Removed account - cannot restore messages from Time Machine

Hello everyone,
I'm using Mail 4.4 on Mac OS 10.6.6. I removed a Mail account today, knowing I could recover all my received messages from the server, but failing to realize that the sent messages were not on the server. On the road, I didn't panic, as I've been using Time Machine for well over a year, and knew all would be well upon my return home.
I returned home, plugged in my Time Machine Backups disk, and Time Machine ran. I then attempted to restore the lost messages, only to find that, in quite Orwellian fashion, Time Machine had retroactively altered all my old Mail folders and had erased any trace (at least as far as I can tell) of the existence of the old account. I cannot find those lost message anywhere, in any backup of Mail, going all the way back.
I've been looking in ~/Library/Mail. Should I be looking elsewhere? I don't think so, because all my current accounts are listed there...along with a new account that I didn't create until today! How could a new account have existed months ago? Answer: It didn't. Something very creepy is going on here.
Can anyone help???
Thank you
Jason

Perhaps it was my late-night, jet-lagged delirium, but for whatever reason, I was able to restore the messages today using the application-specific Time Machine recover tool: made Mail the current application, then ran Time Machine. The messages were there, just as they should have been. (I swear they weren't there last night...)
My apologies if any of you spent any time on this.
Best,
Jason

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                        1   Message                             0x00007fff86991c29 -[MFAssertionHandler handleFailureInMethod:object:file:lineNumber:description:] + 185
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                        7   UnsubMailPluginMailAppOSX           0x000000010ad5c66b -[UnsubscribeBundle anyToolbarWillAddItem:] + 84
                        8   Foundation                          0x00007fff8d478de2 __-[NSNotificationCenter addObserver:selector:name:object:]_block_invoke_1 + 47
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                        28  AE                                  0x00007fff8e7839f7 aeProcessAppleEvent + 250
                        29  HIToolbox                           0x00007fff86c20b6d AEProcessAppleEvent + 102
                        30  AppKit                              0x00007fff8933963d _DPSNextEvent + 1247
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                        33  AppKit                              0x00007fff895b480c NSApplicationMain + 867
                        34  Mail                                0x0000000107372d88 Mail + 888200
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