s frantic with fear, after he had done it. Then it
occurred to him that if he made the body unrecognizable, he would be
safe enough. On that quiet Sunday night, when Mr. Reynolds reported
all peaceful in the Ladley room, he had cut off the poor wretch's head
and had tied it up in a pillow-slip weighted with my onyx clock!

It is a curious fact about the case that the scar which his wife
incurred to enable her to marry him was the means of his undoing. He
insisted, and I believe he was telling the truth, that he did not know
of the scar: that is, his wife had never told him of it, and had been
able to conceal it. He thought she had probably used paraffin in some
way.

In his final statement, written with great care and no little literary
finish, he told the story in detail: of arranging the clues as Mr.
Howell and Mr. Bronson had suggested; of going out in the boat, with
the body, covered with a fur coat, in the bottom of the skiff: of
throwing it into the current above the Ninth Street bridge, and of
seeing the fur coat fall from the boat and carried beyond his reach;
of disposing of the head near the Seventh Street bridge: of going to a
drug store, as per the Howell instructions, and of coming home at four
o'clock, to find me at the head of the stairs.

[Illustration: While his wife slept.]

Several points of confusion remained. One had been caused by Temple
Hope's refusal to admit that the dress and hat that figured in the
case were to be used by her the next week at the theater. Mr. Ladley
insisted that this was the case, and that on that Sunday afternoon
his wife had requested him to take them to Miss Hope; that they had
quarreled as to whether they should be packed in a box or in the brown
valise, and that he had visited Alice Murray instead. It was on the
way there that the idea of finally getting rid of Jennie Brice came
to him. And a way--using the black and white striped dress of the
dispute.

Another point of confusion had been the dismantling of his room that
Monday night, some time between the visit of Temple Hope and the
return of Mr. Holcombe. This was to obtain the scrap of paper
containing the list of clues as suggested by Mr. Howell, a clue that
might have brought about a premature discovery of the so-called hoax.

To the girl he had told nothing of his plan. But he had told her she
was to leave town on an early train the next morning, going as his
wife; that he wished her to wear the black and w