University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE USE OF SPECTACLES.

THE old Master of Arts had a great reputation in the
house where he lived for knowing everything that was
going on. He rather enjoyed it; and sometimes amused
himself with surprising his simple-hearted landlady and
her boarders with the unaccountable results of his sagacity.
One thing was quite beyond her comprehension. She was
perfectly sure that Mr. Gridley could see out of the back
of his head, just as other people see with their natural
organs. Time and again he had told her what she was
doing when his back was turned to her, just as if he had
been sitting squarely in front of her. Some laughed at this
foolish notion; but others, who knew more of the nebulous
sciences, told her it was like 's not jes' so. Folks
had read letters laid ag'in' the pits o' their stomachs, 'n'
why should n't they see out o' the backs o' their heads?

Now there was a certain fact at the bottom of this belief
of Mrs. Hopkins; and as it would be a very small thing
to make a mystery of so simple a matter, the reader shall
have the whole benefit of knowing all there is in it, — not
quite yet, however, of knowing all that came of it. It was
not the mirror trick, of course, which Mrs. Felix Lorraine
and other dangerous historical personages have so long
made use of. It was nothing but this. Mr. Byles Gridley
wore a pair of formidable spectacles with large round
glasses. He had often noticed the reflection of objects behind
him when they caught their images at certain angles,

and had got the habit of very often looking at the reflecting
surface of one or the other of the glasses, when he seemed
to be looking through them. It put a singular power into
his possession, which might possibly hereafter lead to
something more significant than the mystification of the
Widow Hopkins.

A short time before Myrtle Hazard's disappearance,
Mr. Byles Gridley had occasion to call again at the office
of Penhallow and Bradshaw on some small matter of business
of his own. There were papers to look over, and he
put on his great round-glassed spectacles. He and Mr.
Penhallow sat down at the table, and Mr. Bradshaw was
at a desk behind them. After sitting for a while, Mr.
Penhallow seemed to remember something he had meant
to attend to, for he said all at once: “Excuse me, Mr.
Gridley. Mr. Bradshaw, if you are not busy, I wish you
would look over this bundle of papers. They look like
old receipted bills and memoranda of no particular use;
but they came from the garret of the Withers place, and
might possibly have something that would be of value.
Look them over, will you, and see whether there is anything
there worth saving.”

The young man took the papers, and Mr. Penhallow sat
down again at the table with Mr. Byles Gridley.

This last-named gentleman felt just then a strong impulse
to observe the operations of Murray Bradshaw. He could
not have given any very good reason for it, any more than
any of us can for half of what we do.

“I should like to examine that conveyance we were
speaking of once more,” said he. “Please to look at this
one in the mean time, will you, Mr. Penhallow?”

Master Gridley held the document up before him. He

did not seem to find it quite legible, and adjusted his spectacles
carefully, until they were just as he wanted them.
When he had got them to suit himself, sitting there with
his back to Murray Bradshaw, he could see him and all
his movements, the desk at which he was standing, and
the books in the shelves before him, — all this time appearing
as if he were intent upon his own reading.

The young man began in a rather indifferent way to
look over the papers. He loosened the band round them,
and took them up one by one, gave a careless glance at
them, and laid them together to tie up again when he had
gone through them. Master Gridley saw all this process,
thinking what a fool he was all the time to be watching such a
simple proceeding. Presently he noticed a more sudden
movement: the young man had found something which
arrested his attention, and turned his head to see if he was
observed. The senior partner and his client were both
apparently deep in their own affairs. In his hand Mr.
Bradshaw held a paper folded like the others, the back of
which he read, holding it in such a way that Master Gridley
saw very distinctly three large spots of ink upon it,
and noticed their position. Murray Bradshaw took another
hurried glance at the two gentlemen, and then quickly
opened the paper. He ran it over with a flash of his
eye, folded it again, and laid it by itself. With another
quick turn of his head, as if to see whether he were observed
or like to be, he reached his hand out and took a volume
down from the shelves. In this volume he shut the document,
whatever it was, which he had just taken out of the
bundle, and placed the book in a very silent and as it were
stealthy way back in its place. He then gave a look at
each of the other papers, and said to his partner: “Old

bills, old leases, and insurance policies that have run out.
Malachi seems to have kept every scrap of paper that had
a signature to it.”

“That 's the way with the old misers, always,” said Mr.
Penhallow.

Byles Gridley had got through reading the document he
held, — or pretending to read it. He took off his spectacles.

“We all grow timid and cautious as we get old, Mr.
Penhallow.” Then turning round to the young man, he
slowly repeated the lines, —

You remember the passage, Mr. Bradshaw?”

While he was reciting these words from Horace, which
he spoke slowly as if he relished every syllable, he kept
his eyes on the young man steadily, but without betraying
any suspicion. His old habits as a teacher made that
easy.

Murray Bradshaw's face was calm as usual, but there
was a flush on his cheek, and Master Gridley saw the slight
but unequivocal signs of excitement.

“Something is going on inside there,” the old man said
to himself. He waited patiently, on the pretext of business,
until Mr. Bradshaw got up and left the office. As
soon as he and the senior partner were alone, Master Gridley
took a lazy look at some of the books in his library.
There stood in the book-shelves a copy of the Corpus Juris
Civilis, — the fine Elzevir edition of 1664. It was bound
in parchment, and thus readily distinguishable at a glance
from all the books round it. Now Mr. Penhallow was not

much of a Latin scholar, and knew and cared very little
about the civil law. He had fallen in with this book at an
auction, and bought it to place in his shelves with the other
“properties” of the office, because it would look respectable.
Anything shut up in one of those two octavos might
stay there a lifetime without Mr. Penhallow's disturbing
it; that Master Gridley knew, and of course the young
man knew it too.

We often move to the objects of supreme curiosity or
desire, not in the lines of castle or bishop on the chess-board,
but with the knight's zigzag, at first in the wrong
direction, making believe to ourselves we are not after the
thing coveted. Put a lump of sugar in a canary-bird's
cage, and the small creature will illustrate the instinct for
the benefit of inquirers or sceptics. Byles Gridley went
to the other side of the room and took a volume of Reports
from the shelves. He put it back and took a copy of
“Fearne on Contingent Remainders,” and looked at that
for a moment in an idling way, as if from a sense of having
nothing to do. Then he drew the back of his forefinger
along the books on the shelf, as if nothing interested him in
them, and strolled to the shelf in front of the desk at which
Murray Bradshaw had stood. He took down the second
volume of the Corpus Juris Civilis, turned the leaves over
mechanically, as if in search of some title, and replaced it.

He looked round for a moment. Mr. Penhallow was
writing hard at his table, not thinking of him, it was plain
enough. He laid his hand on the FIRST volume of the
Corpus Juris Civilis. There was a document shut up in
it. His hand was on the book, whether taking it out or
putting it back was not evident, when the door opened and
Mr. William Murray Bradshaw entered.

“Ah, Mr. Gridley,” he said, “you are not studying the
civil law, are you?” He strode towards him as he spoke,
his face white, his eyes fixed fiercely on him.

“It always interests me, Mr. Bradshaw,” he answered,
“and this is a fine edition of it. One may find a great
many valuable things in the Corpus Juris Civilis.”

He looked impenetrable, and whether or not he had seen
more than Mr. Bradshaw wished him to see, that gentleman
could not tell. But there stood the two books in their
place, and when, after Master Gridley had gone, he looked
in the first volume, there was the document he had shut up
in it.