The Leavenworth Case (17 page)

“Explain yourself!” she cried.

“Miss Leavenworth, do you not remember what you said in that room up-stairs, when you were alone with your cousin on the morning of the inquest, just before Mr. Gryce and myself entered your presence?”

Her eyes did not fall, but they filled with sudden terror.

“You heard?” she whispered.

“I could not help it. I was just outside the door, and—”

“What did you hear?”

I told her.

“And Mr. Gryce?”

“He was at my side.”

It seemed as if her eyes would devour my face. “Yet nothing was said when you came in?”

“No.”

“You, however, have never forgotten it?”

“How could we, Miss Leavenworth?”

Her head fell forward in her hands, and for one wild moment she seemed lost in despair. Then she roused, and desperately exclaimed:

“And that is why you come here to-night. With that sentence written upon your heart, you invade my presence, torture me with questions—”

“Pardon me,” I broke in; “are my questions such as you, with reasonable regard for the honor of one with whom you are accustomed to associate, should hesitate to answer? Do I derogate from my manhood in asking you how and why you came to make an accusation of so grave a nature, at a time when all the circumstances of the case were freshly before you, only to insist fully as strongly upon your cousin’s innocence when you found there was even more cause for your imputation than you had supposed?”

She did not seem to hear me. “Oh, my cruel fate!” she murmured. “Oh, my cruel fate!”

“Miss Leavenworth,” said I, rising, and taking my stand before her; “although there is a temporary estrangement between you and your cousin, you cannot wish to seem her enemy. Speak, then; let me at least know the name of him for whom she thus immolates herself. A hint from you—”

But rising, with a strange look, to her feet, she interrupted me with a stern remark: “If you do not know, I cannot inform you; do not ask me, Mr. Raymond.” And she glanced at the clock for the second time.

I took another turn.

“Miss Leavenworth, you once asked me if a person who had committed a wrong ought necessarily to confess it; and I replied no, unless by the confession reparation could be made. Do you remember?”

Her lips moved, but no words issued from them.

“I begin to think,” I solemnly proceeded, following the lead of her emotion, “that confession is the only way out of this difficulty: that only by the words you can utter Eleanore can be saved from the doom that awaits her. Will you not then show yourself a true woman by responding to my earnest entreaties?”

I seemed to have touched the right chord; for she trembled, and a look of wistfulness filled her eyes. “Oh, if I could!” she murmured.

“And why can you not? You will never be happy till you do. Eleanore persists in silence; but that is no reason why you should emulate her example. You only make her position more doubtful by it.”

“I know it; but I cannot help myself. Fate has too strong a hold upon me; I cannot break away.”

“That is not true. Any one can escape from bonds imaginary as yours.”

“No, no,” she protested; “you do not understand.”

“I understand this: that the path of rectitude is a straight one, and that he who steps into devious byways is going astray.”

A nicker of light, pathetic beyond description, flashed for a moment across her face; her throat rose as with one wild sob; her lips opened; she seemed yielding, when— A sharp ring at the front door-bell!

“Oh,” she cried, sharply turning, “tell him I cannot see him; tell him—”

“Miss Leavenworth,” said I, taking her by both hands, “never mind the door; never mind anything but this. I have asked you a question which involves the mystery of this whole affair; answer me, then, for your soul’s sake; tell me, what the unhappy circumstances were which could induce you—”

But she tore her hands from mine. “The door!” she cried; “it will open, and—”

Stepping into the hall, I met Thomas coming up the basement stairs. “Go back,” said I; “I will call you when you are wanted.”

With a bow he disappeared.

“You expect me to answer,” she exclaimed, when I re-entered, “now, in a moment? I cannot.”

“But—”

“Impossible!” fastening her gaze upon the front door.

“Miss Leavenworth!”

She shuddered.

“I fear the time will never come, if you do not speak now.”

“Impossible,” she reiterated.

Another twang at the bell.

“You hear!” said she.

I went into the hall and called Thomas. “You may open the door now,” said I, and moved to return to her side.

But, with a gesture of command, she pointed up-stairs. “Leave me!” and her glance passed on to Thomas, who stopped where he was.

“I will see you again before I go,” said I, and hastened up-stairs.

Thomas opened the door. “Is Miss Leavenworth in?” I heard a rich, tremulous voice inquire.

“Yes, sir,” came in the butler’s most respectful and measured accents, and, leaning over the banisters I beheld, to my amazement, the form of Mr. Clavering enter the front hall and move towards the reception room.

XVIII. ON THE STAIRS

“You cannot say I did it.”

—Macbeth.

EXCITED, TREMULOUS, FILLED WITH
wonder at this unlooked-for event, I paused for a moment to collect my scattered senses, when the sound of a low, monotonous voice breaking upon my ear from the direction of the library, I approached and found Mr. Harwell reading aloud from his late employer’s manuscript. It would be difficult for me to describe the effect which this simple discovery made upon me at this time. There, in that room of late death, withdrawn from the turmoil of the world, a hermit in his skeleton-lined cell, this man employed himself in reading and rereading, with passive interest, the words of the dead, while above and below, human beings agonized in doubt and shame. Listening, I heard these words:

“By these means their native rulers will not only lose their jealous terror of our institutions, but acquire an actual curiosity in regard to them.”

Opening the door I went in.

“Ah! you are late, sir,” was the greeting with which he rose and brought forward a chair.

My reply was probably inaudible, for he added, as he passed to his own seat:

“I am afraid you are not well.”

I roused myself.

“I am not ill.” And, pulling the papers towards me, I began looking them over. But the words danced before my eyes, and I was obliged to give up all attempt at work for that night.

“
I
fear I am unable to assist you this evening, Mr. Harwell. The fact is, I find it difficult to give proper attention to this business while the man who by a dastardly assassination has made it necessary goes unpunished.”

The secretary in his turn pushed the papers aside, as if moved by a sudden distaste of them, but gave me no answer.

“You told me, when you first came to me with news of this fearful tragedy, that it was a mystery; but it is one which must be solved, Mr. Harwell; it is wearing out the lives of too many whom we love and respect.”

The secretary gave me a look. “Miss Eleanore?” he murmured.

“And Miss Mary,” I went on; “myself, you, and many others.”

“You have manifested much interest in the matter from the beginning,” he said, methodically dipping his pen into the ink.

I stared at him in amazement.

“And you,” said I; “do you take no interest in that which involves not only the safety, but the happiness and honor, of the family in which you have dwelt so long?”

He looked at me with increased coldness. “I have no wish to discuss this subject. I believe I have before prayed you to spare me its introduction.” And he arose.

“But I cannot consider your wishes in this regard,” I persisted. “If you know any facts, connected with this affair, which have not yet been made public, it is manifestly your duty to state them. The position which Miss Eleanore occupies at this time is one which should arouse the sense of justice in every true breast; and if you—”

“If I knew anything which would serve to release her from her unhappy position, Mr. Raymond, I should have spoken long ago.”

I bit my lip, weary of these continual bafflings, and rose also.

“If you have nothing more to say,” he went on, “and feel utterly disinclined to work, why, I should be glad to excuse myself, as I have an engagement out.”

“Do not let me keep you,” I said, bitterly. “I can take care of myself.”

He turned upon me with a short stare, as if this display of feeling was well nigh incomprehensible to him; and then, with a quiet, almost compassionate bow left the room. I heard him go up-stairs, felt the jar when his room door closed, and sat down to enjoy my solitude. But solitude in that room was unbearable. By the time Mr. Harwell again descended, I felt I could remain no longer, and, stepping into the hall, told him that if he had no objection I would accompany him for a short stroll.

He bowed a stiff assent, and hastened before me down the stairs. By the time I had closed the library door, he was half-way to the foot, and I was just remarking to myself upon the unpliability of his figure and the awkwardness of his carriage, as seen from my present standpoint, when suddenly I saw him stop, clutch the banister at his side, and hang there with a startled, deathly expression upon his half-turned countenance, which fixed me for an instant where I was in breathless astonishment, and then caused me to rush down to his side, catch him by the arm, and cry:

“What is it? what is the matter?”

But, thrusting out his hand, he pushed me upwards. “Go back!” he whispered, in a voice shaking with intensest emotion, “go back.” And catching me by the arm, he literally pulled me up the stairs. Arrived at the top, he loosened his grasp, and leaning, quivering from head to foot, over the banisters, glared below.

“Who is that?” he cried. “Who is that man? What is his name?”

Startled in my turn, I bent beside him, and saw Henry Clavering come out of the reception room and cross the hall.

“That is Mr. Clavering,” I whispered, with all the self-possession I could muster; “do you know him?”

Mr. Harwell fell back against the opposite wall. “Clavering, Clavering,” he murmured with quaking lips; then, suddenly bounding forward, clutched the railing before him, and fixing me with his eyes, from which all the stoic calmness had gone down forever in flame and frenzy, gurgled into my ear: “You want to know who the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth is, do you? Look there, then: that is the man, Clavering!” And with a leap, he bounded from my side, and, swaying like a drunken man, disappeared from my gaze in the hall above.

My first impulse was to follow him. Rushing up-stairs, I knocked at the door of his room, but no response came to my summons. I then called his name in the hall, but without avail; he was determined not to show himself. Resolved that he should not thus escape me, I returned to the library, and wrote him a short note, in which I asked for an explanation of his tremendous accusation, saying I would be in my rooms the next evening at six, when I should expect to see him. This done I descended to rejoin Mary.

But the evening was destined to be full of disappointments. She had retired to her room while I was in the library, and I lost the interview from which I expected so much. “The woman is slippery as an eel,” I inwardly commented, pacing the hall in my chagrin. “Wrapped in mystery, she expects me to feel for her the respect due to one of frank and open nature.”

I was about to leave the house, when I saw Thomas descending the stairs with a letter in his hand.

“Miss Leavenworth’s compliments, sir, and she is too fatigued to remain below this evening.”

I moved aside to read the note he handed me, feeling a little conscience-stricken as I traced the hurried, trembling handwriting through the following words:

“You ask more than I can give. Matters must be received as they are without explanation from me. It is the grief of my life to deny you; but I have no choice. God forgive us all and keep us from despair. “M.”

And below:

“As we cannot meet now without embarrassment, it is better we should bear our burdens in silence and apart. Mr. Harwell will visit you. Farewell!”

As I was crossing Thirty-second Street, I heard a quick footstep behind me, and turning, saw Thomas at my side. “Excuse me, sir,” said he, “but I have something a little particular to say to you. When you asked me the other night what sort of a person the gentleman was who called on Miss Eleanore the evening of the murder, I didn’t answer you as I should. The fact is, the detectives had been talking to me about that very thing, and I felt shy; but, sir, I know you are a friend of the family, and I want to tell you now that that same gentleman, whoever he was,—Mr. Robbins, he called himself then,—was at the house again tonight, sir, and the name he gave me this time to carry to Miss Leavenworth was Clavering. Yes, sir,” he went on, seeing me start; “and, as I told Molly, he acts queer for a stranger. When he came the other night, he hesitated a long time before asking for Miss Eleanore, and when I wanted his name, took out a card and wrote on it the one I told you of, sir, with a look on his face a little peculiar for a caller; besides—”

“Well?”

“Mr. Raymond,” the butler went on, in a low, excited voice, edging up very closely to me in the darkness. “There is something I have never told any living being but Molly, sir, which may be of use to those as wishes to find out who committed this murder.”

“A fact or a suspicion?” I inquired.

“A fact, sir; which I beg your pardon for troubling you with at this time; but Molly will give me no rest unless I speak of it to you or Mr. Gryce; her feelings being so worked up on Hannah’s account, whom we all know is innocent, though folks do dare to say as how she must be guilty just because she is not to be found the minute they want her.”

“But this fact?” I urged.

“Well, the fact is this. You see—I would tell Mr. Gryce,” he resumed, unconscious of my anxiety, “but I have my fears of detectives, sir; they catch you up so quick at times, and seem to think you know so much more than you really do.”