The Leavenworth Case (Penguin Classics)

by Anna Katharine Green

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that instead of leaving the country, Mr. Clavering has only made pretense 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 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?” said I.

  “No,” returned he, “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,” returned 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 you in such action. 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,” he interrupted. “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 upon whom anything has, as yet, been fixed.”

  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,” cried I. “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,” cried he. “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 we are constantly growing warmer upon the trail? 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 lift me right up on to the spot I want to be; 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 that would surprise you, I’m thinking. 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 some 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, anyway.”

  “It will do no good,” said I. “If Mary is guilty, she will never confess it. If not——”

  “She will tell us who is.”

  “No,” said I, “not if it is Clavering, her husband.”

  “Yes,” returned he, “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 somber enough. And yet, when in a short time from that I found myself alone in the 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 there was that could happen, and my mind would run over the various contingencies which might occur, as—Mr. Clavering might confess; Hannah might come back; Mary herself wake up to her position and speak the word I had seen trembling on her lips for so long. 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 personage exclaimed, observing without doubt how my eyes went traveling about the room in my anxiety and impatience. “We are not absolutely sure that she’s 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, b
y the————railroad, though for what point we have been unable to ascertain, we consider the matter worth inquiring into.”

  “But——”

  “If she is there,” went on Mr. Gryce, “she is secreted; kept very close. No one except the informant has ever seen her, nor is there any suspicion among the neighbors of her being in town.”

  “Hannah secreted at a certain house in R——? Whose house?”

  Mr. Gryce dowered me with one of his grimmest smiles. “The name of the lady she’s with is given in the communication as Belden; Mrs. Amy Belden.”

  “Amy Belden! The name found written on a torn envelope by Mr. Clavering’s servant girl in London?”

  “Yes.”

  I made no attempt to conceal my satisfaction. “Then we are upon the verge of some discovery; Providence has interfered and Eleanore will be saved. But when did you get this word?”

  “Last night, or rather, this morning; Q brought it.”

  “It was a message, then, to Q?”

  “Yes, the result of his moleings while in R——, I suppose.”

  “Who was it signed by?”

  “A respectable tinsmith who lives next door to Mrs. B——.”

  “And is this the first you knew of an Amy Belden living in R——?”

  “Yes.”

  “Widow or wife?”

  “Don’t know; don’t know anything about her but her name.”

  “But you have already sent Q to make inquiries?”

  “No; the affair is a little too serious for him to manage; that is, I hesitate trusting him alone. A contingency might arise when brains would be useful, and though Q has enough of the prying sort, he is not equal to great occasions, and might fail just for the lack of a keen mind to direct him.”

  “In short——”

  “I wish you to go. Since I cannot be there myself, I know of no one else sufficiently up to the affair to conduct the enterprise to a successful issue. You see, it is not enough to find and identify the girl. The present condition of things demands that the arrest of so important a witness as this should be kept secret if possible. Now, for a man to walk into a strange house in a distant village, find a girl who is secreted there, frighten her, cajole her, force her, as the case may be, from her hiding-place to a detective’s office in New York, and all without the knowledge of the next-door neighbor, if possible, requires judgment, brains, genius. Then the woman who conceals her! She must have her reasons for doing so, and they must be known. Altogether the affair is a delicate one. Do you think you can manage it?”

  “I would at least like to try.”

  Mr. Gryce settled himself on the sofa. “To think what pleasure I am losing on your account!” he murmured, gazing reproachfully at his helpless limbs. “But to business. How soon can you start?”

  “Immediately.”

  “Good! There is a train leaves the station at twelve-fifteen. Take that. Once in R——it will be for you to determine upon some means for making Mrs. Belden’s acquaintance without arousing her suspicions. Q, who will follow you, will hold himself in readiness to render you any assistance you may require, only this thing is to be understood: as he will doubtless go in disguise, you are not to recognize him, much less interfere with him and his plans, till he gives you leave to do so by some preconcerted signal. You are to work in your way, and he in his, till circumstances seem to require mutual support and countenance. I cannot even say whether you will see him or not; he may find it necessary to keep out of the way; but you may be sure of one thing, that he will know where you are, and that the display of—well, let us say a red silk handkerchief—have you such a thing?”

  “I will get one.”

  “Will be regarded by him as a sign that you desire his presence or assistance, whether it be shown about your person or at the window of your room.”

  “And these are all the instructions you can give me?” I said as he paused.

  “Yes, I don’t know of anything else. You must depend largely upon your own discretion, and the exigencies of the moment. I cannot tell you now what to do. Your own wit will be the best guide. Only, if possible, let me either hear from you or see you by tomorrow at this time.”

  And he handed me a cipher in case I should wish to telegraph.

  BOOK III

  HANNAH

  CHAPTER 1

  Amy Belden

  A merrier man

  Within the limits of becoming mirth,

  I never spent an hour’s talk withal.

  —LOVE’S LABOR’S LOST.

  It was a bleak day in April that I stepped, for the second time in my life, from the cars at R——and took my way down the broad, well-populated street leading to the hotel and its surrounding villas. Not that I had any intention this time of making even a casual stop at that attractive refuge for New York pleasure-seekers. My intention was rather to seek out our client, Mr. Monell, and from him learn the best manner of approaching Mrs. Belden. To his hospitable mansion, then, on the road to F——, I hastened, and was so fortunate as to meet him driving into town behind his famous trotter Alfred; an encounter, if I may so call it, which struck me as peculiarly fortunate, giving me, as it did, ample opportunity for a tête-à-tête conversation with him without imposing upon me the delay which a visit to his house must have necessarily occasioned.

  “Well, and how goes the day?” was the exclamation of my friend as, the first greetings passed, we drove rapidly into town.

  “Your part in it goes pretty smoothly,” returned I; and, thinking I could never hope to win his attention to my affairs till I had satisfied him in regard to his own, I told him what I knew concerning his case then pending; a subject so prolific of question and answer that we had driven twice around the town before he remembered that he had a letter to post. As it was an important one admitting of no delay, we hastened at once to the post office, where he went in, leaving me outside to watch the rather meager stream of goers and comers who at that time of day make the post office of a country town their place of rendezvous. Among these, for some reason, I specially noted one middle-aged woman; why, I cannot say; her appearance was anything but remarkable. And, yet when she came out with two letters in her hand, one in a large and one in a small envelope, and meeting my eye hastily drew them under her shawl, I found myself wondering what was in her letters and who she could be, that the casual glance of a stranger should unconsciously move her to an action so suspicious. But Mr. Monell’s reappearance at the same moment diverted my attention, and in the interest of the conversation that followed I soon forgot both the woman and her letters. For, determined that he should have no opportunity to revert to that endless topic, a law case, I exclaimed with the first crack of the whip: “There, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. It is this: are you acquainted with anyone in this town by the name of Belden?”

  “There is a widow Belden in town; I don’t know of any other.”

  “Is her first name Amy?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Amy Belden.”

  “That is the one,” said I. “Who is she? What is she? And what is the extent of your acquaintance with her?”

  “Well,” said he, “I cannot conceive why you should be interested in such an antiquated piece of commonplace goodness as she is, but seeing you ask, I have no objection to telling you that she is the very respectable relict of a deceased cabinet-maker of this town; that she lives in a little house down the street there; and that if you have any forlorn old tramp to be lodged overnight, or any destitute family of little ones to be looked after, she is the one to go to. As to knowing her, I know her as I do a dozen other members of our church there up over the hill. When I see her, I speak to her, and that is all.”

  “A respectable widow, you say. Any family?”

  “No; lives alone; has a little income, I believe; must have, to put the money on the plate she always does; but spends her time in plain sewing and such deeds of charity as one with small means but willing heart can find the opportunity of doing in
a town like this. But why, in the name of wonders, do you ask?”

  “Business,” said I, “business. Mrs. Belden—don’t mention it, by the way—has got mixed up in a case of mine, and I felt it due to my curiosity, if not to my purse, to find out something about her. And I am not satisfied yet. The fact is, I would give something, Monell, for the opportunity of studying this woman’s character. Now, couldn’t you manage to get me introduced into her house in some way that would make it possible and proper for me to converse with her at my leisure? Business would thank you if you could.”

  “Well, I don’t know; I suppose it could be done. She used to take lodgers in the summer when the hotel was full, and might be induced to give a bed to a friend of mine who is very anxious to be near the post office on account of a business telegram he is expecting, and which, when it comes, will demand his immediate attention.” And Mr. Monell gave me a sly wink of his eye, little imagining how near the mark he had really struck.

  “You need not say that. Tell her that I have a peculiar dislike to sleeping in a public-house, and that you knew of no one who could better accommodate me for the short time I desire to be in town, than herself.”

  “And what will be said of my hospitality in allowing you under those circumstances to remain in any other house than my own?”

  “I don’t know,” returned I; “very hard things, I doubt, but I guess your hospitality can stand it.”

  “Well, if you persist, we will see what can be done.” And, driving up to a neat white cottage of homely but sufficiently attractive appearance, he stopped.

  “This is her house,” said he, jumping to the ground. “Let’s go in and see what we can do.”

  Glancing up at the windows which were all closed save the two on the veranda overlooking the street, I thought to myself: “If she has anybody in hiding here, whose presence in the house she desires to keep secret, it is folly to hope she will take me in, however well recommended I may come.” But yielding to the example of my friend, I alighted, in my turn, and followed him up the short grass-bordered walk to the front door.