Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 410

# The Mystery of the Pavilion

By K. F. Hill, this installment opens with the discovery of Randolf Church's body in an ornate marble bathroom of his family's Fifth Avenue mansion. Church, a wealthy young man of thirty with golden curled hair, lies dead in a purple silk robe near a Roman-style bath, one hand submerged in warm perfumed water; no blood stains the scene. The narrative establishes the household: Church's imperious widow-mother; his cousin Ubaldina, a seventeen-year-old Peruvian heiress of mixed descent who harbors romantic feelings for Randolf; her devoted Indian nurse Oello; and the family's valet Borrowdale. When Church fails to emerge from his four-hour bath, his door is forced open revealing him dead. The coroner arrives baffled, finding no cause of death—neither suicide nor obvious murder—while a plainly dressed detective appears uninvited, claiming to have been summoned by Borrowdale, prompting the coroner's indignation.