similar or like predicaments at various often times, Mr. Burns. It is
a pleasure to be able to help out a feller deteckative in such a time
and manner. Only--"
"Yes?" said the Bald Impostor nervously.
"Only I couldn't think of giving you only the bare mere sum to get to
Derlingport," said the graduate of the Rising Sun Detective Agency's
Correspondence School of Detecting, generously. "I couldn't think of
letting you start off away with anything less than a ten-dollar bill."
DIETZ'S 7462 BESSIE JOHN
Philo Gubb sat on an upturned bundle of rolls of wall-paper in the
dining-room of Mrs. Pilker's famous Pilker mansion, in Riverbank,
biting into a thick ham sandwich. It was noon.
Mr. Gubb ate methodically, taking a large bite of sandwich, chewing
the bite long and well, and then swallowing it with a wonderful up and
down gliding of his knobby Adam's apple. From time to time he turned
his head and looked at the walls of the dining-room. The time was
Saturday noon, and but one wall was covered with the new wall-paper, a
natural forest tapestry paper, with lifelike representations of leafy
trees. He had promised to have the Pilker dining-room completed by
Saturday night. It seemed quite impossible to Philo Gubb that he could
finish the Pilker dining-room before dark, and it worried him.
Other matters, even closer to his heart, worried Mr. Gubb. He had had
a great quarrel with Mr. Medderbrook, the father of the fair Fat Lady
of the World's Greatest Combined Shows. Judge Orley Morvis had paid
Mr. Gubb twenty dollars for certain detective work, but Mr. Gubb had
not turned all this over to Mr. Medderbrook, and Mr. Medderbrook had
resented this. He told Mr. Gubb he was a cheap, tank-town sport.
"I worked hard," said Mr. Medderbrook, "to sell you that Utterly
Hopeless Gold-Mine stock and now you hold out on me. That's not the
way I expect a jay-town easy-mark--"
"I beg your pardon, but what was that term of phrase you called me?"
asked Mr. Gubb.
"I called you," said Mr. Medderbrook, changing his tone to one of
politeness, "an easy-mark. In high financial circles the term is short
for 'easy-market-investor,' meaning one who never buys stocks unless
he is sure they are of the highest class and at the lowest price."
"Well, I should hereafter prefer not to be so called," said Mr. Gubb.
Almost as soon as he had said the cruel words he regretted them, but
the next day Mr. Medderbrook's colored butler came to Mr. Gubb's
office with a telegram for which he demanded thirty-six dollars and
fifty cents.
Mr. Gubb trembled with emotion as he paid, for it meant that Syrilla
was still losing flesh and that Mr. Dorgan must surely cancel his
contract with her soon. The telegram read:--
Happy days! Still shrinking. Have lost one hundred and
forty-five pounds since last wire. Contract sure to be
canceled as soon as Dorgan gets back from hurried trip to
Siam. Weather very hot. Can feel myself shrink. Fond
thoughts to my Gubby.
The very next day the colored butler brought Mr. Gubb another
telegram.
"Fifty dollars, please, sah," he said.
"What!" cried Mr. Gubb.
"Yes, sah," said the negro. "That's the amount Mistah Meddahbrook done
say."
Mr. Gubb could hardly believe it, but he wrote his check for the fifty
dollars and then read the telegram. It ran:--
Excelsior! Have lost two hundred pounds since last wire. Now
weigh only four hundred pounds. Every one guys me when I am
ballyhooed as Fat Lady. Affection to Gubby.
Mr. Gubb was greatly pleased by this, but when, the next day, the
colored butler again appeared and asked for fifty dollars Mr. Gubb was
worried. The telegram this time read:--
Frightened. Have lost two hundred pounds since last wire,
now weigh only two hundred. If lose two hundred more will
weigh nothing. Have resumed potatoes and water. Love to
Gubby.
[Illustration: A MAN WHO LOOKED LIKE NAPOLEON BONAPARTE GONE TO SEED]
That same afternoon the negro brought Mr. Gubb another telegram, on
which he collected seven dollars and fifty cents. This telegram
contained these words:--
Am indeed frightened. Have resumed bread diet, soup, fish,
meat, and cereals, but have lost fifty pounds more. Weigh
only one hundred and fifty. Taking tonic. Hope for the best.
Tell Gubby I think of him as much as when I weighed half a
ton.
Mr. Gubb was much distressed. He had no doubt that his Syrilla would
rapidly recover a part of her lost weight, but he felt as if at the
moment he had lost Syrilla. He could not picture her as a sylph of one
hundred and fifty pounds. He was worried, indeed, as he sat eating his
lunch in Mrs. Pilker's mansion. It was then he heard a voice:--
"Say, are you the feller they call Bugg?"
Mr. Gubb looked up. In the dining-room door stood a man who looked
like Napoleon Bonaparte gone to seed.
"If the party you are looking for to seek," said Mr. Gubb with
somewhat offended pride, "is Mister P. Gubb, him and me are one and
the same party. My name is P. Gubb, deteckative and paper-hanger."
"Well, youse is the party I'm looking for," said the stranger. "I got
a hunch from Horton, the wall-paper-store feller, that youse was up
here and that youse wanted a helper. Does youse?"
"If you know paper-hanging as a trade and profession and can go to
work immediately at once, I could use you," said Mr. Gubb. "I've got
more jobs than I can handle alone by myself."
"Say, me a paper-hanger?" said the stranger scornfully. "Why, sport,
I've hung more wall-paper than youse ever saw, see? Honest, when I
butted in here and saw that there Dietz's 7462 Bessie John on the
wall--"
"That what?" asked Philo Gubb.
"That there Dietz's 7462 Bessie John, on the wall there," explained
the stranger. "Don't youse even know the right name of that
wall-paper there, that's been a Six Best Seller for the last three
years?"
"It is a forest tapestry," said Mr. Gubb.
"Sure, Mike!" said the stranger. "And one of the finest youse ever
seen. Looks like youse could walk right into it and pick hickory nuts
off them oak trees, don't it? It's one of me old friends."
Philo Gubb took another bite of sandwich and masticated it slowly.
"Let me teach youse something," said the stranger, and he took a roll
of the tapestry paper in his hand and unrolled a few feet. He pointed
to the margin of the printed side of the paper with his oily
forefinger. "Do youse see them printings?" he asked. "Says 7462 B J,
don't it?"
"It does," mumbled Philo Gubb.
"Well, say! This here wall-paper feller Dietz--he makes this here
paper, don't he? And that there 7462 is the number of this here forest
tap. pattern, see? And B J--that's Bessie John--that tells youse what
the coloring is, see? Bessie John is the regular nature coloring, see?
They got one with pink trees and yeller sky, for bood-u-wars and
bedrooms. That's M S--Mary Sam."
"It is a very ingenious way to proceed to do," said Philo Gubb, "and
if regular union wages is all right you can take that straight-edge
and trim all them Bessie John letters off this bundle of 7462 Bessie
John I'm sitting onto."
This was satisfactory to the stranger. He removed his greasy coat,
threw his greasy cap into a corner, wiped his greasy hands on a wad of
trimmings and set to work. When Mr. Gubb had completed his modest
luncheon he asked his name.
"Youse might as well call me Greasy," said the new employee. "I'm
greasier than anything. Got it off'n my motor-boat."
During the afternoon Philo Gubb learned something of his assistant's
immediate past. "Greasy" had saved some money, working at St. Paul,
and had bought a motor-boat--"Some boat!" he said; "Streak o'
Lightnin' was what I named her, and she was"--and he had come down the
Mississippi. "She can beat anything on the Dad," he said.
The "Dad" was his disrespectful paraphrase of "The Father of Waters,"
the title of the giant Mississippi. He told of his adventures until he
mentioned the Silver Sides. Then he swore in a manner that suited his
piratical countenance exactly.
He had been floating peacefully down the river with the current, his
power shut off and himself asleep in the bottom of the boat, doing no
harm to any one, when along came the Silver Sides, and without giving
him a warning signal, ran him down.
"Done it a-purpose, too," he said angrily.
He had managed to keep the boat afloat until he reached Riverbank, but
to fix her up would take more money than he had. So he had hunted a
job in his own line, and found Philo Gubb.
The Silver Sides, Captain Brooks, owner, was a small packet plying
between Derlingport and Bardenton, stopping at Riverbank, which was
midway between the two. No one knowing Captain Brooks would have
suspected him of running down anything whatever. He was a kind, stout,
gray-haired old gentleman. He had a nice, motherly old wife and eight
children, mainly girls, and they made their home on the Silver Sides.
Mrs. Brooks and the girls cooked for the crew and kept the boat as
neat as a new pin. Captain Brooks occupied the pilot-house; Tom Brooks
served as first mate, and Bill Brooks acted as purser. Altogether they
were a delightfully good-natured and well-meaning family. It was hard
to believe they would run down a helpless motor-boat in mid-river, but
Greasy swore to it, and about it.
During the next few weeks Greasy and the detective worked side by
side. Greasy had every night and all Sunday for his own purposes. Once
Mr. Gubb met Greasy carrying a large bundle of canvas, and Mr. Gubb
imagined Greasy was fitting a mast and sail to the motor-boat.
On July 15 the Independent Horde of Kalmucks gave a moonlight
excursion on the Mississippi, chartering the Silver Sides for the
purpose. The Kalmucks were the leading lodge of the town, and leaders
also in social affairs. They gave frequent dramatic entertainments--in
their hall in winter, and outdoors in the big yard back of Kalmuck
Temple in the summer. In the entire history of the lodge there had
never been so much as an untoward incident, but at eleven o'clock on
the night of July 15 something frightful did occur. It spread it
across the top of the first page of the "Daily Eagle" in the one
shocking word--PIRATES!
The Silver Star had started on the return trip and had reached a point
about two miles below Towhead Island when a rifle or revolver bullet
crashed through the glass window on the western side of the
pilot-house. Uncle Jerry--as most people called Captain Brooks--turned
his head, stared out at the moonlit waters of the river, and saw
bearing down upon him from the northwest a long, low craft. Four men
stood in the forward part of the boat, and a fifth sat beside the
motor. In the bright moonlight, Captain Brooks could see that all the
men wore black masks. He also saw that all were armed, and that from
the staff at the stern of the boat floated a jet-black flag on which
was painted in white the skull and cross-bones that have always been
the insignia of pirates. Even as he looked one of the men in the
motor-boat raised his arm: Uncle Jerry saw a flash of fire, and
another pane of glass at his side jingled to the floor.
The low black craft swept rapidly across the bows of the Silver Sides;
the sputtering of its motor ceased; and the next moment the pirates
were aboard the barge, lining up the dancers at the points of their
pistols, and preparing to take away their ice-cream money.
And they did take it. They began at the bow of the barge and walked
to the stern, making one after another of the excursionists deliver
his valuables, and then slipped quietly over the stern of the barge;
the pirate craft began to spit and sputter furiously; and the next
moment it was tearing through the water like a streak of lightning.
To chase a speed-boat in an elderly river packet would have been
nonsense. Uncle Jerry signaled full speed ahead and kept to the
channel, where his boat belonged. Presently Mrs. Brooks, panting,
climbed to the pilot-house.
"Well, Pa," she said, "pirates has been and robbed us."
"Don't I know it?" said Uncle Jerry testily. "No need of comin' to
tell me."
"They got all the ice-cream money," said Mrs. Brooks.
"Well, 'twa'n't ourn, was it?" snapped Uncle Jerry.
"Why, Pa, what a way to talk!" exclaimed Mrs. Brooks. "It's like you
thought it wa'n't nothin', to be pirated right here in the forepart of
the twentieth century in the middle of the Mississippi River in broad
daylight--"
"'Tain't daylight," said Uncle Jerry shortly. "It's midnight, and
it's goin' to be long past midnight before we git ashore. A man can't
get even part of a night's rest no more. Everybody pirootin' round,
stoppin' boats an' stealin' ice-cream money! Makes me 'tarnel mad, it
do."
"Pa," said Mrs. Brooks.
"Well, what is it now?" asked Uncle Jerry testily.
"Philo Gubb, the detective-man, is on board," said his wife. "I come
up because I thought maybe you'd want to hire him right off to find
out who was them pirates, and if--"
"Me? Hire a fool detective?" snapped Mr. Brooks. "Why'n't you come up
and ask me to throw my money into the river?"
Philo Gubb, although not a dancer, had been on the barge when it was
attacked, because he was a lover of ice-cream. He too had been lined
up and robbed. He had been robbed not only of forty perfectly good
cents, but his pirate had seen his opal scarf-pin and had rudely taken
it from Mr. Gubb's tie. The pirate was, Mr. Gubb noticed, a short,
heavy man with greasy hands. As the motor-boat dashed away, Mr. Gubb
pressed to the rear of the barge and looked after it.
As the boat regained her speed, Philomela Brooks approached him.
"Oh, Mr. Gubb!" she exclaimed, "I'm so tremulous."
"If you will kindly not interrupt me at the present moment of time,"
said Mr. Gubb, "I will be much obliged. I am making an endeavor to try
to do some deteckative work onto this case."
"Oh, Mr. Gubb!" Miss Philomela cried. "And _do_ you think you'll do
any good?"
"In the deteckative business," said Mr. Gubb sternly, "we try to do
all the good we can do, whether we can do it or not." And he turned
away and sought a more secluded spot.
The affair of the pirate craft caused a tremendous sensation in
Riverbank. Before eight o'clock the next morning every one in
Riverbank seemed to have heard of the affair, and when, at eight
o'clock, Philo Gubb entered the vacant Himmeldinger house, which he
was decorating, he started with surprise to see Greasy already there.
He had not expected to see him at all. But there he was, trimming the
edge of a roll of Dietz's 7462 Bessie John, and as he turned to greet
Mr. Gubb, the detective saw in Greasy's greasy tie what seemed to be
his own opal scarf-pin.
"That there," said Mr. Gubb sternly, "is a nice scarf-pin you've got
into your tie."
"Ain't it?" said Greasy proudly. "Me new lady-friend give it to me
last night."
To Greasy, Detective Gubb said nothing. He was not yet ready to act.
But to himself he muttered:--
"Scarf-pin--scarf-pin. That there is a clue I had ought to look into."
In the town excitement was high all day. There was some time wasted
while the Chief of Police and the County Sheriff tried to discover
which was compelled by law to fight pirates, but the Chief of Police
finally put the job on the Sheriff's hands, and the old Fourth of July
cannon was loaded with powder and nails and put on the bow of the
good ferry-boat Haddon P. Rogers, a posse of about three hundred men
with shotguns and army muskets was crowded aboard, and the
pirate-catcher got under way.
This was, of course, Monday, and Monday the Silver Sides made her
usual down-river trip to Bardenton, leaving in the morning and
returning late at night. It was usually two o'clock at night when she
tied up at the Riverbank levee, but this time two o'clock came without
the Silver Sides. There was a good reason. As the packet neared Hog
Island, about two miles below the Towhead, on her return trip, Uncle
Jerry heard the sputter of a gas engine and saw dart out from below
Hog Island the same low black craft that had carried the pirates
before. Even before the craft was within range, the revolvers began to
spit at the Silver Sides.
"Well, dang them pirates to the dickens!" exclaimed Uncle Jerry. "If
they be goin' to keep up this nonsense I'm goin' to get down-right mad
at 'em." But he signaled the engine-room to slow down, as if it was
getting to be a habit with him. One of the upper panes, just above his
line of vision, clattered down as he pulled the bell-rope.
At the first volley, Ma Brooks and her daughters dashed into the
galley and slammed the door. The remainder of the male Brookses made
two jumps to the coal bins and began burrowing into the coal, and the
three non-Brooks members of the crew dived into openings between the
small piles of cargo stuff and tried to become invisible. When the
pirates clambered aboard the Silver Star they seemed to be boarding a
deserted vessel. They worked quickly and thoroughly. Piece by piece
they threw the cargo of the Silver Sides into the motor-boat until
they uncovered the three members of the crew, who leaped from their
hiding-place like startled rabbits and loped wildly to places of
greater safety. Half a dozen revolver shots followed them. The pirates
then leisurely reembarked, fired a parting salute, and glided away.
The next morning Greasy appeared at work with his pocket full of
Sultana raisins, and offered some to Mr. Gubb.
"Thank you," said Mr. Gubb; "raisins are one of my foremost
fondnesses. Nice ones like these are hard to find obtainable."
"You're right they are," said Greasy. "Me lady-friend give me these
last night. She's the girl that knows good raisins, ain't she?"
Evidently she was, but Philo Gubb had taken occasion to discover,
before he went to work that morning, whether the Silver Sides had been
pirated again, and he had learned that a half-dozen boxes of Sultana
raisins had formed part of the cargo of the Silver Sides. He looked at
Greasy severely.
"Your lady-friend is considerably generous in giving things, ain't
she?" he said, trying to hide the guile of his questions in an
indifferent tone. "You ain't cared to mention her name to me as yet
to this time."
"Ain't I?" said Greasy carelessly. "Well, I ain't ashamed of her. Her
name is Maggie Tiffkins. She's some girl!"
"You spend most of your evenings with or about her, I presume to
suppose?" asked Mr. Gubb carelessly.
"You bet!" said Greasy. "Me and her is going to get married before
long, we are. Yep. And I'll be right glad to have a home to sleep in,
instead of a barn."
"A barn?" queried Philo Gubb.
"I been sleepin' in a barn," said Greasy. "I thought youse knowed it.
I been doin' a piece or two of scene paintin' for them Kalmucks, and I
sort of hired a barn to do it in, and so long as I had to have the
barn I just slept in it. Keeps me up late," he said, yawning, "seein'
my lady-friend till midnight and then paintin' scenery till I don't
know when."
"I presume you ain't spent much time on your motor-boat of late
times," said Mr. Gubb.
"Ain't had no time," said Greasy briefly.
Detective Gubb, as he pasted paper on the walls of the Himmeldinger
house, turned various matters over and over in his mind. His clues
pointed as clearly to Greasy as the Great Dipper points to the North
Star. He had decided to join the posse on the Haddon P. Rogers when
she set out on her next voyage of vengeance, but now he changed his
mind.
A barn, large and vacant, would be an excellent place in which to hide
the proceeds of a pirate raid. Lest--possibly--the barn should
recognize him and hide itself, Mr. Gubb first went to his office in
the Opera House Building, disguised himself as a hostler, with cowhide
boots, a cob pipe, a battered straw hat, and blue jean trousers. Lest
his face be recognized by the barn he wore a set of red under-chin
whiskers, which would have been more natural had they been a paler
shade of scarlet. Thus disguised, he crept softly down the Opera House
Building stairs and ran full into Billy Getz, Riverbank's best example
of the spoiled only-son species, and the town's inveterate jester. Mr.
Getz put a hand on Mr. Gubb's arm.
"Sh-h!" he said mysteriously. "Not a word. Only by chance did I
recognize you, Mr. Gubb. Now, about this pirate business--it has to
stop."
"I am proceeding to the deteckative work preliminary to so doing,"
said Mr. Gubb.
"Good!" said Billy Getz. "Because I can't have such things happening
on my Mississippi River. I hate to see the dear old river get a bad
name, Mr. Gubb. I'm just organizing the Dear Old River Anti-Pirate
League--to suppress pirates, you know. And we want you as our official
detective. In the meantime--Greasy! That's all I say--just Greasy!
Tough-looking character. Lives in a barn."
[Illustration: HE WORE A SET OF RED UNDER-CHIN WHISKERS]
"I am just proceeding to locate the whereabouts of the barn," said Mr.
Gubb.
"That's easy," said Billy Getz. "Hampton's barn--Eighth Street alley.
I know, because I've been there. He's doing our scenery for the
Kalmuck summer show. You go straight up this street--or no, _you'd_ go
in the opposite direction, and three miles into the country, and back
across the cemetery, as advised in Lesson Thirteen, wouldn't you?"
"There are only twelve lessons," said Mr. Gubb haughtily and stalked
away. He went, however, to Hampton's barn, climbed in through the
alley window, and searched the place.
The barn contained nothing of interest. A cot stood at one end of the
hay-loft; and stretched across the wall at the other end was a canvas
on which was a partly completed scene of a ruined castle, with
mountains in the distance. On the floor were pails and brushes,
bundles of dry colors, glue, and the various articles needed by a
scene-painter. Mr. Gubb looked behind the canvas. No loot was
concealed there. He returned to his office, discarded his disguise,
and went back to the Himmeldinger house. Seated on the front steps,
quite neglecting his work, was Greasy, and beside him sat a girl.
"This," said Greasy, "is Maggie Tiffkins. Youse ought to know her.
Mag, consider this a proper knockdown to P. Gubb, my boss."
That night the Silver Sides was attacked by the pirates on her return
from Derlingport. The next morning Mr. Gubb awaited Greasy's coming
impatiently, hoping for a new clue, but Greasy had none. He was glum.
He had had a quarrel with Maggie, and he was cross.
"Last job of work I'll ever do for Billy Getz and them Kalmucks of
his'n," he said crossly. "He's gettin' worse and worse. Them first two
scenes I painted he kicked enough about: said the forest scene looked
like a roast-beef sandwich, and asked me if the parlor scene was a
bar-room or a cow-pasture, but when I do a first-class old bum castle
and he wants to know if it's a lib'ry interior, I get hot. And so
would youse."
* * * * *
For three nights the Silver Sides, now protected by the presence of
part of the armed posse, was not disturbed, but on the fourth night
the low, black pirate craft boldly attacked the steamer, carrying on a
running fight. The pirates did not venture to board her, but the
piratical business was getting to be an unbearable nuisance to Uncle
Jerry Brooks. A dozen small craft were armed and patrolled the river.
On the fourteenth night, when the Silver Sides was up-river on her
Derlingport trip, the Jane P., the opposition steamer making the same
ports, was boldly attacked by the pirates and lost the most precious
part of her cargo. It was then determined to exterminate the pirates
at any cost.
Once only had a steamer been attacked above the town, and this seemed
to indicate that the pirates had their nest below Riverbank, and this
was the more likely as the river below town gave far greater
opportunities for hiding the pirate boat during the day. There were
several sloughs or bayous and many indentations of the shore-line,
while above the town there was none. Above the town the shores sloped
back from the river's edge, and even a skiff on the shore could be
seen from across the river. The search for the pirate vessel was
therefore conducted below the town, but most unsuccessfully.