e Liberty Theater."

"Who sided with you," put in Mr. Holcombe, "and whose views I refused
to entertain because, as publicity man for a theater, he dealt in
fiction rather than in fact."

"Precisely. You may recall, Mr. Holcombe, that you offered to hang any
man we would name, given a proper chain of circumstantial evidence
against him?"

"Yes."

"After you left, Bronson spoke to me. He said business at the theater
was bad, and complained of the way the papers used, or would not use,
his stuff. He said the Liberty Theater had not had a proper deal, and
that he was tempted to go over and bang one of the company on the
head, and so get a little free advertising.

"I said he ought to be able to fake a good story; but he maintained
that a newspaper could smell a faked story a mile away, and that,
anyhow, all the good stunts had been pulled off. I agreed with him. I
remember saying that nothing but a railroad wreck or a murder hit the
public very hard these days, and that I didn't feel like wrecking the
Pennsylvania Limited.

"He leaned over the table and looked at me. 'Well, how about a murder,
then?' he said. 'You get the story for your paper, and I get some
advertising for the theater. We need it, that's sure.'

"I laughed it off, and we separated. But at two o'clock Bronson called
me up again. I met him in his office at the theater, and he told me
that Jennie Brice, who was out of the cast that week, had asked for a
week's vacation. She had heard of a farm at a town called Horner, and
she wanted to go there to rest.

"'Now the idea is this,' he said. 'She's living with her husband, and
he has threatened her life more than once. It would be easy enough to
frame up something to look as if he'd made away with her. We'd get a
week of excitement, more advertising than we'd ordinarily get in a
year; you get a corking news story, and find Jennie Brice at the end,
getting the credit for that. Jennie gets a hundred dollars and a rest,
and Ladley, her husband, gets, say, two hundred.'

"Mr. Bronson offered to put up the money, and I agreed. The flood came
just then, and was considerable help. It made a good setting. I went
to my city editor, and got an assignment to interview Ladley about
this play of his. Then Bronson and I went together to see the Ladleys
on Sunday morning, and as they needed money, they agreed. But Ladley
insisted on fifty dollars a week extra if he had to go to jail. We
promised it, but we did not