reward throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. The New York Times continued to cover the story on a near daily basis. The publicity led to investigators receiving calls from people across the U.S. who claimed to have seen Arnold. These calls were investigated but proved to be false. The Arnold family also received two ransom notes from alleged kidnappers who demanded upwards of $5,000 for Arnold's return. The kidnapping claims proved to be hoaxes. In early February 1911, Francis Arnold received a postcard signed "Dorothy" bearing a New York City postmark that read, "I am safe." While the writing matched his daughter's, Francis said he believed that someone had copied Dorothy's handwriting from samples that were featured in the newspaper and that the postcard was nothing more than a cruel joke. Around the same time, a jeweler in San Francisco, California claimed a woman he recognized as Arnold had him engrave a diamond wedding ring for her on January 7, with the inscription "To A.J.A. from E.R.B., December 10, 1910." Shortly after this, the NYPD announced that they had decided to stop investigating Dorothy Arnold's disappearance, saying they believed she was dead. New York City deputy police commissioner William J. Flynn stated, "That now seems the only reasonable way of looking at the case. [...] The girl has now been missing for 75 days and in all that time not a single clue has been found that was worth the name. [...] We have no evidence that a crime has been committed and the case is now one of a missing person and nothing more." Police continued to investigate reports of sightings, but none led to Arnold. Rumors and theories Numerous theories and rumors regarding Arnold's disappearance continued to arise. One theory was that Arnold had slipped on an icy sidewalk, struck her head and was in a hospital with total amnesia. This theory did not pan out as there were no women matching her description in area hospitals who had sustained a concussion. Other theories arose that Arnold had been drugged and abducted, but that theory was considered unlikely as she was last seen on a busy street in mid-afternoon. George Griscom Jr, Arnold's boyfriend, theorized that she had committed suicide because she was despondent over her failed writing career. After her second short story was rejected, Arnold wrote a letter to Griscom expressing her disappointment over her