Part 15 (1/2)

”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.”