The Man Who Fell Through the Earth

“Missing! Why, I saw him last night, – that is, yesterday afternoon, and he was all right then.”

“I’ve had men searching for him all the morning,” the Chief went on, “and he’s nowhere to be found. He wasn’t at his rooms at all last night.”

I harked back. I had last seen Manning getting off the Third Avenue car at Twenty-second Street, – just where he would naturally get off to go to his home.

I told this, and concluded, “he must have changed his mind, then, and gone somewhere else than to his rooms.”

“Yes, it looks that way,” agreed the Chief. “But where did he go? That’s the question. He can’t be found.”

CHAPTER VI

Clews

I didn’t reach my office until afternoon, and there I found Norah, in a brown study.

She looked up with a smile as I came in.

“I’m neglecting my work,” she said, with a glance at a pile of papers, “but that affair across the hall has taken hold of me and I can’t put it out of my mind.”

“Nor can I. I feel as if I were deeply involved in it, – if not indeed, an accessory! But there are new developments. Mr. Manning is missing.”

“Mr. Manning? What has he got to do with it?”

“With the crime? Nothing. He didn’t come up here until Miss Raynor came, you know. But – ”

“Are they engaged?”

“Not that I know of. I think not.”

“Well, they will be, then. And don’t worry about Mr. Manning’s absence. He’ll not stay long away from Miss Raynor. Who is he, anyway? I mean what does he do?”

“He’s a civil engineer and he lives in Gramercy Park. That’s the extent of my knowledge of him. I’ve seen him down in the bank once or twice since I’ve been here, and I like his looks. I hope, for Miss Raynor’s sake, he’ll turn up soon. She expected him to call on her last evening and he didn’t go there at all.”

“I shouldn’t think he would! Why, it was a fearful night. I was going to the movies, but I couldn’t think of going out in that wild gale! But never mind Mr. Manning now, let’s talk about the Gately affair. I want to go over there and look around the office. Do you suppose they’d let me?”

“Why, I expect so. Is anybody there now?”

“Yes, a police detective, – that man, Hudson. You know they call him Foxy Jim Hudson, and I suppose he’s finding out a lot of stuff that isn’t so!”

“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.