went to Hoboken after having received news in a grog shop on Dey Street of a young woman fitting Mary’s description having been seen on the ferry. Once in New Jersey, he stumbled on a crowd surrounding a body by the riverbank near the Sybil Cave, and it proved to be she for whom he was looking.”
He began to sob her name, “Mary.”
“She had drowned?” Hays asked, studying the man as he choked and murmured.
“Something more, I fear.”
“More?”
“Mr. Crommelin attests she has been murdered.”
Old Hays looked upon the corkcutter intently. “And Mr. Crommelin is quite sure he is not mistaken, that Miss Rogers was not merely the victim of a terrible accident, a tragic drowning?”
“No, no,” Payne said almost indignantly. “Crommelin said murder. He admitted the water had taken a terrible toll on her face and body, and at first, he said, he had not been confident it was even her, but now he is sure. He returned at first light this morning, delayed, he said, due to his late testimony in front of the coroner’s inquest. He carried with him several bits of ribbon, a swatch of fabric cut from Mary’s dress, flowers plucked from her hat, a garter, and the bottom hem from her pantalette—all given him, he said, by the coroner, Dr. Cook, in order to show to Mrs. Rogers in hope of ascertaining positive identification of her daughter. Additionally, he said he took it upon himself to take a lock of Mary’s hair and one of her shoes, which he thought telling because of her unusually small feet.
“All have been identified by Mrs. R. as Mary’s.” Payne began again to sob. “It is undoubtedly her, sir.”
Early that afternoon, having boarded the ferry at the Barclay Street pier, Old Hays crossed the Hudson River to arrive within an hour’s time at the office of the Hudson County coroner, Dr. Richard Cook.
Dr. Cook, a tall, lean man, took a seat and indicated one for Hays. He intertwined his long, bony fingers in a sort of steeple in front of him as he settled down to the business at hand.
He told Hays that on the previous evening he had testified in front of the Hoboken Board of Inquiry to the following effect:
The body in question was that of Mary Cecilia Rogers, aged twenty-one years, resident of 126 Nassau Street, New York City, New York. Miss Rogers was victim of murder by person or persons unknown.
“The remains were found by two fishermen,” Dr. Cook said, referring to his notes, “Jimmy Boulard and Henry Mallin, over on the steam ferry from Manhattan for a day’s outing.”
About noon, while heading north on the footpath from the Elysian Fields, the pair had spotted what they took as a bundle of rags bobbing in the river a few hundred feet from shore. They waded out to get a better look, upon which they realized what they were seeing was a bloated and hideously disfigured corpse, floating in the shallows, half in the water, half out. Following this discovery, they ran back to the Elysian dock, where they commandeered a skiff and rowed out to the spot where the body remained adrift, caught between two tides.
“She had been killed most brutally,” Dr. Cook told Hays, “the crime committed without question by more than one person. It is my feeling that this young woman was most likely attacked by a gang of wretched blackguards. In all probability, soon after being set upon, she fainted, and before she was able to recover, her murderers had tightly tied not only restraints around her wrists, but also a piece of fine lace trimming around her neck. This lace alone would have prevented her from breathing again.”
“Was there any foam, as might be the case with the drowned?”
“I observed no foam. About the throat were bruises and impressions of fingers. In evidence was an ecchymose mark, about the size and shape of a man’s thumb on the right side of the neck, near the jugular vein, and two or three more marks on the left side resembling the shape of a man’s fingers. The arms were bent over on the chest and rigid, so tight and stiff I had to use force to straighten them. The right hand was clenched; the left partially open. It appeared as if the wrists had been tied together. On both the left and right wrists were circular excoriations, apparently the effect of ropes. The hands had probably been tied while the body was violated, and untied before being discarded. All indications are she had been bound, gagged, throttled, and then raped before being thrown in the water.”
“Is there any sign that she had been drugged beforehand?” Hays asked.
“There were none. The face was suffused with dark blood, some of which issued from the mouth. Her flesh and features were swollen. The veins highly distended.”
“I knew her,” Hays sighed deeply. “I buy tobacco at the store in which she once worked. She was a vibrant young woman.”
Cook glanced up from his notes. “You would never know it now,” he said. “A crime of this nature, it is all very disturbing. It makes you wonder the state in which we live in our society.” The coroner shook his head in sadness before proceeding. “Her dress was much torn in several places and otherwise disordered. From the outer dress a long slip, say a foot wide, had been torn upward, extending from the bottom of the frock hem to the waist, but not wholly torn off. Instead, it was wound around her waist a few times and secured by a slipknot. Not a lady’s knot, mind you, but a sort of buntline hitch secured in the back, reminiscent of that tied by a sailor.”
“A sailor?” Hays muttered. “To what effect do you surmise this arrangement, Doctor?”
“As far as I can tell, the knotted strips formed a sort of handle, used to transport the body.”
“Then she was not killed by the riverbank?”
“No, she was not.”
“I see,” said Hays. “Do we know where she was killed?”
“Not as of yet. There was considerable excoriation upon the top of her back and along both shoulder bones, and excoriation also at the base of the back, near the hips. In my estimation, these were produced by the victim struggling to get free while being held down to effect her violation. This act was without doubt carried out while she was laid down upon some hard surface: a hardboard floor, the bottom of a boat, or somewhere similar.”
“But not, for example, on a bed?”
“Absolutely not.”
Cook returned to his notes once more. He squinted at his own cramped handwriting for some seconds before returning his attention to Hays. “Her dress, immediately beneath the frock and between the upper petticoat, was made of fine muslin. One piece, about eighteen inches in width, was torn clean from the garment. This piece was used to cover her mouth, again utilizing a sailor’s hard knot at the back part of the neck; I suspect this was done to smother her cries and that the gag was in all likelihood held tightly in place over her mouth by one of her ravishers. Again, the flesh
