The Leavenworth Case

XX. “TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN!”

 
“Often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow.”
 

Coleridge.

INSTANTLY a great dread seized me. What revelations might not this man be going to make! But I subdued the feeling; and, greeting him with what cordiality I could, settled myself to listen to his explanations.

But Trueman Harwell had no explanations to give, or so it seemed; on the contrary, he had come to apologize for the very violent words he had used the evening before; words which, whatever their effect upon me, he now felt bound to declare had been used without sufficient basis in fact to make their utterance of the least importance.

“But you must have thought you had grounds for so tremendous an accusation, or your act was that of a madman.”

His brow wrinkled heavily, and his eyes assumed a very gloomy expression. “It does not follow,” he returned. “Under the pressure of surprise, I have known men utter convictions no better founded than mine without running the risk of being called mad.”

“Surprise? Mr. Clavering’s face or form must, then, have been known to you. The mere fact of seeing a strange gentleman in the hall would have been insufficient to cause you astonishment, Mr. Harwell.”

He uneasily fingered the back of the chair before which he stood, but made no reply.

“Sit down,” I again urged, this time with a touch of command in my voice. “This is a serious matter, and I intend to deal with it as it deserves. You once said that if you knew anything which might serve to exonerate Eleanore Leavenworth from the suspicion under which she stands, you would be ready to impart it.”

“Pardon me. I said that if I had ever known anything calculated to release her from her unhappy position, I would have spoken,” he coldly corrected.

“Do not quibble. You know, and I know, that you are keeping something back; and I ask you, in her behalf, and in the cause of justice, to tell me what it is.”

“You are mistaken,” was his dogged reply. “I have reasons, perhaps, for certain conclusions I may have drawn; but my conscience will not allow me in cold blood to give utterance to suspicions which may not only damage the reputation of an honest man, but place me in the unpleasant position of an accuser without substantial foundation for my accusations.”

“You occupy that position already,” I retorted, with equal coldness. “Nothing can make me forget that in my presence you have denounced Henry Clavering as the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth. You had better explain yourself, Mr. Harwell.”

He gave me a short look, but moved around and took the chair. “You have me at a disadvantage,” he said, in a lighter tone. “If you choose to profit by your position, and press me to disclose the little I know, I can only regret the necessity under which I lie, and speak.”

“Then you are deterred by conscientious scruples alone?”

“Yes, and by the meagreness of the facts at my command.”

“I will judge of the facts when I have heard them.”

He raised his eyes to mine, and I was astonished to observe a strange eagerness in their depths; evidently his convictions were stronger than his scruples. “Mr. Raymond,” he began, “you are a lawyer, and undoubtedly a practical man; but you may know what it is to scent danger before you see it, to feel influences working in the air over and about you, and yet be in ignorance of what it is that affects you so powerfully, till chance reveals that an enemy has been at your side, or a friend passed your window, or the shadow of death crossed your book as you read, or mingled with your breath as you slept?”

I shook my head, fascinated by the intensity of his gaze into some sort of response.

“Then you cannot understand me, or what I have suffered these last three weeks.” And he drew back with an icy reserve that seemed to promise but little to my now thoroughly awakened curiosity.

“I beg your pardon,” I hastened to say; “but the fact of my never having experienced such sensations does not hinder me from comprehending the emotions of others more affected by spiritual influences than myself.”

He drew himself slowly forward. “Then you will not ridicule me if I say that upon the eve of Mr. Leavenworth’s murder I experienced in a dream all that afterwards occurred; saw him murdered, saw”—and he clasped his hands before him, in an attitude inexpressibly convincing, while his voice sank to a horrified whisper, “saw the face of his murderer!”

I started, looked at him in amazement, a thrill as at a ghostly presence running through me.

“And was that–” I began.

“My reason for denouncing the man I beheld before me in the hall of Miss Leavenworth’s house last night? It was.” And, taking out his handkerchief, he wiped his forehead, on which the perspiration was standing in large drops.

“You would then intimate that the face you saw in your dream and the face you saw in the hall last night were the same?”

He gravely nodded his head.

I drew my chair nearer to his. “Tell me your dream,” said I.

“It was the night before Mr. Leavenworth’s murder. I had gone to bed feeling especially contented with myself and the world at large; for, though my life is anything but a happy one,” and he heaved a short sigh, “some pleasant words had been said to me that day, and I was revelling in the happiness they conferred, when suddenly a chill struck my heart, and the darkness which a moment before had appeared to me as the abode of peace thrilled to the sound of a supernatural cry, and I heard my name, ‘Trueman, Trueman, Trueman,’ repeated three times in a voice I did not recognize, and starting from my pillow beheld at my bedside a woman. Her face was strange to me,” he solemnly proceeded, “but I can give you each and every detail of it, as, bending above me, she stared into my eyes with a growing terror that seemed to implore help, though her lips were quiet, and only the memory of that cry echoed in my ears.”

“Describe the face,” I interposed.

“It was a round, fair, lady’s face. Very lovely in contour, but devoid of coloring; not beautiful, but winning from its childlike look of trust. The hair, banded upon the low, broad forehead, was brown; the eyes, which were very far apart, gray; the mouth, which was its most charming feature, delicate of make and very expressive. There was a dimple in the chin, but none in the cheeks. It was a face to be remembered.”

“Go on,” said I.

“Meeting the gaze of those imploring eyes, I started up. Instantly the face and all vanished, and I became conscious, as we sometimes do in dreams, of a certain movement in the hall below, and the next instant the gliding figure of a man of imposing size entered the library. I remember experiencing a certain thrill at this, half terror, half curiosity, though I seemed to know, as if by intuition, what he was going to do. Strange to say, I now seemed to change my personality, and to be no longer a third party watching these proceedings, but Mr. Leavenworth himself, sitting at his library table and feeling his doom crawling upon him without capacity for speech or power of movement to avert it. Though my back was towards the man, I could feel his stealthy form traverse the passage, enter the room beyond, pass to that stand where the pistol was, try the drawer, find it locked, turn the key, procure the pistol, weigh it in an accustomed hand, and advance again. I could feel each footstep he took as though his feet were in truth upon my heart, and I remember staring at the table before me as if I expected every moment to see it run with my own blood. I can see now how the letters I had been writing danced upon the paper before me, appearing to my eyes to take the phantom shapes of persons and things long ago forgotten; crowding my last moments with 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.”

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. “I know it,” said he. “I am practical myself in broad daylight, and recognize the flimsiness of an accusation based upon a poor, hardworking secretary’s dream, as plainly as you do. This is the reason I desired to keep from speaking at all; but, Mr. Raymond,” and his long, thin hand fell upon my arm with a nervous intensity which gave me almost the sensation of an electrical shock, “if the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth is ever brought to confess his deed, mark my words, he will prove to be the man of my dream.”

I drew a long breath. For a moment his belief was mine; and a mingled sensation of relief and exquisite pain swept over me as I thought of the possibility of Eleanore being exonerated from crime only to be plunged into fresh humiliation and deeper abysses of suffering.

“He stalks the streets in freedom now,” the secretary went on, as if to himself; “even dares to enter the house he has so wofully desecrated; but justice is justice and, sooner or later, something will transpire which will prove to you that a premonition so wonderful as that I received had its significance; that the voice calling ‘Trueman, Trueman,’ was something more than the empty utterances of an excited brain; that it was Justice itself, calling attention to the guilty.”

I looked at him in wonder. Did he know that the officers of justice were already upon the track of this same Clavering? I judged not from his look, but felt an inclination to make an effort and see.

“You speak with strange conviction,” I said; “but in all probability you are doomed to be disappointed. So far as we know, Mr. Clavering is a respectable man.”

He lifted his hat from the table. “I do not propose to denounce him; I do not even propose to speak his name again. I am not a fool, Mr. Raymond. I have spoken thus plainly to you only in explanation of last night’s most unfortunate betrayal; and while I trust you will regard what I have told you as confidential, I also hope you will give me credit for behaving, on the whole, as well as could be expected under the circumstances.” And he held out his hand.

“Certainly,” I replied as I took it. Then, with a sudden impulse to test the accuracy of this story of his, inquired if he had any means of verifying his statement of having had this dream at the time spoken of: that is, before the murder and not afterwards.

“No, sir; I know myself that I had it the night previous to that of Mr. Leavenworth’s death; but I cannot prove the fact.”

“Did not speak of it next morning to any one?”

“O no, sir; I was scarcely in a position to do so.”

“Yet it must have had a great effect upon you, unfitting you for work–”

“Nothing unfits me for work,” was his bitter reply.

“I believe you,” I returned, remembering his diligence for the last few days. “But you must at least have shown some traces of having passed an uncomfortable night. Have you no recollection of any one speaking to you in regard to your appearance the next morning?”

“Mr. Leavenworth may have done so; no one else would be likely to notice.” There was sadness in the tone, and my own voice softened as I said:

“I shall not be at the house to-night, Mr. Harwell; nor do I know when I shall return there. Personal considerations keep me from Miss Leavenworth’s presence for a time, and I look to you to carry on the work we have undertaken without my assistance, unless you can bring it here–”

“I can do that.”

“I shall expect you, then, to-morrow evening.”

“Very well, sir”; and he was going, when a sudden thought seemed to strike him. “Sir,” he said, “as we do not wish to return to this subject again, and as I have a natural curiosity in regard to this man, would you object to telling me what you know of him? You believe him to be a respectable man; are you acquainted with him, Mr. Raymond?”

“I know his name, and where he resides.”

“And where is that?”

“In London; he is an Englishman.”

“Ah!” he murmured, with a strange intonation.

“Why do you say that?”

He bit his lip, looked down, then up, finally fixed his eyes on mine, and returned, with marked emphasis: “I used an exclamation, sir, because I was startled.”

“Startled?”

“Yes; you say he is an Englishman. Mr. Leavenworth had the most bitter antagonism to the English. It was one of his marked peculiarities. He would never be introduced to one if he could help it.”

It was my turn to look thoughtful.

“You know,” continued the secretary, “that Mr. Leavenworth was a man who carried his prejudices to the extreme. He had a hatred for the English race amounting to mania. If he had known the letter I have mentioned was from an Englishman, I doubt if he would have read it. He used to say he would sooner see a daughter of his dead before him than married to an Englishman.”

I turned hastily aside to hide the effect which this announcement made upon me.

“You think I am exaggerating,” he said. “Ask Mr. Veeley.”

“No,” I replied. “I have no reason for thinking so.”

“He had doubtless some cause for hating the English with which we are unacquainted,” pursued the secretary. “He spent some time in Liverpool when young, and had, of course, many opportunities for studying their manners and character.” And the secretary made another movement, as if to leave.

But it was my turn to detain him now. “Mr. Harwell, you must excuse me. You have been on familiar terms with Mr. Leavenworth for so long. Do you think that, in the case of one of his nieces, say, desiring to marry a gentleman of that nationality, his prejudice was sufficient to cause him to absolutely forbid the match?”

“I do.”

I moved back. I had learned what I wished, and saw no further reason for prolonging the interview.

XXII. PATCH-WORK

 
“Come, give us a taste of your quality.”
 

Hamlet.

STARTING with the assumption that Mr. Clavering in his conversation of the morning had been giving me, with more or less accuracy, a detailed account of his own experience and position regarding Eleanore Leavenworth, I asked myself what particular facts it would be necessary for me to establish in order to prove the truth of this assumption, and found them to be:

I. That Mr. Clavering had not only been in this country at the time designated, but that he had been located for some little time at a watering-place in New York State.

II. That this watering-place should correspond to the one in which Miss Eleanore Leavenworth was staying at the same time.

III. That they had been seen while there to hold more or less communication.

IV. That they had both been absent from town, at Lorne one time, long enough to have gone through the ceremony of marriage at a point twenty miles or so away.

V. That a Methodist clergyman, who has since died, lived at that time within a radius of twenty miles of said watering-place.

I next asked myself how I was to establish these acts. Mr. Clavering’s life was as yet too little known to me to offer me any assistance; so, leaving it for the present, I took up the thread of Eleanore’s history, and found that at the time given me she had been in R–, a fashionable watering-place in this State. Now, if his was true, and my theory correct, he must have been there also. To prove this fact, became, consequently, my first business. I resolved to go to R– on the morrow.

But before proceeding in an undertaking of such importance, I considered it expedient to make such inquiries and collect such facts as the few hours I had left to work in rendered possible. I went first to the house of Mr. Gryce.

I found him lying upon a hard sofa, in the bare sitting-room I have before mentioned, suffering from a severe attack of rheumatism. His hands were done up in bandages, and his feet incased in multiplied folds of a dingy red shawl which looked as if it had been through the wars. Greeting me with a short nod that was both a welcome and an apology, he devoted a few words to an explanation of his unwonted position; and then, without further preliminaries, rushed into the subject which was uppermost in both our minds by inquiring, in a slightly sarcastic way, if I was very much surprised to find my bird flown when I returned to the Hoffman House that afternoon.

“I was astonished to find you allowed him to fly at this time,” I replied. “From the manner in which you requested me to make his acquaintance, I supposed you considered him an important character in the tragedy which has just been enacted.”

“And what makes you think I don’t? Oh, the fact that I let him go off so easily? That’s no proof. I never fiddle with the brakes till the car starts down-hill. But let that pass for the present; Mr. Clavering, then, did not explain himself before going?”

“That is a question which I find it exceedingly difficult to answer. Hampered by circumstances, I cannot at present speak with the directness which is your due, but what I can say, I will. Know, then, that in my opinion Mr. Clavering did explain himself in an interview with me this morning. But it was done in so blind a way, it will be necessary for me to make a few investigations before I shall feel sufficiently sure of my ground to take you into my confidence. He has given me a possible clue–”

“Wait,” said Mr. Gryce; “does he know this? Was it done intentionally and with sinister motive, or unconsciously and in plain good faith?”

“In good faith, I should say.”

Mr. Gryce remained silent for a moment. “It is very unfortunate you cannot explain yourself a little more definitely,” he said at last. “I am almost afraid to trust you to make investigations, as you call them, on your own hook. You are not used to the business, and will lose time, to say nothing of running upon false scents, and using up your strength on unprofitable details.”

“You should have thought of that when you admitted me into partnership.”

“And you absolutely insist upon working this mine alone?”

“Mr. Gryce, the matter stands just here. Mr. Clavering, for all I know, is a gentleman of untarnished reputation. I am not even aware for what purpose you set me upon his trail. I only know that in thus following it I have come upon certain facts that seem worthy of further investigation.”

“Well, well; you know best. But the days are slipping by. Something must be done, and soon. The public are becoming clamorous.”

“I know it, and for that reason I have come to you for such assistance as you can give me at this stage of the proceedings. You are in possession of certain facts relating to this man which it concerns me to know, or your conduct in reference to him has been purposeless. Now, frankly, will you make me master of those facts: in short, tell me all you know of Mr. Clavering, without requiring an immediate return of confidence on my part?”

“That is asking a great deal of a professional detective.”

“I know it, and under other circumstances I should hesitate long before preferring such a request; but as things are, I don’t see how I am to proceed in the matter without some such concession on your part. At all events–”

“Wait a moment! Is not Mr. Clavering the lover of one of the young ladies?”

Anxious as I was to preserve the secret of my interest in that gentleman, I could not prevent the blush from rising to my face at the suddenness of this question.

“I thought as much,” he went on. “Being neither a relative nor acknowledged friend, I took it for granted he must occupy some such position as that in the family.”

“I do not see why you should draw such an inference,” said I, anxious to determine how much he knew about him. “Mr. Clavering is a stranger in town; has not even been in this country long; has indeed had no time to establish himself upon any such footing as you suggest.”

“This is not the only time Mr. Clavering has been in New York. He was here a year ago to my certain knowledge.”

“You know that?”

“Yes.”

“How much more do you know? Can it be possible I am groping blindly about for facts which are already in your possession? I pray you listen to my entreaties, Mr. Gryce, and acquaint me at once with what I want to know. You will not regret it. I have no selfish motive in this matter. If I succeed, the glory shall be yours; it I fail, the shame of the defeat shall be mine.”

“That is fair,” he muttered. “And how about the reward?”

“My reward will be to free an innocent woman from the imputation of crime which hangs over her.”

This assurance seemed to satisfy him. His voice and appearance changed; for a moment he looked quite confidential. “Well, well,” said he; “and what is it you want to know?”

“I should first like to know how your suspicions came to light on him at all. What reason had you for thinking a gentleman of his bearing and position was in any way connected with this affair?”

“That is a question you ought not to be obliged to put,” he returned.

“How so?”

“Simply because the opportunity of answering it was in your hands before ever it came into mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you remember the letter mailed in your presence by Miss Mary Leavenworth during your drive from her home to that of her friend in Thirty-seventh Street?”

“On the afternoon of the inquest?”

“Yes.”

“Certainly, but–”

“You never thought to look at its superscription before it was dropped into the box.”

“I had neither opportunity nor right to do so.”

“Was it not written in your presence?”

“It was.”

“And you never regarded the affair as worth your attention?”

“However I may have regarded it, I did not see how I could prevent Miss Leavenworth from dropping a letter into a box if she chose to do so.”

“That is because you are a gentleman. Well, it has its disadvantages,” he muttered broodingly.

“But you,” said I; “how came you to know anything about this letter? Ah, I see,” remembering that the carriage in which we were riding at the time had been procured for us by him. “The man on the box was in your pay, and informed, as you call it.”

Mr. Gryce winked at his muffled toes mysteriously. “That is not the point,” he said. “Enough that I heard that a letter, which might reasonably prove to be of some interest to me, had been dropped at such an hour into the box on the corner of a certain street. That, coinciding in the opinion of my informant, I telegraphed to the station connected with that box to take note of the address of a suspicious-looking letter about to pass through their hands on the way to the General Post Office, and following up the telegram in person, found that a curious epistle addressed in lead pencil and sealed with a stamp, had just arrived, the address of which I was allowed to see–”

“And which was?”

“Henry R. Clavering, Hoffman House, New York.”

I drew a deep breath. “And so that is how your attention first came to be directed to this man?”

“Yes.”

“Strange. But go on—what next?”

“Why, next I followed up the clue by going to the Hoffman House and instituting inquiries. I learned that Mr. Clavering was a regular guest of the hotel. That he had come there, direct from the Liverpool steamer, about three months since, and, registering his name as Henry R. Clavering, Esq., London, had engaged a first-class room which he had kept ever since. That, although nothing definite was known concerning him, he had been seen with various highly respectable people, both of his own nation and ours, by all of whom he was treated with respect. And lastly, that while not liberal, he had given many evidences of being a man of means. So much done, I entered the office, and waited for him to come in, in the hope of having an opportunity to observe his manner when the clerk handed him that strange-looking letter from Mary Leavenworth.”

“And did you succeed?”

“No; an awkward gawk of a fellow stepped between us just at the critical moment, and shut off my view. But I heard enough that evening from the clerk and servants, of the agitation he had shown on receiving it, to convince me I was upon a trail worth following. I accordingly put on my men, and for two days Mr. Clavering was subjected to the most rigid watch a man ever walked under. But nothing was gained by it; his interest in the murder, if interest at all, was a secret one; and though he walked the streets, studied the papers, and haunted the vicinity of the house in Fifth Avenue, he not only refrained from actually approaching it, but made no attempt to communicate with any of the family. Meanwhile, you crossed my path, and with your determination incited me to renewed effort. Convinced from Mr. Clavering’s bearing, and the gossip I had by this time gathered in regard to him, that no one short of a gentleman and a friend could succeed in getting at the clue of his connection with this family, I handed him over to you, and–”