The Leavenworth Case

Titel: The Leavenworth Case

von Augustus J. Thebaud, Charles Kingsley, Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin, Joseph Butler, John D. Barry, William Allan Neilson, Henry Rider Haggard, Rudolf Erich Raspe, Paul Heyse, Carl Russell Fish, Tom Taylor, Margaret Pedler, Homer, John Kendrick Bangs, John Burroughs, Juanita Helm Floyd, Maurice Liber, Anthony Trollope, William Morris, Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner, Thomas Hobbes, Winfried Honig, Albrecht Dürer, Militia of Mercy . Gift Book Committee, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Andrew Lang, Katharine Pyle, Sir Samuel White Baker, Frederic William Moorman, the Younger Pliny, Samuel Butler, William Dean Howells, Harold MacGrath, Joseph Crosby Lincoln, Ralph Connor, Various, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Abraham Lincoln, John Galsworthy, Ian Maclaren, Charlotte Mary Yonge, Sir Owen Morgan Edwards, Robert J. C. Stead, Harold Bell Wright, Eleanor H. Porter, Richard Le Gallienne, Ann Ward Radcliffe, Mark Rutherford, John Bunyan, Artemus Ward, John Hanning Speke, James Fenimore Cooper, Edmund Burke, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Francis Bacon, Gisela Engel, Edward Samuel Corwin, Washington Irving, Rafael Sabatini, Emma Lazarus, Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine, Christian Friedrich Hebbel, Adam Smith, Upton Sinclair, Michael Earls, John Hargrave, Charles Hose, William McDougall, Albert Ernest Jenks, marquis de Jean-François-Albert du Pouget Nadaillac, Robert Sewell, 16th cent. Fernão Nunes, 16th cent. Domingos Paes, Inez Haynes Gillmore, Charles Warren Stoddard, Will Irwin, Vivia Hemphill, J. Hampton Moore, Philip Gibbs, Sir Richard Steele, Joseph Addison, L. Mühlbach, Leroy Scott, Mrs. Henry Wood, Ottilie A. Liljencrantz, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Bulfinch, Bernard Shaw, Confucius, Samuel Pepys, Luís Vaz de Camões, Walter Bigges, Theodore Roosevelt, Émile Gaboriau, fl. 1580. Edward Hayes, Eugène Sue, Earl of Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Robert Smythe Hichens, Bliss Perry, Isabella L. Bird, Stewart Edward White, Roald Amundsen, Viscount James Bryce Bryce, Francis Hopkinson Smith, Annie Hamilton Donnell, Mary Wollstonecraft, Jean-Henri Fabre, Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke, Marietta Holley, W. E. Gladstone, Ellis Parker Butler, Booth Tarkington, G. A. Henty, E. L. Voynich, Anonymous, Francis Leggett, Charles Alfred Tyrrell, Josef Cohen, Jules Verne, Zane Grey, Mary Baker Eddy, Albert Bigelow Paine, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Ouida, Joseph Furphy, Harry Leon Wilson, Sir Hugh Walpole, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fay Inchfawn, E. Pauline Johnson, Abraham Merritt, James Sheridan Knowles, Herbert George Jenkins, Richard Hakluyt, Georges Victor Legros, J. M. Barrie, Dana Gatlin, Padraic Colum, Lucy Fitch Perkins, Heinrich Heine, Louisa May Alcott, John Ceiriog Hughes, Henry Van Dyke, Laurence Housman, Ludwig van Beethoven, Stephen Leacock, Watkin Tench, E. Nesbit, Edward William Bok, graf Leo Tolstoy, Giacomo Casanova, Oliver Goldsmith, Raffaello Carboni, Orville O. Hiestand, Abraham Cowley, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Louis Constant Wairy, Michel de Montaigne, Edward Salisbury Field, Guy de Maupassant, Doris Stevens, Hamilton Brock Fuller, Anna Chapin Ray, Wilkie Collins, Robert Tressell, Victoria Cross, William Guthrie, Alexandre Dumas père, Mary Jane Holmes, Charles Darwin, J. Hartley Manners, Sir James George Frazer, Sir Adolphus William Ward, James Hamilton, Theodore Dreiser, Kathleen Thompson Norris, William Henry Knight, Arnold Bennett, Cosmo Hamilton, Voltaire, Molière, Winston Churchill, Alexander Mackenzie, Joseph A. Altsheler, Maria Edgeworth, Florence L. Barclay, Mary E. Bamford, Frank Harris, Harold Bindloss, Alfred Henry Lewis, Charles Reade, United States. Central Intelligence Agency, Charles Ives, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Marion Polk Angellotti, Steele Rudd, Louis Stone, J. C. F. Johnson, Pierre Loti, Henry Martyn Cist, Howard Pyle, Saki, Franz Liszt, H. G. Wells, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ben Jonson, William Cowper, Lord Dufferin, Dion Boucicault, Ethel C. Pedley, Robert Alexander Wason, Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton, O. Henry, Rufus Phillips Williams, Friedrich Heinrich Karl Freiherr de La Motte-Fouqué, Ambrose Bierce, Francis Parkman, Gene Stratton-Porter, Addison B. Poland, John H. Haaren, Giovanni Boccaccio, Henry Handel Richardson, Oliver T. Osborne, Victor [pseud.] Appleton, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, Thomas Paine, Maria Thompson Daviess, Gilbert Parker, Lodovico Ariosto, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ethel Dench Puffer Howes, Walter De la Mare, P. G. Wodehouse, Van Tassel Sutphen, Esaias Tegnér, Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin Disraeli, H. E. Marshall, Edna St. Vincent Millay, James Smith, Horace Smith, Henry Edward Krehbiel, Sir Charles Lyell, John S. C. Abbott, Georgina Pell Curtis, Logan Marshall, G. P. R. James, Bram Stoker, John Buchan, Maksim Gorky, Mabel Thorne, Paul Thorne, Henry Kingsley, Mrs. Inchbald, J. Cuthbert Hadden, James Lane Allen, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, L. M. Montgomery, R. H. Gronow, of Youghal the younger Joseph Fisher, Benedictus de Spinoza, Henry Seton Merriman, J. H. Patterson, Clinton W. Gilbert, Evelyn Blantyre Simpson, F. Marion Crawford, Louis Becke, K. Langloh Parker, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Frederick Lawton, Marie Corelli, Frederick Jackson Turner, Lord Frederick Spencer Hamilton, William John Locke, James Elroy Flecker, Richard Wagner, Johann David Wyss, King of France consort of Henry IV Queen Marguerite, Jean François Paul de Gondi de Retz, marquise de Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart Montespan, duchesse d' Charlotte-Elisabeth Orleans, duc de Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon, princesse de Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan Lamballe, Mme. Du Hausset, Jeanne Louise Henriette Campan, Lewis Goldsmith, Georges Ohnet, Anatole France, Gustave Droz, Jules Claretie, marquis de Philippe Massa, André Theuriet, Alfred de Musset, Octave Feuillet, Alfred de Vigny, Ludovic Halévy, François Coppée, Paul Bourget, Th. Bentzon, René Bazin, Alphonse Daudet, Charles de Bernard, Hector Malot, Émile Souvestre, Rosa Nouchette Carey, Walter Savage Landor, Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore, Sir Walter Scott, Maurice Leblanc, Eugene O'Neill, Yei Theodora Ozaki, Dillon Wallace, Eliza Lee Cabot Follen, Benvenuto Cellini, Unknown, Ignatius Donnelly, George Moore, Walter Pater, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Herman Melville, Algernon Blackwood, Anna Katharine Green

ISBN 978-3-7429-3905-0

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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"

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.