Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1912-03-18


There was no end of persons who
had heard splashes. A number remem.
bered a wave of unusual dimensions
striking the ship about the time the
girl went below. Several persons
claimed to have heard shrieks, and one
woman's portfolio was darkened for
fraction OF second, as though a body
was falling before 1t. So far as I was
concerned, 1 placed no faith in any Of
these bits of testimony. The girl had
simply made one of those mysterious
disappearance that when they occur
on the land concentrate the attention of
the community in which they occur
and are seldom explained unless the
body of the missing person is found.
When such cases occur at sea they are
attributed either to the person falling
overheard. walking overheard while
asleep or suicide by drowning, the mat
ter occurring when no one is near to
see. The most reasonable superstition
in the case in question was that the
young lady had been pitched over the
rail during q lurch of the ship.
when we reached Liverpool we
were detained six hours by a fog in
the river Mersey between O'Clock in
the afternoon and 10 o'clock ut night,
during which time we had no commu-
nication with the shore. Then the fog
lightened, but no passengers wens
ashore till morning, when a tender
came for them. At the request of the
mother Of the missing girl every per-
son on board the ship as he or she
passed over the gangplank was scru-
tinized.
"And here singular thing develop
ed. The number of passengers going
ashore was counted and differed not
by one passenger, but two. The other
missing person was finally traced to a
woman who had taken passage in the
steerage under the name Of Mary Mon
ahan. Few of her fellow passengers
remembered much about her. Indeed,
as every one was going ashore, there
was no opportunity to learn who or
what she was. The want Of tally
added 10 the mystery, but since the
passengers were now intent on other
matters the affair did not excite any
attention among them. AS for the
officers and crew, we could talk all
we liked among ourselves, but as en-
ployees Of the company we were not
expected to add anything to mystic
rious disappearance that occurred on
any of its ships. Indeed, the only
thing I ever learned about this mys-
terry was seeing an item in a newspa-
per consisting of about twenty lines
and headed A Case Of Suicide
The narrator paused while he light
ed a cigar I gave him and then con-
tinued:
| "And now I'm going to give you a
| clew to the mystery that I thought
nothing Of at the time, but which
doomed up as important afterward.
The after lower deck, first class, was
separated from the steerage by can
vas only. Passengers would walk aft
! and occasionally peep between two
screens at their junction at the steer
age passengers. One morning I had
seen the girl who disappeared talking
with a woman on the other side Of
the canvas. Seeing me. she abruptly
turned away. l put this down to her
not liking to be seen talking to q
steerage passenger and thought no
more about It.
Before we sailed on the return trip
one of the room stewardesses showed
signs of having got windfall One
of the deck hands in the steerage went
ashore, got drunk and spent hundred
dollars before coming aboard again.
1t struck me that there had been brib-
cry and corruption on the way out,
and, In thinking the matter over. re-
membered having seen the young lady
who disappeared talking with the
steerage passenger. This suggested a
connection with the money spent by
the deck hand. ! reported to the cap
tain that l suspected some underhand-
ed business had taken place in the
matter Of the mystery. He called for
the stewardess and questioned her.
at didn't require much time to bring
the matter out. She confessed that
she had been well paid to secure for
the young lady the dress Of Storage
passenger, had taken her to a vacant
stateroom aft, where she had put It on
and slipped through the canvas screens
into the steerage. That's all she knew
about her. The captain then called for
the deck hand who said that he had
received 500 to secure boat and row
two women steerage passengers ashore
when we lay fog bound in the Mersey.
He suspected one of these persons to
be q man.
1.-The rest was plain enough. The
girls lover had taken passage in the
steerage dressed as woman, and the
lovers had outwitted the mother, who
had taken her aboard TO get her away
from him. The daughters Irritation
with the young man she met on the
voyage was q blind for the old lady.
Months after the episode the miss
ing woman and her husband sailed
with us from Liverpool to New York.
she told me all about her escapade,
ending IT with, When you caught me
. talking through the canvas screens
thought our plan would be discover
ed"