11
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 fr
