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 thrown
into the river _after_ death. There was no water in the lungs. The
verdict was "death by the hands of some person or persons unknown."

Mr. Holcombe was not satisfied. In some way or other he had got
permission to attend the autopsy, and had brought away a tracing of
the 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 Jennie
Brice; her husband killed her, probably by strangling her; he took the
body out in the boat and dropped it into the swollen river above the
Ninth 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 may
have cut her throat."

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

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

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

That was on Tuesday. Jennie Brice had been missing nine days. In all
that time, although she was cast for the piece at the theater that
week, 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 a
striped black and white dress with a red collar, and a red and black
hat, without her fur coat, which she had worn all winter. She had gone
very 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 and
had brought the boat back. After they had quarreled violently all
night, and when she was leaving him, wouldn't he have allowed her to
take herself away? Besides, the police had found no trace of her on
an early train. And then at daylight, between five and