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diff --git a/11127-0.txt b/11127-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c2310ea --- /dev/null +++ b/11127-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4619 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11127 *** + + THE CASE _of_ JENNIE BRICE + + _By_ + MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + + + _Author of_ + THE MAN IN LOWER TEN, WHEN A MAN MARRIES + WHERE THERE'S A WILL, ETC. + + + _Illustrated by_ + M. LEONE BRACKER + + + + 1913 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +We have just had another flood, bad enough, but only a foot or two of +water on the first floor. Yesterday we got the mud shoveled out of the +cellar and found Peter, the spaniel that Mr. Ladley left when he "went +away". The flood, and the fact that it was Mr. Ladley's dog whose body +was found half buried in the basement fruit closet, brought back to me +the strange events of the other flood five years ago, when the water +reached more than half-way to the second story, and brought with +it, to some, mystery and sudden death, and to me the worst case of +"shingles" I have ever seen. + +My name is Pitman--in this narrative. It is not really Pitman, but +that does well enough. I belong to an old Pittsburgh family. I was +born on Penn Avenue, when that was the best part of town, and I lived, +until I was fifteen, very close to what is now the Pittsburgh Club. It +was a dwelling then; I have forgotten who lived there. + +I was a girl in seventy-seven, during the railroad riots, and I recall +our driving in the family carriage over to one of the Allegheny hills, +and seeing the yards burning, and a great noise of shooting from +across the river. It was the next year that I ran away from school to +marry Mr. Pitman, and I have not known my family since. We were never +reconciled, although I came back to Pittsburgh after twenty years of +wandering. Mr. Pitman was dead; the old city called me, and I came. I +had a hundred dollars or so, and I took a house in lower Allegheny, +where, because they are partly inundated every spring, rents are +cheap, and I kept boarders. My house was always orderly and clean, +and although the neighborhood had a bad name, a good many theatrical +people stopped with me. Five minutes across the bridge, and they were +in the theater district. Allegheny at that time, I believe, was +still an independent city. But since then it has allied itself with +Pittsburgh; it is now the North Side. + +I was glad to get back. I worked hard, but I made my rent and my +living, and a little over. Now and then on summer evenings I went to +one of the parks, and sitting on a bench, watched the children playing +around, and looked at my sister's house, closed for the summer. It is +a very large house: her butler once had his wife boarding with me--a +nice little woman. + +It is curious to recall that, at that time, five years ago, I had +never seen my niece, Lida Harvey, and then to think that only the day +before yesterday she came in her automobile as far as she dared, and +then sat there, waving to me, while the police patrol brought across +in a skiff a basket of provisions she had sent me. + +I wonder what she would have thought had she known that the elderly +woman in a calico wrapper with an old overcoat over it, and a pair of +rubber boots, was her full aunt! + +The flood and the sight of Lida both brought back the case of Jennie +Brice. For even then, Lida and Mr. Howell were interested in each +other. + +This is April. The flood of 1907 was earlier, in March. It had been a +long hard winter, with ice gorges in all the upper valley. Then, in +early March, there came a thaw. The gorges broke up and began to come +down, filling the rivers with crushing grinding ice. + +There are three rivers at Pittsburgh, the Allegheny and the +Monongahela uniting there at the Point to form the Ohio. And all three +were covered with broken ice, logs, and all sorts of debris from the +upper valleys. + +A warning was sent out from the weather bureau, and I got my carpets +ready to lift that morning. That was on the fourth of March, a Sunday. +Mr. Ladley and his wife, Jennie Brice, had the parlor bedroom and the +room behind it. Mrs. Ladley, or Miss Brice, as she preferred to be +known, had a small part at a local theater that kept a permanent +company. Her husband was in that business, too, but he had nothing to +do. It was the wife who paid the bills, and a lot of quarreling they +did about it. + +I knocked at the door at ten o'clock, and Mr. Ladley opened it. He +was a short man, rather stout and getting bald, and he always had a +cigarette. Even yet, the parlor carpet smells of them. + +"What do you want?" he asked sharply, holding the door open about an +inch. + +"The water's coming up very fast, Mr. Ladley," I said. "It's up to the +swinging-shelf in the cellar now. I'd like to take up the carpet and +move the piano." + +"Come back in an hour or so," he snapped, and tried to close the door. +But I had got my toe in the crack. + +"I'll have to have the piano moved, Mr. Ladley," I said. "You'd better +put off what you are doing." + +I thought he was probably writing. He spent most of the day writing, +using the wash-stand as a desk, and it kept me busy with oxalic acid +taking ink-spots out of the splasher and the towels. He was writing a +play, and talked a lot about the Shuberts having promised to star him +in it when it was finished. + +"Hell!" he said, and turning, spoke to somebody in the room. + +"We can go into the back room," I heard him say, and he closed the +door. When he opened it again, the room was empty. I called in Terry, +the Irishman who does odd jobs for me now and then, and we both got to +work at the tacks in the carpet, Terry working by the window, and I by +the door into the back parlor, which the Ladleys used as a bedroom. + +That was how I happened to hear what I afterward told the police. + +Some one--a man, but not Mr. Ladley--was talking. Mrs. Ladley broke +in: "I won't do it!" she said flatly. "Why should I help him? He +doesn't help me. He loafs here all day, smoking and sleeping, and sits +up all night, drinking and keeping me awake." + +The voice went on again, as if in reply to this, and I heard a rattle +of glasses, as if they were pouring drinks. They always had whisky, +even when they were behind with their board. + +"That's all very well," Mrs. Ladley said. I could always hear her, she +having a theatrical sort of voice--one that carries. "But what about +the prying she-devil that runs the house?" + +"Hush, for God's sake!" broke in Mr. Ladley, and after that they spoke +in whispers. Even with my ear against the panel, I could not catch a +word. + +The men came just then to move the piano, and by the time we had taken +it and the furniture up-stairs, the water was over the kitchen floor, +and creeping forward into the hall. I had never seen the river come up +so fast. By noon the yard was full of floating ice, and at three that +afternoon the police skiff was on the front street, and I was wading +around in rubber boots, taking the pictures off the walls. + +I was too busy to see who the Ladleys' visitor was, and he had gone +when I remembered him again. The Ladleys took the second-story front, +which was empty, and Mr. Reynolds, who was in the silk department in a +store across the river, had the room just behind. + +I put up a coal stove in a back room next the bathroom, and managed to +cook the dinner there. I was washing up the dishes when Mr. Reynolds +came in. As it was Sunday, he was in his slippers and had the colored +supplement of a morning paper in his hand. + +"What's the matter with the Ladleys?" he asked. "I can't read for +their quarreling." + +"Booze, probably," I said. "When you've lived in the flood district as +long as I have, Mr. Reynolds, you'll know that the rising of the river +is a signal for every man in the vicinity to stop work and get full. +The fuller the river, the fuller the male population." + +"Then this flood will likely make 'em drink themselves to death!" he +said. "It's a lulu." + +"It's the neighborhood's annual debauch. The women are busy keeping +the babies from getting drowned in the cellars, or they'd get full, +too. I hope, since it's come this far, it will come farther, so the +landlord will have to paper the parlor." + +That was at three o'clock. At four Mr. Ladley went down the stairs, +and I heard him getting into a skiff in the lower hall. There were +boats going back and forth all the time, carrying crowds of curious +people, and taking the flood sufferers to the corner grocery, where +they were lowering groceries in a basket on a rope from an upper +window. + +I had been making tea when I heard Mr. Ladley go out. I fixed a tray +with a cup of it and some crackers, and took it to their door. I had +never liked Mrs. Ladley, but it was chilly in the house with the gas +shut off and the lower floor full of ice-water. And it is hard enough +to keep boarders in the flood district. + +She did not answer to my knock, so I opened the door and went in. +She was at the window, looking after him, and the brown valise, that +figured in the case later, was opened on the floor. Over the foot of +the bed was the black and white dress, with the red collar. + +When I spoke to her, she turned around quickly. She was a tall woman, +about twenty-eight, with very white teeth and yellow hair, which she +parted a little to one side and drew down over her ears. She had a +sullen face and large well-shaped hands, with her nails long and very +pointed. + +"The 'she-devil' has brought you some tea," I said. "Where shall she +put it?" + +"'She-devil'!" she repeated, raising her eyebrows. "It's a very +thoughtful she-devil. Who called you that?" + +But, with the sight of the valise and the fear that they might be +leaving, I thought it best not to quarrel. She had left the window, +and going to her dressing-table, had picked up her nail-file. + +"Never mind," I said. "I hope you are not going away. These floods +don't last, and they're a benefit. Plenty of the people around here +rely on 'em every year to wash out their cellars." + +"No, I'm not going away," she replied lazily. "I'm taking that dress +to Miss Hope at the theater. She is going to wear it in _Charlie's +Aunt_ next week. She hasn't half enough of a wardrobe to play leads in +stock. Look at this thumb-nail, broken to the quick!" + +If I had only looked to see which thumb it was! But I was putting the +tea-tray on the wash-stand, and moving Mr. Ladley's papers to find +room for it. Peter, the spaniel, begged for a lump of sugar, and I +gave it to him. + +"Where is Mr. Ladley?" I asked. + +"Gone out to see the river." + +"I hope he'll be careful. There's a drowning or two every year in +these floods." + +"Then I hope he won't," she said calmly. "Do you know what I was doing +when you came in? I was looking after his boat, and hoping it had a +hole in it." + +"You won't feel that way to-morrow, Mrs. Ladley," I protested, +shocked. "You're just nervous and put out. Most men have their ugly +times. Many a time I wished Mr. Pitman was gone--until he went. Then +I'd have given a good bit to have him back again." + +She was standing in front of the dresser, fixing her hair over her +ears. She turned and looked at me over her shoulder. + +"Probably Mr. Pitman was a man," she said. "My husband is a fiend, a +devil." + +Well, a good many women have said that to me at different times. But +just let me say such a thing to _them_, or repeat their own words +to them the next day, and they would fly at me in a fury. So I said +nothing, and put the cream into her tea. + +I never saw her again. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +There is not much sleeping done in the flood district during a spring +flood. The gas was shut off, and I gave Mr. Reynolds and the Ladleys +each a lamp. I sat in the back room that I had made into a temporary +kitchen, with a candle, and with a bedquilt around my shoulders. The +water rose fast in the lower hall, but by midnight, at the seventh +step, it stopped rising and stood still. I always have a skiff during +the flood season, and as the water rose, I tied it to one spindle of +the staircase after another. + +I made myself a cup of tea, and at one o'clock I stretched out on a +sofa for a few hours' sleep. I think I had been sleeping only an hour +or so, when some one touched me on the shoulder and I started up. It +was Mr. Reynolds, partly dressed. + +"Some one has been in the house, Mrs. Pitman," he said. "They went +away just now in the boat." + +"Perhaps it was Peter," I suggested. "That dog is always wandering +around at night." + +"Not unless Peter can row a boat," said Mr. Reynolds dryly. + +I got up, being already fully dressed, and taking the candle, we went +to the staircase. I noticed that it was a minute or so after two +o'clock as we left the room. The boat was gone, not untied, but cut +loose. The end of the rope was still fastened to the stair-rail. I sat +down on the stairs and looked at Mr. Reynolds. + +"It's gone!" I said. "If the house catches fire, we'll have to drown." + +"It's rather curious, when you consider it." We both spoke softly, not +to disturb the Ladleys. "I've been awake, and I heard no boat come +in. And yet, if no one came in a boat, and came from the street, they +would have had to swim in." + +I felt queer and creepy. The street door was open, of course, and the +lights going beyond. It gave me a strange feeling to sit there in +the darkness on the stairs, with the arch of the front door like the +entrance to a cavern, and see now and then a chunk of ice slide into +view, turn around in the eddy, and pass on. It was bitter cold, too, +and the wind was rising. + +"I'll go through the house," said Mr. Reynolds. "There's likely +nothing worse the matter than some drunken mill-hand on a vacation +while the mills are under water. But I'd better look." + +He left me, and I sat there alone in the darkness. I had a +presentiment of something wrong, but I tried to think it was only +discomfort and the cold. The water, driven in by the wind, swirled at +my feet. And something dark floated in and lodged on the step below. I +reached down and touched it. It was a dead kitten. I had never known a +dead cat to bring me anything but bad luck, and here was one washed in +at my very feet. + +Mr. Reynolds came back soon, and reported the house quiet and in +order. + +"But I found Peter shut up in one of the third-floor rooms," he said. +"Did you put him there?" + +I had not, and said so; but as the dog went everywhere, and the door +might have blown shut, we did not attach much importance to that at +the time. + +Well, the skiff was gone, and there was no use worrying about it until +morning. I went back to the sofa to keep warm, but I left my candle +lighted and my door open. I did not sleep: the dead cat was on my +mind, and, as if it were not bad enough to have it washed in at my +feet, about four in the morning Peter, prowling uneasily, discovered +it and brought it in and put it on my couch, wet and stiff, poor +little thing! + +I looked at the clock. It was a quarter after four, and except for +the occasional crunch of one ice-cake hitting another in the yard, +everything was quiet. And then I heard the stealthy sound of oars in +the lower hall. + +I am not a brave woman. I lay there, hoping Mr. Reynolds would hear +and open his door. But he was sleeping soundly. Peter snarled and ran +out into the hall, and the next moment I heard Mr. Ladley speaking. +"Down, Peter," he said. "Down. Go and lie down." + +I took my candle and went out into the hall. Mr. Ladley was stooping +over the boat, trying to tie it to the staircase. The rope was short, +having been cut, and he was having trouble. Perhaps it was the +candle-light, but he looked ghost-white and haggard. + +"I borrowed your boat, Mrs. Pitman," he said, civilly enough. "Mrs. +Ladley was not well, and I--I went to the drug store." + +"You've been more than two hours going to the drug store," I said. + +He muttered something about not finding any open at first, and went +into his room. He closed and locked the door behind him, and although +Peter whined and scratched, he did not let him in. + +He looked so agitated that I thought I had been harsh, and that +perhaps she was really ill. I knocked at the door, and asked if I +could do anything. But he only called "No" curtly through the door, +and asked me to take that infernal dog away. + +I went back to bed and tried to sleep, for the water had dropped an +inch or so on the stairs, and I knew the danger was over. Peter came, +shivering, at dawn, and got on to the sofa with me. I put an end of +the quilt over him, and he stopped shivering after a time and went to +sleep. + +The dog was company. I lay there, wide awake, thinking about Mr. +Pitman's death, and how I had come, by degrees, to be keeping a cheap +boarding-house in the flood district, and to having to take impudence +from everybody who chose to rent a room from me, and to being called +a she-devil. From that I got to thinking again about the Ladleys, and +how she had said he was a fiend, and to doubting about his having gone +out for medicine for her. I dozed off again at daylight, and being +worn out, I slept heavily. + +At seven o'clock Mr. Reynolds came to the door, dressed for the store. +He was a tall man of about fifty, neat and orderly in his habits, and +he always remembered that I had seen better days, and treated me as a +lady. + +"Never mind about breakfast for me this morning, Mrs. Pitman," he +said. "I'll get a cup of coffee at the other end of the bridge. I'll +take the boat and send it back with Terry." + +He turned and went along the hall and down to the boat. I heard him +push off from the stairs with an oar and row out into the street. +Peter followed him to the stairs. + +At a quarter after seven Mr. Ladley came out and called to me: "Just +bring in a cup of coffee and some toast," he said. "Enough for one." + +He went back and slammed his door, and I made his coffee. I steeped a +cup of tea for Mrs. Ladley at the same time. He opened the door just +wide enough for the tray, and took it without so much as a "thank +you." He had a cigarette in his mouth as usual, and I could see a fire +in the grate and smell something like scorching cloth. + +"I hope Mrs. Ladley is better," I said, getting my foot in the crack +of the door, so he could not quite close it. It smelled to me as if he +had accidentally set fire to something with his cigarette, and I tried +to see into the room. + +"What about Mrs. Ladley?" he snapped. + +"You said she was ill last night." + +"Oh, yes! Well, she wasn't very sick. She's better." + +"Shall I bring her some tea?" + +"Take your foot away!" he ordered. "No. She doesn't want tea. She's +not here." + +"Not here!" + +"Good heavens!" he snarled. "Is her going away anything to make such +a fuss about? The Lord knows I'd be glad to get out of this infernal +pig-wallow myself." + +"If you mean my house--" I began. + +But he had pulled himself together and was more polite when he +answered. "I mean the neighborhood. Your house is all that could be +desired for the money. If we do not have linen sheets and double +cream, we are paying muslin and milk prices." + +Either my nose was growing accustomed to the odor, or it was dying +away: I took my foot away from the door. "When did Mrs. Ladley leave?" +I asked. + +"This morning, very early. I rowed her to Federal Street." + +"You couldn't have had much sleep," I said dryly. For he looked +horrible. There were lines around his eyes, which were red, and his +lips looked dry and cracked. + +"She's not in the piece this week at the theater," he said, licking +his lips and looking past me, not at me. "She'll be back by Saturday." + +I did not believe him. I do not think he imagined that I did. He shut +the door in my face, and it caught poor Peter by the nose. The dog ran +off howling, but although Mr. Ladley had been as fond of the animal as +it was in his nature to be fond of anything, he paid no attention. +As I started down the hall after him, I saw what Peter had been +carrying--a slipper of Mrs. Ladley's. It was soaked with water; +evidently Peter had found it floating at the foot of the stairs. + +Although the idea of murder had not entered my head at that time, the +slipper gave me a turn. I picked it up and looked at it--a black one +with a beaded toe, short in the vamp and high-heeled, the sort most +actresses wear. Then I went back and knocked at the door of the front +room again. + +"What the devil do you want now?" he called from beyond the door. + +"Here's a slipper of Mrs. Ladley's," I said. "Peter found it floating +in the lower hall." + +He opened the door wide, and let me in. The room was in tolerable +order, much better than when Mrs. Ladley was about. He looked at the +slipper, but he did not touch it. "I don't think that is hers," he +said. + +"I've seen her wear it a hundred times." + +"Well, she'll never wear it again." And then, seeing me stare, he +added: "It's ruined with the water. Throw it out. And, by the way, I'm +sorry, but I set fire to one of the pillow-slips--dropped asleep, and +my cigarette did the rest. Just put it on the bill." + +He pointed to the bed. One of the pillows had no slip, and the ticking +cover had a scorch or two on it. I went over and looked at it. + +"The pillow will have to be paid for, too, Mr. Ladley," I said. "And +there's a sign nailed on the door that forbids smoking in bed. If you +are going to set fire to things, I shall have to charge extra." + +"Really!" he jeered, looking at me with his cold fishy eyes. "Is there +any sign on the door saying that boarders are charged extra for seven +feet of filthy river in the bedrooms?" + +I was never a match for him, and I make it a principle never to bandy +words with my boarders. I took the pillow and the slipper and went +out. The telephone was ringing on the stair landing. It was the +theater, asking for Miss Brice. + +"She has gone away," I said. + +"What do you mean? Moved away?" + +"Gone for a few days' vacation," I replied. "She isn't playing this +week, is she?" + +"Wait a moment," said the voice. There was a hum of conversation from +the other end, and then another man came to the telephone. + +"Can you find out where Miss Brice has gone?" + +"I'll see." + +I went to Ladley's door and knocked. Mr. Ladley answered from just +beyond. + +"The theater is asking where Mrs. Ladley is." + +"Tell them I don't know," he snarled, and shut the door. I took his +message to the telephone. + +Whoever it was swore and hung up the receiver. + +All the morning I was uneasy--I hardly knew why. Peter felt it as I +did. There was no sound from the Ladleys' room, and the house was +quiet, except for the lapping water on the stairs and the police +patrol going back and forth. + +At eleven o'clock a boy in the neighborhood, paddling on a raft, fell +into the water and was drowned. I watched the police boat go past, +carrying his little cold body, and after that I was good for nothing. +I went and sat with Peter on the stairs. The dog's conduct had been +strange all morning. He had sat just above the water, looking at it +and whimpering. Perhaps he was expecting another kitten or-- + +It is hard to say how ideas first enter one's mind. But the notion +that Mr. Ladley had killed his wife and thrown her body into the water +came to me as I sat there. All at once I seemed to see it all: +the quarreling the day before, the night trip in the boat, the +water-soaked slipper, his haggard face that morning--even the way the +spaniel sat and stared at the flood. + +Terry brought the boat back at half past eleven, towing it behind +another. + +"Well," I said, from the stairs, "I hope you've had a pleasant +morning." + +"What doing?" he asked, not looking at me. + +"Rowing about the streets. You've had that boat for hours." + +He tied it up without a word to me, but he spoke to the dog. "Good +morning, Peter," he said. "It's nice weather--for fishes, ain't it?" + +He picked out a bit of floating wood from the water, and showing it to +the dog, flung it into the parlor. Peter went after it with a splash. +He was pretty fat, and when he came back I heard him wheezing. But +what he brought back was not the stick of wood. It was the knife I +use for cutting bread. It had been on a shelf in the room where I had +slept the night before, and now Peter brought it out of the flood +where its wooden handle had kept it afloat. The blade was broken off +short. + +It is not unusual to find one's household goods floating around during +flood-time. More than once I've lost a chair or two, and seen it after +the water had gone down, new scrubbed and painted, in Molly Maguire's +kitchen next door. And perhaps now and then a bit of luck would come +to me--a dog kennel or a chicken-house, or a kitchen table, or even, +as happened once, a month-old baby in a wooden cradle, that lodged +against my back fence, and had come forty miles, as it turned out, +with no worse mishap than a cold in its head. + +But the knife was different. I had put it on the mantel over the stove +I was using up-stairs the night before, and hadn't touched it since. +As I sat staring at it, Terry took it from Peter and handed it to me. + +"Better give me a penny, Mrs. Pitman," he said in his impudent Irish +way. "I hate to give you a knife. It may cut our friendship." + +I reached over to hit him a clout on the head, but I did not. The +sunlight was coming in through the window at the top of the stairs, +and shining on the rope that was tied to the banister. The end of the +rope was covered with stains, brown, with a glint of red in them. + +I got up shivering. "You can get the meat at the butcher's, Terry," I +said, "and come back for me in a half-hour." Then I turned and went +up-stairs, weak in the knees, to put on my hat and coat. I had made up +my mind that there had been murder done. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +I looked at my clock as I went down-stairs. It was just twelve-thirty. +I thought of telephoning for Mr. Reynolds to meet me, but it was his +lunch hour, and besides I was afraid to telephone from the house while +Mr. Ladley was in it. + +Peter had been whining again. When I came down the stairs he had +stopped whimpering and was wagging his tail. A strange boat had put +into the hallway and was coming back. + +"Now, old boy!" somebody was saying from the boat. "Steady, old chap! +I've got something for you." + +A little man, elderly and alert, was standing up in the boat, poling +it along with an oar. Peter gave vent to joyful yelps. The elderly +gentleman brought his boat to a stop at the foot of the stairs, and +reaching down into a tub at his feet, held up a large piece of raw +liver. Peter almost went crazy, and I remembered suddenly that I had +forgotten to feed the poor beast for more than a day. + +"Would you like it?" asked the gentleman. Peter sat up, as he had been +taught to do, and barked. The gentleman reached down again, got a +wooden platter from a stack of them at his feet, and placing the +liver on it, put it on the step. The whole thing was so neat and +businesslike that I could only gaze. + +"That's a well-trained dog, madam," said the elderly gentleman, +beaming at Peter over his glasses. "You should not have neglected +him." + +"The flood put him out of my mind," I explained, humbly enough, for I +was ashamed. + +"Exactly. Do you know how many starving dogs and cats I have found +this morning?" He took a note-book out of his pocket and glanced at +it. "Forty-eight. Forty-eight, madam! And ninety-three cats! I have +found them marooned in trees, clinging to fences, floating on barrels, +and I have found them in comfortable houses where there was no excuse +for their neglect. Well, I must be moving on. I have the report of a +cat with a new litter in the loft of a stable near here." + +He wiped his hands carefully on a fresh paper napkin, of which also +a heap rested on one of the seats of the boat, and picked up an oar, +smiling benevolently at Peter. Then, suddenly, he bent over and looked +at the stained rope end, tied to the stair-rail. + +"What's that?" he said. + +"That's what I'm going to find out," I replied. I glanced up at the +Ladleys' door, but it was closed. + +The little man dropped his oar, and fumbling in his pockets, pulled +out a small magnifying-glass. He bent over, holding to the rail, and +inspected the stains with the glass. I had taken a fancy to him at +once, and in spite of my excitement I had to smile a little. + +"Humph!" he said, and looked up at me. "That's blood. Why did you +_cut_ the boat loose?" + +"I didn't," I said. "If that is blood, I want to know how it got +there. That was a new rope last night." I glanced at the Ladleys' door +again, and he followed my eyes. + +"I wonder," he said, raising his voice a little, "if I come into your +kitchen, if you will allow me to fry a little of that liver. There's a +wretched Maltese in a tree at the corner of Fourth Street that won't +touch it, raw." + +I saw that he wanted to talk to me, so I turned around and led the way +to the temporary kitchen I had made. + +"Now," he said briskly, when he had closed the door, "there's +something wrong here. Perhaps if you tell me, I can help. If I can't, +it will do you good to talk about it. My name's Holcombe, retired +merchant. Apply to First National Bank for references." + +"I'm not sure there _is_ anything wrong," I began. "I guess I'm only +nervous, and thinking little things are big ones. There's nothing to +tell." + +"Nonsense. I come down the street in my boat. A white-faced gentleman +with a cigarette looks out from a window when I stop at the door, and +ducks back when I glance up. I come in and find a pet dog, obviously +overfed at ordinary times, whining with hunger on the stairs. As +I prepare to feed him, a pale woman comes down, trying to put a +right-hand glove on her left hand, and with her jacket wrong side out. +What am I to think?" + +I started and looked at my coat. He was right. And when, as I tried to +take it off, he helped me, and even patted me on the shoulder--what +with his kindness, and the long morning alone, worrying, and the +sleepless night, I began to cry. He had a clean handkerchief in my +hand before I had time to think of one. + +"That's it," he said. "It will do you good, only don't make a noise +about it. If it's a husband on the annual flood spree, don't worry, +madam. They always come around in time to whitewash the cellars." + +"It isn't a husband," I sniffled. + +"Tell me about it," he said. There was something so kindly in his +face, and it was so long since I had had a bit of human sympathy, that +I almost broke down again. + +I sat there, with a crowd of children paddling on a raft outside the +window, and Molly Maguire, next door, hauling the morning's milk up in +a pail fastened to a rope, her doorway being too narrow to admit the +milkman's boat, and I told him the whole story. + +"Humph!" he exclaimed, when I had finished. "It's curious, but--you +can't prove a murder unless you can produce a body." + +"When the river goes down, we'll find the body," I said, shivering. +"It's in the parlor." + +"Then why doesn't he try to get away?" + +"He is ready to go now. He only went back when your boat came in." + +Mr. Holcombe ran to the door, and flinging it open, peered into the +lower hall. He was too late. His boat was gone, tub of liver, pile of +wooden platters and all! + +We hurried to the room the Ladleys had occupied. It was empty. From +the window, as we looked out, we could see the boat, almost a square +away. It had stopped where, the street being higher, a door-step rose +above the flood. On the step was sitting a forlorn yellow puppy. As +we stared, Mr. Ladley stopped the boat, looked back at us, bent over, +placed a piece of liver on a platter, and reached it over to the dog. +Then, rising in the boat, he bowed, with his hat over his heart, in +our direction, sat down calmly, and rowed around the corner out of +sight. + +Mr. Holcombe was in a frenzy of rage. He jumped up and down, shaking +his fist out the window after the retreating boat. He ran down the +staircase, only to come back and look out the window again. The police +boat was not in sight, but the Maguire children had worked their raft +around to the street and were under the window. He leaned out and +called to them. + +"A quarter each, boys," he said, "if you'll take me on that raft to +the nearest pavement." + +"Money first," said the oldest boy, holding his cap. + +But Mr. Holcombe did not wait. He swung out over the window-sill, +holding by his hands, and lit fairly in the center of the raft. + +"Don't touch anything in that room until I come back," he called to +me, and jerking the pole from one of the boys, propelled the raft with +amazing speed down the street. + +The liver on the stove was burning. There was a smell of scorching +through the rooms and a sort of bluish haze of smoke. I hurried back +and took it off. By the time I had cleaned the pan, Mr. Holcombe was +back again, in his own boat. He had found it at the end of the next +street, where the flood ceased, but no sign of Ladley anywhere. He had +not seen the police boat. + +"Perhaps that is just as well," he said philosophically. "We can't go +to the police with a wet slipper and a blood-stained rope and accuse a +man of murder. We have to have a body." + +"He killed her," I said obstinately. "She told me yesterday he was a +fiend. He killed her and threw the body in the water." + +"Very likely. But he didn't throw it here." + +But in spite of that, he went over all the lower hall with his boat, +feeling every foot of the floor with an oar, and finally, at the back +end, he looked up at me as I stood on the stairs. + +"There's something here," he said. + +I went cold all over, and had to clutch the railing. But when Terry +had come, and the two of them brought the thing to the surface, it was +only the dining-room rug, which I had rolled up and forgotten to carry +up-stairs! + +At half past one Mr. Holcombe wrote a note, and sent it off with +Terry, and borrowing my boots, which had been Mr. Pitman's, +investigated the dining-room and kitchen from a floating plank; the +doors were too narrow to admit the boat. But he found nothing more +important than a rolling-pin. He was not at all depressed by his +failure. He came back, drenched to the skin, about three, and asked +permission to search the Ladleys' bedroom. + +"I have a friend coming pretty soon, Mrs. Pitman," he said, "a young +newspaper man, named Howell. He's a nice boy, and if there is anything +to this, I'd like him to have it for his paper. He and I have been +having some arguments about circumstantial evidence, too, and I know +he'd like to work on this." + +I gave him a pair of Mr. Pitman's socks, for his own were saturated, +and while he was changing them the telephone rang. It was the theater +again, asking for Jennie Brice. + +"You are certain she is out of the city?" some one asked, the same +voice as in the morning. + +"Her husband says so." + +"Ask him to come to the phone." + +"He is not here." + +"When do you expect him back?" + +"I'm not sure he is coming back." + +"Look here," said the voice angrily, "can't you give me any +satisfaction? Or don't you care to?" + +"I've told you all I know." + +"You don't know where she is?" + +"No, sir." + +"She didn't say she was coming back to rehearse for next week's +piece?" + +"Her husband said she went away for a few days' rest. He went away +about noon and hasn't come back. That's all I know, except that they +owe me three weeks' rent that I'd like to get hold of." + +The owner of the voice hung up the receiver with a snap, and left me +pondering. It seemed to me that Mr. Ladley had been very reckless. Did +he expect any one to believe that Jennie Brice had gone for a vacation +without notifying the theater? Especially when she was to rehearse +that week? I thought it curious, to say the least. I went back and +told Mr. Holcombe, who put it down in his note-book, and together we +went to the Ladleys' room. + +The room was in better order than usual, as I have said. The bed was +made--which was out of the ordinary, for Jennie Brice never made a +bed--but made the way a man makes one, with the blankets wrinkled and +crooked beneath, and the white counterpane pulled smoothly over the +top, showing every lump beneath. I showed Mr. Holcombe the splasher, +dotted with ink as usual. + +"I'll take it off and soak it in milk," I said. "It's his fountain +pen; when the ink doesn't run, he shakes it, and--" + +"Where's the clock?" said Mr. Holcombe, stopping in front of the +mantel with his note-book in his hand. + +"The clock?" + +I turned and looked. My onyx clock was gone from the mantel-shelf. + +Perhaps it seems strange, but from the moment I missed that clock my +rage at Mr. Ladley increased to a fury. It was all I had had left of +my former gentility. When times were hard and I got behind with the +rent, as happened now and then, more than once I'd been tempted to +sell the clock, or to pawn it. But I had never done it. Its ticking +had kept me company on many a lonely night, and its elegance had +helped me to keep my pride and to retain the respect of my neighbors. +For in the flood district onyx clocks are not plentiful. Mrs. Bryan, +the saloon-keeper's wife, had one, and I had another. That is, I _had_ +had. + +I stood staring at the mark in the dust of the mantel-shelf, which Mr. +Holcombe was measuring with a pocket tape-measure. + +"You are sure you didn't take it away yourself, Mrs. Pitman?" he +asked. + +"Sure? Why, I could hardly lift it," I said. + +He was looking carefully at the oblong of dust where the clock had +stood. "The key is gone, too," he said, busily making entries in his +note-book. "What was the maker's name?" + +"Why, I don't think I ever noticed." + +He turned to me angrily. "Why didn't you notice?" he snapped. "Good +God, woman, do you only use your eyes to cry with? How can you wind a +clock, time after time, and not know the maker's name? It proves my +contention: the average witness is totally unreliable." + +"Not at all," I snapped, "I am ordinarily both accurate and +observing." + +"Indeed!" he said, putting his hands behind him. "Then perhaps you can +tell me the color of the pencil I have been writing with." + +"Certainly. Red." Most pencils are red, and I thought this was safe. + +But he held his right hand out with a flourish. "I've been writing +with a fountain pen," he said in deep disgust, and turned his back on +me. + +But the next moment he had run to the wash-stand and pulled it out +from the wall. Behind it, where it had fallen, lay a towel, covered +with stains, as if some one had wiped bloody hands on it. He held it +up, his face working with excitement. I could only cover my eyes. + +"This looks better," he said, and began making a quick search of the +room, running from one piece of furniture to another, pulling out +bureau drawers, drawing the bed out from the wall, and crawling along +the base-board with a lighted match in his hand. He gave a shout of +triumph finally, and reappeared from behind the bed with the broken +end of my knife in his hand. + +"Very clumsy," he said. "_Very_ clumsy. Peter the dog could have done +better." + +I had been examining the wall-paper about the wash-stand. Among the +ink-spots were one or two reddish ones that made me shiver. And seeing +a scrap of note-paper stuck between the base-board and the wall, I +dug it out with a hairpin, and threw it into the grate, to be burned +later. It was by the merest chance there was no fire there. The next +moment Mr. Holcombe was on his knees by the fireplace reaching for the +scrap. + +"_Never_ do that, under such circumstances," he snapped, fishing among +the ashes. "You might throw away valuable--Hello, Howell!" + +I turned and saw a young man in the doorway, smiling, his hat in his +hand. Even at that first glance, I liked Mr. Howell, and later, when +every one was against him, and many curious things were developing, I +stood by him through everything, and even helped him to the thing he +wanted more than anything else in the, world. But that, of course, was +later. + +"What's the trouble, Holcombe?" he asked. "Hitting the trail again?" + +"A very curious thing that I just happened on," said Mr. Holcombe. +"Mrs. Pitman, this is Mr. Howell, of whom I spoke. Sit down, Howell, +and let me read you something." + +With the crumpled paper still unopened in his hand, Mr. Holcombe took +his note-book and read aloud what he had written. I have it before me +now: + +"'Dog meat, two dollars, boat hire'--that's not it. Here. 'Yesterday, +Sunday, March the 4th, Mrs. Pitman, landlady at 42 Union Street, heard +two of her boarders quarreling, a man and his wife. Man's name, Philip +Ladley. Wife's name, Jennie Ladley, known as Jennie Brice at the +Liberty Stock Company, where she has been playing small parts.'" + +Mr. Howell nodded. "I've heard of her," he said. "Not much of an +actress, I believe." + +"'The husband was also an actor, out of work, and employing his +leisure time in writing a play.'" + +"Everybody's doing it," said Mr. Howell idly. + +"The Shuberts were to star him in this," I put in. "He said that the +climax at the end of the second act--" + +Mr. Holcombe shut his note-book with a snap. "After we have finished +gossiping," he said, "I'll go on." + +"'Employing his leisure time in writing a play--'" quoted Mr. Howell. + +"Exactly. 'The husband and wife were not on good terms. They quarreled +frequently. On Sunday they fought all day, and Mrs. Ladley told Mrs. +Pitman she was married to a fiend. At four o'clock Sunday afternoon, +Philip Ladley went out, returning about five. Mrs. Pitman carried +their supper to them at six, and both ate heartily. She did not see +Mrs. Ladley at the time, but heard her in the next room. They were +apparently reconciled: Mrs. Pitman reports Mr. Ladley in high good +humor. If the quarrel recommenced during the night, the other boarder, +named Reynolds, in the next room, heard nothing. Mrs. Pitman was up +and down until one o'clock, when she dozed off. She heard no unusual +sound. + +"'At approximately two o'clock in the morning, however, this Reynolds +came to the room, and said he had heard some one in a boat in the +lower hall. He and Mrs. Pitman investigated. The boat which Mrs. +Pitman uses during a flood, and which she had tied to the stair-rail, +was gone, having been cut loose, not untied. Everything else was +quiet, except that Mrs. Ladley's dog had been shut in a third-story +room. + +"'At a quarter after four that morning Mrs. Pitman, thoroughly awake, +heard the boat returning, and going to the stairs, met Ladley coming +in. He muttered something about having gone for medicine for his wife +and went to his room, shutting the dog out. This is worth attention, +for the dog ordinarily slept in their room.'" + +"What sort of a dog?" asked Mr. Howell. He had been listening +attentively. + +"A water-spaniel. 'The rest of the night, or early morning, was quiet. +At a quarter after seven, Ladley asked for coffee and toast for one, +and on Mrs. Pitman remarking this, said that his wife was not playing +this week, and had gone for a few days' vacation, having left early in +the morning.' Remember, during the night he had been out for medicine +for her. Now she was able to travel, and, in fact, had started." + +Mr. Howell was frowning at the floor. "If he was doing anything wrong, +he was doing it very badly," he said. + +"This is where I entered the case," said Mr. Holcombe, "I rowed into +the lower hall this morning, to feed the dog, Peter, who was whining +on the staircase. Mrs. Pitman was coming down, pale and agitated over +the fact that the dog, shortly before, had found floating in the +parlor down-stairs a slipper belonging to Mrs. Ladley, and, later, a +knife with a broken blade. She maintains that she had the knife last +night up-stairs, that it was not broken, and that it was taken from a +shelf in her room while she dozed. The question is, then: Why was the +knife taken? Who took it? And why? Has this man made away with his +wife, or has he not?" + +Mr. Howell looked at me and smiled. "Mr. Holcombe and I are old +enemies," he said. "Mr. Holcombe believes that circumstantial evidence +may probably hang a man; I do not." And to Mr. Holcombe: "So, having +found a wet slipper and a broken knife, you are prepared for murder +and sudden death!" + +"I have more evidence," Mr. Holcombe said eagerly, and proceeded to +tell what we had found in the room. Mr. Howell listened, smiling to +himself, but at the mention of the onyx clock he got up and went to +the mantel. + +"By Jove!" he said, and stood looking at the mark in the dust. "Are +you sure the clock was here yesterday?" + +"I wound it night before last, and put the key underneath. Yesterday, +before they moved up, I wound it again." + +"The key is gone also. Well, what of it, Holcombe? Did he brain her +with the clock? Or choke her with the key?" + +Mr. Holcombe was looking at his note-book. "To summarize," he said, +"we have here as clues indicating a crime, the rope, the broken knife, +the slipper, the towel, and the clock. Besides, this scrap of paper +may contain some information." He opened it and sat gazing at it in +his palm. Then, "Is this Ladley's writing?" he asked me in a curious +voice. + +"Yes." + +I glanced at the slip. Mr. Holcombe had just read from his note-book: +"Rope, knife, slipper, towel, clock." + +The slip I had found behind the wash-stand said "Rope, knife, shoe, +towel. Horn--" The rest of the last word was torn off. + +Mr. Howell was staring at the mantel. "Clock!" he repeated. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +It was after four when Mr. Holcombe had finished going over the room. +I offered to make both the gentlemen some tea, for Mr. Pitman had been +an Englishman, and I had got into the habit of having a cup in the +afternoon, with a cracker or a bit of bread. But they refused. Mr. +Howell said he had promised to meet a lady, and to bring her through +the flooded district in a boat. He shook hands with me, and smiled at +Mr. Holcombe. + +"You will have to restrain his enthusiasm, Mrs. Pitman," he said. "He +is a bloodhound on the scent. If his baying gets on your nerves, just +send for me." He went down the stairs and stepped into the boat. +"Remember, Holcombe," he called, "every well-constituted murder has +two things: a motive and a corpse. You haven't either, only a mass of +piffling details--" + +"If everybody waited until he saw flames, instead of relying on the +testimony of the smoke," Mr. Holcombe snapped, "what would the fire +loss be?" + +Mr. Howell poled his boat to the front door, and sitting down, +prepared to row out. + +"You are warned, Mrs. Pitman," he called to me. "If he doesn't find a +body to fit the clues, he's quite capable of making one to fill the +demand." + +"Horn--" said Mr. Holcombe, looking at the slip again. "The tail of +the 'n' is torn off--evidently only part of a word. Hornet, Horning, +Horner--Mrs. Pitman, will you go with me to the police station?" + +I was more than anxious to go. In fact, I could not bear the idea of +staying alone in the house, with heaven only knows what concealed +in the depths of that muddy flood. I got on my wraps again, and Mr. +Holcombe rowed me out. Peter plunged into the water to follow, and had +to be sent back. He sat on the lower step and whined. Mr. Holcombe +threw him another piece of liver, but he did not touch it. + +We rowed to the corner of Robinson Street and Federal--it was before +Federal Street was raised above the flood level--and left the boat in +charge of a boy there. And we walked to the police station. On the way +Mr. Holcombe questioned me closely about the events of the morning, +and I recalled the incident of the burned pillow-slip. He made a note +of it at once, and grew very thoughtful. + +He left me, however, at the police station. "I'd rather not appear in +this, Mrs. Pitman," he said apologetically, "and I think better along +my own lines. Not that I have anything against the police; they've +done some splendid work. But this case takes imagination, and the +police department deals with facts. We have no facts yet. What we +need, of course, is to have the man detained until we are sure of our +case." + +He lifted his hat and turned away, and I went slowly up the steps to +the police station. Living, as I had, in a neighborhood where the +police, like the poor, are always with us, and where the visits of +the patrol wagon are one of those familiar sights that no amount +of repetition enabled any of us to treat with contempt, I was +uncomfortable until I remembered that my grandfather had been one of +the first mayors of the city, and that, if the patrol had been at my +house more than once, the entire neighborhood would testify that my +boarders were usually orderly. + +At the door some one touched me on the arm. It was Mr. Holcombe again. + +"I have been thinking it over," he said, "and I believe you'd better +not mention the piece of paper that you found behind the wash-stand. +They might say the whole thing is a hoax." + +"Very well," I agreed, and went in. + +The police sergeant in charge knew me at once, having stopped at my +house more than once in flood-time for a cup of hot coffee. + +"Sit down, Mrs. Pitman," he said. "I suppose you are still making the +best coffee and doughnuts in the city of Allegheny? Well, what's the +trouble in your district? Want an injunction against the river for +trespass?" + +"The river has brought me a good bit of trouble," I said. "I'm--I'm +worried, Mr. Sergeant. I think a woman from my house has been +murdered, but I don't know." + +"Murdered," he said, and drew up his chair. "Tell me about it." + +I told him everything, while he sat back with his eyes half closed, +and his fingers beating a tattoo on the arm of his chair. + +When I finished he got up and went into an inner room. He came back in +a moment. + +"I want you to come in and tell that to the chief," he said, and led +the way. + +All told, I repeated my story three times that afternoon, to the +sergeant, to the chief of police, and the third time to both the +others and two detectives. + +The second time the chief made notes of what I said. + +"Know this man Ladley?" he asked the others. None of them did, but +they all knew of Jennie Brice, and some of them had seen her in the +theater. + +"Get the theater, Tom," the chief said to one of the detectives. + +Luckily, what he learned over the telephone from the theater +corroborated my story. Jennie Brice was not in the cast that week, but +should have reported that morning (Monday) to rehearse the next week's +piece. No message had been received from her, and a substitute had +been put in her place. + +The chief hung up the receiver and turned to me. "You are sure about +the clock, Mrs. Pitman?" he asked. "It was there when they moved +up-stairs to the room?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"You are certain you will not find it on the parlor mantel when the +water goes down?" + +"The mantels are uncovered now. It is not there." + +"You think Ladley has gone for good?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"He'd be a fool to try to run away, unless--Graves, you'd better get +hold of the fellow, and keep him until either the woman is found or a +body. The river is falling. In a couple of days we will know if she is +around the premises anywhere." + +Before I left, I described Jennie Brice for them carefully. Asked what +she probably wore, if she had gone away as her husband said, I had no +idea; she had a lot of clothes, and dressed a good bit. But I recalled +that I had seen, lying on the bed, the black and white dress with the +red collar, and they took that down, as well as the brown valise. + +The chief rose and opened the door for me himself. "If she actually +left town at the time you mention," he said, "she ought not to be hard +to find. There are not many trains before seven in the morning, and +most of them are locals." + +"And--and if she did not, if he--do you think she is in the +house--or--or--the cellar?" + +"Not unless Ladley is more of a fool than I think he is," he said, +smiling. "Personally, I believe she has gone away, as he says she did. +But if she hasn't--He probably took the body with him when he said he +was getting medicine, and dropped it in the current somewhere. But we +must go slow with all this. There's no use shouting 'wolf' yet." + +"But--the towel?" + +"He may have cut himself, shaving. It _has_ been done." + +"And the knife?" + +He shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly. + +"I've seen a perfectly good knife spoiled opening a bottle of +pickles." + +"But the slippers? And the clock?" + +"My good woman, enough shoes and slippers are forgotten in the bottoms +of cupboards year after year in flood-time, and are found floating +around the streets, to make all the old-clothesmen in town happy. I +have seen almost everything floating about, during one of these annual +floods." + +"I dare say you never saw an onyx clock floating around," I replied a +little sharply. I had no sense of humor that day. He stopped smiling +at once, and stood tugging at his mustache. + +"No," he admitted. "An onyx clock sinks, that's true. That's a very +nice little point, that onyx clock. He may be trying to sell it, or +perhaps--" He did not finish. + +I went back immediately, only stopping at the market to get meat for +Mr. Reynolds' supper. It was after half past five and dusk was coming +on. I got a boat and was rowed directly home. Peter was not at the +foot of the steps. I paid the boatman and let him go, and turned to go +up the stairs. Some one was speaking in the hall above. + +I have read somewhere that no two voices are exactly alike, just as no +two violins ever produce precisely the same sound. I think it is what +they call the timbre that is different. I have, for instance, never +heard a voice like Mr. Pitman's, although Mr. Harry Lauder's in a +phonograph resembles it. And voices have always done for me what odors +do for some people, revived forgotten scenes and old memories. But the +memory that the voice at the head of the stairs brought back was not +very old, although I had forgotten it. I seemed to hear again, all at +once, the lapping of the water Sunday morning as it began to come in +over the door-sill; the sound of Terry ripping up the parlor carpet, +and Mrs. Ladley calling me a she-devil in the next room, in reply to +this very voice. + +But when I got to the top of the stairs, it was only Mr. Howell, who +had brought his visitor to the flood district, and on getting her +splashed with the muddy water, had taken her to my house for a towel +and a cake of soap. + +I lighted the lamp in the hall, and Mr. Howell introduced the girl. +She was a pretty girl, slim and young, and she had taken her wetting +good-naturedly. + +"I know we are intruders, Mrs. Pitman," she said, holding out her +hand. "Especially now, when you are in trouble." + +"I have told Miss Harvey a little," Mr. Howell said, "and I promised +to show her Peter, but he is not here." + +I think I had known it was my sister's child from the moment I lighted +the lamp. There was something of Alma in her, not Alma's hardness or +haughtiness, but Alma's dark blue eyes with black lashes, and Alma's +nose. Alma was always the beauty of the family. What with the day's +excitement, and seeing Alma's child like this, in my house, I felt +things going round and clutched at the stair-rail. Mr. Howell caught +me. + +"Why, Mrs. Pitman!" he said. "What's the matter?" + +I got myself in hand in a moment and smiled at the girl. + +"Nothing at all," I said. "Indigestion, most likely. Too much tea the +last day or two, and not enough solid food. I've been too anxious to +eat." + +Lida--for she was that to me at once, although I had never seen her +before--Lida was all sympathy and sweetness. She actually asked me to +go with her to a restaurant and have a real dinner. I could imagine +Alma, had she known! But I excused myself. + +"I have to cook something for Mr. Reynolds," I said, "and I'm better +now, anyhow, thank you. Mr. Howell, may I speak to you for a moment?" + +He followed me along the back hall, which was dusk. + +"I have remembered something that I had forgotten, Mr. Howell," I +said. "On Sunday morning, the Ladleys had a visitor." + +"Yes?" + +"They had very few visitors." + +"I see." + +"I did not see him, but--I heard his voice." Mr. Howell did not move, +but I fancied he drew his breath in quickly. "It sounded--it was not +by any chance _you_?" + +"I? A newspaper man, who goes to bed at three A.M. on Sunday morning, +up and about at ten!" + +"I didn't say what time it was," I said sharply. + +But at that moment Lida called from the front hall. + +"I think I hear Peter," she said. "He is shut in somewhere, whining." + +We went forward at once. She was right. Peter was scratching at the +door of Mr. Ladley's room, although I had left the door closed and +Peter in the hall. I let him out, and he crawled to me on three legs, +whimpering. Mr. Howell bent over him and felt the fourth. + +"Poor little beast!" he said. "His leg is broken!" + +He made a splint for the dog, and with Lida helping, they put him to +bed in a clothes-basket in my up-stairs kitchen. It was easy to see +how things lay with Mr. Howell. He was all eyes for her: he made +excuses to touch her hand or her arm--little caressing touches +that made her color heighten. And with it all, there was a sort of +hopelessness in his manner, as if he knew how far the girl was out of +his reach. Knowing Alma and her pride, I knew better than they how +hopeless it was. + +I was not so sure about Lida. I wondered if she was in love with the +boy, or only in love with love. She was very young, as I had been. God +help her, if, like me, she sacrificed everything, to discover, too +late, that she was only in love with love! + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Mr. Reynolds did not come home to dinner after all. The water had got +into the basement at the store, he telephoned, one of the flood-gates +in a sewer having leaked, and they were moving some of the departments +to an upper floor. I had expected to have him in the house that +evening, and now I was left alone again. + +But, as it happened, I was not alone. Mr. Graves, one of the city +detectives, came at half past six, and went carefully over the +Ladleys' room. I showed him the towel and the slipper and the +broken knife, and where we had found the knife-blade. He was very +non-committal, and left in a half-hour, taking the articles with him +in a newspaper. + +At seven the door-bell rang. I went down as far as I could on the +staircase, and I saw a boat outside the door, with the boatman and a +woman in it. I called to them to bring the boat back along the hall, +and I had a queer feeling that it might be Mrs. Ladley, and that I'd +been making a fool of myself all day for nothing. But it was not Mrs. +Ladley. + +"Is this number forty-two?" asked the woman, as the boat came back. + +"Yes." + +"Does Mr. Ladley live here?" + +"Yes. But he is not here now." + +"Are you Mrs. Pittock?" + +"Pitman, yes." + +The boat bumped against the stairs, and the woman got out. She was as +tall as Mrs. Ladley, and when I saw her in the light from the upper +hall, I knew her instantly. It was Temple Hope, the leading woman from +the Liberty Theater. + +"I would like to talk to you, Mrs. Pitman," she said. "Where can we +go?" + +I led the way back to my room, and when she had followed me in, she +turned and shut the door. + +"Now then," she said without any preliminary, "where is Jennie Brice?" + +"I don't know, Miss Hope," I answered. + +We looked at each other for a minute, and each of us saw what the +other suspected. + +"He has killed her!" she exclaimed. "She was afraid he would do it, +and--he has." + +"Killed her and thrown her into the river," I said. "That's what I +think, and he'll go free at that. It seems there isn't any murder when +there isn't any corpse." + +"Nonsense! If he has done that, the river will give her up, +eventually." + +"The river doesn't always give them up," I retorted. "Not in +flood-time, anyhow. Or when they are found it is months later, and you +can't prove anything." + +She had only a little time, being due at the theater soon, but she sat +down and told me the story she told afterward on the stand: + +She had known Jennie Brice for years, they having been together in the +chorus as long before as _Nadjy_. + +"She was married then to a fellow on the vaudeville circuit," Miss +Hope said. "He left her about that time, and she took up with Ladley. +I don't think they were ever married." + +"What!" I said, jumping to my feet, "and they came to a respectable +house like this! There's never been a breath of scandal about this +house, Miss Hope, and if this comes out I'm ruined." + +"Well, perhaps they were married," she said. "Anyhow, they were always +quarreling. And when he wasn't playing, it was worse. She used to come +to my hotel, and cry her eyes out." + +"I knew you were friends," I said. "Almost the last thing she said to +me was about the black and white dress of hers you were to borrow for +the piece this week." + +"Black and white dress! I borrow one of Jennie Brice's dresses!" +exclaimed Miss Hope. "I should think not. I have plenty of my own." + +That puzzled me; for she had said it, that was sure. And then I +remembered that I had not seen the dress in the room that day, and I +went in to look for it. It was gone. I came back and told Miss Hope. + +"A black and white dress! Did it have a red collar?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"Then I remember it. She wore a small black hat with a red quill with +that dress. You might look for the hat." + +She followed me back to the room and stood in the doorway while I +searched. The hat was gone, too. + +"Perhaps, after all, he's telling the truth," she said thoughtfully. +"Her fur coat isn't in the closet, is it?" + +_It_ was gone. It is strange that, all day, I had never thought of +looking over her clothes and seeing what was missing. I hadn't known +all she had, of course, but I had seen her all winter in her fur +coat and admired it. It was a striped fur, brown and gray, and very +unusual. But with the coat missing, and a dress and hat gone, it began +to look as if I had been making a fool of myself, and stirring up a +tempest in a teacup. Miss Hope was as puzzled as I was. + +"Anyhow, if he didn't kill her," she said, "it isn't because he did +not want to. Only last week she had hysterics in my dressing-room, +and said he had threatened to poison her. It was all Mr. Bronson, the +business manager, and I could do to quiet her." + +She looked at her watch, and exclaimed that she was late, and would +have to hurry. I saw her down to her boat. The river had been falling +rapidly for the last hour or two, and I heard the boat scrape as it +went over the door-sill. I did not know whether to be glad that the +water was going down and I could live like a Christian again, or to be +sorry, for fear of what we might find in the mud that was always left. + +Peter was lying where I had put him, on a folded blanket laid in a +clothes-basket. I went back to him, and sat down beside the basket. + +"Peter!" I said. "Poor old Peter! Who did this to you? Who hurt you?" +He looked at me and whined, as if he wanted to tell me, if only he +could. + +"Was it Mr. Ladley?" I asked, and the poor thing cowered close to his +bed and shivered. I wondered if it had been he, and, if it had, why he +had come back. Perhaps he had remembered the towel. Perhaps he would +come again and spend the night there. I was like Peter: I cowered and +shivered at the very thought. + +At nine o'clock I heard a boat at the door. It had stuck there, and +its occupant was scolding furiously at the boatman. Soon after I heard +splashing, and I knew that whoever it was was wading back to the +stairs through the foot and a half or so of water still in the hall. I +ran back to my room and locked myself in, and then stood, armed with +the stove-lid-lifter, in case it should be Ladley and he should break +the door in. + +The steps came up the stairs, and Peter barked furiously. It seemed to +me that this was to be my end, killed like a rat in a trap and thrown +out the window, to float, like my kitchen chair, into Mollie Maguire's +kitchen, or to be found lying in the ooze of the yard after the river +had gone down. + +The steps hesitated at the top of the stairs, and turned back along +the hall. Peter redoubled his noise; he never barked for Mr. Reynolds +or the Ladleys. I stood still, hardly able to breathe. The door was +thin, and the lock loose: one good blow, and-- + +The door-knob turned, and I screamed. I recall that the light turned +black, and that is all I _do_ remember, until I came to, a half-hour +later, and saw Mr. Holcombe stooping over me. The door, with the lock +broken, was standing open. I tried to move, and then I saw that my +feet were propped up on the edge of Peter's basket. + +"Better leave them up." Mr. Holcombe said. "It sends the blood back to +the head. Half the damfool people in the world stick a pillow under a +fainting woman's shoulders. How are you now?" + +"All right," I said feebly. "I thought you were Mr. Ladley." + +He helped me up, and I sat in a chair and tried to keep my lips from +shaking. And then I saw that Mr. Holcombe had brought a suit case with +him, and had set it inside the door. + +"Ladley is safe, until he gets bail, anyhow," he said. "They picked +him up as he was boarding a Pennsylvania train bound east." + +"For murder?" I asked. + +"As a suspicious character," he replied grimly. "That does as well +as anything for a time." He sat down opposite me, and looked at me +intently. + +"Mrs. Pitman," he said, "did you ever hear the story of the horse that +wandered out of a village and could not be found?" + +I shook my head. + +"Well, the best wit of the village failed to locate the horse. But one +day the village idiot walked into town, leading the missing animal by +the bridle. When they asked him how he had done it, he said: 'Well, +I just thought what I'd do if I was a horse, and then I went and did +it.'" + +"I see," I said, humoring him. + +"You _don't_ see. Now, what are we trying to do?" + +"We're trying to find a body. Do you intend to become a corpse?" + +He leaned over and tapped on the table between us. "We are trying to +prove a crime. I intend for the time to be the criminal." + +He looked so curious, bent forward and glaring at me from under his +bushy eyebrows, with his shoes on his knee--for he had taken them off +to wade to the stairs--and his trousers rolled to his knees, that I +wondered if he was entirely sane. But Mr. Holcombe, eccentric as he +might be, was sane enough. + +"Not _really_ a criminal!" + +"As really as lies in me. Listen, Mrs. Pitman. I want to put myself +in Ladley's place for a day or two, live as he lived, do what he did, +even think as he thought, if I can. I am going to sleep in his room +to-night, with your permission." + +I could not see any reason for objecting, although I thought it silly +and useless. I led the way to the front room, Mr. Holcombe following +with his shoes and suit case. I lighted a lamp, and he stood looking +around him. + +"I see you have been here since we left this afternoon," he said. + +"Twice," I replied. "First with Mr. Graves, and later--" + +The words died on my tongue. Some one had been in the room since my +last visit there. + +"He has been here!" I gasped. "I left the room in tolerable order. +Look at it!" + +"When were you here last?" + +"At seven-thirty, or thereabouts." + +"Where were you between seven-thirty and eight-thirty?" + +"In the kitchen with Peter." I told him then about the dog, and about +finding him shut in the room. + +The wash-stand was pulled out. The sheets of Mr. Ladley's manuscript, +usually an orderly pile, were half on the floor. The bed coverings had +been jerked off and flung over the back of a chair. + +Peter, imprisoned, _might_ have moved the wash-stand and upset the +manuscript--Peter had never put the bed-clothing over the chair, or +broken his own leg. + +"Humph!" he said, and getting out his note-book, he made an exact +memorandum of what I had told him, and of the condition of the room. +That done, he turned to me. + +"Mrs. Pitman," he said, "I'll thank you to call me Mr. Ladley for the +next day or so. I am an actor out of employment, forty-one years of +age, short, stout, and bald, married to a woman I would like to be +quit of, and I am writing myself a play in which the Shuberts intend +to star me, or in which I intend the Shuberts to star me." + +"Very well, Mr. Ladley," I said, trying to enter into the spirit of +the thing, and, God knows, seeing no humor in it. "Then you'll like +your soda from the ice-box?" + +"Soda? For what?" + +"For your whisky and soda, before you go to bed, sir." + +"Oh, certainly, yes. Bring the soda. And--just a moment, Mrs. Pitman: +Mr. Holcombe is a total abstainer, and has always been so. It is +Ladley, not Holcombe, who takes this abominable stuff." + +I said I quite understood, but that Mr. Ladley could skip a night, if +he so wished. But the little gentleman would not hear to it, and when +I brought the soda, poured himself a double portion. He stood looking +at it, with his face screwed up, as if the very odor revolted him. + +"The chances are," he said, "that Ladley--that I--having a nasty piece +of work to do during the night, would--will take a larger drink than +usual." He raised the glass, only to put it down. "Don't forget," he +said, "to put a large knife where you left the one last night. I'm +sorry the water has gone down, but I shall imagine it still at the +seventh step. Good night, Mrs. Pitman." + +"Good night, Mr. Ladley," I said, smiling, "and remember, you are +three weeks in arrears with your board." + +His eyes twinkled through his spectacles. "I shall imagine it paid," +he said. + +I went out, and I heard him close the door behind me. Then, through +the door, I heard a great sputtering and coughing, and I knew he had +got the whisky down somehow. I put the knife out, as he had asked me +to, and went to bed. I was ready to drop. Not even the knowledge that +an imaginary Mr. Ladley was about to commit an imaginary crime in the +house that night could keep me awake. + +Mr. Reynolds came in at eleven o'clock. I was roused when he banged +his door. That was all I knew until morning. The sun on my face +wakened me. Peter, in his basket, lifted his head as I moved, and +thumped his tail against his pillow in greeting. I put on a wrapper, +and called Mr. Reynolds by knocking at his door. Then I went on to the +front room. The door was closed, and some one beyond was groaning. My +heart stood still, and then raced on. I opened the door and looked in. + +Mr. Holcombe was on the bed, fully dressed. He had a wet towel tied +around his head, and his face looked swollen and puffy. He opened one +eye and looked at me. + +"What a night!" he groaned. + +"What happened! What did you find?" + +He groaned again. "Find!" he said. "Nothing, except that there was +something wrong with that whisky. It poisoned me. I haven't been out +of the house!" + +So for that day, at least, Mr. Ladley became Mr. Holcombe again, +and as such accepted ice in quantities, a mustard plaster over his +stomach, and considerable nursing. By evening he was better, but +although he clearly intended to stay on, he said nothing about +changing his identity again, and I was glad enough. The very name of +Ladley was horrible to me. + +The river went down almost entirely that day, although there was still +considerable water in the cellars. It takes time to get rid of that. +The lower floors showed nothing suspicious. The papers were ruined, of +course, the doors warped and sprung, and the floors coated with mud +and debris. Terry came in the afternoon, and together we hung the +dining-room rug out to dry in the sun. + +As I was coming in, I looked over at the Maguire yard. Molly Maguire +was there, and all her children around her, gaping. Molly was hanging +out to dry a sodden fur coat, that had once been striped, brown and +gray. + +I went over after breakfast and claimed the coat as belonging to Mrs. +Ladley. But she refused to give it up. There is a sort of unwritten +law concerning the salvage of flood articles, and I had to leave the +coat, as I had my kitchen chair. But it was Mrs. Ladley's, beyond a +doubt. + +I shuddered when I thought how it had probably got into the water. +And yet it was curious, too, for if she had had it on, how did it get +loose to go floating around Molly Maguire's yard? And if she had not +worn it, how did it get in the water? + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +The newspapers were full of the Ladley case, with its curious solution +and many surprises. It was considered unique in many ways. Mr. Pitman +had always read all the murder trials, and used to talk about the +_corpus delicti_ and writs of _habeas corpus_--_corpus_ being the +legal way, I believe, of spelling corpse. But I came out of the Ladley +trial--for it came to trial ultimately--with only one point of law +that I was sure of: that was, that it is mighty hard to prove a man a +murderer unless you can show what he killed. + +And that was the weakness in the Ladley case. There was a body, but it +could not be identified. + +The police held Mr. Ladley for a day or two, and then, nothing +appearing, they let him go. Mr. Holcombe, who was still occupying the +second floor front, almost wept with rage and despair when he read the +news in the papers. He was still working on the case, in his curious +way, wandering along the wharves at night, and writing letters all +over the country to learn about Philip Ladley's previous life, and his +wife's. But he did not seem to get anywhere. + +The newspapers had been full of the Jennie Brice disappearance. For +disappearance it proved to be. So far as could be learned, she had not +left the city that night, or since, and as she was a striking-looking +woman, very blond, as I have said, with a full voice and a languid +manner, she could hardly have taken refuge anywhere without being +discovered. The morning after her disappearance a young woman, tall +like Jennie Brice and fair, had been seen in the Union Station. But +as she was accompanied by a young man, who bought her magazines and +papers, and bade her an excited farewell, sending his love to various +members of a family, and promising to feed the canary, this was not +seriously considered. A sort of general alarm went over the country. +When she was younger she had been pretty well known at the Broadway +theaters in New York. One way or another, the Liberty Theater got +a lot of free advertising from the case, and I believe Miss Hope's +salary was raised. + +The police communicated with Jennie Brice's people--she had a sister +in Olean, New York, but she had not heard from her. The sister +wrote--I heard later--that Jennie had been unhappy with Philip Ladley, +and afraid he would kill her. And Miss Hope told the same story. +But--there was no _corpus_, as the lawyers say, and finally the police +had to free Mr. Ladley. + +Beyond making an attempt to get bail, and failing, he had done +nothing. Asked about his wife, he merely shrugged his shoulders +and said she had left him, and would turn up all right. He was +unconcerned: smoked cigarettes all day, ate and slept well, and looked +better since he had had nothing to drink. And two or three days after +the arrest, he sent for the manuscript of his play. + +Mr. Howell came for it on the Thursday of that week. + +I was on my knees scrubbing the parlor floor, when he rang the bell. I +let him in, and it seemed to me that he looked tired and pale. + +"Well, Mrs. Pitman," he said, smiling, "what did you find in the +cellar when the water went down?" + +"I'm glad to say that I didn't find what I feared, Mr. Howell." + +"Not even the onyx clock?" + +"Not even the clock," I replied. "And I feel as if I'd lost a friend. +A clock is a lot of company." + +"Do you know what I think?" he said, looking at me closely. "I +think you put that clock away yourself, in the excitement, and have +forgotten all about it." + +"Nonsense." + +"Think hard." He was very much in earnest. "You knew the water was +rising and the Ladleys would have to be moved up to the second floor +front, where the clock stood. You went in there and looked around to +see if the room was ready, and you saw the clock. And knowing that the +Ladleys quarreled now and then, and were apt to throw things--" + +"Nothing but a soap-dish, and that only once." + +"--you took the clock to the attic and put it, say, in an old trunk." + +"I did nothing of the sort. I went in, as you say, and I put up an old +splasher, because of the way he throws ink about. Then I wound the +clock, put the key under it, and went out." + +"And the key is gone, too!" he said thoughtfully. "I wish I could find +that clock, Mrs. Pitman." + +"So do I." + +"Ladley went out Sunday afternoon about three, didn't he--and got back +at five?" + +I turned and looked at him. "Yes, Mr. Howell," I said. "Perhaps _you_ +know something about that." + +"I?" He changed color. Twenty years of dunning boarders has made me +pretty sharp at reading faces, and he looked as uncomfortable as if he +owed me money. "I!" I knew then that I had been right about the voice. +It had been his. + +"You!" I retorted. "You were here Sunday morning and spent some time +with the Ladleys. I am the old she-devil. I notice you didn't tell +your friend, Mr. Holcombe, about having been here on Sunday." + +He was quick to recover. "I'll tell you all about it, Mrs. Pitman," +he said smilingly. "You see, all my life, I have wished for an onyx +clock. It has been my ambition, my _Great Desire_. Leaving the house +that Sunday morning, and hearing the ticking of the clock up-stairs, I +recognized that it was an _onyx_ clock, clambered from my boat through +an upper window, and so reached it. The clock showed fight, but after +stunning it with a chair--" + +"Exactly!" I said. "Then the thing Mrs. Ladley said she would not do +was probably to wind the clock?" + +He dropped his bantering manner at once. "Mrs. Pitman," he said, "I +don't know what you heard or did not hear. But I want you to give me +a little time before you tell anybody that I was here that Sunday +morning. And, in return, I'll find your clock." + +I hesitated, but however put out he was, he didn't look like a +criminal. Besides, he was a friend of my niece's, and blood is thicker +even than flood-water. + +"There was nothing wrong about my being here," he went on, "but--I +don't want it known. Don't spoil a good story, Mrs. Pitman." + +I did not quite understand that, although those who followed the trial +carefully may do so. Poor Mr. Howell! I am sure he believed that it +was only a good story. He got the description of my onyx clock and +wrote it down, and I gave him the manuscript for Mr. Ladley. That was +the last I saw of him for some time. + +That Thursday proved to be an exciting day. For late in the afternoon +Terry, digging the mud out of the cellar, came across my missing gray +false front near the coal vault, and brought it up, grinning. And just +before six, Mr. Graves, the detective, rang the bell and then let +himself in. I found him in the lower hall, looking around. + +"Well, Mrs. Pitman," he said, "has our friend come back yet?" + +"She was no friend of mine." + +"Not _she_. Ladley. He'll be out this evening, and he'll probably be +around for his clothes." + +I felt my knees waver, as they always did when he was spoken of. + +"He may want to stay here," said Mr. Graves. "In fact, I think that's +just what he _will_ want." + +"Not here," I protested. "The very thought of him makes me quake." + +"If he comes here, better take him in. I want to know where he is." + +I tried to say that I wouldn't have him, but the old habit of the ward +asserted itself. From taking a bottle of beer or a slice of pie, +to telling one where one might or might not live, the police were +autocrats in that neighborhood. And, respectable woman that I am, my +neighbors' fears of the front office have infected me. + +"All right, Mr. Graves," I said. + +He pushed the parlor door open and looked in, whistling. "This is the +place, isn't it?" + +"Yes. But it was up-stairs that he--" + +"I see. Tall woman, Mrs. Ladley?" + +"Tall and blond. Very airy in her manner." + +He nodded and still stood looking in and whistling. "Never heard her +speak of a town named Horner, did you?" + +"Horner? No." + +"I see." He turned and wandered out again into the hall, still +whistling. At the door, however, he stopped and turned. "Look anything +like this?" he asked, and held out one of his hands, with a small +kodak picture on the palm. + +It was a snap-shot of a children's frolic in a village street, with +some onlookers in the background. Around one of the heads had been +drawn a circle in pencil. I took it to the gas-jet and looked at it +closely. It was a tall woman with a hat on, not unlike Jennie Brice. +She was looking over the crowd, and I could see only her face, and +that in shadow. I shook my head. + +"I thought not," he said. "We have a lot of stage pictures of her, but +what with false hair and their being retouched beyond recognition, +they don't amount to much." He started out, and stopped on the +door-step to light a cigar. + +"Take him on if he comes," he said. "And keep your eyes open. Feed him +well, and he won't kill you!" + +I had plenty to think of when I was cooking Mr. Reynolds' supper: the +chance that I might have Mr. Ladley again, and the woman at Horner. +For it had come to me like a flash, as Mr. Graves left, that the +"Horn--" on the paper slip might have been "Horner." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +After all, there was nothing sensational about Mr. Ladley's return. He +came at eight o'clock that night, fresh-shaved and with his hair cut, +and, although he had a latch-key, he rang the door-bell. I knew his +ring, and I thought it no harm to carry an old razor of Mr. Pitman's +with the blade open and folded back on the handle, the way the colored +people use them, in my left hand. + +But I saw at once that he meant no mischief. + +"Good evening," he said, and put out his hand. I jumped back, until I +saw there was nothing in it and that he only meant to shake hands. I +didn't do it; I might have to take him in, and make his bed, and cook +his meals, but I did not have to shake hands with him. + +"You, too!" he said, looking at me with what I suppose he meant to be +a reproachful look. But he could no more put an expression of that +sort in his eyes than a fish could. "I suppose, then, there is no use +asking if I may have my old room? The front room. I won't need two." + +I didn't want him, and he must have seen it. But I took him. "You may +have it, as far as I'm concerned," I said. "But you'll have to let the +paper-hanger in to-morrow." + +"Assuredly." He came into the hall and stood looking around him, and I +fancied he drew a breath of relief. "It isn't much yet," he said, "but +it's better to look at than six feet of muddy water." + +"Or than stone walls," I said. + +He looked at me and smiled. "Or than stone walls," he repeated, +bowing, and went into his room. + +So I had him again, and if I gave him only the dull knives, and locked +up the bread-knife the moment I had finished with it, who can blame +me? I took all the precaution I could think of: had Terry put an extra +bolt on every door, and hid the rat poison and the carbolic acid in +the cellar. + +Peter would not go near him. He hobbled around on his three legs, with +the splint beating a sort of tattoo on the floor, but he stayed back +in the kitchen with me, or in the yard. + +It was Sunday night or early Monday morning that Jennie Brice +disappeared. On Thursday evening, her husband came back. On Friday the +body of a woman was washed ashore at Beaver, but turned out to be that +of a stewardess who had fallen overboard from one of the Cincinnati +packets. Mr. Ladley himself showed me the article in the morning +paper, when I took in his breakfast. + +"Public hysteria has killed a man before this," he said, when I had +read it. "Suppose that woman had been mangled, or the screw of the +steamer had cut her head off! How many people do you suppose would +have been willing to swear that it was my--was Mrs. Ladley?" + +"Even without a head, I should know Mrs. Ladley," I retorted. + +He shrugged his shoulders. "Let's trust she's still alive, for my +sake," he said. "But I'm glad, anyhow, that this woman had a head. +You'll allow me to be glad, won't you?" + +"You can be anything you want, as far as I'm concerned," I snapped, +and went out. + +Mr. Holcombe still retained the second-story front room. I think, +although he said nothing more about it, that he was still "playing +horse." He wrote a good bit at the wash-stand, and, from the loose +sheets of manuscript he left, I believe actually tried to begin a +play. But mostly he wandered along the water-front, or stood on one +or another of the bridges, looking at the water and thinking. It is +certain that he tried to keep in the part by smoking cigarettes, but +he hated them, and usually ended by throwing the cigarette away and +lighting an old pipe he carried. + +On that Thursday evening he came home and sat down to supper with +Mr. Reynolds. He ate little and seemed much excited. The talk ran on +crime, as it always did when he was around, and Mr. Holcombe quoted +Spencer a great deal--Herbert Spencer. Mr. Reynolds was impressed, not +knowing much beyond silks and the National League. + +"Spencer," Mr. Holcombe would say--"Spencer shows that every +occurrence is the inevitable result of what has gone before, and +carries in its train an equally inevitable series of results. Try to +interrupt this chain in the smallest degree, and what follows? Chaos, +my dear sir, chaos." + +"We see that at the store," Mr. Reynolds would say. "Accustom a lot of +women to a silk sale on Fridays and then make it toothbrushes. That's +chaos, all right." + +Well, Mr. Holcombe came in that night about ten o'clock, and I told +him Ladley was back. He was almost wild with excitement; wanted to +have the back parlor, so he could watch him through the keyhole, and +was terribly upset when I told him there was no keyhole, that the +door fastened with a thumb bolt. On learning that the room was to +be papered the next morning, he grew calmer, however, and got the +paper-hanger's address from me. He went out just after that. + +Friday, as I say, was very quiet. Mr. Ladley moved to the back parlor +to let the paper-hanger in the front room, smoked and fussed with +his papers all day, and Mr. Holcombe stayed in his room, which was +unusual. In the afternoon Molly Maguire put on the striped fur coat +and went out, going slowly past the house so that I would be sure to +see her. Beyond banging the window down, I gave her no satisfaction. + +At four o'clock Mr. Holcombe came to my kitchen, rubbing his hands +together. He had a pasteboard tube in his hand about a foot long, with +an arrangement of small mirrors in it. He said it was modeled after +the something or other that is used on a submarine, and that he and +the paper-hanger had fixed a place for it between his floor and the +ceiling of Mr. Ladley's room, so that the chandelier would hide it +from below. He thought he could watch Mr. Ladley through it; and as it +turned out, he could. + +"I want to find his weak moment," he said excitedly. "I want to know +what he does when the door is closed and he can take off his mask. And +I want to know if he sleeps with a light." + +"If he does," I replied, "I hope you'll let me know, Mr. Holcombe. The +gas bills are a horror to me as it is. I think he kept it on all last +night. I turned off all the other lights and went to the cellar. The +meter was going around." + +"Fine!" he said. "Every murderer fears the dark. And our friend of the +parlor bedroom is a murderer, Mrs. Pitman. Whether he hangs or not, +he's a murderer." + +The mirror affair, which Mr. Holcombe called a periscope, was put in +that day and worked amazingly well. I went with him to try it out, and +I distinctly saw the paper-hanger take a cigarette from Mr. Ladley's +case and put it in his pocket. Just after that, Mr. Ladley sauntered +into the room and looked at the new paper. I could both see and hear +him. It was rather weird. + +"God, what a wall-paper!" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +That was Friday afternoon. All that evening, and most of Saturday and +Sunday, Mr. Holcombe sat on the floor, with his eye to the reflecting +mirror and his note-book beside him. I have it before me. + +On the first page is the "dog meat--two dollars" entry. On the next, +the description of what occurred on Sunday night, March fourth, and +Monday morning, the fifth. Following that came a sketch, made with a +carbon sheet, of the torn paper found behind the wash-stand: + +And then came the entries for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday +evening: + +6:30--Eating hearty supper. + +7:00--Lights cigarette and paces floor. Notice that when Mrs. P. +knocks, he goes to desk and pretends to be writing. + +8:00--Is examining book. Looks like a railway guide. + +8:30--It is a steamship guide. + +8:45--Tailor's boy brings box. Gives boy fifty cents. Query. Where +does he get money, now that J.B. is gone? + +9:00--Tries on new suit, brown. + +9:30--Has been spending a quarter of an hour on his knees looking +behind furniture and examining base-board. + +10:00--He has the key to the onyx clock. Has hidden it twice, once up +the chimney flue, once behind base-board. + +10:15--He has just thrown key or similar small article outside window +into yard. + +11:00--Has gone to bed. Light burning. Shall sleep here on floor. + +11:30--He can not sleep. Is up walking the floor and smoking. + +2:00 A.M.--Saturday. Disturbance below. He had had nightmare and was +calling "Jennie!" He got up, took a drink, and is now reading. + +8:00 A.M.--Must have slept. He is shaving. + +12:00 M.--Nothing this morning. He wrote for four hours, sometimes +reading aloud what he had written. + +2:00 P.M.--He has a visitor, a man. Can not hear all--word now and +then. "Llewellyn is the very man." "Devil of a risk--" "We'll see you +through." "Lost the slip--" "Didn't go to the hotel. She went to a +private house." "Eliza Shaeffer." + +Who went to a private house? Jennie Brice? + +2:30--Can not hear. Are whispering. The visitor has given Ladley roll +of bills. + +4:00--Followed the visitor, a tall man with a pointed beard. He went +to the Liberty Theater. Found it was Bronson, business manager there. +Who is Llewellyn, and who is Eliza Shaeffer? + +4:15--Had Mrs. P. bring telephone book: six Llewellyns in the book; no +Eliza Shaeffer. Ladley appears more cheerful since Bronson's visit. He +has bought all the evening papers and is searching for something. Has +not found it. + +7:00--Ate well. Have asked Mrs. P. to take my place here, while I +interview the six Llewellyns. + +11:00--Mrs. P. reports a quiet evening. He read and smoked. Has gone +to bed. Light burning. Saw five Llewellyns. None of them knew Bronson +or Ladley. Sixth--a lawyer--out at revival meeting. Went to the church +and walked home with him. He knows something. Acknowledged he knew +Bronson. Had met Ladley. Did not believe Mrs. Ladley dead. Regretted +I had not been to the meeting. Good sermon. Asked me for a dollar for +missions. + +9:00 A.M.--Sunday. Ladley in bad shape. Apparently been drinking all +night. Can not eat. Sent out early for papers, and has searched them +all. Found entry on second page, stared at it, then flung the paper +away. Have sent out for same paper. + +10:00 A.M.--Paper says: "Body of woman washed ashore yesterday at +Sewickley. Much mutilated by flood débris." Ladley in bed, staring at +ceiling. Wonder if he sees tube? He is ghastly. + +That is the last entry in the note-book for that day. Mr. Holcombe +called me in great excitement shortly after ten and showed me the +item. Neither of us doubted for a moment that it was Jennie Brice who +had been found. He started for Sewickley that same afternoon, and he +probably communicated with the police before he left. For once or +twice I saw Mr. Graves, the detective, sauntering past the house. + +Mr. Ladley ate no dinner. He went out at four, and I had Mr. Reynolds +follow him. But they were both back in a half-hour. Mr. Reynolds +reported that Mr. Ladley had bought some headache tablets and some +bromide powders to make him sleep. + +Mr. Holcombe came back that evening. He thought the body was that of +Jennie Brice, but the head was gone. He was much depressed, and did +not immediately go back to the periscope. I asked if the head had been +cut off or taken off by a steamer; he was afraid the latter, as a hand +was gone, too. + +It was about eleven o'clock that night that the door-bell rang. It was +Mr. Graves, with a small man behind him. I knew the man; he lived in a +shanty-boat not far from my house--a curious affair with shelves +full of dishes and tinware. In the spring he would be towed up +the Monongahela a hundred miles or so and float down, tying up at +different landings and selling his wares. Timothy Senft was his name. +We called him Tim. + +Mr. Graves motioned me to be quiet. Both of us knew that behind the +parlor door Ladley was probably listening. + +"Sorry to get you up, Mrs. Pitman," said Mr. Graves, "but this man +says he has bought beer here to-day. That won't do, Mrs. Pitman." + +"Beer! I haven't such a thing in the house. Come in and look," I +snapped. And the two of them went back to the kitchen. + +"Now," said Mr. Graves, when I had shut the door, "where's the +dog's-meat man?" + +"Up-stairs." + +"Bring him quietly." + +I called Mr. Holcombe, and he came eagerly, note-book and all. "Ah!" +he said, when he saw Tim. "So you've turned up!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"It seems, Mr. Dog's--Mr. Holcombe," said Mr. Graves, "that you are +right, partly, anyhow. Tim here _did_ help a man with a boat that +night--" + +"Threw him a rope, sir," Tim broke in. "He'd got out in the current, +and what with the ice, and his not knowing much about a boat, he'd +have kept on to New Orleans if I hadn't caught him--or Kingdom Come." + +"Exactly. And what time did you say this was?" + +"Between three and four last Sunday night--or Monday morning. He said +he couldn't sleep and went out in a boat, meaning to keep in close to +shore. But he got drawn out in the current." + +"Where did you see him first?" + +"By the Ninth Street bridge." + +"Did you hail him?" + +"He saw my light and hailed me. I was making fast to a coal barge +after one of my ropes had busted." + +"You threw the line to him there?" + +"No, sir. He tried to work in to shore. I ran along River Avenue to +below the Sixth Street bridge. He got pretty close in there and I +threw him a rope. He was about done up." + +"Would you know him again?" + +"Yes, sir. He gave me five dollars, and said to say nothing about it. +He didn't want anybody to know he had been such a fool." + +They took him quietly up stairs then and let him look through the +periscope. _He identified Mr. Ladley absolutely_. + +When Tim and Mr. Graves had gone, Mr. Holcombe and I were left alone +in the kitchen. Mr. Holcombe leaned over and patted Peter as he lay in +his basket. + +"We've got him, old boy," he said. "The chain is just about complete. +He'll never kick you again." + +But Mr. Holcombe was wrong, not about kicking Peter,--although I don't +believe Mr. Ladley ever did that again,--but in thinking we had him. + +I washed that next morning, Monday, but all the time I was rubbing and +starching and hanging out, my mind was with Jennie Brice. The sight of +Molly Maguire, next door, at the window, rubbing and brushing at the +fur coat, only made things worse. + +At noon when the Maguire youngsters came home from school, I bribed +Tommy, the youngest, into the kitchen, with the promise of a doughnut. + +"I see your mother has a new fur coat," I said, with the plate of +doughnuts just beyond his reach. + +"Yes'm." + +"She didn't buy it?" + +"She didn't buy it. Say, Mrs. Pitman, gimme that doughnut." + +"Oh, so the coat washed in!" + +"No'm. Pap found it, down by the Point, on a cake of ice. He thought +it was a dog, and rowed out for it." + +Well, I hadn't wanted the coat, as far as that goes; I'd managed +well enough without furs for twenty years or more. But it was a +satisfaction to know that it had not floated into Mrs. Maguire's +kitchen and spread itself at her feet, as one may say. However, that +was not the question, after all. The real issue was that if it was +Jennie Brice's coat, and was found across the river on a cake of ice, +then one of two things was certain: either Jennie Brice's body wrapped +in the coat had been thrown into the water, out in the current, or she +herself, hoping to incriminate her husband, had flung her coat into +the river. + +I told Mr. Holcombe, and he interviewed Joe Maguire that afternoon. +The upshot of it was that Tommy had been correctly informed. Joe had +witnesses who had lined up to see him rescue a dog, and had beheld his +return in triumph with a wet and soggy fur coat. At three o'clock +Mrs. Maguire, instructed by Mr. Graves, brought the coat to me for +identification, turning it about for my inspection, but refusing to +take her hands off it. + +"If her husband says to me that he wants it back, well and good," she +said, "but I don't give it up to nobody but him. Some folks I know of +would be glad enough to have it." + +I was certain it was Jennie Brice's coat, but the maker's name had +been ripped out. With Molly holding one arm and I the other, we took +it to Mr. Ladley's door and knocked. He opened it, grumbling. + +"I have asked you not to interrupt me," he said, with his pen in his +hand. His eyes fell on the coat. "What's that?" he asked, changing +color. + +"I think it's Mrs. Ladley's fur coat," I said. + +He stood there looking at it and thinking. Then: "It can't be hers," +he said. "She wore hers when she went away." + +"Perhaps she dropped it in the water." + +He looked at me and smiled. "And why would she do that?" he asked +mockingly. "Was it out of fashion?" + +"That's Mrs. Ladley's coat," I persisted, but Molly Maguire jerked it +from me and started away. He stood there looking at me and smiling in +his nasty way. + +"This excitement is telling on you, Mrs. Pitman," he said coolly. +"You're too emotional for detective work." Then he went in and shut +the door. + +When I went down-stairs, Molly Maguire was waiting in the kitchen, and +had the audacity to ask me if I thought the coat needed a new lining! + +It was on Monday evening that the strangest event in years happened to +me. I went to my sister's house! And the fact that I was admitted at a +side entrance made it even stranger. It happened in this way: + +Supper was over, and I was cleaning up, when an automobile came to the +door. It was Alma's car. The chauffeur gave me a note: + + "DEAR MRS PITMAN--I am not at all well, and very anxious. Will + you come to see me at once? My mother is out to dinner, and I am + alone. The car will bring you. Cordially, + "LIDA HARVEY." + +I put on my best dress at once and got into the limousine. Half the +neighborhood was out watching. I leaned back in the upholstered seat, +fairly quivering with excitement. This was Alma's car; that was Alma's +card-case; the little clock had her monogram on it. Even the flowers +in the flower holder, yellow tulips, reminded me of Alma--a trifle +showy, but good to look at! And I was going to her house! + +I was not taken to the main entrance, but to a side door. The queer +dream-like feeling was still there. In this back hall, relegated from +the more conspicuous part of the house, there were even pieces of +furniture from the old home, and my father's picture, in an oval gilt +frame, hung over my head. I had not seen a picture of him for twenty +years. I went over and touched it gently. + +"Father, father!" I said. + +Under it was the tall hall chair that I had climbed over as a child, +and had stood on many times, to see myself in the mirror above. The +chair was newly finished and looked the better for its age. I glanced +in the old glass. The chair had stood time better than I. I was a +middle-aged woman, lined with poverty and care, shabby, prematurely +gray, a little hard. I had thought my father an old man when that +picture was taken, and now I was even older. "Father!" I whispered +again, and fell to crying in the dimly lighted hall. + +Lida sent for me at once. I had only time to dry my eyes and +straighten my hat. Had I met Alma on the stairs, I would have passed +her without a word. She would not have known me. But I saw no one. + +Lida was in bed. She was lying there with a rose-shaded lamp beside +her, and a great bowl of spring flowers on a little stand at her +elbow. She sat up when I went in, and had a maid place a chair for me +beside the bed. She looked very childish, with her hair in a braid on +the pillow, and her slim young arms and throat bare. + +"I'm so glad you came!" she said, and would not be satisfied until the +light was just right for my eyes, and my coat unfastened and thrown +open. + +"I'm not really ill," she informed me. "I'm--I'm just tired and +nervous, and--and unhappy, Mrs. Pitman." + +"I am sorry," I said. I wanted to lean over and pat her hand, to draw +the covers around her and mother her a little,--I had had no one to +mother for so long,--but I could not. She would have thought it queer +and presumptuous--or no, not that. She was too sweet to have thought +that. + +"Mrs. Pitman," she said suddenly, "_who was_ this Jennie Brice?" + +"She was an actress. She and her husband lived at my house." + +"Was she--was she beautiful?" + +"Well," I said slowly, "I never thought of that. She was handsome, in +a large way." + +"Was she young?" + +"Yes. Twenty-eight or so." + +"That isn't very young," she said, looking relieved. "But I don't +think men like very young women. Do you?" + +"I know one who does," I said, smiling. But she sat up in bed suddenly +and looked at me with her clear childish eyes. + +"I don't want him to like me!" she flashed. "I--I want him to hate +me." + +"Tut, tut! You want nothing of the sort." + +"Mrs. Pitman," she said, "I sent for you because I'm nearly crazy. Mr. +Howell was a friend of that woman. He has acted like a maniac since +she disappeared. He doesn't come to see me, he has given up his work +on the paper, and I saw him to-day on the street--he looks like a +ghost." + +That put me to thinking. + +"He might have been a friend," I admitted. "Although, as far as I +know, he was never at the house but once, and then he saw both of +them." + +"When was that?" + +"Sunday morning, the day before she disappeared. They were arguing +something." + +She was looking at me attentively. "You know more than you are telling +me, Mrs. Pitman," she said. "You--do you think Jennie Brice is dead, +and that Mr. Howell knows--who did it?" + +"I think she is dead, and I think possibly Mr. Howell suspects who did +it. He does not _know_, or he would have told the police." + +"You do not think he was--was in love with Jennie Brice, do you?" + +"I'm certain of that," I said. "He is very much in love with a foolish +girl, who ought to have more faith in him than she has." + +[Illustration: She sat up in bed suddenly.] + +She colored a little, and smiled at that, but the next moment she was +sitting forward, tense and questioning again. + +"If that is true, Mrs. Pitman," she said, "who was the veiled woman +he met that Monday morning at daylight, and took across the bridge to +Pittsburgh? I believe it was Jennie Brice. If it was not, who was it?" + +"I don't believe he took any woman across the bridge at that hour. Who +says he did?" + +"Uncle Jim saw him. He had been playing cards all night at one of the +clubs, and was walking home. He says he met Mr. Howell face to face, +and spoke to him. The woman was tall and veiled. Uncle Jim sent for +him, a day or two later, and he refused to explain. Then they forbade +him the house. Mama objected to him, anyhow, and he only came on +sufferance. He is a college man of good family, but without any money +at all save what he earns.. And now--" + +I had had some young newspaper men with me, and I knew what they got. +They were nice boys, but they made fifteen dollars a week. I'm +afraid I smiled a little as I looked around the room, with its gray +grass-cloth walls, its toilet-table spread with ivory and gold, and +the maid in attendance in her black dress and white apron, collar and +cuffs. Even the little nightgown Lida was wearing would have taken a +week's salary or more. She saw my smile. + +"It was to be his chance," she said. "If he made good, he was to have +something better. My Uncle Jim owns the paper, and he promised me to +help him. But--" + +So Jim was running a newspaper! That was a curious career for Jim to +choose. Jim, who was twice expelled from school, and who could never +write a letter without a dictionary beside him! I had a pang when I +heard his name again, after all the years. For I had written to Jim +from Oklahoma, after Mr. Pitman died, asking for money to bury him, +and had never even had a reply. + +"And you haven't seen him since?" + +"Once. I--didn't hear from him, and I called him up. We--we met in the +park. He said everything was all right, but he couldn't tell me just +then. The next day he resigned from the paper and went away. Mrs. +Pitman, it's driving me crazy! For they have found a body, and they +think it is hers. If it is, and he was with her--" + +"Don't be a foolish girl," I protested. "If he was with Jennie Brice, +she is still living, and if he was _not_ with Jennie Brice--" + +"If it was _not_ Jennie Brice, then I have a right to know who it +was," she declared. "He was not like himself when I met him. He said +such queer things: he talked about an onyx clock, and said he had been +made a fool of, and that no matter what came out, I was always to +remember that he had done what he did for the best, and that--that he +cared for me more than for anything in this world or the next." + +"That wasn't so foolish!" I couldn't help it; I leaned over and +drew her nightgown up over her bare white shoulder. "You won't help +anything or anybody by taking cold, my dear," I said. "Call your maid +and have her put a dressing-gown around you." + +I left soon after. There was little I could do. But I comforted her as +best I could, and said good night. My heart was heavy as I went down +the stairs. For, twist things as I might, it was clear that in some +way the Howell boy was mixed up in the Brice case. Poor little +troubled Lida! Poor distracted boy! + +I had a curious experience down-stairs. I had reached the foot of the +staircase and was turning to go back and along the hall to the side +entrance, when I came face to face with Isaac, the old colored man +who had driven the family carriage when I was a child, and whom I had +seen, at intervals since I came back, pottering around Alma's house. +The old man was bent and feeble; he came slowly down the hall, with +a bunch of keys in his hand. I had seen him do the same thing many +times. + +He stopped when he saw me, and I shrank back from the light, but he +had seen me. "Miss Bess!" he said. "Foh Gawd's sake, Miss Bess!" + +"You are making a mistake, my friend," I said, quivering. "I am not +'Miss Bess'!" + +He came close to me and stared into my face. And from that he looked +at my cloth gloves, at my coat, and he shook his white head. "I sure +thought you was Miss Bess," he said, and made no further effort to +detain me. He led the way back to the door where the machine waited, +his head shaking with the palsy of age, muttering as he went. He +opened the door with his best manner, and stood aside. + +"Good night, ma'am," he quavered. + +I had tears in my eyes. I tried to keep them back. "Good night," I +said. "Good night, _Ikkie_." + +It had slipped out, my baby name for old Isaac! + +"Miss Bess!" he cried. "Oh, praise Gawd, it's Miss Bess again!" + +He caught my arm and pulled me back into the hall, and there he held +me, crying over me, muttering praises for my return, begging me to +come back, recalling little tender things out of the past that almost +killed me to hear again. + +But I had made my bed and must lie in it. I forced him to swear +silence about my visit; I made him promise not to reveal my identity +to Lida; and I told him--Heaven forgive me!--that I was well and +prosperous and happy. + +Dear old Isaac! I would not let him come to see me, but the next +day there came a basket, with six bottles of wine, and an old +daguerreotype of my mother, that had been his treasure. Nor was that +basket the last. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The coroner held an inquest over the headless body the next day, +Tuesday. Mr. Graves telephoned me in the morning, and I went to the +morgue with him. + +I do not like the morgue, although some of my neighbors pay it weekly +visits. It is by way of excursion, like nickelodeons or watching the +circus put up its tents. I have heard them threaten the children that +if they misbehaved they would not be taken to the morgue that week! + +I failed to identify the body. How could I? It had been a tall woman, +probably five feet eight, and I thought the nails looked like those of +Jennie Brice. The thumb-nail of one was broken short off. I told +Mr. Graves about her speaking of a broken nail, but he shrugged his +shoulders and said nothing. + +There was a curious scar over the heart, and he was making a sketch +of it. It reached from the center of the chest for about six inches +across the left breast, a narrow thin line that one could hardly see. +It was shaped like this: + +I felt sure that Jennie Brice had had no such scar, and Mr. Graves +thought as I did. Temple Hope, called to the inquest, said she had +never heard of one, and Mr. Ladley himself, at the inquest, swore that +his wife had had nothing of the sort. I was watching him, and I +did not think he was lying. And yet--the hand was very like Jennie +Brice's. It was all bewildering. + +Mr. Ladley's testimoney at the inquest was disappointing. He was cool +and collected: said he had no reason to believe that his wife was +dead, and less reason to think she had been drowned; she had left him +in a rage, and if she found out that by hiding she was putting him in +an unpleasant position, she would probably hide indefinitely. + +To the disappointment of everybody, the identity of the woman remained +a mystery. No one with such a scar was missing. A small woman of +my own age, a Mrs. Murray, whose daughter, a stenographer, had +disappeared, attended the inquest. But her daughter had had no such +scar, and had worn her nails short, because of using the typewriter. +Alice Murray was the missing girl's name. Her mother sat beside me, +and cried most of the time. + +One thing was brought out at the inquest: the body had been thrown +into the river _after_ death. There was no water in the lungs. The +verdict was "death by the hands of some person or persons unknown." + +Mr. Holcombe was not satisfied. In some way or other he had got +permission to attend the autopsy, and had brought away a tracing of +the scar. All the way home in the street-car he stared at the drawing, +holding first one eye shut and then the other. But, like the coroner, +he got nowhere. He folded the paper and put it in his note-book. + +"None the less, Mrs. Pitman," he said, "that is the body of Jennie +Brice; her husband killed her, probably by strangling her; he took the +body out in the boat and dropped it into the swollen river above the +Ninth Street bridge." + +"Why do you think he strangled her?" + +"There was no mark on the body, and no poison was found." + +"Then if he strangled her, where did the blood come from?" + +"I didn't limit myself to strangulation," he said irritably. "He may +have cut her throat." + +"Or brained her with my onyx clock," I added with a sigh. For I missed +the clock more and more. + +He went down in his pockets and brought up a key. "I'd forgotten +this," he said. "It shows you were right--that the clock was there +when the Ladleys took the room. I found this in the yard this +morning." + +It was when I got home from the inquest that I found old Isaac's +basket waiting. I am not a crying woman, but I could hardly see my +mother's picture for tears.--Well, after all, that is not the Brice +story. I am not writing the sordid tragedy of my life. + +That was on Tuesday. Jennie Brice had been missing nine days. In all +that time, although she was cast for the piece at the theater that +week, no one there had heard from her. Her relatives had had no word. +She had gone away, if she had gone, on a cold March night, in a +striped black and white dress with a red collar, and a red and black +hat, without her fur coat, which she had worn all winter. She had gone +very early in the morning, or during the night. How had she gone? Mr. +Ladley said he had rowed her to Federal Street at half after six and +had brought the boat back. After they had quarreled violently all +night, and when she was leaving him, wouldn't he have allowed her to +take herself away? Besides, the police had found no trace of her on +an early train. And then at daylight, between five and six, my own +brother had seen a woman with Mr. Howell, a woman who might have been +Jennie Brice. But if it was, why did not Mr. Howell say so? + +Mr. Ladley claimed she was hiding, in revenge. But Jennie Brice was +not that sort of woman; there was something big about her, something +that is found often in large women--a lack of spite. She was not petty +or malicious. Her faults, like her virtues, were for all to see. + +In spite of the failure to identify the body, Mr. Ladley was arrested +that night, Tuesday, and this time it was for murder. I know now that +the police were taking long chances. They had no strong motive for the +crime. As Mr. Holcombe said, they had provocation, but not motive, +which is different. They had opportunity, and they had a lot of +straggling links of clues, which in the total made a fair chain of +circumstantial evidence. But that was all. + +That is the way the case stood on Tuesday night, March the thirteenth. + +Mr. Ladley was taken away at nine o'clock. He was perfectly cool, +asked me to help him pack a suit case, and whistled while it was +being done. He requested to be allowed to walk to the jail, and went +quietly, with a detective on one side and I think a sheriff's officer +on the other. + +Just before he left, he asked for a word or two with me, and when he +paid his bill up to date, and gave me an extra dollar for taking care +of Peter, I was almost overcome. He took the manuscript of his play +with him, and I remember his asking if he could have any typing done +in the jail. I had never seen a man arrested for murder before, but I +think he was probably the coolest suspect the officers had ever seen. +They hardly knew what to make of it. + +Mr. Reynolds and I had a cup of tea after all the excitement, and were +sitting at the dining-room table drinking it, when the bell rang. It +was Mr. Howell! He half staggered into the hall when I opened the +door, and was for going into the parlor bedroom without a word. + +"Mr. Ladley's gone, if you want him," I said. I thought his face +cleared. + +"Gone!" he said. "Where?" + +"To jail." + +He did not reply at once. He stood there, tapping the palm of one +hand with the forefinger of the other. He was dirty and unshaven. His +clothes looked as if he had been sleeping in them. + +"So they've got him!" he muttered finally, and turning, was about to +go out the front door without another word, but I caught his arm. + +"You're sick, Mr. Howell," I said. "You'd better not go out just yet." + +"Oh, I'm all right." He took his handkerchief out and wiped his face. +I saw that his hands were shaking. + +"Come back and have a cup of tea, and a slice of home-made bread." + +He hesitated and looked at his watch. "I'll do it, Mrs. Pitman," he +said. "I suppose I'd better throw a little fuel into this engine of +mine. It's been going hard for several days." + +He ate like a wolf. I cut half a loaf into slices for him, and he +drank the rest of the tea. Mr. Reynolds creaked up to bed and left him +still eating, and me still cutting and spreading. Now that I had a +chance to see him, I was shocked. The rims of his eyes were red, his +collar was black, and his hair hung over his forehead. But when he +finally sat back and looked at me, his color was better. + +"So they've canned him!" he said. + +"Time enough, too," said I. + +He leaned forward and put both his elbows on the table. "Mrs. Pitman," +he said earnestly, "I don't like him any more than you do. But he +never killed that woman." + +"Somebody killed her." + +"How do you know? How do you know she is dead?" + +Well, I didn't, of course--I only felt it. + +"The police haven't even proved a crime. They can't hold a man for a +supposititious murder." + +"Perhaps they can't but they're doing it," I retorted. "If the woman's +alive, she won't let him hang." + +"I'm not so sure of that," he said heavily, and got up. He looked in +the little mirror over the sideboard, and brushed back his hair. "I +look bad enough," he said, "but I feel worse. Well, you've saved my +life, Mrs. Pitman. Thank you." + +"How is my--how is Miss Harvey?" I asked, as we started out. He turned +and smiled at me in his boyish way. + +"The best ever!" he said. "I haven't seen her for days, and it seems +like centuries. She--she is the only girl in the world for me, Mrs. +Pitman, although I--" He stopped and drew a long breath. "She is +beautiful, isn't she?" + +"Very beautiful," I answered. "Her mother was always--" + +"Her mother!" He looked at me curiously. + +"I knew her mother years ago," I said, putting the best face on my +mistake that I could. + +"Then I'll remember you to her, if she ever allows me to see her +again. Just now I'm _persona non grata_." + +"If you'll do the kindly thing, Mr. Howell," I said, "you'll _forget_ +me to her." + +He looked into my eyes and then thrust out his hand. + +"All right," he said. "I'll not ask any questions. I guess there are +some curious stories hidden in these old houses." + +Peter hobbled to the front door with him. He had not gone so far as +the parlor once while Mr. Ladley was in the house. + + * * * * * + +They had had a sale of spring flowers at the store that day, and Mr. +Reynolds had brought me a pot of white tulips. That night I hung my +mother's picture over the mantel in the dining-room, and put the +tulips beneath it. It gave me a feeling of comfort; I had never seen +my mother's grave, or put flowers on it. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +I have said before that I do not know anything about the law. I +believe that the Ladley case was unusual, in several ways. Mr. Ladley +had once been well known in New York among the people who frequent the +theaters, and Jennie Brice was even better known. A good many lawyers, +I believe, said that the police had not a leg to stand on, and I know +the case was watched with much interest by the legal profession. +People wrote letters to the newspapers, protesting against Mr. Ladley +being held. And I believe that the district attorney, in taking him +before the grand jury, hardly hoped to make a case. + +But he did, to his own surprise, I fancy, and the trial was set for +May. But in the meantime, many curious things happened. + +In the first place, the week following Mr. Ladley's arrest my house +was filled up with eight or ten members of a company from the Gaiety +Theater, very cheerful and jolly, and well behaved. Three men, I +think, and the rest girls. One of the men was named Bellows, John +Bellows, and it turned out that he had known Jennie Brice very well. + +From the moment he learned that, Mr. Holcombe hardly left him. He +walked to the theater with him and waited to walk home again. He took +him out to restaurants and for long street-car rides in the mornings, +and on the last night of their stay, Saturday, they got gloriously +drunk together--Mr. Holcombe, no doubt, in his character of +Ladley--and came reeling in at three in the morning, singing. Mr. +Holcombe was very sick the next day, but by Monday he was all right, +and he called me into the room. + +"We've got him, Mrs. Pitman," he said, looking mottled but cheerful. +"As sure as God made little fishes, we've got him." That was all he +would say, however. It seemed he was going to New York, and might be +gone for a month. "I've no family," he said, "and enough money to keep +me. If I find my relaxation in hunting down criminals, it's a harmless +and cheap amusement, and--it's my own business." + +He went away that night, and I must admit I missed him. I rented the +parlor bedroom the next day to a school-teacher, and I found the +periscope affair very handy. I could see just how much gas she used; +and although the notice on each door forbids cooking and washing in +rooms, I found she was doing both: making coffee and boiling an egg +in the morning, and rubbing out stockings and handkerchiefs in her +wash-bowl. I'd much rather have men as boarders than women. The women +are always lighting alcohol lamps on the bureau, and wanting the bed +turned into a cozy corner so they can see their gentlemen friends in +their rooms. + +Well, with Mr. Holcombe gone, and Mr. Reynolds busy all day and half +the night getting out the summer silks and preparing for remnant day, +and with Mr. Ladley in jail and Lida out of the city--for I saw in +the papers that she was not well, and her mother had taken her to +Bermuda--I had a good bit of time on my hands. And so I got in the +habit of thinking things over, and trying to draw conclusions, as I +had seen Mr. Holcombe do. I would sit down and write things out as +they had happened, and study them over, and especially I worried over +how we could have found a slip of paper in Mr. Ladley's room with a +list, almost exact, of the things we had discovered there. I used to +read it over, "rope, knife, shoe, towel, Horn--" and get more and more +bewildered. "Horn"--might have been a town, or it might not have been. +There _was_ such a town, according to Mr. Graves, but apparently he +had made nothing of it. _Was_ it a town that was meant? + +The dictionary gave only a few words beginning with "horn"--hornet, +hornblende, hornpipe, and horny--none of which was of any assistance. +And then one morning I happened to see in the personal column of one +of the newspapers that a woman named Eliza Shaeffer, of Horner, had +day-old Buff Orpington and Plymouth Rock chicks for sale, and it +started me to puzzling again. Perhaps it had been Horner, and possibly +this very Eliza Shaeffer-- + +I suppose my lack of experience was in my favor, for, after all, Eliza +Shaeffer is a common enough name, and the "Horn" might have stood for +"hornswoggle," for all I knew. The story of the man who thought of +what he would do if he were a horse, came back to me, and for an hour +or so I tried to think I was Jennie Brice, trying to get away and hide +from my rascal of a husband. But I made no headway. I would never have +gone to Horner, or to any small town, if I had wanted to hide. I +think I should have gone around the corner and taken a room in my own +neighborhood, or have lost myself in some large city. + +It was that same day that, since I did not go to Horner, Horner came +to me. The bell rang about three o'clock, and I answered it myself. +For, with times hard and only two or three roomers all winter, I had +not had a servant, except Terry to do odd jobs, for some months. + +There stood a fresh-faced young girl, with a covered basket in her +hand. + +"Are you Mrs. Pitman?" she asked. + +"I don't need anything to-day," I said, trying to shut the door. And +at that minute something in the basket cheeped. Young women selling +poultry are not common in our neighborhood. "What have you there?" I +asked more agreeably. + +"Chicks, day-old chicks, but I'm not trying to sell you any. I--may I +come in?" + +It was dawning on me then that perhaps this was Eliza Shaeffer. I led +her back to the dining-room, with Peter sniffing at the basket. + +"My name is Shaeffer," she said. "I've seen your name in the papers, +and I believe I know something about Jennie Brice." + +Eliza Shaeffer's story was curious. She said that she was postmistress +at Horner, and lived with her mother on a farm a mile out of the town, +driving in and out each day in a buggy. + +On Monday afternoon, March the fifth, a woman had alighted at the +station from a train, and had taken luncheon at the hotel. She +told the clerk she was on the road, selling corsets, and was much +disappointed to find no store of any size in the town. The woman, who +had registered as Mrs. Jane Bellows, said she was tired and would like +to rest for a day or two on a farm. She was told to see Eliza Shaeffer +at the post-office, and, as a result, drove out with her to the farm +after the last mail came in that evening. + +Asked to describe her--she was over medium height, light-haired, quick +in her movements, and wore a black and white striped dress with a red +collar, and a hat to match. She carried a small brown valise that Miss +Shaeffer presumed contained her samples. + +Mrs. Shaeffer had made her welcome, although they did not usually take +boarders until June. She had not eaten much supper, and that night she +had asked for pen and ink, and had written a letter. The letter was +not mailed until Wednesday. All of Tuesday Mrs. Bellows had spent in +her room, and Mrs. Shaeffer had driven to the village in the afternoon +with word that she had been crying all day, and bought some headache +medicine for her. + +On Wednesday morning, however, she had appeared at breakfast, eaten +heartily, and had asked Miss Shaeffer to take her letter to the +post-office. It was addressed to Mr. Ellis Howell, in care of a +Pittsburgh newspaper! + +That night when Miss Eliza went home, about half past eight, the woman +was gone. She had paid for her room and had been driven as far as +Thornville, where all trace of her had been lost. On account of the +disappearance of Jennie Brice being published shortly after that, she +and her mother had driven to Thornville, but the station agent there +was surly as well as stupid. They had learned nothing about the woman. + +Since that time, three men had made inquiries about the woman in +question. One had a pointed Vandyke beard; the second, from the +description, I fancied must have been Mr. Graves. The third without +doubt was Mr. Howell. Eliza Shaeffer said that this last man had +seemed half frantic. I brought her a photograph of Jennie Brice as +"Topsy" and another one as "Juliet". She said there was a resemblance, +but that it ended there. But of course, as Mr. Graves had said, by the +time an actress gets her photograph retouched to suit her, it doesn't +particularly resemble her. And unless I had known Jennie Brice myself, +I should hardly have recognized the pictures. + +Well, in spite of all that, there seemed no doubt that Jennie Brice +had been living three days after her disappearance, and that would +clear Mr. Ladley. But what had Mr. Howell to do with it all? Why had +he not told the police of the letter from Horner? Or about the woman +on the bridge? Why had Mr. Bronson, who was likely the man with the +pointed beard, said nothing about having traced Jennie Brice to +Horner? + +I did as I thought Mr. Holcombe would have wished me to do. I wrote +down on a clean sheet of note-paper all that Eliza Shaeffer said: the +description of the black and white dress, the woman's height, and the +rest, and then I took her to the court-house, chicks and all, and she +told her story there to one of the assistant district attorneys. + +The young man was interested, but not convinced. He had her story +taken down, and she signed it. He was smiling as he bowed us out. I +turned in the doorway. + +"This will free Mr. Ladley, I suppose?" I asked. + +"Not just yet," he said pleasantly. "This makes just eleven places +where Jennie Brice spent the first three days after her death." + +"But I can positively identify the dress." + +"My good woman, that dress has been described, to the last stilted +arch and Colonial volute, in every newspaper in the United States!" + +That evening the newspapers announced that during a conference at the +jail between Mr. Ladley and James Bronson, business manager at the +Liberty Theater, Mr. Ladley had attacked Mr. Bronson with a chair, and +almost brained him. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Eliza Shaeffer went back to Horner, after delivering her chicks +somewhere in the city. Things went on as before. The trial was set for +May. The district attorney's office had all the things we had found in +the house that Monday afternoon--the stained towel, the broken knife +and its blade, the slipper that had been floating in the parlor, +and the rope that had fastened my boat to the staircase. +Somewhere--wherever they keep such things--was the headless body of +a woman with a hand missing, and with a curious scar across the left +breast. The slip of paper, however, which I had found behind the +base-board, was still in Mr. Holcombe's possession, nor had he +mentioned it to the police. + +Mr. Holcombe had not come back. He wrote me twice asking me to hold +his room, once from New York and once from Chicago. To the second +letter he added a postscript: + + "Have not found what I wanted, but am getting warm. If any news, + address me at Des Moines, Iowa, General Delivery. H." + +It was nearly the end of April when I saw Lida again. I had seen by +the newspapers that she and her mother were coming home. I wondered if +she had heard from Mr. Howell, for I had not, and I wondered, too, if +she would send for me again. + +But she came herself, on foot, late one afternoon, and the +school-teacher being out, I took her into the parlor bedroom. She +looked thinner than before, and rather white. My heart ached for her. + +"I have been away," she explained. "I thought you might wonder why +you did not hear from me. But, you see, my mother--" she stopped +and flushed. "I would have written you from Bermuda, but--my mother +watched my correspondence, so I could not." + +No. I knew she could not. Alma had once found a letter of mine to Mr. +Pitman. Very little escaped Alma. + +"I wondered if you have heard anything?" she asked. + +"I have heard nothing. Mr. Howell was here once, just after I saw you. +I do not believe he is in the city. + +"Perhaps not, although--Mrs. Pitman, I believe he is in the city, +hiding!" + +"Hiding! Why?" + +"I don't know. But last night I thought I saw him below my window. I +opened the window, so if it were he, he could make some sign. But he +moved on without a word. Later, whoever it was came back. I put out my +light and watched. Some one stood there, in the shadow, until after +two this morning. Part of the time he was looking up." + +"Don't you think, had it been he, he would have spoken when he saw +you?" + +She shook her head. "He is in trouble," she said. "He has not heard +from me, and he--thinks I don't care any more. Just look at me, Mrs. +Pitman! Do I look as if I don't care?" + +She looked half killed, poor lamb. + +"He may be out of town, searching for a better position," I tried to +comfort her. "He wants to have something to offer more than himself." + +"I only want him," she said, looking at me frankly. "I don't know why +I tell you all this, but you are so kind, and I _must_ talk to some +one." + +She sat there, in the cozy corner the school-teacher had made with a +portière and some cushions, and I saw she was about ready to break +down and cry. I went over to her and took her hand, for she was my own +niece, although she didn't suspect it, and I had never had a child of +my own. + +But after all, I could not help her much. I could only assure her that +he would come back and explain everything, and that he was all right, +and that the last time I had seen him he had spoken of her, and had +said she was "the best ever." My heart fairly yearned over the girl, +and I think she felt it. For she kissed me, shyly, when she was +leaving. + +With the newspaper files before me, it is not hard to give the details +of that sensational trial. It commenced on Monday, the seventh of May, +but it was late Wednesday when the jury was finally selected. I was at +the court-house early on Thursday, and so was Mr. Reynolds. + +The district attorney made a short speech. "We propose, gentlemen, to +prove that the prisoner, Philip Ladley, murdered his wife," he said +in part. "We will show first that a crime was committed; then we will +show a motive for this crime, and, finally, we expect to show that the +body washed ashore at Sewickley is the body of the murdered woman, and +thus establish beyond doubt the prisoner's guilt." + +Mr. Ladley listened with attention. He wore the brown suit, and looked +well and cheerful. He was much more like a spectator than a prisoner, +and he was not so nervous as I was. + +Of that first day I do not recall much. I was called early in the day. +The district attorney questioned me. + +"Your name?" + +"Elizabeth Marie Pitman." + +"Your occupation?" + +"I keep a boarding-house at 42 Union Street." + +"You know the prisoner?" + +"Yes. He was a boarder in my house." + +"For how long?" + +"From December first. He and his wife came at that time." + +"Was his wife the actress, Jennie Brice?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Were they living together at your house the night of March fourth?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"In what part of the house?" + +"They rented the double parlors down-stairs, but on account of the +flood I moved them up-stairs to the second floor front." + +"That was on Sunday? You moved them on Sunday?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"At what time did you retire that night?" + +"Not at all. The water was very high. I lay down, dressed, at one +o'clock, and dropped into a doze." + +"How long did you sleep?" + +"An hour or so. Mr. Reynolds, a boarder, roused me to say he had heard +some one rowing a boat in the lower hall." + +"Do you keep a boat around during flood times?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"What did you do when Mr. Reynolds roused you?" + +"I went to the top of the stairs. My boat was gone." + +"Was the boat secured?" + +"Yes, sir. Anyhow, there was no current in the hall." + +"What did you do then?" + +"I waited a time and went back to my room." + +"What examination of the house did you make--if any?" + +"Mr. Reynolds looked around." + +"What did he find?" + +"He found Peter, the Ladleys' dog, shut in a room on the third floor." + +"Was there anything unusual about that?" + +"I had never known it to happen before." + +"State what happened later." + +"I did not go to sleep again. At a quarter after four, I heard the +boat come back. I took a candle and went to the stairs. It was Mr. +Ladley. He said he had been out getting medicine for his wife." + +"Did you see him tie up the boat?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you observe any stains on the rope?" + +"I did not notice any." + +"What was the prisoner's manner at that time?" + +"I thought he was surly." + +"Now, Mrs. Pitman, tell us about the following morning." + +"I saw Mr. Ladley at a quarter before seven. He said to bring +breakfast for one. His wife had gone away. I asked if she was not ill, +and he said no; that she had gone away early; that he had rowed her to +Federal Street, and that she would be back Saturday. It was shortly +after that that the dog Peter brought in one of Mrs. Ladley's +slippers, water-soaked." + +"You recognized the slipper?" + +"Positively. I had seen it often." + +"What did you do with it?" + +"I took it to Mr. Ladley." + +"What did he say?" + +"He said at first that it was not hers. Then he said if it was, she +would never wear it again--and then added--because it was ruined." + +"Did he offer any statement as to where his wife was?" + +"No, sir. Not at that time. Before, he had said she had gone away for +a few days." + +"Tell the jury about the broken knife." + +"The dog found it floating in the parlor, with the blade broken." + +"You had not left it down-stairs?" + +"No, sir. I had used it up-stairs, the night before, and left it on a +mantel of the room I was using as a temporary kitchen." + +"Was the door of this room locked?" + +"No. It was standing open." + +"Were you not asleep in this room?" + +"Yes." + +"You heard no one come in?" + +"No one--until Mr. Reynolds roused me." + +"Where did you find the blade?" + +"Behind the bed in Mr. Ladley's room." + +"What else did you find in the room?" + +"A blood-stained towel behind the wash-stand. Also, my onyx clock was +missing." + +"Where was the clock when the Ladleys were moved up into this room?" + +"On the mantel. I wound it just before they came up-stairs." + +"When you saw Mrs. Ladley on Sunday, did she say she was going away?" + +"No, sir." + +"Did you see any preparation for a journey?" + +"The black and white dress was laid out on the bed, and a small bag. +She said she was taking the dress to the theater to lend to Miss +Hope." + +"Is that all she said?" + +"No. She said she'd been wishing her husband would drown; that he was +a fiend." + +I could see that my testimony had made an impression. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +The slipper, the rope, the towel, and the knife and blade were +produced in court, and I identified them all. They made a noticeable +impression on the jury. Then Mr. Llewellyn, the lawyer for the +defense, cross-examined me. + +"Is it not true, Mrs. Pitman," he said, "that many articles, +particularly shoes and slippers, are found floating around during a +flood?" + +"Yes," I admitted. + +"Now, you say the dog found this slipper floating in the hall and +brought it to you. Are you sure this slipper belonged to Jennie +Brice?" + +"She wore it. I presume it belonged to her." + +"Ahem. Now, Mrs. Pitman, after the Ladleys had been moved to the +upper floor, did you search their bedroom and the connecting room +down-stairs?" + +"No, sir." + +"Ah. Then, how do you know that this slipper was not left on the floor +or in a closet?" + +"It is possible, but not likely. Anyhow, it was not the slipper alone. +It was the other things _and_ the slipper. It was--" + +"Exactly. Now, Mrs. Pitman, this knife. Can you identify it +positively?" + +"I can." + +"But isn't it true that this is a very common sort of knife? One that +nearly every housewife has in her possession?" + +"Yes, sir. But that knife handle has three notches in it. I put the +notches there myself." + +"Before this presumed crime?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"For what purpose?" + +"My neighbors were constantly borrowing things. It was a means of +identification." + +"Then this knife is yours?" + +"Yes." + +"Tell again where you left it the night before it was found floating +down-stairs." + +"On a shelf over the stove." + +"Could the dog have reached it there?" + +"Not without standing on a hot stove." + +"Is it not possible that Mr. Ladley, unable to untie the boat, +borrowed your knife to cut the boat's painter?" + +"No painter was cut that I heard about The paper-hanger--" + +"No, no. The boat's painter--the rope." + +"Oh! Well, he might have. He never said." + +"Now then, this towel, Mrs. Pitman. Did not the prisoner, on the +following day, tell you that he had cut his wrist in freeing the boat, +and ask you for some court-plaster?" + +"He did not," I said firmly. + +"You have not seen a scar on his wrist?" + +"No." I glanced at Mr. Ladley: he was smiling, as if amused. It made +me angry. "And what's more," I flashed, "if he has a cut on his wrist, +he put it there himself, to account for the towel." + +I was sorry the next moment that I had said it, but it was too late. +The counsel for the defense moved to exclude the answer and I received +a caution that I deserved. Then: + +"You saw Mr. Ladley when he brought your boat back?" + +"Yes." + +"What time was that?" + +"A quarter after four Monday morning." + +"Did he come in quietly, like a man trying to avoid attention?" + +"Not particularly. It would have been of no use. The dog was barking." + +"What did he say?" + +"That he had been out for medicine. That his wife was sick." + +"Do you know a pharmacist named Alexander--Jonathan Alexander?" + +"There is such a one, but I don't know him." + +I was excused, and Mr. Reynolds was called. He had heard no quarreling +that Sunday night; had even heard Mrs. Ladley laughing. This was +about nine o'clock. Yes, they had fought in the afternoon. He had not +overheard any words, but their voices were quarrelsome, and once he +heard a chair or some article of furniture overthrown. Was awakened +about two by footsteps on the stairs, followed by the sound of oars +in the lower hall. He told his story plainly and simply. Under +cross-examination admitted that he was fond of detective stories and +had tried to write one himself; that he had said at the store that +he would like to see that "conceited ass" swing, referring to the +prisoner; that he had sent flowers to Jennie Brice at the theater, and +had made a few advances to her, without success. + +My head was going round. I don't know yet how the police learned it +all, but by the time poor Mr. Reynolds left the stand, half the people +there believed that he had been in love with Jennie Brice, that she +had spurned his advances, and that there was more to the story than +any of them had suspected. + +Miss Hope's story held without any alteration under the +cross-examination. She was perfectly at ease, looked handsome and well +dressed, and could not be shaken. She told how Jennie Brice had been +in fear of her life, and had asked her, only the week before she +disappeared, to allow her to go home with her--Miss Hope. She told +of the attack of hysteria in her dressing-room, and that the missing +woman had said that her husband would kill her some day. There was +much wrangling over her testimony, and I believe at least a part of it +was not allowed to go to the jury. But I am not a lawyer, and I repeat +what I recall. + +"Did she say that he had attacked her?" + +"Yes, more than once. She was a large woman, fairly muscular, and had +always held her own." + +"Did she say that these attacks came when he had been drinking?" + +"I believe he was worse then." + +"Did she give any reason for her husband's attitude to her?" + +"She said he wanted to marry another woman." + +There was a small sensation at this. If proved, it established a +motive. + +"Did she know who the other woman was?" + +"I believe not. She was away most of the day, and he put in his time +as he liked." + +"Did Miss Brice ever mention the nature of the threats he made against +her?" + +"No, I think not." + +"Have you examined the body washed ashore at Sewickley?" + +"Yes--" in a low voice. + +"Is it the body of Jennie Brice?" + +"I can not say." + +"Does the remaining hand look like the hand of Jennie Brice?" + +"Very much. The nails are filed to points, as she wore hers." + +"Did you ever know of Jennie Brice having a scar on her breast?" + +"No, but that would be easily concealed." + +"Just what do you mean?" + +"Many actresses conceal defects. She could have worn flesh-colored +plaster and covered it with powder. Also, such a scar would not +necessarily be seen." + +"Explain that." + +"Most of Jennie Brice's décolleté gowns were cut to a point. This +would conceal such a scar." + +Miss Hope was excused, and Jennie Brice's sister from Olean was +called. She was a smaller woman than Jennie Brice had been, very +lady-like in her manner. She said she was married and living in Olean; +she had not seen her sister for several years, but had heard from her +often. The witness had discouraged the marriage to the prisoner. + +"Why?" + +"She had had bad luck before." + +"She had been married before?" + +"Yes, to a man named John Bellows. They were in vaudeville together, +on the Keith Circuit. They were known as The Pair of Bellows." + +I sat up at this for John Bellows had boarded at my house. + +"Mr. Bellows is dead?" + +"I think not. She divorced him." + +"Did you know of any scar on your sister's body?" + +"I never heard of one." + +"Have you seen the body found at Sewickley?" + +"Yes"--faintly. + +"Can you identify it?" + +"No, sir." + +A flurry was caused during the afternoon by Timothy Senft. He +testified to what I already knew--that between three and four on +Monday morning, during the height of the flood, he had seen from his +shanty-boat a small skiff caught in the current near the Ninth Street +bridge. He had shouted encouragingly to the man in the boat, running +out a way on the ice to make him hear. He had told him to row with the +current, and to try to steer in toward shore. He had followed close to +the river bank in his own boat. Below Sixth Street the other boat was +within rope-throwing distance. He had pulled it in, and had towed it +well back out of the current. The man in the boat was the prisoner. +Asked if the prisoner gave any explanation--yes, he said he couldn't +sleep, and had thought to tire himself rowing. Had been caught in the +current before he knew it. Saw nothing suspicious in or about the +boat. As they passed the police patrol boat, prisoner had called to +ask if there was much distress, and expressed regret when told there +was. + +Tim was excused. He had made a profound impression. I would not have +given a dollar for Mr. Ladley's chance with the jury, at that time. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +The prosecution produced many witnesses during the next two days: +Shanty-boat Tim's story withstood the most vigorous cross-examination. +After him, Mr. Bronson from the theater corroborated Miss Hope's story +of Jennie Brice's attack of hysteria in the dressing-room, and told of +taking her home that night. + +He was a poor witness, nervous and halting. He weighed each word +before he said it, and he made a general unfavorable impression. I +thought he was holding something back. In view of what Mr. Pitman +would have called the denouement, his attitude is easily explained. +But I was puzzled then. + +So far, the prosecution had touched but lightly on the possible motive +for a crime--the woman. But on the third day, to my surprise, a Mrs. +Agnes Murray was called. It was the Mrs. Murray I had seen at the +morgue. + +I have lost the clipping of that day's trial, but I remember her +testimony perfectly. + +She was a widow, living above a small millinery shop on Federal +Street, Allegheny. She had one daughter, Alice, who did stenography +and typing as a means of livelihood. She had no office, and worked at +home. Many of the small stores in the neighborhood employed her to +send out their bills. There was a card at the street entrance beside +the shop, and now and then strangers brought her work. + +Early in December the prisoner had brought her the manuscript of a +play to type, and from that time on he came frequently, sometimes +every day, bringing a few sheets of manuscript at a time. Sometimes he +came without any manuscript, and would sit and talk while he smoked a +cigarette. They had thought him unmarried. + +On Wednesday, February twenty-eighth, Alice Murray had disappeared. +She had taken some of her clothing--not all, and had left a note. The +witness read the note aloud in a trembling voice: + + "DEAR MOTHER: When you get this I shall be married to Mr. Ladley. + Don't worry. Will write again from N.Y. Lovingly, + + "ALICE." + +From that time until a week before, she had not heard from her +daughter. Then she had a card, mailed from Madison Square Station, New +York City. The card merely said: + + "Am well and working. ALICE." + +The defense was visibly shaken. They had not expected this, and I +thought even Mr. Ladley, whose calm had continued unbroken, paled. + +So far, all had gone well for the prosecution. They had proved a +crime, as nearly as circumstantial evidence could prove a crime, and +they had established a motive. But in the identification of the +body, so far they had failed. The prosecution "rested," as they say, +although they didn't rest much, on the afternoon of the third day. + +The defense called, first of all, Eliza Shaeffer. She told of a woman +answering the general description of Jennie Brice having spent two +days at the Shaeffer farm at Horner. Being shown photographs of +Jennie Brice, she said she thought it was the same woman, but was +not certain. She told further of the woman leaving unexpectedly on +Wednesday of that week from Thornville. On cross-examination, being +shown the small photograph which Mr. Graves had shown me, she +identified the woman in the group as being the woman in question. +As the face was in shadow, knew it more by the dress and hat: she +described the black and white dress and the hat with red trimming. + +The defense then called me. I had to admit that the dress and hat as +described were almost certainly the ones I had seen on the bed in +Jennie Brice's room the day before she disappeared. I could not say +definitely whether the woman in the photograph was Jennie Brice or +not; under a magnifying-glass thought it might be. + +Defense called Jonathan Alexander, a druggist who testified that on +the night in question he had been roused at half past three by the +prisoner, who had said his wife was ill, and had purchased a bottle of +a proprietary remedy from him. His identification was absolute. + +The defense called Jennie Brice's sister, and endeavored to prove +that Jennie Brice had had no such scar. It was shown that she was on +intimate terms with her family and would hardly have concealed an +operation of any gravity from them. + +The defense scored that day. They had shown that the prisoner had told +the truth when he said he had gone to a pharmacy for medicine that +night for his wife; and they had shown that a woman, answering the +description of Jennie Brice, spent two days in a town called Horner, +and had gone from there on Wednesday after the crime. And they had +shown that this woman was attired as Jennie Brice had been. + +That was the way things stood on the afternoon of the fourth day, when +court adjourned. + +Mr. Reynolds was at home when I got there. He had been very much +subdued since the developments of that first day of the trial, sat +mostly in his own room, and had twice brought me a bunch of jonquils +as a peace-offering. He had the kettle boiling when I got home. + +"You have had a number of visitors," he said. "Our young friend Howell +has been here, and Mr. Holcombe has arrived and has a man in his +room." + +Mr. Holcombe came down a moment after, with his face beaming. + +"I think we've got him, Mrs. Pitman," he said. "The jury won't even go +out of the box." + +But further than that he would not explain. He said he had a witness +locked in his room, and he'd be glad of supper for him, as they'd both +come a long ways. And he went out and bought some oysters and a bottle +or two of beer. But as far as I know, he kept him locked up all that +night in the second-story front room. I don't think the man knew he +was a prisoner. I went in to turn down the bed, and he was sitting +by the window, reading the evening paper's account of the trial--an +elderly gentleman, rather professional-looking. + +Mr. Holcombe slept on the upper landing of the hall that night, rolled +in a blanket--not that I think his witness even thought of escaping, +but the little man was taking no chances. + +At eight o'clock that night the bell rang. It was Mr. Howell. I +admitted him myself, and he followed me back to the dining-room. I had +not seen him for several weeks, and the change in him startled me. He +was dressed carefully, but his eyes were sunken in his head, and he +looked as if he had not slept for days. + +Mr. Reynolds had gone up-stairs, not finding me socially inclined. + +"You haven't been sick, Mr. Howell, have you?" I asked. + +"Oh, no, I'm well enough, I've been traveling about. Those infernal +sleeping-cars--" + +His voice trailed off, and I saw him looking at my mother's picture, +with the jonquils beneath. + +"That's curious!" he said, going closer. "It--it looks almost like +Lida Harvey." + +"My mother," I said simply. + +"Have you seen her lately?" + +"My mother?" I asked, startled. + +"No, Lida." + +"I saw her a few days ago." + +"Here?" + +"Yes. She came here, Mr. Howell, two weeks ago. She looks badly--as if +she is worrying." + +"Not--about me?" he asked eagerly. + +"Yes, about you. What possessed you to go away as you did? When +my--bro--when her uncle accused you of something, you ran away, +instead of facing things like a man." + +"I was trying to find the one person who could clear me, Mrs. Pitman." +He sat back, with his eyes closed; he looked ill enough to be in bed. + +"And you succeeded?" + +"No." + +I thought perhaps he had not been eating and I offered him food, as +I had once before. But he refused it, with the ghost of his boyish +smile. + +"I'm hungry, but it's not food I want. I want to see _her_," he said. + +I sat down across from him and tried to mend a table-cloth, but I +could not sew. I kept seeing those two young things, each sick for +a sight of the other, and, from wishing they could have a minute +together, I got to planning it for them. + +"Perhaps," I said finally, "if you want it very much--" + +"Very much!" + +"And if you will sit quiet, and stop tapping your fingers together +until you drive me crazy, I might contrive it for you. For five +minutes," I said. "Not a second longer." + +He came right over and put his arms around me. + +"Who are you, anyhow?" he said. "You who turn to the world the frozen +mask of a Union Street boarding-house landlady, who are a gentlewoman +by every instinct and training, and a girl at heart? Who are you?" + +"I'll tell you what I am," I said. "I'm a romantic old fool, and you'd +better let me do this quickly, before I change my mind." + +He freed me at that, but he followed to the telephone, and stood by +while I got Lida. He was in a perfect frenzy of anxiety, turning red +and white by turns, and in the middle of the conversation taking the +receiver bodily from me and holding it to his own ear. + +She said she thought she could get away; she spoke guardedly, as if +Alma were near, but I gathered that she would come as soon as she +could, and, from the way her voice broke, I knew she was as excited as +the boy beside me. + +She came, heavily coated and veiled, at a quarter after ten that +night, and I took her back to the dining-room, where he was waiting. +He did not make a move toward her, but stood there with his very lips +white, looking at her. And, at first, she did not make a move either, +but stood and gazed at him, thin and white, a wreck of himself. Then: + +"Ell!" she cried, and ran around the table to him, as he held out his +arms. + +The school-teacher was out. I went into the parlor bedroom and sat in +the cozy corner in the dark. I had done a wrong thing, and I was glad +of it. And sitting there in the darkness, I went over my own life +again. After all, it had been my own life; I had lived it; no one else +had shaped it for me. And if it was cheerless and colorless now, it +had had its big moments. Life is measured by big moments. + +If I let the two children in the dining-room have fifteen big moments, +instead of five, who can blame me? + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +The next day was the sensational one of the trial. We went through +every phase of conviction: Jennie Brice was living. Jennie Brice was +dead. The body found at Sewickley could not be Jennie Brice's. The +body found at Sewickley _was_ Jennie Brice's. And so it went on. + +The defense did an unexpected thing in putting Mr. Ladley on the +stand. That day, for the first time, he showed the wear and tear of +the ordeal. He had no flower in his button-hole, and the rims of his +eyes were red. But he was quite cool. His stage training had taught +him not only to endure the eyes of the crowd, but to find in its gaze +a sort of stimulant. He made a good witness, I must admit. + +He replied to the usual questions easily. After five minutes or so Mr. +Llewellyn got down to work. + +"Mr. Ladley, you have said that your wife was ill the night of March +fourth?" + +"Yes." + +"What was the nature of her illness?" + +"She had a functional heart trouble, not serious." + +"Will you tell us fully the events of that night?" + +"I had been asleep when my wife wakened me. She asked for a medicine +she used in these attacks. I got up and found the bottle, but it was +empty. As she was nervous and frightened, I agreed to try to get some +at a drug store. I went down-stairs, took Mrs. Pitman's boat, and went +to several stores before I could awaken a pharmacist." + +"You cut the boat loose?" + +"Yes. It was tied in a woman's knot, or series of knots. I could not +untie it, and I was in a hurry." + +"How did you cut it?" + +"With my pocket-knife." + +"You did not use Mrs. Pitman's bread-knife?" + +"I did not." + +"And in cutting it, you cut your wrist, did you?" + +"Yes. The knife slipped. I have the scar still." + +"What did you do then?" + +"I went back to the room, and stanched the blood with a towel." + +"From whom did you get the medicine?" + +"From Alexander's Pharmacy." + +"At what time?" + +"I am not certain. About three o'clock, probably." + +"You went directly back home?" + +Mr. Ladley hesitated. "No," he said finally. "My wife had had these +attacks, but they were not serious. I was curious to see how the +river-front looked and rowed out too far. I was caught in the current +and nearly carried away." + +"You came home after that?" + +"Yes, at once. Mrs. Ladley was better and had dropped asleep. She +wakened as I came in. She was disagreeable about the length of time I +had been gone, and would not let me explain. We--quarreled, and she +said she was going to leave me. I said that as she had threatened this +before and had never done it, I would see that she really started. At +daylight I rowed her to Federal Street." + +"What had she with her?" + +"A small brown valise." + +"How was she dressed?" + +"In a black and white dress and hat, with a long black coat." + +"What was the last you saw of her?" + +"She was going across the Sixth Street bridge." + +"Alone?" + +"No. She went with a young man we knew." + +There was a stir in the court room at this. + +"Who was the young man?" + +"A Mr. Howell, a reporter on a newspaper here." + +"Have you seen Mr. Howell since your arrest?" + +"No, sir. He has been out of the city." + +I was so excited by this time that I could hardly hear. I missed some +of the cross-examination. The district attorney pulled Mr. Ladley's +testimony to pieces. + +"You cut the boat's painter with your pocket-knife?" + +"I did." + +"Then how do you account for Mrs. Pitman's broken knife, with the +blade in your room?" + +"I have no theory about it. She may have broken it herself. She had +used it the day before to lift tacks out of a carpet." + +That was true; I had. + +"That early Monday morning was cold, was it not?" + +"Yes. Very." + +"Why did your wife leave without her fur coat?" + +"I did not know she had until we had left the house. Then I did not +ask her. She would not speak to me." + +"I see. But is it not true that, upon a wet fur coat being shown you +as your wife's, you said it could not be hers, as she had taken hers +with her?" + +"I do not recall such a statement." + +"You recall a coat being shown you?" + +"Yes. Mrs. Pitman brought a coat to my door, but I was working on a +play I am writing, and I do not remember what I said. The coat was +ruined. I did not want it. I probably said the first thing I thought +of to get rid of the woman." + +I got up at that. I'd held my peace about the bread-knife, but this +was too much. However, the moment I started to speak, somebody pushed +me back into my chair and told me to be quiet. + +"Now, you say you were in such a hurry to get this medicine for your +wife that you cut the rope, thus cutting your wrist." + +"Yes. I have the scar still." + +"You could not wait to untie the boat, and yet you went along the +river-front to see how high the water was?" + +"Her alarm had excited me. But when I got out, and remembered that +the doctors had told us she would never die in an attack, I grew more +composed." + +"You got the medicine first, you say?" + +"Yes." + +"Mr. Alexander has testified that you got the medicine at +three-thirty. It has been shown that you left the house at two, and +got back about four. Does not this show that with all your alarm you +went to the river-front first?" + +"I was gone from two to four," he replied calmly. "Mr. Alexander must +be wrong about the time I wakened him. I got the medicine first." + +"When your wife left you at the bridge, did she say where she was +going?" + +"No." + +"You claim that this woman at Horner was your wife?" + +"I think it likely." + +"Was there an onyx clock in the second-story room when you moved into +it?" + +"I do not recall the clock." + +"Your wife did not take an onyx clock away with her?" + +Mr. Ladley smiled. "No." + +The defense called Mr. Howell next. He looked rested, and the happier +for having seen Lida, but he was still pale and showed the strain of +some hidden anxiety. What that anxiety was, the next two days were to +tell us all. + +"Mr. Howell," Mr. Llewellyn asked, "you know the prisoner?" + +"Slightly." + +"State when you met him." + +"On Sunday morning, March the fourth. I went to see him." + +"Will you tell us the nature of that visit?" + +"My paper had heard he was writing a play for himself. I was to get an +interview, with photographs, if possible." + +"You saw his wife at that time?" + +"Yes." + +"When did you see her again?" + +"The following morning, at six o'clock, or a little later. I walked +across the Sixth Street bridge with her, and put her on a train for +Horner, Pennsylvania." + +"You are positive it was Jennie Brice?" + +"Yes. I watched her get out of the boat, while her husband steadied +it." + +"If you knew this, why did you not come forward sooner?" + +"I have been out of the city." + +"But you knew the prisoner had been arrested, and that this testimony +of yours would be invaluable to him." + +"Yes. But I thought it necessary to produce Jennie Brice herself. My +unsupported word--" + +"You have been searching for Jennie Brice?" + +"Yes. Since March the eighth." + +"How was she dressed when you saw her last?" + +"She wore a red and black hat and a black coat. She carried a small +brown valise." + +"Thank you." + +The cross-examination did not shake his testimony. But it brought out +some curious things. Mr. Howell refused to say how he happened to be +at the end of the Sixth Street bridge at that hour, or why he had +thought it necessary, on meeting a woman he claimed to have known only +twenty-four hours, to go with her to the railway station and put her +on a train. + +The jury was visibly impressed and much shaken. For Mr. Howell carried +conviction in every word he said; he looked the district attorney +in the eye, and once when our glances crossed he even smiled at me +faintly. But I saw why he had tried to find Jennie Brice, and had +dreaded testifying. Not a woman in that court room, and hardly a man, +but believed when he left the stand, that he was, or had been, Jennie +Brice's lover, and as such was assisting her to leave her husband. + +"Then you believe," the district attorney said at the end,--"you +believe, Mr. Howell, that Jennie Brice is living?" + +"Jennie Brice was living on Monday morning, March the fifth," he said +firmly. + +"Miss Shaeffer has testified that on Wednesday this woman, who you +claim was Jennie Brice, sent a letter to you from Horner. Is that the +case?" + +"Yes." + +"The letter was signed 'Jennie Brice'?" + +"It was signed 'J.B.'" + +"Will you show the court that letter?" + +"I destroyed it." + +"It was a personal letter?" + +"It merely said she had arrived safely, and not to let any one know +where she was." + +"And yet you destroyed it?" + +"A postscript said to do so." + +"Why?" + +"I do not know. An extra precaution probably." + +"You were under the impression that she was going to stay there?" + +"She was to have remained for a week." + +"And you have been searching for this woman for two months?" + +He quailed, but his voice was steady. "Yes," he admitted. + +He was telling the truth, even if it was not all the truth. I believe, +had it gone to the jury then, Mr. Ladley would have been acquitted. +But, late that afternoon, things took a new turn. Counsel for the +prosecution stated to the court that he had a new and important +witness, and got permission to introduce this further evidence. The +witness was a Doctor Littlefield, and proved to be my one-night tenant +of the second-story front. Holcombe's prisoner of the night before +took the stand. The doctor was less impressive in full daylight; he +was a trifle shiny, a bit bulbous as to nose and indifferent as to +finger-nails. But his testimony was given with due professional +weight. + +"You are a doctor of medicine, Doctor Littlefield?" asked the district +attorney. + +"Yes." + +"In active practise?" + +"I have a Cure for Inebriates in Des Moines, Iowa. I was formerly in +general practise in New York City." + +"You knew Jennie Ladley?" + +"I had seen her at different theaters. And she consulted me +professionally at one time in New York." + +"You operated on her, I believe?" + +"Yes. She came to me to have a name removed. It had been tattooed over +her heart." + +"You removed it?" + +"Not at once. I tried fading the marks with goat's milk, but she was +impatient. On the third visit to my office she demanded that the name +be cut out." + +"You did it?" + +"Yes. She refused a general anesthetic and I used cocaine. The name +was John--I believe a former husband. She intended to marry again." + +A titter ran over the court room. People strained to the utmost are +always glad of an excuse to smile. The laughter of a wrought-up crowd +always seems to me half hysterical. + +"Have you seen photographs of the scar on the body found at Sewickley? +Or the body itself?" + +"No, I have not." + +"Will you describe the operation?" + +"I made a transverse incision for the body of the name, and two +vertical ones--one longer for the _J_, the other shorter, for the +stem of the _h_. There was a dot after the name. I made a half-inch +incision for it." + +"Will you sketch the cicatrix as you recall it?" + +The doctor made a careful drawing on a pad that was passed to him. The +drawing was much like this. + +Line for line, dot for dot, it was the scar on the body found at +Sewickley. + +"You are sure the woman was Jennie Brice?" + +"She sent me tickets for the theater shortly after. And I had an +announcement of her marriage to the prisoner, some weeks later." + +"Were there any witnesses to the operation?" + +"My assistant; I can produce him at any time." + +That was not all of the trial, but it was the decisive moment. Shortly +after, the jury withdrew, and for twenty-four hours not a word was +heard from them. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +After twenty-four hours' deliberation, the jury brought in a verdict +of guilty. It was a first-degree verdict. Mr. Howell's unsupported +word had lost out against a scar. + +Contrary to my expectation, Mr. Holcombe was not jubilant over the +verdict. He came into the dining-room that night and stood by the +window, looking out into the yard. + +"It isn't logical," he said. "In view of Howell's testimony, it's +ridiculous! Heaven help us under this jury system, anyhow! Look at the +facts! Howell knows the woman: he sees her on Monday morning, and +puts her on a train out of town. The boy is telling the truth. He has +nothing to gain by coming forward, and everything to lose. Very +well: she was alive on Monday. We know where she was on Tuesday and +Wednesday. Anyhow, during those days her gem of a husband was in jail. +He was freed Thursday night, and from that time until his rearrest on +the following Tuesday, I had him under observation every moment. He +left the jail Thursday night, and on Saturday the body floated in at +Sewickley. If it was done by Ladley, it must have been done on Friday, +and on Friday he was in view through the periscope all day!" + +Mr. Reynolds came in and joined us. "There's only one way out that I +see," he said mildly. "Two women have been fool enough to have a name +tattooed over their hearts. No woman ever thought enough of me to have +_my_ name put on her." + +"I hope not," I retorted. Mr. Reynold's first name is Zachariah. + +But, as Mr. Holcombe said, all that had been proved was that Jennie +Brice was dead, probably murdered. He could not understand the defense +letting the case go to the jury without their putting more stress on +Mr. Howell's story. But we were to understand that soon, and many +other things. Mr. Holcombe told me that evening of learning from John +Bellows of the tattooed name on Jennie Brice and of how, after an +almost endless search, he had found the man who had cut the name away. + +At eight o'clock the door-bell rang. Mr. Reynolds had gone to lodge, +he being an Elk and several other things, and much given to regalia +in boxes, and having his picture in the newspapers in different +outlandish costumes. Mr. Pitman used to say that man, being denied his +natural love for barbaric adornment in his every-day clothing, took to +the different fraternities as an excuse for decking himself out. But +this has nothing to do with the door-bell. + +It was old Isaac. He had a basket in his hand, and he stepped into the +hall and placed it on the floor. + +"Evening, Miss Bess," he said. "Can you see a bit of company +to-night?" + +"I can always see you," I replied. But he had not meant himself. He +stepped to the door, and opening it, beckoned to some one across the +street. It was Lida! + +She came in, her color a little heightened, and old Isaac stood back, +beaming at us both; I believe it was one of the crowning moments +of the old man's life--thus to see his Miss Bess and Alma's child +together. + +"Is--is he here yet?" she asked me nervously. + +"I did not know he was coming." There was no need to ask which "he." +There was only one for Lida. + +"He telephoned me, and asked me to come here. Oh, Mrs. Pitman, I'm +so afraid for him!" She had quite forgotten Isaac. I turned to the +school-teacher's room and opened the door. "The woman who belongs here +is out at a lecture," I said. "Come in here, Ikkie, and I'll find the +evening paper for you. + +"'Ikkie'!" said Lida, and stood staring at me. I think I went white. + +"The lady heah and I is old friends," Isaac said, with his splendid +manner. "Her mothah, Miss Lida, her mothah--" + +But even old Isaac choked up at that, and I closed the door on him. + +"How queer!" Lida said, looking at me. "So Isaac knew your mother? +Have you lived always in Allegheny, Mrs. Pitman?" + +"I was born in Pittsburgh," I evaded. "I went away for a long time, +but I always longed for the hurry and activity of the old home town. +So here I am again." + +Fortunately, like all the young, her own affairs engrossed her. She +was flushed with the prospect of meeting her lover, tremulous over +what the evening might bring. The middle-aged woman who had come back +to the hurry of the old town, and who, pushed back into an eddy of the +flood district, could only watch the activity and the life from behind +a "Rooms to Let" sign, did not concern her much. Nor should she have. + +Mr. Howell came soon after. He asked for her, and going back to the +dining-room, kissed her quietly. He had an air of resolve, a sort of +grim determination, that was a relief from the half-frantic look he +had worn before. He asked to have Mr. Holcombe brought down, and so +behold us all, four of us, sitting around the table--Mr. Holcombe with +his note-book, I with my mending, and the boy with one of Lida's hands +frankly under his on the red table-cloth. + +"I want to tell all of you the whole story," he began. "To-morrow I +shall go to the district attorney and confess, but--I want you all to +have it first. I can't sleep again until I get it off my chest. Mrs. +Pitman has suffered through me, and Mr. Holcombe here has spent money +and time--" + +Lida did not speak, but she drew her chair closer, and put her other +hand over his. + +"I want to get it straight, if I can. Let me see. It was on Sunday, +the fourth, that the river came up, wasn't it? Yes. Well, on the +Thursday before that I met you, Mr. Holcombe, in a restaurant in +Pittsburgh. Do you remember?" + +Mr. Holcombe nodded. + +"We were talking of crime, and I said no man should be hanged on +purely circumstantial evidence. You affirmed that a well-linked chain +of circumstantial evidence could properly hang a man. We had a long +argument, in which I was worsted. There was a third man at the +table--Bronson, the business manager of the Liberty Theater." + +"Who sided with you," put in Mr. Holcombe, "and whose views I refused +to entertain because, as publicity man for a theater, he dealt in +fiction rather than in fact." + +"Precisely. You may recall, Mr. Holcombe, that you offered to hang any +man we would name, given a proper chain of circumstantial evidence +against him?" + +"Yes." + +"After you left, Bronson spoke to me. He said business at the theater +was bad, and complained of the way the papers used, or would not use, +his stuff. He said the Liberty Theater had not had a proper deal, and +that he was tempted to go over and bang one of the company on the +head, and so get a little free advertising. + +"I said he ought to be able to fake a good story; but he maintained +that a newspaper could smell a faked story a mile away, and that, +anyhow, all the good stunts had been pulled off. I agreed with him. I +remember saying that nothing but a railroad wreck or a murder hit the +public very hard these days, and that I didn't feel like wrecking the +Pennsylvania Limited. + +"He leaned over the table and looked at me. 'Well, how about a murder, +then?' he said. 'You get the story for your paper, and I get some +advertising for the theater. We need it, that's sure.' + +"I laughed it off, and we separated. But at two o'clock Bronson called +me up again. I met him in his office at the theater, and he told me +that Jennie Brice, who was out of the cast that week, had asked for a +week's vacation. She had heard of a farm at a town called Horner, and +she wanted to go there to rest. + +"'Now the idea is this,' he said. 'She's living with her husband, and +he has threatened her life more than once. It would be easy enough to +frame up something to look as if he'd made away with her. We'd get a +week of excitement, more advertising than we'd ordinarily get in a +year; you get a corking news story, and find Jennie Brice at the end, +getting the credit for that. Jennie gets a hundred dollars and a rest, +and Ladley, her husband, gets, say, two hundred.' + +"Mr. Bronson offered to put up the money, and I agreed. The flood came +just then, and was considerable help. It made a good setting. I went +to my city editor, and got an assignment to interview Ladley about +this play of his. Then Bronson and I went together to see the Ladleys +on Sunday morning, and as they needed money, they agreed. But Ladley +insisted on fifty dollars a week extra if he had to go to jail. We +promised it, but we did not intend to let things go so far as that. + +"In the Ladleys' room that Sunday morning, we worked it all out. The +hardest thing was to get Jennie Brice's consent; but she agreed, +finally. We arranged a list of clues, to be left around, and Ladley +was to go out in the night and to be heard coming back. I told him to +quarrel with his wife that afternoon,--although I don't believe +they needed to be asked to do it,--and I suggested also the shoe or +slipper, to be found floating around." + +"Just a moment," said Mr. Holcombe, busy with his note-book. "Did you +suggest the onyx clock?" + +"No. No clock was mentioned. The--the clock has puzzled me." + +"The towel?" + +"Yes. I said no murder was complete without blood, but he kicked on +that--said he didn't mind the rest, but he'd be hanged if he was going +to slash himself. But, as it happened, he cut his wrist while cutting +the boat loose, and so we had the towel." + +"Pillow-slip?" asked Mr. Holcombe. + +"Well, no. There was nothing said about a pillow-slip. Didn't he say +he burned it accidentally?" + +"So he claimed." Mr. Holcombe made another entry in his book. + +"Then I said every murder had a weapon. He was to have a pistol at +first, but none of us owned one. Mrs. Ladley undertook to get a knife +from Mrs. Pitman's kitchen, and to leave it around, not in full view, +but where it could be found." + +"A broken knife?" + +"No. Just a knife." + +"He was to throw the knife into the water?" + +"That was not arranged. I only gave him a general outline. He was to +add any interesting details that might occur to him. The idea, of +course, was to give the police plenty to work on, and just when +they thought they had it all, and when the theater had had a lot of +booming, and I had got a good story, to produce Jennie Brice, safe +and well. We were not to appear in it at all. It would have worked +perfectly, but we forgot to count on one thing--Jennie Brice hated her +husband." + +"Not really hated him!" cried Lida. + +"_Hated_ him. She is letting him hang. She could save him by coming +forward now, and she won't do it. She is hiding so he will go to the +gallows." + +There was a pause at that. It seemed too incredible, too inhuman. + +"Then, early that Monday morning, you smuggled Jennie Brice out of the +city?" + +"Yes. That was the only thing we bungled. We fixed the hour a little +too late, and I was seen by Miss Harvey's uncle, walking across the +bridge with a woman." + +"Why did you meet her openly, and take her to the train?" + +Mr. Howell bent forward and smiled across at the little man. "One +of your own axioms, sir," he said. "Do the natural thing; upset the +customary order of events as little as possible. Jennie Brice went to +the train, because that was where she wanted to go. But as Ladley was +to protest that his wife had left town, and as the police would +be searching for a solitary woman, I went with her. We went in a +leisurely manner. I bought her a magazine and a morning paper, asked +the conductor to fix her window, and, in general, acted the devoted +husband seeing his wife off on a trip. I even"--he smiled--"I even +promised to feed the canary." + +Lida took her hands away. "Did you kiss her good-by?" she demanded. + +"Not even a chaste salute," he said. His spirits were rising. It was, +as often happens, as if the mere confession removed the guilt. I have +seen little boys who have broken a window show the same relief after +telling about it. + +"For a day or two Bronson and I sat back, enjoying the stir-up. Things +turned out as we had expected. Business boomed at the theater. I got +a good story, and some few kind words from my city editor. Then--the +explosion came. I got a letter from Jennie Brice saying she was going +away, and that we need not try to find her. I went to Horner, but I +had lost track of her completely. Even then, we did not believe things +so bad as they turned out to be. We thought she was giving us a bad +time, but that she would show up. + +"Ladley was in a blue funk for a time. Bronson and I went to him. We +told him how the thing had slipped up. We didn't want to go to the +police and confess if we could help it. Finally, he agreed to stick it +out until she was found, at a hundred dollars a week. It took all we +could beg, borrow and steal. But now--we have to come out with the +story anyhow." + +Mr. Holcombe sat up and closed his note-book with a snap. "I'm not so +sure of that," he said impressively. "I wonder if you realize, young +man, that, having provided a perfect defense for this man Ladley, you +provided him with every possible inducement to make away with his +wife? Secure in your coming forward at the last minute and confessing +the hoax to save him, was there anything he might not have dared with +impunity?" + +"But I tell you I took Jennie Brice out of town on Monday morning." + +"_Did you_?" asked Mr. Holcombe sternly. + +But at that, the school-teacher, having come home and found old Isaac +sound asleep in her cozy corner, set up such a screaming for the +police that our meeting broke up. Nor would Mr. Holcombe explain any +further. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Mr. Holcombe was up very early the next morning. I heard him moving +around at five o'clock, and at six he banged at my door and demanded +to know at what time the neighborhood rose: he had been up for an hour +and there were no signs of life. He was more cheerful after he had had +a cup of coffee, commented on Lida's beauty, and said that Howell was +a lucky chap. + +"That is what worries me, Mr. Holcombe," I said. "I am helping the +affair along and--what if it turns out badly?" + +He looked at me over his glasses. "It isn't likely to turn out badly," +he said. "I have never married, Mrs. Pitman, and I have missed a great +deal out of life." + +"Perhaps you're better off: if you had married and lost your wife--" I +was thinking of Mr. Pitman. + +"Not at all," he said with emphasis. "It's better to have married and +lost than never to have married at all. Every man needs a good woman, +and it doesn't matter how old he is. The older he is, the more he +needs her. I am nearly sixty." + +I was rather startled, and I almost dropped the fried potatoes. But +the next moment he had got out his note-book and was going over +the items again. "Pillow-slip," he said, "knife _broken_, onyx +clock--wouldn't think so much of the clock if he hadn't been so +damnably anxious to hide the key, the discrepancy in time as revealed +by the trial--yes, it is as clear as a bell. Mrs. Pitman, does that +Maguire woman next door sleep all day?" + +"She's up now," I said, looking out the window. + +He was in the hall in a moment, only to come to the door later, hat in +hand. "Is she the only other woman on the street who keeps boarders?" + +"She's the only woman who doesn't," I snapped. "She'll keep anything +that doesn't belong to her--except boarders." + +"Ah!" + +He lighted his corn-cob pipe and stood puffing at it and watching me. +He made me uneasy: I thought he was going to continue the subject of +every man needing a wife, and I'm afraid I had already decided to take +him if he offered, and to put the school-teacher out and have a real +parlor again, but to keep Mr. Reynolds, he being tidy and no bother. + +But when he spoke, he was back to the crime again: "Did you ever work +a typewriter?" he asked. + +What with the surprise, I was a little sharp. "I don't play any +instrument except an egg-beater," I replied shortly, and went on +clearing the table. + +"I wonder--do you remember about the village idiot and the horse? But +of course you do, Mrs. Pitman; you are a woman of imagination. Don't +you think you could be Alice Murray for a few moments? Now think--you +are a stenographer with theatrical ambitions: you meet an actor and +you fall in love with him, and he with you." + +"That's hard to imagine, that last." + +"Not so hard," he said gently. "Now the actor is going to put you on +the stage, perhaps in this new play, and some day he is going to marry +you." + +"Is that what he promised the girl?" + +"According to some letters her mother found, yes. The actor is +married, but he tells you he will divorce the wife; you are to wait +for him, and in the meantime he wants you near him; away from the +office, where other men are apt to come in with letters to be typed, +and to chaff you. You are a pretty girl." + +"It isn't necessary to overwork my imagination," I said, with a little +bitterness. I had been a pretty girl, but work and worry-- + +"Now you are going to New York very soon, and in the meantime you have +cut yourself off from all your people. You have no one but this man. +What would you do? Where would you go?" + +"How old was the girl?" + +"Nineteen." + +"I think," I said slowly, "that if I were nineteen, and in love with a +man, and hiding, I would hide as near him as possible. I'd be likely +to get a window that could see his going out and coming in, a place so +near that he could come often to see me." + +"Bravo!" he exclaimed. "Of course, with your present wisdom and +experience, you would do nothing so foolish. But this girl was in her +teens; she was not very far away, for he probably saw her that Sunday +afternoon, when he was out for two hours. And as the going was slow +that day, and he had much to tell and explain, I figure she was not +far off. Probably in this very neighborhood." + +During the remainder of that morning I saw Mr. Holcombe, at intervals, +going from house to house along Union Street, making short excursions +into side thoroughfares, coming back again and taking up his door-bell +ringing with unflagging energy. I watched him off and on for two +hours. At the end of that time he came back flushed and excited. + +"I found the house," he said, wiping his glasses. "She was there, all +right, not so close as we had thought, but as close as she could get." + +"And can you trace her?" I asked. + +His face changed and saddened. "Poor child!" he said. "She is dead, +Mrs. Pitman!" + +"Not she--at Sewickley!" + +"No," he said patiently. "That was Jennie Brice." + +"But--Mr. Howell--" + +"Mr. Howell is a young ass," he said with irritation. "He did not take +Jennie Brice out of the city that morning. He took Alice Murray in +Jennie Brice's clothing, and veiled." + +Well, that is five years ago. Five times since then the Allegheny +River, from being a mild and inoffensive stream, carrying a few boats +and a great deal of sewage, has become, a raging destroyer, and has +filled our hearts with fear and our cellars with mud. Five times since +then Molly Maguire has appropriated all that the flood carried from my +premises to hers, and five times have I lifted my carpets and moved +Mr. Holcombe, who occupies the parlor bedroom, to a second-floor room. + +A few days ago, as I said at the beginning, we found Peter's body +floating in the cellar, and as soon as the yard was dry, I buried him. +He had grown fat and lazy, but I shall miss him. + +Yesterday a riverman fell off a barge along the water-front and was +drowned. They dragged the river for his body, but they did not find +him. But they found something--an onyx clock, with the tattered +remnant of a muslin pillow-slip wrapped around it. It only bore out +the story, as we had known it for five years. + +The Murray girl had lived long enough to make a statement to the +police, although Mr. Holcombe only learned this later. On the +statement being shown to Ladley in the jail, and his learning of the +girl's death, he collapsed. He confessed before he was hanged, and his +confession, briefly, was like this: + +He had met the Murray girl in connection with the typing of his play, +and had fallen in love with her. He had never cared for his wife, and +would have been glad to get rid of her in any way possible. He had not +intended to kill her, however. He had planned to elope with the Murray +girl, and awaiting an opportunity, had persuaded her to leave home and +to take a room near my house. + +Here he had visited her daily, while his wife was at the theater. + +They had planned to go to New York together on Monday, March the +fifth. On Sunday, the fourth, however, Mr. Bronson and Mr. Howell +had made their curious proposition. When he accepted, Philip Ladley +maintained that he meant only to carry out the plan as suggested. But +the temptation was too strong for him. That night, while his wife +slept, he had strangled her. + +I believe he was frantic with fear, after he had done it. Then it +occurred to him that if he made the body unrecognizable, he would be +safe enough. On that quiet Sunday night, when Mr. Reynolds reported +all peaceful in the Ladley room, he had cut off the poor wretch's head +and had tied it up in a pillow-slip weighted with my onyx clock! + +It is a curious fact about the case that the scar which his wife +incurred to enable her to marry him was the means of his undoing. He +insisted, and I believe he was telling the truth, that he did not know +of the scar: that is, his wife had never told him of it, and had been +able to conceal it. He thought she had probably used paraffin in some +way. + +In his final statement, written with great care and no little literary +finish, he told the story in detail: of arranging the clues as Mr. +Howell and Mr. Bronson had suggested; of going out in the boat, with +the body, covered with a fur coat, in the bottom of the skiff: of +throwing it into the current above the Ninth Street bridge, and of +seeing the fur coat fall from the boat and carried beyond his reach; +of disposing of the head near the Seventh Street bridge: of going to a +drug store, as per the Howell instructions, and of coming home at four +o'clock, to find me at the head of the stairs. + +[Illustration: While his wife slept.] + +Several points of confusion remained. One had been caused by Temple +Hope's refusal to admit that the dress and hat that figured in the +case were to be used by her the next week at the theater. Mr. Ladley +insisted that this was the case, and that on that Sunday afternoon +his wife had requested him to take them to Miss Hope; that they had +quarreled as to whether they should be packed in a box or in the brown +valise, and that he had visited Alice Murray instead. It was on the +way there that the idea of finally getting rid of Jennie Brice came +to him. And a way--using the black and white striped dress of the +dispute. + +Another point of confusion had been the dismantling of his room that +Monday night, some time between the visit of Temple Hope and the +return of Mr. Holcombe. This was to obtain the scrap of paper +containing the list of clues as suggested by Mr. Howell, a clue that +might have brought about a premature discovery of the so-called hoax. + +To the girl he had told nothing of his plan. But he had told her she +was to leave town on an early train the next morning, going as his +wife; that he wished her to wear the black and white dress and hat, +for reasons that he would explain later, and to be veiled heavily, +that to the young man who would put her on the train, and who had seen +Jennie Brice only once, she was to be Jennie Brice; to say as little +as possible and not to raise her veil. Her further instructions were +simple: to go to the place at Horner where Jennie Brice had planned +to go, but to use the name of "Bellows" there. And after she had been +there for a day or two, to go as quietly as possible to New York. He +gave her the address of a boarding-house where he could write her, and +where he would join her later. + +He reasoned in this way: That as Alice Murray was to impersonate +Jennie Brice, and Jennie Brice hiding from her husband, she would +naturally discard her name. The name "Bellows" had been hers by a +previous marriage and she might easily resume it. Thus, to establish +his innocence, he had not only the evidence of Howell and Bronson that +the whole thing was a gigantic hoax; he had the evidence of Howell +that he had started Jennie Brice to Horner that Monday morning, that +she had reached Horner, had there assumed an incognito, as Mr. +Pitman would say, and had later disappeared from there, maliciously +concealing herself to work his undoing. + +In all probability he would have gone free, seeing no one in the +church in all that throng but the boy who waited at the end of the +long church aisle--I wanted to run out and claim her, my own blood, my +more than child. + +I sat down and covered my face. And from the pew behind me some one +leaned over and patted my shoulder. + +"Miss Bess!" old Isaac said gently. "Don't take on, Miss Bess!" + +He came the next day and brought me some lilies from the bride's +bouquet, that she had sent me, and a bottle of champagne from the +wedding supper. I had not tasted champagne for twenty years! + +That is all of the story. On summer afternoons sometimes, when the +house is hot, I go to the park and sit. I used to take Peter, but now +he is dead. I like to see Lida's little boy; the nurse knows me +by sight, and lets me talk to the child. He can say "Peter" quite +plainly. But he does not call Alma "Grandmother." The nurse says she +does not like it. He calls her "Nana." + +Lida does not forget me. Especially at flood-times, apologies, the +chiffon gown her mother had worn at her wedding. Alma had never worn +it but once, and now she was too stout for it. I took it; I am not +proud, and I should like Molly Maguire to see it. + +Mr. Holcombe asked me last night to marry him. He says he needs me, +and that I need him. + +I am a lonely woman, and getting old, and I'm tired of watching the +gas meter; and besides, with Peter dead, I need a man in the house all +the time. The flood district is none too orderly. Besides, when I have +a wedding dress laid away and a bottle of good wine, it seems a pity +not to use them. + +I think I shall do it. + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Case of Jennie Brice, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11127 *** |