Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective Part 6

Ten minutes later a small automobile drove up and young Dr. Anson Briggs hopped out. Mr. Gubb was just getting to his feet, feeling the top of his head with his hand as he did so.

"Here!" said Dr. Briggs. "You must not do that!"

"Why can't I do it?" Mr. Gubb asked crossly. "It is my own personal head, and if I wish to desire to rub it, you are not concerned in the occasion whatever."

"Oh, rub your head if you want to!" exclaimed the doctor. "I say you must not stand up. A man that has just had a fit must not stand up."

"Who had a fit?" asked Philo Gubb.

"You did," said Dr. Briggs. "I am told you had a very bad fit, and fell and knocked your head against the building. You're dazed. Lie down!"

"I prefer to wish to stand erect on my feet," said Mr. Gubb firmly.

"Where's my cup?"

"What cup?"

"Who told you I was suffering from the symptom of a fit?" demanded Philo Gubb.

"Why, a short, plump little German did," said the doctor. "He sent me here. And he gave me this to give to you."

The doctor held an envelope toward Mr. Gubb, and the detective took it and tore it open. By the light of the window he read:--

Rec'd of J. Jones, golluf cup worth $500. P. H.

SCHRECKENHEIM.

Philo Gubb turned to Dr. Briggs.

"I am much obliged for the hastiness with which you came to relieve one you considered to think in trouble, doctor," he said, "but fits are not in my line of sickness, which mainly is dyspeptic to date."

"Now, what is all this?" asked the doctor suspiciously. "What is that letter, anyway?"

"It is a clue," said Philo Gubb, "which, connected with the b.u.mp on the top of the cranium of my skull, will, no doubt, land somebody into jail. So good-evening, doctor."

He picked his hat from the lawn, and in his most stately manner walked around the club-house and in at the door.

Inside the club-house, Mr. Gubb asked one of the waiters to call Mr.

Medderbrook, and Mr. Medderbrook immediately appeared.

As he came from the dining-room rapidly, the napkin he had had tucked in his neck fell over his shoulder behind him, and Mr. Medderbrook, instead of turning around bent backward until he could pick up the napkin with his teeth, after which he resumed his normal upright position.

"Excuse me, Gubb," he said; "I didn't think what I was doing. Where is the cup?"

The detective explained. He handed Mr. Medderbrook the receipt that had been sent by Mr. Schreckenheim, and the moment Mr. Medderbrook's eyes fell upon it he turned red.

"That infernal Dutchman!" he cried, although Mr. Schreckenheim was not a Dutchman at all, but a German-American. "I'll jail him for this!"

He stopped short.

"Gubb," he said, "did that fellow tell you what his business was?"

"He did not," said Philo Gubb. "He failed to express any mention of it."

"That man," said Mr. Medderbrook bitterly, "is Schreckenheim, the greatest tattoo artist in the world. He is the king of them all. A connoisseur in tattooish art can tell a Schreckenheim as easily as a picture-dealer can tell a Corot. But no matter! Mr. Gubb, you are a detective and I believe what is told detectives is held inviolable.

Yes. You--and all Riverbank--see in me an ordinary citizen, wealthy, perhaps, but ordinary. As a matter of fact, I was once"--he looked cautiously around--"I was once a contortionist. I was once _the_ contortionist. And now I am a wealthy man. My wife left me because she said I was stingy, and she took my child--my only daughter. I have never seen either of them since. I have searched high and low, but I cannot find them. Mr. Gubb, I would give the man that finds my daughter--if she is alive--a thousand dollars."

"You don't object to my attempting to try?" said Philo Gubb.

"No," said Mr. Jonas Medderbrook, "but that is not what I wish to explain. In my contortion act, Mr. Gubb, I was obliged to wear the most expensive silk tights. Wiggling on the floor destroys them rapidly. I had a happy thought. I was known as the Man-Serpent. Could I not save all expense of tights by having myself tattooed so that my skin would represent scales? Look."

Mr. Medderbrook pulled up his cuff and showed Mr. Gubb his arm. It was beautifully tattooed in red and blue, like the scales of a cobra.

"The cost," continued Mr. Medderbrook, "was great. Herr Schreckenheim worked continuously on me, and when he reached my manly chest I had a brilliant thought. I would have tattooed upon it an American eagle.

Imagine the enthusiasm of an audience when I stood straight, spread my arms and showed that n.o.ble emblem of our nation's strength and freedom! I told Herr Schreckenheim and he set to work. When--and the contract price, by the way, for doing that eagle was five hundred dollars--when the eagle was about completed, I said to Herr Schreckenheim, 'Of course you will do no more eagles?'

"'More eagles?' he said questioningly.

"'On other men," I said. 'I want to be the only man with an eagle on my chest.'

"'I am doing an eagle on another man now,' he said.

"I was angry at once. I jumped from the table and threw on my clothes.

'Cheater!' I cried. 'Not another spot or dot shall you make on me! Go!

I will never pay you a cent!'

"He was very angry. 'It is a contract!' he cried. 'Five hundred dollars you owe me!'

"'I owe it to you when the job is complete,' I declared. 'That was the contract. Is this job complete? Where are the eagle's claws? I'll never pay you a cent!'

"We had a lot of angry words. He demanded that I give him a chance to put the claws on the eagle. I refused. I said I would never pay. He said he would follow me to the end of the world and collect. He said he would do those eagle claws if he had to do them on my infant daughter. I dared him to touch the child. And now," said Mr.

Medderbrook, "he has taken the golf cup I value at five hundred dollars. He has won."

At the mention of the threat regarding the child, Philo Gubb's eyes opened wide, but he kept silence.

"Gubb," said Mr. Medderbrook suddenly, "I'll give you a thousand dollars if you can recover my poor child."

"The deteckative profession is full of complicity of detail," said Mr.

Gubb, "and the impossible is quite possible when put in the right hands. The cup--"

"Bother the cup!" said Mr. Medderbrook carelessly. "I want my child--I'll give _ten_ thousand dollars for my child, Gubb."

With difficulty could Philo Gubb restrain his eagerness to depart. He had a clue!

Ordinarily Mr. Gubb would have taken any disguise that seemed to him best suited for the work in hand; but now he was going to see and be seen by Syrilla!

Mr. Gubb ran down the list--Number Seven, Card Sharp; Number Nine, Minister of the Gospel; Number Twelve, Butcher; Number Sixteen, Negro Hack-Driver; Number Seventeen, Chinese Laundryman; Number Twenty, Cowboy.... Philo Gubb paused there. He would be a cowboy, for it was a jaunty disguise--"chaps," sombrero, spurs, buckskin gloves, holsters and pistols, blue s.h.i.+rt, yellow hair, stubby mustache. He donned the complete disguise, put his street garments in a suitcase and viewed himself in his small mirror. He highly approved of the disguise. He touched his cheeks with red to give himself a healthy, outdoor appearance.

Early the next morning, before the earliest merchants had opened their shops, Philo Gubb boarded the train for West Higgins, for it was there the World's Greatest Combined Shows were to appear. The few sleepy pa.s.sengers did not open their eyes; the conductor, as he took Mr.

Gubb's ticket, merely remarked, "Joining the show at West Higgins?"