Neither friends nor strangers could gain admittance there unless
they came vested with authority from the coroner. And this, even
if I could manage to obtain it, would not answer in my case. What
I had to say and do would better follow a chance encounter. But
no chance encounter with this gentleman seemed likely to fall to
my lot, and finally I swallowed my pride and asked another favor
of the lieutenant. Would he see that I was given an opportunity
for carrying some message, or of doing some errand which would lead
to my having an interview with Mr. Jeffrey? If he would, I stood
ready to promise that my curiosity should stop at this point and
that I would cease to make a nuisance of myself.
I think he suspected me by this time; but he made no remark, and in
a day or so I was summoned to carry a note to the house in K Street.
Mrs. Jeffrey's funeral had taken place the day before and the house
looked deserted. But my summons speedily brought a neat-looking,
but very nervous maid to the door, whose eyes took on an unmistakable
expression of resistance when I announced my errand and asked to see
Mr. Jeffrey. The expression would not have struck me as peculiar
if she had raised any objection to the interview I had solicited.
But she did not. Her fear and antipathy, consequently, sprang from
some other source than her interest in the man most threatened by
my visit.
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