THE MYSTERY AT NO. 89 —— STREET, NEW YORK.
"KLEPTOMANIA"—THE TENDENCY TO SUPERSTITION—AN OLD KNICKERBOCKER FAMILY—A VERY "PROPER" OLD GENTLEMAN, A MR. GARRETSON—HE CALLS ON ME AT MY OFFICE, AND FINDS A CURIOUS-LOOKING ROOM—HIS STORY OF WONDERS—"EVERYTHING" STOLEN—TALK ABOUT DISEMBODIED SPIRITS—THE MYSTERY DEEPENS—PROBABLE CONJECTURE BAFFLED—VISIT TO MR. GARRETSON'S HOUSE—MRS. GARRETSON, A BEAUTIFUL AND CULTIVATED OLD LADY—WE SEARCH THE HOUSE—AN ATTIC FULL OF OLD SOUVENIRS—WE LINGER AMONG THEM—MR. GARRETSON'S DAUGHTER IS CONVINCED THAT DISEMBODIED SPIRITS ARE THEIR TORMENTORS—SHE PUTS AN UNANSWERABLE QUESTION—A DANGEROUS DOG AND THE SPIRITS—TEDIOUS AND UNAVAILING WATCHING FOR SEVERAL DAYS AND NIGHTS—THE "SPIRITS" AGAIN AT WORK—RE-CALLED—THE MYSTERY GROWS MORE WONDERFUL—THE "SPIRIT" DISCOVERED AND THE MYSTERY UNRAVELLED—THE FAMILY SENT AWAY—THE ATTIC RE-VISITED WITH MR. G. AND ITS TREASURES REVEALED—A RE-DISCOVERY OF THE "SPIRITS"—THE FAMILY REVIEW THEIR LONG-LOST TREASURES FOUND—REFLECTIONS ON THE CAUSES OF THE MYSTERY—A PROBLEM FOR THE DOCTORS.
"Kleptomania," the delicate term of modern coinage from the old Greek, which is used to signify a passion for thieving under peculiar circumstances, and is mostly used when the thief is a person of some importance and of moneyed means, so that the lust for gain is not supposed to be his prompter to the "offence against the statute in such cases made and provided," indicates a moral "dereliction" which not only attacks the wakeful subject, but sometimes infuses itself into the dreams of sleepers. Many women in a state of pregnancy are said to be liable to this disease, so to term it, who, in any other state, would be horrified at the bare mention of the crime of theft. They exhibit great adroitness in their manœuvres when under the influence of the disease, and possess a boldness, too, of which, in their strictly "right minds," they would be utterly incapable. Such establishments as Stewart's great retail dry goods store expend large sums of money yearly in the employment of detectives to watch the customers, to see that they do not slyly purloin such goods as they may easily secrete in carpet-bags, in their pockets, under shawls, or under their dresses, and so on. Not a small number of these would-be thieves are kleptomaniacs, and mostly women suffering under diseases peculiar to the sex, or women in a state of pregnancy, whose blood is more or less driven in unusual quantities into the head, and stirs there passions and desires which they never so feel at other times. The philosophy of this thing would be a pleasant matter of study, and falls legitimately enough into the line of a detective's life to investigate; but here is not the place for its discussion at any great length.
I may run some risk in the narration of this tale, of trespassing upon the feelings of some persons who might prefer that I say nothing about it; for the facts were known to a large circle of highly-respectable people, mostly relatives of the "chief person of the drama," who would, perhaps, prefer that the matter should rest in peace, and go out in oblivion by and by. But I will endeavor to be delicate and courteous enough, in the avoidance of names, and in my general descriptions, to offend no one of those relatives who may read this.
There are a great many people who have a natural tendency to superstitions of all kinds. They have excellent common sense, for example, in everything except in matters of a religious nature. A family of such people may be divided into religious partisans of the bitterest stamp; the one may be a Baptist, for instance, and believe that all the rest, who disagree with him, must be lost. Another member may be a modern "Adventist," deny the doctrine of the essential immortality of the soul, and think his brother, who does believe in it, guilty of a proud and sinful assumption and godless vanity in so doing. Another may become an English churchman, and gravitate from that character into the Roman Catholic church, and feel that all the rest,—the Baptist, the Adventist, etc.,—must "perish eternally," unless they come into the fold of the Roman see. And still another may be a modern Spiritualist, and believe in the return of "departed souls" to earth, to commune directly, or through "mediums," with poor mortals here, etc. It seems to depend very much upon how the superstitious element in each member of such families is first or finally addressed, as to what each may become.
The reader will please conceive of an old, respectable family of Knickerbockers, into whose veins was infused a little Yankee blood, imported from near Boston, Mass., a family whose sires held in the past high rank and official position in the state and nation—a family not a little proud of its far-off Dutch and English stock—reared in wealth and luxury, well bred, of course, at home, and well educated, both the males and the females; with a large amount of landed estate in various parts of the country, and blessed with a plenty of houses and building lots in the cities of New York and Brooklyn; and, in fact, I have been told that their property could be pointed out all along the road, from Jersey City to Morristown, New Jersey. In fact it was by the possession of city lots, and the constant increase of value thereof, that the family acquired the larger portion of their estate. Add to this that the relatives of the family are mostly rich, and that such of them as are not rich, belong to that highly respectable, humdrum sort of people, who are here and there found in the midst of the stir and bustle of New York, who persist in representing old notions, old modes of doing business, and whose chief pride exercises and delights itself in talking over what their fathers did, who their grandfathers were, etc., or in preserving, perhaps, some legend, that when Washington had his residence near Bowling Green, their grand-uncle, or some other relative, was a welcome visitor there. It is necessary to bring to the mind's eye this class of people in order to comprehend the commotion which bestirred them at the time when I was called to "work up a case" in their midst.
One day, in the last "decade," I was waited on by a very proper old gentlemen, neatly dressed, with long white locks smoothly combed, hanging over his shoulders. The old gentleman possessed one of those passionless faces, so difficult to read, unless you can get a chance to peer down the eyes. He wore his gloves just one size too large; a little too independent to conform to the fashion of tight gloves, and a little too aristocratic to go without any,—(although I think a poor-fitting glove no ornament, to say the least),—and walked with the short, dainty, quick step of the men of note of the last century; he was tall, that is, about five feet and ten inches in height, rather slim, though he evidently had been a man of quite robust form.