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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Leavenworth Case, by Anna Katherine
Green
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use
it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Leavenworth Case
Author: Anna Katherine Green
Release Date: January 8, 2010 [EBook #4047]
Last Updated: February 4, 2018
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEAVENWORTH CASE ***
Produced by David Moynihan, and David Widger
THE LEAVENWORTH CASE
By Anna Katherine Green
CONTENTS
BOOK I. THE PROBLEM
I. “A GREAT CASE”
II. THE CORONER’S INQUEST
III. FACTS AND DEDUCTIONS
IV. A CUTS
V. EXPERT TESTIMONY
VI. SIDE-LIGHTS
VII. MARY LEAVENWORTH
VIII. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
IX. A DISCOVERY
X. MR. GRYCE RECEIVES NEW IMPETUS
XI. THE SUMMONS
XII. ELEANORES
XIII. THE PROBLEM
BOOK II. HENRY CLAVERING
XIV. MR. GRYCE AT HOME
XV. WAYS OPENING
XVI. THE WILL OF A MILLIONAIRE
XVII. THE BEGINNING OF GREAT SURPRISES
XVIII. ON THE STAIRS
XIX. IN MY OFFICE
XX. “TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN!”
XXI. A PREJUDICE
XXII. PATCH-WORK
XXIII. THE STORY OF A CHARMING WOMAN
XXIV. A REPORT FOLLOWED BY SMOKE
XXV. TIMOTHY COOK
XXVI. MR. GRYCE EXPLAINS HIMSELF
BOOK III. HANNAH
XXVII. AMY BELDEN
XXVIII. A WEIRD EXPERIENCE
XXIX. THE MISSING WITNESS
XXX. BURNED PAPER
XXXI. “THEREBY HANGS A TALE.”
XXXII. MRS. BELDEN’S NARRATIVE
XXXIII. UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY
BOOK IV. THE PROBLEM SOLVED
XXXIV. MR. GRYCE RESUMES CONTROL
XXXV. FINE WORK
XXXVI. GATHERED THREADS
XXXVII. CULMINATION
XXXVIII. A FULL CONFESSION
XXXIX. THE OUTCOME OF A GREAT CRIME
BOOK I. THE PROBLEM
I. “A GREAT CASE”
“A deed of dreadful note.”
--Macbeth.
I had been a junior partner in the firm of Veeley, Carr & Raymond,
attorneys and counsellors at law, for about a year, when one morning, in
the temporary absence of both Mr. Veeley and Mr. Carr, there came into
our office a young man whose whole appearance was so indicative of haste
and agitation that I involuntarily rose at his approach and impetuously
inquired:
“What is the matter? You have no bad news to tell, I hope.”
“I have come to see Mr. Veeley; is he in?”
“No,” I replied; “he was unexpectedly called away this morning to
Washington; cannot be home before to-morrow; but if you will make your
business known to me----”
“To you, sir?” he repeated, turning a very cold but steady eye on mine;
then, seeming to be satisfied with his scrutiny, continued, “There is no
reason why I shouldn’t; my business is no secret. I came to inform him
that Mr. Leavenworth is dead.”
“Mr. Leavenworth!” I exclaimed, falling back a step. Mr. Leavenworth was
an old client of our firm, to say nothing of his being the particular
friend of Mr. Veeley.
“Yes, murdered; shot through the head by some unknown person while
sitting at his library table.”
“Shot! murdered!” I could scarcely believe my ears.
“How? when?” I gasped.
“Last night. At least, so we suppose. He was not found till this
morning. I am Mr. Leavenworth’s private secretary,” he explained, “and
live in the family. It was a dreadful shock,” he went on, “especially to
the ladies.”
“Dreadful!” I repeated. “Mr. Veeley will be overwhelmed by it.”
“They are all alone,” he continued in a low businesslike way
I afterwards found to be inseparable from the man; “the Misses
Leavenworth, I mean--Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces; and as an inquest is
to be held there to-day it is deemed proper for them to have some one
present capable of advising them. As Mr. Veeley was their uncle’s best
friend, they naturally sent me for him; but he being absent I am at a
loss what to do or where to go.”
“I am a stranger to the ladies,” was my hesitating reply, “but if I can
be of any assistance to them, my respect for their uncle is such----”
The expression of the secretary’s eye stopped me. Without seeming to
wander from my face, its pupil had suddenly dilated till it appeared to
embrace my whole person with its scope.
“I don’t know,” he finally remarked, a slight frown, testifying to
the fact that he was not altogether pleased with the turn affairs
were taking. “Perhaps it would be best. The ladies must not be left
alone----”
“Say no more; I will go.” And, sitting down, I despatched a hurried
message to Mr. Veeley, after which, and the few other preparations
necessary, I accompanied the secretary to the street.
“Now,” said I, “tell me all you know of this frightful affair.”
“All I know? A few words will do that. I left him last night sitting as
usual at his library table, and found him this morning, seated in the
same place, almost in the same position, but with a bullet-hole in his
head as large as the end of my little finger.”
“Dead?”
“Stone-dead.”
“Horrible!” I exclaimed. Then, after a moment, “Could it have been a
suicide?”
“No. The pistol with which the deed was committed is not to be found.”
“But if it was a murder, there must have been some motive. Mr.
Leavenworth was too benevolent a man to have enemies, and if robbery was
intended----”
“There was no robbery. There is nothing missing,” he again interrupted.
“The whole affair is a mystery.”
“A mystery?”
“An utter mystery.”
Turning, I looked at my informant curiously. The inmate of a house in
which a mysterious murder had occurred was rather an interesting object.
But the good-featured and yet totally unimpressive countenance of the
man beside me offered but little basis for even the wildest imagination
to work upon, and, glancing almost immediately away, I asked:
“Are the ladies very much overcome?”
He took at least a half-dozen steps before replying.
“It would be unnatural if they were not.” And whether it was the
expression of his face at the time, or the nature of the reply itself,
I felt that in speaking of these ladies to this uninteresting,
self-possessed secretary of the late Mr. Leavenworth, I was somehow
treading upon dangerous ground. As I had heard they were very
accomplished women, I was not altogether pleased at this discovery. It
was, therefore, with a certain consciousness of relief I saw a Fifth
Avenue stage approach.
“We will defer our conversation,” said I. “Here’s the stage.”
But, once seated within it, we soon discovered that all intercourse upon
such a subject was impossible. Employing the time, therefore, in
running over in my mind what I knew of Mr. Leavenworth, I found that my
knowledge was limited to the bare fact of his being a retired merchant
of great wealth and fine social position who, in default of possessing
children of his own, had taken into his home two nieces, one of whom had
already been declared his heiress. To be sure, I had heard Mr. Veeley
speak of his eccentricities, giving as an instance this very fact of his
making a will in favor of one niece to the utter exclusion of the other;
but of his habits of life and connection with the world at large, I knew
little or nothing.
There was a great crowd in front of the house when we arrived there, and
I had barely time to observe that it was a corner dwelling of unusual
depth when I was seized by the throng and carried quite to the foot of
the broad stone steps. Extricating myself, though with some difficulty,
owing to the importunities of a bootblack and butcher-boy, who seemed
to think that by clinging to my arms they might succeed in smuggling
themselves into the house, I mounted the steps and, finding the
secretary, by some unaccountable good fortune, close to my side,
hurriedly rang the bell. Immediately the door opened, and a face I
recognized as that of one of our city detectives appeared in the gap.
“Mr. Gryce!” I exclaimed.
“The same,” he replied. “Come in, Mr. Raymond.” And drawing us quietly
into the house, he shut the door with a grim smile on the disappointed
crowd without. “I trust you are not surprised to see me here,” said he,
holding out his hand, with a side glance at my companion.
“No,” I returned. Then, with a vague idea that I ought to introduce the
young man at my side, continued: “This is Mr. ----, Mr. ----, --excuse
me, but I do not know your name,” I said inquiringly to my companion.
“The private secretary of the late Mr. Leavenworth,” I hastened to add.
“Oh,” he returned, “the secretary! The coroner has been asking for you,
sir.”
“The coroner is here, then?”
“Yes; the jury have just gone up-stairs to view the body; would you like
to follow them?”
“No, it is not necessary. I have merely come in the hope of being of
some assistance to the young ladies. Mr. Veeley is away.”
“And you thought the opportunity too good to be lost,” he went on;
“just so. Still, now that you are here, and as the case promises to be
a marked one, I should think that, as a rising young lawyer, you would
wish to make yourself acquainted with it in all its details. But follow
your own judgment.”
I made an effort and overcame my repugnance. “I will go,” said I.
“Very well, then, follow me.”
But just as I set foot on the stairs I heard the jury descending, so,
drawing back with Mr. Gryce into a recess between the reception room and
the parlor, I had time to remark:
“The young man says it could not have been the work of a burglar.”
“Indeed!” fixing his eye on a door-knob near by.
“That nothing has been found missing--”
“And that the fastenings to the house were all found secure this
morning; just so.”
“He did not tell me that. In that case”--and I shuddered--“the murderer
must have been in the house all night.”
Mr. Gryce smiled darkly at the door-knob.
“It has a dreadful look!” I exclaimed.
Mr. Gryce immediately frowned at the door-knob.
And here let me say that Mr. Gryce, the detective, was not the thin,
wiry individual with the piercing eye you are doubtless expecting to
see. On the contrary, Mr. Gryce was a portly, comfortable personage with
an eye that never pierced, that did not even rest on _you._ If it rested
anywhere, it was always on some insignificant object in the vicinity,
some vase, inkstand, book, or button. These things he would seem to take
into his confidence, make the repositories of his conclusions; but as
for you--you might as well be the steeple on Trinity Church, for all
connection you ever appeared to have with him or his thoughts. At
present, then, Mr. Gryce was, as I have already suggested, on intimate
terms with the door-knob.
“A dreadful look,” I repeated.
His eye shifted to the button on my sleeve.
“Come,” he said, “the coast is clear at last.”
Leading the way, he mounted the stairs, but stopped on the upper
landing. “Mr. Raymond,” said he, “I am not in the habit of talking much
about the secrets of my profession, but in this case everything depends
upon getting the right clue at the start. We have no common villainy
to deal with here; genius has been at work. Now sometimes an absolutely
uninitiated mind will intuitively catch at something which the most
highly trained intellect will miss. If such a thing should occur,
remember that I am your man. Don’t go round talking, but come to me. For
this is going to be a great case, mind you, a great case. Now, come on.”
“But the ladies?”
“They are in the rooms above; in grief, of course, but tolerably
composed for all that, I hear.” And advancing to a door, he pushed it
open and beckoned me in.
All was dark for a moment, but presently, my eyes becoming accustomed to
the place, I saw that we were in the library.
“It was here he was found,” said he; “in this room and upon this
very spot.” And advancing, he laid his hand on the end of a large
baize-covered table that, together with its attendant chairs, occupied
the centre of the room. “You see for yourself that it is directly
opposite this door,” and, crossing the floor, he paused in front of the
threshold of a narrow passageway, opening into a room beyond. “As the
murdered man was discovered sitting in this chair, and consequently with
his back towards the passageway, the assassin must have advanced through
the doorway to deliver his shot, pausing, let us say, about here.” And
Mr. Gryce planted his feet firmly upon a certain spot in the carpet,
about a foot from the threshold before mentioned.
“But--” I hastened to interpose.
“There is no room for ‘but,’” he cried. “We have studied the situation.”
And without deigning to dilate upon the subject, he turned immediately
about and, stepping swiftly before me, led the way into the passage
named. “Wine closet, clothes closet, washing apparatus, towel-rack,”
he explained, waving his hand from side to side as we hurried through,
finishing with “Mr. Leavenworth’s private apartment,” as that room of
comfortable aspect opened upon us.
Mr. Leavenworth’s private apartment! It was here then that _it_ ought
to be, the horrible, blood-curdling _it_ that yesterday was a living,
breathing man. Advancing to the bed that was hung with heavy curtains,
I raised my hand to put them back, when Mr. Gryce, drawing them from
my clasp, disclosed lying upon the pillow a cold, calm face looking so
natural I involuntarily started.
“His death was too sudden to distort the features,” he remarked, turning
the head to one side in a way to make visible a ghastly wound in the
back of the cranium. “Such a hole as that sends a man out of the world
without much notice. The surgeon will convince you it could never have
been inflicted by himself. It is a case of deliberate murder.”
Horrified, I drew hastily back, when my glance fell upon a door situated
directly opposite me in the side of the wall towards the hall. It
appeared to be the only outlet from the room, with the exception of the
passage through which we had entered, and I could not help wondering
if it was through this door the assassin had entered on his roundabout
course to the library. But Mr. Gryce, seemingly observant of my glance,
though his own was fixed upon the chandelier, made haste to remark, as
if in reply to the inquiry in my face:
“Found locked on the inside; may have come that way and may not; we
don’t pretend to say.”
Observing now that the bed was undisturbed in its arrangement, I
remarked, “He had not retired, then?”
“No; the tragedy must be ten hours old. Time for the murderer to have
studied the situation and provided for all contingencies.”
“The murderer? Whom do you suspect?” I whispered.
He looked impassively at the ring on my finger.
“Every one and nobody. It is not for me to suspect, but to detect.” And
dropping the curtain into its former position he led me from the room.
The coroner’s inquest being now in session, I felt a strong desire to be
present, so, requesting Mr. Gryce to inform the ladies that Mr. Veeley
was absent from town, and that I had come as his substitute, to render
them any assistance they might require on so melancholy an occasion, I
proceeded to the large parlor below, and took my seat among the various
persons there assembled.
II. THE CORONER’S INQUEST
“The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come.”
--Troilus and Cressida.
FOR a few minutes I sat dazed by the sudden flood of light greeting me
from the many open windows; then, as the strongly contrasting
features of the scene before me began to impress themselves upon
my consciousness, I found myself experiencing something of the same
sensation of double personality which years before had followed an
enforced use of ether. As at that time, I appeared to be living two
lives at once: in two distinct places, with two separate sets
of incidents going on; so now I seemed to be divided between two
irreconcilable trains of thought; the gorgeous house, its elaborate
furnishing, the little glimpses of yesterday’s life, as seen in the open
piano, with its sheet of music held in place by a lady’s fan, occupying
my attention fully as much as the aspect of the throng of incongruous
and impatient people huddled about me.
Perhaps one reason of this lay in the extraordinary splendor of the room
I was in; the glow of satin, glitter of bronze, and glimmer of marble
meeting the eye at every turn. But I am rather inclined to think it
was mainly due to the force and eloquence of a certain picture which
confronted me from the opposite wall. A sweet picture--sweet enough and
poetic enough to have been conceived by the most idealistic of artists:
simple, too--the vision of a young flaxen-haired, blue-eyed coquette,
dressed in the costume of the First Empire, standing in a wood-path,
looking back over her shoulder at some one following--yet with such a
dash of something not altogether saint-like in the corners of her meek
eyes and baby-like lips, that it impressed me with the individuality of
life. Had it not been for the open dress, with its waist almost beneath
the armpits, the hair cut short on the forehead, and the perfection of
the neck and shoulders, I should have taken it for a literal portrait of
one of the ladies of the house. As it was, I could not rid myself of the
idea that one, if not both, of Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces looked down upon
me from the eyes of this entrancing blonde with the beckoning glance
and forbidding hand. So vividly did this fancy impress me that I half
shuddered as I looked, wondering if this sweet creature did not know
what had occurred in this house since the happy yesterday; and if so,
how she could stand there smiling so invitingly,--when suddenly I became
aware that I had been watching the little crowd of men about me with as
complete an absorption as if nothing else in the room had attracted
my attention; that the face of the coroner, sternly intelligent and
attentive, was as distinctly imprinted upon my mind as that of this
lovely picture, or the clearer-cut and more noble features of the
sculptured Psyche, shining in mellow beauty from the crimson-hung window
at his right; yes, even that the various countenances of the jurymen
clustered before me, commonplace and insignificant as most of them were;
the trembling forms of the excited servants crowded into a far corner;
and the still more disagreeable aspect of the pale-faced, seedy
reporter, seated at a small table and writing with a ghoul-like avidity
that made my flesh creep, were each and all as fixed an element in the
remarkable scene before me as the splendor of the surroundings which
made their presence such a nightmare of discord and unreality.
I have spoken of the coroner. As fortune would have it, he was no
stranger to me. I had not only seen him before, but had held frequent
conversation with him; in fact, knew him. His name was Hammond, and he
was universally regarded as a man of more than ordinary acuteness, fully
capable of conducting an important examination, with the necessary skill
and address. Interested as I was, or rather was likely to be, in this
particular inquiry, I could not but congratulate myself upon our good
fortune in having so intelligent a coroner.
As for his jurymen, they were, as I have intimated, very much like
all other bodies of a similar character. Picked up at random from the
streets, but from such streets as the Fifth and Sixth Avenues,
they presented much the same appearance of average intelligence and
refinement as might be seen in the chance occupants of one of our city
stages. Indeed, I marked but one amongst them all who seemed to take
any interest in the inquiry as an inquiry; all the rest appearing to be
actuated in the fulfilment of their duty by the commoner instincts of
pity and indignation.
Dr. Maynard, the well-known surgeon of Thirty-sixth Street, was the
first witness called. His testimony concerned the nature of the wound
found in the murdered man’s head. As some of the facts presented by him
are likely to prove of importance to us in our narrative, I will proceed
to give a synopsis of what he said.
Prefacing his remarks with some account of himself, and the manner in
which he had been summoned to the house by one of the servants, he went
on to state that, upon his arrival, he found the deceased lying on a
bed in the second-story front room, with the blood clotted about a
pistol-wound in the back of the head; having evidently been carried
there from the adjoining apartment some hours after death. It was the
only wound discovered on the body, and having probed it, he had found
and extracted the bullet which he now handed to the jury. It was lying
in the brain, having entered at the base of the skull, passed obliquely
upward, and at once struck the _medulla oblongata,_ causing instant
death. The fact of the ball having entered the brain in this peculiar
manner he deemed worthy of note, since it would produce not only
instantaneous death, but an utterly motionless one. Further, from the
position of the bullet-hole and the direction taken by the bullet, it
was manifestly impossible that the shot should have been fired by the
man himself, even if the condition of the hair about the wound did not
completely demonstrate the fact that the shot was fired from a point
some three or four feet distant. Still further, considering the angle at
which the bullet had entered the skull, it was evident that the deceased
must not only have been seated at the time, a fact about which there
could be no dispute, but he must also have been engaged in some
occupation which drew his head forward. For, in order that a ball should
enter the head of a man sitting erect at the angle seen here, of 45
degrees, it would be necessary, not only for the pistol to be held very
low down, but in a peculiar position; while if the head had been bent
forward, as in the act of writing, a man holding a pistol naturally
with the elbow bent, might very easily fire a ball into the brain at the
angle observed.
Upon being questioned in regard to the bodily health of Mr. Leavenworth,
he replied that the deceased appeared to have been in good condition at
the time of his death, but that, not being his attendant physician,
he could not speak conclusively upon the subject without further
examination; and, to the remark of a juryman, observed that he had not
seen pistol or weapon lying upon the floor, or, indeed, anywhere else in
either of the above-mentioned rooms.
I might as well add here what he afterwards stated, that from the
position of the table, the chair, and the door behind it, the murderer,
in order to satisfy all the conditions imposed by the situation, must
have stood upon, or just within, the threshold of the passageway leading
into the room beyond. Also, that as the ball was small, and from a
rifled barrel, and thus especially liable to deflections while passing
through bones and integuments, it seemed to him evident that the victim
had made no effort to raise or turn his head when advanced upon by
his destroyer; the fearful conclusion being that the footstep was an
accustomed one, and the presence of its possessor in the room either
known or expected.
The physician’s testimony being ended, the coroner picked up the bullet
which had been laid on the table before him, and for a moment rolled
it contemplatively between his fingers; then, drawing a pencil from his
pocket, hastily scrawled a line or two on a piece of paper and, calling
an officer to his side, delivered some command in a low tone. The
officer, taking up the slip, looked at it for an instant knowingly, then
catching up his hat left the room. Another moment, and the front door
closed on him, and a wild halloo from the crowd of urchins without told
of his appearance in the street. Sitting where I did, I had a full view
of the corner. Looking out, I saw the officer stop there, hail a cab,
hastily enter it, and disappear in the direction of Broadway.
III. FACTS AND DEDUCTIONS
“Confusion now hath made his master-piece;
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord’s anointed temple, and stolen thence
The life of the building.”
--Macbeth.
TURNING my attention back into the room where I was, I found the
coroner consulting a memorandum through a very impressive pair of gold
eye-glasses.
“Is the butler here?” he asked.
Immediately there was a stir among the group of servants in the corner,
and an intelligent-looking, though somewhat pompous, Irishman stepped
out from their midst and confronted the jury. “Ah,” thought I to
myself, as my glance encountered his precise whiskers, steady eye, and
respectfully attentive, though by no means humble, expression, “here is
a model servant, who is likely to prove a model witness.” And I was not
mistaken; Thomas, the butler, was in all respects one in a thousand--and
he knew it.
The coroner, upon whom, as upon all others in the room, he seemed to
have made the like favorable impression, proceeded without hesitation to
interrogate him.
“Your name, I am told, is Thomas Dougherty?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, Thomas, how long have you been employed in your present
situation?”
“It must be a matter of two years now, sir.”
“You are the person who first discovered the body of Mr. Leavenworth?”
“Yes, sir; I and Mr. Harwell.”
“And who is Mr. Harwell?”
“Mr. Harwell is Mr. Leavenworth’s private secretary, sir; the one who
did his writing.”
“Very good. Now at what time of the day or night did you make this
discovery?”
“It was early, sir; early this morning, about eight.”
“And where?”
“In the library, sir, off Mr. Leavenworth’s bedroom. We had forced our
way in, feeling anxious about his not coming to breakfast.”
“You forced your way in; the door was locked, then?”
“Yes, sir.”
“On the inside?”
“That I cannot tell; there was no key in the door.”
“Where was Mr. Leavenworth lying when you first found him?”
“He was not lying, sir. He was seated at the large table in the centre
of his room, his back to the bedroom door, leaning forward, his head on
his hands.”
“How was he dressed?”
“In his dinner suit, sir, just as he came from the table last night.”
“Were there any evidences in the room that a struggle had taken place?”
“No, sir.”
“Any pistol on the floor or table?”
“No, sir?”
“Any reason to suppose that robbery had been attempted?”
“No, sir. Mr. Leavenworth’s watch and purse were both in his pockets.”
Being asked to mention who were in the house at the time of the
discovery, he replied, “The young ladies, Miss Mary Leavenworth and
Miss Eleanore, Mr. Harwell, Kate the cook, Molly the upstairs girl, and
myself.”
“The usual members of the household?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now tell me whose duty it is to close up the house at night.”
“Mine, sir.”
“Did you secure it as usual, last night?”
“I did, sir.”
“Who unfastened it this morning?”
“I, sir.”
“How did you find it?”
“Just as I left it.”
“What, not a window open nor a door unlocked?”
“No, sir.”
By this time you could have heard a pin drop. The certainty that the
murderer, whoever he was, had not left the house, at least till after it
was opened in the morning, seemed to weigh upon all minds. Forewarned as
I had been of the fact, I could not but feel a certain degree of emotion
at having it thus brought before me; and, moving so as to bring the
butler’s face within view, searched it for some secret token that he had
spoken thus emphatically in order to cover up some failure of duty
on his own part. But it was unmoved in its candor, and sustained the
concentrated gaze of all in the room like a rock.
Being now asked when he had last seen Mr. Leavenworth alive, he replied,
“At dinner last night.”
“He was, however, seen later by some of you?”
“Yes, sir; Mr. Harwell says he saw him as late as half-past ten in the
evening.”
“What room do you occupy in this house?”
“A little one on the basement floor.”
“And where do the other members of the household sleep?”
“Mostly on the third floor, sir; the ladies in the large back rooms, and
Mr. Harwell in the little one in front. The girls sleep above.”
“There was no one on the same floor with Mr. Leavenworth?”
“No, sir.”
“At what hour did you go to bed?”
“Well, I should say about eleven.”
“Did you hear any noise in the house either before or after that time,
that you remember?”
“No, sir.”
“So that the discovery you made this morning was a surprise to you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Requested now to give a more detailed account of that discovery, he
went on to say it was not till Mr. Leavenworth failed to come to his
breakfast at the call of the bell that any suspicion arose in the house
that all was not right. Even then they waited some little time before
doing anything, but as minute after minute went by and he did not come,
Miss Eleanore grew anxious, and finally left the room saying she would
go and see what was the matter, but soon returned looking very much
frightened, saying she had knocked at her uncle’s door, and had even
called to him, but could get no answer. At which Mr. Harwell and himself
had gone up and together tried both doors, and, finding them locked,
burst open that of the library, when they came upon Mr. Leavenworth, as
he had already said, sitting at the table, dead.
“And the ladies?”
“Oh, they followed us up and came into the room and Miss Eleanore
fainted away.”
“And the other one,--Miss Mary, I believe they call her?”
“I don’t remember anything about her; I was so busy fetching water to
restore Miss Eleanore, I didn’t notice.”
“Well, how long was it before Mr. Leavenworth was carried into the next
room?”
“Almost immediate, as soon as Miss Eleanore recovered, and that was as
soon as ever the water touched her lips.”
“Who proposed that the body should be carried from the spot?”
“She, sir. As soon as ever she stood up she went over to it and looked
at it and shuddered, and then calling Mr. Harwell and me, bade us carry
him in and lay him on the bed and go for the doctor, which we did.”
“Wait a moment; did she go with you when you went into the other room?”
“No, sir.”
“What did she do?”
“She stayed by the library table.”
“What doing?”
“I couldn’t see; her back was to me.”
“How long did she stay there?”
“She was gone when we came back.”
“Gone from the table?”
“Gone from the room.”
“Humph! when did you see her again?”
“In a minute. She came in at the library door as we went out.”
“Anything in her hand?”
“Not as I see.”
“Did you miss anything from the table?”
“I never thought to look, sir. The table was nothing to me. I was only
thinking of going for the doctor, though I knew it was of no use.”
“Whom did you leave in the room when you went out?”
“The cook, sir, and Molly, sir, and Miss Eleanore.”
“Not Miss Mary?”
“No, sir.”
“Very well. Have the jury any questions to put to this man?”
A movement at once took place in that profound body.
“I should like to ask a few,” exclaimed a weazen-faced, excitable little
man whom I had before noticed shifting in his seat in a restless manner
strongly suggestive of an intense but hitherto repressed desire to
interrupt the proceedings.
“Very well, sir,” returned Thomas.
But the juryman stopping to draw a deep breath, a large and decidedly
pompous man who sat at his right hand seized the opportunity to inquire
in a round, listen-to-me sort of voice:
“You say you have been in the family for two years. Was it what you
might call a united family?”
“United?”
“Affectionate, you know,--on good terms with each other.” And the
juryman lifted the very long and heavy watch-chain that hung across
his vest as if that as well as himself had a right to a suitable and
well-considered reply.
The butler, impressed perhaps by his manner, glanced uneasily around.
“Yes, sir, so far as I know.”
“The young ladies were attached to their uncle?”
“O yes, sir.”
“And to each other?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so; it’s not for me to say.”
“You suppose so. Have you any reason to think otherwise?” And he doubled
the watch-chain about his fingers as if he would double its attention as
well as his own.
Thomas hesitated a moment. But just as his interlocutor was about to
repeat his question, he drew himself up into a rather stiff and formal
attitude and replied:
“Well, sir, no.”
The juryman, for all his self-assertion, seemed to respect the reticence
of a servant who declined to give his opinion in regard to such a
matter, and drawing complacently back, signified with a wave of his hand
that he had no more to say.
Immediately the excitable little man, before mentioned, slipped forward
to the edge of his chair and asked, this time without hesitation: “At
what time did you unfasten the house this morning?”
“About six, sir.”
“Now, could any one leave the house after that time without your
knowledge?”
Thomas glanced a trifle uneasily at his fellow-servants, but answered up
promptly and as if without reserve;
“I don’t think it would be possible for anybody to leave this house
after six in the morning without either myself or the cook’s knowing of
it. Folks don’t jump from second-story windows in broad daylight, and as
to leaving by the doors, the front door closes with such a slam all the
house can hear it from top to bottom, and as for the back-door, no one
that goes out of that can get clear of the yard without going by the
kitchen window, and no one can go by our kitchen window without the
cook’s a-seeing of them, that I can just swear to.” And he cast a
half-quizzing, half-malicious look at the round, red-faced individual
in question, strongly suggestive of late and unforgotten bickerings over
the kitchen coffee-urn and castor.
This reply, which was of a nature calculated to deepen the forebodings
which had already settled upon the minds of those present, produced a
visible effect. The house found locked, and no one seen to leave it!
Evidently, then, we had not far to look for the assassin.
Shifting on his chair with increased fervor, if I may so speak, the
juryman glanced sharply around. But perceiving the renewed interest
in the faces about him, declined to weaken the effect of the last
admission, by any further questions. Settling, therefore, comfortably
back, he left the field open for any other juror who might choose to
press the inquiry. But no one seeming to be ready to do this, Thomas in
his turn evinced impatience, and at last, looking respectfully around,
inquired:
“Would any other gentleman like to ask me anything?”
No one replying, he threw a hurried glance of relief towards the
servants at his side, then, while each one marvelled at the sudden
change that had taken place in his countenance, withdrew with an eager
alacrity and evident satisfaction for which I could not at the moment
account.
But the next witness proving to be none other than my acquaintance of
the morning, Mr. Harwell, I soon forgot both Thomas and the doubts his
last movement had awakened, in the interest which the examination of
so important a person as the secretary and right-hand man of Mr.
Leavenworth was likely to create.
Advancing with the calm and determined air of one who realized that life
and death itself might hang upon his words, Mr. Harwell took his stand
before the jury with a degree of dignity not only highly prepossessing
in itself, but to me, who had not been over and above pleased with him
in our first interview, admirable and surprising. Lacking, as I
have said, any distinctive quality of face or form agreeable or
otherwise--being what you might call in appearance a negative sort of
person, his pale, regular features, dark, well-smoothed hair and simple
whiskers, all belonging to a recognized type and very commonplace--there
was still visible, on this occasion at least, a certain self-possession
in his carriage, which went far towards making up for the want of
impressiveness in his countenance and expression. Not that even this was
in any way remarkable. Indeed, there was nothing remarkable about the
man, any more than there is about a thousand others you meet every day
on Broadway, unless you except the look of concentration and solemnity
which pervaded his whole person; a solemnity which at this time would
not have been noticeable, perhaps, if it had not appeared to be the
habitual expression of one who in his short life had seen more of sorrow
than joy, less of pleasure than care and anxiety.
The coroner, to whom his appearance one way or the other seemed to be a
matter of no moment, addressed him immediately and without reserve:
“Your name?”
“James Trueman Harwell.”
“Your business?”
“I have occupied the position of private secretary and amanuensis to Mr.
Leavenworth for the past eight months.”
“You are the person who last saw Mr. Leavenworth alive, are you not?”
The young man raised his head with a haughty gesture which well-nigh
transfigured it.
“Certainly not, as I am not the man who killed him.”
This answer, which seemed to introduce something akin to levity or
badinage into an examination the seriousness of which we were all
beginning to realize, produced an immediate revulsion of feeling toward
the man who, in face of facts revealed and to be revealed, could so
lightly make use of it. A hum of disapproval swept through the room, and
in that one remark, James Harwell lost all that he had previously won
by the self-possession of his bearing and the unflinching regard of his
eye. He seemed himself to realize this, for he lifted his head still
higher, though his general aspect remained unchanged.
“I mean,” the coroner exclaimed, evidently nettled that the young man
had been able to draw such a conclusion from his words, “that you were
the last one to see him previous to his assassination by some unknown
individual?”
The secretary folded his arms, whether to hide a certain tremble which
had seized him, or by that simple action to gain time for a moment’s
further thought, I could not then determine. “Sir,” he replied at
length, “I cannot answer yes or no to that question. In all probability
I was the last to see him in good health and spirits, but in a house as
large as this I cannot be sure of even so simple a fact as that.” Then,
observing the unsatisfied look on the faces around, added slowly, “It is
my business to see him late.”
“Your business? Oh, as his secretary, I suppose?”
He gravely nodded.
“Mr. Harwell,” the coroner went on, “the office of private secretary
in this country is not a common one. Will you explain to us what your
duties were in that capacity; in short, what use Mr. Leavenworth had for
such an assistant and how he employed you?”
“Certainly. Mr. Leavenworth was, as you perhaps know, a man of great
wealth. Connected with various societies, clubs, institutions, etc.,
besides being known far and near as a giving man, he was accustomed
every day of his life to receive numerous letters, begging and
otherwise, which it was my business to open and answer, his private
correspondence always bearing a mark upon it which distinguished it from
the rest. But this was not all I was expected to do. Having in his early
life been engaged in the tea-trade, he had made more than one voyage
to China, and was consequently much interested in the question of
international communication between that country and our own. Thinking
that in his various visits there, he had learned much which, if known
to the American people, would conduce to our better understanding of the
nation, its peculiarities, and the best manner of dealing with it, he