THE “NELLIE BLY” SERIES

The Mystery of
Central Park

By NELLIE BLY

Originally published in the New York EVENING WORLD

MRS. MARY J. HOLMES’ NOVELS

Over a MILLION Sold.

THE NEW BOOK

GRETCHEN.

JUST OUT.

The following is a list of Mary J. Holmes’ Novels.

• TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.
• ENGLISH ORPHANS.
• HOMESTEAD ON THE HILLSIDE.
• LENA RIVERS.
• MEADOW BROOK.
• DORA DEANE.
• COUSIN MAUDE.
• MARIAN GREY.
• EDITH LYLE.
• DAISY THORNTON.
• CHATEAU D’OR.
• QUEENIE HETHERTON.
• DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.
• HUGH WORTHINGTON.
• CAMERON PRIDE.
• ROSE MATHER.
• ETHELYN’S MISTAKE.
• MILLBANK.
• EDNA BROWNING.
• WEST LAWN.
• MILDRED.
• FORREST HOUSE.
• MADELINE.
• CHRISTMAS STORIES.
• BESSIE’S FORTUNE.
• GRETCHEN. [New.]

THE
MYSTERY
OF
CENTRAL PARK.

A Novel.

BY

NELLIE BLY,

AUTHOR OF

“TEN DAYS IN A MAD HOUSE” AND “SIX MONTHS
IN MEXICO.”

NEW YORK:

Copyright, 1889, by

G. W. Dillingham, Publisher,

Successor to G. W. Carleton & Co.

MDCCCLXXXIX.

All Rights Reserved.

Trow’s
Printing and Book Binding Co.,
N. Y.

CONTENTS.

THE

MYSTERY OF CENTRAL PARK.

CHAPTER I.
THE YOUNG GIRL ON THE BENCH.

“And that is your final decision?”

Dick Treadwell gazed sternly at Penelope Howard’s downcast face, and waited for a reply.

Instead of answering, as good-mannered young women generally do, Penelope intently watched the tips of her russet shoes, as they appeared and disappeared beneath the edge of her gown, and remained silent.

When she raised her head and met that look, so sad and yet so stern, the faintest shadow of a smile placed a pleasing wrinkle at the corners of her brown eyes.

“Yes, that is—my final decision,” she repeated, slowly.

Dick Treadwell dropped despondently on a bench and, gazing steadily over the green lawn, tried to think it all out.

He felt that he was not being used quite fairly, but he was at a loss for a way to remedy it.

Here he was, the devoted slave of the rather plain girl beside him, who refused to marry him, merely because he had never soiled his firm, white hands with toil, nor worried his brain with a greater task, since his school days, than planning some way to kill time.

He was one of those unfortunate mortals possessed of an indolent disposition, and had been left a modest legacy, that, though making him far from wealthy, was still enough to support him in idleness.

He lacked the spur of necessity which urged men on to greater deeds.

In short, Richard was one of those worthless ornaments of society that live, and die without doing much good or any great harm.

That he was an ornament, however, none dared to deny, and the expressive brown eyes of the girl, who had seated herself beside him bore ample testimony that she was not unconscious of his manly charms.

Dick took off his straw hat, and after running his firm, white fingers through his kinky, light hair, crossed one leg over the other, while he brooded moodily on his peculiar fate. The frank, boyish expression, that had won him so many admirers, was displaced by a heavy frown, and his bright blue eyes gazed unseeingly over the beautiful vista before him.

He could not understand why a girl should get such crazy ideas, any way. There were plenty of girls who made no effort to hide their admiration for him, and he knew that they could be had for the asking, if it only wasn’t for Penelope.

But, somehow, Penelope had more attraction for him than any girl he had ever met. Her very obstinacy, her independence, made her all the more charming to him, even if it was provoking.

Penelope Howard was in no wise Dick Treadwell’s mate in beauty.

She was slender to boniness and tall, but willowy and graceful, and one forgot her murky complexion when gazing into the depths of her bright, expressive eyes and catching the curve of a wonderfully winsome smile.

Penelope was an heiress, though, to a million dollars or more, and so no one ever called her plain.

She was an orphan and had been reared by a sensible old aunt, who would doubtless leave her another million.

Penelope knew her defects as well and better than did other people. She had no vanity and was blessed with an unusual amount of solid sense.

Penelope Howard was well aware that she would not have to go begging for a husband, but she had loved handsome Dick Treadwell ever since the year before she graduated at Vassar. He had gone there to pay his devotions to another fair under-graduate and came away head over heels in love with Penelope. Nevertheless Penelope was in no hurry to marry.

She loved Richard with all her heart, but there was a barrier between them which he alone could remove.

“You know, Dick,” she said, softly, as he still gazed across the green lawn, trying to find a mental foothold, as it were, “that I told you this before”——

“Yes, this makes the sixth time I have proposed,” he said, savagely, still looking away.

“I have always told you,” smiling slightly at his remark and lowering her voice as she glanced apprehensively at a girl seated on a bench near by, “that I will not marry you as long as you live as you do. I have money enough for two, so it makes no difference whether the man I marry has any or not. But I can’t and won’t marry a—a worthless man—one who has never done anything, and is too indolent to do anything. I want a husband who has some ability—who has accomplished something—just one worthy thing even, and then—well, it won’t make so much difference if he is indolent afterwards. You know, Dick, how much I care for you,” softly, “how fond I am of you, but I will not marry you until you prove that you are able to do something.”

“It’s all very easy to talk about,” he replied savagely, “but what can I do? I don’t dare risk what little I have in Wall street. I don’t know enough to preach, or to be a doctor, or a lawyer, and it takes too infernally long to go back to the beginning and learn. You object to my following the races, and I couldn’t sell ribbons or run a hotel to save me. Tell me what to do, Penelope, and I will gladly make the attempt. When you took a—a craze to walk in the Park at a hideous hour every morning before your friends, who don’t think it good form, were out to frown you down, did I not promise to be your escort, and haven’t I faithfully got up—or stayed up—to keep my promise?”

“And only late—let us see how many times?” she asked roguishly.

“Penelope, don’t,” he pleaded. “You know I love you. Why, Penel’, love, if I thought that your foolish whim would separate us forever I’d——Oh, darling, you don’t doubt my love, do you?”

“Hush!” she whispered, warningly, pointing to the girl on the other bench.

“Oh, she is asleep,” Dick replied carelessly.

“Don’t be too sure,” Penelope urged, gazing abstractedly towards the girl, her eyes soft with the feeling that was thrilling her heart.

Like all girls Penelope never tired of hearing the man who had won her love swearing his devotion, but like all girls she preferred to be the sole and only listener to those vows, to that tone.

“If she is awake she is the first young woman I ever saw who would let her new La Tosca sunshade lie on the ground,” he said laughingly.

“She must be sleeping,” Penelope assented indifferently, glancing at the parasol lying in the dust where it had apparently rolled from the girl’s knee.

Two gray squirrels, with their bushy tails held stiffly erect, came out on the dusty drive, and finding everything quiet scampered across to the green sward, where they stood upright in the green grass viewing curiously the unhappy lovers.

Penelope had a mania for carrying peanuts to the Park to give to the animals. She took several from her reticule and tossed them towards the gray squirrels.

The one, with a little whistling noise scampered up the nearest tree and the other, taking a nut in his little mouth, quickly followed.

“I have not seen her move since we came here,” she said, returning to the subject of the girl. “Do you suppose she put her hat over her eyes in that manner to keep the light out of them, or was it done to keep any passers-by from staring at her?”

“I don’t know,” carelessly. “Probably she is ill.”

“Ill? Do you think so, Dick? I am going to speak to her,” declared Penelope, impulsively.

“Don’t, I wouldn’t,” urged Dick.

“But I will,” declared Penelope.

“You don’t know anything about her,” he continued pleadingly. “She may have been out all night, or you can’t tell but perhaps she has been drinking too much, and if you wake her she will doubtless make it unpleasant for you.”

“How uncharitable you are,” indignantly exclaimed Penelope, who feared no one. She had spent much time and money in doing deeds of charity, and she had met all sorts and conditions of women. That a woman was in trouble and she could help her, was all Penelope cared to know.

She got up and walked towards the girl. Richard, knowing all argument was useless, went with her. When they stopped, Penelope, bending down, peeped beneath the brim of the lace hat which, laden with an abundance of red roses, was tilted over the motionless girl’s face.

“She is sleeping,” she whispered softly to Dick. “Her eyes are closed. She has a lovely face.”

“Has she, indeed?” and Dick, with increased interest, bent to look. “She is very pale and—I am afraid that she is ill,” in an awed tone. “Young lady!” he called nervously.

The girlish figure never moved. Richard’s and Penelope’s eyes met with a swift expression—a mingled look of surprise and fear.

“My dear!” called Penelope, gently shaking the girl by the shoulder.

The lace hat tumbled off and lay at their feet; the little hands, which had been folded loosely in her lap, fell apart and the girlish figure fell lengthwise on the bench.

Breathlessly and silently the frightened young couple looked at the beautiful upturned face framed in masses of golden hair; the blue-rimmed eyes, with their curly dark lashes resting gently against the colorless skin; the parted lips in which there lingered a bit of red.

Nervously Richard touched the cheek of pallor, and felt for the heart and pulse.

“What’s wrong there?” called a gray-uniformed officer, who had left his horse near the edge of the walk.

Penelope silently looked at Richard, waiting for him to answer, and as he raised his face all white and horror-stricken, he gasped:

“My God! The girl is dead.”

CHAPTER II.
PENELOPE SETS A HARD TASK FOR DICK.

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.”

CHAPTER III.
WHEREIN DICK TREADWELL MEETS WITH ANOTHER ADVENTURE.

Richard Treadwell was in despair.

Days had passed since the burial of the unknown girl, and he was no nearer the solution of the mystery than he was on the morning of the discovery. He had not learned one new thing in the case, and what was infinitely worse, he had not the least idea how to set about the task.

He had taken to wandering restlessly about the city racked with the wildest despondency.

“Great Lord, if I only had an idea,” he thought, desperately, as he walked up Fifth Avenue. “If I only knew how to begin—if I only knew where to begin—if I only knew what to do—if I only—Confound the girl, anyhow. Why couldn’t she have died somewhere else, or why didn’t some one else find her instead of us. Confound it, I’ll be hanged if I hadn’t enough to worry about before. Women will take the most infernal whims. Good Lord! If I wasn’t suspected of being connected with her death, and if Penelope——But I’ll be d—— if I can give it the go-by. It’s solve the mystery or lose Penelope! If I only knew how to go to work. But, by Jove, I know I could preach a sermon, or set a broken leg, or—or cook a dinner easier than find out why, where, when, how, that yellow-haired girl died. Curse my luck, anyhow.”

“I have read stories where fellows who don’t know much start out to solve murder mysteries, but they always find something which all the detectives and police authorities overlooked, which gives them the right clue to work on. It’s very good for tales, but I find nothing. The rest are just as smart and smarter at finding clues than I am. They got nothing. I got nothing, and what to do would puzzle a Solomon.”

Dick stopped and looked up to the windows of Penelope’s home, where his wandering feet had brought him. He had not seen her for two days; so busy on the case, he wrote her with a groan, and then he had sent her a bunch of roses, and gone forth to kill another day in aimless wanderings.

But here, before her door—how could a lover resist the temptation to enter and be happy in the presence of his divinity for a few moments at least? Richard was not one of the resisting kind any way, so, after a moment’s thought, he ran up the broad stone steps and was ushered into Penelope’s room off the library—half sitting-room, half study—to wait for her.

Nothing was wanting in Penelope’s special den, that luxury could suggest, to make it an exquisite retreat for a young woman with a taste for the beautiful. There were heavy portieres, soft, rich carpet, handsome rugs here and there on the floor and thrown carelessly over low divans. Chairs and lounges of different shapes, all made for comfort, little tables strewed with rich bric-a-brac, unique spirit lamps, and on easels and hanging around were paintings and etchings, all of which, as Penelope said, had a story in them.

There were some fine statues, among which were several the work of Penelope. A little low organ, with a piano lamp near it, stood open and there were music and books in profusion.

Near where the daylight came strongest was a sensible flat-top desk littered with paper, cards, books and the thousand little trinkets—useless, if you please—which a refined woman gathers about to please her eye.

The most unusual things that would have impressed a stranger, if by some unknown chance he could gain admittance here, was a mixed collection of odd canes and weapons, and a skull in the centre of the desk, which was utilized as an inkstand and a penholder.

“Why, Dick,” said Penelope, as she tripped lightly in, clad in an artistic gray carriage gown. “I am glad to see you. I wish you had been earlier so you could have enjoyed a drive with aunt and me.”

“I have been busy,” Richard said bravely, releasing the hand she had given him on entering.

They sat down together on a sofa.

“I have been so occupied that I haven’t had time for a drive these last few days.”

“And have you discovered anything yet?” Penelope asked, eagerly.

“Well, not exactly,” hesitatingly, “it will take time to clear it all up, you know.”

“Tell me, do you know her name yet, and where she came from, and was she really murdered?”

“Slowly, slowly; would you have me spoil my luck by telling what I have done?” asked Richard evasively, his eyes twinkling.

“Oh, you superstitious boy,” laughed Penelope, lightly tapping him with her hand, which he immediately caught and held captive in his own.

“Don’t be unkind,” he pleaded, as she tried to draw her hand away.

“Not for worlds,” she replied gravely, ceasing to struggle. “Mr. John Stetson Maxwell called here last night, and he told me of an experience he had when he was an editor, that made me resolve never to speak or act unkindly if I can help it.”

“I am deeply obliged to Mr. Maxwell,” Richard responded lightly.

“But it was very sad, Dick. I felt unhappy all the evening over it.”

“I wish my miseries and wretchedness could have the same influence on you,” he broke in with a laugh.

“Don’t you want to hear the story? I had intended to tell it to you,” she said, half provoked at his lack of seriousness.

“Why, certainly. By all means,” he replied, grave enough now. He never joked when she assumed that tone and look.

“When he was an editor,” she began softly, “he one day received a very bright poem from a man in Buffalo. He did not know the man as a writer, still the poem was so meritorious that he straightway accepted it, and sent a note to the author enclosing a check for the work. A few days afterwards, the man’s card was sent in, with a request for an interview. Mr. Maxwell was very busy at the time, but he thought he would give the man a moment, so he told the boy to bring the visitor up. When he came in, Mr. Maxwell was surprised to see a young man of some twenty-five years. He was not well clad, and was much abashed when he found himself in the presence of such a great personage as the editor, Mr. Maxwell.”

“Rightly, rightly,” Richard said, good naturedly, patting her hands encouragingly.

“Mr. Maxwell recalled afterwards that the young man looked in wretched spirits,” Penelope continued, with a slow smile. “At the time he was too hurried to notice anything, and then editors are used to seeing people who are in ill-luck. He brusquely asked the young man his business, seeing that he made no effort to tell it, and then the young man said he had come to the city and thought he would like to look around the office. Mr. Maxwell rang for a boy, and telling him to show the young man about, shortly dismissed him. In a few days after he received a batch of poetry from the young man, but though of remarkable merit, Mr. Maxwell thought it too sombre in tone for his publication, so he enclosed it with one of the printed slips used for rejected manuscripts. In a day or so Mr. Maxwell was shocked to read of the young man’s death. He had gone out to the park, and sitting down on a bench, beside the lake, put a revolver to his ear and so killed himself. He fell off the bench and into the lake, and his body was not found until the next day. He had a letter in his pocket requesting that his body be cremated. He left enough money to pay the expenses, and word for one of his friends that he could do as he wished with his ashes.”

“Well, many people do the same thing,” Richard said, rather unfeelingly.

“Yes, but this case was particularly sad,” Penelope asserted. “The young man was all alone. He hadn’t a relative in the world. He had fought his way up and had just completed his law studies, but had not, as yet, succeeded in obtaining any practice. He was in distress and Mr. Maxwell thinks, as I do, that he was so encouraged when his poem was accepted that he came to the city with the purpose of asking employment of the editor, but being greeted so coldly and roughly, I think he could not tell the object of his visit. On his return to Buffalo, as a last hope, he wrote some poetry which was colored with his own despondent feelings, and when they were all returned to him it was the last straw—he went out and shot himself.”

“But what else could Mr. Maxwell have done, Penelope,” Richard asked, in a business way. “He could not accept work, and pay for it, that was not suitable for his periodical. I don’t see how he could reproach himself in that case.”

“I do and so does he,” she replied stoutly. “It wouldn’t have taken any more time to be kind to that man than it took to be unkind to him, and when he rejected the poetry, instead of sending back that brutal printed notice he could have had his stenographer write a line, saying the poetry, though meritorious, was not suitable for his journal. That would, at least, have eased the disappointment.”

“But editors haven’t time for such things, Penelope.”

“Then let them take time. I tell you it takes less time to be kind than to be unkind,” she maintained, nodding her head positively.

“If they were not short, bores would occupy all their time,” he persisted.

“Richard, we will not argue the case,” she said loftily, as a woman always does when she feels she is being worsted. “You can’t make me think anything will excuse a man for being brutal and unkind.”

Richard had his own opinion on the subject, but he was wise enough to refrain from trying to make Penelope have a similar one.

“I am going away,” she said, presently, finding that Dick was not averse to dropping the discussion. “Auntie has accepted an invitation to go to Washington for a few days to visit Mrs. Senator ——, and I am to go along. I rather dread it, but auntie says they won’t know as much about the Park mystery there, and I won’t be worried with reporters.”

“I hope not,” replied Dick, beginning already to feel the ghastly emptiness which pervaded the city for him when Penelope was not in it. As long as he knew Penelope was in the city, even if he did not see her, he had a certain happiness of nearness, but when she was away he felt as desolate as Adam must have done before Eve came.

“Penelope, girlie,” he said, with a sudden hope, “could we not be engaged while I am working on this case? It would not embarrass you in any way, for we only need tell your aunt, and it would be such help, such encouragement, such happiness, sweet to me. You see it may take months to solve this mystery.” Poor Richard thought it would take years. “And if I only knew, darling, that I had your promise, I could do so much. It would help me to conquer the world. Don’t be hard-hearted, dear; don’t be cruel to the one who loves you more than anything on earth or in heaven.”

“No, no, Dick, you must wait,” said Penelope. “Wait until the mystery is solved, it shouldn’t take you a great while”—(Richard sighed)—“and then, and then—”

“Then?” repeated Dick, questioningly. She looked down with sudden embarrassment; he put his arms around her slender waist and drew her close to him. “Then? my love, my soul!”—

“Dearest, come here!” called Penelope’s aunt, in that well-bred voice of hers which charmed all hearers, but at this particular moment was very exasperating to Dick. “Richard, come, I want you to see the man standing on the other side of the Avenue. I have been watching him and I think it is quite probable that he is watching the house. Are we never to have done with that Park mystery business?”

They all looked cautiously through the curtains, and they all agreed that the man was watching the house for some purpose.

“They are after you, Dick,” exclaimed Penelope. “Oh, I am so afraid this will result seriously to you.”

Richard thought so too, only where she was concerned, though; but he did not give voice to his fears.

“My dear child,” laughed the aunt, with that pleasant ring. “Do not talk such nonsense! Richard is able to take care of himself, and especially now that he knows some one is following him.”

Shortly afterwards Dick took his leave of Penelope. She maintained an air of cheerfulness as he said farewell, but though the mouth was merry, the sad eyes which met his seemed to whisper the nearness of tears.

Catching up his walking-stick, Richard hastily left the house. He was feeling so blue that he was almost savage. He thought of the man who had been watching the house, and he looked to see if he was still there, half tempted to hunt the fellow out and pull his nose.

Sure enough, the man was there and, as Richard started down the Avenue, he sneaked along on the other side, much after the manner of a disobedient dog who had been told to stay at home. Dick hailed a passing stage, after walking a little way, and almost as soon as he was seated the man also got in. Richard was not in a mood to bear watching, so he jumped out when he saw an empty hansom cab, and, engaging it, told the driver to cross town. He did not drive far until he had made sure that he had eluded his would-be follower, and having no appetite yet for dinner he ordered the driver to go to Central Park, where he paid and dismissed him.

Now that he was alone, he became conscious of a desire to visit the scene of the mystery which promised to be so fatal to his happiness.

“I’ll go there and think it over,” he mused; “it may give me some idea how to work it out.” And on he walked over the course he and Penelope had taken that direful morning.

Night was coming on and the Park was deserted, except for an occasional workman taking a hurried cut across the Park home. How dreary and quiet everything was, and then he thought about the officer who had made himself so obnoxious. This led him to wonder if there were no policemen on duty at night in the Park. He could not remember of ever having noticed any the few times he had visited the Park after nightfall, and there were none visible now anywhere.

He stopped to look for a few moments at the bench where they had found the dead girl, and then he walked on until he came to a bench near the reservoir, where he sat down, and lighting a cigarette gave himself up to unhappy thoughts on his unhappy position.

“If only the Fates would throw something in my way to help me solve that mystery,” he thought. “Unless the most extraordinary things occur I shall never be able to tell anything about it. Penelope firmly believes it was a murder, but I can’t see what grounds she has for it. She thinks it was a deliberate and well-planned murder, because no one has claimed the girl, and I sometimes think so myself, but how to prove it?—that’s the question.”

And Dick gazed seriously at the space of light made by the opening for the reservoir, and on to the dense thickness of trees where night seemed to be lurking, ready to pounce down on all late comers.

As he looked he became aware of something moving between him and the spot of light. He was a brave young man, yet his heart beat a little quicker as he strained his eyes to see what the moving object was.

Again it passed in view, and this time it looked to be something climbing; another moment and it was on the edge of the reservoir.

Now, plainly outlined between him and the strip of light sky, he saw the figure of a woman, a slender girl with flowing hair.

Quick as a flash came the horrible thought that she had come there to die—that she intended to commit suicide.

With a choking cry of horror he ran swiftly towards her.

CHAPTER IV.
STORY OF THE GIRL WHO ATTEMPTED SUICIDE.

Richard Treadwell sat moodily on a bench, half supporting the limp form of the girl he had just saved from death.

He had caught her just as she threw up her hands with a pitiful, weak cry, ready to spring into the reservoir.

“My dear young woman, don’t take on so,” he said, vexedly, as the girl leaned against his shoulder, and sobbed in a heart-broken, distracted manner. “You are safe now.”

As if that could be consolation to a woman who was seeking death which sought her not.

“Really, I am sorry, you know, but there’s a good girl, don’t cry,” making a ludicrous attempt to console her. “I did it before I thought; if I had known how much you would have been grieved, I—I assure you, upon my honor, I wouldn’t have done it. I—I haven’t much to live for, either, still when I saw what you intended to do—it shocked me that you should be so desperate. Now that it’s all over I wouldn’t cry any more. I’d laugh, as if it were a joke, you know. I’d say the fates had saved me for some treat they had reserved for me. There, that’s better, don’t cry, you are not hurt—not even wet.”

The girl broke into a nervous, hysterical laugh, in which the sobs struggled for mastery. Dick, much relieved, added a laugh that sounded rather hollow and mirthless.

“I c-can’t help it,” said she, haltingly and endeavoring to stop her sobs. “It seems so unreal to be still living when I wanted to be dead. I—I thought it all over, and it seemed so comforting to think of it being ended. Then I couldn’t see, nor think, nor hear, nor suffer. Oh, why did you stop me?”

“I didn’t know, you see; I didn’t understand it all. I thought you would regret it—that you were making a mistake,” he tried to say cheerfully.

“What right has anybody—what right had you to prevent me from ending my life? I don’t want to live! I am tired of life and of misery. I want to know what right any one has to interfere—to make me live a life that doesn’t concern them and only brings me misery?” she cried, indignantly.

“Come now, don’t be so cast down.” At this burst of anger Richard was himself again. “Tell me all about it; maybe I can help you. Have things gone wrong?”

“Have they ever gone right? Don’t preach to me. It’s easy to preach to people who have friends and money and home. Save your sermons for them. I have nothing! I am all alone in this great big heartless world. I haven’t a cent, a home or a friend, and I’m tired of it all. There is no use in talking to me. Some people get it all, and the others get nothing. I am one of the unlucky ones, and the only thing for me to do is to die.”

“Why, my good girl, there is surely something better for you than death.”

“There is nothing but trouble and hunger, and sometimes work. Do you call that better than death?” she cried despondently.

What a story her few words contained! But Richard, happy, careless, fortunate, little understood their real import.

He knew the girl was very much depressed and morbid, so he concluded it might have a beneficial effect if he could induce her to relate her woes to him.

How mountainous our troubles grow when we brood over them.

How they dwindle into little ant-heaps when we relate them to another.

Richard talked in his frank, healthy way to the girl, and it was not long until she told him the simple, pathetic story of her life.

Her name was Dido Morgan, she said. She was a country girl, the only child of a village doctor, who lived in comfort but died penniless. Her mother died at her birth. She had been raised well, and when reduced to poverty she was too proud to go to work in her native village, so after her father was buried she came to New York.

She soon found that without experience and references she could not get any desirable work in New York. When all other things failed, she, at last, in desperation, applied for and obtained a position in a paper-box factory. She was fortunate enough to learn the work rapidly, and in a few months was able to earn as much as the best workers. She rented a little room on the top floor of a large tenement-house, where she slept and cooked her food. Every week she managed to save a little out of her scant earnings.

One day a girl who worked at the same table with Dido, and who had for a long time been her friend, fainted. The girls crowded around them as Dido knelt on the floor to bathe the sick girl’s head and rub her hands.

“Aha! Away from yer tables durin’ work hours. I’ll pay yer fer this, I’ll dock every one of you,” yelled the foreman, who at this instant entered the workroom.

The girls, frightened, crept quietly back to their work, but Dido still continued to bathe the girl’s head.

“Here, you daisy on the floor, you’ll disobey me, hey? I’ll dock yer twice,” brutally spoke the foreman as he caught a glimpse of Dido’s head across the table.

She looked at him with scorn. If glances could kill, he would have died at her feet. Still, she managed to say, quietly:

“Maggie Williams has fainted.”

“And because a girl faints must all the shop stop work and disobey rules, eh? I’ll pay yer for this. I’ll teach yer,” he vowed, as he quitted the room.

Dido, unmindful of his brutal threats, turned her attention to Maggie, who in a short time opened her eyes and tried to rise.

“Lie still awhile yet, Maggie,” urged her self-appointed nurse. “I’ll hold your head on my knee. Don’t you feel better now?”

But the girl made no reply. Her small gray eyes stared unblinkingly, unseeingly, up at the smoked rafters of the ceiling.

“What is it, Maggie?” asked the kindly Dido, smoothing the wet, tangled hair, her slender fingers expressing the sympathy which found no utterance in words. “Are you still ill? Shall I take you home to your mother?”

The stare in the small gray eyes grew softer and softer; the corners of the mouth drew down into a pitiful curve, the under lip quivering like a tiny leaf in a strong wind; turning her face down, she sobbed vehemently.

Drawing the poor thin body into a closer embrace, Dido sought to comfort the weeping girl.

Some of the nearest workers hearing those low, heavy sobs, started nervously, and their hands were not as cunning as usual as they covered the boxes, but they dared not go near their unhappy companion or speak the sympathy they felt.

“I’m awfully sorry, Maggie,” whispered Dido, “don’t cry so; you’ll feel better by-and-by.”

“Mother’s dead,” blurted out Maggie.

Dido was stunned into silence by this communication. She could say nothing.

What could you say to a girl when her mother is dead?

What could console a girl at such a time?

Maggie told Dido that the dead body of her mother, who, for a year past, had been confined to her bed with consumption, was lying alone, uncared for, at home.

“I loved her so, and I didn’t want her to die,” she said pitifully. “I was afraid to go home after work for fear I’d find her dead, and I was afraid to sleep at night for fear she’d be dead when I woke up. She lay so still, and she looked so white and death-like, and I would lean on my elbow and watch her, fearing her breath would stop. Every few moments I prayed, ‘O God, save her!’ ‘O God, have mercy!’ I—I couldn’t say more, and I would swallow down the thing that would choke my throat and wink away the tears that would come, and watch and watch, until I couldn’t bear the doubt any longer, then I would touch her gently with my foot to see if she was still warm, and that would wake her, and I would be so sorry.

“All last night I never took my eyes off her dear face,” Maggie continued between her sobs, and Dido was softly crying, too, then.

“She wouldn’t eat the things I had brought her, and when I talked to her she didn’t seem to understand, but said things about father, who died so long ago, and once or twice she laughed, but it only made me cry. She didn’t seem to see me either, and when I spoke to her it only started her to talk about something else, so I watched and watched. I didn’t pray any more. Somehow all the prayer had left my soul. Just before morning she got very still, sometimes a rolling sound would gurgle in her throat, but when I offered her a drink she couldn’t swallow, and then I called to her—I couldn’t stand it any longer—‘Mother, mother, speak to me. I have always loved you, speak to me once,’ and her dear lips moved and I bent over her, holding my breath for fear I would not hear, and she whispered: ‘Lucille—my—pretty—one,’ and then her eyes opened and her head fell to one side, but she didn’t see; she was dead—dead without one word to me, and I loved her so.”

Dido Morgan shared her own scant dinner with Maggie that day, and the unhappy girl remained at work that she might earn some money, which would help towards burying her mother.

That afternoon foreman Flint came in, and, nailing a paper to the elevator shaft, told the girls to read it, saying he’d teach them to disobey another time, and that next week they would work harder for their money.

In fear and trembling the girls crowded timidly about the shaft to read what new misery the foreman had in store for them. They instinctively felt it was a reduction, and the first glance proved their fears were not unfounded.

Some of the girls began to cry, and Dido, the bravest and strongest, spoke excitedly to them of the injustice done them. Even now they were working for less than other factories were paying.

“There is surely justice for girls as well as men somewhere in the world, if we only demand it,” she cried, encouragingly. “Let us demand our rights. We will all go down, and I will tell the proprietor that we cannot live under this new reduction. If he promises us the old prices, we will return to work. If he refuses, we will strike.”

The braver girls heartily joined the scheme, and the weaker ones naturally fell in, not knowing what else to do under the circumstances, and frightened at their own boldness.

Dido Morgan, taking little Margaret Williams by the hand, naturally headed the line, and the girls quietly marched after her, two by two, down the almost perpendicular stairs.

Dido stopped before the ground-glass door on the first floor, on which was inscribed:

• TOLMAN BIKE,
• PRIVATE.

Her heart beat very quickly, but clasping Maggie’s hand closer, she opened the door and entered.

CHAPTER V.
THE FAILURE OF THE STRIKE.

Tolman Bike was engaged in conversation with foreman Flint when Dido opened the door and entered.

He lifted his head, and never noticing Dido, fixed a look of absolute horror on Maggie Williams’s tear-stained and swollen face, as he rose pale and trembling and gasped in a husky tone: