gray.

I went over after breakfast and claimed the coat as belonging to Mrs.
Ladley. But she refused to give it up. There is a sort of unwritten
law concerning the salvage of flood articles, and I had to leave the
coat, as I had my kitchen chair. But it was Mrs. Ladley's, beyond a
doubt.

I shuddered when I thought how it had probably got into the water.
And yet it was curious, too, for if she had had it on, how did it get
loose to go floating around Molly Maguire's yard? And if she had not
worn it, how did it get in the water?




CHAPTER VI

The newspapers were full of the Ladley case, with its curious solution
and many surprises. It was considered unique in many ways. Mr. Pitman
had always read all the murder trials, and used to talk about the
_corpus delicti_ and writs of _habeas corpus_--_corpus_ being the
legal way, I believe, of spelling corpse. But I came out of the Ladley
trial--for it came to trial ultimately--with only one point of law
that I was sure of: that was, that it is mighty hard to prove a man a
murderer unless you can show what he killed.

And that was the weakness in the Ladley case. There was a body, but it
could not be identified.