The Case of Jennie Brice | Page 5

I put an end of the
quilt over him, and he stopped shivering after a time and went to sleep.
The dog was company. I lay there, wide awake, thinking about Mr.
Pitman's death, and how I had come, by degrees, to be keeping a cheap
boarding-house in the flood district, and to having to take impudence
from everybody who chose to rent a room from me, and to being called
a she-devil. From that I got to thinking again about the Ladleys, and
how she had said he was a fiend, and to doubting about his having gone
out for medicine for her. I dozed off again at daylight, and being worn
out, I slept heavily.
At seven o'clock Mr. Reynolds came to the door, dressed for the store.
He was a tall man of about fifty, neat and orderly in his habits, and he
always remembered that I had seen better days, and treated me as a
lady.
"Never mind about breakfast for me this morning, Mrs. Pitman," he
said. "I'll get a cup of coffee at the other end of the bridge. I'll take the
boat and send it back with Terry."
He turned and went along the hall and down to the boat. I heard him
push off from the stairs with an oar and row out into the street. Peter
followed him to the stairs.
At a quarter after seven Mr. Ladley came out and called to me: "Just
bring in a cup of coffee and some toast," he said. "Enough for one."
He went back and slammed his door, and I made his coffee. I steeped a
cup of tea for Mrs. Ladley at the same time. He opened the door just
wide enough for the tray, and took it without so much as a "thank you."
He had a cigarette in his mouth as usual, and I could see a fire in the

grate and smell something like scorching cloth.
"I hope Mrs. Ladley is better," I said, getting my foot in the crack of the
door, so he could not quite close it. It smelled to me as if he had
accidentally set fire to something with his cigarette, and I tried to see
into the room.
"What about Mrs. Ladley?" he snapped.
"You said she was ill last night."
"Oh, yes! Well, she wasn't very sick. She's better."
"Shall I bring her some tea?"
"Take your foot away!" he ordered. "No. She doesn't want tea. She's
not here."
"Not here!"
"Good heavens!" he snarled. "Is her going away anything to make such
a fuss about? The Lord knows I'd be glad to get out of this infernal
pig-wallow myself."
"If you mean my house--" I began.
But he had pulled himself together and was more polite when he
answered. "I mean the neighborhood. Your house is all that could be
desired for the money. If we do not have linen sheets and double cream,
we are paying muslin and milk prices."
Either my nose was growing accustomed to the odor, or it was dying
away: I took my foot away from the door. "When did Mrs. Ladley
leave?" I asked.
"This morning, very early. I rowed her to Federal Street."
"You couldn't have had much sleep," I said dryly. For he looked
horrible. There were lines around his eyes, which were red, and his lips

looked dry and cracked.
"She's not in the piece this week at the theater," he said, licking his lips
and looking past me, not at me. "She'll be back by Saturday."
I did not believe him. I do not think he imagined that I did. He shut the
door in my face, and it caught poor Peter by the nose. The dog ran off
howling, but although Mr. Ladley had been as fond of the animal as it
was in his nature to be fond of anything, he paid no attention. As I
started down the hall after him, I saw what Peter had been carrying--a
slipper of Mrs. Ladley's. It was soaked with water; evidently Peter had
found it floating at the foot of the stairs.
Although the idea of murder had not entered my head at that time, the
slipper gave me a turn. I picked it up and looked at it--a black one with
a beaded toe, short in the vamp and high-heeled, the sort most actresses
wear. Then I went back and knocked at the door of the front room
again.
"What the devil do you want now?" he called from beyond the door.
"Here's a slipper of Mrs. Ladley's," I said. "Peter found it floating in the
lower hall."
He opened the door wide, and let me in. The room was in tolerable
order, much better than when Mrs. Ladley was about. He