The Girl at Central

by Geraldine Bonner

Before the inquest every sort of rumor was flying about, and the papers were full of crazy stories, not half of them true. I'd read about places and people I knew as well as my own face in the mirror, and they'd sound like a dime novel, so colored up and twisted round the oldest inhabitant wouldn't have recognized them.

To get at the facts was a job, but, knowing who was reliable and who wasn't, I questioned and ferreted and, I guess, before I was done I had them pretty straight.

Sylvia had been killed by a blow on the side of her head—a terrible blow. A sheriff's deputy I know told me that in all his experience he had seen nothing worse. Her hat had evidently shielded the scalp. It was pulled well down over her head, the long pin bent but still thrust through it. Where she had been hit the plush was torn but not the thick interlining, and her hair, all loosened, was hanging down against her neck. There was a wound—not deep, more like a tearing of the skin, on the lower part of her cheek. It was agreed that she had been struck only once by some heavy implement that had a sharp or jagged edge. Though the woods and fields had been thoroughly searched nothing had been discovered that could have dealt the blow. Whatever he had used the murderer had either successfully hidden it or taken it away with him. The deputy told me it looked to him as if it might have been some farming tool like a spade, or even a heavy branch broken from a tree. The way the body was arranged, the coat drawn smoothly together, the branches completely covering her, showed that the murderer had taken time to conceal his crime, though why he had not drawn the body back into the thick growth of bushes was a point that puzzled everybody.

It was impossible to trace any footprints, as the automobile party and Hines had trodden the earth about her into a muddy mass, and the grass along the edge was too thick and springy to hold any impression.

Close behind the place where she lay twigs of the screening trees were snapped and bent as if her assailant had broken through them.

There were people who said Hines would have been arrested on the spot if robbery had been added to murder. But the jewelry was all on her, more than he said he had noticed when she was in the Wayside Arbor. The pearl necklace alone was worth twenty thousand dollars, and just below it, clasping her gown over the chest, was a diamond cross, an old ornament of her mother's, made of the finest Brazilian stones. In the pocket of her coat was a purse with forty-eight dollars in it. So right at the start the theory of robbery was abandoned.

Another inexplicable thing was the disappearance of the French maid, Virginia Dupont. Jack Reddy denied any knowledge of her. He said Sylvia had never mentioned bringing her with them and he didn't think intended to do so. The Mapleshade people thought differently, all declaring that Sylvia depended on her and took her wherever she went. One of the mysteries about the woman that was quickly cleared up was the walk she had taken to the village on Sunday morning. This was to meet Mr. Reddy and take from him the letter for Sylvia which had been found in the desk.

I know from what I heard that the police were keen to find her, but she had dropped out of sight without leaving a trace. No one at Mapleshade knew anything about her or her connections. She was not liked in the house or the village and had made no friends. On her free Sundays she'd go to town and when she returned say very little about where she'd been. A search of her rooms showed nothing, except that she seemed to have left her clothes behind her. She was last seen at Mapleshade by Nora Magee, who, at half-past five on Sunday, met her on the third floor stairs. Nora was off for a walk to the village with Harper and was in a hurry. She asked Virginie if she was going out and Virginie said no, she felt sick and was going up to lie down till she'd be wanted to help Miss Sylvia dress for dinner.

If you ask me was anyone suspected at this stage I'd answer "yes," but people were afraid to say who. There was talk about Hines on the street and in the postoffice, but it was only when you were close shut in your own room or walking quiet up a side street that the person with you would whisper the Doctor's name. Nobody dared say it aloud, but there wasn't a soul in Longwood who didn't know about the quarreling at Mapleshade, whose was the money that ran it, and the will that left everything to Mrs. Fowler if her daughter died.

But no arrests were made. Everything was waiting on the inquest, and we all heard that there were important facts—already known to the police—which would not be made public till then.