“Get the theater, Tom,” the chief said to one of the detectives.

Luckily, what he learned over the telephone from the theater corroborated my story.  Jennie Brice was not in the cast that week, but should have reported that morning (Monday) to rehearse the next week’s piece.  No message had been received from her, and a substitute had been put in her place.

The chief hung up the receiver and turned to me.  “You are sure about the clock, Mrs. Pitman?” he asked.  “It was there when they moved up-stairs to the room?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are certain you will not find it on the parlor mantel when the water goes down?”

“The mantels are uncovered now.  It is not there.”

“You think Ladley has gone for good?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He’d be a fool to try to run away, unless—­Graves, you’d better get hold of the fellow, and keep him until either the woman is found or a body.  The river is falling.  In a couple of days we will know if she is around the premises anywhere.”

Before I left, I described Jennie Brice for them carefully.  Asked what she probably wore, if she had gone away as her husband said, I had no idea; she had a lot of clothes, and dressed a good bit.  But I recalled that I had seen, lying on the bed, the black and white dress with the red collar, and they took that down, as well as the brown valise.

The chief rose and opened the door for me himself.  “If she actually left town at the time you mention,” he said, “she ought not to be hard to find.  There are not many trains before seven in the morning, and most of them are locals.”

“And—­and if she did not, if he—­do you think she is in the house—­or—­or—­the cellar?”

“Not unless Ladley is more of a fool than I think he is,” he said, smiling.  “Personally, I believe she has gone away, as he says she did.  But if she hasn’t—­He probably took the body with him when he said he was getting medicine, and dropped it in the current somewhere.  But we must go slow with all this.  There’s no use shouting ‘wolf’ yet.”

“But—­the towel?”

“He may have cut himself, shaving.  It has been done.”

“And the knife?”

He shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly.

“I’ve seen a perfectly good knife spoiled opening a bottle of pickles.”

“But the slippers?  And the clock?”

“My good woman, enough shoes and slippers are forgotten in the bottoms of cupboards year after year in flood-time, and are found floating around the streets, to make all the old-clothesmen in town happy.  I have seen almost everything floating about, during one of these annual floods.”

“I dare say you never saw an onyx clock floating around,” I replied a little sharply.  I had no sense of humor that day.  He stopped smiling at once, and stood tugging at his mustache.

“No,” he admitted.  “An onyx clock sinks, that’s true.  That’s a very nice little point, that onyx clock.  He may be trying to sell it, or perhaps—­” He did not finish.