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The Leavenworth Case ▾
contents
  1. Book I
  2. I “A Great Case” “A deed of dreadful note.” Macbeth
  3. II The Coroner’s Inquest “The baby figure of the giant mass Of things to come.” Troilus and Cressida
  4. III Facts and Deductions “Confusion now hath made his masterpiece; Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord’s anointed temple, and stolen thence The life of the building.” Macbeth
  5. IV A Clue “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark.” Hamlet
  6. V Expert Testimony “And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths; Win us with honest trifles, to betray us In deepest consequence.” Macbeth
  7. VI Sidelights “Oh! she has beauty might ensnare A conqueror’s soul, and make him leave his crown At random, to be scuffled for by slaves.” Otway
  8. VII Mary Leavenworth “For this relief much thanks.” Hamlet
  9. VIII Circumstantial Evidence “O dark, dark, dark!”
  10. IX A Discovery “His rolling Eies did never rest in place, But walkte each where for feare of hid mischance, Holding a lattis still before his Pace, Through which he still did peep as forward he did pace.” Faerie Queene
  11. X Mr. Gryce Receives New Impetus “There’s nothing ill Can dwell in such a temple.” Tempest
  12. XI The Summons “The pink of courtesy.” Romeo and Juliet
  13. XII Eleanore “Constant you are— … And for secrecy No lady closer.” Henry IV “No, ’tis slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile.” Cymbeline
  14. XIII The Problem “But who would force the soul, tilts with a straw Against a champion cased in adamant.” Wordsworth
  15. Book II
  16. XIV Mr. Gryce at Home “Nay, but hear me.” Measure for Measure
  17. XV Ways Opening “It is not and it cannot come to good.” Hamlet
  18. XVI The Will of a Millionaire “Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to Heaven.” All’s Well That Ends Well
  19. XVII The Beginning of Great Surprises “Vous regardez une étoile pour deux motifs, parce qu’elle est lumineuse et parce qu’elle est impénétrable. Vous avez auprès de vous un plus doux rayonnement et un pas grand mystère, la femme.” Les Misérables
  20. XVIII On the Stairs “You cannot say I did it.” Macbeth
  21. XIX In My Office “Something between an hindrance and a help.” Wordsworth
  22. XX “Trueman! Trueman! Trueman!” “Often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in today already walks tomorrow.” Coleridge
  23. XXI A Prejudice “True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.” Romeo and Juliet
  24. XXII Patchwork “Come, give us a taste of your quality.” Hamlet
  25. XXIII The Story of a Charming Woman “Fe, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.” Old Song “I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted.” Measure for Measure
  26. XXIV A Report Followed by Smoke “Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises; and oft it hits Where Hope is coldest, and Despair most sits.” All’s Well That Ends Well
  27. XXV Timothy Cook “Look here upon this picture and on this.” Hamlet
  28. XXVI Mr. Gryce Explains Himself “Sits the wind in that corner?” Much Ado About Nothing
  29. Book III
  30. XXVII Amy Belden “A merrier man Within the limits of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour’s talk withal.” Love’s Labour’s Lost
  31. XXVIII A Weird Experience “Flat burglary as ever was committed.” Much Ado About Nothing
  32. XXIX The Missing Witness “I fled and cried out death.” Milton
  33. XXX Burned Paper “I could have better spared a better man.” Henry IV
  34. XXXI Q “Thereby hangs a tale.” Taming of the Shrew
  35. XXXII Mrs. Belden’s Narrative “Cursed, destructive Avarice, Thou everlasting foe to Love and Honor.” Trapp’s Abra-Mulè “—Mischief never thrives Without the help of Woman.” The Same
  36. XXXIII Unexpected Testimony Ham. Words, words, words. Pol. What do you read, my lord? Hamlet
  37. Book IV
  38. XXXIV Mr. Gryce Resumes Control “It out-herods Herod.” Hamlet “A thing devised by the enemy.” Richard III
  39. XXXV Fine Work “No hinge nor loop To hang a doubt on!” “But yet the pity of it, Iago! Oh, Iago, the pity of it, Iago.” Othello
  40. XXXVI Gathered Threads “This is the short and the long of it.” Merry Wives of Windsor
  41. XXXVII Culmination “Saint seducing gold.” Romeo and Juliet “When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.” Macbeth
  42. XXXVIII A Full Confession “Between the acting of a dreadful thing, And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma or a hideous dream; The genius and the mortal instruments Are then in council; and the state of a man, Like to a little Kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection.” Julius Caesar
  43. XXXIX The Outcome of a Great Crime “Leave her to Heaven And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge To prick and sting her.” Hamlet “For she is wise, if I can judge of her; And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true; And true she is, as she has proved herself; And therefore like herself, wise, fair, and true, Shall she be placed in my constant soul.” Merchant of Venice
  44. Endnotes
English ▾

The Leavenworth Case

Anna Katharine Green

free · 111,259 words · 10 h 34 m audiobook, read by Kirsten Ferreri for LibriVox · first published 1878

text from Standard Ebooks

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Book I

The Problem

I

“A Great Case”

“A deed of dreadful note.”

Macbeth

I had been a junior partner in the firm of Veeley, Carr & Raymond, attorneys and counsellors at law, for about a year, when one morning, in the temporary absence of both Mr. Veeley and Mr. Carr, there came into our office a young man whose whole appearance was so indicative of haste and agitation that I involuntarily rose at his approach and impetuously inquired:

“What is the matter? You have no bad news to tell, I hope.”

“I have come to see Mr. Veeley; is he in?”

“No,” I replied; “he was unexpectedly called away this morning to Washington; cannot be home before tomorrow; but if you will make your business known to me—”

“To you, sir?” he repeated, turning a very cold but steady eye on mine; then, seeming to be satisfied with his scrutiny, continued, “There is no reason why I shouldn’t; my business is no secret. I came to inform him that Mr. Leavenworth is dead.”

“Mr. Leavenworth!” I exclaimed, falling back a step. Mr. Leavenworth was an old client of our firm, to say nothing of his being the particular friend of Mr. Veeley.

“Yes, murdered; shot through the head by some unknown person while sitting at his library table.”

“Shot! murdered!” I could scarcely believe my ears.

“How? when?” I gasped.

“Last night. At least, so we suppose. He was not found till this morning. I am Mr. Leavenworth’s private secretary,” he explained, “and live in the family. It was a dreadful shock,” he went on, “especially to the ladies.”

“Dreadful!” I repeated. “Mr. Veeley will be overwhelmed by it.”

“They are all alone,” he continued in a low businesslike way I afterwards found to be inseparable from the man; “the Misses Leavenworth, I mean—Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces; and as an inquest is to be held there today it is deemed proper for them to have someone present capable of advising them. As Mr. Veeley was their uncle’s best friend, they naturally sent me for him; but he being absent I am at a loss what to do or where to go.”

“I am a stranger to the ladies,” was my hesitating reply, “but if I can be of any assistance to them, my respect for their uncle is such—”

The expression of the secretary’s eye stopped me. Without seeming to wander from my face, its pupil had suddenly dilated till it appeared to embrace my whole person with its scope.

“I don’t know,” he finally remarked, a slight frown, testifying to the fact that he was not altogether pleased with the turn affairs were taking. “Perhaps it would be best. The ladies must not be left alone—”

“Say no more; I will go.” And, sitting down, I despatched a hurried message to Mr. Veeley, after which, and the few other preparations necessary, I accompanied the secretary to the street.

“Now,” said I, “tell me all you know of this frightful affair.”

“All I know? A few words will do that. I left him last night sitting as usual at his library table, and found him this morning, seated in the same place, almost in the same position, but with a bullet-hole in his head as large as the end of my little finger.”

“Dead?”

“Stone-dead.”

“Horrible!” I exclaimed. Then, after a moment, “Could it have been a suicide?”

“No. The pistol with which the deed was committed is not to be found.”

“But if it was a murder, there must have been some motive. Mr. Leavenworth was too benevolent a man to have enemies, and if robbery was intended—”

“There was no robbery. There is nothing missing,” he again interrupted. “The whole affair is a mystery.”

“A 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.

restoring your place…

fetching the rest…

More by Anna Katharine Green

  • A Strange Disappearance
    Q, the young detective who tells this one, is good company, quick with a disguise and a little vain about it, and watching him worry at why a sewing girl vanished from a rich man's house is half the fun. Expect Victorian melodrama under the sleuthing, and enjoy it anyway.
  • Lost Man’s Lane
    Amelia Butterworth is the fun here, a nosy, sharp-tongued spinster who invites herself into a crumbling country house where travelers keep vanishing on the road outside. It's creaky Victorian gothic with a phantom coach and everything, so come for atmosphere and her voice, not tight plotting.
  • That Affair Next Door
    Miss Amelia Butterworth narrates this one, a nosy, tart-tongued spinster who spots a body in the empty house next door and decides Detective Gryce needs her help whether he wants it or not. If you like your Victorian mysteries with dry wit, she's great company.

genres

  • Mystery

appears in

  • Agatha Christie Essentials
  • Detectives Before Holmes

—

thank you for reading

The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green. The text is in the US public domain, from the Standard Ebooks edition. Served from our own copy; read on their site for the full edition with images and typography.

Narrated by Kirsten Ferreri for LibriVox, also public domain.

First published in 1878.

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