the island where they never come back.”

A little woman, stumpy, fat and old, in a shabby black frock and plain black bonnet, came in with one of the keeper’s assistants. She held a coarse white cotton handkerchief in her hand, and her wrinkled, broad face with its fish-like mouth, thick, upturned nose and watery blue eyes, looked prepared to show evidence of grief when the search among the labelled rough-boxes was successful.

“Mrs. Lang,” read the man who was assisting the woman in her search, “from the Almshouse?”

“Yes, that was her name, true enough. The Lord rest her soul!” the woman responded fervently, and the man slid the lid across the box, and the little old woman, holding the handkerchief over her stubby nose, peeped in.

“Yes, that’s her; that’s Mrs. Lang. Poor thing! Ah! she do look desolate,” she wailed. “She hasn’t a fri’nd in all the world,” she continued, looking with her weak eyes at Penelope, who sympathetically stopped by her. “She was eighty years old, and paralyzed from her knees down. Poor thing, they took her to the Almshouse not quite a month ago, and she looks like she’d had a hard time, sure enough. Poor Mrs. Lang, she do look desolate.”

The man closed the box as if he had given her time enough to weep, and the wailing woman went out.

“What becomes of the bodies of these poor unfortunates?” asked Penelope, with a catch in her voice.

“Most of ’em we give to the medical colleges as subjects. Yes, men and women, black and white alike. That nigger woman, who wouldn’t tell on the man who gave her a death stab, lying to the other side of the Park mystery girl, will be taken to a college to-night. The bodies not sold are all sent up to Hart’s Island, where they’re buried in a big trench.”

Penelope’s sympathetic nature quivered with pity by reason of what she had seen and heard. She secretly resolved to give the poor unknown girl a respectable burial, and to order some flowers to be strewed in the rough-boxes with the other unfortunates who would be taken to the Potter’s Field to-morrow.

“Death is a horrible thing,” she remarked sadly, as they filed through the iron doors again.

“It is, miss,” the keeper assented. “I’ve had charge of this here Morgue for these twenty years, still if I was to allow myself to think about death and the mystery of the hereafter, I’d go crazy.”

“But the thought of Heaven. It is surely some consolation,” faltered Penelope.

“Twenty years’ work in there,” nodding his head towards the throne where death sits always; where the only noise is the sound of the dripping water; “hasn’t left any fairy tales in my mind about what comes after. We live, and when we’re dead that’s the last of it. You can tell children about the ‘good man’ and ‘bad man’ and Heaven and—beggin’ your pardon—Hell, just the same as you tell them about Santa Claus, but when they grow up if they thinks for themselves they know its fairy tales—all fairy tales. When you’re dead, you’re dead, and that’s the last of it, take my word for that.”

Penelope was not a religious fanatic, but her few pious beliefs experienced a little resentful shock at the man’s outspoken words. She haughtily drew her shoulders up, the kind expression faded from her face, leaving it less attractive, and she was conscious of a little feeling of repulsion for the unbelieving Morgue keeper. Not that the keeper’s ideas were so foreign to those that had visited her own mind. She had many times felt dubious on such subjects herself, but she had always felt it to be her duty to kill doubt and trust in that which was taught her concerning the life hereafter.

Penelope joined her aunt and Richard Treadwell, where they stood under a shade tree opposite the Morgue waiting her.

In a few words she told what she wished to do. Her kind aunt good naturedly encouraged her. Perhaps what they had seen had had a softening effect on her as well.

Instead of driving home they drove to the coroner’s, and with the permit which they obtained without difficulty, to an undertaker’s, where the final arrangements were made for the girl’s burial.

So the beautiful mystery of Central Park was not sent to a medical college nor to the Potter’s Field. The next morning Penelope accompanied Richard in his coupé, and Mrs. Louise Van Brunt, her aunt, who had in her carriage two charitable old lady friends, followed the sombre hearse in its slow journey across the bridge to Brooklyn. In a quiet graveyard on the outskirts of the city the dead girl was lowered into the earth.

Penelope was greatly wrought up over the case. All the way to the graveyard she was moody and silent. Seeing that she was not inclined to talk, Richard too sat silent and thoughtful.

Added to her interest in the dead girl, the evident suspicions entertained against Richard had preyed upon Penelope’s mind. While she never doubted Richard’s innocence in the affair, still ugly thoughts concerning his careless nature, and the recalled rumors of affairs with actresses, of more or less renown, which the newspapers darkly hinted at, almost set her wild. Could it be possible that he had known the girl, or ever seen her before they found her dead?

She recalled his excitement when he leaned down and for the first time saw the face of the girl as she sat on the bench. The officer had laid great stress on Dick’s excited manner, and to Penelope, as she looked back, it seemed suggestive of more than he had acknowledged.

“And I love him, I love him,” she cried to herself during the long ride to the cemetery, “and with this horrible suspicion hanging over him I could never marry him; I could never be happy if I did. I can never be happy if I don’t. If we only knew something about it; if only people did not hint things; if I could only crush the horrible idea that he knows more than he told!”

They dismounted, after driving into the cemetery, and walked silently across the green; winding in and out among the grassy and flowered beds and white stones which marked all that had once been life—hope.

An unknown but Christian minister stood waiting them at the open grave. Penelope glanced at him and at the workmen, who left the shade of a tree near-by when they saw the party approaching, and came forward with faces void of any feeling but that of impudent curiosity. The minister repeated the burial service very softly, as the coffin was lowered into the earth. Penelope’s throat felt bursting, and her heart beat painfully as Richard, with strangely solemn face, dropped some flowers into the grave.

“Oh death? How horrible, how horrible!” she thought, “and I, too, some day must die; must be put in a grave, and then—and then, what? What have we done to our Creator that we must die? And that poor girl! This is the last for all eternity, and there is not one here she knew to see the last, unless”——but the morbid thought against Richard refused to form itself into definite shape.

The men who filled the grave were the most light-hearted in the group. They pulled up a board, and the pile of fresh earth at the mouth of the grave, which it had upheld, went rattling in on the coffin and flowers, almost gladly it seemed to Penelope. She shivered slightly, but watched as if fascinated, until the men put on the last shovel-full and with a spade deftly shaped out the mound. Richard helped her cover the newly-made grave with the flowers and green ivy and smilax they had brought for that purpose.

They were the last to leave. The others had walked slowly among the graves and back to the place where the carriages were waiting. The hearse, immediately after the coffin was lowered into the earth, had gone off with rollicking speed, as if eager for new freight, and the workmen with their spades and picks had disappeared.

“It is ended,” said Dick with a relieved sigh, as he led Penelope back to her carriage. “Now let us forget all the misery of these last few days and be happy.”

“It is not ended,” exclaimed Penelope, spiritedly. “It has only begun. I can never be happy until I know the secret of that girl’s death.”

“That is impossible, Penelope,” replied Dick. “That mystery can never be solved.”

“Dick, you have sworn you love me; you have sworn that you would do anything I asked if I would marry you. Did you mean it? Will you swear it again?” cried Penelope, breathlessly.

“Mean it, love?” repeated Dick, as he pressed her hand closely between his arm and heart. “Upon my life, I swear it.”

“Then solve the mystery of that girl’s death, and I will be your wife.”