Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 419 — page 2: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- the dead man was as calm and . solutely certain t or ce) The Bat of the Battery. The Battery has woefully fallen from its high estate in these, our modern times. Once it was the fashio’ able breathing spot of New York; then, as the ci - expanded anc the tide of wealth flowed up- town, the Battery Park. at the extreme southern end of Manhattan Tsland, commanding a macnificent view of the beautifu! New York Bay, was for years neglected, Castle Garden, a ronnd, wooden, castle- like building, on the sea front of the Park, once a popular place of amusement, able to boast that within its walls. Jom-ny Lind, the Swedish nightin- gale, first sung in ‘he New World, is now transform- ed into a reception houss for the adventuring souls who cross the seas to find a home in the land of the setting sun. At such an early hour as the time of which we write, the streets were almost deserted. and so it happened that the poticeman was the first to dis- cover the man lying prostrate in the carriatTe-wy, and he immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was some enigrant who had been taking a look at the wonderful sights of great Gotham, partaken of too much strong liquor, and, overcome bv the otent flnid, had lain down in the street to sleep off e effects. “Oh, murther! isn’t. that a timperance lee- ture for yvees!” the officer exclaimed in a rich brogue which plainly betrayed his nativity. “T’l) be afther runaiug iim in, so us to give hina chance to pay for his night’s lodging. Shure, five dollars is not bad for an illigant bed like that, nt pavement for a mattress and the whole of e beautiful sky for a blanket.” But when the vigilant guardian of the night came nearer to the supposed sleeper, he saw that it was no emigrant, for the man was dressed in an exvel- lent suit of dark clothes, fashionably cut, and from his appearance looked like a well-to-do merchant. He was a tall, portly man, well advanced in years, with gray hair and a long beard of the same hue. ‘Oho, unon my life this is no small fish!” muttered, the policeman. “I'll get a carriage for him, send him to his house or hotel and thin strixe him whin he gits sober for tin dollars for me trouble. For ’m a dandy cop of the Broadway squad,’” he hummed as he came up to the man and knelt down by his side. The song, though, died away quickly when he placed his hand upon the stranger's person, for the purpose of rousing him, and peered into his face, “Mother of Moses! if he isn’t dead!” he cried, startled by the unexpected discovery. The policeman was right; the man was dead and had seg syd — so for some time, for the body was perfectly cold. “Bhat he divil is this anyway? Phat kilt the man?’ queried the officer, “Has there been foul play—is it a murther?”’ ut no signs of violence met his eyes;_the face of ful as though he was only asleep, and his clot was not disar- ranged. Only one suspicious fact metropolitan noted; there were no articlesof jewelry visible; no watch-chain, no studs, although there were eyelet holes in the shirt bosom, which seemed to indicate that the man had been in the habit of wearing such things. The policeman cast a rapid glance around and then hastily examined the dead man's po kets, but his search was a fruitless one; there was absolutely nothing whatever in them. ~ ! some one has been here before me,” the officer muttered. “That is suspicious! Be the wers! Ibelave the man was kilt by some mur- erin’ thaves, but who in the world did the job?” And as he put the question he looked wistfully around, He not the slightest anticipation of seeing anything, and therefore was not at all pee Pp for a sight which for a moment froze him with horror. When he had approached the motionless man there was not a liv thing in ht. On the left hand rose eo Pte a Cas -s ns en en the os sheds appe i ereto. the center was the Bea-Wwa Pond beyond that the waters of the bay, wherein rode at anchor vessels of all nations. On the right was the building of the lrou Steamship Company, and the approach to this building was tially blockaded by huge piles of | reight, des- Fined evidently for the Pennsylvania Railway's Freight Depot, which was the next building beyond. As the policeman raised his head he looked di- rectly at the huge pile of freizht, and_by the boxes K a figure stranze eee to — almost any one, as it appeared, framed agai 1e moon, The officer, credulous and superstitious by nature, in alarm. ~ “Holy Moses! is it a man or a divil?” he cried. It was no wonder that he asked the question, for at a distance the fizure, though evidently that of a man, bore a striking resemblance to a huge bat, being attired entirely in black, wearing a long, old- fashioned circular cloak, and just as the oificer caught sight of the man, he had raised and stretched out his arms, and the cloak being thus extended, looked exactly like a 7 of huge wings, and as the man wore too a small, soft hat, pulled in chapeau fashion down over his eyes, so that it came to a point in front, it pet's his head the appear- ance of the head of a bird of prey. The officer rubbed his eyes as if to make sure he was awake. When be looked again the figure had disappeared. Bid ‘eases to me!” he muttered, “if the baste didn’t give me quite a turn! Upon me wourd, | would have taken me oath whin I tirst saw it that it was a divil, but thin who iver saw a divil like that? or a mana-galavanting round in sicharizy? Mebbe it was wan of thim frog-eating Frenchinen—t.ivy uo be efther making monkeys of thimselves.”’ Then dismissing the or bp me ae turned his attention to the dead man. e felt ab- * hat he had been robbed, but whether before or after death was a question. As far as he could see, there wasn’t the least sign to in- dicate that the man had been the victim of foul y, and the officer finally came to the conclusion we the stranger nee pe he — pewen, being “ tacked by some fatal stroke on that very spo%, anc some nig t prowlers had discovered the body and removed the valuables. “Upon me conscience!” the officer murmured after completing his examination, ‘it’s mighty odd tnat I niver have the luck to pick up a boodle of this kind once in a while.”’ Then he proceeded to summon assistance; the body was removed and the coroner notified, and in due time the inquest held, and then came a startling discovery. The man had been murdered! Right over the heart was a stab wound, so slight that hardly a drop of blood had come from it, in- flicted evidently by a dagger whose blade was very little larger than a good-sized knitting-needle; but the wieller of this toy-like instrument of death had such an accurate knowledge of the human form divine, and knew so well where to strike his blow, that the steel had penetrated right through the heart. And then, too, on the left side of the neck, right over the jugular vein and under the ear, were two little punctures, hardly large enough to be classed as wounds, and which looked exactly as if they had been made by the teeth of some small animal This was really a wonderful case, and yet ina great city like New York so many tnysterious deaths are constantly happening that even this occurrence wig ew but little wonder in the minds of the public at large. _ The newspapers briefly reported and commented upon the alfair—“ mysterious death, murder evi- dently, where were the police, body unrecognized souievluing ought to be done’’—and then the next d»y the matter was supplemented by some new horror, and the busy folles of New York forgot ail about it. There*were some exceptions to this rule however. There was a man who after the lapse of afew days came forward and identified the ‘body. One of the representative men of the city, this gen- tleman, by name Redmond Lamardale, a retired merchant, one of the millionaires of Gotham. The dead mao was his brother Rufus, who ha‘ been en- gazed in business in Texas for some twenty years, and had come to New York on purpose to visit him, Redmond, whom he had not seen for years. The New Yorker had been advised by letter that his long absent brother was on his way to the city, and when time passed on and he neither saw nor heard from him, he became alarmed, and some morbid impulse prompted him to visit the Morcue where the unclaimed dead bodies are kept on ex- hibition, and there he found the man he sought inthe gray-bearded stranger. , CHAPTER II. A CONSULTATION. In the ee office of the superintendent of the New Yor lice, in the white-fronted building on Mulberry street, sat three men, who,from the na- ture of their position, were presented constantly to the public e. One was the superintendent of police, another the roan d S New York, and the third the Governor of the State. Tne Governor and mayor had just entered the of- fice, and ‘had been received in due form by the police official, who, upon s*eing his visitors, instantly sus- pie? ae something important had occasioned eir , The mayor plu at once into the mabgoct, “We have called u if sos superintendent, in re- lation to this mysterious eath of Mr, Rufus Lamar- dale,”* he said. “Tris brother, Redmond Lamardale, is one of m most intimate friends,” the Governor explaine ‘‘and I have promised todo all that I can to have the murderer, or murderers, of his brother brought to justice. e, himself, has not allowed the grass to grow under his feet in the matter. He has com- municated with his brother’s friends in Texas—he had no relatives there, being a bachelor—and has as- certained that when his brother started for New York he wore a heavy gold watch and chain, two valuable diamond studs, a diamond ring, and carried two or three hundred dollars in his pocketbook,” ‘*None of which, if yon remember, superintend- ent. were found upon his person,” the inayor re- marked. ‘*I remember, sir,” replied the official. “In fact, there wasn’t a singifart cle of any description m his pockets. He had been completely strippod.” ““Wiet can be done, superintendent?’ the Gov- ernor asked. ‘* Money in this ease is no object, you know. Mr. Redmond Lamardals is wealthy enough to be able to afford to spend a hundred thousand dollars to bring the assassins of his unfortunate brother to justice, and for the sake cf the good names of the city which you watch over, Mr. Saperintend- ent, you ought to use every possibin means to detect and punish the perpetrators of such an atrocious crime.’ ‘Yes, this affair comes right home to hoth the Governor and myself, the mayor added, “for while Mr. Redmond Lamardale is one of the Governor's oldest friends, he is also a neighbor of mine and I have known and esteemed him for years,” ** Your Honor, I have béen doing everything in my power to get at the authors of this crime,"’ the superintendent replied, earnestly. ‘* Not only be- cause the mystery that surrounds the deed has ex- cited my curiosity, and piqued me to action, but also for the reason that it is not the first time thot this mysterious er has struck down his man right in the open street. This tact Lhave kept to myseif for it isn't any use to make such a thing public, for if the newspapers got hold of it they undoubtedly would make a great row about the matter, thereby put the assassin on his guard and so make the task more difficult for the detectives. Just listen to oe notes which I have jotted down in my private oo anon the chief procured his note-book and read ou “No. 1. Horace Derwentwater, English, elderly, a enka ne tourist, man of means, stopping at Bre- voort House, found dead, Jan. 5th, four o'clock in the morning in Ninth street near Washington park all valuables removed from person. No signs o violence apparent on body, at casual examination, but when stripped, death was found to have en- sued from a wound made by a minute dagger i ing the heart. .Onthe neck too, under the left ear — a inctures seemingly made by a small e) é , Simultaneously the Governor and mayor uttered a cry of astonishment, , iT “The resemblance of that crime to this murder strikes you, I see,”’ the superintendent remarked. os he circumstances are exactly the same, with the exception of the place where the body was found,”’ the Governor replied. “Yes, and the position in the street too, rizht in the middle of the roadway, asif the man had been assaulted in crossing the street, yetafter a careful consultation with some of the most expert surgeons in the city, one and all assured me that it would not be possible, one time out of a thousand, for a man to inflict such a wound as caused death in these cases, unless the victim stood perfectly quiet, and then too, they were all of the opinion that the punc- tures in the neck were caused by the teeth of some small animal. Now, gentlemen, see how improbable it is that these tragedies occurring right in the public thoroughfares could take place without caus- Ing en alarm, eventhough at an hour when all the city is supposed to be asleep. But listen to the others.”’ Then the official read his notes ing tiuree more cases, all alike in respect to the victims being elderly well-to-do men, strangers in the city, all kiulied by the same means, and all rifled of their valuables, One body was found in Madison avenue, just above Madison square, another in Wall strect, a few doors from Broadway, and the third on Fifth avenue, within a stone’s throw of the lower end of Central Park. ** You will perceive,” the superintendent observed, when he had finished reading the notes, “that Mr, Rufus Lamardale is the fifth man who has fallen a vi-tim to this notorious assassin, for that one man, aul one man only, perpetrated these deeds of horror I teel quite certain. Another thing I feel sure of too, and that is, the murders were not committed in tue places where the bodies were found. It is en- tirely beyond the bounds of probability for these murders to have been committed in such public places, even in the early hours of the morning when darkness shrouds the city, without exciting atten- tion. My theory is that the victims wereall decayed to some isolated spot where, even if a struggle en- anette alarm could be given, and there the deed Was “one, “But then, why should the assassin take the trouble to depositthe bodies in these public places?’’ the Governor asked. ‘*'That is one of the idiosynerasies of crime,”’ the chief answered, ‘“‘I do not suppose, Cymer that you areaware of it, but I have a peculiar theory in regard to criminals, particularly those who com- mit great crimes. I think that ali humans who sin against the laws of God and man, are in a measure diseased in their minds, not exactly lunatic ou know, but people whose heads are not well bal- aaced. Now, in these cases, after the murders were committed, ii was necessary for the assassin to get rid of the bodies; and let me tell you, gentlemen, thatis no easy job in a big city like New York. Some of the most noted murders that the world has known have come to light through the attempt of the murderer to get rid of the remains of his victim, The depositing of the bodies in these public places, is _ bravado, a defiance to the authorities. The author of these ceeds is no common criminal], but a man of brains who has turned his talents in a wrong direction; a monomaniac, in fact, for I can- not bring myself to believe that these murders are committed torthe sole purpose of plunder, for I feel retiy well satisued that in nearly all these cases be victims’ valuables could have been obtaine aoa the robber being obliged to add murder to eC , Dag “The perpetrator of these mysterious murders is a sort of demon, then—a human fiend who kills for the pleasure of killing,” the Governor observed, thoughtiully. “Tne idea seems rather far-fetched,” the mayor + gas ‘his Honor” was noted for his practical ideas. ** ¢es, your Honor, that is very true, but there ig anoid saying, you w, that ‘truth is scramrer than fiction,’ and I think it is quite sefe to say that the imagination of man Cannot conceive of woe pee stranger than the acts that sowe bumans will com- mit. Take the case of this mysterious assassin, for instance; why, the records of crime do not contain a stranger case; we must go back to the old story of the crimes of Ma et of Burgundy in La Tour de Nesle, as told by Victor Hugo, or the tale of the vam pire, who prolo his miserable existence b stealing from his victims the remnant of the life which in the courseof nature they would have lived if _ career had not been brought to an untimely end.’ ‘The vampire, by Jove!” exclaimed the Governor, abruptly. these mysterious murders appear like the work of just such a creature, although I believe the vam- ire never took the trouble to drive @ weapon brough the heart of bis victim.” ‘*No, he bled them to death by biting them in the neck,"’ the mayor remarked. “The two little punctures in the neck of these ees would fill that bill,” said the superinten- ent. His visitors stared at each other for a moment, then looking at the official, shook their heads gravely. “The idea is too steep for you to s eh?” k ~ the ay s , * On, e ys of vampires have passed away,” che t Governor observed. * Yes, yes, you can’t come any La Tour de Nesle business on us in New York,” d t yor, “Well, gentlemen, Ihave got a clew, and I will leave it to you to say if it don't have the smack of a vam about it,” and then the superintendent roe- lated how, im prying into the : es of the murder, he hacl extracted from the buli-headed po- liceman an account of the strange-looking ficure which he had seen near the scene of the tragedy. and which at first he had token tobe a huge bat, at esame time never suspecting that it had do with the dead man, ——_- “Gentlemen, that bat, as the Irishman called it, is the party wo want,” ihe police chit said in con- clusion; “and I have put some of best me on his track, and whether he be man oe devil, or vampire bat, I will bet a good, round sum that be- — month is over I will have him safely locked "Satisfied with this assurance the visitors departed, wondering greatly over the strange aff<ir. (E] OO KO) ‘**Of course, the idea is absurd, but don’$ ; cS . ee — €om