The fair young form was taken to the Morgue, and for some days the newspapers were filled with accounts of the mystery of Central Park, and everybody was discussing the strange case. And what could have been more mysterious? A young and exquisitely beautiful girl, clad in garments stylish and expensive, although quiet in tone, and such as women of refinement wear, found dead on a bench in Central Park by two young people, whose social position was in those circles where to be brought in any way to public notice is considered almost a disgrace. And to add to the mystery of the case the most thorough examination of the girl’s body had failed to show the slightest wound or discoloration, or the faintest clue to the cause of the girl’s death. The newspapers had all their own theories. Some were firm in their belief of foul play, but they could not even hint at the cause of death, and how such a lovely creature could have been murdered, if murder it was, in Central Park and the assassin or assassins escape unseen, were riddles they could not solve. Other journals hooted at the idea of foul play. They claimed the girl had, while walking in Central Park, sat down on the bench, and died either of heart disease or of poison administered by her own hand. The police authorities maintained an air of impenetrable secrecy, but promised that within a few days they would furnish some startling developments. They did not commit themselves, however, as to their ideas of how the girl met her death. In this they were wise, for the silent man is always credited with knowing a great deal more than the man does who talks, and so the public waited impatiently from day to day, confident the police would soon clear the mystery away. Hundreds of people visited the Morgue, curious to look upon the dead girl. Many went there in search of missing friends, hoping and yet dreading that in the mysterious dead girl they would find the one for whom they searched. People from afar telegraphed for the body to be held until their arrival, but they came and went and the beautiful dead girl was still unidentified. Penelope Howard and Richard Treadwell were made to figure prominently in all the stories about the beautiful mystery, much to their discomfort. The untiring reporters called to see Penelope at all hours, whenever a fresh theory gave them an excuse to drag her name before the public again, and poor Richard had no peace at his club, at his rooms, or at Penelope’s home. If the reporters were not interviewing him, his friends were asking all manner of questions concerning the strange affair, and pleading repeatedly for the story of the discovery of the body to be told again. Some of his club acquaintances even went so far as to joke him about the girl he had found dead, and there was much quiet smiling among his immediate friends at Dick’s fondness for early walks, a trait first brought to light by his connection with this now celebrated case.