Thrown into Rembrandtish relief by the light of a garish kerosene lamp
upon the table: with one discouraged lock of hair hanging over his nose,
and straw hat pushed so far back from his phrenological brow that its
vast rim had the fine artistic effect of a huge saintly nimbus: Mr.
BUMSTEAD sat gynmastically crosswise in an easy-chair, over an arm of
which his slender lower limbs limply dangled, and elaborately performed
one of the grander works of BACH upon an irritable accordion. Now,
winking with intense rapidity, and going through the muscular motions of
an excitable person resolutely pulling out an obstinate and inexplicable
drawer from somewhere about his knees, he produced sustained and
mournful notes, as of canine distress in the backyard; anon, with eyes
nearly closed and the straw nimbus sliding still further back, his
manipulation was that of an excessively weary gentleman slowly
compressing a large sponge, thereby squeezing out certain choking,
snorting, guttural sounds, as of a class softly studying the German
language in another room; and, finally, with an impatient start from the
unexpected slumber into which the last shaky _pianissimo_ had
momentarily betrayed him, he caught the untamed instrument in mid-air,
just as it was treacherously getting away from him, frantically balanced
it there for an instant on all his clutching finger-tips, and had it
prisoner again for a renewal of the weird symphony.
Seriously offended at the discovery that he could not drop asleep in his
own room, for a minute, without the music stopping and the accordion
trying to slip off, the Ritualistic organist was not at all softened in
temper by almost simultaneously realizing that the farther skirt of his
long linen coat was standing out nearly straight from his person, and,
apparently, fluttering in a heavy draught.
"Who's-been-ope'nin'-th'-window?" he sternly asked,
"What's-meaning-'f-such-a-gale-at thistime-'f-year?"
"Do I intrude?" inquired a voice close at hand.
Looking very carefully along the still extended skirt of his coat
towards exactly the point of the compass from which the voice seemed to
come, Mr. BUMSTEAD at last awoke to the conviction that the tension of
his garment and its breezy agitation were caused by the tugging of a
human figure.
"Do I intrude?" repeated Mr. TRACEY CLEWS, dropping the skirt as he
spoke. "Have I presumed too greatly in coming to request the favor of a
short private interview?"
Slipping quickly into a more genteel but rather rigid position on his
chair, the Ritualistic organist made an airy pass at him with the
accordion.
"Any doors where youwasborn, sir?"
"There were, Mr. BUMSTEAD."
"People ever knock when th' wanted t'-come-in, sir?"
"Why, I did knock at your door," answered Mr. CLEWS, conciliatingly. "I
knocked and knocked, but you kept on playing; and after I finally took
the liberty to come in and pull you by the coat, it was ten minutes
before you found it out."
In an attempt to look into the speaker's inmost soul, Mr. BUMSTEAD fell
into a doze, from which the crash of his accordion to the floor aroused
him in time to behold a very curious proceeding on the part of Mr.
CLEWS. That gentleman successively peered up the chimney, through the
windows, and under the furniture of the room, and then stealthily took a
seat near his rather languid observer.
"Mr. BUMSTEAD, you know me as a temporary boarder under the same roof
with you. Other people know me merely as a dead-beat. May I trust you
with a secret?"
A pair of blurred and glassy eyes looked into his from under a huge
straw hat, and a husky question followed his:
"Did y' ever read WORDSWORTH'S poem-'f-th' Excursion, sir?"
"Not that I remember."
"Then, sir," exclaimed the organist, with spasmodic animation--"then's
not in your hicsperience to know howssleepy-I am-jus'-now."
"You had a nephew," said his subtle companion, raising his voice, and
not appearing to heed the last remark.
"An' 'numbrella," added Mr. BUMSTEAD, feebly.
"I say you had a nephew," reiterated the other, "and that nephew
disappeared in a very mysterious manner. Now I'm a literary man--"
"C'd tell that by y'r-headerhair," murmured the Ritualistic organist.
Left y'r wife yet, sir?"
"I say I'm a literary man," persisted TRACEY CLEWS, sharply. "I'm going
to write a great American Novel, called 'The Amateur Detective,' founded
upon the story of this very EDWIN DROOD, and have come to Bumsteadville
to get all the particulars. I've picked up considerable from Gospeler
SIMPSON, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, and even the woman from the Mulberry street
place who came after you the other morning. But now I want to know
something from you.--What has become of your nephew?"
He put the question suddenly, and with a kind of suppressed leap at him
whom he addressed. Immeasurable was his surprise at the perfectly calm
answer--
"I can't r'member hicsactly, sir."
"Can't remember!--Can't remember what?"
"Where-I-put't."
"_It?_"
"Yes. Th' umbrella."
"What on earth are you talking about?" exclaimed Mr. CLEWS, in a rage.
"--Come! Wake up!--What have umbrellas to do with this?"
Rousing himself to something like temporary consciousness, Mr. BUMSTEAD
slowly climbed to his feet, and, with a wild kind of swoop, came heavily
down with both hands upon the shoulders of his questioner.
"What now?" asked that startled personage.
"You want t' know 'bout th' umbrella?" said BUMSTEAD, with straw hat
amazingly awry, and linen coat a perfect map of creases.
"Yes!--You're crushing me!" panted Mr. CLEWS.
"Th' umbrella!" cried Mr. BUMSTEAD, suddenly withdrawing his hands and
swaying before his visitor like a linen person on springs--"This's what
there's 'bout 't: _Where th' umbrella is, there is Edwin also!_"
Astounded by, this bewildering confession, and fearful that the uncle of
Mr. DROOD would be back in his chair and asleep again if he gave him a
chance, the excited inquisitor sprang from his chair, and slowly and
carefully backed the wildly glaring object of his solicitation until his
shoulders and elbows were safely braced against the mantel-piece. Then,
like one inspired, he grasped a bottle of soda water from the table, and
forced the reviving liquid down his staring patient's throat; as quickly
tore off his straw hat, newly moistened the damp sponge in it at a
neighboring washstand, and replaced both on the aching head; and,
finally, placed in one of his tremulous hands a few cloves from a saucer
on the mantel-shelf.
"You are better now? You can tell me more?" he said, resting a moment
from his violent exertions.
With the unsettled air of one coming out of a complicated dream, Mr.
BUMSTEAD chewed the cloves musingly; then, after nodding excessively,
with a hideous smile upon his countenance, suddenly threw an arm about
the neck of his restorer and wept loudly upon his bosom.
"My fr'en'," he wailed, in a damp voice, "lemme confess to you. I'm a
mis'able man, my fr'en'; perfectly mis'able. These cloves--these
insidious tropical spices--have been thebaneofmyexistence. On Chrishm's
night--_that_ Chrishm's night--I toogtoomany. Wha'scons'q'nce? I put m'
nephew an' m' umbrella away somewhere, an 've neverb'n able
terremembersince!"
Still sustaining his weight, the author of "The Amateur Detective" at
first seemed nonplussed; but quickly changed his expression to one of
abrupt intelligence.
"I see, now; I begin to see," he answered, slowly, and almost in a
whisper. "On the night of that Christmas dinner here, you were in a
clove-trance, and made some secret disposition, (which you have not
since been able to remember,) of your umbrella--and nephew. Until very
lately--until now, when you are nearly, but _not quite_, as much under
the influence of cloves again--you have had a vague general idea that
somebody else must have killed Mr. DROOD and stolen your umbrella. But
now, that you are partially in the same condition, physiologically and
psychologically, as on the night of the disappearance, you have once
more a partial perception of what were the facts of the case. Am I
right?"
"That's it, sir. You're a ph'los'pher," murmured Mr. BUMSTEAD, trying to
brush from above his nose the pendent lock of hair, which he took for a
fly.
"Very well, then," continued TRACEY CLEWS, his extraordinary head of
hair fairly bristling with electrical animation: "You've only to get
yourself into _exactly the same_ clove-y condition as on the night of
the double disappearance, when you put your umbrella and nephew away
somewhere, and you'll remember all about it again. You have two distinct
states of existence, you see: a cloven one, and an uncloven one; and
what you have done in one you are totally oblivious of in the other."
Something like an occult wink trembled for a moment in the right eye of
Mr. BUMSTEAD.
"Tha's ver' true," said he, thoughtfully. "I've been 'blivious m'self,
frequently. Never c'd r'member wharIowed."
"The idea I've suggested to you for the solution of this mystery," went
on Mr. CLEWS, "Is expressed by one of the greatest of English writers;
who, in his very last work, says; '--in some cases of drunkenness, and
in others of animal magnetism, there are two states of consciousness
which never clash, but each of which pursues its separate course as
though it were continuous instead of broken. Thus, if I hide my watch
when I am drunk, I must be drunk again before I can remember where.'[2]"
"I'm norradrink'n'man, sir," returned Mr. BUMSTEAD, drawing coldly back
from him, and escaping a fall into the fireplace by a dexterous surge
into the nearest chair. "Th' lemon tea which I take for my cold, or to
pr'vent the cloves from disagreeing with me, is norrintoxicating."
"Of course not," assented his subtle counsellor; "but, in this country,
at least, chronic inebriation, clove-eating, and even opium-taking, are
strikingly alike in their aspects, and the same rules may be safely
applied to all. My advice to you is what I have given. Cause a table to
be spread in this room, exactly as it was for that memorable
Christmas-dinner; sit down to it exactly as then, and at the same hour;
go through all the same processes as nearly as you can remember; and, by
the mere force of association, you will enact all the final performances
with your umbrella and your nephew."
Mr. BUMSTEAD'S arms were folded tightly across his manly breast, and the
fine head with the straw hat upon it tilted heavily towards his bosom.
"I see't now," said he softly; "bone han'le 'n ferule. I r'member
threshing 'm with it. I can r'memb'r carry'ng--" Here Mr. BUMSTEAD burst
into tears, and made a frenzied dash at the lock of hair which he again
mistook for a fly.
"To sum up all," concluded Mr. TRACEY CLEWS, shaking him violently by
the shoulder, that he might remain awake long enough to hear it,--"to
sum up all, I am satisfied, from the familiar knowledge of this mystery
I have already gained, that the end will have something to do with
exercise in the Open Air! You'll have to go outdoors for something
important. And now good night."
"Goornight, sir."
Retiring softly to his own room, under the same roof, the author of "The
Amateur Detective" smiled at himself before the mirror with marked
complacency. "You're a long-headed one, my dead-beat friend," he said,
archly, "and your great American Novel is likely to be a respectable
success."
There sounded a crash upon a floor, somewhere in the house, and he held
his breath to listen. It was the Ritualistic organist going to bed.
(_To be Continued._)
[Footnote 1: The few remaining chapters with which it is proposed to
conclude this Adaptation of "_The Mystery of Edwin Drood_," should not
be construed as involving presumptuous attempt to divine that full
solution of the latter which the pen of its lamented author was not
permitted to reach. No further correspondence with the tenor of the
unfinished English story is intended than the Adapter will endeavor to
justify to his own conscience, and that of his reader, by at least one
unmistakable foreshadowing circumstance of the original publication,
which, strangely enough, has been wholly overlooked, thus far, by those
speculating upon the fate of the missing hero.]
[Footnote 2: See Chapter III., _The Mystery of Edwin Drood._]
* * * * *
An Old Saw with a Modern Instance.
The Farthing Candle of New York journalism appears to be trying to find
what political party he can best bully into offering the largest reward
for his conscientious support. As a looker on, PUNCHINELLO would suggest
to the political parties, as applicable in this case, the following
quotation from VIRGIL:
----"_timeo Dana-os et dona ferentes_."
* * * * *