The Man Who Fell Through the Earth

So the police were ahead of me! Well, that only made it the more certain that what we sought was not here.

“There was another chap, but he wasn’t Mr. Manning either,” vouchsafed my informant. “Howsomever, the police went to see him. Wanta go?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, that same afternoon, there was a corpse picked outa the East River, froze stiff. Leastways, we thought he was a corpse, but blamed if the chap didn’t come to life!”

I wasn’t greatly interested, for if the corpse was taken from the river that afternoon, it couldn’t have been Manning. But the morgue-keeper went on: “You might take a look, sir, to see if you know him. For the poor fellow’s lost his mind, – no, not that, – but he’s lost his memory, and he dunno who he is!”

“Amnesia?” I asked.

“That’s what they call it, and the other thing, too. Aspasia, – or whatever it is.”

“Aphasia,” I corrected him, without smiling, for how should he know anything about what was a mystery to most skilled physicians. “Where is he?”

“They carted him over to Bellevue soon’s they seen he was alive. It was a touch job to keep him alive, I heard, and his memory is completely busted. It would be a godsend to him if you could identify him. I ask everybody to take a look on the chance. Somehow, I’m sorry for him.”

I wasn’t especially interested, but being thus appealed to in the interests of humanity, I went over to the hospital, and had no difficulty in gaining a sight of the patient in question. Indeed, the doctors were most anxious for visitors to see him, hoping that someone might identify the man.

My first glance convinced me it was not Amory Manning, though I had not thought that it was.

This man had thin, light hair and vacant-looking, weak eyes. He was smooth-shaven and his voice was peculiar, – a voice sufficient to identify anyone, I felt sure, but it was not a voice I had heard before.

No; I didn’t know him, and a careful scrutiny made me positive I did not.

But it was a sorry case. Apparently the man was of good education and accustomed to cultured surroundings. Moreover, he had a sense of humor which had not deserted him, along with his memory.

I sat by his bedside, and I remained rather longer than I had intended, for I became interested in his story, and the time slipped by.

“You see,” he said, fixing me with his queer-looking eyes, “I fell through the earth.”

“You what?”

“I did. I fell through the earth, and it was a long, long fall.”

“Well, yes, eight thousand miles, I’m told.”

“Oh, no,” and he was almost pettish, “I didn’t fall through the middle of it.”

“Oh,” and I paused for further enlightenment.

“It was this way. I remember it perfectly, you know. I was somewhere, – somewhere up North – ”

“Canada?”

“I don’t know – I don’t know.” He shook his head uncertainly. “But I know it was up North where it’s always cold.”

Perhaps the man had been an Arctic explorer.

“Iceland?” I said, “Greenland?”

“Maybe,” and he looked uninterested. “But,” here he brightened a little, “anyway, I fell through the earth. I fell in there, wherever it was, and came on down, down through the earth till I came out at the other end.”

“You mean, you fell through a section or segment of the globe? As if, say, you fell in at London and came out at the Cape of Good Hope!”

“That’s the idea! Only I fell out here in New York.”

“And you fell in?”

“That’s what I can’t remember, only it was ’way up North, – somewhere.”

“If you had a map, now, and looked at all the Northern countries, it might recall itself to you, – the place where you entered, – where you began your journey.”

“I thought so, but the nurse brought me an atlas and I couldn’t find the place. I wish I had a globe.”

Poor chap. I wondered what had given him this strange hallucination. But as he talked on, I became interested in his own personality.

He was as sane as I was in all respects, save his insistence that he had fallen through the earth.

As a child, an ambition of mine had been to dig down to China, and many times I had started the task. Perhaps his childhood had known a similar ambition, and now, his memory gone, his distorted mind harked back to that idea. I changed the subject, and found him remarkably well informed, fairly well educated, and of a curiously analytical temperament, but of his identity or his personality he had no knowledge.

He appreciated this, and it made the thing more pathetic.

“It will come back to me,” he said, cheerfully. “The doctors have explained all about this aphasic-amnesia, and though mine is the worst case they have ever seen, it will go away some time, and I’ll recover my memory and know who I am.”

“You can reason and understand everything said to you?”

“Oh, yes; I’m my own man in every respect except in a knowledge of who or what I was before that journey through the earth.”

“Then,” I tried plain common sense, “then, if you can reason, you must know that you didn’t fall through the earth. It would be impossible.”

“I know that. My reason tells me it’s impossible. But all I know about it is, that I did do it.”

“Through a long hole, – miles long?”

“Yes.”

“Who bored the hole?”

“It was there all the time. I suppose Nature made it.”

“Oh, a sort of rock fissure – ”

“No; more like a mine, – a – ”

“That’s it, old chap! You were a miner, and there was a cave-in, and it spoiled your thinker – temporarily.”

“But a mine doesn’t have an exit at the bottom of it. I tell you I was far away from where I fell in, and I came miles straight down through the solid earth – ”

“Could you see plainly?”

“Oh, no, it was dark, – how could it be otherwise, inside the earth?”

It was hopeless to dissuade him. We talked for some time, and outside his hallucination he was keen and quick-witted. But whatever gave him his idea of his strange adventure he thoroughly believed in it and nothing would shake that belief.

“What are you going to do when you get out of here?” I asked him.

“I don’t know, I’m sure. But I can’t help feeling that the world owes me a living – especially after I’ve fallen through it!”

I laughed, for his humor was infectious, and I felt pretty sure he would make good somehow. He was about thirty, I judged, and though not a brawny man, he seemed possessed of a wiry strength.

The doctors, he told me, assured him of speedily returning health but would give no definite promise regarding the return of his memory.

“So,” he said, cheerfully, “I’ll get along without it, and start out fresh. Why, I haven’t even a name!”

“You can acquire one at small expense,” I advised him.

“Yes; I’ve part of it now. I shall take Rivers as a surname, because they pulled me out of the East River, they say.”

“How were you dressed?”

“In Adam’s costume, I’m told. I regret the loss of a full suit of apparel, more especially as it might have proved my identity.”

“You mean you were entirely divested of clothing?”

“Except for a few rags of underwear, entirely worthless as clews to what was doubtless an illustrious personality! However, I’m lucky to have breath left in my body, and when I get back my memory, I’ll prove that I really did fall through the earth, and I’ll find out where I fell in.”

“I sincerely hope you will, old chap,” and I shook hands as I rose to go. “As the play says, ‘You interest me strangely!’ May I come to see you again?”

“I wish you would, Mr. Brice, and by that time I shall have chosen me a first name.”

CHAPTER IX

The Man in Boston

I could not suppress a feeling of elation as I once again rang at the door of Olive Raynor’s home that evening. I almost began to feel a proprietary interest in the mansion, as I now was practically the legal adviser of its new mistress. And to be received as a privileged caller, even a welcome one, was a source of gratification to my pride and self-respect.

Mrs. Vail was present at our interview this time, and my first sight of her gave me a very favorable impression. A distinguished-looking lady, slightly past middle age, she was aristocratic of bearing and kindly pleasant of manner. Perhaps a trifle of condescension mingled with her courteous reception of me, but I put that down to her recent acquirement of a position of importance. No such trait was visible in Miss Raynor’s simple and sincere greeting, and as Olive eagerly inquired as to the result of my afternoon’s quest, I told her my story at once.

She was greatly relieved that no trace of Amory Manning had been found on the morgue records and though she was duly sympathetic when I told her of the strange case of the man who fell through the earth, it only momentarily claimed her preoccupied attention.

She first satisfied herself that by no chance could this man be Manning, and then turned her thoughts back to her all-engrossing theme.

“I am sorry for him,” she said, as I described his cheerful disposition and rather winning personality, “and if I can do anything to help him, I will do it. Does he want a position of some sort when he gets well enough to take one?”

“I suppose he will,” I returned; “he’s an alive sort of chap, and of course he’ll earn his living one way or another.”

“And he may soon recover his memory,” began Mrs. Vail. “I knew a man once who had amnesia and aphasia both, and it was six months before he got over it. But when his memory came back, it came all at once, like a flash, and then he was all right.”

“In this case,” I said, “the doctors want to find someone who knows the man. It ought not to be difficult to find his friends, or someone who can identify him. Why, that peculiar voice ought to do it.”

“Imitate it,” directed Mrs. Vail, and to the best of my ability I talked in the monotonous tones of the amnesic victim.

Olive laughed. “I never heard anybody talk like that,” she said. “It’s absolutely uninflected.”

“Yes, that’s just what it was. He had no inflections or shadings in his tones.”

“A voice is so individual,” pursued Olive. “Amory Manning’s voice is full and musical; I’ve often told him he conveys as much meaning by his tones as by his words.”

“I knew a man once,” put in Mrs. Vail, “who could recite the alphabet so dramatically that he made his audience laugh or cry or shudder, just by his tones.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that done on the vaudeville stage,” said Olive. “Now Mr. Brice, what shall be our next step? I don’t mind confessing I’m relieved that your errand of today is over with. Our doctor told me there was no chance of Mr. Manning having been killed or injured, without our receiving notification of the fact, somehow. But I’ve been nervously troubled about it, and nights I’ve dreamed of seeing him somewhere, – alone and helpless, – and unable to let me know – ”

“Maybe he is,” said Mrs. Vail; “I knew a man once – ”

But Olive cut short the tale of this acquaintance of her friend and kept to the business in hand.

“I can’t think of anything better to do,” I said, “than to advertise. But why are not other people doing this? Who are Mr. Manning’s friends? Who are his business people? Why are they silent?”

“I don’t know that they are,” Olive returned; “but to tell the truth, I don’t know much about Mr. Manning’s affairs, in a business way. I know he is a civil engineer, but that’s about all. A consulting engineer he is, too. As to his people, I know only his sister, and she doesn’t know what to do either. I’ve seen Mrs. Russell twice since, and we can only sympathize with each other.”

“Who is Mr. Russell?”

“Her husband? He’s in France, and she’s alone with her two little girls. She and Amory are devoted to each other, and he was of such help and comfort to her in her husband’s absence. Now, she doesn’t know which way to turn.”

“I must look these things up,” I said; “I must talk with Mr. Manning’s business associates, – doubtless Mrs. Russell can tell me of them.”

“Oh, yes, of course. You go to see her, and she’ll be only too glad to see you.”

“And as to a detective? Shall I get in touch with Wise?”

“Yes, I think so. It does seem so queer for me to decide these things! I can’t get used to the fact that I’m my own guardian!”

“You’re of age, Olive,” and Mrs. Vail smiled.

“Oh, yes, and I’ve had entire control of my money for some time. But Uncle always decided all matters of importance, – though, goodness knows, there never were any such to decide as those that beset us now! Think of my engaging a detective!”

“But Wise is so interesting and so adaptable, you’ll really like him. I’ll ask him to call here with me some afternoon or evening and you can get acquainted.”

“I’d like to meet him,” put in Mrs. Vail; “I knew a man once who wanted to be a detective, but he died. I’ve never seen a real detective.”

“Pennington Wise is a real one, all right,” I declared. “Of course, Miss Raynor, I shall tell the police that you are employing a private detective, for I don’t think it a good plan to do it secretly. It is never wise to antagonize the police; they do all they can, popular prejudice to the contrary notwithstanding.”

“Very well, Mr. Brice,” and Olive gave me a look of confidence. “I don’t care what you do, so long as you attend to it. I don’t want to see those horrid police people again.”

I thought to myself that she might be obliged to do so, unless Penny Wise could find another way to make them look. But I did not tell her so, for nothing raised her ire like the hint of suspicion directed toward herself in the matter of Amos Gately’s murder.

“How dare they!” she exclaimed, her eyes fairly snapping with anger; “to dream that I – Olive Raynor – could – why, it’s impossible to put it into words!”

It did seem so. To look at that dainty, lovely girl, – the very ideal of all that is best and gentlest in human nature, – it was impossible to breathe the word murder in the same breath!

I went away from the house, when my visit was over, determined to track down the assassin, – with the help of Penny Wise, – and thereby clear Olive’s name from the least taint of the ugly suspicion now held by the police.

The next morning, in my office, I told Norah of all the developments of Sunday.

The warm-hearted girl was deeply interested, and eager for me to communicate with Wise at once, for which purpose she slipped a fresh sheet of paper in her typewriter, and waited for my dictation of a letter to the detective.

“Wait a minute, Norah,” I laughed; “give me time to open my desk!”

But I did dispatch the letter that morning, and awaited the answer as impatiently as Norah herself.

And then I went down to Police Headquarters.

There a surprise was given me. The Chief had received a letter that seemed to have a decided bearing on the mystery of the murder. He handed it to me without comment, and I read this:

To Police Headquarters;New York City;

Sirs:

Last Wednesday afternoon, I was in New York, and was in the Building of the Puritan Trust Company. I had occasion to transact some business on the tenth floor, and afterward, when waiting for the elevator to take me down, I saw a pistol lying on the floor of the hallway near the elevator. I picked it up and put it in my pocket, – undecided, at the moment, whether to consider it “findings-keepings” (as it was a first-class one!) or whether to turn it in at the superintendent’s office. As a matter of fact, when I reached the street floor I forgot all about the thing, nor did I remember it until I was back in Boston. And then, I read in the papers the accounts of the murder in that same building, that same afternoon, and I saw it was my duty to return the pistol and acquaint you with these facts. But alas, for dilatory human nature! I procrastinated (without meaning to) until today, and now I send this belated word, with an apology for my tardiness. The pistol is safe in my possession, and I will hold it pending your advices. Shall I send it to you, – and how? Or shall I turn it over to the Boston police? My knowledge of the whole matter begins and ends with the finding of the pistol, which after all, may have nothing to do with the crime. But I found it at three o’clock, or a very few minutes after, if that interests you. I shall be here, at The Touraine, for another week, and will cheerfully allow myself to be interviewed at your convenience, but, as I said, I have no further information to give than that I have here set forth.

Very truly yours,Nicholas Lusk.

The letter was dated from Boston, on Saturday evening, two days before. Truly, Friend Lusk had delayed his statement, but as he said, that was human nature, in matters not important to oneself.

The Chief was furiously angry at the lateness of the information, and had already dispatched a messenger to get the weapon and to interview the Boston man.

“It’s all straight on the face of it,” declared Chief Martin; “only an honest, cheerful booby would write like that! He picks up a pistol, forgets all about it, and then, when he learns it’s evidence, – or may be, – he calmly waits forty-eight hours before he pipes up!”

“Is it the pistol?” I asked, quietly.

“How do I know?” blustered Martin. “Likely it is. I don’t suppose half a dozen people sowed pistols around that building at just three o’clock last Wednesday afternoon!”

“How do you fit it in?”

“Well, this way, – if you want to know. Miss – well, that is, – whoever did do the shooting, ran out of the third room, just as Jenny described, and ran downstairs, – it doesn’t matter whether all the way down or not, but at least to the tenth – two floors below, and there dropped the pistol, either by accident or by design, and proceeded to descend, as I said, either by the stairs or by taking an elevator at some intervening floor. Now, we want that pistol. To be sure, it may not incriminate anybody, – and yet, there’s lots of individuality in firearms!”

“In detective stories the owner’s initials are on all well-conducted pistols,” I remarked, casually.

“Not in real life, though. There’s a number on them, of course, but that seldom helps. And yet, I’ve got a hunch that that pistol will tell its own story, and my fingers itch to get a hold of it!”

“When do you expect it?”

“I’ve sent young Scanlon after it. He’s a live wire, and he’ll get back soon’s anybody could. See here, this is the way I dope it out. If a woman did the shooting, she’d be more’n likely to throw away a pistol, – or to drop it unintentional like, in her nervousness, but a man – nixy!”

I had foreseen this. And the statement was, in a way, true. A man, having committed murder, does not drop his pistol, – unless, and I divulged this thought to Martin, unless he wants to throw suspicion on someone else.

“Nothin’ doin’,” was his curt response. “Nobody on that floor possible to suspect, ’ceptin’ it’s Rodman, – and small chance of him.”

“Rodman!” I cried; “why, he got on the elevator at the seventh floor, just after the shooting.”

“He did!” the Chief straightened up; “how do you know?”

“Saw him. I was going down, – in Minny’s elevator, you know, – to look for Jenny – ”

“When was this?”

“About ten minutes after the shooting – and of course I got on at the twelfth floor, and there were no other passengers at first, so I talked to Minny. But at the seventh Rodman got on, and so we stopped talking.”

“His office is on the tenth,” mused Martin; “s’posin’ – just s’posin’ he’d – er – he was implicated, and that he ran downstairs afterward, to his own floor, you know, – and then, later, walked to seven, and took a car there – ”

“Purposely leaving his pistol on his own floor!”

“Shucks, no! Dropped it accidentally.”

“But you said male criminals don’t do that!”

“Oh, pshaw! I say lots of things, – and you would, too, if you were as bothered as I am!”

“That’s so, Chief,” I agreed, “and there is certainly something to be looked into, – I should say, without waiting for a report from Boston.”

“You bet there is! I’m going to send Hudson right up there. He’s as good a sleuth as we’ve got, and he’ll deal with the Rodman matter in a right and proper way. If there’s nothing to find out, Rodman will never know he looked.”

Hudson was duly dispatched, and I returned to the Puritan Building. It was queer, but Rodman had been in the back of my head all along, – and yet, I had no real reason to think him implicated. I did not know whether he knew Mr. Gately or not, but I, too, had confidence in Foxy Jim Hudson’s discretion, and I was pretty positive he’d find out something, – if there were anything worth finding out.

And there was!

Rodman, by good luck, was out and his offices locked. Hudson gently persuaded the locks to let go their grip, and, for he let me go with him, we went in.

The first thing that hit me in the eyes, was a big war map on the wall. Moreover, though not a duplicate of Mr. Gately’s map, it was similar, and it hung in a similar position. That is, as Rodman’s offices were directly under those of the bank president, two floors below, the rooms matched, and in the “third room” as we called it in Mr. Gately’s case, Rodman also had his map hung.

There was but one conclusion, and Hudson and I sprang to it at once.

Together, we pulled aside the map, and sure enough, there was a door exactly like the door in Mr. Gately’s room, a small, flush door, usually hidden by the map.

“To the secret elevator, of course,” I whispered to Hudson, for walls have ears, and these walls were in many ways peculiar.

“By golly, it is!” he returned; “let’s open her up!”

He forced the door open, and assured himself that it did indeed lead into the private elevator shaft, and there were the necessary buttons to cause it to stop, if properly used. But now, the car being down on the ground floor, where it had stayed ever since the day of the murder, of course, the buttons could not be manipulated.

“Now,” said Hudson, his brow furrowed, “to see where else this bloomin’ rogue trap lets ’em off! There’s somethin’ mighty queer goin’ on that we ain’t caught on to yet!”

He carefully closed the door, readjusted the map, and making sure we had left no traces of our visit, he motioned me out and we went away.

He asked me to return to my office, and promised to see me there later.

When he returned, he told me that he had visited every other office in the building through whose rooms the elevator shaft descended and in no other instance was there an opening into the shaft.

“Which proves,” he summed up, “that Mr. Gately and Mr. Rodman was somehow in cahoots, else why would Rodman have access to that secret elevator? Answer me that!”

There were several possible answers. Rodman might have taken his offices after the elevator was built, and might never have used it at all. His map might have hung over it merely to cover the useless door.

Or, Rodman might have been a personal friend of Mr. Gately’s and used the little car for informal visits.

Again, – though I hated myself for the thought, – Mr. Gately might have had guests whom he didn’t wish to be seen entering his rooms, and he might have had an arrangement with Rodman whereby the visitors could go in and out through his rooms, and take the private elevator between the tenth and twelfth floors.

I distrusted Rodman; without any definite reason, but all the same I did distrust him, and I have frequently found my intuitions regarding strangers hit pretty nearly right.

It was unnecessary, however, to answer Foxy Jim’s question, for he answered it himself.

“There’s something about Mr. Gately,” he said, and he spoke seriously, almost solemnly, “that hasn’t come to light yet, but it’s bound to. Yes, sir, it’s bound to! And it’s on the way. Now, if we can hook up that Boston pistol with Mr. George Rodman, well and good; if we can’t, Rodman’s got to be put through the grill anyhow. He’s in it for keeps – that elevator door isn’t easily explained away.”

“Does Mr. Rodman,” it was Norah who spoke, and as before, Hudson turned to her almost expectantly – he seemed to depend on her for suggestions, or at least, he always listened to them – “I wonder, Mr. Brice,” she went on slowly, “does Mr. Rodman look at all like the figure you saw in the shadow?”

I thought back.

“Yes,” I said, decidedly, “he does! Now, hold on, Hudson, it’s only a memory, you know, and I may easily be mistaken. But it seems to me I can remember a real resemblance between that shadowed head and the head of George Rodman.”