Page:Anna Katharine Green - Leavenworth Case.djvu/16

6 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 detective, was not the thin, wiry individual with the piercing eye you are doubtless expecting to see. On the contrary, Mr. Gryce was a portly, comfortable personage with an eye that never pierced, that did not even rest on you. If it rested anywhere, it was always on some insignificant object in the vicinity, some vase, ink-stand, book, or button. These things he would seem to take into his confidence, make the repositories of his conclusions; but as for youyou might as well be the