The Leavenworth Case, Anna Katharine Green [chrysanthemum read aloud TXT] 📗
- Author: Anna Katharine Green
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“Oh, it was large, very large; one of the largest sort.”
“And thick?”
“O yes; thick enough for two letters.”
“Large enough and thick enough to contain this?” laying the confession, folded and enveloped as it was, before her.
“Yes, sir,” giving it a look of startled amazement, “large enough and thick enough to contain that.”
Mr. Gryce’s eyes, bright as diamonds, flashed around the room, and finally settled upon a fly traversing my coat-sleeve. “Do you need to ask now,” he whispered, in a low voice, “where, and from whom, this so-called confession comes?”
He allowed himself one moment of silent triumph, then rising, began folding the papers on the table and putting them in his pocket.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, hurriedly approaching.
He took me by the arm and led me across the hall into the sitting-room. “I am going back to New York, I am going to pursue this matter. I am going to find out from whom came the poison which killed this girl, and by whose hand this vile forgery of a confession was written.”
“But,” said I, rather thrown off my balance by all this, “Q and the coroner will be here presently, won’t you wait to see them?”
“No; clues such as are given here must be followed while the trail is hot; I can’t afford to wait.”
“If I am not mistaken, they have already come,” I remarked, as a tramping of feet without announced that some one stood at the door.
“That is so,” he assented, hastening to let them in.
Judging from common experience, we had every reason to fear that an immediate stop would be put to all proceedings on our part, as soon as the coroner was introduced upon the scene. But happily for us and the interest at stake, Dr. Fink, of R ——, proved to be a very sensible man. He had only to hear a true story of the affair to recognize at once its importance and the necessity of the most cautious action in the matter. Further, by a sort of sympathy with Mr. Gryce, all the more remarkable that he had never seen him before, he expressed himself as willing to enter into our plans, offering not only to allow us the temporary use of such papers as we desired, but even undertaking to conduct the necessary formalities of calling a jury and instituting an inquest in such a way as to give us time for the investigations we proposed to make.
The delay was therefore short. Mr. Gryce was enabled to take the 6:30 train for New York, and I to follow on the 10 p.m.,—the calling of a jury, ordering of an autopsy, and final adjournment of the inquiry till the following Tuesday, having all taken place in the interim.
XXXV. FINE WORK “No hinge nor loop To hang a doubt on!” “But yet the pity of it, Iago! Oh, Iago, the pity of it, Iago.” —Othello.
One sentence dropped by Mr. Gryce before leaving R—— prepared me for his next move.
“The clue to this murder is supplied by the paper on which the confession is written. Find from whose desk or portfolio this especial sheet was taken, and you find the double murderer,” he had said.
Consequently, I was not surprised when, upon visiting his house, early the next morning, I beheld him seated before a table on which lay a lady’s writing-desk and a pile of paper, till told the desk was Eleanore’s. Then I did show astonishment. “What,” said I, “are you not satisfied yet of her innocence?”
“O yes; but one must be thorough. No conclusion is valuable which is not preceded by a full and complete investigation. Why,” he cried, casting his eyes complacently towards the fire-tongs, “I have even been rummaging through Mr. Clavering’s effects, though the confession bears the proof upon its face that it could not have been written by him. It is not enough to look for evidence where you expect to find it. You must sometimes search for it where you don’t. Now,” said he, drawing the desk before him, “I don’t anticipate finding anything here of a criminating character; but it is among the possibilities that I may; and that is enough for a detective.”
“Did you see Miss Leavenworth this morning?” I asked, as he proceeded to fulfil his intention by emptying the contents of the desk upon the table.
“Yes; I was unable to procure what I desired without it. And she behaved very handsomely, gave me the desk with her own hands, and never raised an objection. To be sure, she had little idea what I was looking for; thought, perhaps, I wanted to make sure it did not contain the letter about which so much has been said. But it would have made but little difference if she had known the truth. This desk contains nothing we want.”
“Was she well; and had she heard of Hannah’s sudden death?” I asked, in my irrepressible anxiety.
“Yes, and feels it, as you might expect her to. But let us see what we have here,” said he, pushing aside the desk, and drawing towards him the stack of paper I have already referred to. “I found this pile, just as you see it, in a drawer of the library table at Miss Mary Leavenworth’s house in Fifth Avenue. If I am not mistaken, it will supply us with the clue we want.”
“But——”
“But this paper is square, while that of the confession is of the size and shape of commercial note? I know; but you remember the sheet used in the confession was trimmed down. Let us compare the quality.”
Taking the confession from his pocket and the sheet from the pile before him, he carefully compared them, then held them out for my inspection. A glance showed them to be alike in color.
“Hold them up to the light,” said he.
I did so; the appearance presented by both was precisely alike.
“Now let us compare the ruling.” And, laying them both down on the table, he placed the edges of the two sheets together. The lines on the one accommodated themselves to the lines on the other; and that question was decided.
His triumph was assured. “I was convinced of it,” said he. “From the moment I pulled open that drawer and saw this mass of paper, I knew the end was come.”
“But,” I objected, in my old spirit of combativeness, “isn’t there any room for doubt? This paper is of the commonest kind. Every family on the block might easily have specimens of it in their library.”
“That isn’t so,” he said. “It is letter size, and that has gone
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