And yet, after it was all done, I found myself repeating aloud as I gazed at it: “If she declares herself innocent, I will believe her.” So completely are we the creatures of our own predilections.
CHAPTER XI
THE SUMMONS
“The pink of courtesy.”
—Romeo and Juliet.
The morning papers contained a more detailed account of the murder than those of the evening before; but, to my great relief, in none of them was Eleanore’s name mentioned in the connection I most dreaded.
The final paragraph in the Times ran thus: “The detectives are upon the track of the missing girl, Hannah.” And in the Herald I read the following notice:
“A Liberal Reward will be given by the relatives of Horatio Leavenworth, Esq., deceased, for any news of the whereabouts of one Hannah Chester, disappeared from the house —— Fifth Avenue since the evening of March 4. Said girl was of Irish extraction; in age about twenty-five, and may be known by the following characteristics. Form tall and slender; hair dark brown with a tinge of red; complexion fresh; features delicate and well made; hands small, but with the fingers much pricked by the use of the needle; feet large, and of a coarser type than the hands. She had on when last seen a checked gingham dress, brown and white, and was supposed to have wrapped herself in a red and green blanket shawl, very old. Beside the above distinctive marks, she had upon her right hand wrist the scar of a large burn; also a pit or two of smallpox upon the left temple.”
This paragraph turned my thoughts in a new direction. Oddly enough, I had expended very little thought upon this girl; and yet how apparent it was that she was the one person upon whose testimony, if given, the whole case in reality hinged, I could not agree with those who considered her as personally implicated in the murder. An accomplice, conscious of what was before her, would have hid in her pockets whatever money she possessed. But the roll of bills found in Hannah’s trunk proved her to have left too hurriedly for this precaution. On the other hand, if this girl had come unexpectedly upon the assassin at his work, how could she have been hustled from the house without creating a disturbance loud enough to have been heard by the ladies, one of whom had her door open? An innocent girl’s first impulse upon such an occasion would have been to scream; and yet no scream was heard; she simply disappeared. What were we to think then? That the person seen by her was one both known and trusted? I would not consider such a possibility; so laying down the paper, I endeavored to put away all further consideration of the affair till I had acquired more facts upon which to base the theory. But who can control his thoughts when over-excited upon any one theme? All the morning I found myself turning the case over in my mind, arriving ever at one of two conclusions. Hannah Chester must be found, or Eleanore Leavenworth must explain when and by what means the key of the library door came into her possession.
At two o’clock I started from my office to attend the inquest; but, being delayed on the way, missed arriving at the house until after the delivery of the verdict. This was a disappointment to me, especially as by these means I lost the opportunity of seeing Eleanore Leavenworth, she having retired to her room immediately upon the dismissal of the jury. But Mr. Harwell was visible, and from him I heard what the verdict had been.
“Death by means of a pistol shot from the hand of some person unknown.”
The result of the inquest was a great relief to me. I had feared worse. Nor could I help seeing that, for all his studied self-command, the pale-faced secretary shared in my satisfaction.
What was less of a relief to me was the fact, soon communicated, that Mr. Gryce and his subordinates had left the premises immediately upon the delivery of the verdict. Mr. Gryce was not the man to forsake an affair like this while anything of importance connected with it remained unexplained. Could it be he meditated any decisive action? Somewhat alarmed, I was about to hurry from the house for the purpose of learning what his intentions were, when a sudden movement in the front lower window of the house on the opposite side of the way arrested my attention, and, looking closer, I detected the face of Mr. Fobbs peering out from behind the curtain. The sight assured me I was not wrong in my estimate of Mr. Gryce; and, struck with pity for the desolate girl left to meet the exigencies of a fate to which this watch upon her movements was but the evident precursor, I stepped back and sent her a note, in which, as Mr. Veeley’s representative, I proffered my services in case of any sudden emergency, saying I was always to be found in my rooms between the hours of six and eight. This done, I proceeded to the house in Thirty-seventh Street where I had left Miss Mary Leavenworth the day before.
Ushered into the long and narrow drawing-room which of late years has been so fashionable in our uptown houses, I found myself almost immediately in the presence of Miss Leavenworth.
“Oh,” she cried, with an eloquent gesture of welcome, “I had begun to think I was forsaken!” and advancing impulsively, she held out her hand. “What is the news from home?”
“A verdict of murder, Miss Leavenworth.”
Her eyes did not lose their question.
“Perpetrated by party or parties unknown.”
A look of relief broke softly across her features.
“And they are all gone?” she exclaimed.
“I found no one in the house who did not belong there.”
“Oh! then we can breathe easily again.”
I glanced hastily up and down the room.
“There is no one here,” said she.
And still I hesitated. At length, in an awkward way enough, I turned towards her and said:
“I do not wish either to offend or alarm you, but I must say that I consider it your duty to return to your own home tonight.”
“Why?” she stammered. “Is there any particular reason for my doing so? Have you not perceived the impossibility of my remaining in the same house with Eleanore?”
“Miss Leavenworth, I cannot recognize any so-called impossibility of this nature. Eleanore is your cousin; has been brought up to regard you as a sister; it is not worthy of you to desert her at the time of her necessity. You will see this as I do, if you will allow yourself a moment’s dispassionate thought.”
“Dispassionate thought is hardly possible under the circumstances,” she returned, with a smile of bitter irony.
But before I could reply to this, she softened, and asked if I was very anxious to have her return; and when I replied, “More than I can say,” she trembled and looked for a moment as if she were half inclined to yield; but suddenly broke into tears, crying it was impossible, and that I was cruel to ask it.
I drew back, baffled and sore. “Pardon me,” said I, “I have indeed transgressed the bounds allotted to me. I will not do so again; you have doubtless many friends; let some of them advise you.”
She turned upon me all fire. “The friends you speak of are flatterers. You alone have the courage to command me to do what is right.”
“Excuse me, I do not command; I only entreat.”
She made no reply, but began pacing the room, her eyes fixed, her hands working convulsively. “You little know what you ask,” said she. “I feel as though the very atmosphere of that house would destroy me; but—why cannot Eleanore come here?” she impulsively inquired. “I know Mrs. Gilbert will be quite willing, and I could keep my room, and we need not meet.”
“You forget that there is another call at home, besides the one I have already mentioned. Tomorrow afternoon your uncle is to be buried.”
“O yes; poor, poor uncle!”
“You are the head of the household,” I now ventured, “and the proper one to attend to the final offices towards one who has done so much for you.”
There was something strange in the look which she gave me. “It is true,” she assented. Then, with a grand turn of her body, and a quick air of determination: “I am desirous of being worthy of your good opinion. I will go back to my cousin, Mr. Raymond.”
I felt my spirits rise a little; I took her
by the hand. “May that cousin have no need of the comfort which I am now sure you will be ready to give her.”
Her hand dropped from mine. “I mean to do my duty,” was her cold response.
As I descended the stoop, I met a certain thin and fashionably dressed young man, who gave me a very sharp look as he passed. As he wore his clothes a little too conspicuously for the perfect gentleman, and as I had some remembrance of having seen him at the inquest, I set him down for a man in Mr. Gryce’s employ, and hasted on towards the avenue; when what was my surprise to find on the corner another person, who, while pretending to be on the look out for a car, cast upon me, as I approached, a furtive glance of intense inquiry. As this latter was, without question, a gentleman, I felt some annoyance, and, walking quietly up to him, asked if he found my countenance familiar, that he scrutinized it so closely.
“I find it a very agreeable one,” was his unexpected reply, as he turned from me and walked down the avenue.
Nettled, and in no small degree mortified, at the disadvantage in which his courtesy had placed me, I stood watching him as he disappeared, asking myself who and what he was. For he was not only a gentleman, but a marked one; possessing features of unusual symmetry as well as a form of peculiar elegance. Not so very young—he might well be forty—there were yet evident on his face the impress of youth’s strongest emotions, not a curve of his chin nor a glance of his eye betraying in any way the slightest leaning towards ennui, though face and figure were of that type which seems most to invite and cherish it.
“He can have no connection with the police force,” thought I; “nor is it by any means certain that he knows me, or is interested in my affairs; but I shall not soon forget him, for all that.”
The summons from Eleanore Leavenworth came about eight o’clock in the evening. It was brought by Thomas, and read as follows:
“Come, Oh, come! I—” there breaking off in a tremble, as if the pen had fallen from a nerveless hand.
It did not take me long to find my way to her home.
CHAPTER XII
ELEANORE
“Constant you are—
…And for secrecy
No lady closer.”
—Henry IV.
“No, ‘t is slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile.”
—Cymbeline.
The door was opened by Molly. “You will find Miss Eleanore in the drawing-room, sir,” she said, ushering me in.
Fearing I knew not what, I hurried to the room thus indicated, feeling as never before the sumptuous-ness of the magnificent hall with its antique flooring, carved woods, and bronze ornamentations—the mockery of things for the first time forcing itself upon me. Laying my hand on the drawing-room door, I listened. All was silent. Slowly pulling it open, I lifted the heavy satin curtains hanging before me to the floor, and looked within. What a picture met my eyes!
Sitting in the light of a solitary gas jet, whose faint glimmering just served to make visible the glancing satin and stainless marble of the gorgeous apartment, I beheld Eleanore Leavenworth. Pale as the sculptured image of the Psyche that towered above her from the mellow dusk of the bow-window near which she sat, beautiful as it, and almost as immobile, she crouched with rigid hands frozen in forgotten entreaty before her, apparently insensible to sound, movement, or touch; a silent figure of despair in presence of an implacable fate.
Impressed by the scene, I stood with my hand upon the curtain, hesitating if to advance or retreat, when suddenly a sharp tremble shook her impassive frame, the rigid hands unlocked, the stony eyes softened, and, springing to her feet, she uttered a cry of satisfaction, and advanced towards me.
“Miss Leavenworth!” I exclaimed, starting at the sound of my own voice.
She paused, and pressed her hands to her face, as if the world and all she had forgotten had rushed back upon her at this simple utterance of her name.
“What is it?” I asked.
Her hands fell heavily. “Do you not know? They—they are beginning to say that I—” she paused, and clutched her throat. “Read!” she gasped, pointing to a newspaper lying on the floor at her feet.
I stooped and lifted what showed itself at first glance to be the Evening Telegram. It needed but a single look to inform me to what she referred. There, in startling characters, I beheld:
THE LEAVENWORTH MURDER
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MYSTERIOUS CASE
A MEMBER OF THE MURDERED MAN’S OWN FAMILY STRONGLY SUSPECTED OF THE CRIME
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN NEW YORK UNDER A CLOUD
PAST HISTORY OF MISS ELEANORE LEAVENWORTH
I was prepared for it; had schooled myself for this very thing, you might say; and yet I could not help recoiling. Dropping the paper from my hand, I stood before her, longing and yet dreading to look into her face.
“What does it mean?” she panted; “what, what does it mean? Is the world mad?” and her eyes, fixed and glassy, stared into mine as if she found it impossible to grasp the sense of this outrage.
I shook my head. I could not reply.
“To accuse me” she murmured; “me, me!” striking her breast with her clenched hand, “who loved the very ground he trod upon; who would have cast my own body between him and the deadly bullet if I had only known his danger. Oh!” she cried, “it is not a slander they utter, but a dagger which they thrust into my heart!”
Overcome by her misery, but determined not to show my compassion until more thoroughly convinced of her complete innocence, I replied, after a pause:
“This seems to strike you with great surprise, Miss Leavenworth; were you not then able to foresee what must follow your determined reticence upon certain points? Did you know so little of human nature as to imagine that, situated as you are, you could keep silence in regard to any matter connected with this crime, without arousing the antagonism of the crowd, to say nothing of the suspicions of the police?”
“But—but—”
I hurriedly waved my hand. “When you defied the coroner to find any suspicious paper in your possession; when”—I forced myself to speak—“you refused to tell Mr. Gryce how you came in possession of the key—”
She drew hastily back, a heavy pall seeming to fall over her with my words.
“Don’t,” she whispered, looking in terror about her. “Don’t! Sometimes I think the walls have ears, and that the very shadows listen.”
“Ah,” I returned; “then you hope to keep from the world what is known to the detectives?”
She did not answer.
“Miss Leavenworth,” I went on, “I am afraid you do not comprehend your position. Try to look at the case for a moment in the light of an unprejudiced person; try to see for yourself the necessity of explaining—”
“But I cannot explain,” she murmured huskily.
“Cannot!”
I do not know whether it was the tone of my voice or the word itself, but that simple expression seemed to affect her like a blow.
“Oh!” she cried, shrinking back: “you do not, cannot doubt me, too? I thought that you—” and stopped. “I did not dream that I—” and stopped again. Suddenly her whole form quivered. “Oh, I see! You have mistrusted me from the first; the appearances against me have been too strong”; and she sank inert, lost in the depths of her shame and humiliation. “Ah, but now I am forsaken!” she murmured.
The appeal went to my heart. Starting forward, I exclaimed: “Miss Leavenworth, I am but a man; I cannot see you so distressed. Say that you are innocent, and I will believe you, without regard to appearances.”
Springing erect, she towered upon me. “Can any one look in my face and accuse me of guilt?” Then, as I sadly shook my head, she hurriedly gasped: “You want further proof!” and, quivering with an extraordinary emotion, she sprang to the door.
“Come, then,” she cried, “come!” her eyes flashing full of resolve upon me.
Aroused
, appalled, moved in spite of myself, I crossed the room to where she stood; but she was already in the hall. Hastening after her, filled with a fear I dared not express, I stood at the foot of the stairs; she was half-way to the top. Following her into the hall’ above, I saw her form standing erect and noble at the door of her uncle’s bedroom.
“Come!” she again cried, but this time in a calm and reverential tone; and flinging the door open before her, she passed in.
Subduing the wonder which I felt, I slowly followed her. There was no light in the room of death, but the flame of the gas-burner, at the far end of the hall, shone weirdly in, and by its glimmering I beheld her kneeling at the shrouded bed, her head bowed above that of the murdered man, her hand upon his breast.
“You have said that if I declared my innocence you would believe me,” she exclaimed, lifting her head as I entered. “See here,” and laying her cheek against the pallid brow of her dead benefactor, she kissed the clay-cold lips softly, wildly, agonizedly, then, leaping to her feet, cried, in a subdued but thrilling tone: “Could I do that if I were guilty? Would not the breath freeze on my lips, the blood congeal in my veins, and my heart faint at this contact? Son of a father loved and reverenced, can you believe me to be a woman stained with crime when I can do this?” and kneeling again she cast her arms over and about that inanimate form, looking in my face at the same time with an expression no mortal touch could paint, nor tongue describe.
“In olden times,” she went on, “they used to say that a dead body would bleed if its murderer came in contact with it. What then would happen here if I, his daughter, his cherished child, loaded with benefits, enriched with his jewels, warm with his kisses, should be the thing they accuse me of? Would not the body of the outraged dead burst its very shroud and repel me?”
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack Page 250
