Chapter 14

"That is what us deteckatives spend the midnight oil learning the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency's Correspondence School lessons for," said Mr. Gubb. "So, if my theory is right, what you want to do when you get back home is to rush over to Mrs. Canterby's and ask to borrow a book, and look on page fourteen."

"And then come back and tell you what it says?" asked Miss Petunia.

"Just so!" said Philo Gubb.

Miss Petunia arose with a simper, and Mr. Gubb arose to open the door for her. He felt particularly gracious. Never in his career had he been able to apply the inductive system before, and he was well pleased with himself. His somewhat melancholy eyes almost beamed on Miss Petunia, and he felt a warm glow in his heart for the poor little thing who had come to him in her trouble. As he stood waiting for Miss Scroggs to gather up her feather boa and her parasol and her black hand-bag, he felt the dangerous pity of the strong for the weak.

Miss Petunia held out her hand with a pretty gesture. She was fully forty-five, but she was kittenish for her age. There was something almost girlish in her manner, and the long, dancing brown curls that hung below her very youthful hat added to the effect. When she had shaken Mr. Gubb's hand she half-skipped, half-minced out of his office.

"An admirable creature," said Mr. Gubb to himself, and he turned to his microscope and began to study the ink of the letters under that instrument. His next work must be to find the identical ink and the identical writing-paper. He had no doubt he would find them in Mrs. Canterby's home. The ink was a pale blue in places, deepening to a strong blue in other places, with grainy blue specks. He decided, rightly, that this "ink" had been made of laundry blue. The paper was plain note-paper, glossy of surface and with blue lines, and, in the upper left corner, the maker's impress. This was composed of three feathers with the word "Excellent" beneath. The envelopes were of the proper size to receive the letters. They bore an unmistakable odor of toilet soap and chewing-gum.

"Dusenberry!" said Mr. Gubb, and smiled.

Hod Dusenberry kept a small store near the home of Mrs. Canterby. There seemed no doubt that the coils of the investigation were tightening around Mrs. Canterby, and Mr. Gubb put on his hat and went out. He went to Hod Dusenberry's store. Mr. Dusenberry sat behind the counter.

"I came in," said Mr. Gubb, "to purchase a bottle of ink off of you."

"There, now!" said Mr. Dusenberry self-accusingly. "That's the third call for ink I've had in less'n two months. I been meanin' to lay in more ink right along and it allus slips my mind. I told Miss Scroggs when she asked for ink--"

"And what did you tell Mrs. Canterby when she asked for ink?" asked Mr. Gubb.

"Mrs. Canterby?" said Hod Dusenberry. "Maybe I ought to see the joke, but I'm feelin' stupid to-day, I reckon. What's the laugh part?"

"It wasn't my intentional aim to furnish laughable amusement," said Detective Gubb seriously. "What did Mrs. Canterby say when she asked for ink and you didn't have none?"

"She didn't say nothin'," said Mr. Dusenberry, "because she never asked me for no ink, never! She don't trade here. That's all about Mrs. Canterby."

The Correspondence School detective had been leaning on the show-case, and with the shrewdness of his kind had let his eyes search its contents. In the show-case was writing-paper of the very sort the Anonymous Wiggle letters had been written on--also envelopes strangely similar to those that had held the letters.

Mr. Gubb smiled pleasantly at Mr. Dusenberry.

"I'd make a guess that Mrs. Canterby don't buy her writing-paper off you neither?" he hazarded.

"You guess mighty right she don't," said Mr. Dusenberry.

"And maybe you don't recall who ever bought writing-paper like this into the case here?" said Mr. Gubb.

"I guess maybe I do, just the same," said Mr. Dusenberry promptly. "And it ain't hard to recall, either, because nobody buys it but Miss 'Tunie Scroggs. 'Tunie is the all-firedest female I ever did see. Crazy after a husband, 'Tunie is." He chuckled. "If I wasn't married already I dare say 'Tunie would have worried me into matrimony before now. 'Tunie's trouble is that everybody knows her too well--men all keep out of her way. But she's a dandy, 'Tunie is. They tell me that when Hinterman, the plumber, hired a new man up to Derlingport and 'Tunie found out he was a single feller, she went to work and had new plumbing put in her house, just so's the feller would have to come within her reach. But he got away."

"He did?" said Mr. Gubb nervously.

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Dusenberry. "He stood 'Tunie as long as he could, and then he threw up his job and went back to Derlingport. They tell me she don't do nothin' much now but set around the house and think up new ways to git acquainted with men that ain't heard enough of her to stay shy of her. Sorry I ain't got no ink, Mr. Gubb."

"It's a matter of no consequential importance, thank you," said Mr. Gubb, and he went out. He was distinctly troubled. He recalled now that Miss Scroggs had smiled in a winning way when she spoke to him, and that she had quite warmly pressed his hand when she departed. With a timid bachelor's extreme fear of designing women, Mr. Gubb dreaded another meeting with Miss Scroggs. Only his faithfulness to his Correspondence School diploma had power to keep him at work on the Anonymous Wiggle case, and he walked thoughtfully toward the home of Mrs. Canterby. He went to the back door and knocked gently. Mrs. Canterby came to the door.

"Good-afternoon," said Mr. Gubb. "I been a little nervous about that paper I hung onto your walls. If I could take a look at it--"

"Well, now, Mr. Gubb, that's real kind of you," said Mrs. Canterby. "You can look and welcome. If you just wait until I excuse myself to Miss Scroggs--"

"Is she here?" asked Mr. Gubb with a hasty glance toward his avenues of escape.

"She just run in to borrow a book to read," said Mrs. Canterby, "and she's having some trouble finding one to suit her taste. She's in my lib'ry sort of glancing through some books."

"Does--does she glance through to about near to page fourteen?" asked Mr. Gubb nervously.

"Now that you call it to mind," said Mrs. Canterby, "that's about how far she is glancing through them. She's glanced through about sixteen, and she's still glancing. She thinks maybe she'll take 'Myra's Lover, or The Hidden Secret,' but she ain't sure. She come over to borrow 'Weldon Shirmer,' but I had lent that to a friend. She was real disappointed I didn't have it."

Mr. Gubb wiped the perspiration from his face. He too would have liked at that moment to have seen a copy of "Weldon Shirmer," and to have read what stood at the top of page fourteen.

"If it ain't too much trouble, Mrs. Canterby," he said, "I wish you would sort of fetch that Myra book out here without Miss Scroggs's knowing you done so. I got a special reason for it, in my deteckative capacity. And I wish you wouldn't mention to Miss Scroggs about my being here."

"Land sakes!" said Mrs. Canterby. "What's up now? Miss Scroggs she's right interested in you, too. She made inquiries of me about you when you was working here. She says she thinks you are a real handsome gentleman."

Mrs. Canterby laughed coyly and went out, and Mr. Gubb dropped into a chair and wiped his face again nervously. His eye, falling on the kitchen table, noted a sheet of writing-paper. It was the same style of paper as that on which the Anonymous Wiggle letters had been written. He bent forward and glanced at it. In blue ink evidently made of indigo dissolved in water, was written on the sheet a recipe. The writing, although undisguised and slanting properly, was beyond doubt the same as that of the Wiggle letters. When Mrs. Canterby returned to the kitchen with "Myra's Lover" hidden in the folds of her skirt, the perplexed Mr. Gubb held the recipe in his hand.

"By any chance of doubt," he said, "do you happen to be aware of whom wrote this?"

"Petunia wrote it," said Mrs. Canterby promptly, "and whatever are you being so mysterious for? There's no mystery about that, for it's her mince-meat recipe."

"There is often mystery hidden into mince-meat recipes when least expected," said Mr. Gubb. "I see you got the book."

He took it and turned to page fourteen. At the top of the page were the words, completing a sentence, "--without turning a hair of his head." Then followed the first complete sentence. It ran: "'A woman like you,' said Lord Cyril, 'should be loved, cherished, and obeyed.'"

"Goodness!" exclaimed Mr. Gubb, and handed the book back to Mrs. Canterby.

"Why did you say that?" asked Mrs. Canterby.

"I was just judging by the book that Miss Scroggs is fond of love and affection in fiction tales," he said.

"Fond of!" exclaimed Mrs. Canterby. "Far be it from me to say anything about a neighbor lady, but if Petunia Scroggs ain't crazy over love and marriage I don't know what. She'd do anything in the world to get a husband. I recall about Tim Wentworth--Furnaces Put In and Repaired--and how hungry Petunia used to look after him when he went by in his wagon, but she couldn't get after him because she hasn't a furnace in her house, but the minute he hung up the sign 'Chimneys Cleaned,' she was down to his shop and had him up to the place, and I know it for a fact, for I took some of the soot out of her eye myself, that she courted him so hard when he got to her house that even when he went to the roof to clean the chimney she stuck her head in the fireplace and talked up the flue at him."

"Goodness!" said Mr. Gubb again. "I guess I'll go on my way and look at your wall-paper some other day."

Mrs. Canterby laughed.

"Just as you wish," she said, "but if Petunia has set out after you, you won't get away from her that easy."

But Mr. Gubb was already moving to the door. He heard Miss Petunia's voice calling Mrs. Canterby, and coming nearer and nearer, and he fled.

At Higgins's book-store he stopped and asked to see a copy of "Weldon Shirmer," and turned to page fourteen. "'Fate,'" ran the first full sentence, "'has decreed that you wed a solver of mysteries.'" Mr. Gubb shivered. This was the mysterious passage Miss Scroggs had meant to bring to his eyes in an impressive manner. He was sure of one thing: whatever Fate had decreed in the case of the heroine of "Weldon Shirmer," Philo Gubb had no intention of allowing Fate to decree that one particular Correspondence School solver of mysteries should marry Miss Petunia Scroggs. He hurried to his office.

At the office door he paused to take his key from his pocket, but when he tried it in the lock he found the door had been left unlocked and he opened the door hastily and hurried inside. Miss Petunia Scroggs was sitting in his desk-chair, a winning smile on her lips and "Myra's Lover, or The Hidden Secret," in her lap.

"Dear, wonderful Mr. Gubb!" she said sweetly. "It was just as you said it would be. Here is the book Mrs. Canterby loaned me."

For a moment Mr. Gubb stood like a flamingo fascinated by a serpent.

"You detectives are such wonderful men!" cooed Miss Petunia. "You live such thrilling lives! Ah, me!" she sighed. "When I think of how noble and how strong and how protective such as you are--"

Mr. Gubb kept his bird-like eyes fixed on Miss Petunia's face, but he pawed behind himself for the door. He felt his hand touch the knob.

"And when I think of how helpless and alone I am," said Miss Petunia, rising from her chair, "although I have ample money in the bank--"

_Bang!_ slammed the door behind Mr. Gubb. _Click!_ went the lock as he turned the key. His feet hurried to the stairs and down to the nearest street almost falling over Silas Washington, seated on the lowest step. The little negro looked up in surprise.

"Do you want to earn half a dollar?" asked Mr. Gubb hastily.

"'Co'se Ah do," said Silas Washington. "What you want Ah shu'd do fo' it?"

"Wait a portion of time where you are," said Mr. Gubb, "and when you hear a sound of noise upstairs, go up and unlock Mister Philo Gubb, Deteckative, his door, and let out the lady."

"Yassah!" said Silas.

"And when you let her exit out of the room," said Mr. Gubb, "say to her: 'Mister Gubb gives up the case.' Understand?"

"Yassah!"

"Yes," said Mr. Gubb, and he glanced up and down the street. "And say '--because it don't make no particle bit of difference who the lady is, Mister Gubb wouldn't marry nobody at no time of his life.'"

"Yassah!" said the little negro.

THE HALF OF A THOUSAND

Philo Gubb sat in his office in the Opera House Block with a large green volume open on his knees, reading a paragraph of some ten lines. He had read this paragraph twenty times before, but he never tired of reading it. It began began--

_Gubb, Philo._ Detective and decorator, _b._ Higginsville, Ia., June 26, 1868. Educated Higginsville, Ia., primary schools. Entered decorating profession, 1888. Graduated with honors, Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting, 1910.

He hoped that some day this short record of his life might be lengthened by at least one line, which would say that he had "_m_. Syrilla Medderbrook," and since his escape from Petunia Scroggs and her wiles, and the latest telegram from Syrilla, he had reason for the hope. As Mr. Gubb had not tried to collect the one hundred dollars due him from Miss Scroggs, he had nothing with which to pay Mr. Medderbrook more on account of the Utterly Hopeless mining stock, but under his agreement with Mr. Medderbrook he had paid that gentleman thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents for the last telegram from Syrilla. This had read:--

Joy and rapture! Have given up all forms of food. Have given up spaghetti, fried rabbit, truffles, brown betty, prunes, goulash, welsh rabbit, hoecake, sauerkraut, Philadelphia scrapple, haggis, chop suey, and mush. Have lost one hundred and fifty pounds more. Weigh seven hundred forty-five. Going down every hour. Kiss Gubby for me.

Mr. Gubb, therefore, mused pleasantly as he read the book that contained the short but interesting reference to himself.

The book with the green cover was "Iowa's Prominent Citizens," sixth edition, and was a sort of local, or state, "Who's Who." In its pages, for the first time, Philo Gubb appeared, and he took great delight in reading there how great he was. We all do. We are never so sure we are great as when we read it in print.

It is always comforting to a great man to be reassured that he was "_b._ Dobbinsville, Ia., 1869," that he "_m._ Jane, dau. of Oscar and Siluria Botts, 1897," and that he is not yet "_d._" There are some of us who are never sure we are not "_d._" except when we see our names in the current volume of "Who's Who," "Who's It," or "Iowa's Prominent Citizens."

Outside Philo Gubb's door a man was standing, studying that part of "Iowa's Prominent Citizens" devoted to the town of Riverbank. The man was not as young as he appeared to be. His garments were of a youthful cut and cloth, being of the sort generally known as "College Youth Style," but they were themselves no longer youthful. In fact, the man looked seedy.

Notwithstanding this he had an air--a something--that attracted and held the attention. A cane gave some of it. The extreme good style of his Panama hat gave some of it. His carriage and the gold-rimmed eyeglasses with the black silk neck-ribbon gave still more. When, however, he removed his hat, one saw that he was partly bald and that his reddish hair was combed carefully to cover the bald spot.

The book in his hand was a small memorandum book, and in this he had pasted the various notices cut from "Iowa's Prominent Citizens" and one--only--cut from "Who's Who," relating to citizens of Riverbank. He had done this for convenience as well as for safety, for thus he had all the Riverbank prominents in compact form, and avoided the necessity of carrying "Iowa's Prominent Citizens" and "Who's Who" about with him. That would have been more or less dangerous. Particularly so, since he had been exposed by the New York "Sun" as The Bald Impostor.

The Bald Impostor, to explain him briefly, was a professional relative. He was the greatest son-cousin-nephew in the United States, and always he was the son, cousin, or nephew of one of the great, of one of the great mentioned in "Who's Who." He was as variable as a chameleon. Sometimes he was a son, cousin, or nephew of some one beginning with _A_, and sometimes of some one beginning with _Z_, but usually of some one with about twelve to fourteen lines in "Who's Who."

The great theory he had established and which was the basis of all his operations was this: "Every Who's Who is proud of every other Who's Who," and "No Who's Who can refuse the son, cousin, or nephew of any other Who's Who five dollars when asked for one dollar and eighty cents."

The Bald Impostor's operation was simple in the extreme. He went to Riverbank. He found, let us say, the name of Judge Orley Morvis in "Who's Who." Then he looked up Chief Justice Bassio Bates in the latest "Who's Who," gathered a few facts regarding him from that useful volume, and called on Judge Orley Morvis. Having a judge to impose upon he began by introducing himself as the favorite nephew of Chief Justice Bassio Bates.

"Being in town," he would say, when the Judge was mellowed by the thought that a nephew of Bassio Bates was before him, "I remembered that you were located here. My uncle has often spoken to me of your admirable decision in the Higgins-Hoopmeyer calf case."

The Higgins-Hoopmeyer case is mentioned in "Who's Who." The Judge can't help being pleased to learn that Chief Justice Bassio Bates approved of his decision in the Higgins-Hoopmeyer case.

"My uncle has often regretted that you have never met," says the Bald Impostor. "If he had known I was to be in Riverbank he would have sent his copy of your work, 'Liens and Torts,' to be autographed."

"Liens and Torts" is the one volume written by Judge Orley Morvis mentioned in "Who's Who." The Judge becomes mellower than ever.

"Ah, yes!" says the Judge, tickled, "and how is your uncle, may I ask?"

"In excellent health considering his age. You know he is ninety-seven," says the Bald Impostor, having got the "_b._ June 23, 1817" from "Who's Who." "But his toe still bothers him. A man of his age, you know. Such things heal slowly."

"No! I didn't hear of that," says the Judge, intensely interested. He is going to get some intimate details.

"Oh, it was quite dreadful!" says the Bald Impostor. "He dropped a volume of Coke on Littleton on it last March--no, it was April, because it was April he spent at my mother's."

All this is pure invention, and that is where the Bald Impostor leads all others. Even as he invents details of the sore toe, you see, he introduces his mother.

"She was taken sick early in April," he says, and presently he has Dr. Somebody-Big out of "Who's Who" attending to the Chief Justice's sore toe and advising the mother to try the Denver climate. And the next thing the Judge knows the Bald Impostor is telling that he is now on his way back from Denver to Chicago.

So then it comes out. The Bald Impostor sits on the edge of his chair and becomes nervous and perspires. Perspiring is a sure sign a man is unaccustomed to asking a loan, and the Bald Impostor is entitled to start the first School of Free Perspiring in America. He can perspire in December, when the furnace is out and the windows are open. All his head pores have self-sprinklers or something of the sort. He is as free with beads of perspiration as the early Indian traders were with beads of glass. He mops them with a white silk handkerchief.

So he perspires, and out comes the cruel admission. He needs just one dollar and eighty cents! As a matter of fact, he has stopped at Riverbank because his uncle had so often spoken of Judge Orley Morvis--and really, one dollar and eighty cents would see him through nicely.

"But, my dear boy!" says the Judge kindly. "The fare is six dollars. And your meals?"

"A dollar-eighty is enough," insists the Bald Impostor. "I have enough to make up the fare, with one-eighty added. And I couldn't ask you to pay for my meals. I'll--I have a few cents and can buy a sandwich."

"My dear boy!" says Judge Orley Morvis, of Riverbank (and it is what he did say), "I couldn't think of the nephew of a Chief Justice of the United States existing for that length of time on a sandwich. Here! Here are twenty dollars! Take them--I insist! I must insist!"

Some give him more than that. We usually give him five dollars.

I admit that when the Bald Impostor visited me and asked for one dollar and eighty cents I gave him five dollars and an autographed copy of one of my books. He was to send the five back by money-order the next day. Unfortunately he seems to have no idea of the flight of time. For him to-morrow never seems to arrive. For me it is the five that does not arrive. The great body of us consider those who give him more than five to be purse-proud plutocrats. But then we sometimes give him autographed copies of our books or other touching souvenirs. And write in them, "_In memory of a pleasant visit_." I _do_ wonder what he did with my book!

Judge Orley Morvis was the only Who's Whoer in Riverbank, but the town was well represented in "Iowa's Prominent Citizens," and after collecting twenty dollars from the Judge the Bald Impostor proceeded to Mr. Gubb's office.

"Detective and decorator," he said to himself. "I wonder if William J. Burns has a son? Better not! A crank detective might know all about Burns. I'm his cousin. Let me see--I'm Jared Burns. Of Chicago. And mother has been to Denver for the air." He took out the memorandum book again. "The Waffles-Mustard case. The Waffles-Mustard case. Waffles! Mustard! I must remember that." He knocked on the door.

"Mr. Gubb?" he asked, as Philo Gubb opened the door. "Mr. Philo Gubb?"

"I am him, yes, sir," said the paper-hanger detective. "Will you step inside into the room?"

"Thank you, yes," said the Bald Impostor, as he entered.

Philo Gubb drew a chair to his desk, and the Bald Impostor took it. He leaned forward, ready to begin with the words, "Mr. Gubb, my name is Jared Burns. Mr. William J. Burns is my cousin--" when there came another rap at the door. Mr. Gubb's visitor moved uneasily in his chair, and Mr. Gubb went to the door, dropping an open letter carelessly on the desk-slide before the Bald Impostor. The new visitor was an Italian selling oranges, and as Mr. Gubb had fairly to push the Italian out of the door, the Bald Impostor had time to read the letter and, quite a little ahead of time, began wiping perspiration from his forehead.

The letter was from the Headquarters of the Rising Sun Detective Agency, and was brutally frank in denouncing the Bald Impostor as an impostor, and painfully plain in describing him as bald. It described in the simplest terms his mode of getting money and it warned Mr. Gubb to be on the outlook for him "as he is supposed to be working in your district at present." The Bald Impostor gasped. "A number of victims have organized," continued the letter, "what they call the Easy Marks' Association of America and have posted a reward of fifty dollars for the arrest of the fraud."

The Bald Impostor glanced toward Philo Gubb and hastily turned the letter upside down. When Mr. Gubb returned, the Bald Impostor was rubbing the palms of his hands together and smiling.

"My name, Mr. Gubb," he said, "is Allwood Burns. I am a detective. I have heard of your wonderful work in the so-called Muffins-Mustard case."

"Waffles-Mustard," said Mr. Gubb.