“That the guilty party might be driven by remorse to own himself the true culprit, I suppose.”
A curious remark to come from a person who had no knowledge or suspicion of the criminal and his character; and I would have pushed the conversation further, but the secretary, who was a man of few words, drew off at this, and could be induced to say no more. Evidently it was my business to cultivate Mr. Clavering, or anyone else who could throw any light upon the secret history of these girls.
That evening I received notice that Mr. Veeley had arrived home but was in no condition to consult with me upon so painful a subject as the murder of Mr. Leavenworth. Also a line from Eleanore giving me her address but requesting me at the same time not to call unless I had something of importance to communicate, as she was too ill to receive visitors. The little note affected me. Ill, alone, and in a strange home—it was pitiful!
The next day, pursuant to the wishes of Mr. Gryce, I stepped into the Hoffman House and took a seat in the reading-room. I had been there but a few moments when a gentleman entered whom I immediately recognized as the same I had spoken to on the corner of Thirty-seventh Street and Sixth Avenue. He must have remembered me also, for he seemed to be slightly embarrassed at seeing me, but recovering himself took up a paper and soon became to all appearance lost in its contents, though I could feel his handsome black eye upon me studying my features, figure, apparel and movements with a degree of interest that astonished as much as it disconcerted me. I felt that it would be injudicious on my part to return his scrutiny, anxious as I was to meet his eye and learn what emotion had so fired his curiosity in regard to a perfect stranger; so I rose and, crossing to an old friend of mine who sat at a table opposite, commenced a desultory conversation, in the course of which I took occasion to ask if he knew who the handsome stranger was. Dick Furbish was a society man and knew everybody.
“His name is Clavering, and he comes from London. I don’t know anything more about him, though he is everywhere you go, if you except private houses. He has not been received into society yet, waiting for letters of introduction perhaps.”
“A gentleman?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“One you speak to?”
“Oh, yes, I talk to him, but it’s little he says to me.” I could not help smiling at the grimace with which Dick accompanied this remark. “Which same goes to prove,” he went on, “that he is the real thing.”
Laughing this time outright, I left him, and in a few minutes sauntered from the room.
As I mingled again with the crowd on Broadway, I found myself wondering immensely over this slight experience. That this unknown gentleman from London, who went everywhere except into private houses, could be in any way connected with the affair I had so at heart, seemed not only improbable but absurd, and for the first time I felt tempted to doubt the sagacity of Mr. Gryce in recommending him to my attention.
The next day I repeated the experiment, but with no greater success than before. Mr. Clavering came into the room, but seeing me, did not remain. I began to realize it was no easy matter to make his acquaintance. To atone for my disappointment I called on Mary Leavenworth in the evening. She received me with almost a sister-like familiarity.
“Ah,” cried she, after introducing me to an elderly lady at her side—some connection of the family, I believe, who had come to remain with her for a while—“you are here to tell me Hannah is found, is it not so?”
I shook my head, sorry to disappoint her. “No,” said I, “not yet.”
“But Mr. Gryce was here today, and he told me that he hoped she would be heard from within twenty-four hours.”
“Mr. Gryce here?”
“Yes, he came to report to me how matters were progressing—not that they seemed to have advanced very far,” she continued mournfully.
“You could hardly have expected that yet,” returned I. “You must not be so easily discouraged.”
“But I cannot help it; every day, every hour that passes in this uncertainty is like a mountain weight here,” and she laid one trembling hand upon her bosom. “I would have the whole world at work if it were possible. I would leave no stone unturned, I——”
“What would you do?” I murmured.
“Oh, I don’t know,” cried she, her whole manner suddenly changing, “nothing perhaps.” Then before I could reply to this—“Have you seen Eleanore today?”
I answered in the negative.
She did not seem satisfied, but waited till her friend left the room before saying more, then with an earnest look inquired if I knew whether Eleanore was well.
“I fear she is not,” I returned.
“It is a great trial to me,” she murmured, “Eleanore being away. Not,” resumed she, noting, perhaps, my incredulous look, “that I would have you think I wish to disclaim my share in bringing about the present unhappy state of things. I am willing to acknowledge that I was the first to propose a separation. But it is none the easier to bear on that account.”
“It is not as hard for you as for her,” said I.
“Not as hard? Why? Because she is left comparatively poor while I am rich—is that what you would say? Ah,” she went on without waiting for my answer, “would that I could persuade Eleanore to share my riches with me. Willingly would I bestow upon her the half I have received, but I fear she could never be induced to accept it.”
“Under the circumstances it would be wiser that she should not.”
“Just what I thought,” Mary returned, “yet it would ease me of a great weight if she would. This fortune, suddenly thrown into my lap, sits like an incubus upon me, Mr. Raymond. When the will was read today which makes me the possessor of so much wealth, I could not but feel that a heavy, binding pall had settled upon me, spotted with blood and woven of horrors. Ah, how different from the feelings with which I have been accustomed to anticipate this day. For, Mr. Raymond,” she went on with a hurried gasp, “dreadful as it seems now, I have been reared to look forward to this hour with pride, if not with actual longing. Money has been made so much of in my small world. Not that I wish in this evil time of retribution to lay blame upon anyone, least of all upon my uncle, but from the day twelve years ago when for the first time he took us in his arms, and looking down upon our childish faces, exclaimed: ‘The light-haired one pleases me best, she shall be my heiress’—I have been petted, cajoled and spoiled, called little princess, and uncle’s darling, till it is only strange that I retain in this prejudiced breast any of the impulses of generous womanhood; yes, though I was aware from the first that whim alone had raised this distinction between myself and cousin, a distinction which superior beauty, worth or accomplishments could never have drawn, Eleanore being more than my equal in all these things.” Pausing, she choked back the sudden sob that rose in her throat, with an effort at self-control that was at once touching and admirable. Then while her eyes stole to my face, she murmured in a low appealing voice—“If I have faults, you see there is some slight excuse for them, arrogance, vanity and selfishness being considered in the gay young heiress as no more than so many assertions of a laudable dignity. Ah, ah,” she exclaimed bitterly. “Money alone has been the ruin of us all!” Then with a falling of her voice—“And now it has come to me with its heritage of evil, and I—I would give it all for—but this is weakness. I have no right to afflict you with my griefs. Pray forget all I have said, Mr. Raymond, or regard my complaints as the utterances of an unhappy girl loaded down with sorrows and oppressed by the weight of many perplexities and terrors.”
“But I do not wish to forget,” replied I. “You have spoken some good words, manifested much noble emotion. Your possessions cannot but prove a blessing to you if you enter upon them with such feelings as these.”
But with a quick gesture, she replied: “Impossible! they cannot prove a blessing.” Then, as if startled at her own words, bit her lip and hastily added—“Very great wealth is never a blessing.
“And now,” said she with a t
otal change of manner, “I wish to address you on a subject which may strike you as ill-timed, but which, nevertheless, it is essential for me to mention, if the purpose I have at heart is ever to be accomplished. My uncle, as you know, was engaged at the time of his death in writing a book on Chinese customs and prejudices. It was a work he was anxious to see published, and naturally I desire to carry out his wishes; but in order to do so, I find it necessary not only to interest myself in the matter now—Mr. Harwell’s services being required and it being my wish to dismiss that gentleman as soon as possible—but to find someone competent to supervise its completion. Now I have heard—I have been told that you were the one of all others to do this, and though it is difficult if not improper for me to ask so great a favor of one who but a week ago was a perfect stranger to me, it would afford me the keenest pleasure if you would consent to look over this manuscript and tell me what is necessary to be done.”
The timidity with which these words were uttered proved her to be in earnest, and I could not but wonder at the strange coincidence of this request with my secret wishes, it having been a question with me for sometime how I was to gain free access to this house without in any way compromising either its inmates or myself. I did not know then what I afterward learned, that Mr. Gryce had been the one to recommend me to her favor in this respect. But whatever satisfaction I may have experienced, I felt myself in duty bound to plead my incompetence for a task so entirely out of the line of my profession, and to suggest the employment of someone better acquainted with such matters than myself. But she would not listen to me.
“Mr. Harwell has notes and memoranda in plenty,” she exclaimed, “and can give you all the information necessary. You will have no difficulty, indeed you will not.”
“But cannot Mr. Harwell himself do all that is requisite? He seems to be a clever and diligent young man.”
But she shook her head. “He thinks he can,” she murmured, “but I know uncle never trusted him with the composition of so much as a single sentence, and I wish to do just as he would have done in this case.”
“But perhaps he will not be pleased—Mr. Harwell, I mean—with the intrusion of a stranger into his work.”
She opened her eyes with astonishment. “That makes no difference,” she said. “Mr. Harwell is in my pay and has nothing to say about it. But he will not object. I have already consulted him and he expresses himself as satisfied with the arrangement.”
“Very well,” said I, “then I will promise to consider the subject. I can at any rate look over the manuscript and give you my opinion in regard to its condition.”
“Oh, thank you,” said she, with the prettiest gesture of satisfaction. “How kind you are, and what can I ever do to repay you? But would you like to see Mr. Harwell himself?” and she moved toward the door, but suddenly paused, whispering, with a short shudder of remembrance. “He is in the library, do you mind?”
Crushing down the sick qualm that arose at the mention of that spot, I replied in the negative.
“The papers are all there, and he can work better in his old place, he says, than anywhere else, but if you wish, I can call him down.”
But I would not listen to it, and myself led the way to the foot of the stairs.
“I have sometimes thought I would lock up that room,” she went on hurriedly, “but something restrains me. I can no more do so than I can leave this house; a power beyond myself forces me to confront all its horrors. And yet,” she went on, “I suffer continually from terror. Sometimes in the darkness of the night——But,” she suddenly cried, “I will not distress you. I have already said too much; come,” and with a sudden lift of the head she mounted the stairs.
Mr. Harwell was seated, when we entered that fatal room, in the one chair of all others that I expected to see unoccupied, and as I beheld his meager figure bending where such a little while before his eyes had encountered the outstretched form of his murdered employer, I could not but marvel over the unimaginativeness of the man, who, in the face of such memories, could not only appropriate that very spot for his own use, but pursue his avocations there with so much calmness and evident precision. But in another moment I discovered that the disposition of the light in the room made that one seat the only desirable one for his purpose, and instantly my wonder changed to admiration at this quiet surrender of personal feeling to the requirements of necessity.
He looked up mechanically as we came in, but did not rise, his countenance wearing the absorbed expression which bespeaks the preoccupied mind.
“He is utterly oblivious,” Mary whispered; “that is a way of his. I doubt if he knows who or what it is that has disturbed him.” And advancing into the room, she passed across his line of vision as if to call attention to herself, and said, “I have brought Mr. Raymond upstairs to see you, Mr. Harwell. He has been so kind as to accede to my wishes in regard to the completion of the manuscript now before you.”
Slowly Mr. Harwell rose, wiped his pen and put it away, manifesting, however, a reluctance in doing so, that proved this interference to be in reality anything but agreeable to him. Observing this, I did not wait for him to speak, but took up the pile of manuscript which I saw arranged in one mass on the table, saying:
“This seems to be very clearly written. If you will excuse me, I will glance over it and see something of its general character.”
He bowed, uttered a word or so of acquiescence, then, as Mary left the room, awkwardly reseated himself and took up his pen.
Instantly the manuscript and all connected with it vanished from my thoughts, and Eleanore, her situation and the mystery surrounding this family, returned upon me with renewed force. Looking the secretary steadily in the face, I remarked:
“I am very glad of this opportunity of seeing you a moment alone, Mr. Harwell, if only for the purpose of saying——”
“Anything in regard to the murder?”
“Yes——” I began.
“Then,” replied he respectfully but firmly, “you must pardon me. It is a disagreeable subject which I cannot bear to think of, much less discuss.”
Disconcerted and, what was more, convinced of the impossibility of obtaining any information from this man, I abandoned the attempt, and taking up the manuscript once more, endeavored to master in some small degree the nature of its contents. Succeeding beyond my hopes, I opened a short conversation with him in regard to it, and finally, coming to the conclusion I could accomplish what Miss Leavenworth desired, left him and descended again to the reception-room.
When, an hour or so later, I withdrew from the house, it was with the feeling that one obstacle had been removed from my path at all events. If I failed, it would not be from lack of opportunity of studying the inmates of this dwelling.
CHAPTER 3
The Will of a Millionaire
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to Heaven.
—ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
The next morning’s Tribune contained a synopsis of Mr. Leavenworth’s will. Its provisions were a surprise to me, for while the bulk of his immense estate was, according to the general understanding, given to his niece Mary, it appeared by a codicil attached to his will some five years before that Eleanore was not entirely forgotten, a handsome bequest, though not a large one, having been left her. After listening to the various comments of my associates on the subject, I proceeded to the house of Mr. Gryce in obedience to his request to call upon him as soon as possible after the publication of the will.
“Good morning,” he remarked as I entered, but whether addressing me or the frowning top of the desk before which he was sitting it would be difficult to say. “Won’t you sit?” nodding with a curious back movement of his head toward a chair in his rear.
I drew up the chair to his side. “I am curious to know,” I remarked, “what you have to say about this will and its probable effect upon the matters we have in hand.”
“What is your own idea in regard to it
?”
“Well, I think upon the whole it will make but little difference in public opinion. Those who thought Eleanore guilty before will feel that they possess now greater cause than ever to doubt her innocence; while those who have hitherto hesitated to suspect her will not consider that the comparatively small amount bequeathed her would constitute an adequate motive for so great a crime.”
“You have heard men talk; what seems to be the general opinion among those you converse with?”
“That the motive of the tragedy will be found in the partiality shown in so singular a will, though how, they do not profess to know.”
Mr. Gryce suddenly became interested in one of the small drawers before him.
“And all this has not set you thinking?” said he.
“Thinking?” returned I. “I don’t know what you mean. I am sure I have done nothing but think for the last three days. I——”
“Of course—of course,” cried he. “I didn’t mean to say anything disagreeable. And so you have seen Mr. Clavering?”
“Just seen him, no more.”
“And are you going to assist Mr. Harwell in finishing Mr. Leavenworth’s book?”
“How did you learn that?”
He only smiled.
“Yes,” said I; “Miss Leavenworth has requested me to do her that little favor.”
“She is a queenly creature!” exclaimed he in a burst of enthusiasm. Then with an instant return to his business-like tone—“You are going to have opportunities, Mr. Raymond. Now, there are two things I want you to find out; first, what is the connection between these ladies and Mr. Clavering——”
The Leavenworth Case (Penguin Classics) Page 14
