The Dock Boy's Shadow

1895 · 16 pages

This 1895 Beadle and Adams dime novel serializes "The Dock-Boy Shadow," a detective mystery. Sixteen-year-old Toby Tip, a street runner, is hired by a mysterious dandily-dressed man in Battery Park to deliver a sealed note. When the delivery address doesn't answer, Toby peers through a transom and discovers a dead man—Martin Manson, a wealthy broker—bound to a chair with a gag. Officer Jason Chipps summons authorities. The note's ink has mysteriously vanished, leaving blank paper. Detective Cleaver is assigned the case. Toby's friend Zip, a colored dock boy, had followed the mysterious man to the Jersey piers, where he escaped by rowboat. The detective applies chemical reagents to the paper to reveal hidden writing, suggesting invisible ink was used. The narrative emphasizes Toby and Zip's previous helpful work with Cleaver on dock-related crimes.

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