“It’s a question of your Great-Uncle Simeon’s estate. They want you as a witness.”
“Well, he was eccentric in some particulars,” admitted Jacob cautiously.
“Let me think. Whenever there was a long drought he used to claim that he was a tree-toad, and he’d climb the ancestral elm up at the Westchester place and squawk for rain.”
“He had the largest collection of tin-can labels in Westchester County. At least, he boasted that it was the largest, and I never heard any one dispute it.”
“Same as any kind of a collecting bug does with his collection; nothing.”
“Everything I can recall except that every May Day he used to put on a high hat and a pink sash and dance around a Maypole in Central Park. As he didn’t care whose Maypole it happened to be, he usually got arrested.”
“I see. And the rest of the family; did they show any symptoms?”
“What do you mean, special? Come, out with it!”
“Of course there was my poor old maiden aunt, Miss Melinda. You’ve heard of her?”
“She did her best to change that. When she was fifty-four she eloped with the coachman. Only they couldn’t get any one to marry ’em, so she had to come home.”
“What was wrong? Was the coachman married already?”
“Interesting line of relatives you carry. What about the remainder of the tribe?”
“Just about the usual run of old families, I guess. One of the other aunts used to do a little in the anonymous letter line and break up happy families. Then, of course, Cousin Fred used to pull some fairly interesting stuff when he had the d-t’s, but the claim that Uncle Simeon’s first wife dressed up as the Van Cortland Manor ghost isn’t—”
“Enough said! I didn’t ask for a new edition of the _Chronique Scandaleuse_. How would you like to tell all this to the court, and through it to the newspapers?”
“All very well. But if they put you on the stand, you’ll have to tell or go to jail. And they’ll put you on, for you’re their one best bet. With you they can win and without you they can’t.”
“Then they lose. I’ll skip the country rather than rake up all that dead and decayed stuff.”
“How about your grandfather’s will, under which you inherit this house and most of your fortune? Have you forgotten that you’re required to inhabit the house, from now on, at least three months out of every six until you’re married?”