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THE MAN WHO FELL THROUGH THE EARTH
by
CAROLYN WELLS
Author of "The Room With the Tassels," "Faulkner's Folly," etc.
New York
George H. Doran Company
Copyright, 1919,
By George H. Doran Company
Printed in the United States of America
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
TO
BLANCHE CLARK
APOSTLE OF THE
FINE ART
OF
FRIENDSHIP
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Moving Shadow-Shapes 11
II. Jenny's Version 27
III. The Elevator 42
IV. The Black Squall 58
V. Olive Raynor 74
VI. Clews 90
VII. Hudson's Errand 107
VIII. The Man Who Fell Through The Earth 122
IX. The Man in Boston 138
X. Penny Wise and Zizi 153
XI. Case Rivers 169
XII. The Link 185
XIII. Olive's Adventure 203
XIV. Where is Manning? 216
XV. Wise's Pipe Dream 232
XVI. The Snowflake 248
XVII. Zizi's Hunch 264
XVIII. Clear as Crystal 280
THE MAN WHO FELL
THROUGH THE
EARTH
CHAPTER I
Moving Shadow-Shapes
One of the occasions when I experienced "that grand and glorious feeling"
was when my law business had achieved proportions that justified my
removal from my old office to new and more commodious quarters. I
selected a somewhat pretentious building on Madison Avenue between
Thirtieth and Fortieth Streets, and it was a red-letter day for me when I
moved into my pleasant rooms on its top floor.
The Puritan Trust Company occupied all of the ground floor and there were
also some of the private offices of that institution on the top floor, as
well as a few offices to be let.
My rooms were well located and delightfully light, and I furnished them
with care, selecting chairs and desks of a dignified type, and rugs of
appropriately quiet coloring. I also selected my stenographer with care,
and Norah MacCormack was a red-haired piece of perfection. If she had a
weakness, it was for reading detective stories, but I condoned that, for
in my hammocky moods I, too, dipped into the tangled-web school of
fiction.
And, without undue conceit, I felt that I could give most specimens of
the genus Sherlock cards and spades and beat them at their own game of
deduction. I practiced it on Norah sometimes. She would bring me a veil
or glove of some friend of hers, and I would try to deduce the friend's
traits of character. My successes and failures were about fifty-fifty,
but Norah thought I improved with practice, and, anyway, it exercised my
intelligence.
I had failed to pass examination for the army, because of a defect,
negligible, it seemed to me, in my eyesight. I was deeply disappointed,
but as the law of compensation is usually in force, I unexpectedly proved
to be of some use to my Government after all.
Across the hall from me was the private office of Amos Gately, the
President of the Puritan Trust Company, and a man of city-wide
reputation. I didn't know the great financier personally, but everyone
knew of him, and his name was a synonym for all that is sound, honorable,
and philanthropic in the money mart. He was of that frequently seen type,
with the silver gray hair that so becomingly accompanies deep-set dark
eyes.
And yet, I had never seen Mr. Gately himself. My knowledge of him was
gained from his frequent portraiture in the papers or in an occasional
magazine. And I had gathered, in a vague way, that he was a connoisseur
of the fine arts, and that his offices, as well as his home, were
palatial in their appointments.
I may as well admit, therefore, that going in and out of my own rooms I
often looked toward his door, in hopes that I might get a glimpse, at
least, of the treasures within. But so far I had not done so.
To be sure, I had only occupied my own suite about a week and then again
Mr. Gately was not always in his private offices during business hours.
Doubtless, much of the time he was down in the banking rooms.
There was a yellow-haired stenographer, who wore her hair in ear-muffs,
and who was, I should say, addicted to the vanity-case. This young
person, Norah had informed me, was Jenny Boyd.
And that sums up the whole of my intimate knowledge of Amos Gately--until
the day of the black snow squall!
I daresay my prehistoric ancestors were sun-worshipers. At any rate, I am
perfectly happy when the sun shines, and utterly miserable on a gloomy
day. Of course, after sunset, I don't care, but days when artificial
light must be used, I get fidgety and am positively unable to concentrate
on any important line of thought.
And so, when Norah snapped on her green-shaded desk light in
mid-afternoon, I impulsively jumped up to go home. I could stand
electrically lighted rooms better in my diggings than in the
work-compelling atmosphere of my office.
"Finish that bit of work," I told my competent assistant, "and then go
home yourself. I'm going now."
"But it's only three o'clock, Mr. Brice," and Norah's gray eyes looked up
from the clicking keys.
"I know it, but a snow storm is brewing,--and Lord knows there's snow
enough in town now!"
"There is so! I'm thinking they won't get the black mountains out of the
side streets before Fourth of July,--and the poor White Wings working
themselves to death!"
"Statistics haven't yet proved that cause of death prevalent among
snow-shovelers," I returned, "but I'm pretty sure there's more chance for
it coming to them!"
I hate snow. For the ocular defect that kept me out of the army is
corrected by not altogether unbecoming glasses, but when these are
moistened or misted by falling snow, I am greatly incommoded. So I
determined to reach home, if possible, before the squall which was so
indubitably imminent.
I snugged into my overcoat, and jammed my hat well down on my head, for
the wind was already blowing a gale.
"Get away soon, Norah," I said, as I opened the door into the hall, "and
if it proves a blizzard you needn't show up tomorrow."
"Oh, I'll be here, Mr. Brice," she returned, in her cheery way, and
resumed her clicking.
The offices of Mr. Gately, opposite mine, had three doors to the hall,
meaning, I assumed, three rooms in his suite.
My own door was exactly opposite the middle one of the three. On that was
the number two. To its left was number one, and to its right, number
three.
Each of these three doors had an upper panel of thick, clouded glass,
and, as the hall was not yet lighted and Mr. Gately's rooms were, I could
see quite plainly the shadows of two heads on the middle door,--the door
numbered two.
Perhaps I am unduly curious, perhaps it was merely a natural interest,
but I stood still a moment, outside my own door, and watched the two
shadowed heads.
The rippled clouding of the glass made their outlines somewhat vague, but
I could distinguish the fine, thick mane of Amos Gately, as I had so
often seen it pictured. The other was merely a human shadow with no
striking characteristics.
It was evident their interview was not amicable. I heard a loud,
explosive "No!" from one or other of them, and then both figures rose and
there was a hand-to-hand struggle. Their voices indicated a desperate
quarrel, though no words were distinguishable.
And then, as I looked, the shadows blurred into one
another,--swayed,--separated, and then a pistol shot rang out, followed
immediately by a woman's shrill scream.
Impulsively I sprang across the hall, and turned the knob of door number
two,--the one opposite my own door, and the one through which I had seen
the shadowed actions.
But the door would not open.
I hesitated only an instant and then hurried to the door next on the
right, number three.
This, too, was fastened on the inside, so I ran back to the only other
door, number one,--to the left of the middle door.
This door opened at my touch, and I found myself in the first of Amos
Gately's magnificent rooms.
Beyond one quick, admiring glance, I paid no attention to the beautiful
appointments, and I opened the communicating door into the next or middle
room.
This, like the first, contained no human being, but it was filled with
the smoke and the odor of a recently fired pistol.
I looked around, aghast. This was the room where the altercation had
taken place, where two men had grappled, where a pistol had been fired,
and moreover, where a woman had screamed. Where were these people?
In the next room, of course, I reasoned.
With eager curiosity, I went on into the third room. It was empty.
And that was all the rooms of the suite.
Where were the people I had seen and heard? That is, I had seen their
shadows on the glass door, and human shadows cannot appear without people
to cast them. Where were the men who had fought? Where was the woman who
had screamed? And who were they?
Dazed, I went back through the rooms. Their several uses were clear
enough. Number one was the entrance office. There was an attendant's
desk, a typewriter, reception chairs, and all the effects of the first
stage of an interview with the great man.
The second office, beyond a doubt, was Mr. Gately's sanctum. A stunning
mahogany table-desk was in the middle of the floor, and a large,
unusually fine swivel-chair stood behind it. On the desk, things were
somewhat disordered. The telephone was upset, the papers pushed into an
untidy heap, a pen-tray overturned, and a chair opposite the big desk
chair lay over on its side, as if Mr. Gately's visitor had risen
hurriedly. The last room, number three, was, clearly, the very holy of
holies. Surely, only the most important or most beloved guests were
received in here. It was furnished as richly as a royal salon, yet all in
most perfect taste and quiet harmony. The general coloring of draperies
and upholstery was soft blue, and splendid pictures hung on the wall.
Also, there was a huge war map of Europe, and indicative pins stuck in it
proved Mr. Gately's intense interest in the progress of events over
there.
But though tempted to feast my eyes on the art treasures all about, I
eagerly pursued my quest for the vanished human beings I sought.
There was no one in any of these three rooms, and I could see no exit,
save into the hall from which I had entered. I looked into three or four
cupboards, but they were full of books and papers, and no sign of a
hidden human being, alive or dead, could I find.
Perhaps the strangeness of it all blunted my efficiency. I had always
flattered myself that I was at my best in an emergency, but all previous
emergencies in which I had found myself were trivial and unimportant
compared with this.
I felt as if I had been at a moving picture show. I had seen, as on the
screen, a man shot, perhaps killed, and now all the actors had vanished
as completely as they do when the movie is over.
Then, for I am not entirely devoid of conscience, it occurred to me that
I had a duty,--that it was incumbent upon me to report to somebody. I
thought of the police, but was it right to call them when I had so vague
a report to make? What could I tell them? That I had seen shadows
fighting? Heard a woman scream? Smelled smoke? Heard the report of a
pistol? A whimsical thought came that the report of the pistol was the
only definite report I could swear to!
Yet the whole scene was definite enough to me.
I had seen two men fighting,--shadows, to be sure, but shadows of real
men. I had heard their voices raised in dissension of some sort, I had
seen a scuffle and had heard a shot, of which I had afterward smelled the
smoke, and,--most incriminating of all,--I had heard a woman's scream. A
scream, too, of terror, as for her life!
And then, I had immediately entered these rooms, and I had found them
empty of all human presence, but with the smoke still hanging low, to
prove my observations had been real, and no figment of my imagination.
I believed I had latent detective ability. Well, surely here was a chance
to exercise it!
What more bewildering mystery could be desired than to witness a
shooting, and, breaking in upon the scene, to find no victim, no
criminal, and no weapon!
I hunted for the pistol, but found no more trace of that than of the hand
that had fired it.
My brain felt queer; I said to myself, over and over, "a fight, a shot, a
scream! No victim, no criminal, no weapon!"
I looked out in the hall again. I had already looked out two or three
times, but I had seen no one. However, I didn't suppose the villain and
his victim had gone down by the elevator or by the stairway.
But where were they? And where was the woman who had screamed?
Perhaps it was she who had been shot. Why did I assume that Mr. Gately
was the victim? Could not he have been the criminal?
The thought of Amos Gately in the rôle of murderer was a little too
absurd! Still, the whole situation was absurd.
For me, Tom Brice, to be involved in this baffling mystery was the height
of all that was incredible!
And yet, was I involved? I had only to walk out and go home to be out of
it all. No one had seen me and no one could know I had been there.
And then something sinister overcame me. A kind of cold dread of the
whole affair; an uncanny feeling that I was drawn into a fearful web of
circumstances from which I could not honorably escape, if, indeed, I
could escape at all. The three Gately rooms, though lighted, felt dark
and eerie. I glanced out of a window. The sky was almost black and
scattering snowflakes were falling. I realized, too, that though the
place was lighted, the fixtures were those great alabaster bowls, and, as
they hung from the ceiling, they seemed to give out a ghostly radiance
that emphasized the strange silence.
For, in my increasingly nervous state, the silence was intensified and it
seemed the silence of death,--not the mere quiet of an empty room.
I pulled myself together, for I had not lost all sense of my duty. I
_must_ do something, I told myself, sternly,--but what?
My hand crept toward the telephone that lay, turned over on its side, on
Mr. Gately's desk.
But I drew back quickly, not so much because of a disinclination to touch
the thing that had perhaps figured in a tragedy but because of a dim
instinct of leaving everything untouched as a possible clew.
Clew! The very word helped restore my equilibrium. There had been a crime
of some sort,--at least, there had been a shooting, and I had been an
eye-witness, even if my eyes had seen only shadows.
My rôle, then, was an important one. My duty was to tell what I had seen
and render any assistance I could. But I wouldn't use that telephone. It
must be out of order, anyway, or the operator downstairs would be looking
after it. I would go back to my own office and call up somebody. As I
crossed the hall, I was still debating whether that somebody would better
be the police or the bank people downstairs. The latter, I decided, for
it was their place to look after their president, not mine.
I found Norah putting on her hat. The sight of her shrewd gray eyes and
intelligent face caused an outburst of confidence, and I told her the
whole story as fast as I could rattle it out.
"Oh, Mr. Brice," she exclaimed, her eyes wide with excitement, "let me go
over there! May I?"
"Wait a minute, Norah: I think I ought to speak to the bank people. I
think I'll telephone down and ask if Mr. Gately is down there. You know
it may not have been Mr. Gately at all, whose shadow I saw----"
"Ooh, yes, it was! You couldn't mistake his head, and, too, who else
would be in there? Please, Mr. Brice, wait just a minute before you
telephone,--let me take one look round,--you don't want to make a--to
look foolish, you know."
She had so nearly warned me against making a fool of myself, that I took
the hint, and I followed her across the hall.
She went in quickly at the door of room number one. One glance around it
and she said, "This is the first office, you see: callers come here, the
secretary or stenographer takes their names and all that, and shows them
into Mr. Gately's office."
As Norah spoke she went on to the second room. Oblivious to its grandeur
and luxury, she gave swift, darting glances here and there and said
positively: "Of course, it was Mr. Gately who was shot, and by a woman
too!"
"The woman who screamed?"
"No: more likely not. I expect the woman who screamed was his
stenographer. I know her,--at least, I've seen her. A little doll-faced
jig, who belongs about third from the end, in the chorus! Be sure she'd
scream at the pistol shot, but the lady who fired the shot wouldn't."
"But I saw the scrimmage and it was a man who shot."
"Are you sure? That thick, clouded glass blurs a shadow beyond
recognition."
"What makes you think it was a woman, then?"
"This," and Norah pointed to a hatpin that lay on the big desk.
It was a fine-looking pin, with a big head, but when I was about to pick
it up Norah dissuaded me.
"Don't touch it," she warned; "you know, Mr. Brice, we've really no right
here and we simply must not touch anything."
"But, Norah," I began, my common sense and good judgment having returned
to me with the advent of human companionship, "I don't want to do
anything wrong. If we've no right here, for Heaven's sake, let's get
out!"
"Yes, in a minute, but let me think what you ought to do. And, oh, do let
me take a minute to look round!"
"No, girl; this is no time to satisfy your curiosity or, to enjoy a sight
of these----"
"Oh, I don't mean that! But I want to see if there isn't some clew or
some bit of evidence to the whole thing. It is too weird! too impossible
that three people should have disappeared into nothingness! Where are
they?"
Norah looked in the same closets I had explored; she drew aside window
draperies and portières, she hastily glanced under desks and tables, not
so much, I felt sure, in expectation of finding anyone, as with a general
idea of searching the place thoroughly.
She scrutinized the desk fittings of the stenographer.
"Everything of the best," she commented, "but very little real work done
up here. I fancy these offices of Mr. Gately's are more for private
conferences and personal appointments than any real business matters."
"Which would account for the lady's hatpin," I observed.
"Yes; but how did they get out? You looked out in the hall, at once, you
say?"
"Yes; I came quickly through these three rooms, and then looked out into
the hall at once, and there was no elevator in sight nor could I see
anyone on the stairs."
"Well, there's not much to be seen here. I suppose you'd better call up
the bank people. Though if they thought there was anything queer they'd
be up here by this time."
I left Norah in Mr. Gately's rooms while I went back to my own office and
called up the Puritan Trust Company.
A polite voice assured me that they knew nothing of Mr. Gately's
whereabouts at that moment, but if I would leave a message he would
ultimately receive it.
So, then, I told them, in part, what had happened, or, rather, what I
believed had happened, and still a little unconcerned, the polite man
agreed to send somebody up.
"Stuffy people!" I said to Norah, as I returned to the room she was in.
"They seemed to think me officious."
"I feared they would, Mr. Brice, but you had to do it. There's no doubt
Mr. Gately left this room in mad haste. See, here's his personal
checkbook on his desk, and he drew a check today."
"Nothing remarkable in his drawing a check," I observed, "but decidedly
peculiar to leave his checkbook around so carelessly. As you say, Norah,
he left in a hurry."
"But how did he leave?"
"That's the mystery; and I, for one, give it up. I'm quite willing to
wait until some greater brain than mine works out the problem."
"But it's incomprehensible," Norah went on; "where's Jenny?"
"For that matter," I countered, "where's Mr. Gately? Where's his angry
visitor, male or female? and, finally, where's the pistol that made the
sound and smoke of which I had positive evidence?"
"We may find that," suggested Norah, hopefully.
But careful search failed to discover any firearms, as it had failed to
reveal the actors of the drama.
Nor did the representative from the bank come up at once. This seemed
queer, I thought, and with a sudden impulse to find out something, I
declared I was going down to the bank myself.
"Go on," said Norah, "I'll stay here, for I must know what they find out
when they do come."
I went out into the hall and pushed the "Down" button of the elevator.
"Be careful," Norah warned me, as the car was heard ascending, "say very
little, Mr. Brice, except to the proper authorities. This may be a
terrible thing, and you mustn't get mixed up in it until you know more
about it. You were not only the first to discover the disappearance,--but
you and I are apparently the only ones in this corridor who know of it
yet, we may be----"
"Suspected of the abduction of Amos Gately! Hardly! Don't let your
detective instinct run away with you Norah!"
And then the elevator door slid open and I got into the car.