The Leavenworth Case (Penguin Classics)

by Anna Katharine Green

“A fraud?”

  “Yes; fraud, forgery, what you will; the girl never wrote it.”

  Amazed, outraged almost, I bounded from my chair. “How do you know that?” cried I.

  Bending forward, he put the letter into my hand. “Look at it,” said he, “examine it closely. Now tell me what is the first thing you notice in regard to it.”

  “Why, the first thing that strikes me is that the words are printed, instead of written, something which might be expected from this girl, according to all accounts.”

  “Well?”

  “That they are printed on the inside of a sheet of ordinary paper——”

  “Ordinary paper?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is, a sheet of commercial note of the ordinary quality.”

  “Of course.”

  “But is it?”

  “Why yes, I should say so.”

  “Look at the lines.”

  “What of them? Oh, I see, they run up close to the top of the page; evidently the scissors have been used here.”

  “In short, it is a large sheet, trimmed down to the size of commercial note?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is that all you see?”

  “All but the words.”

  “Don’t you perceive what has been lost by means of this trimming down?”

  “No, unless you mean the manufacturer’s stamp in the corner.” Mr. Gryce’s glance took meaning. “But I don’t see why the loss of that should be deemed a matter of any importance.”

  “Don’t you? not when you consider that by it we seem to be deprived of all opportunity of tracing this sheet back to the quire of paper from which it was taken?”

  “No.”

  “Humph! then you are more of an amateur than I thought you. Don’t you see that as Hannah could have had no motive in concealing where the paper came from on which she wrote her dying words, this sheet must have been prepared by someone else?”

  “No,” said I, “I cannot say I see all that.”

  “Can’t! Well, then, answer me this. Why should Hannah, a girl about to commit suicide, care whether any clue was furnished in her confession, to the actual desk, drawer, or quire of paper from which the sheet was taken on which she wrote it?”

  “She wouldn’t.”

  “Yet especial pains have been taken to destroy that clue.

  “But——”

  “Then there is another thing. Read the confession itself, Mr. Raymond, and tell me what you gather from it.”

  “Why,” said I, after complying, “that the girl, worn out with constant apprehension, has made up her mind to do away with herself, and that Henry Clavering——”

  “Henry Clavering?”

  The interrogation was put with so much meaning, I looked up. “Yes,” said I.

  “Ah, I didn’t know that Mr. Clavering’s name was mentioned there; excuse me.”

  “His name is not mentioned, but a description is given so strikingly in accordance——”

  Here Mr. Gryce interrupted me. “Does it not seem to you a little surprising that a girl like Hannah should have stopped to describe a man she knew by name?”

  I started; it was unnatural surely.

  “You believe Mrs. Belden’s story, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Consider her accurate in her relation of what took place there a year ago?”

  “I do.”

  “Must believe, then, that Hannah, the go-between, was acquainted with Mr. Clavering, and with his name?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “Then why didn’t she use it? If her intention was as she here professes, to save Eleanore Leavenworth from the false imputation which had fallen upon her, she would naturally take the most direct method of doing it. This description of a man, whose identity she could have at once put beyond a doubt by the mention of his name, is the work, not of a poor ignorant girl, but of some person who, in attempting to play the role of one, has signally failed. But that is not all. Mrs. Belden, according to you, maintains that Hannah told her upon entering the house that Mary Leavenworth sent her here. But in this document, she declares it to have been the work of Black Moustache.”

  “I know, but could they not have both been parties to the transaction?”

  “Yes,” said he, “yet it is always a suspicious circumstance, when there is any discrepancy between the written and spoken declaration of a person. But why do we stand here fooling when a few words from this Mrs. Belden you talk so much about will probably settle the whole matter!”

  “A few words from Mrs. Belden,” I repeated. “I have had thousands from her today, and find the matter no nearer settled than in the beginning.”

  “You have had,” said he, “but not I. Fetch her in, Mr. Raymond.”

  I rose. “One thing,” said I, “before I go. What if Hannah had found the sheet of paper, trimmed just as it is, and used it without any thought of the suspicions it would occasion!”

  “Ah!” said he, “that is just what we are going to find out.”

  Mrs. Belden was in a flutter of impatience when I entered the sitting room. When did I think the coroner would come? and what did I imagine this detective would do for us? It was dreadful waiting there alone for something, she knew not what.

  I calmed her as well as I could, telling her the detective had not yet informed me what he could do, having some questions to ask her first. Would she come in and see him? She rose with alacrity. Anything was better than suspense.

  Mr. Gryce, who in the short interim of my absence had altered his mood from the severe to the beneficent, received Mrs. Belden with just that show of respectful courtesy likely to impress a woman as dependent as she upon the good opinion of others.

  “Ah! and this is the lady in whose house this very disagreeable event has occurred,” exclaimed he, partly rising in his enthusiasm to greet her. “May I request you to sit,” he asked, “if a stranger may be allowed to take the liberty of inviting a lady to sit in her own house?”

  “It does not seem like my own house any longer,” said she, but in a sad rather than an aggressive tone, so much had his genial way imposed upon her. “Little better than a prisoner here, I go and come, keep silence or speak, just as I am bidden, and all because an unhappy creature, whom I took in for the most unselfish of motives, has chanced to die in my house!”

  “Just so!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce, “it is very unjust. But perhaps we can right matters. I have every reason to believe we can. This sudden death ought to be easily explainable. You say you had no poison in the house?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And that the girl never went out?”

  “Never, sir”

  “And that no one has ever been here to see her?”

  “No one, sir.”

  “So that she could not have procured any such thing if she had wished?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Unless,” he added suavely, “she had it with her when she came here?”

  “That couldn’t have been, sir. She brought no baggage, and as for her pocket I know everything there was in it, for I looked.”

  “And what did you find there?”

  “Some money in bills, more than you would have expected such a girl to have, some loose pennies, and a common handkerchief.”

  “Well, then, it is proved the girl didn’t die of poison, there being none in the house.”

  He said this in so convinced a tone, she was deceived. “That is just what I have been telling Mr. Raymond,” giving me a triumphant look.

  “Must have been heart disease,” he went on. “You say she was well yesterday?”

  “Yes, sir, or seemed so.”

  “Though not cheerful?”

  “I did not say that; she was, sir, very.”

  “What, ma’am, this girl?” giving me a look. “I don’t understand that. I should think her anxiety about those she had left behind her in the city would have been enough to keep her from being very cheerful.”

&nbs
p; “So you would,” returned Mrs. Belden, “but it wasn’t so. On the contrary, she never seemed to worry about them at all.”

  “What!” cried he, “not about Miss Eleanore, who, according to the papers, stands in so cruel a position before the world? But perhaps she didn’t know anything about that—Miss Leavenworth’s position, I mean?”

  “Yes, she did, for I told her. I was so astonished I could not keep it to myself. You see, I had always considered Eleanore as one above reproach, and it shocked me so to see her name mentioned in the newspaper in such a connection, that I went to Hannah and read the article aloud and watched her face to see how she took it.”

  “And how did she?”

  “I can’t say. She looked as if she didn’t understand; asked me why I read such things to her, and told me she didn’t want to hear any more; that I had promised not to trouble her about this murder, and that if I continued to do so she wouldn’t listen.”

  “Humph! and what else?”

  “Nothing else. She put her hands over her ears and frowned in such a sullen way I left the room.”

  “That was when?”

  “About three weeks ago.”

  “She has, however, mentioned the subject since?”

  “No, sir, not once.”

  “What! not asked what they were going to do with her mistress?”

  “No, sir.”

  “She has shown, however, that something was preying on her mind—fear, remorse, or anxiety?”

  “No, sir, on the contrary, she has oftener appeared like one secretly elated.”

  “But,” exclaimed Mr. Gryce with another sidelong look at me, “that was very strange and unnatural; I cannot account for it.”

  “Nor I, sir. I used to try to explain it by thinking her sensibilities had been blunted, or that she was too ignorant to comprehend the seriousness of what had happened, but as I learned to know her better, I gradually changed my mind. There was too much method in her gaiety for that. I could not help seeing she had some future before her for which she was preparing herself. As, for instance, she asked me one day if I thought she could learn to play on the piano. And I finally came to the conclusion she had been promised money if she kept the secret entrusted to her, and was so pleased with the prospect that she forgot the dreadful past and all connected with it. At all events that was the only explanation I could find for her general industry and desire to improve herself, or for the complacent smiles I detected now and then stealing over her face when she didn’t know I was looking.”

  Not such a smile as crept over the countenance of Mr. Gryce at that moment, I warrant.

  “It was all this,” continued Mrs. Belden, “which made her death such a shock to me. I couldn’t believe that so cheerful and healthy a creature could die like that, all in one night without anybody knowing about it. But——”

  “Wait one moment,” Mr. Gryce here broke in. “You speak of her endeavors to improve herself. What do you mean by that?”

  “Her desire to learn things she didn’t know, as for instance to write and read writing. She could only clumsily print when she came here.”

  I thought Mr. Gryce would take out a piece of my arm, he gripped it so.

  “When she came here! Do you mean to say that since she has been with you she has learned to write?”

  “Yes, sir. I used to set her copies and——”

  “Where are these copies?” broke in Mr. Gryce, subduing his voice to its most professional tone. “And where are her attempts at writing? I’d like to see some of them. Can’t you get them for us?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I always made it a point to destroy them as soon as they had answered their purpose. I didn’t like to have such things about. But I will go and see.”

  “Do,” said he, “I will go with you. I want to take a look at things upstairs, anyway.” And heedless of his rheumatic feet, he rose and prepared to accompany her.

  “This is getting very intense,” I whispered as he passed.

  The smile he gave me in reply would have made the fortune of a Thespian Mephistopheles.

  Of the ten minutes of suspense which I endured in their absence, I say nothing. At the end of that time they returned with their hands full of paper boxes, which they flung down on the table.

  “The writing-paper of the household,” observed Mr. Gryce; “every scrap and half-sheet which could be found. But before you examine it, look at this.” And he held out a sheet of bluish foolscap on which were written some dozen imitations of that time-worn copy: “BE GOOD AND YOU WILL BE HAPPY”; with an occasional “Beauty soon fades,” and “Evil communications corrupt good manners.” “What do you think of that?”

  “Very neat and very legible.”

  “That is Hannah’s latest. The only specimens of her writing to be found. Not much like some scrawls we have seen, eh?”

  “No.”

  “Mrs. Belden says this girl has known how to write as good as this for more than a week. Took great pride in it, and was continually talking about how smart she was.” Leaning over he whispered in my ear: “This thing you have in your hand must have been scrawled some time ago, if she did it.” Then aloud: “But let us look at the paper she used to write on.”

  Dashing open the covers of the boxes on the table, he took out the loose sheets lying inside, and scattered them out before me. One glance showed they were all of an utterly different quality from that used in the confession. “This is all the paper in the house,” said he.

  “Are you sure of that?” I asked, looking at Mrs. Belden, who stood in a sort of maze before us. “Wasn’t there one stray sheet lying around somewhere, foolscap or something like that, which she might have got hold of and used without your knowing it?”

  “No, sir, I don’t think so. I had only these kinds; besides, Hannah had a whole pile of paper like this in her room, and wouldn’t have been apt to go hunting round after any stray sheets.”

  “But you don’t know what a girl like that might do. Look at this one,” said I, showing her the blank side of the confession. “Couldn’t a sheet like this have come from somewhere about the house? Examine it well, the matter is important.”

  “I have,” replied she, “and I say no, I never had a sheet of paper like that in my house.”

  Mr. Gryce advanced and took the confession from my hand. As he did so, he whispered: “What do you think now? Many chances that Hannah got up this precious document?”

  I shook my head, convinced at last, but in another moment turned to him and whispered back: “But if Hannah didn’t write it, who did? And how came it to be found where it was?”

  “That,” said he, “is just what is left for us to learn.” And beginning again, he put question after question concerning the girl’s life in the house, receiving answers which only tended to show that she could not have brought the confession with her, much less received it from a secret messenger. Unless we doubted Mrs. Belden’s word, the mystery seemed impenetrable, and I was beginning to despair of success, when Mr. Gryce, with an askance look at me, leaned toward Mrs. Belden and said:

  “You received a letter from Miss Mary Leavenworth yesterday, I hear.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “This letter?” continued he, showing it to her.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now I want to ask you a question. Was the letter, as you see it, the only contents of the envelope in which it came? Wasn’t there one for Hannah enclosed with it?”

  “No, sir,” replied she, but with strange eagerness. “There was nothing in my letter for her, but she had a letter herself yesterday. It came in the same mail with mine.”

  “Hannah had a letter!” exclaimed we both, “and in the mail?”

  “Yes, but it was not directed to her. It was”—casting me a look full of despair, “directed to me. It was only by a certain mark on the corner of the envelope that I knew——”

  “Good Heavens!” interrupted I, “where is this letter? Why didn’t you speak of it before? What
do you mean by allowing us to flounder about here in the dark, when a glimpse of this letter might have set us right at once?”

  “I didn’t think anything about it till this minute. I didn’t know it was of importance. I——”

  But I couldn’t restrain myself. “Mrs. Belden,” cried I, “where is this letter? Have you got it?”

  “No,” said she, “I gave it to the girl yesterday, I haven’t seen it since.”

  “It must be upstairs, then. Let us take another look,” and I hastened toward the door.

  “You won’t find it,” said Mr. Gryce at my elbow. “I have looked. There is nothing but a pile of burned paper in the corner. By the way, what could that have been?” asked he of Mrs. Belden.

  “I don’t know, sir. She hadn’t anything to burn unless it was the letter.”

  “We will see about that,” murmured I, hurrying upstairs and bringing down the washbowl with its contents. “If the letter was the one I saw in your hand at the post office it was in a yellow envelope.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yellow envelopes burn differently from white paper. I ought to be able to tell the tinder made by a yellow envelope when I see it. Ah, the letter has been destroyed, here is a piece of the envelope,” and I drew out of the heap of charred scraps a small bit less burnt than the rest and held it up.

  “Then there is no use looking here for what the letter contained,” said Mr. Gryce, putting the washbowl aside. “We will have to ask you, Mrs. Belden.”

  “But I don’t know. It was directed to me to be sure, but Hannah told me when she first requested me to teach her how to write, that she expected such a letter, so I didn’t open it when it came, but gave it to her just as it was.”

  “You, however, stayed by to see her read it?”

  “No, sir, I was in too much of a flurry. Mr. Raymond had just come and I had no time to think of her. My own letter, too, was troubling me.”

  “But you surely asked her some questions about it before the day was out?”

  “Yes, sir, when I went up with her tea-things, but she had nothing to say. Hannah could be as reticent as anyone I ever knew, when she pleased. She didn’t even admit it was from her mistress.”

  “Ah, then you thought it was from Miss Leavenworth?”