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. [Page 54] 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 [Page 55] 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, [Page 56] 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. [Page 57]
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 [Page 58] 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 ?" [Page 59]
"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 [Page 60] 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." [Page 61]
"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-clothes-men 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 [Page 62] 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 [Page 63] 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 [Page 64] 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.
[Frontispiece]
"Lida was all sympathy and sweetness.
"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 [Page 66] 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!
