Dr. Cook looked away. “To save the young lady’s reputation,” he admitted softly.
“I see.” This much Hays understood. “May she have been with baby?” he asked gently.
“There was no indication of any such thing.”
“But you examined her fully on this point?”
“I did, and found that there was not the slightest trace of pregnancy.”
“You are sure of that?” Hays pressed on.
“Yes, I am sure.”
Studying Dr. Cook, Hays felt strongly otherwise.
FINALLY, TWO DAYS LATER, on Wednesday, August 11, more than a week and a half after the first news had reached the public, Hays received word in his Tombs office that a group of well-known and influential citizens, all of whom had known Mary Rogers from standing her position behind the counter at Anderson’s, were to meet at 29 Ann Street, at the home of townsman James Stoneall, to form a Committee of Safety, and to offer monetary reward sufficient to elicit from the public information leading to the arrest once and for all of the murderer or murderers.
At 7 p.m. Mr. Stoneall called the meeting to order in his parlor and introduced ex-mayor Philip Hone to address those gathered.
Hone, a very tall, slender man, bowed before beginning. “The youth and beauty of the victim,” he said solemnly. “The idea that such a young and beautiful girl could be seduced and murdered within hailing distance of this our great metropolis. Each, the former and latter, having quickly conspired to produce intense excitement in the minds of we, the city’s most prestigious populace!”
In conclusion of this thought, the ex-mayor exclaimed: “We must do something! We must.”
He turned to Hays and addressed him directly. “High Constable Hays, sir, our unfortunate, our innocent, our sweet Mary has clearly and unfairly, to her, fallen victim to the brutal lust of some of the gang of banditti that walk unscathed and violate the laws with impunity in this moral and religious city. I presume, as of yet, no discoveries have been made, and so I must implore you, we all do, you must persevere and you must be successful.”
Taking his cue, Hays answered he would like nothing more, but he first need have mandate to begin. “Acting Mayor Purdy, unfortunately, prevents my investigation,” Hays told them all.
Something will be done about that, it was sworn in response.
To the good, but notwithstanding, to stimulate immediate action, while the mayor’s office was dually dealt with and made right, $300 was pledged for reward on the spot.
This sum offered quickly grew to $748, eventually to reach the grand total of $1,073, including public money pledged from Albany by Governor Seward. The biggest individual contributors ($50 each) proved to be Bennett, the newspaper publisher, and Anderson, the segar shop owner.
It was hoped a premium of such proportion would assure a swift solution to the crime, but it did not. With several of the public prints, including the Herald and Mercury, demanding culmination to the horror, not to mention the fact that High Constable Hays had made plain his frustration with Acting Mayor Purdy, a citizens’ group representing the Committee for Safety, was sent straightaway to his office to demand immediate attention.
Unable to resist such pressure, Purdy sent a card for Hays’ appearance, and upon arriving at City Hall, the high constable received direct orders, matter-of-factly delivered, to travel with all speed to Hoboken, and once there to disinter the corpse of Mary Cecilia Rogers from her temporary crypt and bring her back home to New York, whereupon he would commence his investigation to all of his skill and ability, to hopefully solve the crime with utmost alacrity.
Hays accepted the change in charge with accustomed grace. He dispatched Sergeant McArdel, who quickly secured a police rowboat and six oarsmen. On board with Hays was Acting Mayor Purdy (exclusively at his own insistence) and the New York medical examiner, Dr. Archibald Archer.
Dr. Cook and Hudson County justice of the peace Gilbert Merritt awaited Hays and the New York contingent at the Hoboken Bull’s Head Ferry dock. From there they proceeded to the location where Mary’s body had been sepulchred three feet deep in a double-lined lead coffin. The heavy tomb was unearthed and then transported by flatbed wagon back to the rowboat, propelled across river, not without considerable effort (a terrific thunderstorm erupted, with howling winds and driving rain), to be deposited on scrubbed pine boards at the Dead House behind City Hall.
Phebe Rogers was sent for from her home to make final determining identification. The old lady staggered into the cavernous Dead House, supported under either arm by the two ex-roomers, Arthur Crommelin and Archibald Padley, but, despite Acting Mayor Purdy’s insistence, was unable to bring herself to gaze upon the body. Decomposition had already taken place to such an extent that no trace of the once-beautiful girl could be recognized in the black and swollen features, and Hays reiterated to the acting mayor for the third time his conviction that it was unwise to insist the old woman perform this hellacious duty.
Instead, through an anguished veil of tears, the grieving mother, with Hays at her side, eventually identified her daughter’s body by articles of clothing stripped from the corpse.
That evening when Hays returned home from the Tombs, Olga already had dinner laid out on the table. She also had a newspaper tucked underneath her arm. “Annie Lynch brought this to my attention,” she explained, referring to her dear friend from the Brooklyn Female Academy. “It is an admonishing tract from the New York Advocate of Moral Reform. Papa, the editors have taken this opportunity to voice their moral repugnance with the state of affairs in our society,” she snorted. “Mightn’t I read you what they opine?”
“Most assuredly, my dear, if you don’t mind me having a seat first.” At this late hour, after a day such as this, it was comfort he sought.
She began:
“One word to the young ladies who may read this, from a voice from the grave, speaking to you in tones of warning and entreaty,
Had Mary Cecilia Rogers loved the house of God, had she reverenced the Sabbath, had she refused to associate with unprincipled and profligate men, how different might her fate have been!”
The Investigation Begins in Earnest
Later that night, having returned to his office at the Tombs, High Constable Jacob Hays officially registered the death of Mary Cecilia Rogers as murder, whereupon New York coroner Dr. Archibald Archer confirmed in the Dead House the results of the autopsy performed by Hoboken medical examiner Cook, with the exception of listing cause of death as “drowned,” whereas Coroner Cook had it listed as “strangulation.”
Hays fumed. Over the years, the more he had grown to depend on them in his investigations, the more skeptical he had grown of doctors, their acuity and theory. He had asked this specific question of Dr. Cook: Had Mary Rogers been drowned? To which said medical man had responded unequivocally that she had not been drowned, citing the absence of frothy blood in her mouth as proof.
“Dr. Archer,” Hays now pressed the New York man, “according to your colleague Dr. Cook, Mary Cecilia Rogers was dead before she went into the water. How say you to this?”
Archer relented without a fight. He said it might indeed be so. “Consider Dr. Cook kerrect,” he said. To which Hays knew he could rely on neither of these men, but would have