WHO WAS THE MAN THAT BOUGHT THE GOWN?
But Tolman Bike was not easily found.
Richard Treadwell got up early and went to the box factory, only to be
told that Mr. Bike, suffering from ill-health, had gone out of the city
for a time.
The people in charge of the shop either feigned ignorance or did not
know when he was to return, but Dick knew, in view of Mr. Bike’s
approaching marriage, on the evening of the 7th, that he could not be
absent from the city more than two days at the very most.
But one thing he determined on. He would see Tolman Bike before his
marriage to Miss Chamberlain, and for Maggie Williams’s sake he would
know the whereabouts of her sister. And also for Maggie’s sake would he
do what he could for the sister to induce her to return to her home.
In the meantime Richard intended to make an extra effort to learn
something about the Park mystery girl.
He drove to the Morgue, and after some persuasion he got the bundle of
clothes the pretty dead girl had worn when found in the Park.
He took the gloves and gown and left the remaining articles with the
keeper.
He decided from the appearance of the dress that it had been made at
some expensive establishment. He further decided that he would make a
round of the fashionable dressmaking places and see if some one in them
would not be able to recognize the work.
If they recognized the work, tracing the owner home should be very
easy, he thought.
He took the gloves also, but like the dress, they had no mark that
would assist him in his search.
After trying several glove stores he abandoned this as impracticable,
for no one claimed the gloves as having been bought from them, and even
if they had known the gloves were from their stock, it would have been
impossible to tell who bought them.
Carefully he made a tour of the fashionable dressmakers. He felt
dreadfully embarrassed as he entered the different establishments
with the large parcel in his arms. The women in waiting, as well as
the women customers, looked at him curiously, and when he asked, in a
hesitating way, to see the proprietor or the forewoman, he could hardly
endure the amused smiles of those who were eagerly listening to hear
him state his business.
He thought all sorts of things which made him uncomfortable. First,
the idea came to him that they would think he had brought a dress to
be made to wear in amateur theatricals, or at a masquerade. But that
was not half as bad as to imagine they thought he had a wife who was
displeased with a dress which she had returned by him.
The worst part of all was, when he showed the crumpled gown to the
persons in charge and inquired if they had made it, to have them first
show surprise at the unusual proceeding, then quiet indignation when
they found that if Richard had a secret concerning the gown he meant to
keep it, and when he guarded well his reasons for such a strange visit
they bowed him out with such an air of injured dignity that Richard
felt very small and unhappy.
There were a few that instead of assuming an injured air, laughed at
Richard, and one familiarly asked him if his wife refused to tell where
she got it.
The majority of the dressmakers denied the gown so emphatically that
Richard began to have a dim idea that the workmanship was not so fine
as had been thought and that the dress had come from a humbler shop.
He, not being a woman, did not know that one dressmaker never saw any
good in another dressmaker’s work.
When he reached the last establishment of any note and importance
it was almost dinner time. There were no customers about, and the
employees were making preparations for closing the shop. A girl came
forward and politely asked Richard his business.
He told her he wished to see whoever had charge of the place.
Requesting him to be seated she left soon to return with a man.
Richard felt more comfortable than he had all day. He explained to the
man, who listened kindly and politely, showing neither surprise nor
curiosity, that he wished to find the persons who had made the gown he
had with him, in order to find out who had paid for the dress and where
it had been delivered.
The man took the gown and went to the workroom. Later he returned and
went inside the small office.
Richard waited impatiently, and for the first time a hope of solving
the mystery of Central Park entered his heart. Surely when the man took
so much time he had discovered something.
Still Richard tried to keep his expectations from running away, lest he
be compelled to suffer a severe disappointment; so when the man came
towards him with the crumpled gown flung across his arm Richard offered
the consolation to himself that he had still left for his inquiry the
less fashionable dressmakers.
“The dress was made here,” the man said. Dick’s pulse started off at
a two-minute gait. “A letter was sent here containing an order for a
dress. The measurements were inclosed and with them over half the price
of the dress in bills. The letter stated that the person for whom it
was intended was out of town, and that in ten days the dress would be
called for.
“We often have customers order dresses from a distance,” the man
continued, “and we make them from measure. Ten days afterwards a
messenger boy came in with an order for us to receipt for the price of
the dress and a $100 bill, from which I took the rest of the price and
gave him the dress and the change.”
“Have you the letter that was sent you with the measurements and
order?” asked Richard, with a calmness that covered his excitement.
“No. The boy said he must have the letter containing the measurements,
and I sent up to the forewoman in the workroom. She had transferred
the order to her book, but had the letter pinned to the same page, so
she sent it down and I gave it to the messenger.”
“Have you not even the name and address of the person who ordered the
dress?” asked Dick, very much cast down by the turn things had taken.
“The name we have--it was Miss L. W. Smith--but there was no address.
It was an unusual thing for us to do, but as I told you, we have many
customers who send us orders for dresses when they are away from town,
and ladies are not always careful and exact about addresses. They are
liable to fall into the error of thinking that if we have once made a
garment for them, by merely signing their name we are sure to recall
their address and histories. We keep very satisfactory books, which
contain little histories of every garment we make, so we always refer
to that when a lady forgets to write us as much as is necessary for us
to know.”
“Had you ever made a dress for Miss Smith before?” Dick asked, still a
faint hope stirring his pulses.
“We thought so, but on consulting our books found the measurements
showed that one was for a large woman and the other woman must have
been slender.”
“I suppose it is absurd to ask if you have any idea of where the
messenger was from,” Dick said, rather faintly.
“I do not know, of course, but there is a messenger office on the block
above, where you might inquire. It is almost useless, though, for the
lady doubtless got the boy in her district, and as you are aware, this
is not a district of residences. Still, you would not lose anything by
asking. They may be able to offer you some assistance. I can give you
the date the boy called for the gown and I am very sorry I cannot do
more for you.”
The man had the gown put in a box for Richard, who left the
establishment feeling happier than he had since he and Penelope had
found the dead girl. He was on the track of her identity at last, and,
though it was a faint clue he possessed, he felt it a very sure one.
They did not show much inclination to help Richard at the District
Telegraph office. At first they said it was impossible to tell which
messenger it was, even if he had been from that place, and then, after
a fashion, they did make a search, but with no success.
“I know it,” said one of the messengers, who was standing at the
counter. “I had stopped out front to scrap with Reddy Ryan, who was
takin’ a basket of clothes home, and a duffer drove up in a carriage
and asked if I’d do a job for him, ’n I told him I’d been sent on
a call, so he said he’d give me a dime if I’d run an’ get him a
messenger. I came, an’ Shorty, No. 313, was sent out. I remember it
’cause he told me the man just sent him into Moscowitz’s to get a dress
an’ pay a bill, an’ gave him a dollar for doin’ it.”
“Where is No. 313?” asked Dick, his spirits rising fifty per cent.
“He’s off on a call. No, here he is,” said the messenger who knew
something. “Come here, Shorty, you’re wanted.”
Shorty was a red-headed boy with a freckled face and one eye. The other
messenger recalled the circumstances to him, and he sniffed his nose
and said he remembered.
Richard then asked if there was a lady in the carriage, but No. 313
thought not. Then Richard asked him what the man looked like, but No.
313 could not say, except that he had a mustache and wore a soft felt
hat. No. 313 had no opinion as to whether the carriage was private or
hired, but he “guessed” it wasn’t a livery hack, “cause the harness
jingled.”
The other and brighter messenger said the man was young, denied the
soft felt hat and pronounced the carriage a hired one.
* * * * *
Richard hurried through his dinner, possessed of an unusual feeling
of happiness, and went for Dido Morgan to spend their last evening in
their peculiar search for Maggie’s sister.
To-morrow Penelope would be home, and he had learned something. If ever
so little, still it was something, and now that he had made such a
successful start he began to feel hopeful of a final success. He knew
now where the dress had been made and he knew a man had called for it.
He had engaged the two messenger boys, and with them he intended to
search the town over for the man who got the dress which the dead girl
had worn. Once he found the man, then the rest would be easy.
Richard took Dido to the Eden Musée, and after she had seen all the
figures that interested her, Dick took her up to the cosy retreat above
the orchestra, where the tall green palms cut off the glare of the
electric light. He ordered some ice cream for Dido and some Culmbacher
for himself, and lighting a cigarette he gave himself up to the
influence of the beautiful Hungarian music and dreams of Penelope.
The music sobbed and sighed, and Dick drifted on dream-clouds and was
lazily happy. He would solve the mystery, he felt sure, and then what
years of happiness with Penelope stretched before him. What a great
thing it was to be happy; life is so short, why should people allow
themselves to be unhappy for a second if they can possibly avoid it? An
unusual tenderness filled his heart, a peaceful happiness stole over
him, making him very gentle.
And poor little Dido, how dreary life loomed up before her! Dick’s
heart swelled with pity, and he sympathetically took the girl’s hand in
his and looked tenderly into the soft, brown eyes that looked at him so
trustingly.
There was so much happiness and love in waiting for him and Penelope,
but what did life offer to poor, lonely Dido?
And as the sobbing music ended in one long thrill, Richard, raising
his eyes from the richly tinted face of this sweet girl companion, saw
standing before him, with white face and stern eyes--
Penelope.