Chapter 7

Old John Westcote, and pansy stains on his trouser knees, was it? The thing seemed impossible, but so did un-burglary, for that matter. Old John Westcote was one of the richest men in Riverbank. He was a retired merchant and as mean as sin. He was the last man in Riverbank any one would suspect of leaving spoons and forks in other people's houses. But how did it come that he had pansy stains on the knees of his trousers? Philo Gubb thought of old John Westcote all day, and toward night he hit on a solution. Wedding presents! From what he had heard, old John was--or had been--the sort of man to accept a wedding invitation, go to the reception and eat his fill, and never send the bride so much as a black wire hairpin. And now, grown old, his conscience might be hurting him. He might be in that semi-senile state when restitution becomes a craze, and the ungiven wedding presents might press upon his conscience. It was not at all unlikely that he had chosen the un-burglary method of giving the presents at this late date. The form of the un-burgled goods--forks and spoons--and the initials engraved upon them, made this more likely.

That night Detective Gubb did not report in person or by docket to Marshal Wittaker. At seven o'clock he was hiding in the hazel brush opposite old John Westcote's lonely house on Pottex Lane. At seven-fifteen the old man tottered from his gate and tottered down the lane toward the more thickly settled part of the town. Under his arm he carried a small bundle--a bundle wrapped in newspaper!

Detective Gubb waited until the old man was well in advance, and then slipped from the hazel brush and followed him, observing all the rules for Shadowing and Trailing as taught by the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting. For three hours the old man wandered the streets. Now he walked along Main Street, peering anxiously into the faces of the pedestrians, with purblind eyes, and now walking the residence streets. Detective Gubb kept close behind.

As ten o'clock struck from the clock in the High School tower, old John Westcote quickened his steps a little and walked toward the opposite end of the town, where the lumber-yards are. Down the hill into the lumber district he walked, and Detective Gubb dodged from tree to tree. Halfway down the hill the old man hesitated. He glanced around. At his side was a mass of lilac bushes, seeming strangely out of place among the huge piles of lumber. Without stopping, the old man let the bundle slide from under his arm and fall on the walk. For a moment it lay like a white spot on the walk, and then it moved rapidly out of sight into the bushes.

Bundles do not move thus, unless assisted, but Philo Gubb was too far away to see the hand he knew must have reached out for the bundle. He ran rapidly, keeping in the sawdust that formed the unfruitful soil of the lumber-yard, until he dared come no nearer, and then he climbed to the top of the tallest lumber-pile and lay flat. He commanded every side of the hillside lumber-yard, and he did not have long to wait. From the lower side of the yard he saw a black figure emerge, cross the street and disappear over the bank into the railway switch-yard below. Mr. Gubb scrambled down and followed.

At the bank above the switch-yard he paused, keeping in a shadow, and looked here and there. Flat cars and box cars stood on the tracks in great numbers, most of them closed and sealed--some partly open. He heard a car door grate as it was closed. He slipped down the bank and crept on his hands and knees. He was halfway down the line of cars when he heard a voice. It came from car 7887, C. B. & Q.

"Run all the breath out of me," said the voice in a wheeze.

"Well, did you get it?" whispered another voice.

"Sure I got it! Got something, anyway. Strike a match, Bill, and let's see if he put up a job on us. If he did, we'll blow him up to-morrow night, hey?"

"That's right. We got a can o' powder left under the pile by the laylocks. How much is it?"

"We tol' him one thousand, didn't we? Same as he give the Law and Order to help grab us. Now, listen! You take half of this and go one way, an' I'll take half an' go the other. We can get away with five hundred apiece."

"And we got the five hundred apiece we got for doin' the dynamite job, too. Say, I never thought to have a thousand dollars at once in me life. What's that?"

It was Philo Gubb, slipping the car door latch over the staple and hammering home the hasp with a rock. It was the engine, backing against the long row of cars to make a coupling, and then moving slowly forward toward Derlingport as the heavy train got under way. The two rascals hammered on the side of the car with their fists. They swore. They kicked against the doors. Philo Gubb drew himself into the next open car as the train moved away.

About the same time, Officer Purcell entered the Marshal's office, where Wittaker and Billy Getz sat awaiting the coming of Philo Gubb. Purcell led John Gutman, the town half-wit.

"I got him," he said proudly. "Caught him comin' out of Sam Wentz's cellar window. Says he didn't mean no harm. Had a dream he was to leave spoons on all the society folks an' he'd be invited to all their parties."

"Did he fight you?" asked Wittaker. "Your pants is all stained up."

"Fight? No, he wouldn't fight a sheep. I tripped over a wire fence cuttin' a corner an' fell into a flower-bed. Got Hail Columbia from the lady, too. She said old man Westcote fell into the flowers yesterday, and she didn't mean to have her flower-bed used as no landin' place. Heard from Detective Gubb yet?"

Wittaker grinned. "We ought to hear from him soon. And I reckon he'll be worth waiting to hear from."

And he was. Word came from him about an hour later. It was a telegram from the Sheriff of Derling County:--

Detective Gubb captured two of the dynamiters to-night. Have their confession. Arrest Pie-Wagon Pete, Long Sam Underbury, and Shorty Billings. All implicated.

"An' the rewards tot up to five thousand dollars," said Officer Purcell. "Let's hustle out an' nab the other three, an' maybe we can split it with Gubb."

"And us sitting here thinking we had a joke on him!" exclaimed Marshal Wittaker with disgust. "It makes me sick!"

"Well, I feel a little bilious myself," said Billy Getz.

THE TWO-CENT STAMP

The house in Tenth Street where Philo Gubb was doing a job of paper-hanging when he made the happy error of capturing the dynamiters while seeking the un-burglars was the home of Aunt Martha Turner, a member of the Ladies' Temperance League of Riverbank.

The members of the Ladies' Temperance League--and Aunt Martha Turner particularly--had recently begun a movement to have City Attorney Mullen impeached and thrown out of office, for they claimed that while he had been elected by the Prohibition-Republican Party, and had pledged himself to close every saloon, he had not closed one single saloon. Aunt Martha Turner and her associates believed this was because Attorney Mullen was himself a drinker of beer, and it was to get proof of this that the hot-headed ladies had engaged a youth named Slippery Williams to make a raid on his home.

Detective Gubb was, however, quite unconscious of all this when he proceeded to the home of Aunt Martha to complete his work there. He was in an unhappy frame of mind, for he had in his pocket nothing but one two-cent stamp and he had immediate need for one hundred dollars.

Mr. Gubb had, early that morning, visited the home of Mr. Medderbrook, from whom he hoped to have news of Syrilla, but the colored butler informed him that Mr. Medderbrook had been called to Chicago.

"He done lef word, howsomedever," said the butler, "dat ef you come an' was willin' to pay thutty cents you could have dis telegraf whut come from Mis' Syrilla. An' he lef dis note fo' you, whut you can have whever you pay or not."

Mr. Gubb quite willingly gave the negro thirty cents, the very last money he possessed, and read the telegram. It said:--

Hope on, hope ever. Have given up wheat bread, corn bread, rye bread, home-made bread, bakers' bread, biscuit and rolls. Have lost six pounds more. Love to Gubby.

This would have sent Mr. Gubb to his work in a happy frame of mind, had it not been for the note Mr. Medderbrook had left. This note said:--

Called to Chicago suddenly. I must have one hundred dollars payment on account of the gold stock immediately. Cannot let my daughter marry a man who puts off paying for gold stock forever. Unless I hear from you with money to-morrow, all is over between us.

Such a letter would have made any lover sad. Mr. Gubb had no idea where he could raise one hundred dollars during the day and he saw his promising romance cut short just when Syrilla was beginning to lose weight handsomely. The greeting he received when he reached Aunt Martha Turner's was not of a sort to cheer him. Mrs. Turner met him with a sour face.

"No, you can't go ahead with puttin' the wall-paper on this kitchen ceilin' to-day, Mr. Gubb," she said.

"I'd like to, if I could," said Philo Gubb wistfully. "My financial condition ain't such as to allow me to waste a day. I'm very low in a monetary shape, right now."

Aunt Martha Turner seemed worried.

"Well," she said reluctantly, "I guess if that's the case you might as well go ahead. I expect I'll have to be out of the house 'most all day. If you get done before I get back, lock the kitchen door and put the key behind a shutter."

She departed, and Philo Gubb set up his trestle, unrolled and trimmed a strip of ceiling-paper, pasted it, and climbed his ladder. At the top he seated himself a moment and shook his head.

He sighed and picked up the paste-covered strip of ceiling-paper, but before he could get to his feet the kitchen door opened and "Snooks" Turner put his head in cautiously.

"Say, Gubb, where's Aunt Martha?" he asked in a whisper.

"She's gone out," said Philo Gubb. "She won't be back for quite some time, I guess, Snooksy."

"Good!" said Snooks, and he entered the kitchen. Some weeks before he had met Nan Kilfillan. He was deeply in love with Nan, and Nan was a good girl, although Aunt Martha Turner did not approve of her, because she was "hired girl" to City Attorney Mullen. Before she had met Snooks Nan had done her best to "make something" of "Slippery" Williams, who was courting her then, but that task was beyond even Nan's powers.

Snooks held a job on the "Eagle" as city reporter, with the dignified title of City Editor, and he was making good. He got the news. He seemed able to smell news. When there was big news in the air he would become uneasy and feel nervous.

"I got the twitches again," he would say to the editor of the "Eagle." "There's some big item around. I've got to get it." And he would get it.

"She's gone out, has she?" said Snooks, when he had entered his aunt's kitchen and asked Philo Gubb about Aunt Martha. "That's good. I wanted to see you on a matter of business--detective business."

He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a small roll of bills. He was not the usually neat Snooks. One eye was blackened and one side of his face was scratched. His clothes were badly torn and soiled. He looked as if some one had tried to murder him.

"There!" he said, holding the bills up to Philo Gubb after counting them. "There's twenty-five dollars. You take that and find out what I have done, and what's the matter with me, and all about it."

"What do you want me to find out?" asked Mr. Gubb, fondling the bills.

"If I knew, I wouldn't ask you," said Snooks peevishly. "I don't know what it is. I'd go and find out myself, but I'm in jail."

"Where did you say you was?" asked Philo Gubb.

"In jail," said Snooks. "I'm in jail, and I'm in bad. When the marshal put me in last night I gave him my word I'd stay in all day to-day, and it ain't right for me to be here now.

"'Dog-gone you, Snooks!' he says, 'you ain't got no consideration for me at all. Here I figgered that there wouldn't be no wave of crime strike town for some days, and I went and took the jail door down to the blacksmith to have a panel put in where the one rusted out, and my wife made me promise to drive out to the farm with her to-morrow, and now you come and spoil everything. I got to stay in town and watch you.'

"'Go on,' I says, 'and take your drive. I'll stay in jail. I got a strong imagination. I'll imagine there's a door.'

"'Honor bright?' he says.

"'Yes, honor bright,' I says.

"So he went," said Snooks, "and he's trusting me, and here I am. You can see it wouldn't do for me to be running all over town when, by rights, I'm locked and barred and bolted in jail. I'm locked and barred and bolted in jail, and well started on my way to the penitentiary as a burglar."

"As a burglar!" exclaimed Gubb.

"That's it!" said Snooks. "I can't see head or tail of it. You got to help me out, Gubb. See if you can make any sense of this:--

"Last night I went out for a walk with Nan. She's my girl, you know, and she's going to marry me. Maybe she won't now, but she was going to. She works for Mullen. We got back to Mullen's house about eleven o'clock, and Mrs. Mullen always locks the door at half-past ten, whether Nan is in or not. So, being late, we had to ring the doorbell, and Mr. Mullen came to the door to let Nan in, and when he saw I was with her he shook hands with me and asked me to come in and have a cigar, and sit awhile, but I told him I had to hustle up some news for to-day's paper, and he let me go. That's how pleasant he was. So I went downtown, and the first fellow I met was Sammy Wilmerton."

"Widow Wilmerton's boy?" asked Philo Gubb.

"Exactly!" said Snooks, feeling his eye with his finger. "And he says, 'Snooks, did you hear what the Ladies' Temperance League did last night?' I hadn't heard. 'I heard ma say,' says Sammy, 'but don't say I told you. They got up a petition to have City Attorney Mullen impeached by the City Council.'

"Well, that was news! I went into the 'Eagle' office and called up Mullen.

"'Hello! Is that Attorney Mullen?' I says.

"'Yes,' he says.

"'Well, something happened last night,' I says, 'and I'd like to see you about it.'

"'How do you know what happened?' he says.

"'No matter,' I says; 'can I come up?'

"After a half a minute he says, 'Oh, yes! Come up. Come right away. I'll be waiting for you.'

"So I went."

"Nothing strange about that," said Philo Gubb, shifting himself on the ladder.

"So I went," continued Snooks. "I rang the doorbell and, the moment it rang, the door flew open and--_bliff!_--down came a bed-blanket over me and somebody grabbed me in his arms and lugged me into the house. I guess it was Attorney Mullen--you know how big and husky he is. But I couldn't see him. I couldn't see anything. Only, every two seconds, bump! he hit at my head through the blanket. That's how I got this eye. And, all the time, he was talking to me, mad as a hatter, and I couldn't hear a word he said. But I could hear his wife screaming at the top of the stairs, and I could hear Nan screaming, and I heard a window go up.

"'Stop that yelling!' says Mullen, in a voice I _could_ hear, and then he picked me up again and carried me to the back door, and opened it and threw me all the way down the eight steps. I chucked off the blanket, and I was going up the steps again, to show him he couldn't treat me that way, when--_bing!_--somebody next door took a shot at me with a revolver. Thought I was a burglar, I guess. I started to run for the back gate, when--_bing!_--somebody shot at me from the other house. What do you think of that? For a few minutes it sounded like the battle of San Juan, and I can't understand yet why I didn't suffer an awful loss of life."

"But you didn't?" asked Philo Gubb.

"No, siree! I made a dive for the cellar door, just as they got the range. I stayed in the cellarway, with the bullets pattering on it like hail, until the cop came. Tim Fogarty was the cop. He ordered 'Cease firing!' and the shower stopped, and I let him capture me. He took me to the calaboose, and this morning, early, he had me before the judge, and I'm held for the grand jury, and the charge is burglary and petit larceny. Now what is the answer?"

"Being pulled into a house and thrown out the other door isn't burglary," said Philo Gubb. "Burglary is breaking in or breaking out. Maybe Attorney Mullen mistook you for some one else."

"Mistook nothing!" said Snooks. "He was in the court-room this morning. He handled the case against me. Who is that?"

Some one was climbing the back steps, and Snooks made one dive for the cellar door, and slipped inside. He knew how to get out through the cellar, for he was familiar with it. He did not wait now, but opened the outside cellar door, and after looking to see that the way was clear, hurried back to the jail.

Philo Gubb did not have time to descend from his ladder before the kitchen door opened. The visitor was Policeman Fogarty.

"Mawrnin'!" he said, removing his hat and wiping the sweat-band with his red handkerchief. "Don't ye get down, Misther Gubb, sor. I want but a wurrd with ye. I seen Snooksy Tur-rner here but a sicond ago, me lookin' in at the windy, an' you an' him conversin'. Mayhap he was speakin' t' ye iv his arrist?"

"He was conversing with me of that occurrence," said Philo Gubb. "He was consulting me in my professional capacity."

"An' a fine young lad he is!" said Policeman Fogarty, reaching into his pocket. "I got th' divvil for arristin' him. 'Twas that dark, ye see, Misther Gubb, I cud not see who I was arristin'. Maybe he was consultin' ye about gettin' clear iv th' charge ag'inst him?"

"He retained my deteckative services," said Philo Gubb.

"Poor young man!" said Fogarty. "I'll warrant he has none too much money. Me hear-rt bleeds for him. Ye'll have no ind iv trailin' an' shadowin' an' other detective wurrk to do awn th' case, no doubt. 'Tis ixpinsive wurrk, that! I was thinkin' maybe ye'd permit me t' contribute a five-dollar bill t' th' wurrk, for I'm that sad t' have had a hand in arristin' him."

Fogarty held up the bill and Philo Gubb took it.

"Contingent expenses are always numerously present in deteckative operations," he said.

"Right ye ar-re!" said Fogarty. "An' ye'll remimber, if anny wan asks ye, that I ixprissed me contrition for arristin' Snooksy. Whist!" he said, putting his hand alongside his mouth and whispering: "Some wan wanted me t' search th' house here t' see did Snooksy have sivin bottles iv beer an' a silver beer-opener in his room."

Philo Gubb sat on the ladder and contemplated the five-dollar bill until he heard Fogarty returning.

"Hist!" Fogarty said. "I did not see him, mind ye!"

Fogarty slipped out of the back door and was gone, and Philo Gubb, after a thoughtful moment, decided that the five-dollar bill was rightfully his, and slipped it into his pocket. To earn it, however, he must get to work on the case. He raised the pasted strip of paper, but before he could place the loose end on the ceiling, some one tapped at the kitchen door.

"Come in!" he called, and the door opened.

"Slippery" Williams glided into the room. His crafty eyes sought Philo Gubb.

"'Lo, Gubby! Watcha doin' up there? Where's Miss Turner?" he asked.

"Miss Turner is out on business, I presume," said the Correspondence School detective coldly, "and I am pursuing my professional duties in the deteckating line."

"Yar, hey?" said Slippery. "Who you detectin' for now?"

"Snooks Turner," said Philo Gubb. "I'm solving a case for him."

Instantly Slippery's manner changed. From rough he became smooth. From bold he became cringing.

"Why, I'm Snooksy's friend," he said. "You know me and Snooksy was always chums, don't you, Gubby? Yes, sir, I think a lot of Snooksy. He says, 'Slippery, you go up to my room and get me a bundle of clean clothes--these are all torn and dirty, and--' Well, I guess I'll get 'em, and get back. Snooks is waitin' for me."

He turned to the hall, but Philo Gubb called him back.

"You can't go up there," said Philo Gubb, from his ladder-top. "There's been enough folks up there already."

"Who was up?" asked Slippery hastily.

"Policeman Fogarty was," said Philo Gubb.

"What'd he find up there?" asked Slippery anxiously.

"Nothin'," said Philo Gubb. "He told me he couldn't find seven bottles of beer and a beer-opener."

"Look here!" said Slippery sweetly. "If I gave you five dollars to hire you to hunt for them, could you find them seven bottles of beer and that beer-opener, for me? Straight detective work? Could you?"

"I could try to find them," said Philo Gubb.

"Well, that's all I want," said Slippery. "I don't want to do nothin' with them. All I want to know is--where are they? Here's five dollars."

Philo Gubb took the money.

"All right," said Slippery, "now, you find them. They're upstairs in Mrs. Turner's bed, between the quilt and the mattress. Go find them."

"Not until Miss Turner comes home," said Philo firmly. "It's her house."

"Why, you long-legged stork you!" said Slippery, "she knows I'm here for that beer. She sent me."

"I thought you said Snooks sent you for his clothes," said Philo.

"Never you mind who sent me for what!" said Slippery, angrily. "You're a dandy detective, ain't you? Sittin' on top of a ladder, and not lettin' a friend of Snooks help him out. Say, listen, Gubby! Everybody's goin' to get into worse trouble if I don't get away with that beer. Understand? Come on! Let me take it away!"

"When Miss Turner comes back!" said Philo Gubb.

A new knock on the door interrupted them, and Slippery glided to the cellar door, through which Snooks had so recently fled. The kitchen door opened to admit Attorney Smith. He was a thin man, but intelligent-looking, as thin men quite frequently are.

"Don't get down, Mr. Gubb, don't get down!" he said. "I came in the back way, hoping to find Miss Turner. She is not here?"

"She's out," said Philo.

"Too bad!" said Attorney Smith. "I wanted to see her about her nephew. You have heard he is in jail?"

"Why, yes," said Philo, crossing one leg over the other. "He hired me to do some deteckating. I'm sort of in charge of that case. I'm just going to start in looking it up."

Attorney Smith took a turn to the end of the room and back. He was known in Riverbank as the unsuccessful competitor against Attorney Mullen for the City Attorneyship, and was supposed to be the counselor of the liquor interests.

"You have done nothing yet?" he asked suddenly, stopping below Philo Gubb's elevated seat.

"No, I'm just about beginning to commence," said Philo.

"Then you know nothing regarding the--the articles young Turner is charged with stealing?"

"Well, maybe I do know something about that," said Philo. "If you mean seven bottles of beer and a beer-opener, I do."

"Where are they?" asked Attorney Smith in the sharp tone he used in addressing a witness for the other side when he was trying a case.

"I guess I've told about all I'm going to tell about them," said Philo thoughtfully. "I don't want to be disobliging, Mister Smith, but I look on them bottles of beer as a clue, and that beer-opener as a clue, and they're about the only clue I've got. I got to save up my clues."

"Are they in this house?" asked Mr. Smith sharply.

"If they ain't, they're somewheres else," said Philo.

"Mr. Gubb," said Mr. Smith impressively "there are large interests at stake in this case. Larger interests than you imagine. We are all interested at this moment in clearing your client of the suspicion--which I hope is an unjust suspicion--now resting over and upon him. I need not say what the interests are, but they are very powerful. I feel confident that those interests could succeed in clearing Snooks Turner."