A Detective’s Experience

The Dago Girl

The night was very dark that Saturday night, and gusts of wind beat the rain incessantly against the rickety windows of the old Dago building. The light of a single tallow dip, flickered and spluttered in the socket of a worn-out candlestick; but it revealed a pallet of straw, and an old woman bending above the body of a dead girl. The tears ran down the haggard cheek, and the woman wept for her child—a beautiful girl, just in womanhood. The black hair was fine as the floss of silk, and shadowed a face as lovely as that the artist has given the Madona. Pale indeed, but a trace of the rose was yet on the cheek, and the lips were sunny with smiles. But yet she was dead, and that by violence! That day she had been dragged from the river, and her left temple yet bore the mark where the treacherous blow had been dealt her. Very lovely even in death was the Sicilian girl. Slender and tall, the willowy figure had been grace itself; and now the outline of the cold, dead body disclosed a form that was faultless.

Her story was a sad one—much of it supplied by conjecture; for not even to her mother had she disclosed the name of her lover.… Read More