The Man Who Fell Through the Earth

“You haven’t a very high opinion of our arms of the law.”

“Oh, they’re all right, – but most detectives can’t see what’s right under their noses!”

“Not omniscient Sherlocks, are they? And you think you could do a lot of smarty-cat deduction?”

Norah didn’t resent my teasing, but her gray eyes were very earnest as she said, “I wish I could try. A woman was in that room yesterday afternoon; someone besides Miss Raynor and the old lady Driggs.”

“How do you know?”

“Take me over there and I’ll show you. They’ll let me in, with you to back me.”

We went across and the officer made no objections to our entrance. In fact, he seemed rather glad of someone to talk to.

“We’re sorta up against it,” he confessed. “Our suspicions are all running in one direction, and we don’t like it.”

“You have a suspect, then?” I asked.

“Hardly that, but we begin to think we know which way to look.”

“Any clews around, to verify your suspicions?”

“Lots of ’em. But take a squint yourself, Mr. Brice. You’re shrewd-witted, and – my old eyes ain’t what they used to was.”

I took this mock humility for what it was worth, – nothing at all, – and I humored the foxy one by a properly flattering disclaimer.

But I availed myself of his permission and tacitly assuming that it included Norah, we began a new scrutiny of the odds and ends on Mr. Gately’s desk, as well as other details about the rooms.

Norah opened the drawer that Mr. Talcott had locked, – the key was now in it.

“Where’s the checkbook?” she asked, casually.

Hudson looked grave. “Mr. Pond’s got that,” he said; “Mr. Pond’s Mr. Gately’s lawyer, and he took all his accounts and such. But that check-book’s a clew. You see the last stub in it shows a check drawn to a woman – ”

“I said it was a woman!” exclaimed Norah.

“Well, maybe, – maybe. Anyhow the check was drawn after the ones made out to Smith and the Driggs woman. So, the payee of that last check was in here later than the other two.”

“Who was she?” was Norah’s not unnatural inquiry.

But Hudson merely looked at her, with a slight smile that she should expect an answer to that question.

“Oh, all right,” she retorted; “I see her hatpin is still here.”

“If that there hatpin is a clew, you’re welcome to it. We don’t think it is. Mr. Gately had frequent lady callers, as any man’s got a right to have, but because they leaves their hatpins here, that don’t make ’em murderers. No, I argue that if a woman shot Mr. Gately she would be cute enough not to leave her hatpin by way of a visitin’ card.”

This raised Hudson’s mentality in my opinion, and I could see it also scored with Norah.

“That’s true,” she generously agreed. “In books, as soon as I come to the dropped handkerchief or broken cuff-link, I know that isn’t the property of the criminal. But, all the same, people do leave clews, – why, Sherlock Holmes says a person can’t enter and leave a room without his presence there being discoverable.”

“Poppycock,” said Hudson, briefly, and resumed his cogitation.

He was sitting at ease in Mr. Gately’s desk-chair, but I could see the man was thinking deeply, and as he had material for thought that he wasn’t willing to share with us, I returned to my own searching.

“Here’s something the lady left!” I exclaimed, as on a silver ash-tray I saw a cigarette stub, whose partly burned gold monogram betokened it had served a woman’s use.

“Hey, let that alone!” warned Hudson. “And don’t be too previous; sometimes men have gilt-lettered cigs, don’t they?”

Without reply, I scrutinized the monogram. But only a bit remained unburnt, and I couldn’t make out the letters.

Norah was digging in the waste basket, and, the scamp! when Hudson’s head was turned, she surreptitiously fished out something which she hid in her hand, and later transferred to her pocket.

“Nothing doing!” scoffed Hudson, as he turned and saw her occupation, “we been all through that, and anything incriminating has been weeded out. They wasn’t much, – some envelopes and letters, but nothing of any account. Oh, well, straws show which way the wind blows, and we’ve got some several straws!”

“Is this one?” and Norah pointed to the carriage check, which still lay on the desk.

“Nope. Me and the Chief, we decided that didn’t mean nothing at all. It’s old, you can see, from its grimy look, so it wasn’t left here yesterday. Those things are always clean and fresh when they’re given out, and that’s sorta soiled with age, you see.”

“Well!” I exclaimed, “why would a carriage check be soiled with age? They’re used the same day they’re given out. Why is it here, anyway?”

Hudson looked interested. “That’s so, Mr. Brice,” he admitted. “I take it that there check was given to Mr. Gately at some hotel, say. Well, he didn’t use it for some reason or other, and brought it home in his pocket. But as you say, why is it here? Why did he keep it? And, what did he do with it to give it that thumbed, used look?”

We all examined the check. A bit of white cardboard, about two by four inches in size, and pierced with seven circular holes in irregular order. Across the top was printed “Don’t fold this card,” and at one end was the number 743 in large red letters. Also, the right-hand upper corner was sliced off.

“Why,” I exclaimed, “here’s a narrow strip of paper pasted across the end, and – look, – it’s almost transparent! I can read through it – ‘Hotel St. Charles!’ That’s where it came from!”

“Hold your horses!” and Hudson smiled condescendingly, “that’s where it didn’t come from! It came from any hotel except the St. Charles. You may not know it, but often a hotel will use electric call-checks of other hotels, with a slip of paper pasted over the name. That’s an item for you to remember. No, Mr. Brice, I can’t attach any importance to that check, but I’m free to confess I don’t see why it’s there. Unless Mr. Gately found it in his pocket after it had been there unnoticed for some time. And yet, it is very much thumbed, isn’t it? That’s queer. Maybe he used it for a bookmark, or something like that.”

“Maybe the lady left it here,” suggested Norah. “The same time she left her hatpin.”

“Now, maybe she did,” and Foxy Jim Hudson smiled benignly at her. “Any ways, you’ve made the thing seem curious, and I guess I’ll keep it for a while.”

He put the card away in his pocketbook, and Norah and I grinned at each other in satisfaction that we had given him a clew to ponder over.

“You know, Mr. Brice,” Hudson remarked, after another period of silent thought, “you missed it, when you didn’t fly in here quicker and catch the murderer redhanded.”

“If I’d known that the first door, Jenny’s door, was the only one I could open, of course I should have gone there first. But I’d never been in here at all, – I’ve only been in the building a week or so, and I did lose valuable time running from one door to another. But I still think it’s queer that I didn’t see anything of the man Jenny describes.”

“One reason is, there wasn’t any such man,” and Hudson seemed to enjoy my blank look.

“What became of the murderer, then?”

“Went down in the car with Mr. Gately. Private elevator. Shot him on the way down – ”

“But man, I heard the shot, – and this room was full of smoke.”

“Shot him twice, then. Say the first time, Mr. Gately wasn’t killed and could get into the elevator. Then murderer jumps in, too, and finishes the job on the way down. It’s a long trip to the ground floor, you know. Then, murderer leaves elevator, slams door shut, and walks off.”

I ruminated on this. It seemed absurd on the face of it, and yet —

“Why, then, did Jenny say she saw a man?” demanded Norah.

“Maybe she thought she did, – you know people think they see what they think they ought to see. Jenny heard a shot, and running in, she expected to see a man with a pistol, – therefore, she thought she did see him. Or, again, the girl is quite capable of making up a yarn out of the solid. For the dramatic effect, you know, and to put her silly little self in the limelight.”

This was not unbelievable. Jenny was most unreliable as a witness. She stumbled and contradicted herself as to the man’s hat and had given conflicting testimony about his overcoat.

“Well, as I say, Mr. Brice, the chance was yours to be on the spot but you missed it. Of course, you are not to blame, – but it’s a pity. Now, s’pose you tell me again, as near as you can rec’lect, about that other shadow, – the one that wasn’t Mr. Gately.”

I tried hard to add to my previously related details, but found it impossible to do so.

“Well, could it have been a woman?”

“At first I should have said no, Mr. Hudson. But on thinking it over, I suppose I may say it could have been but I do not think it was.”

“You know nowadays the women folks wear their hair plastered so close to their heads that their heads wouldn’t shadow up any bigger’n a man’s.”

“That’s so,” cried Norah. “A woman’s head is smaller than a man’s, but her hair makes it appear larger in a shadow. Unless, as Mr. Hudson says, she wore it wrapped round her head, – and didn’t have much, anyway.”

“You go outside, Mr. Brice,” directed Hudson, “and look at the shadows of me and Miss MacCormack, and then come back and tell us what you can notice.”

I did this, and the two heads were shadowed forth on the same door that I had watched the day before. But the brighter daylight made the shadows even more vague than yesterday, and I returned without much information.

“I could tell which was which, of course,” I reported, “but it’s true that if I hadn’t known you people at all, I could have mistaken Norah’s head for a man, and I might have believed, Hudson, that you were a woman. It’s surprising how little individuality was shown in the shadows.”

“Well, of course they were clearer yesterday, as the hall was darker,” mused Hudson. “After all, Mr. Brice, your testimony can’t amount to much unless we can get the actual murderer behind that glass, and some peculiar shape or characteristic makes you recognize the head beyond all doubt.”

“I think I could do that,” I returned; “for though I can’t describe any peculiarity, I’m sure I’d recognize the same head.”

“You are?” and Hudson looked at me keenly. “Well, perhaps we’ll try you out on that.”

They had a definite suspect, then. And they proposed to experiment with my memory. Well, I was ready, whenever they were.

Norah and I went into the third room, Hudson making no objection. At another time we would have been deeply interested in the pictures and the furnishings but now we had eyes and thoughts only for one thing.

We looked behind the war map and saw the elevator door, but could not open it.

“The car’s down,” spoke up Hudson, who was watching us sharply. “I dunno will it ever be used again. Though I suppose these rooms will be let to somebody else, some time. Mr. Gately’s things here will be sent to his house, I expect, but his estate is a big one and will take a deal of settling.”

“Who’s his executor?”

“Mr. Pond, his lawyer. But his financial affairs are all right. Nothing crooked about Amos Gately – financially. You can bank on that!”

“How, then?” I asked, for the tone implied a mental reservation.

“I’m not saying. But they do say every man has a secret side to his life, and why should Mr. Gately be a lone exception?”

“A woman?” asked Norah, always harking back to her basic suspicion.

Foxy Jim Hudson favored her with that blank stare which not infrequently was his answer to an unwelcome question, and which, perhaps, had a share in earning him his sobriquet.

Then he laughed, and said, “You’ve been reading detective stories, miss. And you remember how they always say ‘Churches lay femmy!’ Well, go ahead and church, if you like. But be prepared for a sad and sorrowful result.”

The man was obviously deeply moved, and his big, homely face worked with emotion.

But as he would tell us nothing further, and as Norah and I had finished our rather unproductive search of the rooms, we went back to my office.

Here Norah showed me what she had taken from the waste basket.

“I’ll give it back to him, if you say so,” she offered; “but he could do nothing with it, and maybe I can.”

It was only a tiny scrap of pinkish paper, thin and greatly crumpled. I took it.

“Be careful,” warned Norah; “I don’t suppose it could show finger prints, but anyway, it’s a sort of a kind of a clew.”

“But what is it?” I asked, blankly, as I held the crumpled paper gingerly in thumb and forefinger.

“It’s a powder-paper,” vouchsafed Norah, briefly.

“A what?”

“A powder-paper. Women carry them, – they come in little books. That’s one of the leaves. They’re to rub on your face, and the powder comes off on your nose or cheeks.”

“Is that so? I never saw any before.”

“Lots of girls use them.” Norah’s clear, wholesome complexion refuted any idea of her needing such, and she spoke a bit scornfully.

“Proving once more the presence of what Friend Hudson calls a femmy,” I smiled.

“Yes; but these things have great individuality, Mr. Brice. This is of exceedingly fine quality, it has a distinct, definite fragrance, and is undoubtedly an imported article, – from France, likely.”

“Can they get such things over now?”

“Oh, pshaw, it may have been imported before the war. This quality would keep its odor forever! Anyway, don’t you believe we could trace the woman who used it and left it there? It must have happened yesterday, for the basket is, of course, emptied every day in that office.”

“Good girl, Norah!” and I nodded approval. “You are truly a She Sherlock! A bit intimate, isn’t it, for a woman to powder her nose in a man’s office?”

“Not at all, Mr. Old Fogey! Why, you can see the girls doing that everywhere, nowadays. In the street-cars, in the theater, – anywhere.”

“All right. How do you propose to proceed?”

“I think I’ll go to the smartest Fifth Avenue perfume shops and try to get a line on the maker of this paper.”

My door opened then, and the Chief of Police stood in the doorway.

“Will you come over, across the hall, Mr. Brice?” he said.

“May I come?” piped up Norah, and without waiting for the answer, which, by the way, never came, she followed us.

“We have learned a great deal,” began the Chief, as I waited, inquiringly. “And, now think carefully, Mr. Brice, I want you to tell me if the head you saw shadowed on the door, could by any possibility have been a woman’s head?”

“I think it could have been, Chief; we’ve been talking that over, and I’m prepared to say that it could have been, – but I don’t think it was.”

“And the shoulders? Though broad, like a man’s, might not a woman’s figure, say, wrapped in furs, give a similar effect?”

An icy chill went through me, but I answered, “It might; the outlines were very indistinct.”

“We are carefully investigating the movements of Miss Raynor,” he went on, steadily, “and we find she told a deliberate untruth about where she spent yesterday afternoon. She said she was at the house of a friend on Park Avenue. We learned the name of the young lady and she says Miss Raynor was not there at all yesterday. Also, we find that Miss Raynor was in this office after the calls of the old people we know about, and not before them, as Miss Raynor herself testified.”

“But – ” I began.

“Wait a moment, please. This is positively proved by the fact that a check drawn to Miss Raynor by Mr. Gately follows immediately after the two checks drawn to Mr. Smith and Mrs. Driggs.”

“Proving?” I gasped.

“That Miss Raynor is the last one known to be in this room before the shooting occurred.”

“Oh,” cried Norah, “for shame! To suspect that lovely girl! Why, she wouldn’t harm a fly!”

“Do you know her?”

“No, sir; but – ”

“It is an oft proven fact that the mildest, gentlest woman, if sufficiently provoked to it, or if given a sudden opportunity, will in a moment of passion do what no one would dream she could do! Miss Raynor was very angry with her uncle, – Jenny admitted that, after much delay. Mr. Gately had a revolver, usually in his desk drawer, but not there now. And,” – an impressive pause preceded the next argument, “Mr. Amory Manning is not to be found.”

“What do you deduce from that?” I asked, amazedly.

“That he has purposely disappeared, lest he be brought as a witness against Miss Raynor. He could best help her cause, by being out of town and impossible to locate. So, he went off, and she pretended she did not know it. Of course, she did, – they connived at it – ”

“Stop!” I cried, “you are romancing. You are assuming conditions that are untrue!”

“I wish it were so,” and the Chief exhibited a very human aspect for the moment; “but I have no choice in the matter. I am driven by an inexorable army of facts that cannot be beaten back. What else can you think of that would account for Mr. Manning’s sudden disappearance? Attacked? Nonsense! Not in the storm of last evening. Abducted? Why? He is an inoffensive citizen, not a millionaire or man of influence. You said you saw him last night, Mr. Brice. Where, exactly, was that?”

I told of my trip down in the Third Avenue car, and of my getting off at Twenty-second Street, meaning to speak to Mr. Manning. Then I told of his sudden, almost mysterious disappearance.

“Not mysterious at all,” said the Chief. “He gave you the slip purposely. He went away at once, and has hidden himself carefully. But we will find him. It’s not easy for a man to hide from the police in this day and generation!”

“But, Miss Raynor!” I said, still incredulous. “Why? What motive?”

“Because her uncle wouldn’t let her marry Amory Manning. When she said she went to her friend, Miss Clark’s house, she really went to the home of a Mrs. Russell, the sister of Manning. She was to meet Manning there. I have all this straight from Mrs. Russell.”

“And you think it was Miss Raynor’s shadow I saw on the door!”

“You said it might have been a woman.”

“Very well, then look for another woman! It was never Miss Raynor!”

“Your indignation, Mr. Brice, is both natural and admirable, but it is based on your disinclination to think ill of Miss Raynor. The police are not allowed the luxury of such sentiments.”

“But – but – how did she – how did Miss Raynor get out of the room?”

“We do not entirely credit Jenny’s story of the man with a revolver running downstairs. And we do think that the person who did the shooting may have gone down in the private elevator with the victim. It would be easy to gain the street unnoticed, and it presupposes someone acquainted with the working of the automatic elevator.”

“But Miss Raynor said she had never seen it,” I cried, triumphantly. “She said she had only heard her uncle speak of it!”

“I know she said so,” returned the Chief.