DETECTIVE EBENEZER GRYCE - Complete Murder-Mysteries Collection: 11 Novels in One Volume
regrets and dead shames, wild longings, and unspeakable agonies, through all of which that face, the face of my former dream, mingled, pale, sweet, and searching, while closer and closer behind me crept that noiseless foot till I could feel the glaring of the assassin’s eyes across the narrow threshold separating me from death and hear the click of his teeth as he set his lips for the final act. Ah!” and the secretary’s livid face showed the touch of awful horror, “what words can describe such an experience as that? In one moment, all the agonies of hell in the heart and brain, the next a blank through which I seemed to see afar, and as if suddenly removed from all this, a crouching figure looking at its work with starting eyes and pallid back-drawn lips; and seeing, recognize no face that I had ever known, but one so handsome, so remarkable, so unique in its formation and character, that it would be as easy for me to mistake the countenance of my father as the look and figure of the man revealed to me in my dream.”
“And this face?” said I, in a voice I failed to recognize as my own.
“Was that of him whom we saw leave Mary Leavenworth’s presence last night and go down the hall to the front door.”
Chapter XXI.
A Prejudice
“True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain
Begot of nothing but vain phantasy.”
—Romeo and Juliet.
For one moment I sat a prey to superstitious horror; then, my natural incredulity asserting itself, I looked up and remarked:
“You say that all this took place the night previous to the actual occurrence?”
He bowed his head. “For a warning,” he declared.
“But you did not seem to take it as such?”
“No; I am subject to horrible dreams. I thought but little of it in a superstitious way till I looked next day upon Mr. Leavenworth’s dead body.”
“I do not wonder you behaved strangely at the inquest.”
“Ah, sir,” he returned, with a slow, sad smile; “no one knows what I suffered in my endeavors not to tell more than I actually knew, irrespective of my dream, of this murder and the manner of its accomplishment.”
“You believe, then, that your dream foreshadowed the manner of the murder as well as the fact?”
“I do.”
“It is a pity it did not go a little further, then, and tell us how the assassin escaped from, if not how he entered, a house so securely fastened.”
His face flushed. “That would have been convenient,” he repeated. “Also, if I had been informed where Hannah was, and why a stranger and a gentleman should have stooped to the committal of such a crime.”
Seeing that he was nettled, I dropped my bantering vein. “Why do you say a stranger?” I asked; “are you so well acquainted with all who visit that house as to be able to say who are and who are not strangers to the family?
“I am well acquainted with the faces of their friends, and Henry Clavering is not amongst the number; but——”
“Were you ever with Mr. Leavenworth,” I interrupted, “when he has been away from home; in the country, for instance, or upon his travels?”
“No.” But the negative came with some constraint.
“Yet I suppose he was in the habit of absenting himself from home?”
“Certainly.”
“Can you tell me where he was last July, he and the ladies?”
“Yes, sir; they went to R——. The famous watering-place, you know. Ah,” he cried, seeing a change in my face, “do you think he could have met them there?”
I looked at him for a moment, then, rising in my turn, stood level with him, and exclaimed:
“You are keeping something back, Mr. Harwell; you have more knowledge of this man than you have hitherto given me to understand. What is it?”
He seemed astonished at my penetration, but replied: “I know no more of the man than I have already informed you; but”—and a burning flush crossed his face, “if you are determined to pursue this matter—” and he paused, with an inquiring look.
“I am resolved to find out all I can about Henry Clavering,” was my decided answer.
“Then,” said he, “I can tell you this much. Henry Clavering wrote a letter to Mr. Leavenworth a few days before the murder, which I have some reason to believe produced a marked effect upon the household.” And, folding his arms, the secretary stood quietly awaiting my next question.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I opened it by mistake. I was in the habit of reading Mr. Leavenworth’s business letters, and this, being from one unaccustomed to write to him, lacked the mark which usually distinguished those of a private nature.”
“And you saw the name of Clavering?”
“I did; Henry Ritchie Clavering.”
“Did you read the letter?” I was trembling now.
The secretary did not reply.
“Mr. Harwell,” I reiterated, “this is no time for false delicacy. Did you read that letter?”
“I did; but hastily, and with an agitated conscience.”
“You can, however, recall its general drift?”
“It was some complaint in regard to the treatment received by him at the hand of one of Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces. I remember nothing more.”
“Which niece?”
“There were no names mentioned.”
“But you inferred——”
“No, sir; that is just what I did not do. I forced myself to forget the whole thing.”
“And yet you say it produced an effect upon the family?”
“I can see now that it did. None of them have ever appeared quite the same as before.”
“Mr. Harwell,” I gravely continued; “when you were questioned as to the receipt of any letter by Mr. Leavenworth, which might seem in any manner to be connected with this tragedy, you denied having seen any such; how was that?”
“Mr. Raymond, you are a gentleman; have a chivalrous regard for the ladies; do you think you could have brought yourself (even if in your secret heart you considered some such result possible, which I am not ready to say I did) to mention, at such a time as that, the receipt of a letter complaining of the treatment received from one of Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces, as a suspicious circumstance worthy to be taken into account by a coroner’s jury?”
I shook my head. I could not but acknowledge the impossibility.
“What reason had I for thinking that letter was one of importance? I knew of no Henry Ritchie Clavering.”
“And yet you seemed to think it was. I remember you hesitated before replying.”
“It is true; but not as I should hesitate now, if the question were put to me again.”
Silence followed these words, during which I took two or three turns up and down the room.
“This is all very fanciful,” I remarked, laughing in the vain endeavor to throw off the superstitious horror his words had awakened.
He bent his head in assent.