The Case of Jennie Brice

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER II

  There is not much sleeping done in the flood district during a springflood. The gas was shut off, and I gave Mr. Reynolds and the Ladleyseach a lamp. I sat in the back room that I had made into a temporarykitchen, with a candle, and with a bedquilt around my shoulders. Thewater rose fast in the lower hall, but by midnight, at the seventhstep, it stopped rising and stood still. I always have a skiff duringthe flood season, and as the water rose, I tied it to one spindle ofthe staircase after another.

  I made myself a cup of tea, and at one o'clock I stretched out on asofa for a few hours' sleep. I think I had been sleeping only an houror so, when some one touched me on the shoulder and I started up. Itwas Mr. Reynolds, partly dressed.

  "Some one has been in the house, Mrs. Pitman," he said. "They wentaway just now in the boat."

  "Perhaps it was Peter," I suggested. "That dog is always wanderingaround at night."

  "Not unless Peter can row a boat," said Mr. Reynolds dryly.

  I got up, being already fully dressed, and taking the candle, we wentto the staircase. I noticed that it was a minute or so after twoo'clock as we left the room. The boat was gone, not untied, but cutloose. The end of the rope was still fastened to the stair-rail. I satdown on the stairs and looked at Mr. Reynolds.

  "It's gone!" I said. "If the house catches fire, we'll have to drown."

  "It's rather curious, when you consider it." We both spoke softly, notto disturb the Ladleys. "I've been awake, and I heard no boat comein. And yet, if no one came in a boat, and came from the street, theywould have had to swim in."

  I felt queer and creepy. The street door was open, of course, and thelights going beyond. It gave me a strange feeling to sit there inthe darkness on the stairs, with the arch of the front door like theentrance to a cavern, and see now and then a chunk of ice slide intoview, turn around in the eddy, and pass on. It was bitter cold, too,and the wind was rising.

  "I'll go through the house," said Mr. Reynolds. "There's likelynothing worse the matter than some drunken mill-hand on a vacationwhile the mills are under water. But I'd better look."

  He left me, and I sat there alone in the darkness. I had apresentiment of something wrong, but I tried to think it was onlydiscomfort and the cold. The water, driven in by the wind, swirled atmy feet. And something dark floated in and lodged on the step below. Ireached down and touched it. It was a dead kitten. I had never known adead cat to bring me anything but bad luck, and here was one washed inat my very feet.

  Mr. Reynolds came back soon, and reported the house quiet and inorder.

  "But I found Peter shut up in one of the third-floor rooms," he said."Did you put him there?"

  I had not, and said so; but as the dog went everywhere, and the doormight have blown shut, we did not attach much importance to that atthe time.

  Well, the skiff was gone, and there was no use worrying about it untilmorning. I went back to the sofa to keep warm, but I left my candlelighted and my door open. I did not sleep: the dead cat was on mymind, and, as if it were not bad enough to have it washed in at myfeet, about four in the morning Peter, prowling uneasily, discoveredit and brought it in and put it on my couch, wet and stiff, poorlittle thing!

  I looked at the clock. It was a quarter after four, and except forthe occasional crunch of one ice-cake hitting another in the yard,everything was quiet. And then I heard the stealthy sound of oars inthe lower hall.

  I am not a brave woman. I lay there, hoping Mr. Reynolds would hearand open his door. But he was sleeping soundly. Peter snarled and ranout into the hall, and the next moment I heard Mr. Ladley speaking."Down, Peter," he said. "Down. Go and lie down."

  I took my candle and went out into the hall. Mr. Ladley was stoopingover the boat, trying to tie it to the staircase. The rope was short,having been cut, and he was having trouble. Perhaps it was thecandle-light, but he looked ghost-white and haggard.

  "I borrowed your boat, Mrs. Pitman," he said, civilly enough. "Mrs.Ladley was not well, and I--I went to the drug store."

  "You've been more than two hours going to the drug store," I said.

  He muttered something about not finding any open at first, and wentinto his room. He closed and locked the door behind him, and althoughPeter whined and scratched, he did not let him in.

  He looked so agitated that I thought I had been harsh, and thatperhaps she was really ill. I knocked at the door, and asked if Icould do anything. But he only called "No" curtly through the door,and asked me to take that infernal dog away.

  I went back to bed and tried to sleep, for the water had dropped aninch or so on the stairs, and I knew the danger was over. Peter came,shivering, at dawn, and got on to the sofa with me. I put an end ofthe quilt over him, and he stopped shivering after a time and went tosleep.

  The dog was company. I lay there, wide awake, thinking about Mr.Pitman's death, and how I had come, by degrees, to be keeping a cheapboarding-house in the flood district, and to having to take impudencefrom everybody who chose to rent a room from me, and to being calleda she-devil. From that I got to thinking again about the Ladleys, andhow she had said he was a fiend, and to doubting about his having goneout for medicine for her. I dozed off again at daylight, and beingworn out, I slept heavily.

  At seven o'clock Mr. Reynolds came to the door, dressed for the store.He was a tall man of about fifty, neat and orderly in his habits, andhe always remembered that I had seen better days, and treated me as alady.

  "Never mind about breakfast for me this morning, Mrs. Pitman," hesaid. "I'll get a cup of coffee at the other end of the bridge. I'lltake the boat and send it back with Terry."

  He turned and went along the hall and down to the boat. I heard himpush off from the stairs with an oar and row out into the street.Peter followed him to the stairs.

  At a quarter after seven Mr. Ladley came out and called to me: "Justbring in a cup of coffee and some toast," he said. "Enough for one."

  He went back and slammed his door, and I made his coffee. I steeped acup of tea for Mrs. Ladley at the same time. He opened the door justwide enough for the tray, and took it without so much as a "thankyou." He had a cigarette in his mouth as usual, and I could see a firein the grate and smell something like scorching cloth.

  "I hope Mrs. Ladley is better," I said, getting my foot in the crackof the door, so he could not quite close it. It smelled to me as if hehad accidentally set fire to something with his cigarette, and I triedto see into the room.

  "What about Mrs. Ladley?" he snapped.

  "You said she was ill last night."

  "Oh, yes! Well, she wasn't very sick. She's better."

  "Shall I bring her some tea?"

  "Take your foot away!" he ordered. "No. She doesn't want tea. She'snot here."

  "Not here!"

  "Good heavens!" he snarled. "Is her going away anything to make sucha fuss about? The Lord knows I'd be glad to get out of this infernalpig-wallow myself."

  "If you mean my house--" I began.

  But he had pulled himself together and was more polite when heanswered. "I mean the neighborhood. Your house is all that could bedesired for the money. If we do not have linen sheets and doublecream, we are paying muslin and milk prices."

  Either my nose was growing accustomed to the odor, or it was dyingaway: I took my foot away from the door. "When did Mrs. Ladley leave?"I asked.

  "This morning, very early. I rowed her to Federal Street."

  "You couldn't have had much sleep," I said dryly. For he lookedhorrible. There were lines around his eyes, which were red, and hislips looked dry and cracked.

  "She's not in the piece this week at the theater," he said, lickinghis lips and looking past me, not at me. "She'll be back by Saturday."

  I did not believe him. I do not think he imagined that I did. He shutthe door in my face, and it caught poor Peter by the nose. The dog ranoff howling, but although Mr. Ladley had been as fond of the animal asit was in his nature to be fond of anything, he paid no attention.As I started down the
hall after him, I saw what Peter had beencarrying--a slipper of Mrs. Ladley's. It was soaked with water;evidently Peter had found it floating at the foot of the stairs.

  Although the idea of murder had not entered my head at that time, theslipper gave me a turn. I picked it up and looked at it--a black onewith a beaded toe, short in the vamp and high-heeled, the sort mostactresses wear. Then I went back and knocked at the door of the frontroom again.

  "What the devil do you want now?" he called from beyond the door.

  "Here's a slipper of Mrs. Ladley's," I said. "Peter found it floatingin the lower hall."

  He opened the door wide, and let me in. The room was in tolerableorder, much better than when Mrs. Ladley was about. He looked at theslipper, but he did not touch it. "I don't think that is hers," hesaid.

  "I've seen her wear it a hundred times."

  "Well, she'll never wear it again." And then, seeing me stare, headded: "It's ruined with the water. Throw it out. And, by the way, I'msorry, but I set fire to one of the pillow-slips--dropped asleep, andmy cigarette did the rest. Just put it on the bill."

  He pointed to the bed. One of the pillows had no slip, and the tickingcover had a scorch or two on it. I went over and looked at it.

  "The pillow will have to be paid for, too, Mr. Ladley," I said. "Andthere's a sign nailed on the door that forbids smoking in bed. If youare going to set fire to things, I shall have to charge extra."

  "Really!" he jeered, looking at me with his cold fishy eyes. "Is thereany sign on the door saying that boarders are charged extra for sevenfeet of filthy river in the bedrooms?"

  I was never a match for him, and I make it a principle never to bandywords with my boarders. I took the pillow and the slipper and wentout. The telephone was ringing on the stair landing. It was thetheater, asking for Miss Brice.

  "She has gone away," I said.

  "What do you mean? Moved away?"

  "Gone for a few days' vacation," I replied. "She isn't playing thisweek, is she?"

  "Wait a moment," said the voice. There was a hum of conversation fromthe other end, and then another man came to the telephone.

  "Can you find out where Miss Brice has gone?"

  "I'll see."

  I went to Ladley's door and knocked. Mr. Ladley answered from justbeyond.

  "The theater is asking where Mrs. Ladley is."

  "Tell them I don't know," he snarled, and shut the door. I took hismessage to the telephone.

  Whoever it was swore and hung up the receiver.

  All the morning I was uneasy--I hardly knew why. Peter felt it as Idid. There was no sound from the Ladleys' room, and the house wasquiet, except for the lapping water on the stairs and the policepatrol going back and forth.

  At eleven o'clock a boy in the neighborhood, paddling on a raft, fellinto the water and was drowned. I watched the police boat go past,carrying his little cold body, and after that I was good for nothing.I went and sat with Peter on the stairs. The dog's conduct had beenstrange all morning. He had sat just above the water, looking at itand whimpering. Perhaps he was expecting another kitten or--

  It is hard to say how ideas first enter one's mind. But the notionthat Mr. Ladley had killed his wife and thrown her body into the watercame to me as I sat there. All at once I seemed to see it all:the quarreling the day before, the night trip in the boat, thewater-soaked slipper, his haggard face that morning--even the way thespaniel sat and stared at the flood.

  Terry brought the boat back at half past eleven, towing it behindanother.

  "Well," I said, from the stairs, "I hope you've had a pleasantmorning."

  "What doing?" he asked, not looking at me.

  "Rowing about the streets. You've had that boat for hours."

  He tied it up without a word to me, but he spoke to the dog. "Goodmorning, Peter," he said. "It's nice weather--for fishes, ain't it?"

  He picked out a bit of floating wood from the water, and showing it tothe dog, flung it into the parlor. Peter went after it with a splash.He was pretty fat, and when he came back I heard him wheezing. Butwhat he brought back was not the stick of wood. It was the knife Iuse for cutting bread. It had been on a shelf in the room where I hadslept the night before, and now Peter brought it out of the floodwhere its wooden handle had kept it afloat. The blade was broken offshort.

  It is not unusual to find one's household goods floating around duringflood-time. More than once I've lost a chair or two, and seen it afterthe water had gone down, new scrubbed and painted, in Molly Maguire'skitchen next door. And perhaps now and then a bit of luck would cometo me--a dog kennel or a chicken-house, or a kitchen table, or even,as happened once, a month-old baby in a wooden cradle, that lodgedagainst my back fence, and had come forty miles, as it turned out,with no worse mishap than a cold in its head.

  But the knife was different. I had put it on the mantel over the stoveI was using up-stairs the night before, and hadn't touched it since.As I sat staring at it, Terry took it from Peter and handed it to me.

  "Better give me a penny, Mrs. Pitman," he said in his impudent Irishway. "I hate to give you a knife. It may cut our friendship."

  I reached over to hit him a clout on the head, but I did not. Thesunlight was coming in through the window at the top of the stairs,and shining on the rope that was tied to the banister. The end of therope was covered with stains, brown, with a glint of red in them.

  I got up shivering. "You can get the meat at the butcher's, Terry," Isaid, "and come back for me in a half-hour." Then I turned and wentup-stairs, weak in the knees, to put on my hat and coat. I had made upmy mind that there had been murder done.