The Man Who Fell Through the Earth

Rivers was up and dressed now, and I saw he was a good-looking chap. His light-brown hair was carefully parted and brushed; his smooth-shaven face was thin and pale, but showed strong lines of character. He had been fitted with glasses, – a pince-nez, held by a tiny gold chain over one ear, – and this corrected the vacant look in his eyes. His clothes were inexpensive and quite unmistakably ready-made.

He was apologetic. “I’d rather have better duds,” he said, “but as I had to borrow money to clothe myself at all, I didn’t want to splurge. One doctor here is a brick! He’s going to follow up my ‘case,’ and so I accepted his loan. It’s a fearful predicament to be a live, grown-up man, without a cent to your name!”

“Let me be your banker,” I offered, in all sincerity; “I – ”

“No; I don’t want coin so much as I want a way to earn some. Now, if you’ll put me in the way of getting work, – anything that pays pretty well, – I’ll be obliged, sir, and I’ll be on my way.”

His smile was of that frank, chummy sort that makes for sympathy and I agreed to help him in any way I could think of.

“What can you do?” I asked, preliminarily.

“Dunno. Have to investigate myself, and learn what are my latent talents. Doubtless their name is legion. But I’ve nailed one of them. I can draw! Witness these masterpieces!”

He held up some sheets of scribble paper on which I saw several careful and well-done mechanical drawings.

“You were a draughtsman!” I exclaimed, “in that lost life of yours.”

“I don’t know. I may have been. Anyway, these things are all right.”

“What are they?”

“Not much of anything. They’re sort of designs for wall-paper or oilcloth. See? Merely suggestions, you know, but this one, repeated, would make a ripping study for a two-toned paper.”

“You’re right,” I exclaimed, in admiration of the pattern. “You must have been a designer of such things.”

“No matter what I was, – the thing is what can I be now, to take my place in the economic world. These are, do you see, adaptations from snow crystals.”

“So they are! It takes me back to my school days.”

“Perhaps I’m harking back to those, too. I remember the pictures of snow crystals in ‘Steele’s Fourteen Weeks in Natural Science.’ Did you study that?”

“I did!” I replied, grinning; “in high school! But, is your memory returning?”

“Not so’s you’d notice it! I have recollection of all I learned in an educational way, but I can’t see any individual picture of me, personally, – oh, never mind! How can I get a position as master designer in some great factory?”

“That’s a big order,” I laughed. “But you can begin in a small way and rise to a proud eminence – ”

“No, thanky! I’m not as young as I once was, – my favorite doctor puts me down at thirty, – plus or minus, – but I feel about sixty.”

“Really, Rivers, do you feel like an old man?”

“Not physically, – that’s the queer part. But I feel as if my life was all behind me – ”

“Oh, that’s because of your temporary mental – ”

“I know it. And I’m going to conquer it, – or get around it some way. Now, if you’ll introduce me, – and, yes, act as my guarantee, my reference, – I know it’s asking a lot, but if you’ll do that, I’ll make good, I promise you!”

“I believe you will, and I’m only too glad to do it. I’ll take you, whenever you say, around to a firm I know of, that I believe will be jolly glad to get you. You see, so many men of your gifts have gone to war – ”

“Yes, I know, and I’d like to enlist myself, but Doc says I can’t, being a – a defective.”

“I wish you were a detective instead,” I said, partly to turn the current of his thoughts from his condition and partly because my mind was so full of my own interests that he was a secondary consideration.

“I’d like to be. I’ve been reading a bunch of detective stories since I’ve been here in hospital, and I don’t see as that deduction business is such a great stunt. Sherlock Holmes is all right, but most of his imitators are stuff and nonsense.”

And then, unable to hold it back any longer, I told him all about the Gately case and about Pennington Wise.

He was deeply interested, and his eyes sparkled when I related Wise’s deductions from the hatpin.

“Has he proved it yet?” he asked; “have you checked him up?”

“No, but there hasn’t been time. He’s only just started his work. He has another task; to find Amory Manning.”

“Who’s he?”

“A man who has disappeared, and there is fear of foul play.”

“Is he suspected of killing Gately?”

“Oh, no, not that; but he was suspected of hiding to shield Miss Raynor – ”

“Pshaw! a girl wouldn’t commit a murder like that.”

“I don’t think this girl did, anyway. And, in fact, they – the police I mean – have a new suspect. There’s a man named Rodman, who is being looked up.”

“Oh, it’s all a great game! I wish I could get out into the world and take part in such things!”

“You will, old man. Once you’re fairly started, the world will be – ”

“My cellar-door! You bet it will! I’m going to slide right down it.”

“What about your falling through it? Do you remember any more details of that somewhat – er – unusual performance?”

“Yes, I do! And you can laugh all you like. That’s no hallucination, it’s a clear, true memory, – the only memory I have.”

“Just what do you remember?”

“That journey through the earth – ”

“You been reading Jules Verne lately?”

“Never read it. But that long journey down, down, – miles and miles, – I can never forget it! I’ve had a globe to look at, and I suppose I must have started thousands of miles from here – ”

“Oh, now, come off – ”

“Well, it’s no use. I can’t make anybody believe it, but it’s the truth!”

“Write it up for the movies. The Man Who Fell Through the Earth would be a stunning title!”