The Case of Jennie Brice

telephoned, one of the flood-gates in a sewer having leaked, and they were moving some of the departments

efully over the Ladleys' room. I showed him the towel and the slipper and the broken knife, and where we had foun

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 th

two?" asked the woman,

es

Ladley l

he is not

u Mrs.

man,

s Mrs. Ladley, and when I saw her in the light from the upper hall, I knew h

you, Mrs. Pitman," she

and when she had followed me in

thout any preliminary,

w, Miss Hope

a minute, and each of us s

xclaimed. "She was afraid

hat's what I think, and he'll go free at that. It seem

e that, the river will g

. "Not in flood-time, anyhow. Or when they are foun

e theater soon, but she sat down and told m

rs, they having been together in t

t," Miss Hope said. "He left her about that time, and she

table house like this! There's never been a breath of scandal

were always quarreling. And when he wasn't playing, it was

hing she said to me was about the black and white dre

ie Brice's dresses!" exclaimed Miss Hope. "I

embered that I had not seen the dress in the room that day, and I w

ess! Did it have a re

es

l black hat with a red quill with th

and stood in the doorway while

truth," she said thoughtfully. "Her

rse, 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

y last week she had hysterics in my dressing-room, and said he had threatened to poi

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 wa

lded blanket laid in a clothes-basket. I wen

to you? Who hurt you?" He looked at me and whin

t had been he, and, if it had, why he had come back. Perhaps he had remembered the towel. Perhaps he wo

ashing, 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

nd, killed like a rat in a trap and thrown out the window, to float, like my kitchen chair, into M

redoubled his noise; he never barked for Mr. Reynolds or the Ladleys. I stood stil

ntil I came to, a half-hour later, and saw Mr. Holcombe stooping over me. The door, with the lock broken, wa

back to the head. Half the damfool people in the world stick

feebly. "I thought y

lips from shaking. And then I saw that Mr. Holcombe had b

w," he said. "They picked him up as he was

rder?"

"That does as well as anything for a time." He

ar the story of the horse that wandered

ok my

alked into town, leading the missing animal by the bridle. When they asked him how he had done

said, hum

Now, what are

a body. Do you inten

ween us. "We are trying to prove a crime.

on his knee-for he had taken them off to wade to the stairs-and his trousers rolled to his knees, t

lly a cr

place for a day or two, live as he lived, do what he did, even think as he tho

useless. I led the way to the front room, Mr. Holcombe following with hi

here since we left th

. "First with Mr.

Some one had been in the ro

ed. "I left the room in to

re you h

hirty, or t

tween seven-thirty

ld him then about the dog, and ab

ript, usually an orderly pile, were half on the floor. The bed c

and upset the manuscript-Peter had never put the

de an exact memorandum of what I had told him, and of

loyment, forty-one years of age, short, stout, and bald, married to a woman I would like to be quit of, and I

the spirit of the thing, and, God knows, seeing no hum

? For

nd soda, before yo

tman: Mr. Holcombe is a total abstainer, and has always been so

little gentleman would not hear to it, and when I brought the soda, poured himself a double

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

miling, "and remember, you are thre

his spectacles. "I shall

ew 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 ev

asket, 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. Th

wet towel tied around his head, and his face looked s

ight!" he

ned! What d

t that there was something wrong with that whisky.

ster over his stomach, and considerable nursing. By evening he was better, but although he clearly intended to stay on

rid of that. The lower floors showed nothing suspicious. The papers were ruined, of course, the doors warped and sprung, and th

as there, and all her children around her, gaping. Molly was hanging o

to give it up. There is a sort of unwritten law concerning the salvage of flood articles, an

curious, too, for if she had had it on, how did it get loose to go floating arou