The Case of Jennie Brice

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

"Tell again where you left it the night before it was found floating down-stairs."

"On a shelf over the stove."

"Could the dog have reached it there?"

"Not without standing on a hot stove."

"Is it not possible that Mr. Ladley, unable to untie the boat, borrowed your knife to cut the boat's painter?"

"No painter was cut that I heard about The paper-hanger—"

"No, no. The boat's painter—the rope."

"Oh! Well, he might have. He never said."

"Now then, this towel, Mrs. Pitman. Did not the prisoner, on the following day, tell you that he had cut his wrist in freeing the boat, and ask you for some court-plaster?"

"He did not," I said firmly.