Delphi Complete Works of Anna Katharine Green (Illustrated) E-Book

Anna Katharine Green

• Herausgeber: Delphi Classics Ltd
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: Delphi Series Eight
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 14323

Beschreibung

The Mother of Detective Fiction, the American novelist Anna Katharine Green produced well-constructed plots, noted for their sound knowledge of criminal law and accurate realism. Her detective stories would have a lasting influence on the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and countless other writers of crime and mystery literature. For the first time in publishing history, this comprehensive eBook presents Green’s complete works, with numerous illustrations, rare texts, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 2)

The Amelia Butterworth Series

The Novels
The Leavenworth Case (1878)
A Strange Disappearance (1880)
The Sword of Damocles (1881)
XYZ (1883)
Hand and Ring (1883)
The Mill Mystery (1886)
Behind Closed Doors (1888)
The Forsaken Inn (1890)
A Matter of Millions (1891)
Cynthia Wakeham’s Money (1892)
Marked Personal (1893)
Miss Hurd (1894)
Doctor Izard (1895)
That Affair Next Door (1897)
Lost Man’s Lane (1898)
Agatha Webb (1899)
The Circular Study (1900)
One of My Sons (1901)
The Filigree Ball (1903)
The Millionaire Baby (1905)
The Woman in the Alcove (1906)
The Chief Legatee (1906)
The Mayor’s Wife (1907)
Three Thousand Dollars (1910)
The House of the Whispering Pines (1910)
Initials Only (1911)
Dark Hollow (1914)
The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow (1917)
The Step on the Stair (1923)

The Shorter Fiction
The Old Stone House and Other Stories (1891)
Masterpieces of Mystery (1913)
The Golden Slipper and Other Problems for Violet Strange (1915)
To the Minute, Scarlet and Black (1916)
Uncollected Short Stories

The Short Stories
List of Short Stories in Chronological Order
List of Short Stories in Alphabetical Order

The Play
Risifi’s Daughter (1887)

The Poetry
The Defence of the Bride and Other Poems (1882)

The Non-Fiction
Newspaper Articles

Leseprobe

The Complete Works of

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

(1846-1935)

Contents

The Amelia Butterworth Series

The Novels

The Leavenworth Case (1878)

A Strange Disappearance (1880)

The Sword of Damocles (1881)

XYZ (1883)

Hand and Ring (1883)

The Mill Mystery (1886)

Behind Closed Doors (1888)

The Forsaken Inn (1890)

A Matter of Millions (1891)

Cynthia Wakeham’s Money (1892)

Marked Personal (1893)

Miss Hurd (1894)

Doctor Izard (1895)

That Affair Next Door (1897)

Lost Man’s Lane (1898)

Agatha Webb (1899)

The Circular Study (1900)

One of My Sons (1901)

The Filigree Ball (1903)

The Millionaire Baby (1905)

The Woman in the Alcove (1906)

The Chief Legatee (1906)

The Mayor’s Wife (1907)

Three Thousand Dollars (1910)

The House of the Whispering Pines (1910)

Initials Only (1911)

Dark Hollow (1914)

The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow (1917)

The Step on the Stair (1923)

The Shorter Fiction

The Old Stone House and Other Stories (1891)

Masterpieces of Mystery (1913)

The Golden Slipper and Other Problems for Violet Strange (1915)

To the Minute, Scarlet and Black (1916)

Uncollected Short Stories

The Short Stories

List of Short Stories in Chronological Order

List of Short Stories in Alphabetical Order

The Play

Risifi’s Daughter (1887)

The Poetry

The Defence of the Bride and Other Poems (1882)

The Non-Fiction

Newspaper Articles

The Delphi Classics Catalogue

© Delphi Classics 2024

Version 2

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The Complete Works of

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

By Delphi Classics, 2017

with introductions by Gill Rossini

COPYRIGHT

Complete Works of Anna Katharine Green

First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2017.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 9781786560742

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

Contact: [email protected]

www.delphiclassics.com

From classic detective masterpieces to edge-of-your-seat mysteries, explore the Delphi Classics range of exciting Thrillers…

The Amelia Butterworth Series

That Affair Next Door (1897)

Lost Man’s Lane(1898)

The Circular Study (1900)

The Novels

A preindustrial Winter Scene in Brooklyn by Francis Guy, c. 1819 — Anna Katharine Green was born in Brooklyn, New York on 11 November, 1846.

Brooklyn, 1827

Brooklyn today

The Leavenworth Case (1878)

This novel, Green’s first, was published in 1878 by Putnam of New York and was subtitled The Lawyer’s Story; it was published in Britain by A Strahan in 1884. It is sometimes described as the first American bestseller, selling over 700,000 copies within fifteen years and eventually selling over one million copies. Likewise, Green is regarded as one of the first American crime novelists, eventually writing thirty-five detection stories in her career and setting the bar for other detective and mystery writers to reach. Wilkie Collins and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle held her in high regard — Doyle and Green more than likely met when he visited America in 1894 — and Agatha Christie also cited Green as an author that had influenced her own writing. This novel has also been described as a “locked room mystery”.

Anna Katharine Green was born in Brooklyn, the daughter of a distinguished attorney, who in the early days of her career as a novelist was also her primary source of information for the legal details of her fiction – however, her “inside knowledge” of forensic, medical and ballistic evidence was considered by some to be unsuitable subject matter for a female writer. In 1891, Green adapted this story for the stage and cinematic versions were made in 1923 and 1936, although they do not seem to have been “big budget movies”.

The narrative begins in brisk style, as we learn very quickly that Mr. Horatio Leavenworth has been murdered in his study with his own revolver, after his two nieces, with whom he resides, retired to bed. His secretary, Harwell, hurries to the offices of lawyers Veeley, Carr and Raymond, to seek the help of Mr. Veeley. Unfortunately, the lawyer is away and our narrator, Veeley’s colleague Mr Raymond, offers to take his place.

The two men travel to Leavenworth’s home and there the narrator meets the beautiful nieces, Mary (Leavenworth’s heir) and Eleanore. He is also surprised to find that Mr. Gryce, notable New York detective, is already at the house and investigating the murder. Detective Gryce is “of portly build and benevolent aspect; a fatherly-looking man and not at all the person one would be likely to associate with the police. Yet he could take the lead very naturally”; he seems self-effacing and has a strange habit of staring at odd and seemingly irrelevant things whilst talking, thus putting his suspects off their guard. Everything points to the killing having been perpetrated by a member of the household – all doors and windows were secured and the gun has disappeared.  The inquest is held at the house, after the jury and coroner have visited the scene of the crime; whilst giving his evidence, Harwell is distressed to have to reveal information that implicates Eleanore in the murder; in addition, the cook reveals that Hannah, the maid, has disappeared overnight. Eleanore is further highlighted as the chief suspect when she is connected to a missing key and a mysterious document she was apparently seen with; also now mysteriously on the scene is a tall, lean, well-dressed man.

Meanwhile, our narrator, Raymond, finds himself falling hopelessly in love with Eleanore, so much so that he decides to find the murderer himself, in order to prove the beleaguered Eleanore’s innocence: “Eleanore must be saved at all hazards”, he writes.  His first act will be to track down Hannah, the missing servant, but at the same time, Raymond realises that Eleanore may be covering for a third party for whom she has, or has had, romantic feelings. Raymond calls on Gryce and reveals his intention to do his own detection and at first Gryce is reluctant to allow this. However, he soon finds a role for Raymond – — to investigate the tall, elegant stranger who is now revealed to be a Mr Clavering, from London. Raymond will now play the gentleman detective to go into venues that the humble police officer is not welcomed in; however, another of Gryce’s agents, the mysterious and gifted “Q” (short for Query, due to the detective’s skill in interrogation), will also play a vital role in solving the mystery…

Contemporary reviews of the novel are mixed, despite its wild popularity with the public. The reviewer in the Pall Mall Gazette of 13 May 1884 is complimentary about the novel, but certainly not effusive, at one point stating that Green had emulated Dickens in her drawing of the character of Mr. Gryce and also claims that “the experienced reader detects the criminal long before Mr Gryce….does so”. The review is also critical of the “exceedingly emotional and diffuse” character of the narrator. The Spectator of 15th March 1879 states “Compression, too, might have been applied, with much benefit. How many of Poe’s marvellous tales could be put into this volume! Still, The Leavenworth Case is a meritorious effort.”

Overall, as a first novel of any kind by the author, this is a strong effort, with a breezy pace and a good range of character types. As an early crime story it offers a hint of what was to come, with relatively short sentences to build tension (even if the odd passage of nineteenth century verbosity does creep in now and again) and events following each other rapidly. References to the New York and legal procedures of the time give the novel an added interest and the inquest is related with an immediacy that is reminiscent of a filmed courtroom drama; for any readers not so adept at following plots, Green helpfully has the narrator summarise the key points as the story unfolds. It sets the scene for her later successes and establishes Green as a popular mystery writer and the detective, Gryce, is a strong enough character to feature in several later mysteries. The Leavenworth Case is definitely a good place to start for the reader new to her works.

The first edition

CONTENTS

BOOK I. THE PROBLEM

I. “A GREAT CASE”

II. THE CORONER’S INQUEST

III. FACTS AND DEDUCTIONS

IV. A CLUE.

V. EXPERT TESTIMONY

VI. SIDE-LIGHTS

VII. MARY LEAVENWORTH

VIII. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

IX. A DISCOVERY

X. MR. GRYCE RECEIVES NEW IMPETUS

XI. THE SUMMONS

XII. ELEANORE.

XIII. THE PROBLEM

BOOK II. HENRY CLAVERING

XIV. MR. GRYCE AT HOME

XV. WAYS OPENING

XVI. THE WILL OF A MILLIONAIRE

XVII. THE BEGINNING OF GREAT SURPRISES

XVIII. ON THE STAIRS

XIX. IN MY OFFICE

XX. “TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN!”

XXI. A PREJUDICE

XXII. PATCH-WORK

XXIII. THE STORY OF A CHARMING WOMAN

XXIV. A REPORT FOLLOWED BY SMOKE

XXV. TIMOTHY COOK

XXVI. MR. GRYCE EXPLAINS HIMSELF

BOOK III. HANNAH

XXVII. AMY BELDEN

XXVIII. A WEIRD EXPERIENCE

XXIX. THE MISSING WITNESS

XXX. BURNED PAPER

XXXI. “THEREBY HANGS A TALE.”

XXXII. MRS. BELDEN’S NARRATIVE

XXXIII. UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY

BOOK IV. THE PROBLEM SOLVED

XXXIV. MR. GRYCE RESUMES CONTROL

XXXV. FINE WORK

XXXVI. GATHERED THREADS

XXXVII. CULMINATION

XXXVIII. A FULL CONFESSION

XXXIX. THE OUTCOME OF A GREAT CRIME

Green as a young woman

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 to-morrow; 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 to-day it is deemed proper for them to have some one 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.

“It would be unnatural if they were not.” And whether it was the expression of his face at the time, or the nature of the reply itself, I felt that in speaking of these ladies to this uninteresting, self-possessed secretary of the late Mr. Leavenworth, I was somehow treading upon dangerous ground. As I had heard they were very accomplished women, I was not altogether pleased at this discovery. It was, therefore, with a certain consciousness of relief I saw a Fifth Avenue stage approach.

“We will defer our conversation,” said I. “Here’s the stage.”

But, once seated within it, we soon discovered that all intercourse upon such a subject was impossible. Employing the time, therefore, in running over in my mind what I knew of Mr. Leavenworth, I found that my knowledge was limited to the bare fact of his being a retired merchant of great wealth and fine social position who, in default of possessing children of his own, had taken into his home two nieces, one of whom had already been declared his heiress. To be sure, I had heard Mr. Veeley speak of his eccentricities, giving as an instance this very fact of his making a will in favor of one niece to the utter exclusion of the other; but of his habits of life and connection with the world at large, I knew little or nothing.

There was a great crowd in front of the house when we arrived there, and I had barely time to observe that it was a corner dwelling of unusual depth when I was seized by the throng and carried quite to the foot of the broad stone steps. Extricating myself, though with some difficulty, owing to the importunities of a bootblack and butcher-boy, who seemed to think that by clinging to my arms they might succeed in smuggling themselves into the house, I mounted the steps and, finding the secretary, by some unaccountable good fortune, close to my side, hurriedly rang the bell. Immediately the door opened, and a face I recognized as that of one of our city detectives appeared in the gap.

“Mr. Gryce!” I exclaimed.

“The same,” he replied. “Come in, Mr. Raymond.” And drawing us quietly into the house, he shut the door with a grim smile on the disappointed crowd without. “I trust you are not surprised to see me here,” said he, holding out his hand, with a side glance at my companion.

“No,” I returned. Then, with a vague idea that I ought to introduce the young man at my side, continued: “This is Mr. —— , Mr. —— , — excuse me, but I do not know your name,” I said inquiringly to my companion. “The private secretary of the late Mr. Leavenworth,” I hastened to add.

“Oh,” he returned, “the secretary! The coroner has been asking for you, sir.”

“The coroner is here, then?”

“Yes; the jury have just gone up-stairs to view the body; would you like to follow them?”

“No, it is not necessary. I have merely come in the hope of being of some assistance to the young ladies. Mr. Veeley is away.”

“And you thought the opportunity too good to be 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, inkstand, book, or button. These things he would seem to take into his confidence, make the repositories of his conclusions; but as for you — you might as well be the steeple on Trinity Church, for all connection you ever appeared to have with him or his thoughts. At present, then, Mr. Gryce was, as I have already suggested, on intimate terms with the door-knob.

“A dreadful look,” I repeated.

His eye shifted to the button on my sleeve.

“Come,” he said, “the coast is clear at last.”

Leading the way, he mounted the stairs, but stopped on the upper landing. “Mr. Raymond,” said he, “I am not in the habit of talking much about the secrets of my profession, but in this case everything depends upon getting the right clue at the start. We have no common villainy to deal with here; genius has been at work. Now sometimes an absolutely uninitiated mind will intuitively catch at something which the most highly trained intellect will miss. If such a thing should occur, remember that I am your man. Don’t go round talking, but come to me. For this is going to be a great case, mind you, a great case. Now, come on.”

“But the ladies?”

“They are in the rooms above; in grief, of course, but tolerably composed for all that, I hear.” And advancing to a door, he pushed it open and beckoned me in.

All was dark for a moment, but presently, my eyes becoming accustomed to the place, I saw that we were in the library.