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Authors: Anna Katharine Green
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clear and sharp intonation, replied:
“No; I have neither suspicion nor reason for any. The assassin of my uncle is not only entirely unknown to, but completely unsuspected by, me.”
It was like the removal of a stifling pressure. Amid a universal outgoing of the breath, Mary Leavenworth stood aside and Eleanore was called in her place.
VIII. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
“O dark, dark, dark!”
AND NOW THAT THE interest was at its height, that the veil which shrouded this horrible tragedy seemed about to be lifted, if not entirely withdrawn, I felt a desire to fly the scene, to leave the spot, to know no more. Not that I was conscious of any particular fear of this woman betraying herself. The cold steadiness of her now fixed and impassive countenance was sufficient warranty in itself against the possibility of any such catastrophe. But if, indeed, the suspicions of her cousin were the offspring, not only of hatred, but of knowledge; if that face of beauty was in truth only a mask, and Eleanore Leavenworth was what the words of her cousin, and her own after behavior would seem to imply, how could I bear to sit there and see the frightful serpent of deceit and sin evolve itself from the bosom of this white rose! And yet, such is the fascination of uncertainty that, although I saw something of my own feelings reflected in the countenances of many about me, not a man in all that assemblage showed any disposition to depart, I least of all.
The coroner, upon whom the blonde loveliness of Mary had impressed itself to Eleanor’s apparent detriment, was the only one in the room who showed himself unaffected at this moment. Turning toward the witness with a look which, while respectful, had a touch of austerity in it, he began:
“You have been an intimate of Mr. Leavenworth’s family from childhood, they tell me, Miss Leavenworth?”
“From my tenth year,” was her quiet reply.
It was the first time I had heard her voice, and it surprised me; it was so like, and yet so unlike, that of her cousin. Similar in tone, it lacked its expressiveness, if I may so speak; sounding without vibration on the ear, and ceasing without an echo.
“Since that time you have been treated like a daughter, they tell me?”
“Yes, sir, like a daughter, indeed; he was more than a father to both of us.”
“You and Miss Mary Leavenworth are cousins, I believe. When did she enter the family?”
“At the same time I did. Our respective parents were victims of the same disaster. If it had not been for our uncle, we should have been thrown, children as we were, upon the world. But he”—here she paused, her firm lips breaking into a half tremble—“but he, in the goodness of his heart, adopted us into his family, and gave us what we had both lost, a father and a home.”
“You say he was a father to you as well as to your cousin—that he adopted you. Do you mean by that, that he not only surrounded you with present luxury, but gave you to understand that the same should be secured to you after his death; in short, that he intended to leave any portion of his property to you?”
“No, sir; I was given to understand, from the first, that his property would be bequeathed by will to my cousin.”
“Your cousin was no more nearly related to him than yourself, Miss Leavenworth; did he never give you any reason for this evident partiality?”
“None but his pleasure, sir.”
Her answers up to this point had been so straightforward and satisfactory that a gradual confidence seemed to be taking the place of the rather uneasy doubts which had from the first circled about this woman’s name and person. But at this admission, uttered as it was in a calm, unimpassioned voice, not only the jury, but myself, who had so much truer reason for distrusting her, felt that actual suspicion in her case must be very much shaken before the utter lack of motive which this reply so clearly betokened.
Meanwhile the coroner continued: “If your uncle was
“No; I have neither suspicion nor reason for any. The assassin of my uncle is not only entirely unknown to, but completely unsuspected by, me.”
It was like the removal of a stifling pressure. Amid a universal outgoing of the breath, Mary Leavenworth stood aside and Eleanore was called in her place.
VIII. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
“O dark, dark, dark!”
AND NOW THAT THE interest was at its height, that the veil which shrouded this horrible tragedy seemed about to be lifted, if not entirely withdrawn, I felt a desire to fly the scene, to leave the spot, to know no more. Not that I was conscious of any particular fear of this woman betraying herself. The cold steadiness of her now fixed and impassive countenance was sufficient warranty in itself against the possibility of any such catastrophe. But if, indeed, the suspicions of her cousin were the offspring, not only of hatred, but of knowledge; if that face of beauty was in truth only a mask, and Eleanore Leavenworth was what the words of her cousin, and her own after behavior would seem to imply, how could I bear to sit there and see the frightful serpent of deceit and sin evolve itself from the bosom of this white rose! And yet, such is the fascination of uncertainty that, although I saw something of my own feelings reflected in the countenances of many about me, not a man in all that assemblage showed any disposition to depart, I least of all.
The coroner, upon whom the blonde loveliness of Mary had impressed itself to Eleanor’s apparent detriment, was the only one in the room who showed himself unaffected at this moment. Turning toward the witness with a look which, while respectful, had a touch of austerity in it, he began:
“You have been an intimate of Mr. Leavenworth’s family from childhood, they tell me, Miss Leavenworth?”
“From my tenth year,” was her quiet reply.
It was the first time I had heard her voice, and it surprised me; it was so like, and yet so unlike, that of her cousin. Similar in tone, it lacked its expressiveness, if I may so speak; sounding without vibration on the ear, and ceasing without an echo.
“Since that time you have been treated like a daughter, they tell me?”
“Yes, sir, like a daughter, indeed; he was more than a father to both of us.”
“You and Miss Mary Leavenworth are cousins, I believe. When did she enter the family?”
“At the same time I did. Our respective parents were victims of the same disaster. If it had not been for our uncle, we should have been thrown, children as we were, upon the world. But he”—here she paused, her firm lips breaking into a half tremble—“but he, in the goodness of his heart, adopted us into his family, and gave us what we had both lost, a father and a home.”
“You say he was a father to you as well as to your cousin—that he adopted you. Do you mean by that, that he not only surrounded you with present luxury, but gave you to understand that the same should be secured to you after his death; in short, that he intended to leave any portion of his property to you?”
“No, sir; I was given to understand, from the first, that his property would be bequeathed by will to my cousin.”
“Your cousin was no more nearly related to him than yourself, Miss Leavenworth; did he never give you any reason for this evident partiality?”
“None but his pleasure, sir.”
Her answers up to this point had been so straightforward and satisfactory that a gradual confidence seemed to be taking the place of the rather uneasy doubts which had from the first circled about this woman’s name and person. But at this admission, uttered as it was in a calm, unimpassioned voice, not only the jury, but myself, who had so much truer reason for distrusting her, felt that actual suspicion in her case must be very much shaken before the utter lack of motive which this reply so clearly betokened.
Meanwhile the coroner continued: “If your uncle was
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