“If I have done this lady wrong by my talk, I’ll never forgive myself. You told me I would help her to get her rights; if you have deceived me—”
“Oh, I haven’t deceived you,” broke in Q, in his short, sharp way. “Ask that gentleman there if we are not all interested in Mrs. Clavering getting her due.”
He had designated me; but I was in no mood to reply. I longed to have the man dismissed, that I might inquire the reason of the great complacency which I now saw overspreading Mr. Gryce’s frame, to his very finger-ends.
“Mr. Cook needn’t be concerned,” remarked Mr. Gryce. “If he will take a glass of warm drink to fortify him for his walk, I think he may go to the lodgings Mr. Morris has provided for him without fear. Give the gent a glass, and let him mix for himself.”
But it was full ten minutes before we were delivered of the man and his vain regrets. Mary’s image had called up every latent feeling in his heart, and I could but wonder over a loveliness capable of swaying the low as well as the high. But at last he yielded to the seductions of the now wily Q, and departed.
Left alone with Mr. Gryce, I must have allowed some of the confused emotions which filled my breast to become apparent on my countenance; for after a few minutes of ominous silence, he exclaimed very grimly, and yet with a latent touch of that complacency I had before noticed:
“This discovery rather upsets you, doesn’t it? Well, it don’t me,” shutting his mouth like a trap. “I expected it.”
“Your conclusions must differ very materially from mine,” I returned; “or you would see that this discovery alters the complexion of the whole affair.”
“It does not alter the truth.”
“What is the truth?”
Mr. Gryce’s very legs grew thoughtful; his voice sank to its deepest tone. “Do you very much want to know?”
“Want to know the truth? What else are we after?”
“Then,” said he, “to my notion, the complexion of things has altered, but very much for the better. As long as Eleanore was believed to be the wife, her action in this matter was accounted for; but the tragedy itself was not. Why should Eleanore or Eleanore’s husband wish the death of a man whose bounty they believed would end with his life? But with Mary, the heiress, proved the wife!—I tell you, Mr. Raymond, it all hangs together now. You must never, in reckoning up an affair of murder like this, forget who it is that most profits by the deceased man’s death.”
“But Eleanore’s silence? her concealment of certain proofs and evidences in her own breast—how will you account for that? I can imagine a woman devoting herself to the shielding of a husband from the consequences of crime; but a cousin’s husband, never.”
Mr. Gryce put his feet very close together, and softly grunted. “Then you still think Mr. Clavering the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth?”
I could only stare at him in my sudden doubt and dread. “Still think?” I repeated.
“Mr. Clavering the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth?”
“Why, what else is there to think? You don’t—you can’t—suspect Eleanore of having deliberately undertaken to help her cousin out of a difficulty by taking the life of their mutual benefactor?”
“No,” said Mr. Gryce; “no, I do not think Eleanore Leavenworth had any hand in the business.”
“Then who—” I began, and stopped, lost in the dark vista that was opening before me.
“Who? Why, who but the one whose past deceit and present necessity demanded his death as a relief? Who but the beautiful, money-loving, man-deceiving goddess—”
I leaped to my feet in my sudden horror and repugnance. “Do not mention the name! You are wrong; but do not speak the name.”
“Excuse me,” said he; “but it will have to be spoken many times, and we may as well begin here and now—who then but Mary Leavenworth; or, if you like it better, Mrs. Henry Clavering? Are you so much surprised? It has been my thought from the beginning.”
CHAPTER XXVI
MR. GRYCE EXPLAINS HIMSELF
“Sits the wind in that corner?”
—Much Ado about Nothing.
I do not propose to enter into a description of the mingled feelings aroused in me by this announcement. As a drowning man is said to live over in one terrible instant the events of a lifetime, so each word uttered in my hearing by Mary, from her first introduction to me in her own room, on the morning of the inquest, to our final conversation on the night of Mr. Clavering’s call, swept in one wild phantasmagoria through my brain, leaving me aghast at the signification which her whole conduct seemed to acquire from the lurid light which now fell upon it.
“I perceive that I have pulled down an avalanche of doubts about your ears,” exclaimed my companion from the height of his calm superiority. “You never thought of this possibility, then, yourself?”
“Do not ask me what I have thought. I only know I will never believe your suspicions true. That, however much Mary may have been benefited by her uncle’s death, she never had a hand in it; actual hand, I mean.”
“And what makes you so sure of this?”
“And what makes you so sure of the contrary? It is for you to prove, not for me to prove her innocence.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Gryce, in his slow, sarcastic way, “you recollect that principle of law, do you? If I remember rightly, you have not always been so punctilious in regarding it, or wishing to have it regarded, when the question was whether Mr. Clavering was the assassin or not.”
“But he is a man. It does not seem so dreadful to accuse a man of a crime. But a woman! and such a woman! I cannot listen to it; it is horrible. Nothing short of absolute confession on her part will ever make me believe Mary Leavenworth, or any other woman, committed this deed. It was too cruel, too deliberate, too—”
“Read the criminal records,” broke in Mr. Gryce.
But I was obstinate. “I do not care for the criminal records. All the criminal records in the world would never make me believe Eleanore perpetrated this crime, nor will I be less generous towards her cousin Mary Leavenworth is a faulty woman, but not a guilty one.”
“You are more lenient in your judgment of her than her cousin was, it appears.”
“I do not understand you,” I muttered, feeling a new and yet more fearful light breaking upon me.
“What! have you forgotten, in the hurry of these late events, the sentence of accusation which we overheard uttered between these ladies on the morning of the inquest?”
“No, but—”
“You believed it to have been spoken by Mary to Eleanore?”
“Of course; didn’t you?”
Oh, the smile which crossed Mr. Gryce’s face! “Scarcely. I left that baby-play for you. I thought one was enough to follow on that tack.”
The light, the light that was breaking upon me! “And do you mean to say it was Eleanore who was speaking at that time? That I have been laboring all these weeks under a terrible mistake, and that you could have righted me with a word, and did not?”
“Well, as to that, I had a purpose in letting you follow your own lead for a while. In the first place, I was not sure myself which spoke; though I had but little doubt about the matter. The voices are, as you must have noticed, very much alike, while the attitudes in which we found them upon entering were such as to be explainable equally by the supposition that Mary was in the act of launching a denunciation, or in that of repelling one. So that, while I did not hesitate myself as to the true explanation of the scene before me, I was pleased to find you accept a contrary one; as in this way both theories had a chance of being tested; as was right in a case of so much mystery. You accordingly took up the affair with one idea for your starting-point, and I with another. You saw every fact as it developed through the medium of Mary’s belief in Eleanore’s guilt, and I through the opposite. And what has been the result? With you, doubt, contradiction, constant unsettlement, and unwarranted resorts to strange sources for reconcilement between appearances and your own convictions; with m
e, growing assurance, and a belief which each and every development so far has but served to strengthen and make more probable.”
Again that wild panorama of events, looks, and words swept before me. Mary’s reiterated assertions of her cousin’s innocence, Eleanore’s attitude of lofty silence in regard to certain matters which might be considered by her as pointing towards the murderer.
“Your theory must be the correct one,” I finally admitted; “it was undoubtedly Eleanore who spoke. She believes in Mary’s guilt, and I have been blind, indeed, not to have seen it from the first.”
“If Eleanore Leavenworth believes in her cousin’s criminality, she must have some good reasons for doing so.”
I was obliged to admit that too. “She did not conceal in her bosom that telltale key—found who knows where?—and destroy, or seek to destroy, it and the letter which introduced her cousin to the public as the unprincipled destroyer of a trusting man’s peace, for nothing.”
“No, no.”
“And yet you, a stranger, a young man who have never seen Mary Leavenworth in any other light than that in which her coquettish nature sought to display itself, presume to say she is innocent, in the face of the attitude maintained from the first by her cousin!”
“But,” said I, in my great unwillingness to accept his conclusions, “Eleanore Leavenworth is but mortal. She may have been mistaken in her inferences. She has never stated what her suspicion was founded upon; nor can we know what basis she has for maintaining the attitude you speak of. Clavering is as likely as Mary to be the assassin, for all we know, and possibly for all she knows.”
“You seem to be almost superstitious in your belief in Clavering’s guilt.”
I recoiled. Was I? Could it be that Mr. Harwell’s fanciful conviction in regard to this man had in any way influenced me to the detriment of my better judgment?
“And you may be right,” Mr. Gryce went on. “I do not pretend to be set in my notions. Future investigation may succeed in fixing something upon him; though I hardly think it likely. His behavior as the secret husband of a woman possessing motives for the commission of a crime has been too consistent throughout.”
“All except his leaving her.”
“No exception at all; for he hasn’t left her.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that, instead of leaving the country, Mr. Clavering has only made pretence of doing so. That, in place of dragging himself off to Europe at her command, he has only changed his lodgings, and can now be found, not only in a house opposite to hers, but in the window of that house, where he sits day after day watching who goes in and out of her front door.”
I remembered his parting injunction to me, in that memorable interview we had in my office, and saw myself compelled to put a new construction upon it.
“But I was assured at the Hoffman House that he had sailed for Europe, and myself saw the man who professes to have driven him to the steamer.”
“Just so.”
“And Mr. Clavering returned to the city after that?”
“In another carriage, and to another house.”
“And you tell me that man is all right?”
“No; I only say there isn’t the shadow of evidence against him as the person who shot Mr. Leavenworth.”
Rising, I paced the floor, and for a few minutes silence fell between us. But the clock, striking, recalled me to the necessity of the hour, and, turning, I asked Mr. Gryce what he proposed to do now.
“There is but one thing I can do,” said he.
“And that is?”
“To go upon such lights as I have, and cause the arrest of Miss Leavenworth.”
I had by this time schooled myself to endurance, and was able to hear this without uttering an exclamation. But I could not let it pass without making one effort to combat his determination.
“But,” said I, “I do not see what evidence you have, positive enough in its character, to warrant extreme measures. You have yourself intimated that the existence of motive is not enough, even though taken with the fact of the suspected party being in the house at the time of the murder; and what more have you to urge against Miss Leavenworth?”
“Pardon me. I said ‘Miss Leavenworth’; I should have said ‘Eleanore Leavenworth.’”
“Eleanore? What! when you and all unite in thinking that she alone of all these parties to the crime is utterly guiltless of wrong?”
“And yet who is the only one against whom positive testimony of any kind can be brought.”
I could but acknowledge that.
“Mr. Raymond,” he remarked very gravely; “the public is becoming clamorous; something must be done to satisfy it, if only for the moment. Eleanore has laid herself open to the suspicion of the police, and must take the consequences of her action. I am sorry; she is a noble creature; I admire her; but justice is justice, and though I think her innocent, I shall be forced to put her under arrest unless—”
“But I cannot be reconciled to it. It is doing an irretrievable injury to one whose only fault is an undue and mistaken devotion to an unworthy cousin. If Mary is the—.”
“Unless something occurs between now and tomorrow morning,” Mr. Gryce went on, as if I had not spoken.
“Tomorrow morning?”
“Yes.”
I tried to realize it; tried to face the fact that all my efforts had been for nothing, and failed.
“Will you not grant me one more day?” I asked in my desperation.
“What to do?”
Alas, I did not know. “To confront Mr. Clavering, and force from him the truth.”
“To make a mess of the whole affair!” he growled. “No, sir; the die is cast. Eleanore Leavenworth knows the one point which fixes this crime upon her cousin, and she must tell us that point or suffer the consequences of her refusal.”
I made one more effort.
“But why tomorrow? Having exhausted so much time already in our inquiries, why not take a little more; especially as the trail is constantly growing warmer? A little more moleing—”
“A little more folderol!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce, losing his temper. “No, sir; the hour for moleing has passed; something decisive has got to be done now; though, to be sure, if I could find the one missing link I want—”
“Missing link? What is that?”
“The immediate motive of the tragedy; a bit of proof that Mr. Leavenworth threatened his niece with his displeasure, or Mr. Clavering with his revenge, would place me on the vantage-point at once; no arresting of Eleanore then! No, my lady! I would walk right into your own gilded parlors, and when you asked me if I had found the murderer yet, say ‘yes,’ and show you a bit of paper which would surprise you! But missing links are not so easily found. This has been moled for, and moled for, as you are pleased to call our system of investigation, and totally without result. Nothing but the confession of one of these several parties to the crime will give us what we want. I will tell you what I will do,” he suddenly cried. “Miss Leavenworth has desired me to report to her; she is very anxious for the detection of the murderer, you know, and offers an immense reward. Well, I will gratify this desire of hers. The suspicions I have, together with my reasons for them, will make an interesting disclosure. I should not greatly wonder if they produced an equally interesting confession.”
I could only jump to my feet in my horror.
“At all events, I propose to try it. Eleanore is worth that much risk any way.”
“It will do no good,” said I. “If Mary is guilty, she will never confess it. If not—”
“She will tell us who is.”
“Not if it is Clavering, her husband.”
“Yes; even if it is Clavering, her husband. She has not the devotion of Eleanore.”
That I could but acknowledge. She would hide no keys for the sake of shielding another: no, if Mary were accused, she would speak. The future opening before us looked sombre enough. And yet when, in a short time from that, I found m
yself alone in a busy street, the thought that Eleanore was free rose above all others, filling and moving me till my walk home in the rain that day has become a marked memory of my life. It was only with nightfall that I began to realize the truly critical position in which Mary stood if Mr. Gryce’s theory was correct. But, once seized with this thought, nothing could drive it from my mind. Shrink as I would, it was ever before me, haunting me with the direst forebodings. Nor, though I retired early, could I succeed in getting either sleep or rest. All night I tossed on my pillow, saying over to myself with dreary iteration: “Something must happen, something will happen, to prevent Mr. Gryce doing this dreadful thing.” Then I would start up and ask what could happen; and my mind would run over various contingencies, such as—Mr. Clavering might confess; Hannah might come back; Mary herself wake up to her position and speak the word I had more than once seen trembling on her lips. But further thought showed me how unlikely any of these things were to happen, and it was with a brain utterly exhausted that I fell asleep in the early dawn, to dream I saw Mary standing above Mr. Gryce with a pistol in her hand. I was awakened from this pleasing vision by a heavy knock at the door. Hastily rising, I asked who was there. The answer came in the shape of an envelope thrust under the door. Raising it, I found it to be a note. It was from Mr. Gryce, and ran thus:
“Come at once; Hannah Chester is found.”
“Hannah found?”
“So we have reason to think.”
“When? where? by whom?”
“Sit down, and I will tell you.”
Drawing up a chair in a flurry of hope and fear, I sat down by Mr. Gryce’s side.
“She is not in the cupboard,” that person dryly assured me, noting without doubt how my eyes went travelling about the room in my anxiety and impatience. “We are not absolutely sure that she is anywhere. But word has come to us that a girl’s face believed to be Hannah’s has been seen at the upper window of a certain house in—don’t start—R——, where a year ago she was in the habit of visiting while at the hotel with the Misses Leavenworth. Now, as it has already been determined that she left New York the night of the murder, by the ——— —— Railroad, though for what point we have been unable to ascertain, we consider the matter worth inquiring into.”
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack Page 261