Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective
A reward of One Hundred Dollars (rewards are always in capital letters) had been offered by the Business Men’s Association for the capture of the pirate craft, but no one seemed likely to earn the reward.
“Say, honest!” said Greasy, “if my boat was workin’ I’d go out alone in her and cop off them hundred dollars. Youse is a detective, Gubb; why don’t youse get to work and grab them dollars?”
“Your boat is not into a workable condition?” asked Philo Gubb.
“She’s all but that,” said Greasy. “She’s hauled up on the levee, rottin’ like a tomato. I tried to sell her to Muller, the grocery feller where Mag gets them raisins you liked, and I tried to trade her for a ring to Calloway, the jewelry man what Mag got my opal scarf-pin of, but I can’t get rid of her nohow. If I had her workin’ I’d find them pirates or I’d know why.”
“I have remembered the thought of something; I’ve got to go downtown,” said Mr. Gubb, and he left Greasy and went to question Mr. Muller and Mr. Calloway. The one admitted selling Mag the raisins, and the other the pin, and thus two perfectly good clues went bad. Mr. Gubb turned toward Fifth Street, when Billy Getz caught him by the arm.
“Come on and hunt pirates,” he said. “The good cruiser Haddon P. Rogers is going to hit a new trail – up-river this time. Come on along.”
Billy Getz escorted him aboard the Haddon P. Rogers and led him straight to the Sheriff on the upper deck.
“Sheriff,” he said, “we’ve got ’em now! This time we’ve got ’em sure. Here’s Gubb, the famous P. Gubb, detective, and after many solicitations he has consented to accompany us. We will have the pirate craft ere we return. P. Gubb never fails.”
The Sheriff smiled good-naturedly.
“Always kidding, ain’t you, Billy,” he said.
The boat started. She steamed slowly up the river, the members of the posse on the upper deck on either side, scanning the shores carefully. Occasionally the ferry-boat backed and ran closer to shore to permit a nearer inspection of some skiff or to view some log left on the shore by the last flood. Billy Getz, standing beside the Sheriff and P. Gubb, called their attention to every shadow and lump on the shore. The boat proceeded on her slow course and reached the channel between an island and the Illinois shore. The wooded bank of the island rose directly from the water, some of the water-elms dipping their roots into the river. There was no place where a boat could be hidden, and the ferry steamed slowly along. Billy Getz poked solemn-faced fun at Mr. Gubb in the most serious manner, and Mr. Gubb was sternly haughty, knowing he was being made sport of. His eyes rested with bird-like intensity on the wooded shore of the island.
“Now, this combination of paper-hanging and detecting has its advantages,” said Billy Getz, with a wink at the Sheriff. “When a man – ”
Philo Gubb was not hearing him.
“The remarkableness of the similarity of nature to art is quite often remarkable to observe,” he said to the Sheriff, “and is seeming to grow more so now and then from time to time. That piece of section of woods right there is so naturally grown you might say it was torn right off a roll of Dietz’s 7462 Bessie John.”
He stopped short.
“What’s the matter?” asked Billy Getz nervously.
“Run the boat in there,” said Philo Gubb excitedly. “Those verdures ain’t like 7462 Bessie John; they are 7462 Bessie John.”
The Sheriff stared keenly at the spot indicated by Detective Gubb’s extended hand and, turning suddenly, said a word to the pilot in the house at his side. The ferry veered and ran in toward the island. Not until the boat was nearer the shore than a front row of the orchestra seats to the back drop of a theater did the others on the boat understand. Then the trick was seen and understood. The trees of the shore were not all trees. One group was a painted canvas, copied carefully by Greasy from Dietz’s 7462 Bessie John at the behest of Billy Getz. Stretched across a small indentation of the shore it made a safe screen, unrecognizable a few rods from the shore, and behind this bit of painted forest they found the long, low, black pirate craft – Billy Getz’s motor-boat.
When the Sheriff had torn down the canvas and his men had hoisted and heaved the pirate craft to the broad deck of the ferry, Billy Getz was gone. Riverbank never saw him again, and a half-dozen of his roistering companions also disappeared completely.
“Sometimes occasionally,” said Philo Gubb, as the ferry turned toward town, “the combination of paper-hanging and deteckative work is detrimental to one or both, as the case may be, but at other occasional times they are worth one hundred dollars.”
“That’s right!” said the Sheriff suddenly. “You get that reward, don’t you?”
“Most certainly sure,” said Philo Gubb.
HENRY
Philo Gubb entered his office and placed on his cutting-table the express package he had found leaning against his door. With his trimming-knife he cut the cord that bound the package. It contained, he knew, the new disguise for which he had sent twenty-five dollars to the Rising Sun Detective Agency’s Supply Bureau, and he was eager to examine his purchase, which, in the catalogue, was known as “No. 34. French Count, with beard and wig complete. List, $40.00. Special price to our graduates, $25.00, express paid.”
Mr. Gubb wore a face more solemn than usual, for he had just had bad news. He had hidden his distrust of Mr. Medderbrook, the father of his beloved Syrilla, and had carried that gentleman the one hundred dollars he had earned by aiding in the capture of the river pirates, but he had found Mr. Medderbrook close to tears.
“Read this, Gubb,” Mr. Medderbrook said; and that he was deeply affected was shown by the fact that he did not ask Mr. Gubb to pay any part of the cost of the telegram from Syrilla which had, this time, come “Collect.” The telegram read: —
Scared crazy. Resumed vegetables and all kinds of food, eating steadily all day and night, but have lost twenty-five pounds more. Now weigh only one hundred and twenty-five and going down rapidly. If worse goes to worst, love to Gubby.
It is not surprising that Mr. Gubb sighed as he lifted the exaggeratedly thin-waisted frock coat from the package, but there came a tap on the door and he hastily covered the coat with the wrapping paper and turned to the door.
“Enter in,” he said. And the door opened cautiously and a short, ruddy-faced man entered, peering into the room first and then closing the door behind him as cautiously as he had opened it.
“Are you this here detective feller?” he asked bluntly.
“I am Mister P. Gubb, deteckating and paper-hanging done, to command at your service,” admitted Mr. Gubb. “Won’t you take a seat onto a chair?”
“Depends,” said Mr. Gubb’s visitor, keeping his hand on the doorknob. “I’ll put it to you like this: Say some guy stole something from me, and I was willing to pay you for finding out who stole it and for getting it back – you’d take a job like that and say nothing about it to anybody, wouldn’t you?”
“Most certainly sure,” agreed Mr. Gubb.
“That’s the idee! You’d keep it dark. It wouldn’t be nobody’s business but yours and mine, would it? It would be a quiet little deal between you and me, and nobody would know anything about it. Hey?”
“Exactly sure,” said Philo Gubb. “The deteckative business is conducted onto an absolutely quiet Q.T. basis.”
“Correct!” said his visitor. “I see you and me can do business. Now, my name is Gus P. Smith, and I’ve had one of the rawest deals handed me a man ever had handed him. I was coming along down one of these alleys between streets this morning and – ”
He stopped short and turned to the door. Some one had tapped on the panels. Mr. Smith opened the door the merest crack and peered out. He closed it again instantly.
“Somebody to see you,” he whispered. “What I’ve got to say I want kept private. I’ll be back.”
He opened the door and slipped out, and as he went a second visitor entered. The newcomer was somewhat tall and thin, and his hair was long, so long it fell upon his shoulders in greasy curls. He wore a rather ancient frock coat and a black slouch hat, and a touch of style was added by his gray kid gloves, although the weather was average summer weather. His face was thin and adorned by a silky brown beard, divided at the chin and falling in two carefully arranged points. He closed the door carefully, first looking into the hall to see that Mr. Gus P. Smith had disappeared.
“Mr. P. Gubb, the detective?” he asked.
“Most absolutely sure,” said Mr. P. Gubb.
“My name,” said Mr. Gubb’s visitor, “is one you are doubtless familiar with. I am Alibaba Singh.”
“Pleased to meet your acquaintance,” said Mr. Gubb. “What can I aim to do for you?”
Mr. Alibaba Singh brought a chair close to Mr. Gubb’s desk and seated himself. He leaned close to Mr. Gubb – so close that Mr. Gubb scented the rank odor of cheap hair-oil – and whispered.
“Everything is to be strictly confidential – most strictly confidential. That’s understood?”
“Most absolutely sure.”
“Of course! Now, you must have heard of me – I’ve made quite a stir here in Riverbank since I came. Theosophical lectures – first lessons in Nirvana – Buddhistic philosophy – mysteries of Vedaism – et cetery.”
“I read your advertisement notices into the newspapers,” admitted Mr. Gubb.
“Just so. I have done well here. Many sought the mysteries. I have been unusually successful in Riverbank.” He stopped short and looked at Philo Gubb suspiciously. “You don’t believe in transmigration, do you?” he asked.
“Not without I do without knowing it,” said Mr. Gubb. “What is it?”
“Transmigration,” repeated Alibaba Singh. “It – Hindoos believe in it. At death the souls of the good enter higher forms of life; the souls of the bad enter lower forms of life. If you were a bad man and died you would become a – a dog, or a horse, or – or something. You don’t believe that, do you?”
“Most certainly not at all!” said Mr. Gubb.
“I – I teach it,” said Alibaba Singh uneasily. “It is part of my teaching.”
“You don’t aim to believe nothing of that sort, do you?” asked Mr. Gubb as if he could not imagine any man so foolish.
“Now, that’s it!” said Alibaba Singh. “That’s why I came to you. All this is strictly confidential, of course? Thanks. I can speak right out, Mr. Gubb? I have in the past taught some things I did not absolutely believe.”
“Quite likely true,” admitted Philo Gubb.
“We – we occulists get carried on by our eloquence,” said Alibaba Singh. “We – we go too far sometimes. Far too far! I admit it. I admit that frankly. When our clients reach out to us for more and more, we – we sometimes go too far. I won’t say we string them along. I wouldn’t say that. But we – we lead them farther than we have gone ourselves, perhaps. You understand?”
“Almost absolutely,” said Mr. Gubb.
“Just so! Mr. Gubb, one of my clients was greatly interested in transmigration of souls – greatly interested. She was interested in all things mystical – in reincarnation; in the return of the spirits of the dead; in everything like that. I – really, Mr. Gubb, it was hard for me to keep up with her.”
“And you proceeded to go ahead and teach her about this transmigration of souls that you don’t believe into yourself,” said Mr. Gubb helpfully.
“And when she found out you was a faker she set out to sue you for her money back.”
“No. Not that!” said Alibaba Singh energetically. “That’s not it. She doesn’t want her money back. She – she’s almost satisfied. She’s willing to accept what had happened philosophically. She’s almost content. Mr. Gubb, the reason I came to you was that I did not want her to land in – ”
Alibaba Singh looked carefully around.
“I don’t want her to land in jail,” he whispered. “It would make trouble for me. The lady, Mr. Gubb, is Mrs. Henry K. Lippett.”
“Well?” queried Mr. Gubb.
“What I don’t know,” said Alibaba Singh, wiping his brow nervously, “is whether I did reincarnate her late husband or whether she’s liable to be arrested for stealing a – ”
Alibaba Singh stopped short and arose hastily. Some one had knocked on Mr. Gubb’s door. Alibaba Singh moved toward the door.
“I don’t want to talk about this with anybody around,” he said nervously. “I’ll come back later. Not a word about it!”
He brushed past Mr. Gubb’s new visitor as he went out, and Mr. Gubb arose to greet the newcomer.
This third visitor was a large, red-faced man with an extremely loud vest. He wore a high hat of gray beaver, and a large but questionable diamond sparkled on his finger. He walked directly up to Mr. Gubb and shook hands.
“Sit down,” he commanded. “Now, you’re Gubb, the detective, ain’t you? Good enough! My name is Stephen Watts, but they mostly call me Steve for short – Three-Finger Steve,” he added, holding up his right hand to show that one finger was missing. “I’m in the show business. Ever hear of John, the Educated Horse? Ever hear of Hogo, the Human Trilobite? Ever hear of Henry, the Educated Pig? Well, them are me! That’s my show. Did you ever hear of a sheriff?”
“Frequently often,” said Mr. Gubb with a smile.
“Well, up to Derlingport this here Human Trilobite of mine got loose from my side-show tent, and when they found him he had eat about half of the marble cornerstone out from under the Dawkins Building. He’s crazy after white marble. It’s like candy to him. So Dawkins attaches my show and sends the Sheriff with an execution to grab the whole business unless I pay for a new cornerstone. Said it would cost two hundred and fifty dollars. I didn’t have the money.”
“So he took the show,” said Philo Gubb.
“Ex-act-ly!” said Mr. Three-Finger Steve. “He grabbed the whole caboodle. Ex-cept Henry, the Educated Pig. That’s why I’m here. That Sheriff’s attachment is out against that pig; it was a felony to remove that pig from Derling County while that attachment was out against it. And the pig was removed.”
“You removed it away from there?” asked Philo Gubb.
“Listen,” said Three-Finger Steve. “I didn’t remove that pig from Derling County. It was stole from me. Greasy Gus stole it. Augustus P. Smith, my bally-hoo man, stole Henry, the Educated Pig, and made a get-away with him. See? See what I want?”
“Not positively exact,” said Philo Gubb.
“Well, it’s a little bit delicate,” said Three-Finger Steve, “and that’s why I come to you instead of to the police. I want that pig. But if I go to the police and they find the pig they’ll send it back to the Sheriff in Derling County. See?”
“Do you want I should arrest Greasy Augustus P. Smith?” asked Philo Gubb.
“Not on your life!” said Three-Finger vigorously. “No arrests! You just get the pig.”
“How big is the size of the pig?” asked Philo Gubb.
“It’s a big pig,” said Mr. Watts. “Henry has been getting almost too fat, and that’s a fact. I’ve been thinking right along I’d have to diet Henry, but I never got to it. He’s one of these big, double-chinned pinkish-white pigs – looks like a prize pig in a county fair. And, listen! He’s in this town!”
“Really, indeed?” said Mr. Gubb.
“I know it!” said Three-Finger Steve. “I seen Greasy Gus load that pig into a farm wagon at Derlingport, and I thought Gus was trying to salvage the pig for me, like one feller will help out another in time of trouble. So I come down to Riverbank on the train, expecting Gus would show up at the hotel and tell me where the pig was hid. All right! Gus shows up. ‘Gus,’ I says, ‘where’s Henry?’ Gus lets on to be worried. ‘Stolen!’ he says. ‘Some guy lifted him when I wasn’t looking.’ Of course I knew that was a lie, and I told him so. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘you’ll never get Henry back. I meant to give him back to you, but after you have talked to me like that I’ll never give him back. I’ll keep him,’ he says, ‘if I can find him.’ So there you are, Mr. Gubb. Henry is in Riverbank, and I want Henry. This story about Henry being stolen is a lie. Henry is hid, and Gus Smith knows where.”
Mr. Gubb looked at Mr. Watts thoughtfully.
“Now, if you’re one of these fellers with a conscience,” said Three-Finger, “you can send Henry back to the Sheriff. But I won’t have Greasy Gus putting a trick like this over on me! No, sir!”
He shook hands with Mr. Gubb again and went out. It was fully fifteen minutes before Mr. Gus P. Smith, who must have been waiting across the street, came in. He closed the door and locked it.
“I saw old Three-Finger come out of this building,” he said. “What did he want?”
“He came upon confidential business which can’t be mentioned,” said Mr. Gubb.
“Just so!” said Mr. Smith. “He wanted you to find Henry, the Educated Pig. Now, listen to me. I skipped out with that pig to do Three-Finger a favor and save part of his show for him, and that’s the truth, but he don’t believe it – not him! He called me a thief and worse, he did. He had the nerve to say I wanted that pig myself, to start in business with, and that’s a lie. No man can insult me like that, Mr. Gubb. Look at this – ”
He took from his pocket a couple of feet of whipcord and handed it to Philo Gubb.
“What is this?” asked Mr. Gubb.
“That’s all that’s left of Henry,” said Greasy Gus. “That’s his total remains up to date. That’s the rope I led Henry with after I quit the wagon of a farmer that rode us out of Derlingport. That cord was tied to Henry’s left hind foot. Look at the end without the knot – was that cut or wasn’t it?”
“I most generally reserve my opinion until later than right at first,” said Philo Gubb.
“All right, reserve it!” said Greasy Gus. “Looks to me like it was cut. No matter. The main thing I want is for you to find Henry. How’s that?”
“Under them certain specifications,” said Philo Gubb, “I can take up the case and get right to work onto it.”
“All right, then,” said Greasy Gus. “Now, here’s what I know about it. I got out of Derlingport with Henry, and when the farmer dumped us from his wagon I hitched this whipcord to Henry’s leg and drove him along the road. After while I hit this town of Riverbank. I thought maybe the police would be looking for Henry. So I took to an alley instead of a regular street, and along we came. We came down the alley, and of a sudden I began to wonder what I’d do with Henry now I’d got him into town. It would look kind of suspicious for me and Henry to go to a hotel. ‘I know what I’ll do,’ I says to myself: ‘What I want to do is to go alone and rent a barn and say I’m thinking of buying a pig if I can get a place to keep him.’ So that’s what I did.”
“You left the pig alone in the alley by itself?” asked Philo Gubb.
“Yes, sir!” said Mr. Smith. “I found an alley fence that had a staple in it, and I tied one end of the whipcord to the staple and went down the alley to find a barn I could put Henry in. About the fifth barn I tried I found a place for Henry and then I went back to get him, and he was gone!”
“And no clue?” asked Mr. Gubb.
“This tag end of the rope,” said Greasy Gus. “And that’s all I know about where Henry went, but my idee is somebody come along and seen him there and just thought he’d have a pig cheap.”
“It’s a pretty hard case to work onto,” said Mr. Gubb doubtfully. “Somebody might have come along with a wagon and loaded him in.”
“Sure!” said Mr. Smith. “No telling at all. That’s why I come to you. If he was where I could fall over him, I wouldn’t need a detective, would I? And if you find Henry I’ll just give you these four five-dollar bills. I’m no millionaire, but I’ll blow that much for the satisfaction of getting back at Three-Finger Watts. Is it a go?”
“Under them certain specifications,” said Mr. Gubb, using the exact words he had used before, “I can take up the case and get right to work onto it.”
Mr. Smith shook hands to bind the bargain and departed.
He had hardly disappeared before Mr. Alibaba Singh opened the door cautiously, put his head inside and then entered.
“I thought that man would stay forever,” he said with annoyance. “He isn’t in any way interested in my affairs or in the affairs of Mrs. Henry K. Lippett, is he?”
“Nobody has been here that is interested into anything you are interested into in the slightest form or manner,” Mr. Gubb assured him, and Alibaba Singh sighed with relief.
“You never knew Henry K. Lippett, did you?” he asked.
“Never at all,” said Mr. Gubb.
“He broke his neck,” said Alibaba Singh, “and it killed him.”
He hesitated and seemed lost in thought. He drew himself together sharply.
“It isn’t possible!” he exclaimed with irritation and with no connection with what he had just said. “I don’t believe it! I – I – ”
His distress was great. He wrung one hand inside the other. He almost wept.
“Mr. Gubb,” he said, “since I was here I have been up to Mrs. Lippett’s house again, and it is worse than ever. It can’t be possible! I haven’t the power. I know I haven’t the power.”
“You’d ought to try to explain yourself more plain to your deteckative,” said Mr. Gubb.
“I’ll tell you everything!” said Alibaba Singh in a sudden burst of confidence. “Mr. Gubb, I am an impostor. I am a fraud. I am not a Hindoo. My name is Guffins, James Guffins. I did sleight-of-hand stuff in a Bowery show. I took up this mystic, yogi, Hindoo stuff because I thought it would pay and it was easy to fool the dames. They fell for it fast enough, and I made good money. But I’m no yogi. I’m no miracle man. I couldn’t bring a man back to life in his own form or any other form, could I?”
“Undoubtedly hardly so,” said Mr. Gubb.
“Glad to hear you say it,” said Mr. Guffins with relief. “A man gets so interested in his work – and there is a lot you can learn in books about this Hindoo mumbo-jumbo business – but of course I couldn’t bring Mr. Lippett back. I’m no spiritualistic medium. I couldn’t materialize the spirit of a pig.”
As he said the word, Mr. Guffins shuddered. It had come out unintentionally, but it seemed to jar him to the depth of his being. He had evidently not meant to say pig.
“Mr. Gubb, I will be frank with you. I need your help,” he continued. “Mrs. Lippett attended my lecture, and she became interested. She formed a class to study yogi philosophy. We went deep into it. I had to read up one week what I taught them the next. The lights turned low and my Hindoo costume helped, of course. Air of mystery, strange perfumes, and all that. You said you never knew Henry K. Lippett?”
“Never at all,” said Mr. Gubb.
“Fat man,” said Mr. Guffins. “He must have been a very fat man. And a hearty eater. Rather – rather an over-hearty eater. He must have lived to eat.”
Mr. Guffins sighed again.
“Of course there was remuneration,” Mr. Guffins went on. “For me, I mean. To pay for my time. Mrs. Lippett was most generous. I told her,” he said angrily, “I couldn’t guarantee to materialize her dead husband. I said to her: ‘Mrs. Lippett, we had better not try it. My power may be too weak. And think of the risk. He may be pure spirit, floating in Nirvana, and come to us as a pure spirit, but what if his life was not all it should have been on earth? What if his spirit has passed into a lower form as a punishment for misdeeds? You will pardon me for speaking so of him, but men are weak,’ I said, ‘and he may now be a – a bird of the air. It would be a shock,’ I said, ‘to see him changed into a bird of the air.’”
Mr. Guffins paused and groaned.
“But she would have it,” he went on. “She would have me make the attempt. So – ”
Mr. Guffins looked at Mr. Gubb appealingly.
“You don’t believe I could do it, do you?” he pleaded.
“Not in any manner of means,” said Mr. Gubb.
“That’s what I want you to prove to her,” said Mr. Guffins. “That’s why I came to you. Everybody knows you are a detective. I want you to – to get on my trail.”
“You want me to arrest you!” cried Mr. Gubb with surprise.
“I want you to be looking for me as if you wanted to arrest me,” said poor Mr. Guffins; “as if you had received word that I was a fraud, and that you had traced me to Mrs. Lippett’s. You can go there and say: ‘Gone! I am too late! He has escaped.’ And then you can tell her it couldn’t be.”
“That what couldn’t be?” asked Mr. Gubb.
“The room was darkish,” said Mr. Guffins. “The lights were dim. I stood in the light of the red globe, and it gave me a weird look. I held the crystal globe in one hand and the jade talisman in the other. The incense arose from the incense-burner. As if out of the empty air, a sweet-toned bell rang three times. I bowed low three times as the bell rang and muttered the magic words. I made them up as I said them, but they sounded mystic. Mrs. Lippett was sitting on the edge of her chair, breathless with emotion. The curtains were drawn across the door at the back of the room. You could have heard a pin drop. We were alone, just we two. I felt creepy myself. I turned toward the curtains. I said, ‘Henry, appear!’”
