The Man Who Fell Through the Earth

“What did you do next?” asked Mr. Talcott, in his quiet way.

“I ran into Mr. Gately’s room – ”

“And you weren’t frightened?”

“Not for myself. I was frightened of the shot, – I always am afraid of firearms, but I wanted to know what was doing. So, I opened the door and ran in – ”

“Yes; and?”

“I saw nobody in Mr. Gately’s room, – I mean this room next to mine, – so I ran on, to the third room, – I am not supposed to go in there, – but I did, and there I saw a man just going out to the hall and in his hand was a smoking revolver.”

“Out to the hall? Did you follow him?”

“Of course I did! But he ran down the staircase. I didn’t go down that way, because I thought I’d get down quicker and head him off by going down in the elevator.”

“So you went down in the elevator?”

“Yes, sir. It was Minny’s elevator, – Minny’s my sister, – and after I got in, – and saw Minny, I got sort of hysterical and nervous, and I couldn’t remember what I was about.”

“What became of the man?” asked Talcott, uninterested in Jenny’s nerves.

“I don’t know, sir. I was so rattled, – and I only saw him a moment, – and – ”

“Would you know him if you saw him again?”

“I don’t know, – I don’t think so.”

“I wish you could say yes, – it may be of gravest importance.”

But Jenny seemed to resent Mr. Talcott’s desire.

“I don’t see how you could expect it, sir,” she said, pettishly; “I saw him only in a glimpse, – I was scared to death at the sound of the pistol shot, – and when I burst into this room and found Mr. Gately gone I was so kerflummixed I didn’t know what I was about! That I didn’t!”

“And yet,” Norah remarked, quietly, “after you went downstairs and these gentlemen found you in the lunchroom, you were perfectly calm and collected – ”

“Nothing of the sort!” blazed back Jenny; “I’m all on edge! My nerves are completely unstrung!”

“Quite so,” said Mr. Talcott, kindly, “and I suggest that you go back to the lunchroom, Miss Jenny, and rest and calm yourself. But please remain there, until I call for you again.”

Jenny looked a little disappointed at being thus thrust out of the limelight, but as Mr. Talcott held the door open for her, she had no choice but to depart, and we presently heard her go down in her sister’s elevator.

“Now,” Mr. Talcott resumed, “we will look into this matter further.

“You see,” he proceeded, speaking, to my surprise, as much to Norah as to myself, “I can’t really apprehend that anything serious has happened to Mr. Gately. For, if the shot which Jenny heard, and which you, Mr. Brice, heard, – had killed Mr. Gately, the body, of course, would be here. Again, if the shot had wounded him seriously, he would in some way contrive to make his condition known. Therefore, I feel sure that Mr. Gately is either absolutely all right, or, if slightly wounded, he is in some anteroom or in some friend’s room nearby. And, if this is the case, – I mean, if our Mr. Gately is ill or hurt, we must find him. Therefore, careful search must be made.”

“But,” spoke up Norah, “perhaps Mr. Gately went home. There is no positive assurance that he did not.”

Mr. Talcott looked at Norah keenly. He didn’t seem to regard her as an impertinent young person, but he took her suggestion seriously.

“That may be,” he agreed. “I think I will call up his residence.”

He did so, and I gathered from the remarks he made on the telephone that Amos Gately was not at his home, nor was his niece, Miss Olive Raynor, there.

Talcott made another call or two, and I finally learned that he had located Miss Raynor.

For, “Very well,” he said; “I shall hope to see you here in ten or fifteen minutes, then.”

He hung up the receiver, – he had used the instrument in Jenny’s room, and not the upset one on Mr. Gately’s desk, – and he vouchsafed:

“I think it is all right. Miss Raynor says she saw her uncle here this afternoon, shortly after luncheon, and he said he was about to leave the office for the day. She thinks he is at his club or on the way home. However, she is coming around here, as she is in the limousine, and fearing a storm, she wants to take Mr. Gately home.”

CHAPTER III

The Elevator

Mr. Talcott returned to the middle room and looked more carefully at the disturbed condition of things around and on Mr. Gately’s desk.

“It is certain that Mr. Gately left the room in haste,” he said, “for here is what is undoubtedly a private and personal checkbook left open. I shall take on myself the responsibility of putting it away, for the moment, at least.”

Mr. Talcott closed the checkbook and put it in a small drawer of the desk.

“Why don’t you put away that hatpin, too?” suggested Norah, eying the pin curiously. “I don’t think it belongs to Miss Raynor.”

“Take it up by the edge,” I warned; “I may be jumping to conclusions, but there is a possibility that a crime has been committed, and we must preserve what may be evidence.”

“Quite right, Mr. Brice,” agreed Talcott, and he gingerly picked up the pin by taking the edges of its ornate head between his thumb and forefinger. The head was an Egyptian scarab, – whether a real one or not I couldn’t tell, – and was set on a flat backing of gold. This back might easily retain the thumb print of the woman who had drawn that pin from her hat in Mr. Gately’s office. And who, Norah surmised, was the person who had fired the pistol that I had heard discharged.

Placing the hatpin in the drawer with the checkbook, Mr. Talcott locked the drawer and slipped the key in his pocket.

I wondered if he had seen some entry in the book that made him wish to hide Mr. Gately’s private affairs from curious eyes.

“There is indeed a possibility of something wrong,” he went on, “at first I couldn’t think it, but seeing this room, that overturned chair and upset telephone, in connection with the shooting, as you heard it, Mr. Brice, it certainly seems ominous. And most mysterious! Two people quarreling, a shot fired by one or other of them, and no sign of the assailant, his victim, or his weapon! Now, there are three propositions, one of which must be the truth. Mr. Gately is alive and well, he is wounded, or he is killed. The last seems impossible, as his body could not have been taken away without discovery; if he were wounded, I think that, too, would have to be known; so, I still feel that things are all right. But until we can prove that, we must continue our search.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “search for Mr. Gately and also, search for the man who was here and who quarreled with him.”

“Or the woman,” insisted Norah.

“I can’t think it was a woman,” I said. “Although the shadow was indistinct, it struck me as that of a man, the motions and attitudes were masculine, as I recall them. The hatpin may have been left here this morning or any time.”

“The visitor must be found,” declared Mr. Talcott, “but I don’t know how to go about it.”

“Ask the elevator girls,” I suggested; “one of them must have brought the caller up here.”

We did this, but the attendants of the three elevators all denied having brought anyone up to Mr. Gately’s offices since the old man and the elderly lady who had been mentioned by Jenny.

Miss Raynor had been brought up by one of the girls also, but we couldn’t quite ascertain whether she had come before or after the other two.

While waiting for Miss Raynor to come again, I tried to do a little scientific deduction from any evidence I might notice.