The Man in Lower Ten

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER VII. A FINE GOLD CHAIN

  The conductor held it out to me, his face sternly accusing.

  "Is this another coincidence?" he asked. "Did the man who left you hisclothes and the barred silk handkerchief and the tight shoes leave youthe spoil of the murder?"

  The men standing around had drawn off a little, and I saw the absolutefutility of any remonstrance. Have you ever seen a fly, who, in thesehygienic days, finding no cobwebs to entangle him, is caught in a sheetof fly paper, finds himself more and more mired, and is finally quietwith the sticky stillness of despair?

  Well, I was the fly. I had seen too much of circumstantial evidence tohave any belief that the establishing of my identity would weigh muchagainst the other incriminating details. It meant imprisonment andtrial, probably, with all the notoriety and loss of practice they wouldentail. A man thinks quickly at a time like that. All the probableconsequences of the finding of that pocket-book flashed through my mindas I extended my hand to take it. Then I drew my arm back.

  "I don't want it," I said. "Look inside. Maybe the other man took themoney and left the wallet."

  The conductor opened it, and again there was a curious surging forwardof the crowd. To my intense disappointment the money was still there.

  I stood blankly miserable while it was counted out--fiveone-hundred-dollar bills, six twenties, and some fives and ones thatbrought the total to six hundred and fifty dollars.

  The little man with the note-book insisted on taking the numbers ofthe notes, to the conductor's annoyance. It was immaterial to me: smallthings had lost their power to irritate. I was seeing myself in theprisoner's box, going through all the nerve-racking routine of a trialfor murder--the challenging of the jury, the endless cross-examinations,the alternate hope and fear. I believe I said before that I had nonerves, but for a few minutes that morning I was as near as a man evercomes to hysteria.

  I folded my arms and gave myself a mental shake. I seemed to be thecenter of a hundred eyes, expressing every shade of doubt and distrust,but I tried not to flinch. Then some one created a diversion.

  The amateur detective was busy again with the seal-skin bag,investigating the make of the safety razor and the manufacturer's nameon the bronze-green tie. Now, however, he paused and frowned, as thoughsome pet theory had been upset.

  Then from a corner of the bag he drew out and held up for our inspectionsome three inches of fine gold chain, one end of which was blackened andstained with blood!

  The conductor held out his hand for it, but the little man was not readyto give it up. He turned to me.

  "You say no watch was left you? Was there a piece of chain like that?"

  "No chain at all," I said sulkily. "No jewelry of any kind, except plaingold buttons in the shirt I am wearing."

  "Where are your glasses?" he threw at me suddenly: instinctively my handwent to my eyes. My glasses had been gone all morning, and I had noteven noticed their absence. The little man smiled cynically and held outthe chain.

  "I must ask you to examine this," he insisted. "Isn't it a part of thefine gold chain you wear over your ear?"

  I didn't want to touch the thing: the stain at the end made me shudder.But with a baker's dozen of suspicious eyes--well, we'll say fourteen:there were no one-eyed men--I took the fragment in the tips of myfingers and looked at it helplessly.

  "Very fine chains are much alike," I managed to say. "For all I know,this may be mine, but I don't know how it got into that sealskin bag. Inever saw the bag until this morning after daylight."

  "He admits that he had the bag," somebody said behind me. "How did youguess that he wore glasses, anyhow?" to the amateur sleuth.

  That gentleman cleared his throat. "There were two reasons," he said,"for suspecting it. When you see a man with the lines of his facedrooping, a healthy individual with a pensive eye,--suspect astigmatism.Besides, this gentleman has a pronounced line across the bridge of hisnose and a mark on his ear from the chain."

  After this remarkable exhibition of the theoretical as combined with thepractical, he sank into a seat near-by, and still holding the chain, satwith closed eyes and pursed lips. It was evident to all the car that thesolution of the mystery was a question of moments. Once he bent forwardeagerly and putting the chain on the window-sill, proceeded to goover it with a pocket magnifying glass, only to shake his head indisappointment. All the people around shook their heads too, althoughthey had not the slightest idea what it was about.

  The pounding in my ears began again. The group around me seemed to besuddenly motionless in the very act of moving, as if a hypnotist hadcalled "Rigid!" The girl in blue was looking at me, and above the dinI thought she said she must speak to me--something vital. The poundinggrew louder and merged into a scream. With a grinding and splinteringthe car rose under my feet. Then it fell away into darkness.