The Man Who Fell Through the Earth

CHAPTER XV

Wise’s Pipe Dream

The mystery was a baffling one. I learned from Pennington Wise that he had a pipe dream that Amory Manning had killed Amos Gately.

But, save for the faithful Zizi, he could find no one to share his suspicion. It was too absurd. In the first place, had Manning done the deed, he never would have hung around the scene of the crime as he did, for nearly an hour. I remembered perfectly his demeanor and expression, as I saw him, with Olive Raynor that afternoon. He was deeply concerned, greatly shocked, and most considerate and thoughtful of Olive, but there was no shadow of guilt on his fine, strong face.

I had looked at him closely both during the excitement of the tragedy itself, and later, as we were in the street-car, and I noted his grave, serious countenance, but though he seemed puzzled and anxious, there was no mark of Cain on his brow.

I told Wise this, and he listened, duly impressed, but, as he finally owned up, he saw no other way to look.

“It wasn’t Rodman,” he asserted; “that chap is a traitor and a spy, but he’s no murderer. And, too, he was in cahoots with Gately, and the last thing he wanted was to lose his patron. It wasn’t Sadie, of course; she too, wanted Gately alive, not dead. I know the unwillingness of Olive’s guardian to listen to Manning’s suit, seems a slight motive, – yet where can we find a suspect with a stronger one?”

“We haven’t as yet,” I returned, “but there must be people implicated in that spy business, – if that’s a true bill against Gately – ”

“Oh, it’s a true bill, all right. Amos Gately was a wolf in sheep’s clothing! Miss Raynor will have to know it sooner or later. She really knows it now, but she won’t let herself believe it.”

“What about that paper Zizi took from Sadie Kent?”

“That’s what I’m working on. Meet me this afternoon at the Raynor house, and I may be able to tell you.”

The big, cheerful library at Olive’s house had come to be our general meeting-place of an afternoon. I usually dropped in there about four o’clock, and was pretty sure to find Wise or Rivers or both there. Zizi was a whole vaudeville show herself, and Olive was always cordial and hospitable. Mrs. Vail, too, was a gentle old lady, and I had grown to like her.

So I went, as Wise suggested, and found him poring over the mysterious paper.

Looking at it for the first time, I saw merely a lot of letters, pen-written, and arranged in long rows that ran clear across the sheet.

There were perhaps twenty rows or so, and each row held about thirty letters. They were carefully aligned and evenly spaced, and, without doubt, contained a hidden message.

“I’ve unraveled a lot of cryptograms in my time,” said Wise, “but this isn’t a cryptogram. I mean it isn’t in cipher code, – there’s some other way of getting at it.”

We all studied it. Olive, Zizi, Wise, and I bent our heads over the table where it lay, while Mrs. Vail looked on from a little distance, and babbled about some man she knew once, who could solve secret writings.

Suddenly Zizi jumped up, and running around the table, viewed the paper from the other side.

She cocked her funny little head sidewise, and then wagged it knowingly as she took a few steps further and looked at the paper from another angle. All round the table she went, and finally, with a murmur of apology, took up the paper and held it laterally in front of her eager eyes.

“Whee!” she crowed in an ecstasy of satisfaction; “I’ve got it! You have to have a pattern to read it by.”

“A pattern!” I repeated, blankly.

“Yep! A paper with holes in it, – a key-paper.”

“Oh!” and Wise looked as if a light had burst upon him. “That’s it, Ziz! You’re the wonder-child, after all! Stoo-pid! Stoo-pid!” and he beat his forehead in self-abasement. “And, oh! I say, Brice, what did you tell me once about Swiss cheese?”

“Swiss cheese?”

“Yes; don’t you remember? A carriage-call check – with holes in it.”

“Oh, that thing. Yes; it was on Mr. Gately’s desk, – Hudson, the foxy detective, took it.”

“Can we get it?”

“Of course, by sending for it.”

“I’ll go!” cried Zizi; “where? Headquarters?” and she was already flinging on her coat.

“Let her go,” said Wise, giving the girl a quick, appreciative glance. “She’ll beat any other messenger, and she’ll find it.”

We heard Zizi’s imperative little voice demanding a cab from the telephone, and a bit later heard the street door close behind her.

“You see,” and Wise explained it to us, “Zizi noticed, – and then I did, – these letters. At first glance they seem to be perfectly regular, but noted closely there are some, here and there, that are a microscopic fraction of space nearer or farther away from others. And that shows what kind of a cipher it is. We may be mistaken about the carriage check, but I truly believe when we get it we can read the message this paper carries. We certainly can’t without it.”

This was so true that we laid the paper aside until the return of our winged Mercury.

She came soon, and waved triumphantly the perforated card she had gone in quest of.

“Here you are!” she cried; “let me try it as a reward for getting it.”

“All right, go to it,” said Wise, and flinging off her cape, Zizi bent over the puzzle.

“It’s it! It’s it!” she cried, exultantly. “See, oh, Wise One!”

The detective took the paper and the card.

“You see,” he said, generously sharing the first sight of the solution with us, “this card has seven holes, at irregular distances. By placing it in the right position on this solid bank of letters, certain ones show through the holes, and these, – I hope, – will spell the message.”

And it did. After re-adjusting the key card several times, Wise finally got it right, and the letters that could be seen through the holes in this card, as he moved it along, spelled coherent words and sentences. Of course, the other letters were not to be used.

He read the message aloud, and as we suspected, it was information concerning the shipment of munitions, and told of certain sailing dates.

“Spy work of the cleverest type,” Wise exclaimed; “you see, ‘The Link’ got her information from stolen telegrams, and recorded it in this way, so it would be unintelligible to anyone not having this card, – or a duplicate of it.”

I scrutinized with interest the letters as they showed clearly through the little round holes.

“The information is of no particular value now,” Wise said; “it refers to yesterday as the sailing date. The point is, that this card, – this key card, was found on – ”

He paused: a glance at Olive’s agonized face stopped the words he would have uttered. But we all knew. That card, found on Amos Gately’s desk, or in his desk drawer, proved that he was implicated in the interception of these messages, that he was guilty of treason to his country!

Wise tried to help matters by saying, hastily, “Perhaps it was a plant! Perhaps this card was put where it was found by some sly scoundrel for the purpose of misleading – ”

“Don’t!” said Olive, faintly; “you are kind, Mr. Wise, but you are saying that merely to give me a ray of comfort and hope. You know better. You believe, – and I fear I must believe, – my guardian was involved in some wrong, some grave wrong – and – ”

She broke down utterly and sobbed in Zizi’s arms which were opened to receive her.

Feeling that our further stay was an intrusion, Rivers and I took leave, and Wise came along with us. We three went down to my rooms, and continued our confab without the embarrassment of Olive’s presence.

“It’s clearing itself up pretty quickly in some respects,” Wise said as he settled himself with a cigar, and passed the box to Rivers. “I’m not so surprised as some at Gately’s perfidy. It seems the Government has been onto him for some time, – at least, they suspected him, and were secretly investigating his private affairs. That Sadie person – ”

“By the way, Wise,” I interrupted him, “you sized her up perfectly! Did you ever hear about that, Rivers? Mr. Wise saw only the girl’s hatpin, and from it he drew an exact portrait of ‘The Link’ herself. How did you do it, Wise? Tell us the details.”

“Like all those deductions it was simpler than it sounded,” the detective said, smiling. “You see, Mr. Rivers, the head of the pin was a big good-looking scarab. I don’t know yet whether it was a real one, but if not it was a first-class imitation. This argued a person of education and taste. The average young woman doesn’t lean toward scarabs. Then, there was a short bit of a human hair caught in the setting. This was black, rather coarse, and strong, denoting a healthy, buxom brunette. Hair is a clear indication of physical appearance, as a rule. That’s how I know you aren’t Amory Manning,” he broke off suddenly and looked at Case Rivers. “I’ve had his description from Miss Raynor and from Brice, here, and they agree that Manning had dark, heavy hair, rather – footballish type. Yours is light, fine, and a little scant. And you have all the characteristics that belong to it. Oh, yes, I admit I’ve been trying to fasten Manning’s identity on you, but without success.”

“Don’t apologize,” laughed Rivers, “I’ve been trying to connect up with the missing Manning myself, but I can’t work it. So, I’m out for the reward for finding that elusive individual. But I fear he’s gone beyond recall.”

“By the way,” Wise put in, “I’ve found out who offers the reward. And, if you please, it’s none other than the United States Government!”

“Why?” Rivers asked, interestedly.

“Well, it seems Manning is, – or was, – a Secret Service man and he was set on the trail of Amos Gately. He worked secretly, of course, and – ”

“And he was kidnaped by Gately’s friends!” I cried; “by some of Rodman’s underlings, and put out of the way! I don’t believe Manning is alive!”

“Go on about the hatpin, Mr. Wise, won’t you?” urged Rivers. “I think I’m going to grow up to be a detective and I’m taking notes.”

“Well,” said Wise, good-humoredly, “as I remember it, I mentioned the lady’s good teeth. This, because the prints on the rather soft gold of the pin were straight and even.”

“You said she was proud of them,” I put in.

“A glittering generality,” and Wise laughed. “Aren’t all girls proud of good teeth? Also, I assumed she had rather flashy tastes, for the scarab, large, and of a bright greenish-blue color, was not a quiet affair. A strong perfume clung to it, which also indicated a certain lack of refinement.”

“And you said untidy habits,” I reminded him.

“Because the pin was bent to a real crookedness. Also, it had been broken and mended. The break proving probable carelessness, and the mending seemed to me to show that she was sentimentally fond of it, for it was skilfully mended and the cost of that would have bought a new one, I should judge. I assumed her to be somewhat intellectual to care so much for a scarab, and I deduced her fairly well off to own and to care for the rather valuable trinket. None of these deductions amounted to much by itself, but the combination helped us to find a way to look for the owner. Of course, the cigarette stubs and the powder-paper helped, too. In fact, Miss Kent left pretty strong evidences of her call on Mr. Gately. But, – she didn’t kill him. Now, who did? We are learning lots of things, but not one shred of evidence have we yet found against any individual as the actual murderer.”

“No,” I agreed. “You see, the shadow of the head that I saw on the glass door couldn’t have been Rodman’s.”

“And so it may have been anybody’s. I mean, it shows that heads look pretty much alike, when merely shadowed on a thick, waved glass.”

“Yes,” I mused, “it may have been anybody’s. But whose? It seems as if we ought to have a suspect by this time.”

“I’ll get you a suspect,” spoke up Case Rivers. “I’m going into this thing for all I’m worth. The way lies through the Rodman crowd. ‘The Link’ sold her information to Rodman and he took it to Gately, but of late, ‘The Link’ became more bold and went straight to Gately herself. Now, there must be others concerned, and an interview with Miss Kent would give us an inkling of who they are. She’s lost some of her bravado, by this time, I’ve no doubt, and I’m going to chase her up. Then, too, I want to go to Mr. Gately’s office. I’ve never been there yet! Don’t think, Wise, that I’m butting in on your game, but sometimes two heads are better than one, if one is a nameless wanderer on the face of the earth.”

“All right, Rivers,” and Wise nodded genially, “go in and win. We’re together on this matter. And when it’s over, I’m going to take up your case, and see just how, when, and where you fell through the earth.”

“I wish you would,” and Rivers looked earnestly at the detective, “for I see that trip every night in my dreams. I see myself falling through – oh, I won’t bore you with that same old story!”

“It doesn’t bore me, but just now we’ll put all our energies on the present puzzle. We must get Gately’s murderer, and then we must get Amory Manning.”

“Zizi says – ” I began.

“I know she does,” returned Wise, looking thoughtful. “Zizi says Manning is the murderer. But the kid has no reason to say it but a hunch. She’s a witch though for hunches, and I keep her idea in mind.”

“No,” and Rivers spoke positively, “it doesn’t seem to me that Manning is the murderer. If he was in the Secret Service, he may be purposely in hiding now, for some reason entirely unconnected with Amos Gately’s murder.”

“Very likely,” assented Wise. “Only, as I say, I often remember Zizi’s notions because they so often pan out correct.”

“She’s a marvel, that child,” said Rivers; “where’d you get her?”

“She’s my model. In civilian life, I’m by way of being an artist, you know. I sketch her over and over, but never have I successfully caught her smile. She’s a witch child, a sprite.”

“Yes; she seems gypsy born. But clever! And of a charm.”

“All that,” agreed Wise. “And a good little thing. Devoted to me, like a faithful dog, and yet, absolutely impersonal. Oh, I couldn’t get along at all without Ziz.”

And almost as he spoke the door opened and Zizi came gliding in. Her mode of entering a room was one of her individual characteristics. She slid in softly and unobtrusively, yet one was at once aware of her. It seemed to electrify the atmosphere, and the place was brighter and more vital in feeling. She moved across the room as quietly as a shadow, she said no word, yet her whole presence spoke.

“Hello, Ziz,” and Wise smiled at her. “Watcha want?”

“Mr. Rivers,” she replied, flashing her black eyes at him. “Miss Olive sent me. And she wants the other crystal.”

“A new mystery?” and Wise laughed. “I can’t see through the other crystal! Has it to do with a pair of glasses?”

“No,” and Rivers took out a pocket-book, from which he extracted some flimsy paper. These proved to be tracings of snow crystals similar to those I had seen him drawing while he was still in the hospital.

“How lovely!” Zizi exclaimed, as she took the traced patterns. “You see,” and she showed them to Wise, “Miss Olive is making lace work, – and Mr. Rivers makes her these patterns. Aren’t they exquisite?”

They were. They were forms of snow crystals, than which there is nothing more beautiful, and Rivers had adapted and combined them into a delicate lace-like pattern, which Olive was to copy with linen threads, or whatever women use to make lace out of.

“I was going to take them round,” Rivers said; “I hope the delay hasn’t bothered Miss Raynor.”

“Oh, no,” Zizi assured him, “but she is impatient to see this new design and couldn’t wait. So I offered to run down for it. I knew you were here.”

“But I’m just going up to Miss Raynor’s,” Rivers spoke as if disappointed, “and the patterns are my only excuse for a call! So, if you please, Miss Zizi, I’ll take them to the impatient lady, and I’ll go at once.”

“I think she’s gone out, Mr. Rivers, she was about to go as I left. If you telephone you’ll likely catch her.”

Quite unembarrassed at our knowing smiles, Rivers took up my desk-telephone and called Olive’s number. While waiting for the response he picked up a pencil from my pen-tray, and idly drew a snow crystal on the big desk-blotter.

I watched him, for his skill fascinated me. He drew the dainty six-sided figure with the accuracy of a designer. The tiny fronds, all six alike, made a lovely hexagonal form as it grew beneath his fingers.

He was apparently unconscious of what he was doing, and drew without thinking, for he spoke to us several times while waiting for the desired connection.

At last Olive answered him, and he dropped the pencil and talked to her. In a wheedlesome mood, he persuaded her to defer her proposed errand until he could join her and he would accompany her. The kindly familiarity with which he carried on the conversation and the jaunty assurance he showed that she would accede to his request proved to us, listeners perforce, that there was good comradeship between them.

Rivers hung up the receiver, and turned to me with a boyish smile. “I’m going now,” he said, “Miss Raynor is waiting for me. I’ll see you again, tonight, Brice.” And with a general nod of farewell he went off.

Zizi sat staring at my desk.

The strange child was thinking of something, – more, she had made a discovery, or had sensed some new information.

She leaned over the desk, her outstretched hands resting on the big blotter and her black eyes wide with an expression of surprised fear.

“Look!” she cried; “look!”

But her slender finger pointed only to the snow crystal that Rivers had drawn. It was a graceful figure, not quite finished, but a delicate tracery of one of the myriad forms that snow crystals show. How often I had looked at the lovely things as they rested for a moment on my dark coat sleeve when I was out in a snowstorm. And after seeing Rivers draw them so skilfully, several times, they had taken on a new interest to me. But what had so moved Zizi I could not imagine. It was as if the little drawing were fraught with some dreadful significance of which I knew nothing.

Nor was Pennington Wise any more aware than I of the girl’s meaning.

He smiled quizzically, and said, “Well, Zizi, girl, what’s hypnotizing you? That drawing of Rivers’?”

“Yes,” and Zizi turned her big black eyes from my face to Wise’s, and gave a queer little sigh.

“Out with it, girlie,” urged Wise. “Tell your old Penny Wise what’s the matter.”

“Will you do what I want?” she asked, her voice tense and thrilled with strong feeling.

“Yes; to the limit.”

“Then look at that thing! That snow crystal!”

“Yes, I’ve looked,” and after a moment’s close scrutiny Wise turned his eyes again to the eerie face, so vividly emotional, so white with that unnamed fear.

“You look, too, Mr. Brice,” and I did.

“Note the design,” Zizi went on, “see just how the fronds are marked. Isn’t it funny how people always draw or scribble while they’re waiting to get a telephone call?”

“Oh, come now, Ziz,” and Penny Wise patted her arm, “you’re putting up a game on us. We know Rivers draws these things beautifully. Why act as if you never knew it before?”

“Come with me,” and Zizi rose and began to put her long black cloak round her, shivering with excitement as she did so. “You come, too, Mr. Brice.”

We obeyed the strange child, for I remembered how Pennington Wise respected what he called her “hunches,” and before going downstairs she directed that I call a taxicab.

In the cab she said nothing, having already bade us go to Amos Gately’s office, and arrange to get into the rooms.

And then, when we were there, when I had obtained the keys from the bank people and had entered the dim, quiet rooms, Zizi went straight to the middle room, straight to Amos Gately’s desk, and lifting the telephone from where it stood on the big desk-blotter, she disclosed the exact counterpart of the snow crystal we had seen drawn at my desk by Case Rivers!

CHAPTER XVI

The Snowflake

I looked at the design with interest, but without at first grasping its true significance.

Pennington Wise looked at it aghast. “Where did it come from?” he exclaimed.

“It’s always been there,” said Zizi. “I mean, I saw it there one day when I was in this room with Mr. Hudson, I – I – ”

“Didn’t know you’d ever been here, Ziz,” and Wise smiled at the earnest little face.

“Yep, I was; and I happened to move the telephone, and under it was that drawing. I didn’t think anything about it, as evidence, but I looked at it ’cause it was so pretty. And I put the telephone back over it again.”

“But I searched this room,” and Wise looked mystified.

“You probably didn’t lift the telephone, then,” Zizi returned, shaking her elfin head, while a deep sorrow showed in her black eyes.

“I don’t believe I did,” Wise mused, thinking back. “I did pick up most of the desk fittings to examine them but I suppose I didn’t take hold of the telephone at all.”

“’Course not!” Zizi was always ready to defend Wise’s actions. “How could you know there was a picture under it? But, oh, Penny, what does it mean?”

“Wait, – let’s get at it carefully. On the face of it, it would seem as if Case Rivers must have drawn this figure of a snow crystal. Everybody has some peculiar habit, and especially, lots of people have a habit of drawing some particular thing when waiting at a telephone.

“I’ve asked half a dozen men of late, and every one says he scribbles words or draws some crude combination of lines. But each one says he always does the same thing, whatever it may be. Now, I imagine, very few men draw snow crystals, – and fewer still, draw them with this degree of perfection. Again, granting they did, would any other individual draw this identical design, with this accuracy of drawing, that Case Rivers drew on the desk-blotter at your house, Brice?”

“I should say it would be impossible that anyone else could have done it,” I replied, honestly, though I began to see where our investigation was leading us.

“It is impossible,” declared Wise. “Two men might draw snow crystals, but they would not both choose this particular one.”

“It’s exactly the same,” Zizi murmured, “for I brought Mr. Brice’s with me: here it is.”

Calmly the girl took from her little hand-bag a piece torn from my desk-blotter. It held the drawing done by Rivers while he was waiting for his telephone call and it was the precise duplicate of the figure drawn on the blotter of Amos Gately’s mahogany desk.

“The same pencil – or, rather, the same hand drew those two,” Wise said, positively, and I could not contradict this.

Snow crystals are said by scientists to show hundreds of different shapes, and almost any illustrated dictionary or text-book of natural science shows several specimens. This one we were looking at was of simple but beautiful design and I felt sure Rivers had copied it from some picture as one can rarely keep a real snowflake long enough to copy its form.

Anyway it was stretching the law of coincidence a little too far to believe that two men would idly draw the same form on a desk-blotter while telephoning.

Of course, this sketch on Amos Gately’s desk need not have been made while the artist’s other hand held the telephone receiver, but its juxtaposition to the instrument indicated that it was.

“Of course, Mr. Rivers drew this,” Zizi declared, her little head bobbing as she turned her black eyes from one of us to the other.

She wore a small turban made entirely of red feathers, – soft breast feathers of some tropical bird, I suppose. The hat set jauntily on her sleek black hair, and the motions of her head were so quick and birdlike, that she gave me a fleeting remembrance of the human birds I saw in the play of Chantecler.