ey's previous life, and his
wife's. But he did not seem to get anywhere.

The newspapers had been full of the Jennie Brice disappearance. For
disappearance it proved to be. So far as could be learned, she had not
left the city that night, or since, and as she was a striking-looking
woman, very blond, as I have said, with a full voice and a languid
manner, she could hardly have taken refuge anywhere without being
discovered. The morning after her disappearance a young woman, tall
like Jennie Brice and fair, had been seen in the Union Station. But
as she was accompanied by a young man, who bought her magazines and
papers, and bade her an excited farewell, sending his love to various
members of a family, and promising to feed the canary, this was not
seriously considered. A sort of general alarm went over the country.
When she was younger she had been pretty well known at the Broadway
theaters in New York. One way or another, the Liberty Theater got
a lot of free advertising from the case, and I believe Miss Hope's
salary was raised.

The police communicated with Jennie Brice's people--she had a sister
in Olean, New York, but she had not heard from her. The sister
wrote--I heard later--that Jennie had been unhappy with Philip Ladley,
and afraid he would kill her. And Miss Hope told the same story.
But--there was no _corpus_, as the lawyers say, and finally the police
had to free Mr. Ladley.

Beyond making an attempt to get bail, and failing, he had done
nothing. Asked about his wife, he merely shrugged his shoulders
and said she had left him, and would turn up all right. He was
unconcerned: smoked cigarettes all day, ate and slept well, and looked
better since he had had nothing to drink. And two or three days after
the arrest, he sent for the manuscript of his play.

Mr. Howell came for it on the Thursday of that week.

I was on my knees scrubbing the parlor floor, when he rang the bell. I
let him in, and it seemed to me that he looked tired and pale.

"Well, Mrs. Pitman," he said, smiling, "what did you find in the
cellar when the water went down?"

"I'm glad to say that I didn't find what I feared, Mr. Howell."

"Not even the onyx clock?"

"Not even the clock," I replied. "And I feel as if I'd lost a friend.
A clock is a lot of company."

"Do you know what I think?" he said, looking at me closely. "I
think you put that clock away yourself, in the excitement, and have
forgotten all about it."

"Nonsense."