"He offered a reward of a thousand dollars," said Chi Foxy. "It was
one of them unsolved mystery cases--one of them cases that never get
solved because no detective is smart enough to solve it. Nobody knew
who killed old John J. Smith but me, and I wasn't going around telling
it."
"I should think not," said P. Gubb.
"No, sir!" said Chi Foxy. "So I was as safe as a babe unborn. I
skipped up the river to Minneapolis, and nobody thought of lookin' for
me, because I wasn't suspected. And then I did a fool thing."
"Murderers 'most always does," said P. Gubb.
"Sure!" said Chi Foxy. "I thought I'd go to New Orleans. It was all
right--nice trip--until we got to Dubuque, and then what happened? The
old steamboat blew up. I went sailin' up in the air like one of these
here skyrockets, I did, and when I come down I lit head first."
"It is a remarkable wonder it didn't kill you to death," said P. Gubb.
"Ain't it?" said Chi Foxy. "But it did worse than kill me. It knocked
my senses out of me. When I come to I didn't know what had happened. I
didn't remember a thing out of my past--not a thing. I was like a
newborn babe. I didn't have an idea or a memory left in me. When they
picked me up and I opened my eyes I could just say 'Ah-goo' and
'Da-da' and things like that, and I didn't know who I was or where I'd
been or anything. So some kind folks took me and sent me to
kinder-garden, and I started in to learn my A-B-C's and things like
that. I learned fast, and pretty soon I was in the high school, and
pretty soon I graduated, and the name I graduated under was Mike
Higgs, Higgs being the name of the family that adopted me."
"Mike Higgs?" repeated P. Gubb, trying to remember a celebrated
detective of that name.
"Yes," said Chi Foxy, "they named me Mike after the old gran'pa of the
family. He was a butcher, and they wanted me to be a butcher, but I
wanted to be a detective. So Gran'pa Higgs he lent me enough money to
go to London and take lessons in detecting from Shermlock Hollums, and
I did. He says to me, when I'd finished the course, 'Mike, I hate to
say it, but I can't call you a rival. You're so far ahead of me in
detective knowledge that I'm like a half-witted child beside you.'
That's what my old friend and teacher, Shermlock Hollums, says to me."
"That was exceedingly high praising from one so great," said P. Gubb.
"You bet it was!" said Chi Foxy, "So one day Shermlock says to me,
'Mike you're so good at this detecting work, why don't you try to
solve The Great Mystery?'
"'What's that?' I says.
"'Why, the greatest unsolved mystery of the world,' he says. 'The
mystery of the Riverbank, Iowa, miser.'
"So he told me what he knew about it," continued Chi Foxy, "and I set
to work. I come here to Riverbank to hunt up a clue, and I found just
one clue."
"What was it?" asked Philo Gubb.
"It was a speck of red pepper no bigger than the point of a pin,"
said Chi Foxy, "crushed into the carpet by the old miser's bed, where
he had been killed. I picked up the speck of red pepper and
microscoped it, and I saw that along one edge it was sort of brown,
where it had been burned a little."
"Have you got it now?" asked P. Gubb.
"Got it?" said Chi Foxy. "I should say not. While I was lookin' at it
a breeze come and blowed it away, and I never saw it again, but that
was enough for me. 'Red pepper,' I says, 'partly burned,' and I began
to tremble. 'Cause why? 'Cause I never was able to get smoking tobacco
strong enough to suit me, and to make it taste snappy I always put a
little red pepper in my pipe. I turned as white as a sheet. 'Red
pepper partly burned!' I says to myself. 'Nobody in the world but me
puts red pepper in his tobacco.'
"Well, sir, I started tracing myself back and I found out I was the
murderer. And I was the detective after the murderer. I was everybody
concerned. In a moment I was overcome by criminal fear and I fled. I
fled all over Europe, Asia, and Africa, and wherever I went I was
right after myself, ready to arrest me."
Chi Foxy paused and glanced at P. Gubb questioningly. With a solemn
face the great Correspondence School detective blinked his bird-like
eyes at Chi Foxy.
"So now arrest me," said Chi Foxy.
Philo Gubb rubbed his chin. "I'd like to favor you by so doing, Mr.
Jones," he said, "for I can easy see, Mr. Higgs, that you can't arrest
yourself, but it is against the instructions in Lesson Six of the
Rising Sun Correspondence School of Deteckating for a graduate to
arrest a man without a good clue, and the only clue you had was blowed
away."
For a moment this seemed to annoy Chi Foxy, but his face suddenly
brightened.
"Clue?" he said. "Say, friend, I wouldn't ask you to arrest me on any
such clue as a speck of red pepper. No, sir! But I've got a clue
that'll mean something. I can tell you right where I buried that old
miser's bones, I can. You go up the river road until you come to a
tool-house on the railway, and just back of the tool-house is a
dwellin'-house--old and unpainted. All right! Right in that yard,
close to the railway fence, the bones is buried. Now, you turn me over
to the law, and you go up there--"
"We'd best go up there immediately first before anything else," said
Philo Gubb, starting to remove his paper-hanger's apron. "Putting off
clues until sometime else is against Paragraph Four, Lesson One. If
you come up there with me--"
"Look here," said Chi Foxy, "will you buy me a feed on the way up if I
go with you?"
"Quite certainly sure," said P. Gubb, and so it was agreed.
The paper-hanger detective and the criminal-detective stopped at
Hank's restaurant and Chi Foxy ate a heavy meal, and then led the way
to the tool-house, and pointed over the wire fence to the spot where
the bones of the murdered miser were supposed to repose.
"Right there!" he said, but when P. Gubb had climbed the fence and had
turned to look for Chi Foxy, the late detective-criminal was gone. Mr.
Gubb's face turned red, but as he hung his head in shame he noticed
that the ground at his feet had lately been spaded. He stooped to look
at it, and then walked to the weather-beaten house and knocked. A
lanky, loose-jointed man came to the door, and a woman peered at Mr.
Gubb from behind the man.
"I hope you'll pardon," said Mr. Gubb politely, "but my name is P.
Gubb, deteckative and paper-hanger, and I'm looking up a case. Might I
trouble you for the loan of a spade or shovel?"
"What you want with it?" asked the man gruffly.
"To dig," said Mr. Gubb.
The man reluctantly handed Mr. Gubb a spade on which there were still
traces of soft, sandy soil. Mr. Gubb walked to the rear of the yard
and jabbed the spade into the soft soil. It struck something hard. In
a moment or two Mr. Gubb had the evidences of crime completely
uncovered. There were bones buried there--many bones. Mr. Gubb looked
up and wiped his brow. Then he looked down at the bones. One was a
skull. Mr. Gubb stared at it. It was indeed a skull, but it was the
skull of a calf. All the bones were calf bones--not bones of the human
calf, but bones of the veal calf. Mr. Gubb turned his head and saw the
long lanky man approaching.
"All right," said the long, lanky man, "I give up. You've got me. I
surrender. When a detective gets that close, a man hasn't any chance.
I own up. I did it."
"You did what?"
"Now, quit!" said the long, lanky man. "No use rubbin' it in after
I've owned up. You know as well as I do--I'm the man that stole Farmer
Hopper's calf. I give up. I surrender."
"I'm much obliged to you," said Philo Gubb.
"Well, I ain't obliged to _you,"_ said the lanky man, "but I wish
you'd tell me how you found out I was the calf thief."
Mr. Gubb smiled an inscrutable smile.
"A deteckative acquires dexterity in the way of capturing up the
criminal classes," he said with oracular yet modest simplicity.
* * * * *
The next day, when Mr. Gubb returned to his paper-hanging job he found
Chi Foxy waiting for him.
"Boss," he said with a laugh, "I showed you where that murdered man's
bones was buried, won't you stake me to a meal?"
"Are you hungry again?" asked Mr. Gubb.
"Hungry?" said Chi Foxy. "I'm so hungry that I feel like a living
skeleton. I'm so hungry that a square meal would make me feel like
Syrilla, that Fat Lady I seen at Derlingport a couple of days ago."
"What's that you remarked about?" asked Mr. Gubb, pinning Chi Foxy
with his eye. "Did I understand the meaning of what you said was that
you saw a Fat Lady named Syrilla?"
"At Derlingport," said Chi Foxy. "A swell guy named Medderbrook give
me a meal and a ticket to the big show. It was a performance _de
luxe_, so to say. Special attraction, bo. You'd have laughed your head
off. This here Syrilla Fat Lady got married to the Living Skeleton in
the middle ring, and she had the Snake Charmer for a bridesmaid. Say!
you'd have laughed--"
But Mr. Gubb did not laugh. He never laughed again.
PHILO GUBB'S GREATEST CASE
Philo Gubb, wrapped in his bathrobe, went to the door of the room that
was the headquarters of his business of paper-hanging and decorating
as well as the office of his detective business, and opened the door a
crack. It was still early in the morning, but Mr. Gubb was a modest
man, and, lest any one should see him in his scanty attire, he peered
through the crack of the door before he stepped hastily into the hall
and captured his copy of the "Riverbank Daily Eagle." When he had
secured the still damp newspaper, he returned to his cot bed and
spread himself out to read comfortably.
It was a hot Iowa morning. Business was so slack that if Mr. Gubb had
not taken out his set of eight varieties of false whiskers daily and
brushed them carefully, the moths would have been able to devour them
at leisure.
P. Gubb opened the "Eagle." The first words that met his eye caused
him to sit upright on his cot. At the top of the first column of the
first page were the headlines.
MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF HENRY SMITZ
Body Found In Mississippi River By Boatman Early This A.M.
Foul Play Suspected
Mr. Gubb unfolded the paper and read the item under the headlines with
the most intense interest. Foul play meant the possibility of an
opportunity to put to use once more the precepts of the Course of
Twelve Lessons, and with them fresh in his mind Detective Gubb was
eager to undertake the solution of any mystery that Riverbank could
furnish. This was the article:--
Just as we go to press we receive word through Policeman
Michael O'Toole that the well-known mussel-dredger and
boatman, Samuel Fliggis (Long Sam), while dredging for
mussels last night just below the bridge, recovered the body
of Henry Smitz, late of this place.
Mr. Smitz had been missing for three days and his wife had
been greatly worried. Mr. Brownson, of the Brownson Packing
Company, by whom he was employed, admitted that Mr. Smitz
had been missing for several days.
The body was found sewed in a sack. Foul play is suspected.
"I should think foul play would be suspected," exclaimed Philo Gubb,
"if a man was sewed into a bag and deposited into the Mississippi
River until dead."
He propped the paper against the foot of the cot bed and was still
reading when some one knocked on his door. He wrapped his bathrobe
carefully about him and opened the door. A young woman with
tear-dimmed eyes stood in the doorway.
"Mr. P. Gubb?" she asked. "I'm sorry to disturb you so early in the
morning, Mr. Gubb, but I couldn't sleep all night. I came on a matter
of business, as you might say. There's a couple of things I want you
to do."
"Paper-hanging or deteckating?" asked P. Gubb.
"Both," said the young woman. "My name is Smitz--Emily Smitz. My
husband--"
"I'm aware of the knowledge of your loss, ma'am," said the
paper-hanger detective gently.
"Lots of people know of it," said Mrs. Smitz. "I guess everybody knows
of it--I told the police to try to find Henry, so it is no secret. And
I want you to come up as soon as you get dressed, and paper my
bedroom."
Mr. Gubb looked at the young woman as if he thought she had gone
insane under the burden of her woe.
"And then I want you to find Henry," she said, "because I've heard you
can do so well in the detecting line."
Mr. Gubb suddenly realized that the poor creature did not yet know the
full extent of her loss. He gazed down upon her with pity in his
bird-like eyes.
"I know you'll think it strange," the young woman went on, "that I
should ask you to paper a bedroom first, when my husband is lost; but
if he is gone it is because I was a mean, stubborn thing. We never
quarreled in our lives, Mr. Gubb, until I picked out the wall-paper
for our bedroom, and Henry said parrots and birds-of-paradise and
tropical flowers that were as big as umbrellas would look awful on our
bedroom wall. So I said he hadn't anything but Low Dutch taste, and
he got mad. 'All right, have it your own way,' he said, and I went and
had Mr. Skaggs put the paper on the wall, and the next day Henry
didn't come home at all.
"If I'd thought Henry would take it that way, I'd rather had the wall
bare, Mr. Gubb. I've cried and cried, and last night I made up my mind
it was all my fault and that when Henry came home he'd find a decent
paper on the wall. I don't mind telling you, Mr. Gubb, that when the
paper was on the wall it looked worse than it looked in the roll. It
looked crazy."
"Yes'm," said Mr. Gubb, "it often does. But, however, there's
something you'd ought to know right away about Henry."
The young woman stared wide-eyed at Mr. Gubb for a moment; she turned
as white as her shirtwaist.
"Henry is dead!" she cried, and collapsed into Mr. Gubb's long, thin
arms.
Mr. Gubb, the inert form of the young woman in his arms, glanced
around with a startled gaze. He stood miserably, not knowing what to
do, when suddenly he saw Policeman O'Toole coming toward him down the
hall. Policeman O'Toole was leading by the arm a man whose wrists bore
clanking handcuffs.
"What's this now?" asked the policeman none too gently, as he saw the
bathrobed Mr. Gubb holding the fainting woman in his arms.
"I am exceedingly glad you have come," said Mr. Gubb. "The only
meaning into it, is that this is Mrs. H. Smitz, widow-lady, fainted
onto me against my will and wishes."
"I was only askin'," said Policeman O'Toole politely enough.
"You shouldn't ask such things until you're asked to ask," said Mr.
Gubb.
After looking into Mr. Gubb's room to see that there was no easy means
of escape, O'Toole pushed his prisoner into the room and took the limp
form of Mrs. Smitz from Mr. Gubb, who entered the room and closed the
door.
"I may as well say what I want to say right now," said the handcuffed
man as soon as he was alone with Mr. Gubb. "I've heard of Detective
Gubb, off and on, many a time, and as soon as I got into this trouble
I said, 'Gubb's the man that can get me out if any one can.' My name
is Herman Wiggins."
"Glad to meet you," said Mr. Gubb, slipping his long legs into his
trousers.
"And I give you my word for what it is worth," continued Mr. Wiggins,
"that I'm as innocent of this crime as the babe unborn."
"What crime?" asked Mr. Gubb.
"Why, killing Hen Smitz--what crime did you think?" said Mr. Wiggins.
"Do I look like a man that would go and murder a man just because--"
He hesitated and Mr. Gubb, who was slipping his suspenders over his
bony shoulders, looked at Mr. Wiggins with keen eyes.
"Well, just because him and me had words in fun," said Mr. Wiggins, "I
leave it to you, can't a man say words in fun once in a while?"
"Certainly sure," said Mr. Gubb.
"I guess so," said Mr. Wiggins. "Anybody'd know a man don't mean all
he says. When I went and told Hen Smitz I'd murder him as sure as
green apples grow on a tree, I was just fooling. But this fool
policeman--"
"Mr. O'Toole?"
"Yes. They gave him this Hen Smitz case to look into, and the first
thing he did was to arrest me for murder. Nervy, I call it."
Policeman O'Toole opened the door a crack and peeked in. Seeing Mr.
Gubb well along in his dressing operations, he opened the door wider
and assisted Mrs. Smitz to a chair. She was still limp, but she was a
brave little woman and was trying to control her sobs.
"Through?" O'Toole asked Wiggins. "If you are, come along back to
jail."
"Now, don't talk to me in that tone of voice," said Mr. Wiggins
angrily. "No, I'm not through. You don't know how to treat a gentleman
like a gentleman, and never did."
He turned to Mr. Gubb.
"The long and short of it is this: I'm arrested for the murder of Hen
Smitz, and I didn't murder him and I want you to take my case and get
me out of jail."
"Ah, stuff!" exclaimed O'Toole. "You murdered him and you know you
did. What's the use talkin'?"
Mrs. Smitz leaned forward in her chair.
"Murdered Henry?" she cried. "He never murdered Henry. I murdered
him."
"Now, ma'am," said O'Toole politely, "I hate to contradict a lady, but
you never murdered him at all. This man here murdered him, and I've
got the proof on him."
"I murdered him!" cried Mrs. Smitz again. "I drove him out of his
right mind and made him kill himself."
"Nothing of the sort," declared O'Toole. "This man Wiggins murdered
him."
"I did not!" exclaimed Mr. Wiggins indignantly. "Some other man did
it."
It seemed a deadlock, for each was quite positive. Mr. Gubb looked
from one to the other doubtfully.
"All right, take me back to jail," said Mr. Wiggins. "You look up the
case, Mr. Gubb; that's all I came here for. Will you do it? Dig into
it, hey?"
"I most certainly shall be glad to so do," said Mr. Gubb, "at the
regular terms."
O'Toole led his prisoner away.
For a few minutes Mrs. Smitz sat silent, her hands clasped, staring at
the floor. Then she looked up into Mr. Gubb's eyes.
"You will work on this case, Mr. Gubb, won't you?" she begged. "I have
a little money--I'll give it all to have you do your best. It is
cruel--cruel to have that poor man suffer under the charge of murder
when I know so well Henry killed himself because I was cross with him.
You can prove he killed himself--that it was my fault. You will?"
"The way the deteckative profession operates onto a case," said Mr.
Gubb, "isn't to go to work to prove anything particularly especial. It
finds a clue or clues and follows them to where they lead to. That I
shall be willing to do."
"That is all I could ask," said Mrs. Smitz gratefully.
Arising from her seat with difficulty, she walked tremblingly to the
door. Mr. Gubb assisted her down the stairs, and it was not until she
was gone that he remembered that she did not know the body of her
husband had been found--sewed in a sack and at the bottom of the
river. Young husbands have been known to quarrel with their wives over
matters as trivial as bedroom wall-paper; they have even been known to
leave home for several days at a time when angry; in extreme cases
they have even been known to seek death at their own hands; but it is
not at all usual for a young husband to leave home for several days
and then in cold blood sew himself in a sack and jump into the river.
In the first place there are easier ways of terminating one's life; in
the second place a man can jump into the river with perfect ease
without going to the trouble of sewing himself in a sack; and in the
third place it is exceedingly difficult for a man to sew himself into
a sack. It is almost impossible.
To sew himself into a sack a man must have no little skill, and he
must have a large, roomy sack. He takes, let us say, a sack-needle,
threaded with a good length of twine; he steps into the sack and pulls
it up over his head; he then reaches above his head, holding the mouth
of the sack together with one hand while he sews with the other hand.
In hot anger this would be quite impossible.
Philo Gubb thought of all this as he looked through his disguises,
selecting one suitable for the work he had in hand. He had just
decided that the most appropriate disguise would be "Number 13,
Undertaker," and had picked up the close black wig, and long, drooping
mustache, when he had another thought. Given a bag sufficiently loose
to permit free motion of the hands and arms, and a man, even in hot
anger, might sew himself in. A man, intent on suicidally bagging
himself, would sew the mouth of the bag shut and would then cut a slit
in the front of the bag large enough to crawl into. He would then
crawl into the bag and sew up the slit, which would be immediately in
front of his hands. It could be done! Philo Gubb chose from his
wardrobe a black frock coat and a silk hat with a wide band of crape.
He carefully locked his door and went down to the street.
On a day as hot as this day promised to be, a frock coat and a silk
hat could be nothing but distressingly uncomfortable. Between his door
and the corner, eight various citizens spoke to Philo Gubb, calling
him by name. In fact, Riverbank was as accustomed to seeing P. Gubb in
disguise as out of disguise, and while a few children might be
interested by the sight of Detective Gubb in disguise, the older
citizens thought no more of it, as a rule, than of seeing Banker
Jennings appear in a pink shirt one day and a blue striped one the
next. No one ever accused Banker Jennings of trying to hide his
identity by a change of shirts, and no one imagined that P. Gubb was
trying to disguise himself when he put on a disguise. They considered
it a mere business custom, just as a butcher tied on a white apron
before he went behind his counter.
This was why, instead of wondering who the tall, dark-garbed stranger
might be, Banker Jennings greeted Philo Gubb cheerfully.
"Ah, Gubb!" he said. "So you are going to work on this Smitz case, are
you? Glad of it, and wish you luck. Hope you place the crime on the
right man and get him the full penalty. Let me tell you there's
nothing in this rumor of Smitz being short of money. We did lend him
money, but we never pressed him for it. We never even asked him for
interest. I told him a dozen times he could have as much more from us
as he wanted, within reason, whenever he wanted it, and that he could
pay me when his invention was on the market."
"No report of news of any such rumor has as yet come to my hearing,"
said P. Gubb, "but since you mention it, I'll take it for less than it
is worth."
"And that's less than nothing," said the banker. "Have you any clue?"
"I'm on my way to find one at the present moment of time," said Mr.
Gubb.
"Well, let me give you a pointer," said the banker. "Get a line on
Herman Wiggins or some of his crew, understand? Don't say I said a
word,--I don't want to be brought into this,--but Smitz was afraid of
Wiggins and his crew. He told me so. He said Wiggins had threatened to
murder him."
"Mr. Wiggins is at present in the custody of the county jail for
killing H. Smitz with intent to murder him," said Mr. Gubb.
"Oh, then--then it's all settled," said the banker. "They've proved it
on him. I thought they would. Well, I suppose you've got to do your
little bit of detecting just the same. Got to air the camphor out of
the false hair, eh?"
The banker waved a cheerful hand at P. Gubb and passed into his
banking institution.
Detective Gubb, cordially greeted by his many friends and admirers,
passed on down the main street, and by the time he reached the street
that led to the river he was followed by a large and growing group
intent on the pleasant occupation of watching a detective detect.
As Mr. Gubb walked toward the river, other citizens joined the group,
but all kept a respectful distance behind him. When Mr. Gubb reached
River Street and his false mustache fell off, the interest of the
audience stopped short three paces behind him and stood until he had
rescued the mustache and once more placed its wires in his nostrils.
Then, when he moved forward again, they too moved forward. Never,
perhaps, in the history of crime was a detective favored with a more
respectful gallery.
On the edge of the river, Mr. Gubb found Long Sam Fliggis, the mussel
dredger, seated on an empty tar-barrel with his own audience ranged
before him listening while he told, for the fortieth time, the story
of his finding of the body of H. Smitz. As Philo Gubb approached, Long
Sam ceased speaking, and his audience and Mr. Gubb's gallery merged
into one great circle which respectfully looked and listened while Mr.
Gubb questioned the mussel dredger.
[Illustration: HE WAS FOLLOWED BY A LARGE AND GROWING GROUP INTENT ON
WATCHING A DETECTIVE DETECT]