XXXVII. CULMINATION
“Saint seducing gold.” --Romeo and Juliet.
“When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.” --Macbeth.
I NEVER saw such a look of mortal triumph on the face of a man as thatwhich crossed the countenance of the detective.
“Well,” said he, “this is unexpected, but not wholly unwelcome. I amtruly glad to learn that Miss Leavenworth is innocent; but I must hearsome few more particulars before I shall be satisfied. Get up,Mr. Harwell, and explain yourself. If you are the murderer of Mr.Leavenworth, how comes it that things look so black against everybodybut yourself?”
But in the hot, feverish eyes which sought him from the writhing form athis feet, there was mad anxiety and pain, but little explanation. Seeinghim making unavailing efforts to speak, I drew near.
“Lean on me,” said I, lifting him to his feet.
His face, relieved forever from its mask of repression, turned towardsme with the look of a despairing spirit. “Save! save!” he gasped. “Saveher--Mary--they are sending a report--stop it!”
“Yes,” broke in another voice. “If there is a man here who believes inGod and prizes woman’s honor, let him stop the issue of that report.” And Henry Clavering, dignified as ever, but in a state of extremeagitation, stepped into our midst through an open door at our right.
But at the sight of his face, the man in our arms quivered, shrieked,and gave one bound that would have overturned Mr. Clavering, herculeanof frame as he was, had not Mr. Gryce interposed.
“Wait!” he cried; and holding back the secretary with one hand--wherewas his rheumatism now!--he put the other in his pocket and drew thencea document which he held up before Mr. Clavering. “It has not goneyet,” said he; “be easy. And you,” he went on, turning towards TruemanHarwell, “be quiet, or----”
His sentence was cut short by the man springing from his grasp. “Let mego!” he shrieked. “Let me have my revenge on him who, in face of all Ihave done for Mary Leavenworth, dares to call her his wife! Let me--” But at this point he paused, his quivering frame stiffening into stone,and his clutching hands, outstretched for his rival’s throat, fallingheavily back. “Hark!” said he, glaring over Mr. Clavering’s shoulder:“it is she! I hear her! I feel her! She is on the stairs! she is at thedoor! she--” a low, shuddering sigh of longing and despair finished thesentence: the door opened, and Mary Leavenworth stood before us!
It was a moment to make young hairs turn gray. To see her face, so pale,so haggard, so wild in its fixed horror, turned towards Henry Clavering,to the utter ignoring of the real actor in this most horrible scene!Trueman Harwell could not stand it.
“Ah, ah!” he cried; “look at her! cold, cold; not one glance for me,though I have just drawn the halter from her neck and fastened it aboutmy own!”
And, breaking from the clasp of the man who in his jealous rage wouldnow have withheld him, he fell on his knees before Mary, clutching herdress with frenzied hands. “You _shall_ look at me,” he cried; “you_shall_ listen to me! I will not lose body and soul for nothing. Mary,they said you were in peril! I could not endure that thought, so Iuttered the truth,--yes, though I knew what the consequence wouldbe,--and all I want now is for you to say you believe me, when I swearthat I only meant to secure to you the fortune you so much desired; thatI never dreamed it would come to this; that it was because I loved you,and hoped to win your love in return that I----”
But she did not seem to see him, did not seem to hear him. Her eyes werefixed upon Henry Clavering with an awful inquiry in their depths, andnone but he could move her.
“You do not hear me!” shrieked the poor wretch. “Ice that you are, youwould not turn your head if I should call to you from the depths ofhell!”
But even this cry fell unheeded. Pushing her hands down upon hisshoulders as though she would sweep some impediment from her path, sheendeavored to advance. “Why is that man here?” she cried, indicatingher husband with one quivering hand. “What has he done that he should bebrought here to confront me at this awful time?”
‘“I told her to come here to meet her uncle’s murderer,” whispered Mr.Gryce into my ear.
But before I could reply to her, before Mr. Clavering himself couldmurmur a word, the guilty wretch before her had started to his feet.
“Don’t you know? then I will tell you. It is because these gentlemen,chivalrous and honorable as they consider themselves, think that you,the beauty and the Sybarite, committed with your own white hand thedeed of blood which has brought you freedom and fortune. Yes, yes, thisman”--turning and pointing at me--“friend as he has made himself out tobe, kindly and honorable as you have doubtless believed him, but who inevery look he has bestowed upon you, every word he has uttered in yourhearing during all these four horrible weeks, has been weaving a cordfor your neck--thinks you the assassin of your uncle, unknowing that aman stood at your side ready to sweep half the world from your path ifthat same white hand rose in bidding. That I----”
“You?” Ah! now she could see him: now she could hear him!
“Yes,” clutching her robe again as she hastily recoiled; “didn’t youknow it? When in that dreadful hour of your rejection by your uncle, youcried aloud for some one to help you, didn’t you know----”
“Don’t!” she shrieked, bursting from him with a look of unspeakablehorror. “Don’t say that! Oh!” she gasped, “is the mad cry of a strickenwoman for aid and sympathy the call for a murderer?” And turning awayin horror, she moaned: “Who that ever looks at me now will forget thata man--such a man!--dared to think that, because I was in mortalperplexity, I would accept the murder of my best friend as a relief fromit!” Her horror was unbounded. “Oh, what a chastisement for folly!” shemurmured. “What a punishment for the love of money which has always beenmy curse!”
Henry Clavering could no longer restrain himself, leaping to her side,he bent over her. “Was it nothing but folly, Mary? Are you guiltless ofany deeper wrong? Is there no link of complicity between you two? Haveyou nothing on your soul but an inordinate desire to preserve your placein your uncle’s will, even at the risk of breaking my heart and wrongingyour noble cousin? Are you innocent in this matter? Tell me!” placinghis hand on her head, he pressed it slowly back and gazed into her eyes;then, without a word, took her to his breast and looked calmly aroundhim.
“She is innocent!” said he.
It was the uplifting of a stifling pall. No one in the room, unless itwas the wretched criminal shivering before us, but felt a sudden influxof hope. Even Mary’s own countenance caught a glow. “Oh!” she whispered,withdrawing from his arms to look better into his face, “and is this theman I have trifled with, injured, and tortured, till the very name ofMary Leavenworth might well make him shudder? Is this he whom I marriedin a fit of caprice, only to forsake and deny? Henry, do you declareme innocent in face of all you have seen and heard; in face of thatmoaning, chattering wretch before us, and my own quaking flesh andevident terror; with the remembrance on your heart and in your mind ofthe letter I wrote you the morning after the murder, in which I prayedyou to keep away from me, as I was in such deadly danger the least hintgiven to the world that I had a secret to conceal would destroy me? Doyou, can you, will you, declare me innocent before God and the world?”
“I do,” said he.
A light such as had never visited her face before passed slowly over it.“Then God forgive me the wrong I have done this noble heart, for I cannever forgive myself! Wait!” said she, as he opened his lips. “Before Iaccept any further tokens of your generous confidence, let me show youwhat I am. You shall know the worst of the woman you have taken to yourheart. Mr. Raymond,” she cried, turning towards me for the first time,“in those days when, with such an earnest desire for my welfare (you seeI do not believe this man’s insinuations), you sought to induce me tospeak out and tell all I knew concerning this dreadful deed, I did notdo it because of my selfish fears. I knew the case looked dark ag
ainstme. Eleanore had told me so. Eleanore herself--and it was the keenestpang I had to endure--believed me guilty. She had her reasons. She knewfirst, from the directed envelope she had found lying underneath myuncle’s dead body on the library table, that he had been engaged at themoment of death in summoning his lawyer to make that change in his willwhich would transfer my claims to her; secondly, that notwithstandingmy denial of the same, I had been down to his room the night before, forshe had heard my door open and my dress rustle as I passed out. But thatwas not all; the key that every one felt to be a positive proof of guiltwherever found, had been picked up by her from the floor of my room; theletter written by Mr. Clavering to my uncle was found in my fire; andthe handkerchief which she had seen me take from the basket of cleanclothes, was produced at the inquest stained with pistol grease. I couldnot account for these things. A web seemed tangled about my feet.I could not stir without encountering some new toil. I knew I wasinnocent; but if I failed to satisfy my cousin of this, how could Ihope to convince the general public, if once called upon to do so. Worsestill, if Eleanore, with every apparent motive for desiring long lifeto our uncle, was held in such suspicion because of a few circumstantialevidences against her, what would I not have to fear if these evidenceswere turned against me, the heiress! The tone and manner of the jurymanat the inquest that asked who would be most benefited by my uncle’s willshowed but too plainly. When, therefore, Eleanore, true to her heart’sgenerous instincts, closed her lips and refused to speak when speechwould have been my ruin, I let her do it, justifying myself with thethought that she had deemed me capable of crime, and so must bear theconsequences. Nor, when I saw how dreadful these were likely toprove, did I relent. Fear of the ignominy, suspense, and danger whichconfession would entail sealed my lips. Only once did I hesitate. Thatwas when, in the last conversation we had, I saw that, notwithstandingappearances, you believed in Eleanore’s innocence, and the thoughtcrossed me you might be induced to believe in mine if I threw myselfupon your mercy. But just then Mr. Clavering came; and as in a flash Iseemed to realize what my future life would be, stained by suspicion,and, instead of yielding to my impulse, went so far in the otherdirection as to threaten Mr. Clavering with a denial of our marriage ifhe approached me again till all danger was over.
“Yes, he will tell you that was my welcome to him when, with heartand brain racked by long suspense, he came to my door for one word ofassurance that the peril I was in was not of my own making. That was thegreeting I gave him after a year of silence every moment of which wastorture to him. But he forgives me; I see it in his eyes; I hear it inhis accents; and you--oh, if in the long years to come you can forgetwhat I have made Eleanore suffer by my selfish fears; if with the shadowof her wrong before you, you can by the grace of some sweet hope thinka little less hardly of me, do. As for this man--torture could not beworse to me than this standing with him in the same room--let himcome forward and declare if I by look or word have given him reason tobelieve I understood his passion, much less returned it.”
“Why ask!” he gasped. “Don’t you see it was your indifference whichdrove me mad? To stand before you, to agonize after you, to follow youwith thoughts in every move you made; to know my soul was welded toyours with bands of steel no fire could melt, no force destroy, nostrain dissever; to sleep under the same roof, sit at the same table,and yet meet not so much as one look to show me you understood! It wasthat which made my life a hell. I was determined you should understand.If I had to leap into a pit of flame, you should know what I was, andwhat my passion for you was. And you do. You comprehend it all now.Shrink as you will from my presence, cower as you may to the weak manyou call husband, you can never forget the love of Trueman Harwell;never forget that love, love, love, was the force which led me down intoyour uncle’s room that night, and lent me will to pull the trigger whichpoured all the wealth you hold this day into your lap. Yes,” he went on,towering in his preternatural despair till even the noble form of HenryClavering looked dwarfed beside him, “every dollar that chinks fromyour purse shall talk of me. Every gew-gaw which flashes on that haughtyhead, too haughty to bend to me, shall shriek my name into your ears.Fashion, pomp, luxury,--you will have them all; but till gold loses itsglitter and ease its attraction you will never forget the hand that gavethem to you!”
With a look whose evil triumph I cannot describe, he put his hand intothe arm of the waiting detective, and in another moment would have beenled from the room; when Mary, crushing down the swell of emotions thatwas seething in her breast, lifted her head and said:
“No, Trueman Harwell; I cannot give you even that thought for yourcomfort. Wealth so laden would bring nothing but torture. I cannotaccept the torture, so must release the wealth. From this day, MaryClavering owns nothing but what comes to her from the husband she has solong and so basely wronged.” And raising her hands to her ears, she toreout the diamonds which hung there, and flung them at the feet of theunfortunate man.
It was the final wrench of the rack. With a yell such as I never thoughtto listen to from the lips of a man, he flung up his arms, while all thelurid light of madness glared on his face. “And I have given my soul tohell for a shadow!” he moaned, “for a shadow!”
“Well, that is the best day’s work I ever did! Your congratulations,Mr. Raymond, upon the success of the most daring game ever played in adetective’s office.”
I looked at the triumphant countenance of Mr. Gryce in amazement. “Whatdo you mean?” I cried; “did you plan all this?”
“Did I plan it?” he repeated. “Could I stand here, seeing how thingshave turned out, if I had not? Mr. Raymond, let us be comfortable. Youare a gentleman, but we can well shake hands over this. I have neverknown such a satisfactory conclusion to a bad piece of business in allmy professional career.”
We did shake hands, long and fervently, and then I asked him to explainhimself.
“Well,” said he, “there has always been one thing that plagued me, evenin the very moment of my strongest suspicion against this woman, andthat was, the pistol-cleaning business. I could not reconcile it withwhat I knew of womankind. I could not make it seem the act of a woman.Did you ever know a woman who cleaned a pistol? No. They can fire them,and do; but after firing them, they do not clean them. Now it is aprinciple which every detective recognizes, that if of a hundred leadingcircumstances connected with a crime, ninety-nine of these are actspointing to the suspected party with unerring certainty, but thehundredth equally important act one which that person could not haveperformed, the whole fabric of suspicion is destroyed. Recognizing thisprinciple, then, as I have said, I hesitated when it came to the pointof arrest. The chain was complete; the links were fastened; but one linkwas of a different size and material from the rest; and in this argued abreak in the chain. I resolved to give her a final chance. Summoning Mr.Clavering, and Mr. Harwell, two persons whom I had no reason to suspect,but who were the only persons beside herself who could have committedthis crime, being the only persons of intellect who were in the houseor believed to be, at the time of the murder, I notified them separatelythat the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth was not only found, but wasabout to be arrested in my house, and that if they wished to hearthe confession which would be sure to follow, they might have theopportunity of doing so by coming here at such an hour. They were bothtoo much interested, though for very different reasons, to refuse; andI succeeded in inducing them to conceal themselves in the two rooms fromwhich you saw them issue, knowing that if either of them had committedthis deed, he had done it for the love of Mary Leavenworth, andconsequently could not hear her charged with crime, and threatenedwith arrest, without betraying himself. I did not hope much from theexperiment; least of all did I anticipate that Mr. Harwell would proveto be the guilty man--but live and learn, Mr. Raymond, live and learn.”
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