The Terrible Old Man

Also on file as: —

A reputedly wealthy, exceedingly old resident of Water Street whose habits strike outsiders as harmless senility: rows of bottles hung about his sitting room, each holding a suspended pendulum he visits and addresses by name, as though greeting a crew he once sailed with. Three men who read his age as helplessness called on him one night to relieve him of his fortune. The town draws its own quiet conclusions the next morning; the old man is not among the missing.