VII
DOROTHY ARNOLD
On the afternoon of Monday, December 12, 1910, a young woman of the upper social world vanished from the pavement of Fifth Avenue. Not only did she disappear from the center of one of the busiest streets on earth, at the sunniest hour of a brilliant winter afternoon, with thousands within sight and reach, with men and women who knew her at every side, and with officers of the law thickly strewn about her path; but she went without discernible motives, without preparation, and, so far as the public has ever been permitted to read, without leaving the dimmest clew to her possible destination.
These are the peculiarities which mark the Dorothy Arnold case as one of the most irritating puzzles of modern police history, a true mystery of the missing.
It is one of the maxims in the administration of absent-persons bureaus that disappearing men and women, no matter how carefully they may plan, regardless of all natural astuteness, invariably leave behind some token of their premeditation. Similarly, it is a truism that, barring purposeful self-occultation, the departure of an adult human being from so crowded a thoroughfare can be set down only to abduction or to mnemonic aberration. Remembering that a crime must have its motivation, and that cases of amnesia almost always are marked by previous symptoms and by fairly early recovery, the recondite and baffling aspects of this affair become manifest; for there was never the least hint of a ransom demand, and the girl who vanished was conspicuous for rugged physical and mental health.
Thus, to sum up the affair, a disappearance which had from the beginning no standing in rationality, being logically both impenetrable and irreconcilable, remains, at the end of nearly a score of years, as obstinate and perplexing as ever—publicly a gall to human curiosity, an impossible problem for reason and analytical power.
Dorothy Arnold was past twenty-five when she walked out of her father’s house into darkness that shining winter’s day. She was at the summit of her youth, rich, socially preferred, blessed with prospects, and to every outer eye, uncloudedly happy. Her father, a wealthy importer of perfumes, occupied a dignified house on East Seventy-ninth Street, in the center of one of the best residential districts, with his wife and four children—two sons and two daughters. Mr. Arnold’s sister was the wife of Justice Peckham of the United States Supreme Court, and the entire family was socially well known in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. His missing daughter had been educated at Bryn Mawr and figured prominently in the activities of “the younger set” in all these cities. All descriptions set her down as having been active, cheerful, intelligent, and talented.
The accepted story is that Miss Arnold left her father’s home at about half past eleven on the morning of her disappearance, apparently to go shopping for an evening gown. She appears to have had an appointment with a girl friend, which she broke earlier in the morning, saying that she was to go shopping with her mother. A few minutes before she left the house, the young woman went to her mother’s room and said she was going out to look for the dress. Her mother remarked that if her daughter would wait till she might finish dressing, she would go along. The girl demurred quietly, saying that it wasn’t worth the bother, and that she would telephone if she found anything to her liking. So far as her parent could make out, the girl was not anxious to be alone. She was no more than casual and seemed especially happy and well.
At noon, half an hour after she had left her home, Miss Arnold went into a shop at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street, where she bought a box of candy and had it charged on her father’s account. At about half past one she was at Brentano’s bookshop, Twenty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue. Here she bought a volume of fiction, also charging the item to her father.
Whether she was recognized again at a later hour is in doubt. She met a girl chum and her mother in the street some time during the early part of the afternoon and stopped to gossip for a few moments; but whether this incident occurred just before or after her visit to the bookstore could not be made certain. At any rate, she was not seen later than two o’clock.