Part 7 (1/2)

”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 sc.r.a.pe 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 s.h.i.+vered. 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 s.h.i.+vered at the very thought.