Chapter 15

"I should say Waffles," said the Bald Impostor hastily. "I consider it one of the most remarkable cases of detective acumen on record. We in the Rising Sun Detective Agency were delighted. It was a proof that the methods of our Correspondence School of Detecting were not short of the best."

Philo Gubb stared at his visitor with unconcealed admiration.

"Are you out from the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency yourself?" he asked.

The Bald Impostor smiled.

"I wrote you a letter yesterday," he said. "If you have not received it yet you will soon, but I can give you the contents here and now. A certain impostor is going about the country--"

Philo Gubb picked up the letter and glanced at the signature. It was indeed signed "Allwood Burns." Mr. Gubb extended his hand again and once more shook the hand of his visitor--this time far more heartily.

"Most glad, indeed, to meet your acquaintance, Mr. Burns," said Philo Gubb heartily. "It is a pleasure to meet anybody from the offices of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency. And if you ever see the man that wrote the 'Complete Correspondence Course of Deteckating,' I wish--"

The false Mr. Burns smiled.

"I wrote it," he said modestly.

"I am _most_ very glad to meet you, sir!" exclaimed Philo Gubb, and again he shook his visitor's hand. "Because--"

"Ah, yes, because--" queried the Bald Impostor pleasantly.

"Because," said Philo Gubb, "there's a question I want to ask. I refer to Lesson Seven, 'Petty Thievery, Detecting Same, Charges Therefor.' I have had some trouble with 'Charges Therefor.'"

"Indeed? Let me see the lesson, please," said the Bald Impostor.

"'The charges for such services,'" Philo Gubb read, pointing to the paragraph with his long forefinger, "'should be not less than ten dollars per diem.' That's what it says, ain't it?"

"It does," said the Bald Impostor.

"Well, Mr. Burns," said Philo Gubb, "I took on a job of chicken-thief detecting, and I had to detect for two diems to do it, and that would be twenty dollars, wouldn't it?"

"It would," said the Bald Impostor.

"Which is fair and proper," said Philo Gubb, "but the old gent wouldn't pay it. So I ask you if you'd be kindly willing to go to him along with me in company and tell him I charged right and according to rates as low as possible?"

"Of course I will go," said the Bald Impostor.

"All right!" said Philo Gubb, rising. "And the old gent is a man you'll be glad to meet. He's a prominent citizen gentleman of the town. His name is Judge Orley Morvis."

The Bald Impostor gasped. Every free-acting pore on his head worked immediately.

"And, so he won't suspicion that I'm running in some outsider on him," said Philo Gubb, "I'll fetch along this letter you wrote me, to certify your identical identity."

He picked up the warning letter from the Rising Sun Agency, and stood waiting for the Bald Impostor to arise. But the Bald Impostor did not arise. For once at least he was flabbergasted. He opened and shut his mouth, like a fish out of water. His head seemed to exude millions of moist beads. He saw a smile of triumph on Philo Gubb's face. Mr. Gubb was smiling triumphantly because he was able now to show Judge Orley Morvis a thing or two, but the Bald Impostor was sure Philo Gubb knew he was the Bald Impostor. He was caught and he knew it. So he surrendered.

"All right!" he said nervously. "You've got me. I won't give you any trouble."

"It's me that's being a troubling nuisance to you, Mr. Burns," said Philo Gubb.

The paper-hanger detective stopped short. A look of shame passed across his face.

"I hope you will humbly pardon me, Mr. Burns," he said contritely. "I am ashamed of myself. To think of me starting to get you to attend to my business when prob'ly you have business much more important that fetched you to Riverbank."

A sudden light seemed to break upon Philo Gubb.

"Of a certain course!" he exclaimed. "What you come about was this--this"--he looked at the letter in his hand--"this Bald Impostor, wasn't it?"

Philo Gubb's visitor, who had begun to breathe normally again, gasped like a fish once more. He saw Philo Gubb finish reading the description of the Bald Impostor, and then Philo Gubb looked up and looked the Bald Impostor full in the face. He looked the Bald Impostor over, from bald spot to shoes, and looked back again at the description. Item by item he compared the description in the letter with the appearance of the man before him, while the Impostor continued to wipe the palms of his hands with the balled handkerchief. At last Philo Gubb nodded his head.

"Exactly similar to the most nominal respects," he said. "Quite identical in every shape and manner."

"Oh, I admit it! I admit it!" said the Bald Impostor hopelessly.

"Yes, sir!" said Philo Gubb. "And I admit it the whilst I admire it. It is the most perfect disguise of an imitation I ever looked at."

"What?" asked the Bald Impostor.

"The disguise you've got onto yourself," said Philo Gubb. "It is most marvelously similar in likeness to the description in the letter. If you will take the complimentary flattery of a student, Mr. Burns, I will say I never seen no better disguise got up in the world. You are a real deteckative artist."

The Bald Impostor could not speak. He could only gasp.

"If I didn't know who you were of your own self," said Philo Gubb in the most complimentary tones, "I'd have thought you were this here descriptioned Bald Impostor himself."

His visitor moistened his lips to speak, but Mr. Gubb did not give him an opportunity.

"I presume," said Mr. Gubb, "you have so done because you are working upon this Bald Impostor yourself."

"Yes. Oh, yes!" said the Bald Impostor hoarsely. "Exactly."

"In that case," said Mr. Gubb, "I consider it a high compliment for you to call upon me. Us deteckatives don't usually visit around in disguises."

The visitor moistened his lips again.

"I wanted to see," he said, but the words were so hoarse they could hardly be heard,--"I wanted to see--"

"Well, now," said Philo Gubb contritely, "you mustn't feel bad that I didn't take you for that fraud feller right away off. I hadn't read the letter through down to the description quite. If I had I would have mistook you for him at once. The resemblance is most remarkably unique."

"Thank you!" said the Bald Impostor, regaining more of his usual confidence. "And it was a hard disguise for me to assume. I'm not naturally reddish like this. My hair is long. And black. And--and my taste in clothes is quiet--mostly blacks or dark blues. Now the reason I am in this disguise--"

He was interrupted by a loud and strenuous knock on the door.

Mr. Gubb went to the door, but before he reached it his visitor had made one leap and was hidden behind the office desk, for a voice had called, impatiently, "Gubb!" and it was the voice of Judge Orley Morvis. When Detective Gubb had greeted his new visitor he turned to introduce the Judge--and a look of blank surprise swept his features. Detective Burns was gone!

For a moment only, Detective Gubb was puzzled. There was but one place in the room capable of concealing a full-grown human being, and that was the space behind the desk. He placed a chair for the Judge exactly in front of the desk and himself stood in a negligent attitude with one elbow on the top of the desk. In this position he was able to turn his head and, by craning his neck a little, look down upon the false Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns made violent gestures, urging secrecy. Mr. Gubb allayed his fears.

"I'm glad you come just now, Judge," he said, "because we can say a few or more words together, there being nobody here but you and me. I presume you come to talk about the per diem charge I charged to you, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," said the Judge.

"Well, I'll be able to prove quite presently or sooner that the price is correctly O.K.," said Mr. Gubb, "because the leading head of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency is right in town to-day, and as soon as he gets done with a job he has on hand he's going up to see you. Maybe you've heard of Allwood Burns. He wrote the 'Twelve Correspondence Lessons in Deteckating' by which I graduated out of the Deteckative Correspondence School."

"Never heard of him in my life," said the Judge.

"This here," said Mr. Gubb, not without pride, "is a personal letter I got from him this A.M. just now," and he handed the Judge the letter.

Judge Orley Morvis took the letter with an air of disdain and began to read it with a certain irritating superciliousness. Almost immediately he began to turn red behind the ears. Then his ears turned red. Then his whole face turned red. He breathed hard. His hand shook with rage.

"Well, of all the infernal--" he began and stopped.

"Has the aforesaid impostor been to see _you_?" asked Philo Gubb eagerly.

"Me? Nonsense!" exclaimed the Judge violently. "Do you think I would be taken in by a child's trick like this? Nonsense, Mr. Gubb, nonsense!"

"I didn't hardly think it was possible," said Detective Gubb.

"Possible?" cried the Judge with anger. "Do you think a common faker like that could hoodwink _me_? Me give an impostor twenty dollars! Nonsense, sir!"

He arose. He was in a great rage about it. He stamped to the door.

"And don't let me hear you retailing any such lie about me around this town, sir!" he exclaimed.

He slammed the door, and then the Bald Impostor slowly raised his head above the desk.

"What did you hide for?" asked Philo Gubb.

The Bald Impostor wiped his bedewed brow.

"Hide?" he said questioningly. "Oh, yes, I did hide, didn't I? Yes. Yes, I hid. You see--you see the Judge came in."

"If you hadn't hid," said Philo Gubb, "I could have got that business of the per diem charge per day fixed up right here. I was going to introduce him to you."

"Yes--going to introduce him to me," said the Bald Impostor. "That was it. That was why I hid. You were going to introduce him to me, don't you see?"

"I don't quite comprehend the meaning of the reason," said Philo Gubb.

"Why, you see," said the Bald Impostor glibly,--"you see--if you introduced me to him--why--why, he'd know me."

"He'd know you?" said Philo Gubb.

"He'd know me," repeated the false Mr. Burns. "I'll tell you why. The Bald Impostor _did_ call on him."

"Honest?"

"I was there," said the Bald Impostor. "The Judge gave him twenty dollars and a copy of some book or other he had written, and he wrote his autograph in the book. Remember that. The Judge wrote his autograph in a book--and gave it to the fellow. I'm telling you this so you can tell the Judge. Tell him I told you. Tell him the fellow's mother is much better now. Tell him Judge Bassio Bates's toe is quite well. And then ask him for the twenty dollars he owes you. You'll get it."

"And you was there?" asked Philo Gubb, amazed.

"Out of sight, but there," said the false Mr. Burns glibly. "Just ready to put my hand on the fellow--but I couldn't. I hadn't the heart to do it. I thought of the ridicule it would bring down on the poor old Judge. You know he's an uncle of mine. I'm his nephew."

"He said," said Philo Gubb hesitatingly, "he'd never heard of you."

"He never did," said the Bald Impostor promptly. "I was his third sister's adopted child--I am an adopted nephew. And of course you know he would never have anything to do with his sister after she married--ah--General Winston Wells. Not a thing! It was what killed my poor foster mother. Grief!"

He wiped his eyes with his silk handkerchief.

"Grief. Yes, grief. And I hadn't the heart to bring shame to the old man by arresting the Impostor in his house--by showing that the good old man was such a silly old fellow as to be done by a simple trick. And what did it matter? I can pick up the Bald Impostor in Derlingport."

"In Derlingport?" queried Philo Gubb.

"In Derlingport," said the Bald Impostor nervously, "for that is where he went. I'll get him there. But half of the thousand dollars is rightfully yours, and you shall have it."

"Thousand dollars?" queried Philo Gubb in amazement.

"The reward has been increased," said the false Mr. Burns. "The--the publishers of 'Who's Who' increased it to a thousand because the Bald Impostor works on the names in their book. They thought they ought to. But you shall have your half of the thousand. I can pick him up in Derlingport this afternoon if--if I can get there in time. And of course I _should_ have arrested him here in Riverbank where you are our correspondent and thus entitled to half the reward earned by any one in the head office. You knew that, didn't you?"

"No!" said Philo Gubb. "Am I?"

"Didn't you get circular No. 786?" asked the Bald Impostor.

"I didn't ever get the receipt of it at all," said Mr. Gubb.

"An oversight," said the Bald Impostor. "I'll send you one the minute I get back to Chicago. I'll pick up the Bald Impostor at Derlingport this afternoon--if--Mr. Gubb, I am ashamed to make an admission to you. I--"

The Bald Impostor sat on the edge of his chair and pearls of perspiration came upon his brow. He took out his silk handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

"Go right on ahead and say whatever you've got upon your mind to say," said Mr. Gubb.

"Well, the fact is," said the false Mr. Burns nervously, "I'm short of cash. I need just one dollar and eighty cents to get to Derlingport!"

"Why, of course!" said Philo Gubb heartily. "All of us get into similar or like predicaments at various often times, Mr. Burns. It is a pleasure to be able to help out a feller deteckative in such a time and manner. Only--"

"Yes?" said the Bald Impostor nervously.

"Only I couldn't think of giving you only the bare mere sum to get to Derlingport," said the graduate of the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting, generously. "I couldn't think of letting you start off away with anything less than a ten-dollar bill."

DIETZ'S 7462 BESSIE JOHN

Philo Gubb sat on an upturned bundle of rolls of wall-paper in the dining-room of Mrs. Pilker's famous Pilker mansion, in Riverbank, biting into a thick ham sandwich. It was noon.

Mr. Gubb ate methodically, taking a large bite of sandwich, chewing the bite long and well, and then swallowing it with a wonderful up and down gliding of his knobby Adam's apple. From time to time he turned his head and looked at the walls of the dining-room. The time was Saturday noon, and but one wall was covered with the new wall-paper, a natural forest tapestry paper, with lifelike representations of leafy trees. He had promised to have the Pilker dining-room completed by Saturday night. It seemed quite impossible to Philo Gubb that he could finish the Pilker dining-room before dark, and it worried him.

Other matters, even closer to his heart, worried Mr. Gubb. He had had a great quarrel with Mr. Medderbrook, the father of the fair Fat Lady of the World's Greatest Combined Shows. Judge Orley Morvis had paid Mr. Gubb twenty dollars for certain detective work, but Mr. Gubb had not turned all this over to Mr. Medderbrook, and Mr. Medderbrook had resented this. He told Mr. Gubb he was a cheap, tank-town sport.

"I worked hard," said Mr. Medderbrook, "to sell you that Utterly Hopeless Gold-Mine stock and now you hold out on me. That's not the way I expect a jay-town easy-mark--"

"I beg your pardon, but what was that term of phrase you called me?" asked Mr. Gubb.

"I called you," said Mr. Medderbrook, changing his tone to one of politeness, "an easy-mark. In high financial circles the term is short for 'easy-market-investor,' meaning one who never buys stocks unless he is sure they are of the highest class and at the lowest price."

"Well, I should hereafter prefer not to be so called," said Mr. Gubb.

Almost as soon as he had said the cruel words he regretted them, but the next day Mr. Medderbrook's colored butler came to Mr. Gubb's office with a telegram for which he demanded thirty-six dollars and fifty cents.

Mr. Gubb trembled with emotion as he paid, for it meant that Syrilla was still losing flesh and that Mr. Dorgan must surely cancel his contract with her soon. The telegram read:--

Happy days! Still shrinking. Have lost one hundred and forty-five pounds since last wire. Contract sure to be canceled as soon as Dorgan gets back from hurried trip to Siam. Weather very hot. Can feel myself shrink. Fond thoughts to my Gubby.

The very next day the colored butler brought Mr. Gubb another telegram.

"Fifty dollars, please, sah," he said.

"What!" cried Mr. Gubb.

"Yes, sah," said the negro. "That's the amount Mistah Meddahbrook done say."

Mr. Gubb could hardly believe it, but he wrote his check for the fifty dollars and then read the telegram. It ran:--

Excelsior! Have lost two hundred pounds since last wire. Now weigh only four hundred pounds. Every one guys me when I am ballyhooed as Fat Lady. Affection to Gubby.

Mr. Gubb was greatly pleased by this, but when, the next day, the colored butler again appeared and asked for fifty dollars Mr. Gubb was worried. The telegram this time read:--

Frightened. Have lost two hundred pounds since last wire, now weigh only two hundred. If lose two hundred more will weigh nothing. Have resumed potatoes and water. Love to Gubby.

That same afternoon the negro brought Mr. Gubb another telegram, on which he collected seven dollars and fifty cents. This telegram contained these words:--

Am indeed frightened. Have resumed bread diet, soup, fish, meat, and cereals, but have lost fifty pounds more. Weigh only one hundred and fifty. Taking tonic. Hope for the best. Tell Gubby I think of him as much as when I weighed half a ton.

Mr. Gubb was much distressed. He had no doubt that his Syrilla would rapidly recover a part of her lost weight, but he felt as if at the moment he had lost Syrilla. He could not picture her as a sylph of one hundred and fifty pounds. He was worried, indeed, as he sat eating his lunch in Mrs. Pilker's mansion. It was then he heard a voice:--

"Say, are you the feller they call Bugg?"

Mr. Gubb looked up. In the dining-room door stood a man who looked like Napoleon Bonaparte gone to seed.

"If the party you are looking for to seek," said Mr. Gubb with somewhat offended pride, "is Mister P. Gubb, him and me are one and the same party. My name is P. Gubb, deteckative and paper-hanger."

"Well, youse is the party I'm looking for," said the stranger. "I got a hunch from Horton, the wall-paper-store feller, that youse was up here and that youse wanted a helper. Does youse?"

"If you know paper-hanging as a trade and profession and can go to work immediately at once, I could use you," said Mr. Gubb. "I've got more jobs than I can handle alone by myself."

"Say, me a paper-hanger?" said the stranger scornfully. "Why, sport, I've hung more wall-paper than youse ever saw, see? Honest, when I butted in here and saw that there Dietz's 7462 Bessie John on the wall--"

"That what?" asked Philo Gubb.

"That there Dietz's 7462 Bessie John, on the wall there," explained the stranger. "Don't youse even know the right name of that wall-paper there, that's been a Six Best Seller for the last three years?"

"It is a forest tapestry," said Mr. Gubb.

"Sure, Mike!" said the stranger. "And one of the finest youse ever seen. Looks like youse could walk right into it and pick hickory nuts off them oak trees, don't it? It's one of me old friends."

Philo Gubb took another bite of sandwich and masticated it slowly.

"Let me teach youse something," said the stranger, and he took a roll of the tapestry paper in his hand and unrolled a few feet. He pointed to the margin of the printed side of the paper with his oily forefinger. "Do youse see them printings?" he asked. "Says 7462 B J, don't it?"

"It does," mumbled Philo Gubb.

"Well, say! This here wall-paper feller Dietz--he makes this here paper, don't he? And that there 7462 is the number of this here forest tap. pattern, see? And B J--that's Bessie John--that tells youse what the coloring is, see? Bessie John is the regular nature coloring, see? They got one with pink trees and yeller sky, for bood-u-wars and bedrooms. That's M S--Mary Sam."

"It is a very ingenious way to proceed to do," said Philo Gubb, "and if regular union wages is all right you can take that straight-edge and trim all them Bessie John letters off this bundle of 7462 Bessie John I'm sitting onto."

This was satisfactory to the stranger. He removed his greasy coat, threw his greasy cap into a corner, wiped his greasy hands on a wad of trimmings and set to work. When Mr. Gubb had completed his modest luncheon he asked his name.

"Youse might as well call me Greasy," said the new employee. "I'm greasier than anything. Got it off'n my motor-boat."

During the afternoon Philo Gubb learned something of his assistant's immediate past. "Greasy" had saved some money, working at St. Paul, and had bought a motor-boat--"Some boat!" he said; "Streak o' Lightnin' was what I named her, and she was"--and he had come down the Mississippi. "She can beat anything on the Dad," he said.

The "Dad" was his disrespectful paraphrase of "The Father of Waters," the title of the giant Mississippi. He told of his adventures until he mentioned the Silver Sides. Then he swore in a manner that suited his piratical countenance exactly.

He had been floating peacefully down the river with the current, his power shut off and himself asleep in the bottom of the boat, doing no harm to any one, when along came the Silver Sides, and without giving him a warning signal, ran him down.

"Done it a-purpose, too," he said angrily.

He had managed to keep the boat afloat until he reached Riverbank, but to fix her up would take more money than he had. So he had hunted a job in his own line, and found Philo Gubb.

The Silver Sides, Captain Brooks, owner, was a small packet plying between Derlingport and Bardenton, stopping at Riverbank, which was midway between the two. No one knowing Captain Brooks would have suspected him of running down anything whatever. He was a kind, stout, gray-haired old gentleman. He had a nice, motherly old wife and eight children, mainly girls, and they made their home on the Silver Sides. Mrs. Brooks and the girls cooked for the crew and kept the boat as neat as a new pin. Captain Brooks occupied the pilot-house; Tom Brooks served as first mate, and Bill Brooks acted as purser. Altogether they were a delightfully good-natured and well-meaning family. It was hard to believe they would run down a helpless motor-boat in mid-river, but Greasy swore to it, and about it.

During the next few weeks Greasy and the detective worked side by side. Greasy had every night and all Sunday for his own purposes. Once Mr. Gubb met Greasy carrying a large bundle of canvas, and Mr. Gubb imagined Greasy was fitting a mast and sail to the motor-boat.

On July 15 the Independent Horde of Kalmucks gave a moonlight excursion on the Mississippi, chartering the Silver Sides for the purpose. The Kalmucks were the leading lodge of the town, and leaders also in social affairs. They gave frequent dramatic entertainments--in their hall in winter, and outdoors in the big yard back of Kalmuck Temple in the summer. In the entire history of the lodge there had never been so much as an untoward incident, but at eleven o'clock on the night of July 15 something frightful did occur. It spread it across the top of the first page of the "Daily Eagle" in the one shocking word--PIRATES!