The Man Who Fell Through the Earth
“I am not sure, but I doubt if I could. I could tell if it were a very different type of head, but if merely similar, I could not swear it was the same man.”

“H’m. We must make the experiment. At least it may give us a hint in the right direction.”

He questioned me further as to my knowledge of Mr. Gately and his affairs, but when he found I knew almost nothing of those and had been a tenant of the Puritan Building but a very short time he suddenly lost interest in me and turned his attention to Miss Raynor.

Olive Raynor had come alone and unattended. This surprised me, for I had imagined the young ladies of the higher social circles never went anywhere alone. But in many ways Miss Raynor evinced her independence and self-reliance, and I had no doubt a trusted chauffeur waited in her car outside.

She was garbed in black, but it was not the heavy crape material that I supposed all women wore as mourning. A long black velvet cape swathed the slender figure in its voluminous folds, and as this was thrown back, I saw her gown was of black satin, with thinner black material used in combination. Women’s clothes, though a mystery to me, had a sort of fascination for my ignorant eyes, and I knew enough to appreciate that Miss Raynor’s costume was correct and very smart.

Her hat was black, too, smaller than the one I saw her in the day before, and of a quieter type.

Altogether, she looked very lovely, and her sweet, flower-like face, with its big, pathetic brown eyes, was raised frankly to Chief Martin as she answered his questions in a low, clear voice. A slight pallor told of a night of wakefulness and sorrow, but this seemed to accentuate the scarlet of her fine, delicate lips,—a scarlet unacquainted with the assistance of the rouge stick.

“No,” she said, positively, “Mr. Gately had no enemies, I am sure he hadn’t! Of course, he may have kept parts of his life or his affairs secret from me, but I have lived with him too long and too familiarly not to know him thoroughly. He was of a simple, straightforward nature, and a wise and noble gentleman.”

“Yet you were not entirely fond of your uncle,” insinuated the Chief.

“He was not my uncle,” returned Olive, calmly. “I called him that but he was no relation to me. He used to be a college chum of my father’s and when both my parents died, he became not only my guardian but my kind friend 
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