THE LEAVENWORTH CASE: A LAWYER'S STORY
by Anna Katharine Green
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—"
[1]
"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.
[2]
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
[3]
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,
[4]
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;
[5]
"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
[6]
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
[7]
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
[8]
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."
[9]
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.
[10]
The Leavenworth Case
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