The Ear in the Wall

meson, is

ter the square-jawed, alert face of District A

imed. "No, but I expect him any

rather wearily I thought, into

rought me into contact with him. More recently some special writing had led me across his trail again in telling the story of his clean-up of graft in the city. At present his weariness was easily accounted for. He was in th

his watch. His eye caught the headline of the news story I had been reading and he

ad even hinted at murder. All sorts of theories had been advanced without in the least changing the original dominant note of mystery. Photographs of the young woman had been published broadcast, I knew, without eliciting a word in reply. Young men whom she had known and girls with whom she had b

aphasia and amnesia and all that stuff. But, you know, we reporters are a

anation? You fellows a

e newspapermen are o

a girl just simply disappears on Fifth Avenue and there isn't even the hint of a cl

disappearance case," resumed Carton, when the

think it was a case that was in some way connected with your vice and graft investigation, you wouldn't be here. And if I didn't feel that it promised surpri

as easily seen that he was both pleased and relieved to

present state of armed truce between your office and Headquarters. You want someone outside. Well, I'm more than willing to be tha

r was in to see me today; there isn't much that she could add to what has already been said. Betty was a most attractive girl. The family is an excellent one, but in reduced c

lender, petite, chic. Her dark hair was carefully groomed, and there was an air with which she wo

d notice. Even the lens must have felt the spell. It had caught, also, the soft richness of the skin of her oval face and full throat and neck. Indeed one

f-tone which more than failed to do justice to her. Just then my eye happened

" I asked. "Now, here is an explanation by one of the special

icle wa

he class of disappearances for their own convenience-embezzlers, blackmailers, and so forth-there is still a large number of recorded cases where the subjects have dropped out of sight without apparent cause or reason and have left behind them untarnished reputatio

er, a number of carefully authenticated cases where the subje

alternating personality. The Society for Psychical Research and many eminent psychologists, among them the late William James, Dr

e has given a clear and comprehensive explanation of them. Such cases are by no means always connected with disappearances, and exhaustive s

wledge of his own identity and of the past and takes himself off, leaving no trace

gument by the writer to show that Betty Blackwell was a victim of thi

er with a questioni

in the ingenious way in which that writer applied it. However, as a detective"-he shook his head

r sounded and Carton him

Kennedy, and took the liberty of asking her to come up here to meet you. Good-afternoon, M

us greeting. Kennedy placed a ch

even of privation, but her manner was plainly that of a woman of gentle breeding and former luxury. She was precisely of

imagine that only when Betty was actually found would this plucky little woman collapse. Instinctively, one felt that she claimed

Carton has been so kind, more than kind, I am sure, in getting your aid. The police seem to be able to d

ic pathos in the

girl, too," she went

f her when she got he

the broker, M

what you told me of her

rt

, when she left the office early, she said she was going to do some shopping on Fifth Avenue. I know she wen

idea where she might have gone-

irl had disappeared in which Kennedy had always asserted that if the family had been perf

he office was with her part of the time, then left her to take the subway. We don't live far uptown. It wou

somewhere with the friend," put in Kennedy, as if t

ise, looking at him with a counterpart of the eyes we had

the mere hint that her daughter might have had fri

t the office where she worked, or friends of that sort-not the ordinary clerk, but of the rising, younger, self-made generation. Still, they don't seem to have interested her particularly as far as I have been able to discover. She merely liked them. There is absolu

important, on which she did not make me her confidante. Yes, she was ambitious. So am I. I have always hoped that Betty would bring our

n that would make one think that she was wha

could read the unspoken word on his lips, as he

sen and wa

ho can find my daughter? Is it possible that a girl can disappear in broad daylight in the streets and ne

I saw that Kennedy was deeply moved, although at once to his practical mind the thought

well," he said in a low

hat is in my pow

urmured the mo

go. There was a flattering look of relief on her face which in itself must have been

remarked Carton. "If I learn

l. Busy as he was, he had time to turn aside to h

ton has uncovered on the East Side and among girls newly

returned, in an

hrill of the newspaper-readers, and then they will fall back on the old saying that after all it is only a re

hat if it should turn out to be connected with the vice investigations of Carton, and not a case of aphasia, such

se. It isn't that-alone. It isn't even lack of education or of moral training. Human nature is not so bad in the mass as some good people think. No, don't you, as a reporter, see it? It is big business, in its way, t

at it amounts to. I want you to look up just what the situation is. I know there is an army of 'vanishers' in Ne

did not take me long to discover that the disappearance of Betty Blackwell, in spite of the prominence it had been given, was by no means an isolated case. I found that the Star alone had chronicled scores of such disap

rs and I knew that the police lists scarcely approximated the total number of missing persons in the great city, especi

olutely no trace behind, who had made no preparations for departure and of whom few had been heard from since they disappeared. Many from homes of refinement

o one cause could be responsible for all or perhaps a majority of the cases. There were suicides and murders and elope

e army of vanishers disappeared? Were these disappearances merely accidents-or was there an epidemic of amnesia? I could bring myself to no su

lf back at the original question, as I rejoined Kennedy at the