Read "The Leavenworth Case" by Anna Katharine Green online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"Something is rotten in the State of Denmark." Hamlet.
The cook of the establishment being now called, that portly, ruddy-faced individual stepped forward with alacrity, displaying upon her good-humored countenance such an expression of mingled eagerness and anxiety that more than one person present found it difficult to restrain a smile at her appearance. Observing this and taking it as a compliment, being a woman as well as a cook, she immediately dropped a curtsey, and opening her lips was about to speak, when the coroner, rising impatiently in his seat, took the word from her mouth by saying sternly: