บทที่ บทที่ 26 · MR. GRYCE EXPLAINS HIMSELF

. MR. GRYCE EXPLAINS HIMSELF

“Sits the wind in that corner?”

Much Ado about Nothing.

I do not propose to enter into a description of the mingled

feelings aroused in me by this announcement. As a drowning man

is said to live over in one terrible instant the events of a

lifetime, so each word uttered in my hearing by Mary, from her

first introduction to me in her own room, on the morning of the

inquest, to our final conversation on the night of Mr. Clavering’s

call, swept in one wild phantasmagoria through my brain, leaving

me aghast at the signification which her whole conduct seemed to

acquire from the lurid light which now fell upon it.

“I perceive that I have pulled down an avalanche of doubts

about your ears,” exclaimed my companion from the height of his

calm superiority. “You never thought of this possibility, then,

yourself?”

“Do not ask me what I have thought. I only know I will never

believe your suspicions true. That, however much Mary may have been

benefited by her uncle’s death, she never had a hand in it; actual

hand, I mean.”

“And what makes you so sure of this?”

“And what makes you so sure of the contrary? It is for you to

prove, not for me to prove her innocence.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Gryce, in his slow, sarcastic way, “you recollect

that principle of law, do you? If I remember rightly, you have not

always been so punctilious in regarding it, or wishing to have

it regarded, when the question was whether Mr. Clavering was the

assassin or not.”

“But he is a man. It does not seem so dreadful to accuse a man of

a crime. But a woman! and such a woman! I cannot listen to it;

it is horrible. Nothing short of absolute confession on her part

will ever make me believe Mary Leavenworth, or any other woman,

committed this deed. It was too cruel, too deliberate, too----”

“Read the criminal records,” broke in Mr. Gryce.

But I was obstinate. “I do not care for the criminal records. All

the criminal records in the world would never make me believe

Eleanore perpetrated this crime, nor will I be less generous

towards her cousin. Mary Leavenworth is a faulty woman, but not a

guilty one.”

“You are more lenient in your judgment of her than her cousin was,

it appears.”

“I do not understand you,” I muttered, feeling a new and yet more

fearful light breaking upon me.

“What! have you forgotten, in the hurry of these late events, the

sentence of accusation which we overheard uttered between these

ladies on the morning of the inquest?”

“No, but----”

“You believed it to have been spoken by Mary to Eleanore?”

“Of course; didn’t you?”

Oh, the smile which crossed Mr. Gryce’s face! “Scarcely. I left

that baby-play for you. I thought one was enough to follow on that

tack.”

The light, the light that was breaking upon me! “And do you mean to

say it was Eleanore who was speaking at that time? That I have been

laboring all these weeks under a terrible mistake, and that you

could have righted me with a word, and did not?”

“Well, as to that, I had a purpose in letting you follow your own

lead for a while. In the first place, I was not sure myself which

spoke; though I had but little doubt about the matter. The voices

are, as you must have noticed, very much alike, while the attitudes

in which we found them upon entering were such as to be explainable

equally by the supposition that Mary was in the act of launching

a denunciation, or in that of repelling one. So that, while I did

not hesitate myself as to the true explanation of the scene before

me, I was pleased to find you accept a contrary one; as in this

way both theories had a chance of being tested; as was right in a

case of so much mystery. You accordingly took up the affair with

one idea for your starting-point, and I with another. You saw

every fact as it developed through the medium of Mary’s belief in

Eleanore’s guilt, and I through the opposite. And what has been the

result? With you, doubt, contradiction, constant unsettlement, and

unwarranted resorts to strange sources for reconcilement between

appearances and your own convictions; with me, growing assurance,

and a belief which each and every development so far has but served

to strengthen and make more probable.”

Again that wild panorama of events, looks, and words swept before

me. Mary’s reiterated assertions of her cousin’s innocence,

Eleanore’s attitude of lofty silence in regard to certain matters

which might be considered by her as pointing towards the murderer.

“Your theory must be the correct one,” I finally admitted; “it was

undoubtedly Eleanore who spoke. She believes in Mary’s guilt, and I

have been blind, indeed, not to have seen it from the first.”

“If Eleanore Leavenworth believes in her cousin’s criminality, she

must have some good reasons for doing so.”

I was obliged to admit that too. “She did not conceal in her bosom

that telltale key,--found who knows where?--and destroy, or seek

to destroy, it and the letter which introduced her cousin to the

public as the unprincipled destroyer of a trusting man’s peace, for

nothing.”

“No, no.”

“And yet you, a stranger, a young man who have never seen Mary

Leavenworth in any other light than that in which her coquettish

nature sought to display itself, presume to say she is innocent, in

the face of the attitude maintained from the first by her cousin!”

“But,” said I, in my great unwillingness to accept his conclusions,

“Eleanore Leavenworth is but mortal. She may have been mistaken

in her inferences. She has never stated what her suspicion was

founded upon; nor can we know what basis she has for maintaining

the attitude you speak of. Clavering is as likely as Mary to be the

assassin, for all we know, and possibly for all she knows.”

“You seem to be almost superstitious in your belief in Clavering’s

guilt.”

I recoiled. Was I? Could it be that Mr. Harwell’s fanciful

conviction in regard to this man had in any way influenced me to

the detriment of my better judgment?

“And you may be right,” Mr. Gryce went on. “I do not pretend to

be set in my notions. Future investigation may succeed in fixing

something upon him; though I hardly think it likely. His behavior

as the secret husband of a woman possessing motives for the

commission of a crime has been too consistent throughout.”

“All except his leaving her.”

“No exception at all; for he hasn’t left her.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that, instead of leaving the country, Mr. Clavering has

only made pretence of doing so. That, in place of dragging himself

off to Europe at her command, he has only changed his lodgings, and

can now be found, not only in a house opposite to hers, but in the

window of that house, where he sits day after day watching who goes

in and out of her front door.”

I remembered his parting injunction to me, in that memorable

interview we had in my office, and saw myself compelled to put a

new construction upon it.

“But I was assured at the Hoffman House that he had sailed for

Europe, and myself saw the man who professes to have driven him to

the steamer.”

“Just so.”

“And Mr. Clavering returned to the city after that?”

“In another carriage, and to another house.”

“And you tell me that man is all right?”

“No; I only say there isn’t the shadow of evidence against him as

the person who shot Mr. Leavenworth.”

Rising, I paced the floor, and for a few minutes silence fell

between us. But the clock, striking, recalled me to the necessity

of the hour, and, turning, I asked Mr. Gryce what he proposed to do

now.

“There is but one thing I can do,” said he.

“And that is?”

“To go upon such lights as I have, and cause the arrest of Miss

Leavenworth.”

I had by this time schooled myself to endurance, and was able to

hear this without uttering an exclamation. But I could not let it

pass without making one effort to combat his determination.

“But,” said I, “I do not see what evidence you have, positive

enough in its character, to warrant extreme measures. You have

yourself intimated that the existence of motive is not enough, even

though taken with the fact of the suspected party being in the

house at the time of the murder; and what more have you to urge

against Miss Leavenworth?”

“Pardon me. I said ‘Miss Leavenworth’; I should have said ‘Eleanore

Leavenworth.’”

“Eleanore? What! when you and all unite in thinking that she alone

of all these parties to the crime is utterly guiltless of wrong?”

“And yet who is the only one against whom positive testimony of any

kind can be brought.”

I could but acknowledge that.

“Mr. Raymond,” he remarked very gravely; “the public is becoming

clamorous; something must be done to satisfy it, if only for the

moment. Eleanore has laid herself open to the suspicion of the

police, and must take the consequences of her action. I am sorry;

she is a noble creature; I admire her; but justice is justice, and

though I think her innocent, I shall be forced to put her under

arrest unless----”

“But I cannot be reconciled to it. It is doing an irretrievable

injury to one whose only fault is an undue and mistaken devotion to

an unworthy cousin. If Mary is the----.”

“Unless something occurs between now and to-morrow morning,” Mr.

Gryce went on, as if I had not spoken.

“To-morrow morning?”

“Yes.”

I tried to realize it; tried to face the fact that all my efforts

had been for nothing, and failed.

“Will you not grant me one more day?” I asked in my desperation.

“What to do?”

Alas, I did not know. “To confront Mr. Clavering, and force from

him the truth.”

“To make a mess of the whole affair!” he growled. “No, sir; the die

is cast. Eleanore Leavenworth knows the one point which fixes this

crime upon her cousin, and she must tell us that point or suffer

the consequences of her refusal.”

I made one more effort.

“But why to-morrow? Having exhausted so much time already in our

inquiries, why not take a little more; especially as the trail is

constantly growing warmer? A little more moleing----”

“A little more folderol!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce, losing his temper.

“No, sir; the hour for moleing has passed; something decisive has

got to be done now; though, to be sure, if I could find the one

missing link I want----”

“Missing link? What is that?”

“The immediate motive of the tragedy; a bit of proof that Mr.

Leavenworth threatened his niece with his displeasure, or Mr.

Clavering with his revenge, would place me on the vantage-point

at once; no arresting of Eleanore then! No, my lady! I would walk

right into your own gilded parlors, and when you asked me if I had

found the murderer yet, say ‘yes,’ and show you a bit of paper

which would surprise you! But missing links are not so easily

found. This has been moled for, and moled for, as you are pleased

to call our system of investigation, and totally without result.

Nothing but the confession of some one of these several parties to

the crime will give us what we want. I will tell you what I will

do,” he suddenly cried. “Miss Leavenworth has desired me to report

to her; she is very anxious for the detection of the murderer,

you know, and offers an immense reward. Well, I will gratify this

desire of hers. The suspicions I have, together with my reasons for

them, will make an interesting disclosure. I should not greatly

wonder if they produced an equally interesting confession.”

I could only jump to my feet in my horror.

“At all events, I propose to try it. Eleanore is worth that much

risk any way.”

“It will do no good,” said I. “If Mary is guilty, she will never

confess it. If not----”

“She will tell us who is.”

“Not if it is Clavering, her husband.”

“Yes; even if it is Clavering, her husband. She has not the

devotion of Eleanore.”

That I could but acknowledge. She would hide no keys for the sake

of shielding another: no, if Mary were accused, she would speak.

The future opening before us looked sombre enough. And yet when,

in a short time from that, I found myself alone in a busy street,

the thought that Eleanore was free rose above all others, filling

and moving me till my walk home in the rain that day has become a

marked memory of my life. It was only with nightfall that I began

to realize the truly critical position in which Mary stood if Mr.

Gryce’s theory was correct. But, once seized with this thought,

nothing could drive it from my mind. Shrink as I would, it was

ever before me, haunting me with the direst forebodings. Nor,

though I retired early, could I succeed in getting either sleep or

rest. All night I tossed on my pillow, saying over to myself with

dreary iteration: “Something must happen, something will happen, to

prevent Mr. Gryce doing this dreadful thing.” Then I would start

up and ask what could happen; and my mind would run over various

contingencies, such as,--Mr. Clavering might confess; Hannah might

come back; Mary herself wake up to her position and speak the

word I had more than once seen trembling on her lips. But further

thought showed me how unlikely any of these things were to happen,

and it was with a brain utterly exhausted that I fell asleep in

the early dawn, to dream I saw Mary standing above Mr. Gryce with

a pistol in her hand. I was awakened from this pleasing vision by

a heavy knock at the door. Hastily rising, I asked who was there.

The answer came in the shape of an envelope thrust under the door.

Raising it, I found it to be a note. It was from Mr. Gryce, and ran

thus:

“Come at once; Hannah Chester is found.”

* * * * *

“Hannah found?”

“So we have reason to think.”

“When? where? by whom?”

“Sit down, and I will tell you.”

Drawing up a chair in a flurry of hope and fear, I sat down by Mr.

Gryce’s side.

“She is not in the cupboard,” that person dryly assured me, noting

without doubt how my eyes went travelling about the room in my

anxiety and impatience. “We are not absolutely sure that she is

anywhere. But word has come to us that a girl’s face believed to

be Hannah’s has been seen at the upper window of a certain house

in--don’t start--R----, where a year ago she was in the habit of

visiting while at the hotel with the Misses Leavenworth. Now, as it

has already been determined that she left New York the night of the

murder, by the ---- ----Railroad, though for what point we have

been unable to ascertain, we consider the matter worth inquiring

into.”

“But--”

“If she is there,” resumed Mr. Gryce, “she is secreted; kept very

close. No one except the informant has ever seen her, nor is there

any suspicion among the neighbors of her being in town.”

“Hannah secreted at a certain house in R----? Whose house?”

Mr. Gryce honored me with one of his grimmest smiles. “The name of

the lady she’s with is given in the communication as Belden; Mrs.