The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green (best books to read all time TXT) 📕

“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 a little surprising to you 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 here 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 Mustache.”

“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 a 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 to-day, and find the matter no nearer settled than in the beginning.”

“You have had,” said he, “but I have not. 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 to 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,” he exclaimed, 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, 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 explained. 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.”

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

“What! 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.