The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  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.