The Leavenworth Case | Page 2

mystery?"
"An utter mystery."
Turning, I looked at my informant curiously. The inmate of a house in
which a mysterious murder had occurred was rather an interesting
object. But the good-featured and yet totally unimpressive countenance
of the man beside me offered but little basis for even the wildest
imagination to work upon, and, glancing almost immediately away, I
asked:
"Are the ladies very much overcome?"

He took at least a half-dozen steps before replying.
"It would be unnatural if they were not." And whether it was the
expression of his face at the time, or the nature of the reply itself, I felt
that in speaking of these ladies to this uninteresting, self-possessed
secretary of the late Mr. Leavenworth, I was somehow treading upon
dangerous ground. As I had heard they were very accomplished women,
I was not altogether pleased at this discovery. It was, therefore, with a
certain consciousness of relief I saw a Fifth Avenue stage approach.
"We will defer our conversation," said I. "Here's the stage."
But, once seated within it, we soon discovered that all intercourse upon
such a subject was impossible. Employing the time, therefore, in
running over in my mind what I knew of Mr. Leavenworth, I found that
my knowledge was limited to the bare fact of his being a retired
merchant of great wealth and fine social position who, in default of
possessing children of his own, had taken into his home two nieces, one
of whom had already been declared his heiress. To be sure, I had heard
Mr. Veeley speak of his eccentricities, giving as an instance this very
fact of his making a will in favor of one niece to the utter exclusion of
the other; but of his habits of life and connection with the world at large,
I knew little or nothing.
There was a great crowd in front of the house when we arrived there,
and I had barely time to observe that it was a corner dwelling of
unusual depth when I was seized by the throng and carried quite to the
foot of the broad stone steps. Extricating myself, though with some
difficulty, owing to the importunities of a bootblack and butcher-boy,
who seemed to think that by clinging to my arms they might succeed in
smuggling themselves into the house, I mounted the steps and, finding
the secretary, by some unaccountable good fortune, close to my side,
hurriedly rang the bell. Immediately the door opened, and a face I
recognized as that of one of our city detectives appeared in the gap.
"Mr. Gryce!" I exclaimed.
"The same," he replied. "Come in, Mr. Raymond." And drawing us

quietly into the house, he shut the door with a grim smile on the
disappointed crowd without. "I trust you are not surprised to see me
here," said he, holding out his hand, with a side glance at my
companion.
"No," I returned. Then, with a vague idea that I ought to introduce the
young man at my side, continued: "This is Mr. ----, Mr. ----, --excuse
me, but I do not know your name," I said inquiringly to my companion.
"The private secretary of the late Mr. Leavenworth," I hastened to add.
"Oh," he returned, "the secretary! The coroner has been asking for you,
sir."
"The coroner is here, then?"
"Yes; the jury have just gone up-stairs to view the body; would you like
to follow them?"
"No, it is not necessary. I have merely come in the hope of being of
some assistance to the young ladies. Mr. Veeley is away."
"And you thought the opportunity too good to be lost," he went on;
"just so. Still, now that you are here, and as the case promises to be a
marked one, I should think that, as a rising young lawyer, you would
wish to make yourself acquainted with it in all its details. But follow
your own judgment."
I made an effort and overcame my repugnance. "I will go," said I.
"Very well, then, follow me."
But just as I set foot on the stairs I heard the jury descending, so,
drawing back with Mr. Gryce into a recess between the reception room
and the parlor, I had time to remark:
"The young man says it could not have been the work of a burglar."
"Indeed!" fixing his eye on a door-knob near by.

"That nothing has been found missing--"
"And that the fastenings to the house were all found secure this
morning; just so."
"He did not tell me that. In that case"--and I shuddered--"the murderer
must have been in the house all night."
Mr. Gryce smiled darkly at the door-knob.
"It has a dreadful look!" I exclaimed.
Mr. Gryce immediately frowned at the door-knob.
And here let me say that Mr. Gryce, the