The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Staircase At The Hearts Delight, by
Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

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Title: The Staircase At The Hearts Delight
1894

Author: Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

Release Date: September 29, 2007 [EBook #22811]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STAIRCASE ***

Produced by David Widger

THE STAIRCASE AT THE HEARTS DELIGHT.

By Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

Copyright, 1894, by Anna Katharine Green

AS TOLD BY MR. GRYCE.

"In the spring of 1840, the attention of the New York police was
attracted by the many cases of well-known men found drowned in the
various waters surrounding the lower portion of our great city. Among
these may be mentioned the name of Elwood Henderson, the noted tea
merchant, whose remains were washed ashore at Redhook Point; and of
Christopher Bigelow, who was picked up off Governor's Island after
having been in the water for five days, and of another well-known
millionaire whose name I cannot now recall, but who, I remember, was
seen to walk towards the East River one March evening, and was not met
with again till the 5th of April, when his body floated into one of the
docks near Peck Slip.

"As it seemed highly improbable that there should have been a concerted
action among so many wealthy and distinguished men to end their
lives within a few weeks of each other, and all by the same method of
drowning, we soon became suspicious that a more serious verdict than
that of suicide should have been rendered in the case of Henderson,
Bigelow and the other gentleman I have mentioned. Yet one fact, common
to all these cases, pointed so conclusively to deliberate intention on
the part of the sufferers that we hesitated to take action.

"This was, that upon the body of each of the above-mentioned persons
there were found, not only valuables in the shape of money and jewelry,
but papers and memoranda of a nature calculated to fix the identity
of the drowned man, in case the water should rob him of his personal
characteristics. Consequently, we could not ascribe these deaths to a
desire for plunde