Chapter 16

The Silver Star had started on the return trip and had reached a point about two miles below Towhead Island when a rifle or revolver bullet crashed through the glass window on the western side of the pilot-house. Uncle Jerry--as most people called Captain Brooks--turned his head, stared out at the moonlit waters of the river, and saw bearing down upon him from the northwest a long, low craft. Four men stood in the forward part of the boat, and a fifth sat beside the motor. In the bright moonlight, Captain Brooks could see that all the men wore black masks. He also saw that all were armed, and that from the staff at the stern of the boat floated a jet-black flag on which was painted in white the skull and cross-bones that have always been the insignia of pirates. Even as he looked one of the men in the motor-boat raised his arm: Uncle Jerry saw a flash of fire, and another pane of glass at his side jingled to the floor.

The low black craft swept rapidly across the bows of the Silver Sides; the sputtering of its motor ceased; and the next moment the pirates were aboard the barge, lining up the dancers at the points of their pistols, and preparing to take away their ice-cream money.

And they did take it. They began at the bow of the barge and walked to the stern, making one after another of the excursionists deliver his valuables, and then slipped quietly over the stern of the barge; the pirate craft began to spit and sputter furiously; and the next moment it was tearing through the water like a streak of lightning.

To chase a speed-boat in an elderly river packet would have been nonsense. Uncle Jerry signaled full speed ahead and kept to the channel, where his boat belonged. Presently Mrs. Brooks, panting, climbed to the pilot-house.

"Well, Pa," she said, "pirates has been and robbed us."

"Don't I know it?" said Uncle Jerry testily. "No need of comin' to tell me."

"They got all the ice-cream money," said Mrs. Brooks.

"Well, 'twa'n't ourn, was it?" snapped Uncle Jerry.

"Why, Pa, what a way to talk!" exclaimed Mrs. Brooks. "It's like you thought it wa'n't nothin', to be pirated right here in the forepart of the twentieth century in the middle of the Mississippi River in broad daylight--"

"'Tain't daylight," said Uncle Jerry shortly. "It's midnight, and it's goin' to be long past midnight before we git ashore. A man can't get even part of a night's rest no more. Everybody pirootin' round, stoppin' boats an' stealin' ice-cream money! Makes me 'tarnel mad, it do."

"Pa," said Mrs. Brooks.

"Well, what is it now?" asked Uncle Jerry testily.

"Philo Gubb, the detective-man, is on board," said his wife. "I come up because I thought maybe you'd want to hire him right off to find out who was them pirates, and if--"

"Me? Hire a fool detective?" snapped Mr. Brooks. "Why'n't you come up and ask me to throw my money into the river?"

Philo Gubb, although not a dancer, had been on the barge when it was attacked, because he was a lover of ice-cream. He too had been lined up and robbed. He had been robbed not only of forty perfectly good cents, but his pirate had seen his opal scarf-pin and had rudely taken it from Mr. Gubb's tie. The pirate was, Mr. Gubb noticed, a short, heavy man with greasy hands. As the motor-boat dashed away, Mr. Gubb pressed to the rear of the barge and looked after it.

As the boat regained her speed, Philomela Brooks approached him.

"Oh, Mr. Gubb!" she exclaimed, "I'm so tremulous."

"If you will kindly not interrupt me at the present moment of time," said Mr. Gubb, "I will be much obliged. I am making an endeavor to try to do some deteckative work onto this case."

"Oh, Mr. Gubb!" Miss Philomela cried. "And _do_ you think you'll do any good?"

"In the deteckative business," said Mr. Gubb sternly, "we try to do all the good we can do, whether we can do it or not." And he turned away and sought a more secluded spot.

The affair of the pirate craft caused a tremendous sensation in Riverbank. Before eight o'clock the next morning every one in Riverbank seemed to have heard of the affair, and when, at eight o'clock, Philo Gubb entered the vacant Himmeldinger house, which he was decorating, he started with surprise to see Greasy already there. He had not expected to see him at all. But there he was, trimming the edge of a roll of Dietz's 7462 Bessie John, and as he turned to greet Mr. Gubb, the detective saw in Greasy's greasy tie what seemed to be his own opal scarf-pin.

"That there," said Mr. Gubb sternly, "is a nice scarf-pin you've got into your tie."

"Ain't it?" said Greasy proudly. "Me new lady-friend give it to me last night."

To Greasy, Detective Gubb said nothing. He was not yet ready to act. But to himself he muttered:--

"Scarf-pin--scarf-pin. That there is a clue I had ought to look into."

In the town excitement was high all day. There was some time wasted while the Chief of Police and the County Sheriff tried to discover which was compelled by law to fight pirates, but the Chief of Police finally put the job on the Sheriff's hands, and the old Fourth of July cannon was loaded with powder and nails and put on the bow of the good ferry-boat Haddon P. Rogers, a posse of about three hundred men with shotguns and army muskets was crowded aboard, and the pirate-catcher got under way.

This was, of course, Monday, and Monday the Silver Sides made her usual down-river trip to Bardenton, leaving in the morning and returning late at night. It was usually two o'clock at night when she tied up at the Riverbank levee, but this time two o'clock came without the Silver Sides. There was a good reason. As the packet neared Hog Island, about two miles below the Towhead, on her return trip, Uncle Jerry heard the sputter of a gas engine and saw dart out from below Hog Island the same low black craft that had carried the pirates before. Even before the craft was within range, the revolvers began to spit at the Silver Sides.

"Well, dang them pirates to the dickens!" exclaimed Uncle Jerry. "If they be goin' to keep up this nonsense I'm goin' to get down-right mad at 'em." But he signaled the engine-room to slow down, as if it was getting to be a habit with him. One of the upper panes, just above his line of vision, clattered down as he pulled the bell-rope.

At the first volley, Ma Brooks and her daughters dashed into the galley and slammed the door. The remainder of the male Brookses made two jumps to the coal bins and began burrowing into the coal, and the three non-Brooks members of the crew dived into openings between the small piles of cargo stuff and tried to become invisible. When the pirates clambered aboard the Silver Star they seemed to be boarding a deserted vessel. They worked quickly and thoroughly. Piece by piece they threw the cargo of the Silver Sides into the motor-boat until they uncovered the three members of the crew, who leaped from their hiding-place like startled rabbits and loped wildly to places of greater safety. Half a dozen revolver shots followed them. The pirates then leisurely reëmbarked, fired a parting salute, and glided away.

The next morning Greasy appeared at work with his pocket full of Sultana raisins, and offered some to Mr. Gubb.

"Thank you," said Mr. Gubb; "raisins are one of my foremost fondnesses. Nice ones like these are hard to find obtainable."

"You're right they are," said Greasy. "Me lady-friend give me these last night. She's the girl that knows good raisins, ain't she?"

Evidently she was, but Philo Gubb had taken occasion to discover, before he went to work that morning, whether the Silver Sides had been pirated again, and he had learned that a half-dozen boxes of Sultana raisins had formed part of the cargo of the Silver Sides. He looked at Greasy severely.

"Your lady-friend is considerably generous in giving things, ain't she?" he said, trying to hide the guile of his questions in an indifferent tone. "You ain't cared to mention her name to me as yet to this time."

"Ain't I?" said Greasy carelessly. "Well, I ain't ashamed of her. Her name is Maggie Tiffkins. She's some girl!"

"You spend most of your evenings with or about her, I presume to suppose?" asked Mr. Gubb carelessly.

"You bet!" said Greasy. "Me and her is going to get married before long, we are. Yep. And I'll be right glad to have a home to sleep in, instead of a barn."

"A barn?" queried Philo Gubb.

"I been sleepin' in a barn," said Greasy. "I thought youse knowed it. I been doin' a piece or two of scene paintin' for them Kalmucks, and I sort of hired a barn to do it in, and so long as I had to have the barn I just slept in it. Keeps me up late," he said, yawning, "seein' my lady-friend till midnight and then paintin' scenery till I don't know when."

"I presume you ain't spent much time on your motor-boat of late times," said Mr. Gubb.

"Ain't had no time," said Greasy briefly.

Detective Gubb, as he pasted paper on the walls of the Himmeldinger house, turned various matters over and over in his mind. His clues pointed as clearly to Greasy as the Great Dipper points to the North Star. He had decided to join the posse on the Haddon P. Rogers when she set out on her next voyage of vengeance, but now he changed his mind.

A barn, large and vacant, would be an excellent place in which to hide the proceeds of a pirate raid. Lest--possibly--the barn should recognize him and hide itself, Mr. Gubb first went to his office in the Opera House Building, disguised himself as a hostler, with cowhide boots, a cob pipe, a battered straw hat, and blue jean trousers. Lest his face be recognized by the barn he wore a set of red under-chin whiskers, which would have been more natural had they been a paler shade of scarlet. Thus disguised, he crept softly down the Opera House Building stairs and ran full into Billy Getz, Riverbank's best example of the spoiled only-son species, and the town's inveterate jester. Mr. Getz put a hand on Mr. Gubb's arm.

"Sh-h!" he said mysteriously. "Not a word. Only by chance did I recognize you, Mr. Gubb. Now, about this pirate business--it has to stop."

"I am proceeding to the deteckative work preliminary to so doing," said Mr. Gubb.

"Good!" said Billy Getz. "Because I can't have such things happening on my Mississippi River. I hate to see the dear old river get a bad name, Mr. Gubb. I'm just organizing the Dear Old River Anti-Pirate League--to suppress pirates, you know. And we want you as our official detective. In the meantime--Greasy! That's all I say--just Greasy! Tough-looking character. Lives in a barn."

"I am just proceeding to locate the whereabouts of the barn," said Mr. Gubb.

"That's easy," said Billy Getz. "Hampton's barn--Eighth Street alley. I know, because I've been there. He's doing our scenery for the Kalmuck summer show. You go straight up this street--or no, _you'd_ go in the opposite direction, and three miles into the country, and back across the cemetery, as advised in Lesson Thirteen, wouldn't you?"

"There are only twelve lessons," said Mr. Gubb haughtily and stalked away. He went, however, to Hampton's barn, climbed in through the alley window, and searched the place.

The barn contained nothing of interest. A cot stood at one end of the hay-loft; and stretched across the wall at the other end was a canvas on which was a partly completed scene of a ruined castle, with mountains in the distance. On the floor were pails and brushes, bundles of dry colors, glue, and the various articles needed by a scene-painter. Mr. Gubb looked behind the canvas. No loot was concealed there. He returned to his office, discarded his disguise, and went back to the Himmeldinger house. Seated on the front steps, quite neglecting his work, was Greasy, and beside him sat a girl.

"This," said Greasy, "is Maggie Tiffkins. Youse ought to know her. Mag, consider this a proper knockdown to P. Gubb, my boss."

That night the Silver Sides was attacked by the pirates on her return from Derlingport. The next morning Mr. Gubb awaited Greasy's coming impatiently, hoping for a new clue, but Greasy had none. He was glum. He had had a quarrel with Maggie, and he was cross.

"Last job of work I'll ever do for Billy Getz and them Kalmucks of his'n," he said crossly. "He's gettin' worse and worse. Them first two scenes I painted he kicked enough about: said the forest scene looked like a roast-beef sandwich, and asked me if the parlor scene was a bar-room or a cow-pasture, but when I do a first-class old bum castle and he wants to know if it's a lib'ry interior, I get hot. And so would youse."

* * * * *

For three nights the Silver Sides, now protected by the presence of part of the armed posse, was not disturbed, but on the fourth night the low, black pirate craft boldly attacked the steamer, carrying on a running fight. The pirates did not venture to board her, but the piratical business was getting to be an unbearable nuisance to Uncle Jerry Brooks. A dozen small craft were armed and patrolled the river. On the fourteenth night, when the Silver Sides was up-river on her Derlingport trip, the Jane P., the opposition steamer making the same ports, was boldly attacked by the pirates and lost the most precious part of her cargo. It was then determined to exterminate the pirates at any cost.

Once only had a steamer been attacked above the town, and this seemed to indicate that the pirates had their nest below Riverbank, and this was the more likely as the river below town gave far greater opportunities for hiding the pirate boat during the day. There were several sloughs or bayous and many indentations of the shore-line, while above the town there was none. Above the town the shores sloped back from the river's edge, and even a skiff on the shore could be seen from across the river. The search for the pirate vessel was therefore conducted below the town, but most unsuccessfully.

Mr. Gubb, in the three weeks during which the search went on, exhausted all his disguises and every page of the twelve lessons of the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting. He was in a condition bordering on despair. Each day he donned a disguise and visited the barn, and saw nothing but scenery and more scenery. He had reached a point where detective skill seemed to fail, and where he feared he might have to go openly to Greasy and ask him whether he was the pirate, or at least go to Maggie and ask her where she had obtained the scarf-pin and the raisins. And that would not have been detecting. Nothing like it was mentioned in the twelve lessons.

A reward of One Hundred Dollars (rewards are always in capital letters) had been offered by the Business Men's Association for the capture of the pirate craft, but no one seemed likely to earn the reward.

"Say, honest!" said Greasy, "if my boat was workin' I'd go out alone in her and cop off them hundred dollars. Youse is a detective, Gubb; why don't youse get to work and grab them dollars?"

"Your boat is not into a workable condition?" asked Philo Gubb.

"She's all but that," said Greasy. "She's hauled up on the levee, rottin' like a tomato. I tried to sell her to Muller, the grocery feller where Mag gets them raisins you liked, and I tried to trade her for a ring to Calloway, the jewelry man what Mag got my opal scarf-pin of, but I can't get rid of her nohow. If I had her workin' I'd find them pirates or I'd know why."

"I have remembered the thought of something; I've got to go downtown," said Mr. Gubb, and he left Greasy and went to question Mr. Muller and Mr. Calloway. The one admitted selling Mag the raisins, and the other the pin, and thus two perfectly good clues went bad. Mr. Gubb turned toward Fifth Street, when Billy Getz caught him by the arm.

"Come on and hunt pirates," he said. "The good cruiser Haddon P. Rogers is going to hit a new trail--up-river this time. Come on along."

Billy Getz escorted him aboard the Haddon P. Rogers and led him straight to the Sheriff on the upper deck.

"Sheriff," he said, "we've got 'em now! This time we've got 'em sure. Here's Gubb, the famous P. Gubb, detective, and after many solicitations he has consented to accompany us. We will have the pirate craft ere we return. P. Gubb never fails."

The Sheriff smiled good-naturedly.

"Always kidding, ain't you, Billy," he said.

The boat started. She steamed slowly up the river, the members of the posse on the upper deck on either side, scanning the shores carefully. Occasionally the ferry-boat backed and ran closer to shore to permit a nearer inspection of some skiff or to view some log left on the shore by the last flood. Billy Getz, standing beside the Sheriff and P. Gubb, called their attention to every shadow and lump on the shore. The boat proceeded on her slow course and reached the channel between an island and the Illinois shore. The wooded bank of the island rose directly from the water, some of the water-elms dipping their roots into the river. There was no place where a boat could be hidden, and the ferry steamed slowly along. Billy Getz poked solemn-faced fun at Mr. Gubb in the most serious manner, and Mr. Gubb was sternly haughty, knowing he was being made sport of. His eyes rested with bird-like intensity on the wooded shore of the island.

"Now, this combination of paper-hanging and detecting has its advantages," said Billy Getz, with a wink at the Sheriff. "When a man--"

Philo Gubb was not hearing him.

"The remarkableness of the similarity of nature to art is quite often remarkable to observe," he said to the Sheriff, "and is seeming to grow more so now and then from time to time. That piece of section of woods right there is so naturally grown you might say it was torn right off a roll of Dietz's 7462 Bessie John."

He stopped short.

"What's the matter?" asked Billy Getz nervously.

"Run the boat in there," said Philo Gubb excitedly. "Those verdures ain't _like_ 7462 Bessie John; they _are_ 7462 Bessie John."

The Sheriff stared keenly at the spot indicated by Detective Gubb's extended hand and, turning suddenly, said a word to the pilot in the house at his side. The ferry veered and ran in toward the island. Not until the boat was nearer the shore than a front row of the orchestra seats to the back drop of a theater did the others on the boat understand. Then the trick was seen and understood. The trees of the shore were not all trees. One group was a painted canvas, copied carefully by Greasy from Dietz's 7462 Bessie John at the behest of Billy Getz. Stretched across a small indentation of the shore it made a safe screen, unrecognizable a few rods from the shore, and behind this bit of painted forest they found the long, low, black pirate craft--Billy Getz's motor-boat.

When the Sheriff had torn down the canvas and his men had hoisted and heaved the pirate craft to the broad deck of the ferry, Billy Getz was gone. Riverbank never saw him again, and a half-dozen of his roistering companions also disappeared completely.

"Sometimes occasionally," said Philo Gubb, as the ferry turned toward town, "the combination of paper-hanging and deteckative work is detrimental to one or both, as the case may be, but at other occasional times they are worth one hundred dollars."

"That's right!" said the Sheriff suddenly. "You get that reward, don't you?"

"Most certainly sure," said Philo Gubb.

HENRY

Philo Gubb entered his office and placed on his cutting-table the express package he had found leaning against his door. With his trimming-knife he cut the cord that bound the package. It contained, he knew, the new disguise for which he had sent twenty-five dollars to the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Supply Bureau, and he was eager to examine his purchase, which, in the catalogue, was known as "No. 34. French Count, with beard and wig complete. List, $40.00. Special price to our graduates, $25.00, express paid."

Mr. Gubb wore a face more solemn than usual, for he had just had bad news. He had hidden his distrust of Mr. Medderbrook, the father of his beloved Syrilla, and had carried that gentleman the one hundred dollars he had earned by aiding in the capture of the river pirates, but he had found Mr. Medderbrook close to tears.

"Read this, Gubb," Mr. Medderbrook said; and that he was deeply affected was shown by the fact that he did not ask Mr. Gubb to pay any part of the cost of the telegram from Syrilla which had, this time, come "Collect." The telegram read:--

Scared crazy. Resumed vegetables and all kinds of food, eating steadily all day and night, but have lost twenty-five pounds more. Now weigh only one hundred and twenty-five and going down rapidly. If worse goes to worst, love to Gubby.

It is not surprising that Mr. Gubb sighed as he lifted the exaggeratedly thin-waisted frock coat from the package, but there came a tap on the door and he hastily covered the coat with the wrapping paper and turned to the door.

"Enter in," he said. And the door opened cautiously and a short, ruddy-faced man entered, peering into the room first and then closing the door behind him as cautiously as he had opened it.

"Are you this here detective feller?" he asked bluntly.

"I am Mister P. Gubb, deteckating and paper-hanging done, to command at your service," admitted Mr. Gubb. "Won't you take a seat onto a chair?"

"Depends," said Mr. Gubb's visitor, keeping his hand on the doorknob. "I'll put it to you like this: Say some guy stole something from me, and I was willing to pay you for finding out who stole it and for getting it back--you'd take a job like that and say nothing about it to anybody, wouldn't you?"

"Most certainly sure," agreed Mr. Gubb.

"That's the idee! You'd keep it dark. It wouldn't be nobody's business but yours and mine, would it? It would be a quiet little deal between you and me, and nobody would know anything about it. Hey?"

"Exactly sure," said Philo Gubb. "The deteckative business is conducted onto an absolutely quiet Q.T. basis."

"Correct!" said his visitor. "I see you and me can do business. Now, my name is Gus P. Smith, and I've had one of the rawest deals handed me a man ever had handed him. I was coming along down one of these alleys between streets this morning and--"

He stopped short and turned to the door. Some one had tapped on the panels. Mr. Smith opened the door the merest crack and peered out. He closed it again instantly.

"Somebody to see you," he whispered. "What I've got to say I want kept private. I'll be back."

He opened the door and slipped out, and as he went a second visitor entered. The newcomer was somewhat tall and thin, and his hair was long, so long it fell upon his shoulders in greasy curls. He wore a rather ancient frock coat and a black slouch hat, and a touch of style was added by his gray kid gloves, although the weather was average summer weather. His face was thin and adorned by a silky brown beard, divided at the chin and falling in two carefully arranged points. He closed the door carefully, first looking into the hall to see that Mr. Gus P. Smith had disappeared.

"Mr. P. Gubb, the detective?" he asked.

"Most absolutely sure," said Mr. P. Gubb.

"My name," said Mr. Gubb's visitor, "is one you are doubtless familiar with. I am Alibaba Singh."

"Pleased to meet your acquaintance," said Mr. Gubb. "What can I aim to do for you?"

Mr. Alibaba Singh brought a chair close to Mr. Gubb's desk and seated himself. He leaned close to Mr. Gubb--so close that Mr. Gubb scented the rank odor of cheap hair-oil--and whispered.

"Everything is to be strictly confidential--most strictly confidential. That's understood?"

"Most absolutely sure."

"Of course! Now, you must have heard of me--I've made quite a stir here in Riverbank since I came. Theosophical lectures--first lessons in Nirvana--Buddhistic philosophy--mysteries of Vedaism--et cetery."

"I read your advertisement notices into the newspapers," admitted Mr. Gubb.