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

out. Mr. Leavenworth used it for his manuscript, or I doubt if it would have been found in his library. But, if you are still incredulous, let us see what can be done,” and jumping up, he carried the confession to the window, looked at it this way and that, and, finally discovering what he wanted, came back and, laying it before me, pointed out one of the lines of ruling which was markedly heavier than the rest, and another which was so faint as to be almost undistinguishable. “Defects like these often run through a number of consecutive sheets,” said he. “If we could find the identical half-quire from which this was taken, I might show you proof that would dispel every doubt,” and taking up the one that lay on top, he rapidly counted the sheets. There were but eight. “It might have been taken from this one,” said he; but, upon looking closely at the ruling, he found it to be uniformly distinct. “Humph! that won’t do!” came from his lips.

The remainder of the paper, some dozen or so half-quires, looked undisturbed. Mr. Gryce tapped his fingers on the table and a frown crossed his face. “Such a pretty thing, if it could have been done!” he longingly exclaimed. Suddenly he took up the next half-quire. “Count the sheets,” said he, thrusting it towards me, and himself lifting another.

I did as I was bid. “Twelve.”

He counted his and laid it down. “Go on with the rest,” he cried.

I counted the sheets in the next; twelve. He counted those in the one following, and paused. “Eleven!”

“Count again,” I suggested.

He counted again, and quietly put them aside. “I made a mistake,” said he.

But he was not to be discouraged. Taking another half-quire, he went through with the same operation;—in vain. With a sigh of impatience he flung it down on the table and looked up. “Halloo!” he cried, “what is the matter?”

“There are but eleven sheets in this package,” I said, placing it in his hand.

The excitement he immediately evinced was contagious. Oppressed as I was, I could not resist his eagerness. “Oh, beautiful!” he exclaimed. “Oh, beautiful! See! the light on the inside, the heavy one on the outside, and both in positions precisely corresponding to those on this sheet of Hannah’s. What do you think now? Is any further proof necessary?”

“The veriest doubter must succumb before this,” returned I.

With something like a considerate regard for my emotion, he turned away. “I am obliged to congratulate myself, notwithstanding the gravity of the discovery that has been made,” said he. “It is so neat, so very neat, and so conclusive. I declare I am myself astonished at the perfection of the thing. But what a woman that is!” he suddenly cried, in a tone of the greatest admiration. “What an intellect she has! what shrewdness! what skill! I declare it is almost a pity to entrap a woman who has done as well as this—taken a sheet from the very bottom of the pile, trimmed it into another shape, and then, remembering the girl couldn’t write, put what she had to say into coarse, awkward printing, Hannah-like. Splendid! or would have been, if any other man than myself had had this thing in charge.” And, all animated and glowing with his enthusiasm, he eyed the chandelier above him as if it were the embodiment of his own sagacity.

Sunk in despair, I let him go on.

“Could she have done any better?” he now asked. “Watched, circumscribed as she was, could she have done any better? I hardly think so; the fact of Hannah’s having learned to write after she left here was fatal. No, she could not have provided against that contingency.”

“Mr. Gryce,” I here interposed, unable to endure this any longer; “did you have an interview with Miss Mary Leavenworth this morning?”

“No,” said he; “it was not in the line of my present purpose to do so. I doubt, indeed, if she knew I was in her house. A servant maid who has a grievance is a very valuable assistant to a detective. With Molly at my side, I didn’t need to pay my respects to the mistress.”

“Mr. Gryce,” I asked, after another moment of silent self-congratulation on his part, and of desperate self-control on mine, “what do you propose to do now? You have followed your clue to the end and are satisfied. Such knowledge as this is the precursor of action.”

“Humph! we will see,” he returned, going to his private desk and bringing out the box of papers which we had no opportunity of looking at while in R——. “First let us examine these documents, and see if they do not contain some hint which may be of service to us.” And taking out the dozen or so loose sheets which had been torn from Eleanore’s Diary, he began turning them over.

While he was doing this, I took occasion to examine the contents of the box. I found them to be precisely what Mrs. Belden had led me to expect,—a certificate of marriage between Mary and Mr. Clavering and a half-dozen or more letters. While glancing over the former, a short exclamation from Mr. Gryce startled me into looking up.

“What is it?” I cried.

He thrust into my hand the leaves of Eleanore’s Diary. “Read,” said he. “Most of it is a repetition of what you have already heard from Mrs. Belden, though given from a different standpoint; but there is one passage in it which, if I am not mistaken, opens up the way to an explanation of this murder such as we have not had yet. Begin at the beginning; you won’t find it dull.”

Dull! Eleanore’s feelings and thoughts during that anxious time, dull!

Mustering up my self-possession, I spread out the leaves in their order and commenced:

“R———, July 6,——”

“Two days after they got there, you perceive,” Mr. Gryce explained.

“—A gentleman was introduced to us to-day upon the piazza whom I cannot forbear mentioning; first, because he is the most perfect specimen of manly beauty I ever beheld, and secondly, because Mary, who is usually so voluble where gentlemen are concerned, had nothing to say when, in the privacy of our own apartment, I questioned her as to the effect his appearance and conversation had made upon her. The fact that he is an Englishman may have something to do with this; Uncle’s antipathy to every one of that nation being as well known to her as to me. But somehow I cannot feel satisfied of this. Her experience with Charlie Somerville has made me suspicious. What if the story of last summer were to be repeated here, with an Englishman for the hero! But I will not allow myself to contemplate such a possibility. Uncle will return in a few days, and then all communication with one who, however prepossessing, is of a family and race with whom it is impossible for us to unite ourselves, must of necessity cease. I doubt if I should have thought twice of all this if Mr. Clavering had not betrayed, upon his introduction to Mary, such intense and unrestrained admiration.

“July 8. The old story is to be repeated. Mary not only submits to the attentions of Mr. Clavering, but encourages them. To-day she sat two hours at the piano