The Leavenworth Case (Penguin Classics)

by Anna Katharine Green

  CHAPTER 5

  A Full Confession

  Between the acting of a dreadful thing,

  And the first motion, all the interim is

  Like a phantasma or a hideous dream;

  The genius and the mortal instruments,

  Are then in council; and the state of a man

  Like to a little Kingdom, suffers then

  The nature of an insurrection.

  —JULIUS CӔSAR.

  I am not a bad man; I am only an intense one. Ambition, love, jealousy, hatred, revenge—transitory emotions with some, are terrific passions with me. To be sure they are quiet and concealed ones, coiled serpents that make no stir till aroused, but then deadly in their spring and relentless in their action. Those who have known me best, have not known this. My own mother was ignorant of it. Often and often have I heard her say: “If Trueman only had more sensibility! If Trueman were not so indifferent to everything! In short, if Trueman had more power in him!”

  It was the same at school. No one understood me. They thought me meek; called me Dough-face. For three years they called me this, then I turned upon them. Choosing out their ringleader, I felled him to the ground, laid him on his back and stamped upon him. He was handsome before my foot came down; afterward—well, it is enough he never called me Dough-face again. In the store I entered soon after, I met with even less appreciation. Regular at my work and exact in my performance of it, they thought me a good machine and nothing more. What heart, soul, and feeling could a man have who never sported, never smoked, and never laughed? I could reckon up figures correctly, but one scarcely needed heart or soul for that. I could even write day by day and month by month without showing a flaw in my copy, but that only argued I was no more than they intimated, a regular automaton. I let them think so, with the certainty before me that they would one day change their minds as others had done. The fact was, I loved nobody well enough, not even myself, to care for any man’s opinion. Life was well-nigh a blank for me; a dead level plain that had to be traversed whether I would or not. And such it might have continued to this day if I had never met Mary Leavenworth. But when, some nine months since, I left my desk in the counting-house for a seat in Mr. Leavenworth’s library, a blazing torch fell into my soul whose flame has never gone out and never will till the doom before me is accomplished.

  She was so beautiful! When on that first evening I followed my new employer into the parlor, and saw this woman standing up before me in her half-alluring, half-appalling charm, I knew as by a lightning flash what my future would be if I remained in that house. She was in one of her haughty moods and bestowed upon me little more than a passing glance. But her indifference made slight impression upon me then. It was enough that I was allowed to stand in her presence and look unrebuked upon her loveliness. To be sure it was like gazing into the flower-wreathed crater of an awakening volcano. Fear and fascination were in each moment I lingered there; but fear and fascination made the moment what it was, and I could not have withdrawn if I would.

  And so it was always. Unspeakable pain as well as pleasure was in the emotion with which I regarded her. Yet for all that I did not cease to study her hour by hour and day by day; her smiles, her movement, her way of turning her head or lifting her eyelids. I had a purpose in this; I wished to knit her beauty so firmly into the warp and woof of my being that nothing should ever serve to tear it away. For I saw then as plainly as now, that coquette though she was, she would never stoop to me. No; I might lie down at her feet and let her trample over me, she would not even turn to see what it was she had stepped upon. I might spend days, months, years, learning the alphabet of her wishes, she would not thank me for my pains or even raise the lashes from her cheek to look at me as I passed. I was nothing to her, could not be anything unless—and this thought came slowly—I could in some way become her master.

  Meantime I wrote at Mr. Leavenworth’s dictation and pleased him. My methodical ways were just to his taste. As for the other member of the family, Miss Eleanore Leavenworth—she treated me just as one of her proud but sympathetic nature might be expected to do. Not familiarly, but kindly; not as a friend, but as a member of the household whom she met every day at table, and who, as she or anyone else could see, was none too happy or hopeful.

  Six months went by; I had learned two things; firstly, that Mary Leavenworth loved her position as prospective heiress to a large fortune above every other earthly consideration; and, secondly, that she was in the possession of a secret which endangered that position. What this was, I had for some time no means of knowing. But when later I became convinced it was one of love, I grew hopeful, strange as it may seem. For by this time I had learned Mr. Leavenworth’s disposition almost as perfectly as that of his niece, and knew that in a matter of this kind he would be uncompromising; and that in the clashing of these two wills something might occur which would give me a hold upon her. The only thing that troubled me was the fact that I did not know the name of the man in whom she was interested. But chance soon favored me here. One day—a month ago now, I sat down to open Mr. Leavenworth’s mail as usual. One letter—shall I ever forget it?—ran thus:

  HOFFMAN HOUSE,

  March 1st, 1876.

  MR. HORATIO LEAVENWORTH:

  Dear Sir,

  You have a niece whom you love and trust, one too who seems worthy of all the love and trust that you or any other man can give her; so beautiful, so charming, so tender is she in face, form, manner, and conversation. But, dear sir, every rose has its thorn and your rose is no exception to this rule. Lovely as she is, charming as she is, tender as she is, she is not only capable of trampling on the rights of one who trusted her, but of bruising the heart and breaking the spirit of him to whom she owes all duty, honor, and observance.

  If you don’t believe this, ask her to her cruel, bewitching face, who and what is her humble servant and yours,

  HENRY RITCHIE CLAVERING.

  If a bombshell had exploded at my feet, or the evil one himself appeared at my call, I should not have been more astounded. Not only was the name signed to these remarkable words unknown to me, but the epistle itself was that of one who felt himself to be her master, a position which, as you know, I was myself aspiring to occupy. For a few minutes, then, I stood a prey to feelings of the bitterest wrath and despair; then I grew calm, realizing that with this letter in my possession, I was virtually the arbitrator of her destiny. Some men would have sought her there and then, and by threatening to place it in her uncle’s hand, won from her a look of entreaty if no more; but I—well, my plans went deeper than that. I knew that she must be in extremity before I could hope to win her. She must feel herself slipping over the edge of the precipice, before she would clutch at the first thing offering succour. I decided to allow the letter to pass into my employer’s hands. But it had been opened! How could I manage to give it to him in this condition without exciting his suspicion? I knew of but one way; to let him see me open it for what he would consider the first time. So waiting till he came into the room, I approached him with the letter, tearing off the end of the envelope as I came. Opening it, I gave a cursory glance at its contents and tossed it down on the table before him.

  “That appears to be of a private character,” said I, “though there is no sign to that effect on the envelope.”

  He took it up while I stood there. At the first word he started, looked at me, seemed satisfied from my expression that I had not read far enough to realize its nature, and whirling slowly around in his chair, devoured the remainder in silence. I waited a moment, then withdrew to my own desk. One minute, two minutes passed in silence; he was evidently re-reading the letter, then he hurriedly rose and left the room. As he passed me I caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. The expression I saw there did not tend to lessen the hope that was rising in my breast.

  By following him almost immediately upstairs I ascertained that he went direct to Mary’s room, and when in a few hours later the family collected around
the dinner table, I perceived, almost without looking up, that a great and insurmountable barrier had been raised between him and his favorite niece.

  Two days passed; days that were for me one long and unrelieved suspense. Had Mr. Leavenworth answered that letter? Would it all end as it had begun without the appearance of the mysterious Clavering on the scene? I could not tell.

  Meanwhile my monotonous work went on, grinding my heart beneath its relentless wheel. I wrote and wrote and wrote till it seemed as if my life-blood went from me with every drop of ink I used. Always alert and listening, I dared not lift my head or turn my eyes at any unusual sound lest I should seem to be watching. The third night I had a dream; I have already told Mr. Raymond what it was and hence will not repeat it here. One correction, however, I wish to make in regard to it. In my statement to him I declared that the face of the man whom I saw lift his hand against my employer was that of Mr. Clavering. I lied when I said this. The face seen by me in my dream was my own. It was that fact which made it so horrible to me. In the crouching figure stealing warily downstairs, I saw as in a glass the vision of my own form. Otherwise my account of the matter was true.

  This vision had a tremendous effect upon me. Was it a premonition—a forewarning of the way in which I was to win this coveted creature for my own? Was the death of her uncle the bridge that was to span the impassable gulf between us? I began to think it might be; to consider the possibilities which could make this the only path to my elysium; even went so far as to picture her lovely face bending gratefully toward me through the glare of a sudden release from some emergency in which she stood. One thing was sure; If that was the way I must go, I had at least been taught how to tread it; and all through the dizzy, blurred day that followed, I saw as I sat at my work, repeated visions of that stealthy, purposeful figure stealing down the stairs and entering with uplifted pistol into the unconscious presence of my employer. I even found myself a dozen times that day turning my eyes upon the door through which it was to come, wondering how long it would be before my actual form would pause there. That the moment was at hand I did not imagine. Even when I left him that night after drinking with him the glass of sherry mentioned at the inquest, I had no idea the hour of action was so near. But when, not three minutes after going upstairs, I caught the sound of a lady’s dress rustling through the hall and, listening, heard Mary Leavenworth pass my door on her way to the library, I realized that the fatal hour was come; that something was going to be said or done in that room which would make this deed necessary. What? I determined to ascertain. Casting about in my mind for the means of doing so, I remembered that the ventilator running up through the house opened first into the passage-way connecting Mr. Leavenworth’s bedroom and library, and, secondly, into the closet of the large spare room adjoining mine. Hastily unlocking the door of communication between the rooms, I took my position in the closet. Instantly the sound of voices reached my ears; all was open below and, standing there, I was as much an auditor of what went on between Mary and her uncle as if I were in the library itself. And what did I hear? Enough to assure me my suspicions were correct; that it was a moment of vital interest to her; that Mr. Leavenworth, in pursuance of a threat evidently made some time since, was in the act of taking steps to change his will, and that she had come to make an appeal to be forgiven her fault and restored to his favor. What that fault was, I did not learn. No mention was made of Mr. Clavering as her husband. I only heard her declare that her action had been the result of impulse rather than love, that she regretted it and desired nothing more than to be free from all obligations to one she would fain forget, and be again to her uncle what she was before she ever saw this man. I thought, fool that I was, it was a mere engagement she was alluding to, and took the insanest hope from these words, and when in a moment later I heard her uncle reply in his sternest tone, that she had irreparably forfeited her claims to his regard and favor, I did not need her short and bitter cry of shame and disappointment, or that low moan for someone to help her, to sound his death-knell in my heart. Creeping back to my own room, I waited till I heard her re-ascend, then I stole forth. Calm as I had ever been in my life, I went down the stairs just as I had seen myself do in my dream, and knocking lightly at the library door, went in. Mr. Leavenworth was sitting in his usual place writing.

  “Excuse me,” said I, as he looked up, “I have lost my memorandum book and think it possible I may have dropped it in the passage-way when I went for the wine.” He bowed and I hurried past him into the closet. Once there, I proceeded rapidly into the room beyond, procured the pistol, returned, and almost before I realized what I was doing, had taken up my position behind him, aimed and fired. The result was what you know. Without a groan his head fell forward on his hands, and Mary Leavenworth was the virtual possessor of the thousands she coveted.

  My first thought was to procure the letter he was writing. Approaching the table, I tore it out from under his hands, looked at it, saw that it was, as I expected, a summons to his lawyer, and thrust it into my pocket together with the letter from Mr. Clavering which I perceived lying spattered with blood on the table before me. Not till this was done did I think of myself or remember the echo which that low, sharp report must have made in the house. Dropping the pistol at the side of the murdered man, I stood ready to shriek to anyone who entered, that Mr. Leavenworth had killed himself. But I was saved from committing such a folly. The report had not been heard, or if so, had evidently failed to create an alarm. No one came, and I was left to contemplate my work undisturbed, and decide upon the best course to be taken to avoid detection. A moment’s study of the wound made in his head by the bullet convinced me of the impossibility of passing the affair off as a suicide, or even the work of a burglar. To anyone versed in such matters it was manifestly a murder, and a most deliberate one. My one hope, then, lay in making it as mysterious as it was deliberate, by destroying all clue to the motive and manner of the deed. Picking up the pistol, I carried it into the other room with the intention of cleaning it, but finding nothing there to do it with came back for the handkerchief which I remembered having seen lying on the floor at Mr. Leavenworth’s feet. It was Miss Eleanore’s; but I did not know it till I had used it to clean the barrel; then the sight of her initials in one corner so shocked me I forgot to clean the cylinder, and only thought of how I could do away with this evidence of her handkerchief having been employed for a purpose so suspicious. Not daring to carry it from the room, I sought for means to destroy it, but finding none, compromised the matter by thrusting it deep down behind the cushion of one of the chairs in the hope of being able to recover it some time next day, when an opportunity would be given to burn it. This done, I reloaded the pistol, locked it up and prepared to leave the room. But here the horror which usually follows such deeds struck me like a thunderbolt, and made me for the first time uncertain in my action. I locked the door on going out, something I should never have done if I had been in the full possession of my faculties. Not till I reached the top of the stairs did I realize what I had done, and then it was too late, for there before me, candle in hand, and surprise written on every feature of her face, stood Hannah, one of the servants, looking at me.

  “Lor, sir,” she cried, but strange to say, in a low tone, “where have you been? You look as if you had seen a ghost.” And her eyes turned suspiciously to the key which I held in my hand.

  I felt as if someone had clutched me round the throat. Thrusting the key into my pocket, I took a step toward her. “I will tell you what I have seen if you will come downstairs,” I whispered; “the ladies will be disturbed if we talk here.” And smoothing my brow as best I could, I put out my hand and drew her toward me. What my motive was I hardly knew; the action was probably instinctive, but when I saw the look which came into her face as I touched her, and the alacrity with which she prepared to follow me, I took courage, remembering the one or two previous tokens I had had of this girl’s unreasonable susceptibility to my influence; a susceptib
ility which I now felt could be utilized and made to serve my purpose.

  Taking her down to the parlor floor, I drew her into the depths of the great drawing room and there told her in the least alarming way possible what had happened to Mr. Leavenworth. She was, of course, intensely agitated, but she did not scream—the novelty of her position evidently aweing her as much as it bewildered—and greatly relieved I went on to say that I did not know who committed the deed but that folks would declare it was I if they knew I had been seen by her on the stairs with the library key in my hand. “But I won’t tell,” she whispered, trembling violently in her fright and eagerness. “I will keep it to myself. I will say I didn’t see anybody.” But I soon convinced her that she could never keep her secret if the police once began to question her, and following up my argument with a little cajolery, succeeded after a long while in winning her consent to leave the house till the storm should be blown over. But that given, it was some little time before I could make her comprehend that she must depart at once and without going back after her things. Not till I brightened up her wits by a promise to marry her some day, if she only obeyed me now, did she begin to look the thing in the face and show any evidence of the real mother-wit she evidently possessed. “Mrs. Belden would take me in,” said she, “if I could only get to R——. She takes everybody in who asks her; and she would keep me, too, if I told her Miss Mary sent me. But I can’t get there tonight.”