P. Scroggs:—A complete study of the history and antiquities of Diocese of Ossory fails to reveal the presence of a single individual bearing the name of Scroggs from the year 1085 to date.
P. Scroggs:—
A complete study of the history and antiquities of Diocese of Ossory fails to reveal the presence of a single individual bearing the name of Scroggs from the year 1085 to date.
Like the first letter this was signed with a waved line. Mr. Gubb studied it carefully.
“I don’t see no sign of a threat in that,” he said.
“Not unless you should say it was belittling me to tell me to my face that no Scroggs ever lived wherever that says they didn’t live,” said Miss Petunia. “Now, here’s the next letter.”
Mr. Gubb read it. It ran thus:—
Miss Petunia:—For to-morrow: Rising temperature accompanied by falling barometer, followed by heavy showers. Lower temperature will follow in the North Central States and Northern Missouri.
Miss Petunia:—
For to-morrow: Rising temperature accompanied by falling barometer, followed by heavy showers. Lower temperature will follow in the North Central States and Northern Missouri.
“I shouldn’t call that exactly scurrilous, neither,” said Mr. Gubb.
“It ain’t,” said Miss Petunia, “and unless you can call a mention of threatening weather a threat, I wouldn’t call it a threatening letter. And then I got this letter.”
She handed Mr. Gubb the fourth letter, and he read it. It ran:—
Petunia Scroggs:—Trout are rising freely in the Maine waters. The Parmacheene Belle is one of the best flies to use.
Petunia Scroggs:—
Trout are rising freely in the Maine waters. The Parmacheene Belle is one of the best flies to use.
Mr. Gubb, having read this letter, shook his head and placed the letter on top of those he had previously read. It was signed with the wiggle like the others.
“Speaking as a deteckative,” he said, “I don’t see anything into these letters yet that would fetch the writer into the grasp of the law. Are they all like this?”
“If you mean do they say they are going to murder me, or do they call me names,” said Miss Scroggs, “they don’t. Here, take them!”
Mr. Gubb took the remaining letters and read them. There were about a dozen of them. While peculiar epistles to write to a maiden lady of forty-five years, they were not what one might call violent. They were, in part, as follows:—
Petunia:—Although a cat with a fit is a lively object, it has seldom been known to attack human beings. Cause of fits—too rich food. Cure of fits—less rich food.
Petunia:—
Although a cat with a fit is a lively object, it has seldom been known to attack human beings. Cause of fits—too rich food. Cure of fits—less rich food.
Miss Scroggs:—If soil is inclined to be sour, a liberal sprinkling of lime, well ploughed in, has a good effect. Marble dust, where easily obtainable, serves as well.
Miss Scroggs:—
If soil is inclined to be sour, a liberal sprinkling of lime, well ploughed in, has a good effect. Marble dust, where easily obtainable, serves as well.
Miss Petunia:—Swedish iron is largely used in the manufacture of upholstery tacks because of its peculiar ductile qualities.
Miss Petunia:—
Swedish iron is largely used in the manufacture of upholstery tacks because of its peculiar ductile qualities.
“I don’t see nothing much into them,” said Mr. Gubb, when he had read them all. “I don’t see much of a deteckative case into them. If I was toget letters like these I wouldn’t worry much about them. I’d let them come.”
“You may say that,” said Miss Petunia, “because you are a man, and big and strong and brave-like. But when a person is a woman, and lives alone, and has some money laid by that some folks would be glad enough to get, letters coming right along from she don’t know who, scare her. Every time I get another of those Anonymous Wiggle letters I get more and more nervous. If they said, ‘Give me five thousand dollars or I will kill you,’ I would know what to do, but when a letter comes that says, like that one does, ‘Swedish iron is largely used in the manufacture of upholstery tacks,’ I don’t know what to think or what to do.”
“I can see to understand that it might worry you some,” said Mr. Gubb sympathetically. “What do you want I should do?”
“I want you should find out who wrote the letters,” said Miss Scroggs.
Mr. Gubb looked at the pile of letters.
“It’s going to be a hard job,” he said. “I’ve got to try to guess out a cryptogram in these letters. I ought to have a hundred dollars.”
“It’s a good deal, but I’ll pay it,” said Miss Petunia. “I ain’t rich, but I’ve got quite a little money in the bank, and I own the house I live in and a farm I rent. Pa left me money and property worth about ten thousand dollars, and I haven’t wasted it. So go ahead.”
“YOU ARE A MAN, AND BIG AND STRONG AND BRAVE-LIKE”“YOU ARE A MAN, AND BIG AND STRONG AND BRAVE-LIKE”
“I’ll so do,” said Philo Gubb; “and first off I’ll ask you who your neighbors are.”
“My neighbors!” exclaimed Miss Petunia.
“On both sides,” said Mr. Gubb, “and who comes to your house most?”
“Well, I declare!” said Miss Petunia. “I don’t know what you are getting at, but on one side I have no neighbors at all, and on the other side is Mrs. Canterby. I guess she comes to my house oftener than anybody else.”
“I am acquainted with Mrs. Canterby,” said Mr. Gubb. “I did a job of paper-hanging there only last week.”
“Did you, indeed?” said Miss Scroggs politely. “She’s a real nice lady.”
“I don’t give opinions on deteckative matters until I’m sure,” said Mr. Gubb. “She seems nice enough to the naked eye. I don’t want to get you to suspicion her or nobody, Miss Scroggs, but about the only clue I can grab hold of is that first letter you got. It said to look on page fourteen, and all the pages by that number was torn out of your books—”
“Except my cook-book,” said Miss Petunia.
“And a person naturally wouldn’t go to think of a cook-book as a real book,” said Mr. Gubb. “If you stop to think, you’ll see that whoever wrote that letter must have beforehand tore out all the page fourteens from the books into your house, for some reason.”
“Why, yes!” exclaimed Miss Scroggs, clapping her hands together. “How wise you are!”
“Deteckative work fetches deteckative wisdom,” said Mr. Gubb modestly. “I don’t want to throw suspicion at Mrs. Canterby, but Letter Number One points at her first of all.”
“O—h, yes! O—h my! And I never even thought of that!” cried Miss Petunia admiringly.
“Us deteckatives have to think of things,” said Philo Gubb. “And so we will say, just for cod, like, that Mrs. Canterby got at your books and ripped out the pages. She’d think: ‘What will Miss Petunia do when she finds she hasn’t any page fourteens to look at? She’ll rush out to borrow a book to look at.’ Now, where would you rush out to borrow a book if you wanted to borrow one in a hurry?”
“To Mrs. Canterby’s house!” exclaimed Miss Petunia.
“Just so!” said Mr. Gubb. “You’d rush over and you’d say, ‘Mrs. Canterby, lend me a book!’ And she would hand you a book, and when you looked at page fourteen, and read the first full sentence on the page, what would you read?”
“What would I read?” asked Miss Scroggs breathlessly.
“You would read what she meant you to read,” said Mr. Gubb triumphantly. “So, then what? If I was in her place and I had written a letter to you, meaning to give you a threat in a roundabout way, and it went dead, I’d write some foolish letters to youto make you think the whole thing was just foolishness. I’d write you letters about weather and tacks and cats and lime and trout, and such things, to throw you off the scent. Maybe,” said Mr. Gubb, with a smile, “I’d just copy bits out of a newspaper.”
“How wonderfully wonderful!” exclaimed Miss Petunia.
“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 prettygesture. 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. Hewas 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, andshe’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 sameas 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 TimWentworth—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 intentionof 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.
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.
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.
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 withA, and sometimes of some one beginning withZ, 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.
HE PERSPIRES, AND OUT COMES THE CRUEL ADMISSIONHE PERSPIRES, AND OUT COMES THE CRUEL ADMISSION
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.” Idowonder 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 Gubband 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.
“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 ammostvery 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 youif 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 itthe 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, “youmustn’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 madeviolent 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 thisa.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 seeyou?” 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 hoodwinkme? 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 Impostordidcall 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 anadopted 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 Ishouldhave 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.”
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:—