We were just about to go out to luncheon, when the door buzzer sounded.
“A note for Mr. Kennedy,” announced a man in a police uniform, with a blue anchor edged with white on his coat sleeve.
Craig tore open the envelope quickly with his forefinger. Headed “Harbour Police, Station No. 3, Staten Island,” was an urgent message from our old friend Deputy Commissioner O’Connor.
“I have taken personal charge of a case here that is sufficiently out of the ordinary to interest you,” I read when Kennedy tossed the note over to me and nodded to the man from the harbour squad to wait for us. “The Curtis family wish to retain a private detective to work in conjunction with the police in investigating the death of Bertha Curtis, whose body was found this morning in the waters of Kill van Kull.”
Kennedy and I lost no time in starting downtown with the policeman who had brought the note.
The Curtises, as we knew, were among the prominent families of Manhattan and I recalled having heard that at one time Bertha Curtis had been an actress, in spite of the means and social position of her family, from whom she had become estranged as a result.
At the station of the harbour police, O’Connor and another man, who was in a state of extreme excitement, greeted us almost before we had landed.
“There have been some queer doings about here,” exclaimed the deputy as he grasped Kennedy’s hand, “but first of all let me introduce Mr. Walker Curtis.”
In a lower tone as we walked up the dock O’Connor continued, “He is the brother of the girl whose body the men in the launch at the station found in the Kill this morning. They thought at first that the girl had committed suicide, making it doubly sure by jumping into the water, but he will not believe it and,—well, if you’ll just come over with us to the local undertaking establishment, I’d like to have you take a look at the body and see if your opinion coincides with mine.
“Ordinarily,” pursued O’Connor, “there isn’t much romance in harbour police work nowadays, but in this case some other elements seem to be present which are not usually associated with violent deaths in the waters of the bay, and I have, as you will see, thought it necessary to take personal charge of the investigation.