Chapter 13

"He gave me my dog," said Miss O'Hara. "He gave him to me when the dog was just a puppy, and he called him Waffles. He used to joke about my loving the dog more than I loved him. He used to say--"

Miss O'Hara wiped her eyes. For a moment she could not speak.

"He used to say," she continued in a moment, "that I'd never break my heart over a lost uncle, but that if I lost Waffles I'd die of grief. It wasn't so, of course. But I'm heart-broken to have Waffles gone. He is all I'll have to remember Uncle Haddon by. And then--to have him--go!"

"I should take it a pleasure to be employed upon a case to fetch him back," said Mr. Gubb.

"Oh, would you?" cried Miss O'Hara. "I'm so glad! I was afraid a--a real detective might not want to bother with a dog. Of course I'll pay--"

"The remuneration will be minimum on account of the smallness of the crime under the statutes made and provided," said Mr. Gubb.

"But you must let me pay!" urged Miss O'Hara. "One of the things Uncle Haddon said was, 'If you ever lose that dog, Dolly, hire Detective Gubb. Understand? He's a wonderful detective. He'll leave no stone unturned. He'll find your dog. He'll pry the roof off the dog-house to find a flea, and when he's found the flea he'll hunt up a blond dog to match it. Remember,' he said, 'if you lose the dog, get Gubb.'"

"I consider the compliment the highest form of flattery," said Mr. Gubb.

"So I want you to try to find Waffles, please, if it isn't beneath you to hunt a dog," said Miss O'Hara. "How much will you charge to find Waffles, Mr. Gubb?"

"I'd ought to have five dollars--" Mr. Gubb began doubtfully.

"Of course!" exclaimed Miss O'Hara. "Why, I expected to pay far more."

"Well and good," said Mr. Gubb. "And now, how aged was the dog when he was purloined away from you?"

Philo Gubb secured a complete history of the dog. Miss O'Hara had brought, also, two photographs of Waffles in pleasing poses, and when she left, Mr. Gubb accompanied her to the late home of Waffles. It was there he gathered the clues over which he was poring with his microscope when Mr. Higgins came to ask him to step across the hall and to offer him two hundred dollars if he could produce Mustard Bilton. Mr. Gubb went across the hall.

"Gubb," said Judge Mackinnon, when he had introduced the detective to Mrs. Kinsey and Mrs. Doblin, "was Mustard Bilton in this office when you signed your name to these wills?"

"No, sir, he was not present in person," said Mr. Gubb. "He was elsewhere."

"Well, ladies," said the Judge, "it seems to me that until we can find Mustard we cannot proceed. Mr. O'Hara's last will--whichever it is--must be probated. If I took this will to the courthouse, whichever side happened to be uppermost would be probated first and the other side would naturally appear on the record as the latest will. It is a responsibility I do not care to undertake. If you will not agree to compromise and divide the estate--"

"Never!" said both ladies.

"We must find Mustard!" said the Judge.

Mr. Gubb went into the hall, but Lawyer Burch followed him.

"Gubb," he said, "just a word! Find Mustard for me. Now, don't talk--find him. Bring Mustard to Judge Mackinnon's office and I'll put two hundred dollars in your hand! That's all!"

Detective Gubb returned to his office and resumed his work on his lost dog clues. One by one he submitted the clues to inspection under the microscope. He tried the five processes of the Sherlock Holmes inductive method on them. By some strange quirk, quite out of keeping with the usual detective-story logic, he could make nothing of them. Even the flea in the bit of dog hair did not point direct to the location of the dog. They were blind clues. Mr. Gubb swept them into an empty envelope, sealed the envelope, put on his hat and went out.

On the stair he met Judge Mackinnon.

"Well, if O'Hara meant to have a little joke--and he did--he's had it," said the Judge with a chuckle. "You should have been in that room just now. Cat fights? Those two women all but jumped on each other with claws and teeth. I don't know why O'Hara wanted to worry them, but he has paid them back well for whatever they ever did to him."

"And the dog has disappeared away, too," said Mr. Gubb. "I am proceeding on my way at the present time to help discover where the dog is."

"Hope you find the poor child's pet," said the Judge as he turned off in the opposite direction.

Mr. Gubb proceeded to the late home of Haddon O'Hara. He followed the brick walk to the back of the house. He was already familiar with the premises.

The dog-house--the only recently painted structure in the neighborhood--stood opposite the kitchen door. It was perhaps three feet in height and four feet long, with a pointed roof. As a door it had an open arch, and at one side of this was a staple to which a chain could be attached. The grass in front of the dog-house was worn away, leaving the soil packed hard. The detective, arriving at the dog-house, walked around it, gazing at it closely.

The inductive method had failed--as it always failed for Mr. Gubb--and he meant now to try following a clue in person, if he could find a clue to follow. Mr. Gubb dropped to his hands and knees and crept around the dog-house, seeking a clue hidden in the grass. When he reached the front of the dog-house he paused.

"Ye look that like a dog I was thinkin' ye'd howl for a bone," said Mrs. Mullarky suddenly from the kitchen door.

Mr. Gubb turned and eyed her with disapproval.

"The operations of deteckating are strange to the lay mind," he said haughtily. "Those not understanding them should be seen and not heard."

"An' hear the man!" cried Mrs. Mullarky. "Does a dog-house drive all of ye crazy? T' see a human bein' crawlin' around on his four legs an' callin' it detectin' where a dog is that ain't there! Go awn, if ye wish! Crawl inside of ut!"

"I'm going to do so," said Mr. Gubb, and he did.

Inside, or as far inside as he could get, Mr. Gubb struck a match and examined the floor of the house. There was straw on it, but nothing even remotely suggesting a clue. No dog thief had left a glove there. Mr. Gubb began to back out, and as he backed his head touched something softer than a pine board. He craned his long neck and looked upward. Tacked to the inside of the roof of the house was a long envelope. Mr. Gubb put up his hand and pulled it loose. Then he backed into the daylight. He sat on the bare spot before the dog-house and examined the envelope.

The envelope was sealed, but on the face of it was written:--

To be delivered to Judge Mackinnon, after Waffles has been returned to his house and home. Waffles will be found in the old cattle-shed on the Illinois side of the river, north from the turnpike at the far end of the bridge. H. O'H.

It was a clue! Without stopping to silence the scornful laughter of Mrs. Mullarky, Philo Gubb jumped to his feet and made for the Illinois side of the long bridge as rapidly as his long legs could carry him. He reached the old cattle-shed and there he found Mustard Bilton seated at the door, smoking a cob pipe in lazy comfort.

"Come for the dog?" asked Mustard carelessly. "Sort of thought you'd come for him about now. Been expectin' you the last couple o' days."

"Expecting me?" said Philo Gubb. "I've been doing deteckative work on this case--"

"Yes, Had' O'Hara reckoned you'd detect around awhile before you got track of me," said Mustard without emotion. "He says, when I'd signed that there will for him, 'Day or so after I kick the bucket, Mustard, you go up and steal Waffles,' he says, 'and fetch him over to the cattle-shed on the Illinoy side,' he says, 'and keep him there until Gubb comes for him. Take a day or so, maybe,' he says, 'for Dolly to remember I told her to get Gubb, and take Gubb a day or two to scrooge round before he hits on the clue I've fixed up to point him to you, but he'll come. He's a wonder, Gubb is,' says O'Hara, 'and no mistake. If a feller was to steal the sardines out of a can,' he says, 'bet you Gubb would want to see what was inside the empty can before he'd start out to find the feller. You just sit quiet an' wait till Gubb snoops round enough,' he says, 'and he'll come.'"

"You have possession of the Waffles dog at the present time?" asked Detective Gubb.

"In yonder," said Mustard, pointing over his shoulder. "Say, what's the joke O'Hara was cookin' up, anyway?"

"You accompany yourself with me to the office of Judge Mackinnon," said Mr. Gubb, "and you'll discover it out for yourself and I'll remunerate you to twenty dollars also. Fetch the dog."

Mr. Gubb, quite properly, left Mustard and Waffles in his own office while he visited Mr. Higgins and Mr. Burch, collecting two hundred dollars from each. Then he turned Mr. Mustard Bilton over to them.

"You signed those wills of O'Hara's," said Mr. Burch when all had gathered in Judge Mackinnon's office. "Do you know which you signed last?"

"Sure, I do," said Mustard.

Mr. Burch handed him the double will.

"Which did you sign last?" asked Mr. Burch energetically.

Mustard took the document and looked at it. The Kinsey side was toward him.

"It wasn't this one," he said positively.

"Ah, ha!" cried Lawyer Higgins, turning the paper over. "Then it was this one you signed last!"

"No," said Mustard, glancing at the Doblin side of the paper. "I signed this'n the same time as I signed the other side of it. I signed both these the first day of the month. The one I signed last I signed on the second of the month."

"Ah, yes!" said Judge Mackinnon, looking at a document he had taken from the envelope Philo Gubb had handed him. "You mean this one:--

Last will and testament--and all else with which I may die possessed--to my niece Dorothy O'Hara--and hope she can take a joke--Haddon O'Hara.

You mean this one, Mr. Bilton?"

"Yep," said Mustard, looking at the document that gave to Dolly O'Hara every jot and tittle of Haddon O'Hara's property. "That's the one. That's the one I signed last. Me and old Sam Fliggis signed her--same day O'Hara hired me to steal the dog. Well, I guess I'll be takin' the dog back home. So 'long, gents. Old Had' was bound to have his joke, wasn't he?"

"Mr. Gubb," said Judge Mackinnon suddenly, "would you be betraying a professional secret if you told us how you found this document?"

"In the pursuit of following my deteckative profession," said Detective Gubb, "according to Lesson Six, Page Thirty-two."

THE ANONYMOUS WIGGLE

Any one reading a history of the detective work of Philo Gubb, the paper-hanger detective, might imagine that crime stalked abroad endlessly in Riverbank and that criminals crowded the streets, but this would be mere imagination. For weeks before he took on the case of the Anonymous Wiggle, he had been obliged to revert to his side-line of paper-hanging and decorating.

Four hundred of the dollars he had earned by solving the mystery of the missing Mustard and Waffles he had paid to Mr. Medderbrook, together with five dollars for a telegram Mr. Medderbrook had received from Syrilla. This telegram was a great satisfaction to Mr. Gubb. It brought the day when she might be his nearer, and showed that the fair creature was fighting nobly to reduce. It had read:--

None but the brave deserve the thin. Have given up all liquids. Have given up water, milk, coca-cola, beer, chocolate, champagne, buttermilk, cider, soda-water, root beer, tea, koumyss, coffee, ginger ale, bevo, Bronx cocktails, grape juice, and absinthe frappé. Weigh eight hundred ninety-five net. Love to Gubby from little Syrilla.

Crime is not rampant in Riverbank. P. Gubb therefore welcomed gladly Miss Petunia Scroggs when she came to his office in the Opera House Block and said: "Mr. Gubb? Mr. Philo Gubb, the detective? Well, my name is Miss Petunia Scroggs, and I want to talk to you about detecting something for me."

"I'm pleased to," said Mr. Gubb, placing a chair for the lady. "Anything in the deteckative line which I can do for you will be so done gladly and in good shape. At the present moment of time, I'm engaged upon a job of kitchen paper for Mrs. Horton up on Eleventh Street, but the same will not occupy long, as she wants it hung over what is already on the wall, to minimize the cost of the expense."

"Different people, different ways," said Miss Scroggs, smiling sweetly. "Scrape it off and be clean, is my idea."

"Yes, ma'am," said Philo Gubb.

"Well, I didn't come here to talk about Mrs. Horton's notion of how a kitchen ought to be papered," said Miss Scroggs. "How do you detect, by the day or by the job?"

"My terms in such matters is various and sundry, to suit the taste," said Mr. Gubb.

"Then I'll hire you by the job," said Miss Scroggs, "if your rates ain't too high. Now, first off, I ain't ever been married; I'm a maiden lady."

"Yes, ma'am," said Philo Gubb, jotting this down on a sheet of paper.

"Not but what I could have been a wedded wife many's the time," said Miss Scroggs hastily, "but I says to myself, 'Peace of mind, Petunia, peace of mind!'"

"Yes'm," said Philo Gubb. "I'm a unmarried bachelor man myself."

"Well, I'm surprised to hear you say it in a boasting tone," said Miss Petunia gently. "You ought to be ashamed of it."

"Yes, ma'am," said Philo Gubb, "but you was conversationally speaking of some deteckative work--"

"And I'm leading right up to it all the time," said Miss Scroggs. "Peace of mind is why I have remained single up to now, and peace of mind I have had, but I won't have it much longer if this Anonymous Wiggle keeps on writing me letters."

"Somebody named with that cognomen is writing letters to you like a Black Hand would?" asked Mr. Gubb eagerly.

"Cognomen or not," said Miss Scroggs, "that's what I call him or her or whoever it is. Snake would be a better name," she added, "but I must say the thing looks more like a fish-worm. Now, here," she said, opening her black hand-bag, "is letter Number One. Read it."

Mr. Gubb took the envelope and looked at the address. It was written in a hand evidently disguised by slanting the letters backward, and had been mailed at the Riverbank post-office.

"Hum!" said Mr. Gubb. "Lesson Nine of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency's Correspondence School of Deteckating gives the full rules and regulations for to elucidate the mystery of threatening letters, scurrilous letters, et cetery. Now, is this a threatening letter or a scurrilous letter?"

"Well, it may be threatening, and it may not be threatening," said Miss Scroggs. "If it is a threat, I must say I never heard of a threat just like it. And if it is scurrilous, I must say I never heard of anything that scurriled in the words used. Read it."

Philo Gubb pulled the letter from the envelope and read it. It ran thus:--

PETUNIA:--

Open any book at page fourteen and read the first complete sentence at the top of the page. Go thou and do likewise.

For signature there was nothing but a waved line, drawn with a pen. In some respects it did resemble an angle-worm.

Philo Gubb frowned. "The advice of the inditer that wrote this letter seemingly appears to be sort of unexact," he said. "'Most every book is apt to have a different lot of words at the top of page fourteen."

"Just so!" said Miss Scroggs. "You may well say that. And say it to myself I did until I started to open a book. I went to the book-case and I took down my Bible and I turned to page fourteen."

"As the writer beyond no doubt thought you would," said P. Gubb.

"I don't know what he thought," said Miss Scroggs, "but when I opened my Bible and turned to page fourteen there wasn't any page fourteen in it. Page fourteen is part of the 'Brief Foreword from the Translators to the Reader,' so I thought maybe it had got lost and never been missed. So I took up another book. I took up Emerson's Essays, Volume Two."

"And what did you read?" asked Philo Gubb.

"Nothing," said Miss Scroggs, "because I couldn't. Page fourteen was tore out of the book. So I went through all my books, and every page fourteen was tore out of every book. There was only one book in the house that had a page fourteen left in it."

"And what did that say?" asked Mr. Gubb.

"It said," said Miss Petunia, "'To one quart of flour add a cup of water, beat well, and add the beaten whites of two eggs.'"

"Did you do all that?" inquired Mr. Gubb.

"Well," said Miss Petunia, "I didn't see any harm in trying it, just to see what happened, so I did it."

"And what happened?" asked Mr. Gubb.

"Nothing," said Miss Petunia. "In a couple of days the water dried up and the dough got pasty and moulded, and I threw it out."

"Just so!" said Philo Gubb. "You'd sort of expect it to get mouldy, but you wouldn't call it threatening at the first look."

"No," said Miss Petunia. "And then I got this letter Number Two."

She handed the second letter to Mr. Gubb. It ran thus:--

P. SCROGGS:--

A complete study of the history and antiquities of Diocese of Ossory fails to reveal the presence of a single individual bearing the name of Scroggs from the year 1085 to date.

Like the first letter this was signed with a waved line. Mr. Gubb studied it carefully.

"I don't see no sign of a threat in that," he said.

"Not unless you should say it was belittling me to tell me to my face that no Scroggs ever lived wherever that says they didn't live," said Miss Petunia. "Now, here's the next letter."

Mr. Gubb read it. It ran thus:--

MISS PETUNIA:--

For to-morrow: Rising temperature accompanied by falling barometer, followed by heavy showers. Lower temperature will follow in the North Central States and Northern Missouri.

"I shouldn't call that exactly scurrilous, neither," said Mr. Gubb.

"It ain't," said Miss Petunia, "and unless you can call a mention of threatening weather a threat, I wouldn't call it a threatening letter. And then I got this letter."

She handed Mr. Gubb the fourth letter, and he read it. It ran:--

PETUNIA SCROGGS:--

Trout are rising freely in the Maine waters. The Parmacheene Belle is one of the best flies to use.

Mr. Gubb, having read this letter, shook his head and placed the letter on top of those he had previously read. It was signed with the wiggle like the others.

"Speaking as a deteckative," he said, "I don't see anything into these letters yet that would fetch the writer into the grasp of the law. Are they all like this?"

"If you mean do they say they are going to murder me, or do they call me names," said Miss Scroggs, "they don't. Here, take them!"

Mr. Gubb took the remaining letters and read them. There were about a dozen of them. While peculiar epistles to write to a maiden lady of forty-five years, they were not what one might call violent. They were, in part, as follows:--

PETUNIA:--

Although a cat with a fit is a lively object, it has seldom been known to attack human beings. Cause of fits--too rich food. Cure of fits--less rich food.

MISS SCROGGS:--

If soil is inclined to be sour, a liberal sprinkling of lime, well ploughed in, has a good effect. Marble dust, where easily obtainable, serves as well.

MISS PETUNIA:--

Swedish iron is largely used in the manufacture of upholstery tacks because of its peculiar ductile qualities.

"I don't see nothing much into them," said Mr. Gubb, when he had read them all. "I don't see much of a deteckative case into them. If I was to get letters like these I wouldn't worry much about them. I'd let them come."

"You may say that," said Miss Petunia, "because you are a man, and big and strong and brave-like. But when a person is a woman, and lives alone, and has some money laid by that some folks would be glad enough to get, letters coming right along from she don't know who, scare her. Every time I get another of those Anonymous Wiggle letters I get more and more nervous. If they said, 'Give me five thousand dollars or I will kill you,' I would know what to do, but when a letter comes that says, like that one does, 'Swedish iron is largely used in the manufacture of upholstery tacks,' I don't know what to think or what to do."

"I can see to understand that it might worry you some," said Mr. Gubb sympathetically. "What do you want I should do?"

"I want you should find out who wrote the letters," said Miss Scroggs.

Mr. Gubb looked at the pile of letters.

"It's going to be a hard job," he said. "I've got to try to guess out a cryptogram in these letters. I ought to have a hundred dollars."

"It's a good deal, but I'll pay it," said Miss Petunia. "I ain't rich, but I've got quite a little money in the bank, and I own the house I live in and a farm I rent. Pa left me money and property worth about ten thousand dollars, and I haven't wasted it. So go ahead."

"I'll so do," said Philo Gubb; "and first off I'll ask you who your neighbors are."

"My neighbors!" exclaimed Miss Petunia.

"On both sides," said Mr. Gubb, "and who comes to your house most?"

"Well, I declare!" said Miss Petunia. "I don't know what you are getting at, but on one side I have no neighbors at all, and on the other side is Mrs. Canterby. I guess she comes to my house oftener than anybody else."

"I am acquainted with Mrs. Canterby," said Mr. Gubb. "I did a job of paper-hanging there only last week."

"Did you, indeed?" said Miss Scroggs politely. "She's a real nice lady."

"I don't give opinions on deteckative matters until I'm sure," said Mr. Gubb. "She seems nice enough to the naked eye. I don't want to get you to suspicion her or nobody, Miss Scroggs, but about the only clue I can grab hold of is that first letter you got. It said to look on page fourteen, and all the pages by that number was torn out of your books--"

"Except my cook-book," said Miss Petunia.

"And a person naturally wouldn't go to think of a cook-book as a real book," said Mr. Gubb. "If you stop to think, you'll see that whoever wrote that letter must have beforehand tore out all the page fourteens from the books into your house, for some reason."

"Why, yes!" exclaimed Miss Scroggs, clapping her hands together. "How wise you are!"

"Deteckative work fetches deteckative wisdom," said Mr. Gubb modestly. "I don't want to throw suspicion at Mrs. Canterby, but Letter Number One points at her first of all."

"O--h, yes! O--h my! And I never even thought of that!" cried Miss Petunia admiringly.

"Us deteckatives have to think of things," said Philo Gubb. "And so we will say, just for cod, like, that Mrs. Canterby got at your books and ripped out the pages. She'd think: 'What will Miss Petunia do when she finds she hasn't any page fourteens to look at? She'll rush out to borrow a book to look at.' Now, where would you rush out to borrow a book if you wanted to borrow one in a hurry?"

"To Mrs. Canterby's house!" exclaimed Miss Petunia.

"Just so!" said Mr. Gubb. "You'd rush over and you'd say, 'Mrs. Canterby, lend me a book!' And she would hand you a book, and when you looked at page fourteen, and read the first full sentence on the page, what would you read?"

"What would I read?" asked Miss Scroggs breathlessly.

"You would read what she meant you to read," said Mr. Gubb triumphantly. "So, then what? If I was in her place and I had written a letter to you, meaning to give you a threat in a roundabout way, and it went dead, I'd write some foolish letters to you to make you think the whole thing was just foolishness. I'd write you letters about weather and tacks and cats and lime and trout, and such things, to throw you off the scent. Maybe," said Mr. Gubb, with a smile, "I'd just copy bits out of a newspaper."

"How wonderfully wonderful!" exclaimed Miss Petunia.