The Leavenworth Case | Page 4

have
studied the situation and provided for all contingencies."
"The murderer? Whom do you suspect?" I whispered.
He looked impassively at the ring on my finger.
"Every one 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.
The coroner's inquest being now in session, I felt a strong desire to be
present, so, requesting Mr. Gryce to inform the ladies that Mr. Veeley

was absent from town, and that I had come as his substitute, to render
them any assistance they might require on so melancholy an occasion, I
proceeded to the large parlor below, and took my seat among the
various persons there assembled.

II. THE CORONER'S INQUEST
"The baby figure of the giant mass Of things to come." --Troilus and
Cressida.
FOR a few minutes I sat dazed by the sudden flood of light greeting me
from the many open windows; then, as the strongly contrasting features
of the scene before me began to impress themselves upon my
consciousness, I found myself experiencing something of the same
sensation of double personality which years before had followed an
enforced use of ether. As at that time, I appeared to be living two lives
at once: in two distinct places, with two separate sets of incidents going
on; so now I seemed to be divided between two irreconcilable trains of
thought; the gorgeous house, its elaborate furnishing, the little glimpses
of yesterday's life, as seen in the open piano, with its sheet of music
held in place by a lady's fan, occupying my attention fully as much as
the aspect of the throng of incongruous and impatient people huddled
about me.
Perhaps one reason of this lay in the extraordinary splendor of the room
I was in; the glow of satin, glitter of bronze, and glimmer of marble
meeting the eye at every turn. But I am rather inclined to think it was
mainly due to the force and eloquence of a certain picture which
confronted me from the opposite wall. A sweet picture--sweet enough
and poetic enough to have been conceived by the most idealistic of
artists: simple, too--the vision of a young flaxen-haired, blue-eyed
coquette, dressed in the costume of the First Empire, standing in a
wood-path, looking back over her shoulder at some one following--yet
with such a dash of something not altogether saint-like in the corners of
her meek eyes and baby-like lips, that it impressed me with the
individuality of life. Had it not been for the open dress, with its waist

almost beneath the armpits, the hair cut short on the forehead, and the
perfection of the neck and shoulders, I should have taken it for a literal
portrait of one of the ladies of the house. As it was, I could not rid
myself of the idea that one, if not both, of Mr. Leavenworth's nieces
looked down upon me from the eyes of this entrancing blonde with the
beckoning glance and forbidding hand. So vividly did this fancy
impress me that I half shuddered as I looked, wondering if this sweet
creature did not know what had occurred in this house since the happy
yesterday; and if so, how she could stand there smiling so
invitingly,--when suddenly I became aware that I had been watching
the little crowd of men about me with as complete an absorption as if
nothing else in the room had attracted my attention; that the face of the
coroner, sternly intelligent and attentive, was as distinctly imprinted
upon my mind as that of this lovely picture, or the clearer-cut and more
noble features of the sculptured Psyche, shining in mellow beauty from
the crimson-hung window at his right; yes, even that the various
countenances of the jurymen clustered before me, commonplace and
insignificant as most of them were; the trembling forms of the excited
servants crowded into a far corner; and the still more disagreeable
aspect of the pale-faced, seedy reporter, seated at a small table and
writing with a ghoul-like avidity that made my flesh creep, were each
and all as fixed an element in the remarkable scene before me as the
splendor of the surroundings which made their presence such a
nightmare of discord and unreality.
I have spoken of the coroner. As fortune would have it, he was no
stranger to me. I had not only seen him before, but had held frequent
conversation with him; in fact, knew him. His name was Hammond,
and he was universally regarded as a man of more than ordinary
acuteness, fully capable of conducting an important examination, with
the necessary skill and address. Interested as I was, or rather was likely
to be, in this particular inquiry, I could not but