Know first that on the morning of the inquest I made one or two discoveries not to be found in the records, viz.: that the handkerchief picked up, as I have said, in Mr. Leavenworth’s library, had notwithstanding its stains of pistol grease, a decided perfume lingering about it.
Going to the dressing-table of the two ladies, I sought for that perfume, and found it in Mary’s room, not Eleanore’s.
This led me to examine the pockets of the dresses respectively worn by them the evening before.
In that of Eleanore I found a handkerchief, presumably the one she had carried at that time.
But in Mary’s there was none, nor did I see any lying about her room as if tossed down on her retiring.
The conclusion I drew from this was, that she, and not Eleanore, had carried the handkerchief into her uncle’s room, a conclusion emphasized by the fact privately communicated to me by one of the servants, that Mary was in Eleanore’s room when the basket of clean clothes was brought up with this handkerchief lying on top.
“But knowing the liability we are to mistake in such matters as these, I made another search in the library, and came across a very curious thing.
Lying on the table was a penknife, and scattered on the floor beneath, in close proximity to the chair, were two or three minute portions of wood freshly chipped off from the leg of the table; all of which looked as if some one of a nervous disposition had been sitting there, whose hand in a moment of self-forgetfulness had caught up the knife and unconsciously whittled the table, A little thing, you say; but when the question is, which of two ladies, one of a calm and self-possessed nature, the other restless in her ways and excitable in her disposition, was in a certain spot at a certain time, it is these little things that become almost deadly in their significance.
No one who has been with these two women an hour can hesitate as to whose delicate hand made that cut in Mr. Leavenworth’s library table.
“But we are not done.
I distinctly overheard Eleanore accuse her cousin of this deed.
Now such a woman as Eleanore Leavenworth has proved herself to be never would accuse a relative of crime without the strongest and most substantial reasons.
First, she must have been sure her cousin stood in a position of such emergency that nothing but the death of her uncle could release her from it; secondly, that her cousin’s character was of such a nature she would not hesitate to relieve herself from a desperate emergency by the most desperate of means; and lastly, been in possession of some circumstantial evidence against her cousin, seriously corroborative of her suspicions.
Smith, all this was true of Eleanore Leavenworth.
As to the character of her cousin, she has had ample proof of her ambition, love of money, caprice and deceit, it having been Mary Leavenworth, and not Eleanore, as was first supposed, who had contracted the secret marriage already spoken of.
Of the critical position in which she stood, let the threat once made by Mr. Leavenworth to substitute her cousin’s name for hers in his will in case she had married this X be remembered, as well as the tenacity with which Mary clung to her hopes of future fortune; while for the corroborative testimony of her guilt which Eleanore is supposed to have had, remember that previous to the key having been found in Eleanore’s possession, she had spent some time in her cousin’s room; and that it was at Mary’s fireplace the half-burned fragments of that letter were found,—and you have the outline of a report which in an hour’s time from this will lead to the arrest of Mary Leavenworth as the assassin of her uncle and benefactor.”
A silence ensued which, like the darkness of Egypt, could be felt; then a great and terrible cry rang through the room, and a man’s form, rushing from I knew not where, shot by me and fell at Mr. Gryce’s feet shrieking out:
“It is a lie! a lie!
Mary Leavenworth is innocent as a babe unborn.
I am the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth.
I!
I!
I!”
It was Trueman Harwell.
XXXVII. CULMINATION
“Saint seducing gold.”
—Romeo and Juliet.
“When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.”
—Macbeth.
I NEVER SAW SUCH a look of mortal triumph on the face of a man as that which crossed the countenance of the detective.
“Well,” said he, “this is unexpected, but not wholly unwelcome.
I am truly glad to learn that Miss Leavenworth is innocent; but I must hear some few more particulars before I shall be satisfied.
Get up, Mr. Harwell, and explain yourself.
If you are the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth, how comes it that things look so black against everybody but yourself?”
But in the hot, feverish eyes which sought him from the writhing form at his feet, there was mad anxiety and pain, but little explanation.
Seeing him making unavailing efforts to speak, I drew near.
“Lean on me,” said I, lifting him to his feet.
His face, relieved forever from its mask of repression, turned towards me with the look of a despairing spirit.
“Save! save!” he gasped.
“Save her—Mary—they are sending a report—stop it!”
“Yes,” broke in another voice. “If there is a man here who believes in God and prizes woman’s honor, let him stop the issue of that report.”
And Henry Clavering, dignified as ever, but in a state of extreme agitation, stepped into our midst through an open door at our right.
But at the sight of his face, the man in our arms quivered, shrieked, and gave one bound that would have overturned Mr. Clavering, herculean of frame as he was, had not Mr. Gryce interposed.
“Wait!” he cried; and holding back the secretary with one hand—where was his rheumatism now!—he put the other in his pocket and drew thence a document which he held up before Mr. Clavering. “It has not gone yet,” said he; “be easy.
And you,” he went on, turning towards Trueman Harwell, “be quiet, or—”
His sentence was cut short by the man springing from his grasp.
“Let me go!” he shrieked. “Let me have my revenge on him who, in face of all I have done for Mary Leavenworth, dares to call her his wife!
Let me—” But at this point he paused, his quivering frame stiffening into stone, and his clutching hands, outstretched for his rival’s throat, falling heavily back.
“Hark!” said he, glaring over Mr. Clavering’s shoulder: “it is she!
I hear her!