Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective Part 33

"Ah, yes!" said Judge Mackinnon, looking at a doc.u.ment he had taken from the envelope Philo Gubb had handed him. "You mean this one:--

Last will and testament--and all else with which I may die possessed--to my niece Dorothy O'Hara--and hope she can take a joke--Haddon O'Hara.

You mean this one, Mr. Bilton?"

"Yep," said Mustard, looking at the doc.u.ment that gave to Dolly O'Hara every jot and t.i.ttle of Haddon O'Hara's property. "That's the one.

That's the one I signed last. Me and old Sam Fliggis signed her--same day O'Hara hired me to steal the dog. Well, I guess I'll be takin' the dog back home. So 'long, gents. Old Had' was bound to have his joke, wasn't he?"

"Mr. Gubb," said Judge Mackinnon suddenly, "would you be betraying a professional secret if you told us how you found this doc.u.ment?"

"In the pursuit of following my deteckative profession," said Detective Gubb, "according to Lesson Six, Page Thirty-two."

THE ANONYMOUS WIGGLE

Any one reading a history of the detective work of Philo Gubb, the paper-hanger detective, might imagine that crime stalked abroad endlessly in Riverbank and that criminals crowded the streets, but this would be mere imagination. For weeks before he took on the case of the Anonymous Wiggle, he had been obliged to revert to his side-line of paper-hanging and decorating.

Four hundred of the dollars he had earned by solving the mystery of the missing Mustard and Waffles he had paid to Mr. Medderbrook, together with five dollars for a telegram Mr. Medderbrook had received from Syrilla. This telegram was a great satisfaction to Mr. Gubb. It brought the day when she might be his nearer, and showed that the fair creature was fighting n.o.bly to reduce. It had read:--

None but the brave deserve the thin. Have given up all liquids. Have given up water, milk, coca-cola, beer, chocolate, champagne, b.u.t.termilk, cider, soda-water, root beer, tea, koumyss, coffee, ginger ale, bevo, Bronx c.o.c.ktails, grape juice, and absinthe frappe. Weigh eight hundred ninety-five net. Love to Gubby from little Syrilla.

Crime is not rampant in Riverbank. P. Gubb therefore welcomed gladly Miss Petunia Scroggs when she came to his office in the Opera House Block and said: "Mr. Gubb? Mr. Philo Gubb, the detective? Well, my name is Miss Petunia Scroggs, and I want to talk to you about detecting something for me."

"I'm pleased to," said Mr. Gubb, placing a chair for the lady.

"Anything in the deteckative line which I can do for you will be so done gladly and in good shape. At the present moment of time, I'm engaged upon a job of kitchen paper for Mrs. Horton up on Eleventh Street, but the same will not occupy long, as she wants it hung over what is already on the wall, to minimize the cost of the expense."

"Different people, different ways," said Miss Scroggs, smiling sweetly. "Sc.r.a.pe it off and be clean, is my idea."

"Yes, ma'am," said Philo Gubb.

"Well, I didn't come here to talk about Mrs. Horton's notion of how a kitchen ought to be papered," said Miss Scroggs. "How do you detect, by the day or by the job?"

"My terms in such matters is various and sundry, to suit the taste,"

said Mr. Gubb.

"Then I'll hire you by the job," said Miss Scroggs, "if your rates ain't too high. Now, first off, I ain't ever been married; I'm a maiden lady."

"Yes, ma'am," said Philo Gubb, jotting this down on a sheet of paper.

"Not but what I could have been a wedded wife many's the time," said Miss Scroggs hastily, "but I says to myself, 'Peace of mind, Petunia, peace of mind!'"

"Yes'm," said Philo Gubb. "I'm a unmarried bachelor man myself."

"Well, I'm surprised to hear you say it in a boasting tone," said Miss Petunia gently. "You ought to be ashamed of it."

"Yes, ma'am," said Philo Gubb, "but you was conversationally speaking of some deteckative work--"

"And I'm leading right up to it all the time," said Miss Scroggs.

"Peace of mind is why I have remained single up to now, and peace of mind I have had, but I won't have it much longer if this Anonymous Wiggle keeps on writing me letters."

"Somebody named with that cognomen is writing letters to you like a Black Hand would?" asked Mr. Gubb eagerly.

"Cognomen or not," said Miss Scroggs, "that's what I call him or her or whoever it is. Snake would be a better name," she added, "but I must say the thing looks more like a fish-worm. Now, here," she said, opening her black hand-bag, "is letter Number One. Read it."

Mr. Gubb took the envelope and looked at the address. It was written in a hand evidently disguised by slanting the letters backward, and had been mailed at the Riverbank post-office.

"Hum!" said Mr. Gubb. "Lesson Nine of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency's Correspondence School of Deteckating gives the full rules and regulations for to elucidate the mystery of threatening letters, scurrilous letters, et cetery. Now, is this a threatening letter or a scurrilous letter?"

"Well, it may be threatening, and it may not be threatening," said Miss Scroggs. "If it is a threat, I must say I never heard of a threat just like it. And if it is scurrilous, I must say I never heard of anything that scurriled in the words used. Read it."

Philo Gubb pulled the letter from the envelope and read it. It ran thus:--

PETUNIA:--

Open any book at page fourteen and read the first complete sentence at the top of the page. Go thou and do likewise.

For signature there was nothing but a waved line, drawn with a pen. In some respects it did resemble an angle-worm.

Philo Gubb frowned. "The advice of the inditer that wrote this letter seemingly appears to be sort of unexact," he said. "'Most every book is apt to have a different lot of words at the top of page fourteen."

"Just so!" said Miss Scroggs. "You may well say that. And say it to myself I did until I started to open a book. I went to the book-case and I took down my Bible and I turned to page fourteen."

"As the writer beyond no doubt thought you would," said P. Gubb.

"I don't know what he thought," said Miss Scroggs, "but when I opened my Bible and turned to page fourteen there wasn't any page fourteen in it. Page fourteen is part of the 'Brief Foreword from the Translators to the Reader,' so I thought maybe it had got lost and never been missed. So I took up another book. I took up Emerson's Essays, Volume Two."

"And what did you read?" asked Philo Gubb.

"Nothing," said Miss Scroggs, "because I couldn't. Page fourteen was tore out of the book. So I went through all my books, and every page fourteen was tore out of every book. There was only one book in the house that had a page fourteen left in it."

"And what did that say?" asked Mr. Gubb.

"It said," said Miss Petunia, "'To one quart of flour add a cup of water, beat well, and add the beaten whites of two eggs.'"

"Did you do all that?" inquired Mr. Gubb.

"Well," said Miss Petunia, "I didn't see any harm in trying it, just to see what happened, so I did it."

"And what happened?" asked Mr. Gubb.

"Nothing," said Miss Petunia. "In a couple of days the water dried up and the dough got pasty and moulded, and I threw it out."

"Just so!" said Philo Gubb. "You'd sort of expect it to get mouldy, but you wouldn't call it threatening at the first look."

"No," said Miss Petunia. "And then I got this letter Number Two."