Books: The Leavenworth Case
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Anna Katherine Green >> The Leavenworth Case
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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"
"A deed of dreadful note."
--Macbeth.
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.
"His death was too sudden to distort the features," he remarked,
turning the head to one side in a way to make visible a ghastly wound
in the back of the cranium. "Such a hole as that sends a man out of
the world without much notice. The surgeon will convince you it could
never have been inflicted by himself. It is a case of deliberate
murder."
Horrified, I drew hastily back, when my glance fell upon a door
situated directly opposite me in the side of the wall towards the hall.
It appeared to be the only outlet from the room, with the exception of
the passage through which we had entered, and I could not help
wondering if it was through this door the assassin had entered on his
roundabout course to the library. But Mr. Gryce, seemingly observant of
my glance, though his own was fixed upon the chandelier, made haste to
remark, as if in reply to the inquiry in my face:
"Found locked on the inside; may have come that way and may not;
we don't pretend to say."
Observing now that the bed was undisturbed in its arrangement, I
remarked, "He had not retired, then?"
"No; the tragedy must be ten hours old. Time for the murderer to
have studied the situation and provided for all contingencies."
"The murderer? Whom do you suspect?" I whispered.
He looked impassively at the ring on my finger.
"Every one and nobody. It is not for me to suspect, but to detect."
And dropping the curtain into its former position he led me from the
room.
The coroner's inquest being now in session, I felt a strong desire
to be present, so, requesting Mr. Gryce to inform the ladies that Mr.
Veeley was absent from town, and that I had come as his substitute, to
render them any assistance they might require on so melancholy an
occasion, I proceeded to the large parlor below, and took my seat among
the various persons there assembled.
II. THE CORONER'S INQUEST
"The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come."
--Troilus and Cressida.
FOR a few minutes I sat dazed by the sudden flood of light greeting
me from the many open windows; then, as the strongly contrasting
features of the scene before me began to impress themselves upon my
consciousness, I found myself experiencing something of the same
sensation of double personality which years before had followed an
enforced use of ether. As at that time, I appeared to be living two
lives at once: in two distinct places, with two separate sets of
incidents going on; so now I seemed to be divided between two
irreconcilable trains of thought; the gorgeous house, its elaborate
furnishing, the little glimpses of yesterday's life, as seen in the
open piano, with its sheet of music held in place by a lady's fan,
occupying my attention fully as much as the aspect of the throng of
incongruous and impatient people huddled about me.
Perhaps one reason of this lay in the extraordinary splendor of the
room I was in; the glow of satin, glitter of bronze, and glimmer of
marble meeting the eye at every turn. But I am rather inclined to think
it was mainly due to the force and eloquence of a certain picture which
confronted me from the opposite wall. A sweet picture--sweet enough and
poetic enough to have been conceived by the most idealistic of artists:
simple, too--the vision of a young flaxen-haired, blue-eyed coquette,
dressed in the costume of the First Empire, standing in a wood-path,
looking back over her shoulder at some one following--yet with such a
dash of something not altogether saint-like in the corners of her meek
eyes and baby-like lips, that it impressed me with the individuality of
life. Had it not been for the open dress, with its waist almost beneath
the armpits, the hair cut short on the forehead, and the perfection of
the neck and shoulders, I should have taken it for a literal portrait
of one of the ladies of the house. As it was, I could not rid myself of
the idea that one, if not both, of Mr. Leavenworth's nieces looked down
upon me from the eyes of this entrancing blonde with the beckoning
glance and forbidding hand. So vividly did this fancy impress me that I
half shuddered as I looked, wondering if this sweet creature did not
know what had occurred in this house since the happy yesterday; and if
so, how she could stand there smiling so invitingly,--when suddenly I
became aware that I had been watching the little crowd of men about me
with as complete an absorption as if nothing else in the room had
attracted my attention; that the face of the coroner, sternly
intelligent and attentive, was as distinctly imprinted upon my mind as
that of this lovely picture, or the clearer-cut and more noble features
of the sculptured Psyche, shining in mellow beauty from the
crimson-hung window at his right; yes, even that the various
countenances of the jurymen clustered before me, commonplace and
insignificant as most of them were; the trembling forms of the excited
servants crowded into a far corner; and the still more disagreeable
aspect of the pale-faced, seedy reporter, seated at a small table and
writing with a ghoul-like avidity that made my flesh creep, were each
and all as fixed an element in the remarkable scene before me as the
splendor of the surroundings which made their presence such a nightmare
of discord and unreality.
I have spoken of the coroner. As fortune would have it, he was no
stranger to me. I had not only seen him before, but had held frequent
conversation with him; in fact, knew him. His name was Hammond, and he
was universally regarded as a man of more than ordinary acuteness,
fully capable of conducting an important examination, with the
necessary skill and address. Interested as I was, or rather was likely
to be, in this particular inquiry, I could not but congratulate myself
upon our good fortune in having so intelligent a coroner.
As for his jurymen, they were, as I have intimated, very much like
all other bodies of a similar character. Picked up at random from the
streets, but from such streets as the Fifth and Sixth Avenues, they
presented much the same appearance of average intelligence and
refinement as might be seen in the chance occupants of one of our city
stages. Indeed, I marked but one amongst them all who seemed to take
any interest in the inquiry as an inquiry; all the rest appearing to be
actuated in the fulfilment of their duty by the commoner instincts of
pity and indignation.
Dr. Maynard, the well-known surgeon of Thirty-sixth Street, was the
first witness called. His testimony concerned the nature of the wound
found in the murdered man's head. As some of the facts presented by him
are likely to prove of importance to us in our narrative, I will
proceed to give a synopsis of what he said.
Prefacing his remarks with some account of himself, and the manner
in which he had been summoned to the house by one of the servants, he
went on to state that, upon his arrival, he found the deceased lying on
a bed in the second-story front room, with the blood clotted about a
pistol-wound in the back of the head; having evidently been carried
there from the adjoining apartment some hours after death. It was the
only wound discovered on the body, and having probed it, he had found
and extracted the bullet which he now handed to the jury. It was lying
in the brain, having entered at the base of the skull, passed obliquely
upward, and at once struck the _medulla oblongata,_ causing
instant death. The fact of the ball having entered the brain in this
peculiar manner he deemed worthy of note, since it would produce not
only instantaneous death, but an utterly motionless one. Further, from
the position of the bullet-hole and the direction taken by the bullet,
it was manifestly impossible that the shot should have been fired by
the man himself, even if the condition of the hair about the wound did
not completely demonstrate the fact that the shot was fired from a
point some three or four feet distant. Still further, considering the
angle at which the bullet had entered the skull, it was evident that
the deceased must not only have been seated at the time, a fact about
which there could be no dispute, but he must also have been engaged in
some occupation which drew his head forward. For, in order that a ball
should enter the head of a man sitting erect at the angle seen here, of
45 degrees, it would be necessary, not only for the pistol to be held
very low down, but in a peculiar position; while if the head had been
bent forward, as in the act of writing, a man holding a pistol naturally
with the elbow bent, might very easily fire a ball into the brain at the
angle observed.
Upon being questioned in regard to the bodily health of Mr.
Leavenworth, he replied that the deceased appeared to have been in good
condition at the time of his death, but that, not being his attendant
physician, he could not speak conclusively upon the subject without
further examination; and, to the remark of a juryman, observed that he
had not seen pistol or weapon lying upon the floor, or, indeed,
anywhere else in either of the above-mentioned rooms.
I might as well add here what he afterwards stated, that from the
position of the table, the chair, and the door behind it, the murderer,
in order to satisfy all the conditions imposed by the situation, must
have stood upon, or just within, the threshold of the passageway
leading into the room beyond. Also, that as the ball was small, and
from a rifled barrel, and thus especially liable to deflections while
passing through bones and integuments, it seemed to him evident that
the victim had made no effort to raise or turn his head when advanced
upon by his destroyer; the fearful conclusion being that the footstep
was an accustomed one, and the presence of its possessor in the room
either known or expected.
The physician's testimony being ended, the coroner picked up the
bullet which had been laid on the table before him, and for a moment
rolled it contemplatively between his fingers; then, drawing a pencil
from his pocket, hastily scrawled a line or two on a piece of paper
and, calling an officer to his side, delivered some command in a low
tone. The officer, taking up the slip, looked at it for an instant
knowingly, then catching up his hat left the room. Another moment, and
the front door closed on him, and a wild halloo from the crowd of
urchins without told of his appearance in the street. Sitting where I
did, I had a full view of the corner. Looking out, I saw the officer
stop there, hail a cab, hastily enter it, and disappear in the
direction of Broadway.
III. FACTS AND DEDUCTIONS
"Confusion now hath made his master-piece;
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stolen thence
The life of the building."
--Macbeth.
TURNING my attention back into the room where I was, I found the
coroner consulting a memorandum through a very impressive pair of gold
eye-glasses.
"Is the butler here?" he asked.
Immediately there was a stir among the group of servants in the
corner, and an intelligent-looking, though somewhat pompous, Irishman
stepped out from their midst and confronted the jury. "Ah," thought I
to myself, as my glance encountered his precise whiskers, steady eye,
and respectfully attentive, though by no means humble, expression,
"here is a model servant, who is likely to prove a model witness." And I
was not mistaken; Thomas, the butler, was in all respects one in a
thousand--and he knew it.
The coroner, upon whom, as upon all others in the room, he seemed to
have made the like favorable impression, proceeded without hesitation
to interrogate him.
"Your name, I am told, is Thomas Dougherty?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, Thomas, how long have you been employed in your present
situation?"
"It must be a matter of two years now, sir."
"You are the person who first discovered the body of Mr.
Leavenworth?"
"Yes, sir; I and Mr. Harwell."
"And who is Mr. Harwell?"
"Mr. Harwell is Mr. Leavenworth's private secretary, sir; the one
who did his writing."
"Very good. Now at what time of the day or night did you make this
discovery?"
"It was early, sir; early this morning, about eight."
"And where?"
"In the library, sir, off Mr. Leavenworth's bedroom. We had forced
our way in, feeling anxious about his not coming to breakfast."
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