The Link
It was the next afternoon that Penny Wise came into my office. It was his
first visit there, and I gave him a hearty welcome. Norah looked so
eagerly expectant that I introduced him to her, for I couldn't bear to
disappoint the girl by ignoring her.
Wise was delightfully cordial toward her, and indeed Norah's winsome
personality always made people friendly.
I had tried to get in touch with the detective the day before but he was
out on various errands, and I missed him here and there, nor could we get
together until he found this leisure.
I told him all I had learned from the police, but part of it was already
known to him. He was greatly interested in the news which he had not
heard before, that there was somebody implicated, who was called "The
Link."
"That's the one we want!" he cried; "I suspected some such person."
"Man or woman?" asked Norah, briefly, and Wise glanced at her.
"Which do you think?"
"Woman," she replied, and Penny Wise nodded his head. "Yes, I've no doubt
'The Link' is a woman, and a mighty important factor in the case."
"But I don't understand," I put in. "What does she link?"
"Whom,--not what," said Wise, and he looked very serious. "Of course, you
must realize, Brice, there's a great big motive behind this Gately
murder, and there's also a big reason for Amory Manning's disappearance.
The two are connected,--there's no doubt of that,--but that doesn't argue
Manning the murderer, of course. No, this Link is a woman of parts,--a
woman who is of highest value to the principals in this crime, and who
must be found, and that at once!"
"Did she have to do with Mr. Gately?" asked Norah, her gray eyes burning
with interest.
"I--don't--know." Wise's hesitating answer was by no means because of
disinclination to admit his ignorance, but because he was thinking deeply
himself. "Look here, Brice, can't we go over Gately's rooms now? I don't
want to ask permission of the police, but if the Trust Company people
would let us in----"
"Of course," I responded, and I went at once to the vice-president for
the desired permission.
"It's all right," I announced, returning with the keys, "come ahead."
We went into the beautiful rooms of the late bank president.
Pennington Wise was impressed with their rich and harmonious effects, and
his quick eyes darted here and there, taking in details. With marvelous
swiftness he went through the three rooms of the suite nodding his head
as he noted the special points of which he had been told. In the third
room,--the Blue Room,--he glanced about, raised the map from the wall,
and dropped it back in place, opened the door to the hall, and closed it
again, and then turned back to the middle room, the office of Amos
Gately, and apparently, to the detective's mind, the principal place of
interest.
He sat down in the fine big swivel-chair, whose velvet cushioning
deprived it of all look of an ordinary desk-chair, and mused deeply as
his eyes fairly devoured the desk fittings. Nothing had been disturbed,
that I noticed, except that the telephone had been set up in its right
position, and also the chair which I had found overturned was righted.
Wise fingered only a few things. He picked up the penholder, a thick
magnificent affair made of gold.
"Probably a gift from his clerks," said I, smiling at the ornate and
ostentatious looking thing. "All the other gimcracks are in better
taste."
Pennington Wise opened the desk drawers. There was little to see, for all
financial papers had been taken away by Mr. Gately's executors.
"Here's a queer bunch," Wise observed, as he picked up a packet of papers
held together by a rubber band. He sorted them out on the desk.
They were sheets of paper of various styles, each bearing the address or
escutcheon of some big city hotel. Many of the principal hostelries of
New York were represented among them. Each sheet bore a date stamped on
it with an ordinary rubber dating-stamp.
"Important, if true," commented Wise.
"If what's true?" asked Norah, bluntly.
"My deductions," he returned. "These letters, if we can call them
letters, doubtless were sent to Mr. Gately at separate times and in
separate envelopes."
"They were," I informed him. "One came the morning after his death."
"It did! Which one?"
"It isn't here. All the new mail went to his lawyer."
"We must get hold of it!"
"But,--do tell me what's the import of a blank sheet of paper?"
"These aren't blank," and he pointed to the stamped dates. "They are very
far from blank!"
"Only a date,--on a plain sheet of paper,--what does that mean?"
"Perhaps nothing--perhaps everything."
It wasn't like Penny Wise to be cryptic, and I gathered that the papers
were really of value as evidence. "Has the writing been erased?" I
hazarded.
"Probably not. No. I don't think so." He scrutinized more closely.
"No," he concluded, "nothing like that. The message is all told on the
surface, and he who runs may read."
"Read, 'The Waldorf-Astoria, December 7.'" I scoffed. "And is the reader
greatly enlightened?"
"Not yet, but soon," Wise murmured, as he kept up his investigation.
"Ha!" he went on, "as the actor hath it,--what have we here!"
He was now scrutinizing the ends of two burnt cigarettes, left on the
ash-tray of the smoking-set.
"The lady has left her initials! How kind of her!"
"Why, Hudson studied those and couldn't make out any letters," I
exclaimed.
"Blind Hudson! These very dainty and expensive cigarettes belonged to a
fair one, whose name began with K and S,--or S and K. Be careful how you
touch it, but surely you can see that the tops of the letters though
scorched, show definitely enough to know they must be K and S."
"They are!" cried Norah; "I can see it now."
"Couldn't that S be an O?" I caviled.
"Nope," and Wise shook his head. "The two, though both nearly burnt away,
show for sure that the letters are K and S. Here's a find! Does Miss
Raynor smoke?"
"I don't think so," I replied. "I've never seen her do so,--and she
doesn't seem that type. And then,--the initials----"
"Oh, well, she might have had some of her friends' cigarettes with her. I
was only thinking it must have been a pretty intimate caller who would
sit here and smoke with Mr. Gately--here are his own cigar stubs you see
and of course, Miss Raynor came into my mind. Eliminating her we have,
maybe, the lady of the hatpin."
"And the powder-paper!" cried Norah.
"Yes, they all seem to point to a very friendly caller, who smoked, who
took off her hat, and who powdered her nose, all in this room, and all on
the day Mr. Gately was killed. For, of course, the whole place was
cleaned and put in order every day."
"And there was the carriage check," I mused; "perhaps she left that."
"Carriage check?" asked Wise.
"Yes, a card like a piece of Swiss cheese,--you know those perforated
carriage-call checks?"
"I do. Where is it?"
"Hudson took it. But he won't get anything out of it, and you might."
"Perhaps. I must see it, anyway. Also, I want to see Jenny,--the young
stenographer who was----"
"Shall I get her here?" offered Norah.
"Yes," Wise began, but I cut him short.
"I've got to go home," I said. "I promised Rivers I'd see him this
afternoon, and take him on some errands. Suppose I go now, and you go
with me, Mr. Wise, and suppose Norah gets Jenny and brings her round to
my rooms. We can have the interview there; Rivers may not come till
later, but I must be there to receive him."
So Penny Wise and I went down to my pleasant vine and figtree, and as we
went, I told him about Case Rivers.
He was interested at once, as he always was in anything mysterious, and
he said, "I'm glad to see him. What a strange case! Can he be the missing
Manning?"
"Not a chance," I replied. "The two men are totally dissimilar in looks
and in build. Manning is heavy,--almost stocky. Rivers is gaunt and lean.
Also, Manning is dark-haired and full-blooded, while Rivers is pale and
has very light hair. I tried to make out a resemblance, but it can't be
done. However, Case Rivers is interesting on his own account;" and I told
him the story of his journey through the earth.
He laughed. "Hallucination, of course," he said; "but it might easily
lead to the discovery of his identity. That amnesic-aphasia business
always fascinates me. That is, if I'm convinced it's the real thing. For,
you know, it's a fine opportunity to fake loss of memory."
"There's no fake in this case, I'm positive," I hastened to assure him;
"I've taken a decided liking to Rivers, and I mean to keep in touch with
him, for when he regains his memory I want to know about it."
"Pulled out of the river, you say?"
"Yes, a tugboat picked him up, drowned and frozen, it was supposed. He
was taken to the morgue, and bless you, if he didn't show signs of life
when he thawed out a little. So they went to work on him and revived him
and sent him over to Bellevue where he became a celebrated case."
"I should think so. No clothes or any identification?"
"Not a rag. Or rather only a few rags of underwear,--but nothing that was
the slightest clew."
"What became of his clothes?"
"Nobody knows. He was found drifting, unconscious, apparently dead, and
entirely nude save the fragments of underclothing."
"Those fragments have been kept?"
"Oh, yes; but they mean nothing. Just ordinary material,--good,--but
nothing individual about them."
"Where was he picked up?"
"I don't know exactly, but not far from the morgue, I believe. It was the
same day as the Gately murder, that's why I remember the date. It was a
dreadfully cold snap, the river was full of ice and it's a wonder he
wasn't killed, as well as knocked senseless."
"Was he knocked senseless?"
"I'm not sure, but he was unconscious from cold and exposure and very
nearly frozen to death."
"And his memory now?"
"Is perfect in all respects, except he doesn't know who he is."
"A fishy tale!"
"No; you won't say so after you've seen him. When I say his memory is
perfect, I mean regarding what he has read or has studied. But it is his
personal recollections that have gone from him. He has no remembrance of
his home or his friends or his own identity."
"Can't you deduce his previous occupation?"
"I can't. Perhaps you can. He can draw, and he is well-read, that's all I
know."
We were at my rooms by that time, and going up, we found Case Rivers
already there awaiting us. I lamented my lack of promptness, but he
gracefully waived my apology.
"It's all right," he smiled in his good-humored way, "I've been browsing
among your books and having the time of my life."
I introduced the two men, and told Rivers that Wise was the famous
detective I had mentioned to him.
"I'm downright glad to know you," Rivers said, earnestly; "if you can do
a bit of deduction as to who I am, I'll be under deepest obligation. I
give you myself as a clew."
"Got a picture of Amory Manning?" asked Wise, abruptly.
I handed him a folded newspaper, whose front page bore a cut of Manning,
and the story of his mysterious disappearance.
Wise studied the picture and compared it with the man before him.
"Totally unlike," he said, disappointedly.
"Not a chance," laughed Rivers; "I wish I could step into that chap's
shoes; but you see, I came from far away."
"Tell me about that trip of yours," asked Wise.
"Don't know much to tell," returned Rivers; "but what I do know, I know
positively, so I'll warn you beforehand not to chuckle at me, for I won't
stand it!"
Rivers showed a determination that I liked. It proved that I was right in
ascribing a strong character to him. He would stand chaffing as well as
anyone I knew, but not on the subject of his fall through the earth.
"I don't know when or where I started on my memorable journey, but I
distinctly remember my long, dark fall straight down through the earth.
Now it would seem impossible, but I can aver that I entered in some very
cold, arctic sort of country, and I came on down feet first, till I made
exit in New York. I was found, but how I got into the river, I don't
know."
"You were clothed when you started?"
"I can only say that I assume I was. I'm a normal, decent sort of man,
and I can't think I'd consciously set out on a trip of any sort
undressed! But I've no doubt my swashing around in the ice-filled river
did for my clothes. Probably, as related by the Ancient Mariner, 'the ice
was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around: it cracked and
growled and--something or other--and howled, like noises in a swound.'
You see, I still know my 'Familiar Quotations' by heart."
"That's a queer phase," and Wise shook his head. "It may be you are a
poet----"
"Well, I haven't poetized any since my recrudescence."
"And that's another queer thing," pursued the detective. "Most victims of
aphasia can't remember words. You are exceptionally fluent and seem to
have a wide vocabulary."
"I admit it all," and Rivers looked a little weary, as if he were tired
of speculating on his own case.
"Now, to change the subject, how are you progressing, Mr. Wise, with your
present work? How goes the stalking of the murderer?"
"Haven't got him yet, Mr. Rivers, but we've made a good start. You know
the details?"
"Only the newspaper accounts, and such additional information as Mr.
Brice has given me. I'm greatly interested,--for,--tell it not to Gath
detectives,--I fancy I've a bent toward sleuthing myself."
Pennington Wise smiled. "You're not alone in that," he said, chaffingly,
but so good-naturedly that Rivers took no offense.
"I suppose it's your reflected light that makes everybody who talks with
you feel that way," he came back. "Well, if you get up a stump, lean on
me, Grandpa,--I'm 'most seven."
And then we all three discussed the case, in all its phases, and though
Rivers said nothing of great importance, he showed such an intellectual
grasp of it all, and responded so intelligently to Wise's theories and
opinions that the two soon became most friendly.
The announcement of the rewards stirred Rivers to enthusiasm.
"I'm going to get 'em!" he cried; "both of 'em! With all due respect to
you, Mr. Wise, I'm going to cut under and win out! Don't say I didn't
warn you, and hereafter all you say will be used against you! If there's
one thing I need more than another it's ten thousand dollars,--I could
even do with twenty! So, here goes for Rivers, the swiftsure detective!"
Not a bit offended, Penny Wise laughed outright.
"Go ahead, my boy," he cried; "here's a bargain; you work with me, and
I'll work with you. If we get either Manning or the murderer or both,
then either or both rewards shall be yours. I'll be content with what
else I can get out of it."
"Done!" and Case Rivers was jubilant. "Perhaps Manning is the murderer,"
he said, thoughtfully.
"No," I put in. "That won't do. Manning is in love with Miss Raynor, and
he wouldn't queer his cause by killing her guardian."
"But Guardy didn't approve of Suitor Manning," Rivers said.
"No; but I know Manning and you don't,--well, that is, I know him only
slightly. But I'm sure he's not the man to shoot a financial magnate and
a first-class citizen just because he frowned on his suit. Try again,
Rivers."
"All right: what you say goes. But I'm just starting in, you know. And,
by the way, I'm to get a job of some sort today--yes?"
He looked at me inquiringly, but Wise answered. "Wait a bit, Rivers, as
to that. If you'll agree, I'll grubstake you for a fortnight or so, and
you can help me. Really, I mean it, for as a stranger you can go to
places, and see people, where I can't show my familiar face. Then, when
you get the two rewards you can repay me my investment in you. And if you
fail to nail the ten thousand, I'll take your note."
"I'll go you!" said Rivers, after a moment's thought. "You're a brick,
Penny Wise!"
A tap at the door announced Norah, and with her came Jenny Boyd. Nor was
Jenny dragged unwillingly,--she seemed eager to enter,--but her absurd
little painted face wore a look of stubbornness and her red lips were
shut in a determined pout.
"Jenny knows who 'The Link' is, and she won't tell," Norah declared, as a
first bit of information.
"Oh, yes, she will," and Penny Wise winked at the girl. He really gave a
very knowing wink, as who should say: "We understand each other."
As they had never met before, I watched to see just how Jenny would take
it, and to my surprise she looked decidedly frightened.
Wise saw this too,--doubtless he brought about the effect purposely,--but
in a moment Jenny regained her poise and was her saucy self again.
"I don't know for sure," she said, "and so I don't want to get nobody
into trouble by suspicioning them."
"You won't get anybody into trouble," Wise assured her, "unless she has
made the trouble for herself. Let's play a game, Jenny,--let's talk in
riddles."
Jenny eyed him curiously, and then, as he smiled infectiously, she did,
too.
"Now," went on Wise, "this is the game. I don't know, of course, whom you
have in mind, and you don't know whom I have in mind, so we'll play the
game this way: I'll say, 'I know she is a clever woman.' Now you make a
truthful statement about her."
Enthralled by his manner, Jenny said, almost involuntarily, "I know she
is a wrong one!"
"I know she's pretty," said Wise.
"I know she isn't!" snapped Jenny.
"I know she is black-haired and dresses well and owns a scarab hatpin."
"I know that, too," and Jenny was breathless with interest.
"No; that won't do. You must know something different from my know."
"Well, I know she's a friend of Mr. Rodman."
"And of Mr. Gately," added Wise.
"Oh, no, sir, I don't think so!" Jenny's surprise was unfeigned.
"Well, I know she's a telegraph girl."
"Yes: and I know she has more money to spend than she gets for a salary."
"I know she's a good girl."
"Oh, yes, sir,--that way. But she----"
"She smokes cigarettes."
"Yes; she does. Oh, I think that's awful."
"Well, it's your turn. You know she's 'The Link'?"
"I know she's been called that, but it isn't a regular nickname, and I
don't know what it means."
"Where is she?"
"Her work, you mean?"
"Yes; she's in the company's office,----" Here Jenny whispered the
address to Wise.
"Good girl," he commented. "Keep it dark. No use in telling all these
people!"
He turned to my telephone, then said: "No, Brice, you do it. Call
Headquarters and tell the Chief to arrest,--what's her name, Jenny?"
"I--I didn't say, sir." The girl's caution was returning.
"Say now, then," commanded Wise. "I know, anyway. It begins with S."
"Her first name,--yes, sir."
"And the last name with K. You see I know! So, out with it!"
"Sadie Kent," whispered Jenny, her nerves beginning to go to pieces at
realizaton of what she had done.
"Yes, of course. Sadie Kent. Go ahead, Brice. Fix it all up,--and go to
the telegraph office yourself. Meet the officers there. Scoot!"
I scooted. The strong arm of the law works swiftly when it wills to do
so. Within half an hour Sadie Kent was arrested at her key in the
telegraph office on charge of stealing confidential telegrams sent by
officials in Washington to munition plants and steamship companies and
delivering them to persons who she knew would transmit them to the German
Foreign Office.
When approached, the girl,--the woman rather,--put up a bold bluff, but
it was of no avail. She was taken into custody, and all her appeals for
mercy denied. All but one. She begged so hard to be allowed to telephone
to her mother that Hudson, who was present, softened.
"You can't, my lady," he said, "but I'll have it done for you. Mr. Brice,
now, maybe he'll do it."
"Oh, if you would be so kind," and the beautiful brunette, for she was
that, gave me a grateful look. "Just call 83649 Greenwich Square, and ask
for Mrs. Kent. Then tell her, please, that--that I won't be home tonight.
That's all."
Her voice broke and she sobbed softly in her handkerchief.
They took her away, to be detained pending developments. I made the call
and gave the message exactly as she had asked me. A pleasant voice
responded, saying the speaker was Mrs. Kent, and she thanked me for
sending word.
I hurried back to my rooms. Wise and Rivers were still there but Norah
and Jenny had left. I had no sooner got my coat off than Zizi came flying
in.
"Oh, everybody," she cried, in a whirl of excitement, "Olive's gone!
She's kidnaped or abducted or something. A telephone message came and she
flew off, telling nobody but Mrs. Vail, and telling her not to tell!"
"Where's she gone?" I cried, flinging back into my coat.
"Nobody knows. I only got it out of Mrs. Vail this minute, and then only
by threatening her with all sorts of horrors if she didn't tell me. She
doesn't know where Olive's gone,--nobody knows,--but whoever telephoned
said he had Amory Manning with him, just for a few moments and for her to
come at once if she wanted to see him. A car would come for her at four
o'clock, exactly, and she was to get in and ask no questions. And she
did--and she told Mrs. Vail that as soon as she got to Mr. Manning she
would telephone back,--in about fifteen minutes. And now it's over an
hour! and no word from her! That stupid old woman just walks up and down
and wrings her hands!"
"I should think she would! Which way shall we look, Wise?"
"I don't know, I'm sure!" and for once the resourceful detective was
absolutely at a loss.
"Oh, Penny Wise," and Zizi burst into tears, "if _you_ don't know what to
do, nobody does! Olive will be killed or held for ransom or some dreadful
thing! What _can_ we do?"
But the dull silence that fell on us all proved that no one present was
able to offer any suggestion.