The Man Who Fell Through the Earth

“How do you know all this?” asked Olive, wonderingly.

“I’ve read the papers. I have an unbreakable habit of reading between the lines, and I think Miss Jenny has been persuaded by somebody to suppress certain interesting bits of evidence that would fit right into our picture puzzle.”

“May I come in?” said a gentle voice, and Mrs. Vail appeared in the doorway.

As we rose to greet her, Olive presented Mr. Wise, and then Mrs. Vail permitted herself the luxury of a stare of genuine curiosity.

His whimsical smile charmed her, and she was most cordial of speech and manner. Indeed, so absorbed was she in this new acquaintance that she didn’t even see Zizi, who sat, as always, back and in the shadow.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” said Mrs. Vail, fluttering into a chair. “Just go on as if I were not here. I’m so interested, just let me listen! I won’t say a word. Oh, Olive dear, did you show Mr. Wise the letter?”

“No; it’s unimportant,” replied the girl.

“But I don’t think it is, my dear,” Mrs. Vail persisted. “You know it might be a – what do they call it? – a clew. Why, I knew a lady once – ”

“A letter is always important,” said Zizi from her corner, and Mrs. Vail jumped and gave a startled exclamation.

“Who’s that?” she cried, peering through her lorgnon in the direction of the voice.

“Show yourself, Zizi,” directed Wise. “This is my assistant, Mrs. Vail. She is in our council but not of it. I can’t explain her exactly, but you’ll come to understand her.”

Zizi leaned forward and gave Mrs. Vail a pleasant if indifferent smile, then sank back to her usual obscurity.

The girl was, Wise had said, a negligible personality, and yet whenever she spoke she said something!

Mrs. Vail looked bewildered, but apparently she was prepared to accept anything, however strange, in connection with detective work.

“Well,” she observed, “as that pretty little thing says, a letter is always important, and I think you ought to show it, Olive. I had a letter once that changed the whole current of my life!”

“What is this letter, Miss Raynor?” asked Wise, in a matter-of-fact way.

“One I received in this morning’s mail,” Olive replied; “I paid no attention to it, because it was anonymous. Uncle Amos told me once never to notice an anonymous letter, – always to burn and forget it.”

“Good enough advice, in general,” said Wise; “but in such serious matters as we have before us any letter is of interest.”

“Is the letter written by a woman, and signed ‘A Friend’?” asked Zizi in her soft voice.

“Did you write it?” cried Olive, turning to the wraith-like girl who sat so quietly behind her.

“Oh, no, no, no! I didn’t write it,” and the demure little face showed a fleeting smile.

“Then how did you know? For it is signed ‘A Friend,’ but I don’t know whether it was a woman who wrote it or not.”

“It was,” and Zizi nodded her sleek little black head. She had removed her hat and placed it on a nearby chair, and as she nestled into her furs which formed a dark background, her small white face looked more eerie than ever. “Ninety per cent. of all anonymous letters are written by women, and ninety per cent. of these are signed ‘A Friend.’ Though usually that is a misstatement.”

“May I see the letter?” asked Wise.

“Sure; I’ll get it.”

It was Zizi who spoke! And rising, she went swiftly across the room, to a desk, and from a pigeonhole took an opened letter, which she carried to Wise, and then dropped back into her seat again.

Mrs. Vail gave a surprised gasp, and Olive looked her amazement.

“How did you know where to find that?” she exclaimed, her great brown eyes wide with wonder.

“Dead easy,” said Zizi, nonchalantly; “you’ve scarcely taken your eyes off that spot, Miss Raynor, since the letter was mentioned!”

“But even though I looked at the desk, how could you pick out the very letter, at once?”

“Oh, I looked at the desk, too. And I saw your morning’s mail, pretty well sorted out. There’s a pile of bills, a pile of what are unmistakably social notes, and, up above in a pigeonhole, all by itself, was this letter. You glanced at it a dozen times or more, so I couldn’t help knowing.”

Olive laughed. One couldn’t help liking the strange girl whose expression was so earnest, even while her black eyes were dancing.

Meanwhile, Penny Wise examined the missive.

“I’ll read it aloud?” and he glanced at Olive, who acquiesced by a nod.

“Miss Raynor:

“Quit looking for slayer of A.G. or you’ll be railroaded in yourself. This is straight goods. Call off all Tecs, or beware consequences. Will not warn twice!

    “A Friend.”

“A woman,” Pennington Wise said in a musing voice, after he read it.

“A business woman,” added Zizi from her corner.

“A stenographer maybe,” Wise went on, and Olive cried:

“Do you mean Jenny?”

“Oh, no; this is written by a woman with more brains than Jenny ever dreamed of. A very clever woman in fact.”

“Who?” breathed Olive, her eager face flushing in her interest and anxious to know more.

“I don’t know that, Miss Raynor, but – ”

“Oh, Mr. Wise,” broke in Mrs. Vail; “you are so wonderful! Won’t you explain how you do it, as you go along?”

She spoke as if he were a conjurer.

“Anything to oblige,” Wise assented. “Well, here’s how it looks to me. The writer of this letter is a business woman, not only because she uses this large, single sheet of bond paper, but because she knows how to use it. She is a stenographer, – by that I do not necessarily mean that is her business, – she may have a knowledge of stenography, and be in some much more important line of work. But she is an accomplished typist and a rapid one. This, I know, of course, from the neat and uniform typing. She is clever, because she has used this non-committal paper, which is in no way especial or individual. She is a business woman, again, because she uses such expressions as ‘quit,’ railroaded,’ ‘Tecs,’ ‘straight goods,’ – ”

“Which she might do by way of being misleading – ” murmured Zizi.

“Too many of ’em, and too casually used, Ziz. A society girl trying to pose as a business woman never would have rolled those words in so easily. I should have said a newspaper woman but for a certain peculiarity of style which indicates, – what, Zizi?”

“You’ve got it; a telegraph operator.”