Miss Mehetabels Son | Page 5

Greenton had forty thousand inhabitants, it
could n't turn out a more astonishing old party than that!"

II. THE CASE OF SILAS JAFFREY.
A man with a passion for bric-à-brac is always stumbling over antique
bronzes, intaglios, mosaics, and daggers of the time of Benvenuto
Cellini; the bibliophile finds creamy vellum folios and rare Alduses and
Elzevirs waiting for him at unsuspected bookstalls; the numismatist has
but to stretch forth his palm to have priceless coins drop into it. My
own weakness is odd people, and I am constantly encountering them. It
was plain that I had unearthed a couple of very queer specimens at
Bayley's Four-Corners. I saw that a fortnight afforded me too brief an
opportunity to develop the richness of both, and I resolved to devote
my spare time to Mr. Jaffrey alone, instinctively recognizing in him an
unfamiliar species. My professional work in the vicinity of Greenton
left my evenings and occasionally an afternoon unoccupied; these
intervals I purposed to employ in studying and classifying my
fellow-boarder. It was necessary, as a preliminary step, to learn
something of his previous history, and to this end I addressed myself to

Mr. Sewell that same night.
"I do not want to seem inquisitive," I said to the landlord, as he was
fastening up the bar, which, by the way, was the salle à manger and
general sitting-room--"I do not want to seem inquisitive, but your
friend Mr. Jaffrey dropped a remark this morning at breakfast
which--which was not altogether clear to me."
"About Mehetabel?" asked Mr. Sewell, uneasily.
"Yes."
"Well, I wish he would n't!"
"He was friendly enough in the course of conversation to hint to me
that he had not married the young woman, and seemed to regret it."
"No, he did n't marry Mehetabel."
"May I inquire why he did n't marry Mehetabel?"
"Never asked her. Might have married the girl forty times. Old Elkins's
daughter, over at K------. She 'd have had him quick enough. Seven
years, off and on, he kept company with Mehetabel, and then she died."
"And he never asked her?"
"He shilly-shallied. Perhaps he did n't think of it. When she was dead
and gone, then Silas was struck all of a heap--and that's all about it."
Obviously Mr. Sewell did not intend to tell me anything more, and
obviously there was more to tell. The topic was plainly disagreeable to
him for some reason or other, and that unknown reason of course
piqued my curiosity.
As I was absent from dinner and supper that day, I did not meet Mr.
Jaffrey again until the following morning at breakfast. He had
recovered his bird-like manner, and was full of a mysterious
assassination that had just taken place in New York, all the thrilling

details of which were at his fingers' ends. It was at once comical and
sad to see this harmless old gentleman with his naïve, benevolent
countenance, and his thin hair flaming up in a semicircle, like the
footlights at a theatre, revelling in the intricacies of the unmentionable
deed.
"You come up to my room to-night," he cried, with horrid glee, "and I
'll give you my theory of the murder. I 'll make it as clear as day to you
that it was the detective himself who fired the three pistol-shots."
It was not so much the desire to have this point elucidated as to make a
closer study of Mr. Jaffrey that led me to accept his invitation. Mr.
Jaffrey's bedroom was in an L of the building, and was in no way
noticeable except for the numerous files of newspapers neatly arranged
against the blank spaces of the walls, and a huge pile of old magazines
which stood in one corner, reaching nearly up to the ceiling, and
threatening to topple over each instant, like the Leaning Tower at Pisa.
There were green paper shades at the windows, some faded chintz
valances about the bed, and two or three easy-chairs covered with
chintz. On a black-walnut shelf between the windows lay a choice
collection of meerschaum and brier-wood pipes.
Filling one of the chocolate-colored bowls for me and another for
himself, Mr. Jaffrey began prattling; but not about the murder, which
appeared to have flown out of his mind. In fact, I do not remember that
the topic was even touched upon, either then or afterwards.
"Cosey nest this," said Mr. Jaffrey, glancing complacently over the
apartment. "What is more cheerful, now, in the fall of the year, than an
open wood-fire? Do you hear those little chirps and twitters coming out
of that piece of apple-wood? Those are the ghosts of the robins and
bluebirds that sang upon the bough when it was in blossom last spring.
In summer whole flocks of them come