The Man Who Fell Through the Earth

“It is,” said Wise, gravely; “he would have faced a Federal prison had it all been discovered while he lived. That will be Rodman’s fate, – if he is not held for the crime of murder. But I think he will not be. For his alibi clears him and it was to escape the graver charge that he has told so much of the spy business.”

“And so,” I said, “we are as far as ever from the discovery of the murderer?”

“You never can tell,” Wise returned; “it may be we are on the very eve of solving the mystery. Rivers is on the warpath – ”

“I think I ought to tell you, Mr. Wise,” Olive broke in, “that Mr. Rivers was here this morning, and he seems to have a slight glimmer of returning memory.”

“He has? Good! Then it will all come back to him. I’ve been looking up this aphasia-amnesia business, and quite often when the patient begins to recover his memory, it all comes back to him with a bang! Where is Rivers?”

“He went away – I don’t know where – ” Olive’s lips quivered, and so plainly did she show her feelings that we all saw at once she feared that Rivers had fled, because of his returning memory.

“It’s all right,” declared Zizi, stanchly; “Mr. Rivers is white clear through! He’ll come back, soon, and he’ll bring the paper he’s after.”

“What paper?” demanded Wise.

“The poipers! the poipers!” scoffed Zizi; “did you ever know a case, oh, Wise Guy, that didn’t revolve round and hinge on a poiper? Well, the dockyments in the case is what he’s a-soichin’ for! See?”

When Zizi acted the gamine she was irresistibly funny and we all laughed, which was what she wanted to lighten the strain of the situation.

Rivers was a mystery, indeed. Every one of us, I think, felt that he might be connected with the Gately affair. All of us, that is, but Olive, – and who could tell what she thought?

But Pennington Wise had a question to ask, and he put it straightforwardly.

“That day you were lured to Sadie ‘The Link’s’ house, Miss Raynor,” he began, “you said, or rather, you agreed when Rodman said you were his fiancée. Will you tell us why?”

Olive flushed, but more with anger than embarrassment.

“The man threatened me,” she said, “he first tried to make love to me, and when I repulsed him, he told me that unless I would promise to marry him he would tell something that would be a living reproach to the memory of my dead guardian. I declared he could say nothing against Amos Gately. Then he whispered that Mr. Gately was a spy! I couldn’t believe it, and – yet, I had seen just a few things, – had heard just a few words, that filled my heart with a fear that Mr. Rodman was speaking the truth. So I thought I’d better say what he asked me to, though I knew I’d kill myself rather than ever marry him. But I wasn’t greatly afraid, except that I knew I was in his power. Oh, I don’t like to think about that day!”

Olive broke down and hid her face in her hands, while Zizi’s thin little arms crept round her and held her close.

“Only one more query, Miss Raynor,” and Wise spoke very gently; “are you, – were you engaged to Amory Manning?”

Olive lifted her face, and spoke composedly: “No, Mr. Wise, I was never engaged to him. We were good friends, and I think he had a high regard for me, but no words of affection ever passed between us. I admire and respect Mr. Manning as a friend, but that is all.” And then a lovely blush suffused Olive’s face, followed quickly by a look of pain, – and we knew she was thinking of Rivers, and his possible defection. Never have I seen a woman’s face so easy to read as Olive Raynor’s. Perhaps because of her pure, transparent character, for in my enforced intimacy with her, as I managed her estate, I had learned that she was an exceptional nature, high-minded, fine, and conscientious in all things.

“I cannot think,” Olive went on, “that Mr. Manning will ever be found. I think he has been killed.”

“Why?” asked Wise, briefly.

“You know, he was a Secret Service man. Many times he has had the narrowest escape with his life, and – I’m not sure of this, – but I think now, he was on the track of the nest of spies with which my – with which Mr. Gately was mixed up. A few slight incidents, otherwise unexplainable, make this clear to me now, though I never suspected it before. My uncle disliked Mr. Manning, and it may have been because he knew he was in the Government’s employ. And though I know Mr. Gately would never have moved a finger to put Amory Manning out of the way, yet George Rodman may have done so. Oh, it’s all so mysterious, so complicated, – but of this I’m sure, Case Rivers is in no way connected with the whole matter. He is a man from some distant city, he is unacquainted in New York, and he – ” here Olive broke down utterly and fell into a hysterical burst of weeping.

Zizi rose and gently urged Olive to go with her from the room.

A silence fell as the two girls disappeared. It was broken by Mrs. Vail, who remarked, dolefully, “I do hope that nice Mr. Rivers will come back, for dear Olive is so in love with him.”

“What!” cried Pennington Wise, “Miss Raynor in love with Rivers! That will never do! Why, we’ve no idea who he is. He may be a fortune-hunter of the lowest type!”

“Oh, no, no!” denied Mrs. Vail, “he is a most courteous gentleman.”

“That doesn’t count,” stormed Wise; “although, perhaps, I spoke too strongly just now when I called him names!”

“Especially as he has no name!” I put in; “in fact, he calls himself a self-named man!”

Wise smiled: “He is a witty chap,” he conceded, “and I like him immensely. But it’s up to us, Brice, to safeguard Miss Raynor’s interests, and a possible suitor for the hand of an heiress ought, at least, to know his own ancestors! And then, again, unless he recovers his memory and can deny it, there’s a fair chance that he had some hand in the Gately murder. We can’t get away from that snowflake pattern drawn on the blotter. Rivers was there, in that room, he sat at Gately’s desk, opposite Gately himself, – I mean, of course, this is the way I reconstruct the matter, – and if he didn’t shoot Gately then and there, at least, we have no proof that he didn’t.”

“I think he did,” I admitted, for Wise’s statement of the matter was convincing, – and beside, Norah thought so, too.

“Well, you think again!” came in a wild little voice, and there was Zizi at my elbow fairly shaking her little clenched fist in my face. “Mr. Badman Brice, you’ve got a lot of follow-up thinks a-coming to you, and you’d better begin ’em right now!”

She looked like a little fury as she danced around my chair and exploded the vials of her wrath. “That Mr. Rivers is a perfectly good man, – I know! He and Miss Olive are in love, – but they don’t hardly know it themselves, – bless ’em! And Mr. Rivers he won’t tell her, anyway, ’cause he’s a nobleman, – one of Nature’s maybe, – and again, maybe he’s a real one from Canada, or wherever he hails from. But, anyway, he no more killed anybody than I did!”

“All right, Ziz, – bully for you! As a loyal friend you’re there with the goods!” Wise smiled at her. “But after all, you’ve got only your loyalty to bank on. You don’t know all this.”

“I’ve got a hunch,” said Zizi, pounding one little fist into the other palm, “and when it comes to certainty, – Death and Taxes have nothing on my hunches!”

CHAPTER XVIII

Clear as Crystal

“Hello, people! What’s the matter, Zizi? I’ll be on your side! Bank on me, little one, to the last ditch. And, by jumping Jupiter, Brice, I believe the last ditch is coming my way! No, I haven’t got a strangle-hold on that eloping memory of mine yet, but I ’ave ’opes. I’ve had a glimmer of a gleam of a ray of light on my dark, mysterious past, and I beflew myself straight to good little old Doctor Rankin, who’s my Trouble Man every time. And he says that it’s the beginning of the end. That any day, almost any hour now, I may burst forth a full-memoried and properly christened citizen.”

“Good for you, old chap,” and thrilled at the elation in his tones, I held out my hand. “Go in and win!”

“Oh, won’t it be fine when you remember?” cried Mrs. Vail, wringing her hands in excitement; “why, I knew a man once – ”

“Yes,” Rivers encouraged her, in his kindly way, “what happened to the lucky chap?”

“Why, he was affected something as you are, – or, as you were – ” but Wise couldn’t stand for what seemed likely to be a long story.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Vail,” he interrupted her, “but, really, I must run away now, and I want a word or two with Mr. Rivers first.”

The good lady subsided, but it was plain to be seen she was disappointed.

“May I come in?” and a smiling Olive appeared in the doorway. “Am I wanted?”

“Are you wanted?” the eager, hungry smile Rivers gave her was pathetic. For it was so spontaneous, so gladly welcoming that it was as if a light was suddenly extinguished when the man, on second thought, hid his real feelings and advanced with a courteous but rather formal air.

“You’re always wanted,” he resumed, lightly, but the joy was gone from his tones, and a mere friendly greeting resulted. Surely, he was a gentleman, but he would make no advances while uncertain of his claim in full to that title.

And then, he looked at her curiously, as if wondering whether she would hold any place in his restored memory, – should the restoration really occur.

It was Zizi who broke the silence that fell on us all.

“I want my way, Penny,” she said, in such a wistful, pleading tone, that I felt sure no breathing human heart could refuse her.

“What is your way, Zizi?” Wise said, gently.

“I want us all to go – all of us, – over to Mr. Gately’s office – ”