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."
"Well, I guess, if I was left alone long enough to get down from this
ladder, I could clear him myself. I didn't study in the Rising Sun
Deteckative Agency's Correspondence School of Deteckating for
nothing," said Philo Gubb. "Snooks hired me--"
"And he did well!" said Attorney Smith heartily. "I praise his acumen.
I wonder if I might be permitted, on behalf of the powerful interests
I represent, to contribute to the expense of the work you will do?"
"I guess you might," said Philo Gubb. "Deteckating runs into money."
"The interests I represent," said Mr. Smith, taking out his wallet,
"will contribute ten dollars."
And they did. They put a crisp ten-dollar bill in Philo Gubb's hands.
"And now, having shown our unity of interest with young Mr. Turner,
there can be no harm in telling us where that beer is, can there?"
He turned toward the kitchen door--for Nan Kilfillan stood there. Her
eyes were red and swollen. Attorney Smith hastily excused himself and
went away, and Nan came into the kitchen.
"Oh, Mr. Gubb!" she exclaimed. "You _will_ get Snooks out of jail,
won't you? It would break my heart if he was sent to the penitentiary,
and I _know_ he has done nothing wrong! He is depending on you, Mr.
Gubb. I brought you ten dollars--it is all I have left of last month's
wages, but it will help a little, won't it?"
"Thank you," said Philo Gubb, taking the money. "I cannot estimate in
advance what the cost of his clearance will be. It may be more, and it
may be less. It is a complicated case. I am just about going to get
down from this ladder and start working on it vigorously. If you--"
He stopped.
"If you wish to help us in this case, Miss Kilfillan," he said, "will
you go to the jail and ask Snooks where is the beer and the
beer-opener?"
"Where is--" Her face went white. "What beer and what beer-opener?"
she asked tensely.
"Seven bottles and a beer-opener," said Philo Gubb.
"Oh!" she moaned. "And he said he didn't do it! He swore he didn't do
it! Oh, Snooks, how could you--how could you!"
"Now, don't you weep like that," said Philo Gubb soothingly. "You go
and ask him. I'll have my things ready for my immediate departure onto
the case by the time you get back."
Nan hurried away, and Philo Gubb waited only to count the money he had
so far received. It amounted to fifty-five dollars. He slipped it into
his pocket and stood up on the stepladder. He had even proceeded so
far as to put one foot on a lower step, when Mrs. Wilmerton entered
the kitchen.
She was a stout woman, and she was almost out of breath. She had to
stand a minute before she could speak, but as she stood she made
gestures with her hands, as if _that_ much of her delivery could be
given, at any rate, and the words might catch up with their
appropriate gestures if they could.
"Mister Gubb! Mister Gubb!" she gasped. "Oh, this is terrible!
Terrible! Miss Turner should never have dared it! Oh, my breath! Do
you--do you know where the beer is?"
"I wouldn't advise you to take beer for shortness of the breath," said
Philo Gubb. "Just rest a minute."
"But," gasped poor Mrs. Wilmerton, "I _told_ Miss Turner it was folly!
She's so stubborn! Ah--h! I thought I'd never get a full breath again
as long as I lived. How can we get rid of the beer?"
[Illustration: SHE MADE GESTURES WITH HER HANDS]
"There's plenty want to take it," said Mr. Gubb. "Attorney Smith--"
"Oh, I knew it! I knew it!" moaned Mrs. Wilmerton. "He threatened it!"
"Threatened what?" asked Philo Gubb.
"That he would find the beer in this house!" cried Mrs. Wilmerton. "He
threatened Aunt Martha that if she did not give it to him freely, he
would have it found here, and make a scandal! Beer hidden between the
quilt and the mattress of Aunt Martha's bed, and she Secretary of the
Ladies' Temperance League! It's awful! Martha is so headstrong! She's
getting herself in an awful fix! She never should have had a thing to
do with that Slippery fellow!"
"With who? With Slippery Williams?" asked Philo Gubb, intensely
surprised. "Aunt Martha Turner? What did she have to do with Slippery
Williams?"
"Well, she had plenty, and enough, and more than that to do with him,"
said Mrs. Wilmerton angrily. "Getting bottles of beer in her bed, and
robbing houses at her time of life, and wanting the Ladies' Temperance
League to have a special meeting this morning to approve of burglary
and larceny! At her age!"
"Now, Miss Wilmerton," said Philo Gubb, from the top of the ladder,
"I'd ought to warn you, before you go any farther, that Snooks Turner
has engaged me and my services to detect for him in this burglar
case. If Aunt Martha Turner burgled the burglary that Snooks is in
jail for, maybe you ought not say anything about it to me. I got to do
what I can to free Snooksy, no matter who it gets into trouble."
"Mr. Gubb!" exclaimed Mrs. Wilmerton suddenly--"Mr. Gubb, I'm not
authorized so to do, but I'll warrant I'll get the other ladies to
authorize, or I'll know why. If I was to give you twenty dollars on
behalf of the Ladies' Temperance League to help get Snooksy out of
jail,--and land only knows why he is in jail,--would you be so kind as
to beg and plead with Snooksy to leave Attorney Mullen alone, in the
'Eagle,' after this?"
She held four five-dollar bills up to Philo Gubb, and he took them.
"From what I saw of his eye," said Mr. Gubb, "I guess Snooks will be
willing to leave Attorney Mullen alone in every shape and form from
now on. Now, maybe you can tell me how Snooks got into this business."
"I haven't the slightest idea in the world!" said Mrs. Wilmerton. "All
I know about it is--"
Both Mrs. Wilmerton and Philo Gubb turned their heads toward the door.
The greater duskiness of the kitchen was caused by the large form of
City Attorney Mullen. He bowed ceremoniously to Mrs. Wilmerton, who
turned bright red with embarrassment, probably because of her part in
the efforts of the League to have Mr. Mullen impeached by the City
Council. Attorney Mullen was not, however, embarrassed.
"I am glad you are here, Mrs. Wilmerton," he said, "for I wish a
witness. I do not wish to have any stigma of bribery rest on me. I
came here," he continued, taking a leather purse from the inner pocket
of his coat, "to give these twenty-five dollars to Mr. Gubb. Mr. Gubb,
I have just visited Snooks--so called--Turner at the jail. I went
there with the intention of bailing him out, pending the simple
process of his ultimate and speedy release from the charges against
him. I am convinced that I was wrong when I made the charge of
burglary against him. I am convinced that no burglary was ever
committed on my premises--"
"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Wilmerton. "Not even seven bottles of beer and a
beer-opener, I suppose!"
Attorney Mullen turned on her like a flash.
"What do you know about beer and beer-openers?" he snapped.
"I may not know as much as Detective Gubb, but I know what I know!"
she answered, and Mr. Mullen restrained himself sufficiently to hide
the glare of hatred in his eyes by turning to Philo Gubb.
"Exactly!" he said with forced calmness. "And perhaps I know more
about them than Mr. Gubb knows. In fact, I do know more about them. I
know they are upstairs between a blanket and a mattress. I know, Mrs.
Wilmerton," he almost shouted, turning on her with an accusing
forefinger, "that they were stolen from a house in this town by some
one representing the Ladies' Temperance League. I know that burglary
was committed by, or at the behest of, some one representing the
Ladies' Temperance League! I know that, if this matter is carried to
the end, a respectable old lady--a leader in the Ladies' Temperance
League--will go behind the bars, sentenced as a burglar! That's what I
know!"
"Oh, my!" gasped Mrs. Wilmerton, and sank into a chair.