The Case of Jennie Brice
Page 7
CHAPTER VII
After all, there was nothing sensational about Mr. Ladley's return. Hecame at eight o'clock that night, fresh-shaved and with his hair cut,and, although he had a latch-key, he rang the door-bell. I knew hisring, and I thought it no harm to carry an old razor of Mr. Pitman'swith the blade open and folded back on the handle, the way the coloredpeople use them, in my left hand.
But I saw at once that he meant no mischief.
"Good evening," he said, and put out his hand. I jumped back, until Isaw there was nothing in it and that he only meant to shake hands. Ididn't do it; I might have to take him in, and make his bed, and cookhis meals, but I did not have to shake hands with him.
"You, too!" he said, looking at me with what I suppose he meant to bea reproachful look. But he could no more put an expression of thatsort in his eyes than a fish could. "I suppose, then, there is no useasking if I may have my old room? The front room. I won't need two."
I didn't want him, and he must have seen it. But I took him. "You mayhave it, as far as I'm concerned," I said. "But you'll have to let thepaper-hanger in to-morrow."
"Assuredly." He came into the hall and stood looking around him, and Ifancied he drew a breath of relief. "It isn't much yet," he said, "butit's better to look at than six feet of muddy water."
"Or than stone walls," I said.
He looked at me and smiled. "Or than stone walls," he repeated,bowing, and went into his room.
So I had him again, and if I gave him only the dull knives, and lockedup the bread-knife the moment I had finished with it, who can blameme? I took all the precaution I could think of: had Terry put an extrabolt on every door, and hid the rat poison and the carbolic acid inthe cellar.
Peter would not go near him. He hobbled around on his three legs, withthe splint beating a sort of tattoo on the floor, but he stayed backin the kitchen with me, or in the yard.
It was Sunday night or early Monday morning that Jennie Bricedisappeared. On Thursday evening, her husband came back. On Friday thebody of a woman was washed ashore at Beaver, but turned out to be thatof a stewardess who had fallen overboard from one of the Cincinnatipackets. Mr. Ladley himself showed me the article in the morningpaper, when I took in his breakfast.
"Public hysteria has killed a man before this," he said, when I hadread it. "Suppose that woman had been mangled, or the screw of thesteamer had cut her head off! How many people do you suppose wouldhave been willing to swear that it was my--was Mrs. Ladley?"
"Even without a head, I should know Mrs. Ladley," I retorted.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Let's trust she's still alive, for mysake," he said. "But I'm glad, anyhow, that this woman had a head.You'll allow me to be glad, won't you?"
"You can be anything you want, as far as I'm concerned," I snapped,and went out.
Mr. Holcombe still retained the second-story front room. I think,although he said nothing more about it, that he was still "playinghorse." He wrote a good bit at the wash-stand, and, from the loosesheets of manuscript he left, I believe actually tried to begin aplay. But mostly he wandered along the water-front, or stood on oneor another of the bridges, looking at the water and thinking. It iscertain that he tried to keep in the part by smoking cigarettes, buthe hated them, and usually ended by throwing the cigarette away andlighting an old pipe he carried.
On that Thursday evening he came home and sat down to supper withMr. Reynolds. He ate little and seemed much excited. The talk ran oncrime, as it always did when he was around, and Mr. Holcombe quotedSpencer a great deal--Herbert Spencer. Mr. Reynolds was impressed, notknowing much beyond silks and the National League.
"Spencer," Mr. Holcombe would say--"Spencer shows that everyoccurrence is the inevitable result of what has gone before, andcarries in its train an equally inevitable series of results. Try tointerrupt this chain in the smallest degree, and what follows? Chaos,my dear sir, chaos."
"We see that at the store," Mr. Reynolds would say. "Accustom a lot ofwomen to a silk sale on Fridays and then make it toothbrushes. That'schaos, all right."
Well, Mr. Holcombe came in that night about ten o'clock, and I toldhim Ladley was back. He was almost wild with excitement; wanted tohave the back parlor, so he could watch him through the keyhole, andwas terribly upset when I told him there was no keyhole, that thedoor fastened with a thumb bolt. On learning that the room was tobe papered the next morning, he grew calmer, however, and got thepaper-hanger's address from me. He went out just after that.
Friday, as I say, was very quiet. Mr. Ladley moved to the back parlorto let the paper-hanger in the front room, smoked and fussed withhis papers all day, and Mr. Holcombe stayed in his room, which wasunusual. In the afternoon Molly Maguire put on the striped fur coatand went out, going slowly past the house so that I would be sure tosee her. Beyond banging the window down, I gave her no satisfaction.
At four o'clock Mr. Holcombe came to my kitchen, rubbing his handstogether. He had a pasteboard tube in his hand about a foot long, withan arrangement of small mirrors in it. He said it was modeled afterthe something or other that is used on a submarine, and that he andthe paper-hanger had fixed a place for it between his floor and theceiling of Mr. Ladley's room, so that the chandelier would hide itfrom below. He thought he could watch Mr. Ladley through it; and as itturned out, he could.
"I want to find his weak moment," he said excitedly. "I want to knowwhat he does when the door is closed and he can take off his mask. AndI want to know if he sleeps with a light."
"If he does," I replied, "I hope you'll let me know, Mr. Holcombe. Thegas bills are a horror to me as it is. I think he kept it on all lastnight. I turned off all the other lights and went to the cellar. Themeter was going around."
"Fine!" he said. "Every murderer fears the dark. And our friend of theparlor bedroom is a murderer, Mrs. Pitman. Whether he hangs or not,he's a murderer."
The mirror affair, which Mr. Holcombe called a periscope, was put inthat day and worked amazingly well. I went with him to try it out, andI distinctly saw the paper-hanger take a cigarette from Mr. Ladley'scase and put it in his pocket. Just after that, Mr. Ladley saunteredinto the room and looked at the new paper. I could both see and hearhim. It was rather weird.
"God, what a wall-paper!" he said.