ath."

"But I can positively identify the dress."

"My good woman, that dress has been described, to the last stilted
arch and Colonial volute, in every newspaper in the United States!"

That evening the newspapers announced that during a conference at the
jail between Mr. Ladley and James Bronson, business manager at the
Liberty Theater, Mr. Ladley had attacked Mr. Bronson with a chair, and
almost brained him.

CHAPTER XI

Eliza Shaeffer went back to Horner, after delivering her chicks
somewhere in the city. Things went on as before. The trial was set for
May. The district attorney's office had all the things we had found in
the house that Monday afternoon--the stained towel, the broken knife
and its blade, the slipper that had been floating in the parlor,
and the rope that had fastened my boat to the staircase.
Somewhere--wherever they keep such things--was the headless body of
a woman with a hand missing, and with a curious scar across the left
breast. The slip of paper, however, which I had found behind the
base-board, was still in Mr. Holcombe's possession, nor had he
mentioned it to the police.

Mr. Holcombe had not come back. He wrote me twice asking me to hold
his room, once from New York and once from Chicago. To the second
letter he added a postscript:

"Have not found what I wanted, but am getting warm. If any news,
address me at Des Moines, Iowa, General Delivery. H."

It was nearly the end of April when I saw Lida again. I had seen by
the newspapers that she and her mother were coming home. I wondered if
she had heard from Mr. Howell, for I had not, and I wondered, too, if
she would send for me again.

But she came herself, on foot, late one afternoon, and the
school-teacher being out, I took her into the parlor bedroom. She
looked thinner than before, and rather white. My heart ached for her.

"I have been away," she explained. "I thought you might wonder why
you did not hear from me. But, you see, my mother--" she stopped
and flushed. "I would have written you from Bermuda, but--my mother
watched my correspondence, so I could not."

No. I knew she could not. Alma had once found a letter of mine to Mr.
Pitman. Very little escaped Alma.

"I wondered if you have heard anything?" she asked.

"I have heard nothing. Mr. Howell was here once, just after I saw you.
I do not believe he is in the city.

"Perhaps not, although--Mrs. Pitman, I believe he is in the city,
hiding!"