Mysteries of the missing

by Edward H. Smith

The lodging-house keeper considered a moment, confessed that her curiosity had led her to do a little spying, and recalled that she had heard one of the women mention a town. Either she had not heard the name distinctly, or she had forgotten part of it, but it was a name ending in berg or burg. She was certain of that. Fitchburg, Pittsburg, Williamsburg, Plattsburg—something like that. She did not know the reason for her feeling, but she was sure it was a place not very far from New York.

As to a peculiarity of the child, she had noted nothing except that it seemed good-humored, healthy, and clever. She had heard one of the women say: “Come on, baby! Show us how Mrs. Blank does.” Evidently the little girl had done some sort of impersonation.

Captain McClusky was inclined to place some credence in Mrs. Cosgriff’s account, but he saw no special promise in her revelations till he repeated the details to the agonized parents. At the mention of the childish impersonation, Mrs. Clarke leaped up in excitement.

“That was Marion!” she cried. “That’s one of her little tricks!”

It developed that the nurse, Carrie Jones, had spent hours playing with the child, teaching it to walk and pose like a certain affected woman friend of its mother. Undoubtedly then, Marion Clarke, Carrie Jones, and another woman had been in South Brooklyn the evening after the abduction and spent the night and part of the next day at Mrs. Cosgriff’s, leaving in the afternoon for a town whose name ended in burg or berg.

Now the chase began in earnest. The detectives made a list of towns with the burg termination, and one or two men were sent to each, with instructions to make a quiet, but thorough, search. Information of a confidential kind was also forwarded to the police departments of other cities, near and far. As a result a number of suspected young women were picked up. Indeed, the mystery was believed solved for a short time when a girl answering to the description of Carrie Jones was seized in Connecticut and held for the arrival of the New York detectives, when she began to act mysteriously and failed to give a clear account of herself. It was found, however, that she had other substantial reasons for being cryptic, and that she was, moreover, enjoying her little joke on the officials.

Again, in Pennsylvania a girl was held who would neither affirm nor deny that she was Carrie Jones, but let the local police have the very definite impression that they had in hand the much-hunted kidnapper. She turned out to be an unfortunate pathologue of the self-accusatory type. Her one real link with the affair was that her name happened to be Jones, a circumstance which got the members of this large and popular family of citizens no little discomfort during the pendency of the Clarke mystery.

Meantime no further communication had been received from the abductors. They had said, in the single note received from them, that they would communicate Monday or Tuesday, “if everything is quiet.” Everything, far from being quiet, had been in a most plangent uproar, which circumstances alone should have been recognized as the reason for silence. But, as is usual, the clear and patent explanation seemed not to contain enough for popular acceptance. More fanciful interpretations were put forward in the usual variety of forms. The note had been sent merely to misguide, and one might be sure the abductors did not intend to return Baby Marion. If the abductors were looking for ransom, why had no more been heard? Why had they chosen the daughter of a man who had slender means and from whom no large ransom could be expected? No, it was something more sinister still. Probably Little Marion was dead.

As the days dragged by, and there were still no conclusive developments, the public sympathy toward the stricken couple became expressive and dramatic. Crowds besieged the house in East Sixty-fifth Street in hope of catching sight of the bereaved mother. The father was greeted with cheers and sympathetic expressions whenever he came or went. Many offers of aid were received, and some came forward who wanted to pay whatever ransom might be demanded.