six, my own
brother had seen a woman with Mr. Howell, a woman who might have been
Jennie Brice. But if it was, why did not Mr. Howell say so?

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

In spite of the failure to identify the body, Mr. Ladley was arrested
that night, Tuesday, and this time it was for murder. I know now that
the police were taking long chances. They had no strong motive for the
crime. As Mr. Holcombe said, they had provocation, but not motive,
which is different. They had opportunity, and they had a lot of
straggling links of clues, which in the total made a fair chain of
circumstantial 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 was
being done. He requested to be allowed to walk to the jail, and went
quietly, with a detective on one side and I think a sheriff's officer
on the other.

Just before he left, he asked for a word or two with me, and when he
paid his bill up to date, and gave me an extra dollar for taking care
of Peter, I was almost overcome. He took the manuscript of his play
with him, and I remember his asking if he could have any typing done
in the jail. I had never seen a man arrested for murder before, but I
think 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 were
sitting at the dining-room table drinking it, when the bell rang. It
was Mr. Howell! He half staggered into the hall when I opened the
door, and was for going into the parlor bedroom without a word.

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

"Gone!" he said. "Where?"

"To jail."

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

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

"You're sick, Mr. Howell," I said. "You'd better not go ou