I went in musing. Why this sudden sensation of relief on my part? Could it be that I had unconsciously been guilty of cherishing a latent dread of my senior’s return? Why, who else could know so well the secret springs which governed this family? Who else could so effectively put me upon the right track? Was it possible that I, Everett Raymond, hesitated to know the truth in any case? No, that should never be said; and, sitting down again, I drew out the memoranda I had made, and looking them carefully over, wrote against No. 6 the word “Suspicious” in good round characters. There! No one could say after that I was a man to be blinded by a bewitching face, from seeing what, in one with no claims to comeliness, would be considered at once an almost indubitable evidence of guilt.
And yet after it was all done, I found myself repeating aloud as I gazed at it: “If she declares that she is innocent, I will believe her.” So completely are we the creatures of our own predilections.
CHAPTER 11
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. Reading over the evidence given at the inquest with almost feverish haste, I sought for the one thing I most dreaded to see; but it was not there. Hannah, the seamstress and lady’s maid, whose remarkable disappearance was as yet unaccounted for, was mentioned as the possible accomplice of the murderer, if not the virtual assassin; but Eleanore’s name was not so much as hinted at in this connection.
The final paragraph in the Times ran thus:
“The detectives are upon the track of the missing girl.”
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 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 stopped to put what money she had into her pocket before engaging in such an enterprise, and this the inspection of her trunk had proved her not to have done. But if, on the contrary, she had unexpectedly come 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 that 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 a 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 I thus 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.”
This 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 up-town houses, I found myself almost immediately in the presence of Miss Leavenworth. “Oh,” said she with an eloquent cry 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?” exclaimed she in a bright, keen way, that showed me how animated she must have been in former days.
“I found no one in the house that did not belong there,” I returned.
“Oh, then we need have no more trouble, need we?”
I glanced hastily up and down the room.
“There is no one here,” she cried.
And still I hesitated. At length in an awkward way enough, I turned toward her and said:
“I do not wish either to offend or to alarm you, but I must say that I think it is your duty to return to your own home tonight.”
“Why?” she stammered. “Is there any particular reason for my doing so? Do you not know that I cannot be in the same house with Eleanore?”
“I do not know that, nor can I stop to consider the question. She is your cousin, has been brought up to regard you as a sister; it is not worthy of you to desert her in the time of her necessity. You will see it as I do, if you will allow yourself a moment’s dispassionate thought.”
“Dispassionate thought is hardly possible under the circumstances,” returned she with a smile of bitter irony.
But before I could reply to this, she softened and asked if I was very anxious she should return, and when I replied: “More so than I could say,” 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 would cringe and bow and urge me to do as I please. You alone have the courage to command me to do what is right.”
“Excuse me,” said I. “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 suddenly inquired. “I know Mrs. Gilbert will be quite willing, and I could keep my room, and we need not meet.”
“You forget there is another call at home besides the one I have already mentioned. Tomorrow afternoon your uncle is to be buried.”
“Oh, yes; poor, poor uncle!”
“You are the head of the household,” I now ventured, “and the proper one to attend to the final offices toward one who has done so much for you.”
There was something strange in the look which she gave me. “It is true,” she murmured. 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 not shrink from giving her if necessity calls.”
Her hand dropped from mine. “I mean to do my duty,” she responded.
As I descended the stoop, I met a certain thin and fashionablydressed 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 hastened on toward 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 undoubtedly 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,” he returned, and bowing with a Chesterfieldian grace, walked from me down the Avenue.
Irritated and a trifle ashamed, I stood for a moment watching him, trying to determine who and what he might be. For he was not only a gentleman, but a marked one; possessing features of extraordinary beauty as well as a form of great elegance. Not so very young, having seen, as I should judge, full forty years of mingled pleasure and disappointment, he still bore 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 toward 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 12
Eleanore
Constant you are—
. . . And for secrecy
No lady closer.
—HENRY IV.
No, ’tis 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 sumptuousness 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 toward me.
“Miss Leavenworth!” exclaimed I, starting at the sound of my own voice.
She paused and pressed her hands to her face, as if the world and all that she had forgotten had rushed back upon her at this simple utterance of her name.
“What is it?” asked I.
Her hands fell heavily. “Do you not know?” she cried. “They—they are beginning to say that I——” She paused and clutched her throat. “Read,” she murmured, 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 gasped. “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,” cried she, “it is not a slander they utter, but a dagger which they thrust into my heart.”
Overcome by this, 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 agonizedly about her. “Don’t! Sometimes I think the walls have ears, the very shadows seem to listen.”
“Ah, returned I, “do you, then, hope to keep from the world what is known to the detectives?”
She did not answer.
“Miss Leavenworth,” I went on, “I am afraid that 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 upon the face.
“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,” she murmured, “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 anyone 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 like a suddenly-awakened deer, 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.
The Leavenworth Case (Penguin Classics) Page 11
