Leavenworth Case, The (32 page)

"How can I tell? I never gave her anything; didn't know she had anything."

Somehow, I believed her, and so felt unwilling to prolong the present interview, especially as each moment delayed the action which I felt it incumbent upon us to take. So, motioning Q to depart upon his errand, I took Mrs. Belden by the hand and endeavored to lead her from the room. But she resisted, sitting down by the side of the bed with the expression, "I will not leave her again; do not ask it; here is my place, and here I will stay," while Q, obdurate for the first time, stood staring severely upon us both, and would not move, though I urged him again to make haste, saying that the morning was slipping away, and that the telegram to Mr. Gryce ought to be sent.

"Till that woman leaves the room, I don't; and unless you promise to take my place in watching her, I don't quit the house."

Astonished, I left her side and crossed to him.

"You carry your suspicions too far," I whispered, "and I think you are too rude. We have seen nothing, I am sure, to warrant us in any such action; besides, she can do no harm here; though, as for watching her, I promise to do that much if it will relieve your mind."

"I don't want her watched here; take her below. I cannot leave while she remains."

"Are you not assuming a trifle the master?"

"Perhaps; I don't know. If I am, it is because I have something in my possession which excuses my conduct."

"What is that? the letter?"

"Yes."

Agitated now in my turn, I held out my hand. "Let me see," I said.

"Not while that woman remains in the room."

Seeing him implacable, I returned to Mrs. Belden.

"I must entreat you to come with me," said I. "This is not a common death; we shall be obliged to have the coroner here and others. You had better leave the room and go below."

"I don't mind the coroner; he is a neighbor of mine; his coming won't prevent my watching over the poor girl until he arrives."

"Mrs. Belden," I said, "your position as the only one conscious of the presence of this girl in your house makes it wiser for you not to invite suspicion by lingering any longer than is necessary in the room where her dead body lies."

"As if my neglect of her now were the best surety of my good intentions towards her in time past!"

"It will not be neglect for you to go below with me at my earnest request. You can do no good here by staying; will, in fact, be doing harm. So listen to me or I shall be obliged to leave you in charge of this man and go myself to inform the authorities."

This last argument seemed to affect her, for with one look of shuddering abhorrence at Q she rose, saying, "You have me in your power," and then, without another word, threw her handkerchief over the girl's face and left the room. In two minutes more I had the letter of which Q had spoken in my hands.

"It is the only one I could find, sir. It was in the pocket of the dress Mrs. Belden had on last night. The other must be lying around somewhere, but I haven't had time to find it. This will do, though, I think. You will not ask for the other."

Scarcely noticing at the time with what deep significance he spoke, I opened the letter. It was the smaller of the two I had seen her draw under her shawl the day before at the post-office, and read as follows:

"DEAR, DEAR FRIEND:

"I am in awful trouble. You who love me must know it. I cannot explain, I can only make one prayer. Destroy what you have, today, instantly, without question or hesitation. The consent of any one else has nothing to do with it. You must obey. I am lost if you refuse. Do then what I ask, and save

"ONE WHO LOVES YOU."

It was addressed to Mrs. Belden; there was no signature or date, only the postmark New York; but I knew the handwriting. It was Mary Leavenworth's.

"A damning letter!" came in the dry tones which Q seemed to think fit to adopt on this occasion. "And a damning bit of evidence against the one who wrote it, and the woman who received it!"

"A terrible piece of evidence, indeed," said I, "if I did not happen to know that this letter refers to the destruction of something radically different from what you suspect. It alludes to some papers in Mrs. Belden's charge; nothing else."

"Are you sure, sir?"

"Quite; but we will talk of this hereafter. It is time you sent your telegram, and went for the coroner."

"Very well, sir." And with this we parted; he to perform his role and I mine.

I found Mrs. Belden walking the floor below, bewailing her situation, and uttering wild sentences as to what the neighbors would say of her; what the minister would think; what Clara, whoever that was, would do, and how she wished she had died before ever she had meddled with the affair.

Succeeding in calming her after a while, I induced her to sit down and listen to what I had to say. "You will only injure yourself by this display of feeling," I remarked, "besides unfitting yourself for what you will presently be called upon to go through." And, laying myself out to comfort the unhappy woman, I first explained the necessities of the case, and next inquired if she had no friend upon whom she could call in this emergency.

To my great surprise she replied no; that while she had kind neighbors and good friends, there was no one upon whom she could call in a case like this, either for assistance or sympathy, and that, unless I would take pity on her, she would have to meet it alone—" As I have met everything," she said, "from Mr. Belden's death to the loss of most of my little savings in a town fire last year."

I was touched by this,—that she who, in spite of her weakness and inconsistencies of character, possessed at least the one virtue of sympathy with her kind, should feel any lack of friends. Unhesitatingly, I offered to do what I could for her, providing she would treat me with the perfect frankness which the case demanded. To my great relief, she expressed not only her willingness, but her strong desire, to tell all she knew. "I have had enough secrecy for my whole life," she said. And indeed I do believe she was so thoroughly frightened, that if a police-officer had come into the house and asked her to reveal secrets compromising the good name of her own son, she would have done so without cavil or question. "I feel as if I wanted to take my stand out on the common, and, in the face of the whole world, declare what I have done for Mary Leavenworth. But first," she whispered, "tell me, for God's sake, how those girls are situated. I have not dared to ask or write. The papers say a good deal about Eleanore, but nothing about Mary; and yet Mary writes of her own peril only, and of the danger she would be in if certain facts were known. What is the truth? I don't want to injure them, only to take care of myself."

"Mrs. Belden," I said, "Eleanore Leavenworth has got into her present difficulty by not telling all that was required of her. Mary Leavenworth—but I cannot speak of her till I know what you have to divulge. Her position, as well as that of her cousin, is too anomalous for either you or me to discuss. What we want to learn from you is, how you became connected with this affair, and what it was that Hannah knew which caused her to leave New York and take refuge here."

But Mrs. Belden, clasping and unclasping her hands, met my gaze with one full of the most apprehensive doubt. "You will never believe me," she cried; "but I don't know what Hannah knew. I am in utter ignorance of what she saw or heard on that fatal night; she never told, and I never asked. She merely said that Miss Leavenworth wished me to secrete her for a short time; and I, because I loved Mary Leavenworth and admired her beyond any one I ever saw, weakly consented, and—"

"Do you mean to say," I interrupted, "that after you knew of the murder, you, at the mere expression of Miss Leavenworth's wishes, continued to keep this girl concealed without asking her any questions or demanding any explanations?"

"Yes, sir; you will never believe me, but it is so. I thought that, since Mary had sent her here, she must have her reasons; and—and—I cannot explain it now; it all looks so differently; but I did do as I have said."

"But that was very strange conduct. You must have had strong reason for obeying Mary Leavenworth so blindly."

"Oh, sir," she gasped, "I thought I understood it all; that Mary, the bright young creature, who had stooped from her lofty position to make use of me and to love me, was in some way linked to the criminal, and that it would be better for me to remain in ignorance, do as I was bid, and trust all would come right. I did not reason about it; I only followed my impulse. I couldn't do otherwise; it isn't my nature. When I am requested to do anything for a person I love, I cannot refuse."

"And you love Mary Leavenworth; a woman whom you yourself seem to consider capable of a great crime?"

"Oh, I didn't say that; I don't know as I thought that. She might be in some way connected with it, without being the actual perpetrator. She could never be that; she is too dainty."

"Mrs. Belden," I said, "what do you know of Mary Leavenworth which makes even that supposition possible?"

The white face of the woman before me flushed. "I scarcely know what to reply," she cried. "It is a long story, and—"

"Never mind the long story," I interrupted. "Let me hear the one vital reason."

"Well," said she, "it is this; that Mary was in an emergency from which nothing but her uncle's death could release her."

"Ah, how's that?"

But here we were interrupted by the sound of steps on the porch, and, looking out, I saw Q entering the house alone. Leaving Mrs. Belden where she was, I stepped into the hall.

"Well," said I, "what is the matter? Haven't you found the coroner? Isn't he at home?"

"No, gone away; off in a buggy to look after a man that was found some ten miles from here, lying in a ditch beside a yoke of oxen." Then, as he saw my look of relief, for I was glad of this temporary delay, said, with an expressive wink: "It would take a fellow a long time to go to him—if he wasn't in a hurry—hours, I think."

"Indeed!" I returned, amused at his manner. "Rough road?"

"Very; no horse I could get could travel it faster than a walk."

"Well," said I, "so much the better for us. Mrs. Belden has a long story to tell, and—"

"Doesn't wish to be interrupted. I understand."

I nodded and he turned towards the door.

"Have you telegraphed Mr. Gryce?" I asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you think he will come?"

"Yes, sir; if he has to hobble on two sticks."

"At what time do you look for him?"

"You will look for him as early as three o'clock. I shall be among the mountains, ruefully eying my broken-down team." And leisurely donning his hat he strolled away down the street like one who has the whole day on his hands and does not know what to do with it.

An opportunity being thus given for Mrs. Belden's story, she at once composed herself to the task, with the following result.

"Cursed, destructive Avarice,

 
Thou everlasting foe to Love and Honor."

   
—Trap's Atram.

"Mischief never thrives

Without the help of Woman.

—The Same.

IT will be a year next July since I first saw Mary Leavenworth. J was living at that time a most monotonous existence. Loving what was beautiful, hating what was sordid, drawn by nature towards all that was romantic and uncommon, but doomed by my straitened position and the loneliness of my widowhood to spend my days in the weary round of plain sewing, I had begun to think that the shadow of a humdrum old age was settling down upon me, when one morning, in the full tide of my dissatisfaction, Mary Leavenworth stepped across the threshold of my door and, with one smile, changed the whole tenor of my life.

This may seem exaggeration to you, especially when I say that her errand was simply one of business, she having heard I was handy with my needle; but if you could have seen her as she appeared that day, marked the look with which she approached me, and the smile with which she left, you would pardon the folly of a romantic old woman, who beheld a fairy queen in this lovely young lady. The fact is, I was dazzled by her beauty and her charms. And when, a few days after, she came again, and crouching down on the stool at my feet, said she was so tired of the gossip and tumult down at the hotel, that it was a relief to run away and hide with some one who would let her act like the child she was, I experienced for the moment, I believe, the truest happiness of my life. Meeting her advances with all the warmth her manner invited, I found her ere long listening eagerly while I told her, almost without my own volition, the story of my past life, in the form of an amusing allegory.

The next day saw her in the same place; and the next; always with the eager, laughing eyes, and the fluttering, uneasy hands, that grasped everything they touched, and broke everything they grasped.

But the fourth day she was not there, nor the fifth, nor the sixth, and I was beginning to feel the old shadow settling back upon me, when one night, just as the dusk of twilight was merging into evening gloom, she came stealing in at the front door, and, creeping up to my side, put her hands over my eyes with such a low, ringing laugh, that I started.