The Leavenworth Case quotes

“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.

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.”

“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.”

“

Everyone and nobody. It is not for me to suspect, but to detect.

” And dropping the curtain into its former position he led me from the room.

“

It is the business of a witness to answer questions, not to put them.

”

“

My son, remember that a woman with a secret may be a fascinating study, but she can never be a safe, nor even satisfactory, companion.

”

“Come, come,” he exclaimed; “

I see you don’t begin to know what kind of a world you are living in.

Rouse yourself; remember they are waiting down below.”

“

I did not consult my knowledge, sir, in regard to the subject: only my feelings.

”

“

You have drawn the inference, and you must prove the fact.

”

Her lip took a still more determined curve. “

When any suspicious paper is found in my possession, it will be time enough then for me to explain how I came by it.

”

Raymond. We lived the most methodical and domestic of lives. I cannot understand, for my part, why so much should be made out of this. My uncle undoubtedly came to his death by the hand of some intended burglar.

That nothing was stolen from the house is no proof that a burglar never entered it.

As for the doors and windows being locked, will you take the word of an Irish servant as infallible upon such an important point? I cannot.

“You look surprised,” said Mr. Gryce, glancing curiously towards the key. “Now, I ain’t.

A woman does not thrill, blush, equivocate, and faint for nothing; especially such a woman as Miss Leavenworth.

”

I returned it. “

If she declares herself innocent, I will believe her.

”

4, 5.

An innocent man or woman, under the influence of terror, will often equivocate in regard to matters that seem to criminate them.

But the key! What could I say to that? Nothing. With that key in her possession, and unexplained, Eleanore Leavenworth stood in an attitude of suspicion which even I felt forced to recognize.

And yet, after it was all done, I found myself repeating aloud as I gazed at it: “If she declares herself innocent, I will believe her.”

So completely are we the creatures of our own predilections.

I would not consider such a possibility; so laying down the paper, I endeavored to put away all further consideration of the affair till I had acquired more facts upon which to base the theory.

But who can control his thoughts when overexcited upon any one theme?

All the morning I found myself turning the case over in my mind, arriving ever at one of two conclusions. Hannah Chester must be found, or Eleanore Leavenworth must explain when and by what means the key of the library door came into her possession.

She turned upon me all fire. “

The friends you speak of are flatterers. You alone have the courage to command me to do what is right.

”

“Don’t,” she whispered, looking in terror about her. “Don’t!

Sometimes I think the walls have ears, and that the very shadows listen.

”

Would not the body of the outraged dead burst its very shroud and repel me?”

I could not answer; in the presence of some scenes the tongue forgets its functions.

“Oh!” she went on, “if there is a God in heaven who loves justice and hates a crime, let Him hear me now. If I, by thought or action, with or without intention, have been the means of bringing this dear head to this pass;

“Now let the struggle come!” she whispered. “

There is one who will believe in me, however dark appearances may be.

”

“

There is something better than sympathy, and that is justice

”; and turned, as if to go. “I will confer with you in the reception room, Mr. Raymond.”

“

The same roof can never shelter us both after this. Tomorrow, you or I find another home.

” And, blushing and panting, she stepped into the hall and advanced to where I stood. But at the first sight of my face, a change came over her;

“Ah; now you ask too much!

The finger of suspicion never forgets the way it has once pointed,

” she sadly answered. “My name is tainted forever.”

But I would not listen. “

Guilt has no right to profit by the generosity of the guiltless.

The hand that struck this blow shall not be accountable for the loss of a noble woman’s honor and happiness as well. I shall do what I can, Miss Leavenworth.”

James Harwell, swayed by passion for a woman beautiful as Eleanore Leavenworth, was another; and in placing him upon the list of those parties open to suspicion I felt I was only doing what was warranted by a proper consideration of probabilities.

But, between casual suspicion and actual proof, what a gulf!

To believe James Harwell capable of guilt, and to find evidence enough to accuse him of it, were two very different things. I felt myself instinctively shrink from the task, before I had fully made up my mind to attempt it;

some relenting thought of his unhappy position, if innocent, forcing itself upon me, and making my very distrust of him seem personally ungenerous if not absolutely unjust.

If I had liked the man better, I should not have been so ready to look upon him with doubt.

But Eleanore must be saved at all hazards. Once delivered up to the blight of suspicion, who could tell what the result might be;

“What! memoranda?” he exclaimed. “

Unsafe, very; never put your plans on paper.

”

For instance, now, you imagine I can insinuate myself into all sorts of society, perhaps; but you are mistaken. Strange as it may appear, I have never by any possibility of means succeeded with one class of persons at all.

I cannot pass myself off for a gentleman. Tailors and barbers are no good; I am always found out.

”

And he plunged his two hands into his hair, and looked dolefully at the head of the cane I carried in my hand. “But it is much the same with the whole of us.

When we are in want of a gentleman to work for us, we have to go outside of our profession.

”

“There is not much to understand. Mr. Henry Clavering, a gentleman and a man of the world, resides at the Hoffman House.

He is a stranger in town, without being strange; drives, walks, smokes, but never visits; looks at the ladies, but is never seen to bow to one.

In short, a person whom it is desirable to know; but whom, being a proud man, with something of the old-world prejudice against Yankee freedom and forwardness, I could no more approach in the way of acquaintance than I could the Emperor of Austria.”

“Mr. Gryce,” I hastily interrupted; “

I can never consent to plot for any man’s friendship for the sake of betraying him to the police.

”

“

The evil one himself is in this business! If the earth had opened and swallowed up this girl, she couldn’t have more effectually disappeared.

”

“I have innumerable agents at work, to say nothing of the general public; and yet not so much as a whisper has come to me in regard to her whereabouts or situation.

I am only afraid we shall find her floating in the river some fine morning, without a confession in her pocket.

”

“

An agent of mine who is a living interrogation point; so we call him Q, which is short for query.

” Then, as I turned again to go: “When the contents of the will are made known, come to me.”

But, with a quick gesture, she ejaculated: “Impossible! they cannot prove a blessing.” Then, as if startled at her own words, bit her lip and hastily added: “

Very great wealth is never a blessing.

“And now,” said she, with a total change of manner, “I wish to address you on a subject which may strike you as ill-timed, but which, nevertheless, I must mention, if the purpose I have at heart is ever to be accomplished.

“

In other words, you are to play the hound, and I the mole; just so, I know what belongs to a gentleman.

”

This continual beating against a stone wall, for thus I regarded it, became at last almost unendurable. Clavering shy, and the secretary unapproachable—how was I to gain anything? The short interviews I had with Mary did not help matters.

Haughty, constrained, feverish, pettish, grateful, appealing, everything at once, and never twice the same, I learned to dread, even while I coveted, an interview.

She appeared to be passing through some crisis which occasioned her the keenest suffering. I have seen her, when she thought herself alone, throw up her hands with the gesture which we use to ward off a coming evil or shut out some hideous vision.

The subject of the murder had not even been broached; nor was Hannah spoken of, though I observed the papers were not allowed to languish an instant upon the stoop; mistress and servants betraying equal interest in their contents. All this was strange to me.

It was as if you saw a group of human beings eating, drinking, and sleeping upon the sides of a volcano hot with a late eruption and trembling with the birth of a new one.

I longed to break this silence as we shiver glass: by shouting the name of Eleanore through those gilded rooms and satin-draped vestibules. But this Monday evening I was in a calmer mood.

All this was strange to me. It was as if you saw a group of human beings eating, drinking, and sleeping upon the sides of a volcano hot with a late eruption and trembling with the birth of a new one.

I longed to break this silence as we shiver glass: by shouting the name of Eleanore through those gilded rooms and satin-draped vestibules.

But this Monday evening I was in a calmer mood. I was determined to expect nothing from my visits to Mary Leavenworth’s house;

“I know it; but I cannot help myself.

Fate has too strong a hold upon me; I cannot break away.

”

“

I understand this: that the path of rectitude is a straight one, and that he who steps into devious byways is going astray.

”

It is enough that the man and woman say to each other, ‘From this time we are married,’ or, ‘You are now my wife,’ or, ‘my husband,’ as the case may be. The mutual consent is all that is necessary.

In fact, you may contract marriage as you contract to lend a sum of money, or to buy the merest trifle.

”

“And what makes you think I don’t? Oh, the fact that I let him go off so easily? That’s no proof.

I never fiddle with the brakes till the car starts downhill.

But let that pass for the present; Mr. Clavering, then, did not explain himself before going?”

He smiled indulgently at a very old and faded picture hanging on the wall before him. “

Eagerness is not a fault; only the betrayal of it.

But read out what you have there. Let us hear what my friend Brown has to tell us of Mr. Henry Ritchie Clavering, of Portland Place, London.”

“

Grievances are apt to lie back of mysterious crimes.

”

and, secondly, for the reason that these scraps were twisted as if they had been used for curl papers, or something of that kind; a fact hard to explain by your hypothesis.”

The detective’s eye stole in the direction of my necktie, which was as near as he ever came to a face.

“You are a bright one,” said he; “a very bright one. I quite admire you, Mr. Raymond.”

as she was not only in humble circumstances, but was encumbered with a child concerning whose parentage the neighbors professed ignorance, and she had nothing to say.

But, as is very apt to be the case in an affair like this, love and admiration soon got the better of worldly wisdom.

Taking his future in his hands, he offered himself as her husband, when she immediately proved herself worthy of his regard by entering at once into those explanations he was too much of a gentleman to demand.

“I do not wish anybody to be distressed,” she returned. “It is best for me to be where I am. Nor am I altogether alone.

There is a child there whose innocent eyes see nothing but innocence in mine.

She will keep me from despair. Do not let my friends be anxious; I can bear it.” Then, in a lower tone: “There is but one thing which really unnerves me; and that is my ignorance of what is going on at home.

She will keep me from despair. Do not let my friends be anxious; I can bear it.” Then, in a lower tone: “There is but one thing which really unnerves me; and that is my ignorance of what is going on at home.

Sorrow I can bear, but suspense is killing me.

Will you not tell me something of Mary and home? I cannot ask Mrs. Veeley; she is kind, but has no real knowledge of Mary or me, nor does she know anything of our estrangement.

But at the threshold I paused again, and looked back.

Oh, the flickering, dying fire flame! Oh, the crowding, clustering shadows!

Oh, that drooping figure in their midst, with its clasped hands and its hidden face! I see it all again; I see it as in a dream;

He gave another short, quick nod. “Glad, sir, to please you.

Punctuality is too cheap a virtue not to be practised by a man on the lookout for a rise.

But what orders, sir? Down train due in ten minutes; no time to spare.”

“

Motives for murders are sometimes weak.

”

“

One should never deliberate upon the causes which have led to the destruction of a rich man without taking into account that most common passion of the human race.

”

“It does not alter the truth.”

Mr. Gryce’s very legs grew thoughtful; his voice sank to its deepest tone.

“Do you very much want to know?”

but the tragedy itself was not. Why should Eleanore or Eleanore’s husband wish the death of a man whose bounty they believed would end with his life? But with Mary, the heiress, proved the wife!—I tell you, Mr. Raymond, it all hangs together now.

You must never, in reckoning up an affair of murder like this, forget who it is that most profits by the deceased man’s death.

”

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 cannot turn them away. It is the only luxury I have: to feed the poor.

”

“We don’t know what she saw, nor what Mrs. Belden saw.

Women are a mystery; and though I flatter myself that ordinarily I am a match for the keenest bit of female flesh that ever walked, I must say that in this case I feel myself thoroughly and shamefully worsted.

”

But she only shook her fairy head, and replied: “No, no; that would be spoiling the romance, indeed.

I have come upon you like a sprite, and like a sprite I will go.

” And, flashing like the moonbeam she was, she glided out into the night, and floated away down the street.

She gave me one quick look, and then dropped her eyes. I feared I had offended her, and was feeling very humble, when she suddenly replied, in an even but low tone, “

I said I should never marry, because the one man who pleases me can never be my husband.

”

“You don’t understand,” she said; “Mr. Clavering is not poor; but uncle is rich. I shall be a queen—” There she paused, trembling, and falling on my breast. “Oh, it sounds mercenary, I know, but it is the fault of my bringing up.

I have been taught to worship money. I would be utterly lost without it.

And yet”—her whole face softening with the light of another emotion, “I cannot say to Henry Clavering, ‘Go! my prospects are dearer to me than you!’ I cannot, oh, I cannot!”

“Certainly not.

I don’t believe in unnecessary communications.

”

“Oh, Mary,” she sobbed, her haughtiness all disappearing in a gush of wild entreaty, “consider what you are doing! Think, before it is too late, of the consequences which must follow such an act as this.

Marriage founded upon deception can never lead to happiness.

Love—but it is not that. Love would have led you either to have dismissed Mr. Clavering at once, or to have openly accepted the fate which a union with him would bring. Only passion stoops to subterfuge like this.

that she could not help herself, that Mary would gang her ain gait, and everyone around must accommodate themselves to it.”

It was like a draught of icy air suddenly poured into a room heated up to fever point.

Eleanore stiffened immediately, and drawing back, pale and composed, turned upon her cousin with the remark:

“

I cannot say; but some deeds are like ghosts. They will not be laid; they reappear; they gibber; they make themselves known whether we will or not.

I did not think of this before. I was mad, reckless, what you will. But ever since the night has come, I have felt it crushing upon me like a pall that smothers life and youth and love out of my heart.

While the sunlight remained I could endure it; but now—oh, Auntie, I have done something that will keep me in constant fear.

I have allied myself to a living apprehension. I have destroyed my happiness.

”

If prestige, adulation, and elegant belongings were not so much to me; or love, friendship, and domestic happiness more!

If only I could walk a step without dragging the chain of a thousand luxurious longings after me.

Eleanore can.

To this there was neither date nor signature. It was the cry of warning which a spirited, self-contained creature gives when brought to bay.

It made even me recoil, though I had known from the first that her pretty wilfulness was but the tossing foam floating above the soundless depths of cold resolve and most deliberate purpose.

What its real effect was upon him and her fate I can only conjecture. All I know is that in two weeks thereafter Mr.

To this there was neither date nor signature.

It was the cry of warning which a spirited, self-contained creature gives when brought to bay.

It made even me recoil, though I had known from the first that her pretty wilfulness was but the tossing foam floating above the soundless depths of cold resolve and most deliberate purpose.

Filled with the thought, I looked across the room to the closet where lay the body of the girl who, according to all probability, had known the truth of the matter, and a great longing seized me.

Oh, why could not the dead be made to speak?

Why should she lie there so silent, so pulseless, so inert, when a word from her were enough to decide the awful question? Was there no power to compel those pallid lips to move?

I calmed her as well as I could, telling her the detective had not yet informed me what he could do, having some questions to ask her first. Would she come in to see him? She rose with alacrity.

Anything was better than suspense.

Mr. Gryce, who in the short interim of my absence had altered his mood from the severe to the beneficent, received Mrs. Belden with just that show of respectful courtesy likely to impress a woman as dependent as she upon the good opinion of others.

“This is getting very intense,” I whispered, as he passed me.

The smile he gave me in reply would have made the fortune of a Thespian Mephistopheles.

Of the ten minutes of suspense which I endured in their absence, I say nothing. At the end of that time they returned with their hands full of paper boxes, which they flung down on the table.

“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.

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.”

“No,” said he; “it was not in the line of my present purpose to do so. I doubt, indeed, if she knew I was in her house.

A servant maid who has a grievance is a very valuable assistant to a detective.

With Molly at my side, I didn’t need to pay my respects to the mistress.”

Altogether it was a lugubrious spot, and in the present state of my mind made me feel as if something unearthly and threatening lay crouched in the very atmosphere.

Nor, sitting there cold and desolate, could I imagine that the sunshine glowed without, or that life, beauty, and pleasure paraded the streets below.

Mr. Gryce’s expression, as he took a seat and beckoned me to do the same, may have had something to do with this strange sensation, it was so mysteriously and sombrely expectant.

Clavering’s shoulder: “it is she! I hear her! I feel her! She is on the stairs! she is at the door! she—” a low, shuddering sigh of longing and despair finished the sentence: the door opened, and Mary Leavenworth stood before us!

It was a moment to make young hairs turn gray.

To see her face, so pale, so haggard, so wild in its fixed horror, turned towards Henry Clavering, to the utter ignoring of the real actor in this most horrible scene! Trueman Harwell could not stand it.

“You do not hear me!” shrieked the poor wretch. “

Ice that you are, you would not turn your head if I should call to you from the depths of hell!

”

Her horror was unbounded. “Oh, what a chastisement for folly!” she murmured. “

What a punishment for the love of money which has always been my curse!

”

A light such as had never visited her face before passed slowly over it. “

Then God forgive me the wrong I have done this noble heart, for I can never forgive myself!

Wait!” said she, as he opened his lips. “Before I accept any further tokens of your generous confidence, let me show you what I am. You shall know the worst of the woman you have taken to your heart. Mr.

“No, Trueman Harwell; I cannot give you even that thought for your comfort.

Wealth so laden would bring nothing but torture. I cannot accept the torture, so must release the wealth.

From this day, Mary Clavering owns nothing but what comes to her from the husband she has so long and so basely wronged.”

I am not a bad man; I am only an intense one.

Ambition, love, jealousy, hatred, revenge—transitory emotions with some, are terrific passions with me. To be sure, they are quiet and concealed ones, coiled serpents that make no stir till aroused; but then, deadly in their spring and relentless in their action.

I am not a bad man; I am only an intense one.

Ambition, love, jealousy, hatred, revenge⁠—transitory emotions with some, are terrific passions with me.

To be sure, they are quiet and concealed ones, coiled serpents that make no stir till aroused; but then, deadly in their spring and relentless in their action. Those who have known me best have not known this. My own mother was ignorant of it.

I let them think so, with the certainty before me that they would one day change their minds as others had done. The fact was, I loved nobody well enough, not even myself, to care for any man’s opinion.

Life was well-nigh a blank to me; a dead level plain that had to be traversed whether I would or not.

And such it might have continued to this day if I had never met Mary Leavenworth. But when, some nine months since, I left my desk in the countinghouse for a seat in Mr.

afterwards—Well, it is enough he never called me Dough-face again. In the store I entered soon after, I met with even less appreciation. Regular at my work and exact in my performance of it, they thought me a good machine and nothing more.

What heart, soul, and feeling could a man have who never sported, never smoked, and never laughed?

I could reckon up figures correctly, but one scarcely needed heart or soul for that. I could even write day by day and month by month without showing a flaw in my copy;

but that only argued I was no more than they intimated, a regular automaton. I let them think so, with the certainty before me that they would one day change their minds as others had done.

The fact was, I loved nobody well enough, not even myself, to care for any man’s opinion.

Life was well-nigh a blank to me; a dead level plain that had to be traversed whether I would or not. And such it might have continued to this day if I had never met Mary Leavenworth.

She was in one of her haughty moods, and bestowed upon me little more than a passing glance. But her indifference made slight impression upon me then. It was enough that I was allowed to stand in her presence and look unrebuked upon her loveliness.

To be sure, it was like gazing into the flower-wreathed crater of an awakening volcano.

Fear and fascination were in each moment I lingered there; but fear and fascination made the moment what it was, and I could not have withdrawn if I would.

But her indifference made slight impression upon me then. It was enough that I was allowed to stand in her presence and look unrebuked upon her loveliness. To be sure, it was like gazing into the flower-wreathed crater of an awakening volcano.

Fear and fascination were in each moment I lingered there; but fear and fascination made the moment what it was, and I could not have withdrawn if I would.

And so it was always. Unspeakable pain as well as pleasure was in the emotion with which I regarded her. Yet for all that I did not cease to study her hour by hour and day by day;

And so it was always.

Unspeakable pain as well as pleasure was in the emotion with which I regarded her.

Yet for all that I did not cease to study her hour by hour and day by day; her smiles, her movement, her way of turning her head or lifting her eyelids. I had a purpose in this.

Yet for all that I did not cease to study her hour by hour and day by day; her smiles, her movement, her way of turning her head or lifting her eyelids. I had a purpose in this.

I wished to knit her beauty so firmly into the warp and woof of my being that nothing could ever serve to tear it away.

For I saw then as plainly as now that, coquette though she was, she would never stoop to me. No; I might lie down at her feet and let her trample over me;

I wished to knit her beauty so firmly into the warp and woof of my being that nothing could ever serve to tear it away. For I saw then as plainly as now that, coquette though she was, she would never stoop to me.

No; I might lie down at her feet and let her trample over me; she would not even turn to see what it was she had stepped upon.

I might spend days, months, years, learning the alphabet of her wishes; she would not thank me for my pains or even raise the lashes from her cheek to look at me as I passed.

but I—well, my plans went deeper than that. I knew she would have to be in extremity before I could hope to win her.

She must feel herself slipping over the edge of the precipice before she would clutch at the first thing offering succor.

I decided to allow the letter to pass into my employer’s hands. But it had been opened! How could I manage to give it to him in this condition without exciting his suspicion? I knew of but one way;

Two days passed; days that were for me one long and unrelieved suspense. Had Mr. Leavenworth answered that letter? Would it all end as it had begun, without the appearance of the mysterious Clavering on the scene? I could not tell.

Meanwhile my monotonous work went on, grinding my heart beneath its relentless wheel.

I wrote and wrote and wrote, till it seemed as if my life blood went from me with every drop of ink I used.

Meanwhile my monotonous work went on, grinding my heart beneath its relentless wheel.

I wrote and wrote and wrote, till it seemed as if my life blood went from me with every drop of ink I used.

Always alert and listening, I dared not lift my head or turn my eyes at any unusual sound, lest I should seem to be watching. The third night I had a dream; I have already told Mr.