The Case of Jennie Brice

  THE CASE _of_ JENNIE BRICE

  _By_ MARY ROBERTS RINEHART

  _Author of_ THE MAN IN LOWER TEN, WHEN A MAN MARRIES WHERE THERE'S A WILL, ETC.

  _Illustrated by_ M. LEONE BRACKER

  1913

  CHAPTER I

  We have just had another flood, bad enough, but only a foot or two ofwater on the first floor. Yesterday we got the mud shoveled out of thecellar and found Peter, the spaniel that Mr. Ladley left when he "wentaway". The flood, and the fact that it was Mr. Ladley's dog whose bodywas found half buried in the basement fruit closet, brought back to methe strange events of the other flood five years ago, when the waterreached more than half-way to the second story, and brought withit, to some, mystery and sudden death, and to me the worst case of"shingles" I have ever seen.

  My name is Pitman--in this narrative. It is not really Pitman, butthat does well enough. I belong to an old Pittsburgh family. I wasborn on Penn Avenue, when that was the best part of town, and I lived,until I was fifteen, very close to what is now the Pittsburgh Club. Itwas a dwelling then; I have forgotten who lived there.

  I was a girl in seventy-seven, during the railroad riots, and I recallour driving in the family carriage over to one of the Allegheny hills,and seeing the yards burning, and a great noise of shooting fromacross the river. It was the next year that I ran away from school tomarry Mr. Pitman, and I have not known my family since. We were neverreconciled, although I came back to Pittsburgh after twenty years ofwandering. Mr. Pitman was dead; the old city called me, and I came. Ihad a hundred dollars or so, and I took a house in lower Allegheny,where, because they are partly inundated every spring, rents arecheap, and I kept boarders. My house was always orderly and clean,and although the neighborhood had a bad name, a good many theatricalpeople stopped with me. Five minutes across the bridge, and they werein the theater district. Allegheny at that time, I believe, wasstill an independent city. But since then it has allied itself withPittsburgh; it is now the North Side.

  I was glad to get back. I worked hard, but I made my rent and myliving, and a little over. Now and then on summer evenings I went toone of the parks, and sitting on a bench, watched the children playingaround, and looked at my sister's house, closed for the summer. It isa very large house: her butler once had his wife boarding with me--anice little woman.

  It is curious to recall that, at that time, five years ago, I hadnever seen my niece, Lida Harvey, and then to think that only the daybefore yesterday she came in her automobile as far as she dared, andthen sat there, waving to me, while the police patrol brought acrossin a skiff a basket of provisions she had sent me.

  I wonder what she would have thought had she known that the elderlywoman in a calico wrapper with an old overcoat over it, and a pair ofrubber boots, was her full aunt!

  The flood and the sight of Lida both brought back the case of JennieBrice. For even then, Lida and Mr. Howell were interested in eachother.

  This is April. The flood of 1907 was earlier, in March. It had been along hard winter, with ice gorges in all the upper valley. Then, inearly March, there came a thaw. The gorges broke up and began to comedown, filling the rivers with crushing grinding ice.

  There are three rivers at Pittsburgh, the Allegheny and theMonongahela uniting there at the Point to form the Ohio. And all threewere covered with broken ice, logs, and all sorts of debris from theupper valleys.

  A warning was sent out from the weather bureau, and I got my carpetsready to lift that morning. That was on the fourth of March, a Sunday.Mr. Ladley and his wife, Jennie Brice, had the parlor bedroom and theroom behind it. Mrs. Ladley, or Miss Brice, as she preferred to beknown, had a small part at a local theater that kept a permanentcompany. Her husband was in that business, too, but he had nothing todo. It was the wife who paid the bills, and a lot of quarreling theydid about it.

  I knocked at the door at ten o'clock, and Mr. Ladley opened it. Hewas a short man, rather stout and getting bald, and he always had acigarette. Even yet, the parlor carpet smells of them.

  "What do you want?" he asked sharply, holding the door open about aninch.

  "The water's coming up very fast, Mr. Ladley," I said. "It's up to theswinging-shelf in the cellar now. I'd like to take up the carpet andmove the piano."

  "Come back in an hour or so," he snapped, and tried to close the door.But I had got my toe in the crack.

  "I'll have to have the piano moved, Mr. Ladley," I said. "You'd betterput off what you are doing."

  I thought he was probably writing. He spent most of the day writing,using the wash-stand as a desk, and it kept me busy with oxalic acidtaking ink-spots out of the splasher and the towels. He was writing aplay, and talked a lot about the Shuberts having promised to star himin it when it was finished.

  "Hell!" he said, and turning, spoke to somebody in the room.

  "We can go into the back room," I heard him say, and he closed thedoor. When he opened it again, the room was empty. I called in Terry,the Irishman who does odd jobs for me now and then, and we both got towork at the tacks in the carpet, Terry working by the window, and I bythe door into the back parlor, which the Ladleys used as a bedroom.

  That was how I happened to hear what I afterward told the police.

  Some one--a man, but not Mr. Ladley--was talking. Mrs. Ladley brokein: "I won't do it!" she said flatly. "Why should I help him? Hedoesn't help me. He loafs here all day, smoking and sleeping, and sitsup all night, drinking and keeping me awake."

  The voice went on again, as if in reply to this, and I heard a rattleof glasses, as if they were pouring drinks. They always had whisky,even when they were behind with their board.

  "That's all very well," Mrs. Ladley said. I could always hear her, shehaving a theatrical sort of voice--one that carries. "But what aboutthe prying she-devil that runs the house?"

  "Hush, for God's sake!" broke in Mr. Ladley, and after that they spokein whispers. Even with my ear against the panel, I could not catch aword.

  The men came just then to move the piano, and by the time we had takenit and the furniture up-stairs, the water was over the kitchen floor,and creeping forward into the hall. I had never seen the river come upso fast. By noon the yard was full of floating ice, and at three thatafternoon the police skiff was on the front street, and I was wadingaround in rubber boots, taking the pictures off the walls.

  I was too busy to see who the Ladleys' visitor was, and he had gonewhen I remembered him again. The Ladleys took the second-story front,which was empty, and Mr. Reynolds, who was in the silk department in astore across the river, had the room just behind.

  I put up a coal stove in a back room next the bathroom, and managed tocook the dinner there. I was washing up the dishes when Mr. Reynoldscame in. As it was Sunday, he was in his slippers and had the coloredsupplement of a morning paper in his hand.

  "What's the matter with the Ladleys?" he asked. "I can't read fortheir quarreling."

  "Booze, probably," I said. "When you've lived in the flood district aslong as I have, Mr. Reynolds, you'll know that the rising of the riveris a signal for every man in the vicinity to stop work and get full.The fuller the river, the fuller the male population."

  "Then this flood will likely make 'em drink themselves to death!" hesaid. "It's a lulu."

  "It's the neighborhood's annual debauch. The women are busy keepingthe babies from getting drowned in the cellars, or they'd get full,too. I hope, since it's come this far, it will come farther, so thelandlord will have to paper the parlor."

  That was at three o'clock
. At four Mr. Ladley went down the stairs,and I heard him getting into a skiff in the lower hall. There wereboats going back and forth all the time, carrying crowds of curiouspeople, and taking the flood sufferers to the corner grocery, wherethey were lowering groceries in a basket on a rope from an upperwindow.

  I had been making tea when I heard Mr. Ladley go out. I fixed a traywith a cup of it and some crackers, and took it to their door. I hadnever liked Mrs. Ladley, but it was chilly in the house with the gasshut off and the lower floor full of ice-water. And it is hard enoughto keep boarders in the flood district.

  She did not answer to my knock, so I opened the door and went in.She was at the window, looking after him, and the brown valise, thatfigured in the case later, was opened on the floor. Over the foot ofthe bed was the black and white dress, with the red collar.

  When I spoke to her, she turned around quickly. She was a tall woman,about twenty-eight, with very white teeth and yellow hair, which sheparted a little to one side and drew down over her ears. She had asullen face and large well-shaped hands, with her nails long and verypointed.

  "The 'she-devil' has brought you some tea," I said. "Where shall sheput it?"

  "'She-devil'!" she repeated, raising her eyebrows. "It's a verythoughtful she-devil. Who called you that?"

  But, with the sight of the valise and the fear that they might beleaving, I thought it best not to quarrel. She had left the window,and going to her dressing-table, had picked up her nail-file.

  "Never mind," I said. "I hope you are not going away. These floodsdon't last, and they're a benefit. Plenty of the people around hererely on 'em every year to wash out their cellars."

  "No, I'm not going away," she replied lazily. "I'm taking that dressto Miss Hope at the theater. She is going to wear it in _Charlie'sAunt_ next week. She hasn't half enough of a wardrobe to play leads instock. Look at this thumb-nail, broken to the quick!"

  If I had only looked to see which thumb it was! But I was putting thetea-tray on the wash-stand, and moving Mr. Ladley's papers to findroom for it. Peter, the spaniel, begged for a lump of sugar, and Igave it to him.

  "Where is Mr. Ladley?" I asked.

  "Gone out to see the river."

  "I hope he'll be careful. There's a drowning or two every year inthese floods."

  "Then I hope he won't," she said calmly. "Do you know what I was doingwhen you came in? I was looking after his boat, and hoping it had ahole in it."

  "You won't feel that way to-morrow, Mrs. Ladley," I protested,shocked. "You're just nervous and put out. Most men have their uglytimes. Many a time I wished Mr. Pitman was gone--until he went. ThenI'd have given a good bit to have him back again."

  She was standing in front of the dresser, fixing her hair over herears. She turned and looked at me over her shoulder.

  "Probably Mr. Pitman was a man," she said. "My husband is a fiend, adevil."

  Well, a good many women have said that to me at different times. Butjust let me say such a thing to _them_, or repeat their own wordsto them the next day, and they would fly at me in a fury. So I saidnothing, and put the cream into her tea.

  I never saw her again.