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Man Who Fell Through the Earth

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<h2 id="c8">CHAPTER VIII The Man Who Fell Through the Earth</h2> “And it is for me,” Olive went on, with a solemn look in her brown eyes, “to avenge the death of my guardian. I am not worried about this surveillance, or whatever they call it, of myself,—it is too absurd to take very seriously. Of course, I shall not leave the city, and I will answer any questions the police may put to me. For, you see, Mr. Brice, the only reason I had for telling falsehoods is a reason no longer. I did resort to ‘white lies’ because Uncle Amos was so unreasonably strict with me, but I’ve no further need for that sort of thing, and I assure you you will find me absolutely truthful from now on.” A sad little smile accompanied the words, and an earnest expression on the delicate, high-bred face gave me implicit confidence in her sincerity. “Then,” I hastened to advise her, “do not antagonize the police. If they have you under their eye, rest assured they think there is some reason to watch you. Be friendly, or, at least patient with them, and they will all the sooner be aware of their mistake. Moreover, you want their help in running down the real murderer of your guardian. It is a mysterious affair, Miss Raynor.” <div class="pb" id="Page_123">[123]</div> “Oh, it is, Mr. Brice, and it may be that in penetrating the mystery we may unearth something—you know,—something detrimental to Mr. Gately’s character.” “Have you any such fear—definitely, I mean?” “Not definitely, no. If I had I should tell you. But in a vague, apprehensive way, I feel there must be something in his life that brought this about, and that I as yet know nothing of. But you think, don’t you, that we must go ahead and learn all we can?” “You are not afraid, then, of investigation, for yourself—or, for anyone else?” I put this query after a moment’s hesitation, yet I had to know. “No, sir,” her voice rang out clearly. “I know what you mean, you are thinking of Mr. Manning. And there is another task for you. We must find Amory Manning. That man never went away, voluntarily, without sending me some word. He said he would come up here that night,—the night of Uncle’s death. He didn’t come, nor did he communicate with me in any way. That means he was unable to do so.” “But what could have happened that would make it impossible for him to send you some word?” “I don’t know—I can’t think, I’m sure. But he was attacked or overcome by someone who wanted him put out of the way. Mr. Manning had enemies,—that much I may tell you——” <div class="pb" id="Page_124">[124]</div> “Do you know more? That you can not tell me?” “No; that is, I don’t know anything,—but I have some foreboding,—oh, nothing definite, Mr. Brice, but I can’t help fearing we shall never see Amory Manning alive again!” “I don’t want to force your confidence, but can’t you tell me a few more facts? Why has he enemies? Are they political?” “Yes; in a way. Don’t ask me now anyway. Let us try to find Amory and if we fail, I may decide it my duty to tell you what I now withhold.” And with this I was forced to be content. For Olive Raynor did not talk like a young, inexperienced girl, as I had thought her; she gave me now the impression of a young woman involved in weighty matters, and the trusted holder of important secrets. “To begin with, then,” I said, “suppose we try first to find Mr. Manning,—or to learn what became of him.” “Yes,” she agreed; “but how shall we set about it? I’ve already telephoned to several of his friends, whom I know, and none of them has seen him since that day,—the day of Uncle’s death. Thank Heaven nobody is foolish enough to blame that on him!” “They couldn’t very well, as he was with you when the discovery was made.” <div class="pb" id="Page_125">[125]</div> “I know it. And for the police to say he ran away to hide to protect me from suspicion is just about the most absurd theory possible!” “I think so, too. Now, to get down to dates. Have you heard anything of Mr. Manning later than the time when I saw him get off the Third Avenue car on his way home that night?” “No, I haven’t. And we know he never reached his home. His rooms are in a house on Gramercy Park——” “That’s why he got off at Twenty-second Street——” “Yes, of course. He left you there, didn’t he?” “We both got off the car there. My own rooms are in the same locality. But the snow squall was a whirlwind at the corner, and my glasses were so covered with flakes that I couldn’t see a thing for a moment, and when I could, Manning had got out of sight. I didn’t know then in just what direction he lived, so I looked all four ways but I didn’t see him. However, in the black squall, one couldn’t see half a dozen steps anyway.” “Of course, he started toward his home,—perhaps, he almost reached it,—when whoever was lying in wait for him attacked him.” “Why are you so sure he was attacked? He may have had an errand in some other direction.” <div class="pb" id="Page_126">[126]</div> “I sort of see the thing as a picture. And as he got out at that corner I naturally see him going straight home. It is not likely that he would be going on some other errand, and yet get off at that corner.” “No; I suppose not.” “Well, then, as he never did go home,—hasn’t been there yet,—what theory is there except that he was prevented from going there? He may have been kidnaped,—don’t smile, it is among the possibilities,—or, he may have met with a serious accident,—slipped and broken his leg or something of that sort. But in such a case, he would have been taken to a hospital, and I should have heard of it. No, Mr. Brice, he was carried off by some powerful enemy. I say powerful, meaning rather, clever or diplomatic, for as I see it, trickery would have been used, not force, to abduct Amory Manning.” “But why abduct him?” I cried in amazement “What is he? Why is he a menace?” “I can’t tell you, Mr. Brice, unless it becomes gravely necessary. But it has to do with—with men higher up,—and it has nothing to do with my guardian’s death,—of that I’m certain.” “Very well, Miss Raynor; I trust you, of course, that goes without saying, but I also trust your judgment in reserving your full confidence in this matter.” “You may. I assure you I will tell you all, if it becomes imperative that I do so. Meantime, let us try to find some trace of him.” “You have tried the hospitals?” <div class="pb" id="Page_127">[127]</div> “Yes; I have telephoned to some of them, and I asked our family doctor to inquire of others. He did so, but with only negative results. Now——” “Now, it’s time to call in a detective,” I said, positively. “And I don’t mean a mere police detective, but a special investigator. Have you any objection to such a course?” “No; not if we get a good one. I don’t know much about such things, but don’t some of those all-wise detectives have more theories and deductions than results?” “You have put your finger on a vital flaw in the usual Smarty-Cat detective,” I laughed. “But I know of a splendid man. He is eccentric, I admit, but beyond that he has none of the earmarks of the Transcendental Detective of the story-books. He is intelligent rather than cocksure and efficient rather than spectacular. He is expensive, but no more so than his success warrants.” “That sounds well. But first, Mr. Brice, can’t we do a little investigating by ourselves? I had hoped so. To engage a detective is to make the whole affair so public, and I shrink from that.” “Not necessarily, Miss Raynor. If the man I speak of should take the case, he would make no fuss or stir about it. And if you say so, he can also try to find the man who killed Amos Gately.” “Oh, that is what I want! Yes, let us retain—or whatever the procedure is, your detective. What is his name?” <div class="pb" id="Page_128">[128]</div> “Don’t laugh, but it is Penny Wise!” “What? How ridiculous!” “Yes, but true. Pennington Wise is on his visiting cards, but no human nature could refrain from the inevitable nickname.” “He ought to change that name! It’s enough to belittle any good work he might do!” “Well, he doesn’t think so. In fact, he has become so used to having people joke about it that he only smiles perfunctorily and goes on about his business.” “Will you ask him to help us?” “Of course I will, and if not too busy on some other matter he will doubtless begin at once.” “I feel so young and inexperienced,” Olive shuddered, “to be deciding these big things. It seems as if someone older and wiser ought to direct me. Oh, I know I have your help and counsel, but I wish I had some relative or near friend on whose judgment I could rely. I am singularly alone in the world, Mr. Brice.” “You have Mrs. Vail?” “My companion? She is delightful as a chaperon and promises to be most pleasant and congenial in my home life, but she is not capable of giving me any advice of value in these important affairs.” “You are indeed alone, Miss Raynor, but you are amazingly capable for a young woman and you continually surprise me by your grasp of the situation and your ability to rise to its demands.” <div class="pb" id="Page_129">[129]</div> “If I only had Amory Manning to help me.” Poor child, I knew that was at the bottom of her loneliness, and though I didn’t presume to sympathize, I felt privileged to assure her of my personal help as well as my interested performance of my legal duties. “Well, then, Mr. Brice,” she responded, “there is one thing I want you to do for me. I want you to go to the morgue. I can’t bring myself to do that, nor do I want to ask anyone else I know to do so.” “Certainly,” I replied, instinctively treating the matter casually, for I saw she was deeply moved. “It will be merely a form, but it is better to feel we have made every possible inquiry and left no stone unturned. I will go there at once,—now, if you say so.” She seemed gratified at my prompt compliance, and urged my going immediately. “Come back this evening and report,” she said, and then, with one of those sudden changes of demeanor which I was beginning to learn were characteristic of her, she bade me good afternoon with a quick, curt manner, and practically dismissed me. <div class="pb" id="Page_130">[130]</div> I started on my grewsome errand with enough food for thought to set my brain in a whirl. I was deeply in the matter now, and quite satisfied that it should be so. I was the lawyer and adviser of Miss Raynor, and I determined to do my best to deserve and justify her choice. Hitherto obscure, I should now be looked up to by members of my profession with envy—and, doubtless, with criticism. The latter, I meant to take good care, should be favorable. As I looked at it I had three distinct missions. First, to arrange and attend to all of Miss Raynor’s financial matters. Second, to assist her to track down the murderer of Amos Gately. Third, to help her to find, or to learn the fate of Amory Manning. The first was my only personal charge. The other two must be accomplished by Wise, and for my part I felt sure he would succeed. My visit to the morgue, as I had surmised, brought no result. The poor unfortunates whose mortal remains had been brought there during or since Wednesday, the day of Manning’s disappearance, could by no stretch of the imagination be thought to look like Amory Manning. Though I had never seen him until that day, I had a vivid picture of the man, large-framed, well set up, and with a general air of forcefulness and power. I had watched his face, as we stood in the crowded street-car, too far apart for conversation, yet in full view of each other. His face was strong and scholarly, the latter effect enhanced by his huge, shell-rimmed glasses, and he had thick, rather coarse dark hair. Also a dark Vandyke beard and small mustache, both carefully trimmed. <div class="pb" id="Page_131">[131]</div> “No,” I said to the morgue-keeper, “the man I’m looking for isn’t here.” I went on to tell him of Manning, in case he knew anything to tell me. But he only said, briefly: “You’re not the first, sir. The police have looked here for Mr. Manning and some others have done so beside.” 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.” <div class="pb" id="Page_132">[132]</div> “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. <div class="pb" id="Page_133">[133]</div> “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?” <div class="pb" id="Page_134">[134]</div> “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.” <div class="pb" id="Page_135">[135]</div> “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?” <div class="pb" id="Page_136">[136]</div> 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?” <div class="pb" id="Page_137">[137]</div> “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.” <div class="pb" id="Page_138">[138]</div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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