The Case of Jennie Brice

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER IX

  The coroner held an inquest over the headless body the next day,Tuesday. Mr. Graves telephoned me in the morning, and I went to themorgue with him.

  I do not like the morgue, although some of my neighbors pay it weeklyvisits. It is by way of excursion, like nickelodeons or watching thecircus put up its tents. I have heard them threaten the children thatif they misbehaved they would not be taken to the morgue that week!

  I failed to identify the body. How could I? It had been a tall woman,probably five feet eight, and I thought the nails looked like those ofJennie Brice. The thumb-nail of one was broken short off. I toldMr. Graves about her speaking of a broken nail, but he shrugged hisshoulders and said nothing.

  There was a curious scar over the heart, and he was making a sketchof it. It reached from the center of the chest for about six inchesacross the left breast, a narrow thin line that one could hardly see.It was shaped like this:

  I felt sure that Jennie Brice had had no such scar, and Mr. Gravesthought as I did. Temple Hope, called to the inquest, said she hadnever heard of one, and Mr. Ladley himself, at the inquest, swore thathis wife had had nothing of the sort. I was watching him, and Idid not think he was lying. And yet--the hand was very like JennieBrice's. It was all bewildering.

  Mr. Ladley's testimoney at the inquest was disappointing. He was cooland collected: said he had no reason to believe that his wife wasdead, and less reason to think she had been drowned; she had left himin a rage, and if she found out that by hiding she was putting him inan unpleasant position, she would probably hide indefinitely.

  To the disappointment of everybody, the identity of the woman remaineda mystery. No one with such a scar was missing. A small woman ofmy own age, a Mrs. Murray, whose daughter, a stenographer, haddisappeared, attended the inquest. But her daughter had had no suchscar, and had worn her nails short, because of using the typewriter.Alice Murray was the missing girl's name. Her mother sat beside me,and cried most of the time.

  One thing was brought out at the inquest: the body had been throwninto the river _after_ death. There was no water in the lungs. Theverdict was "death by the hands of some person or persons unknown."

  Mr. Holcombe was not satisfied. In some way or other he had gotpermission to attend the autopsy, and had brought away a tracing ofthe scar. All the way home in the street-car he stared at the drawing,holding first one eye shut and then the other. But, like the coroner,he got nowhere. He folded the paper and put it in his note-book.

  "None the less, Mrs. Pitman," he said, "that is the body of JennieBrice; her husband killed her, probably by strangling her; he took thebody out in the boat and dropped it into the swollen river above theNinth Street bridge."

  "Why do you think he strangled her?"

  "There was no mark on the body, and no poison was found."

  "Then if he strangled her, where did the blood come from?"

  "I didn't limit myself to strangulation," he said irritably. "He mayhave cut her throat."

  "Or brained her with my onyx clock," I added with a sigh. For I missedthe clock more and more.

  He went down in his pockets and brought up a key. "I'd forgottenthis," he said. "It shows you were right--that the clock was therewhen the Ladleys took the room. I found this in the yard thismorning."

  It was when I got home from the inquest that I found old Isaac'sbasket waiting. I am not a crying woman, but I could hardly see mymother's picture for tears.--Well, after all, that is not the Bricestory. I am not writing the sordid tragedy of my life.

  That was on Tuesday. Jennie Brice had been missing nine days. In allthat time, although she was cast for the piece at the theater thatweek, no one there had heard from her. Her relatives had had no word.She had gone away, if she had gone, on a cold March night, in astriped black and white dress with a red collar, and a red and blackhat, without her fur coat, which she had worn all winter. She had gonevery early in the morning, or during the night. How had she gone? Mr.Ladley said he had rowed her to Federal Street at half after six andhad brought the boat back. After they had quarreled violently allnight, and when she was leaving him, wouldn't he have allowed her totake herself away? Besides, the police had found no trace of her onan early train. And then at daylight, between five and six, my ownbrother had seen a woman with Mr. Howell, a woman who might have beenJennie Brice. But if it was, why did not Mr. Howell say so?

  Mr. Ladley claimed she was hiding, in revenge. But Jennie Brice wasnot that sort of woman; there was something big about her, somethingthat is found often in large women--a lack of spite. She was not pettyor malicious. Her faults, like her virtues, were for all to see.

  In spite of the failure to identify the body, Mr. Ladley was arrestedthat night, Tuesday, and this time it was for murder. I know now thatthe police were taking long chances. They had no strong motive for thecrime. As Mr. Holcombe said, they had provocation, but not motive,which is different. They had opportunity, and they had a lot ofstraggling links of clues, which in the total made a fair chain ofcircumstantial evidence. But that was all.

  That is the way the case stood on Tuesday night, March the thirteenth.

  Mr. Ladley was taken away at nine o'clock. He was perfectly cool,asked me to help him pack a suit case, and whistled while it wasbeing done. He requested to be allowed to walk to the jail, and wentquietly, with a detective on one side and I think a sheriff's officeron the other.

  Just before he left, he asked for a word or two with me, and when hepaid his bill up to date, and gave me an extra dollar for taking careof Peter, I was almost overcome. He took the manuscript of his playwith him, and I remember his asking if he could have any typing donein the jail. I had never seen a man arrested for murder before, but Ithink he was probably the coolest suspect the officers had ever seen.They hardly knew what to make of it.

  Mr. Reynolds and I had a cup of tea after all the excitement, and weresitting at the dining-room table drinking it, when the bell rang. Itwas Mr. Howell! He half staggered into the hall when I opened thedoor, and was for going into the parlor bedroom without a word.

  "Mr. Ladley's gone, if you want him," I said. I thought his facecleared.

  "Gone!" he said. "Where?"

  "To jail."

  He did not reply at once. He stood there, tapping the palm of onehand with the forefinger of the other. He was dirty and unshaven. Hisclothes looked as if he had been sleeping in them.

  "So they've got him!" he muttered finally, and turning, was about togo out the front door without another word, but I caught his arm.

  "You're sick, Mr. Howell," I said. "You'd better not go out just yet."

  "Oh, I'm all right." He took his handkerchief out and wiped his face.I saw that his hands were shaking.

  "Come back and have a cup of tea, and a slice of home-made bread."

  He hesitated and looked at his watch. "I'll do it, Mrs. Pitman," hesaid. "I suppose I'd better throw a little fuel into this engine ofmine. It's been going hard for several days."

  He ate like a wolf. I cut half a loaf into slices for him, and hedrank the rest of the tea. Mr. Reynolds creaked up to bed and left himstill eating, and me still cutting and spreading. Now that I had achance to see him, I was shocked. The rims of his eyes were red, hiscollar was black, and his hair hung over his forehead. But when hefinally sat back and looked at me, his color was better.

  "So they've canned him!" he said.

  "Time enough, too," said I.

  He leaned forward and put both his elbows on the table. "Mrs. Pitman,"he said earnestly, "I don't like him any more than you do. But henever killed that woman."

  "Somebody killed her."

  "How do you know? How do you know she is dead?"

  Well, I didn't, of course--I only felt it.

  "The police haven't even proved a crime. They can't hold a man for asupposititious murder."

  "Perhaps they can't but they're doing it," I retorted. "If the woman'salive, she won't let him hang."

  "I'm not so sure of that," he said he
avily, and got up. He looked inthe little mirror over the sideboard, and brushed back his hair. "Ilook bad enough," he said, "but I feel worse. Well, you've saved mylife, Mrs. Pitman. Thank you."

  "How is my--how is Miss Harvey?" I asked, as we started out. He turnedand smiled at me in his boyish way.

  "The best ever!" he said. "I haven't seen her for days, and it seemslike centuries. She--she is the only girl in the world for me, Mrs.Pitman, although I--" He stopped and drew a long breath. "She isbeautiful, isn't she?"

  "Very beautiful," I answered. "Her mother was always--"

  "Her mother!" He looked at me curiously.

  "I knew her mother years ago," I said, putting the best face on mymistake that I could.

  "Then I'll remember you to her, if she ever allows me to see heragain. Just now I'm _persona non grata_."

  "If you'll do the kindly thing, Mr. Howell," I said, "you'll _forget_me to her."

  He looked into my eyes and then thrust out his hand.

  "All right," he said. "I'll not ask any questions. I guess there aresome curious stories hidden in these old houses."

  Peter hobbled to the front door with him. He had not gone so far asthe parlor once while Mr. Ladley was in the house.

  * * * * *

  They had had a sale of spring flowers at the store that day, and Mr.Reynolds had brought me a pot of white tulips. That night I hung mymother's picture over the mantel in the dining-room, and put thetulips beneath it. It gave me a feeling of comfort; I had never seenmy mother's grave, or put flowers on it.