The discovery that Syrilla was the
daughter of Jonas Medderbrook (born Jones) was a great
triumph for Philo Gubb, but while the “Riverbank
Eagle” made a great hurrah about it, Philo Gubb
was not entirely happy over the matter. Having
won a reward of ten thousand dollars for discovering
Syrilla and five hundred dollars for recovering Mr.
Medderbrook’s golf cup, Mr. Gubb might have ventured
to tell Syrilla of his love for her but for three
reasons.
The first reason was that Mr. Gubb
was so bashful that it was impossible for him to speak
his love openly and immediately. If Syrilla had
returned to Riverbank with her father, Mr. Gubb would
have courted her by degrees, or if Syrilla had weighed
only two hundred pounds, Mr. Gubb might have had the
bravery to propose to her instantly, but she weighed
one thousand pounds, and it required five times the
bravery to propose to a thousand pounds that was required
to propose to two hundred pounds.
The second reason was that Mr. Dorgan,
the manager of the side-show, would not release Syrilla
from her contract.
“She’s a beauty of a Fat
Lady,” said Mr. Dorgan, “and I’ve
got a five-year contract with her and I’m going
to hold her to it.”
Mr. Medderbrook and Mr. Gubb would
have been quite hopeless when Mr. Dorgan said this
if Syrilla had not taken them to one side.
“Listen, dearies,” she
said, “he’s a mean, old brute, but don’t
you fret! I got a hunch how to make him cancel
my contract in a perfectly refined an’ ladylike
manner. Right now I start in bantin’ and
dietin’ in the scientific-est manner an’
the way I can lose three or four hundred pounds when
I set out to do it is something grand. It won’t
be no time at all until I’m thin and wisp-like,
an’ Mr. Dorgan will be glad to get rid of me.”
This information greatly cheered Mr.
Gubb. While he admired Syrilla just as she was,
a rapid mental calculation assured him that she would
still be quite plump at seven hundred pounds and he
knew he could love seven tenths of Syrilla more than
he could love ten tenths of any other lady in the
world.
The third reason had to do with the
ten-thousand-dollar reward. When Mr. Gubb and
Mr. Medderbrook were proceeding homeward on the train,
Mr. Medderbrook brought up the subject of the reward
again.
“I’m going to pay you
that ten thousand dollars, Gubb,” he said, “but
I’m going to pay it so it will be worth a lot
more than ten thousand dollars to you.”
“You are very overly kind,” said Mr. Gubb.
“It’s because I know you are fond of Syrilla,”
said Mr. Medderbrook.
Mr. Gubb blushed.
“So I ain’t going to give
you ten thousand dollars in cash,” said Mr.
Medderbrook. “I’m going to do a lot
better by you than that. I’m going to give
you gold-mine stock. The only trouble ”
“Gold-mine stock sounds quite elegantly nice,”
said Mr. Gubb.
“The only trouble,” said
Mr. Medderbrook, “is that the gold-mine stock
I want to give you is in a block of twenty-five thousand
dollars. It’s nice stock. It’s
as neatly engraved as any stock I ever saw, and it
is genuine common stock in the Utterly Hopeless Gold-Mine
Company.”
“The name sounds sort of unhopeful,” ventured
Mr. Gubb timidly.
“That shows you don’t
know anything about gold mines,” said Mr. Medderbrook
cheerfully. “The reason I the
reason the miners gave it that name is because this
mine lies right between two of the best gold-mines
in Minnesota. One of them is the Utterly Good
Gold-Mine, and the other is the Far-From-Hopeless.
So when I so when the miners named this
mine they took part of the names of the two others
and called this one the Utterly Hopeless. That’s
the way I the way it is always done.”
“It’s very cleverly bright,” said
Mr. Gubb.
“It’s an old trick I
should say an old and approved method,” said
Mr. Medderbrook. “So what I’m going
to do, Mr. Gubb, is to let you in on the ground floor
on this mine. It’s a chance I wouldn’t
offer to everybody. This mine hasn’t paid
out all its money in dividends. I tell you as
an actual fact, Mr. Gubb, that so far it hasn’t
paid out a cent in dividends, not even to the preferred
stock. No, sir! And it ain’t one of
these mines that has been mined until all the gold
is mined out of it. No, sir! Not an ounce
of gold has ever been taken out of the Utterly Hopeless
Mine. Not an ounce.”
“It is all there yet!” exclaimed Mr. Gubb.
“All there ever was,”
said Mr. Medderbrook. “Yes, sir! If
you want me to I’ll give you a written guarantee
that the Utterly Hopeless Mine has never paid a cent
in dividends and that not an ounce of gold has ever
been taken out of the mine. That shows you I’m
square about this. So what I’m going to
do,” he said impressively, “is to turn
over to you a block of twenty-five thousand dollars’
worth of Utterly Hopeless Gold-Mine stock and apply
the ten thousand dollars I owe you as part of the
purchase price. All you need to do then is to
pay me the other fifteen thousand dollars as rapidly
as you can.”
“That’s very kindly generous of you,”
said Mr. Gubb gratefully.
“And that isn’t all,”
said Mr. Medderbrook. “I own every single
share of the stock of that mine, Mr. Gubb, and as
soon as you get the fifteen thousand dollars paid
up I’ll advance the price of that stock one
hundred per cent! Yes, sir, I’ll double
the price of the stock, and what you own will be worth
fifty thousand dollars!”
There were tears in Philo Gubb’s
eyes as he grasped Mr. Medderbrook’s hand.
“And all I ask,” said
Mr. Medderbrook, “is that you hustle up and pay
that fifteen thousand dollars as quick as you can.
So that,” he added, “you’ll be worth
fifty thousand dollars all the sooner.”
Upon reaching Riverbank Mr. Medderbrook
took Mr. Gubb to his home and turned over to him the
stock in the Utterly Hopeless Mine.
“And here,” said Mr. Medderbrook,
“is a receipt for ten thousand five hundred
dollars, and you can give me back that five hundred
I paid you for recovering of my golf cup. That’s
to show you everything is fair and square when you
deal with me. Now you owe me only fourteen thousand
five hundred dollars.”
While Mr. Gubb was handing the five
hundred dollars back to Mr. Medderbrook the colored
butler entered with a telegram. Mr. Medderbrook
tore it open hastily.
“Good news already,” he
said and handed it to Mr. Gubb. It was from Syrilla
and said:
Be brave. Have
lost four ounces already. Kind regards and
best love to Mr. Gubb.
With only partial satisfaction Mr.
Gubb left Mr. Medderbrook and proceeded downtown.
He now had a double incentive for seeking the rewards
that fall to detectives, for he had Syrilla to win
and the Utterly Hopeless Gold-Mine stock to pay for.
He started for the Pie-Wagon, for he was hungry, but
on the way certain suspicious actions of Joe Henry
(the liveryman who had twice beaten him up while he
was working on the dynamiter case), stopped him, and
it was much later when he entered the Pie-Wagon.
As Philo Gubb entered, Billy Getz
sat on one of the stools and stirred his coffee.
He held a dime novel with his other hand, reading;
but Pie-Wagon Pete kept an eye on him. He knew
Billy Getz and his practical jokes. If unwatched
for a moment, the young whipper-snapper might empty
the salt into the sugar-bowl, or play some other prank
that came under his idea of fun.
Billy Getz was a good example of the
spoiled only son. He went in for all the vice
there was in town, and to occupy his spare time he
planned practical jokes. He was thirty years old,
rather bald, had a pale and leathery skin, and a preternaturally
serious expression. In his pranks he was aided
by the group of young poker-playing, cigarette-smoking
fellows known as the “Kidders.”
Billy Getz, as he read the last line
of the thrilling tale of “The Pale Avengers,”
tucked the book in his pocket, and looked up and saw
Philo Gubb. The hawk-eyes of Billy Getz sparkled.
“Hello, detective!” he
cried. “Sit down and have something!
You’re just the man I’ve been lookin’
for. Was askin’ Pete about you not a minute
ago wasn’t I, Pete?”
Pie-Wagon Pete nodded.
“Yes, sir,” said Billy
Getz eagerly, “I’ve got something right
in your line something big; mighty big and say,
detective, have you ever read ’The Pale Avengers’?”
“I ain’t had that pleasure,
Mr. Getz,” said Philo Gubb, straddling a stool.
“What’s the matter?
You’re out of breath,” said Pie-Wagon.
“I been runnin’,”
said Philo Gubb. “I had to run a little.
Deteckatives have to run at times occasionally.”
“You bet they do,” said
Billy Getz earnestly. “You ain’t been
after the dynamiters, have you?”
“I am from time to time working
upon that case,” said Philo Gubb with dignity.
“Well, you be careful.
You be mighty careful! We can’t afford to
lose a man like you,” said Billy Getz.
“You can’t be too careful. Got any
of the ghouls yet?”
“Not yet,” said Philo
Gubb stiffly. “It’s a difficult case
for one that’s just graduated out of a deteckative
school. It’s like Lesson Nine says I
got to proceed cautiously when workin’ in the
dark.”
“Or they’ll get you before
you get them,” said Billy Getz. “Like
in ‘The Pale Avengers.’ Here, I want
you to read this book. It’ll teach you
some things you don’t know about crooks, maybe.”
“Thank you,” said Philo
Gubb, taking the dime novel. “Anything that
can help me in my deteckative career is real welcome.
I’ll read it, Mr. Getz, and Look
out!” he shouted, and in one leap was over the
counter and crouching behind it.
Billy Getz turned toward the door,
where a short, red-faced man was standing with a pine
slab held in his hand. Intense anger glittered
in his eyes, and he darted to the counter and, leaning
over, brought the slab down on Philo Gubb’s
back with a resounding whack.
“Here! Here! None
o’ that stuff in here, Joe,” cried Pie-Wagon
Pete, grasping the intruder’s arm.
“I’ll kill him, that’s
what I’ll do!” shouted the intruder.
“Snoopin’ around my place, and follerin’
me up an’ down all the time! I told him
I wasn’t goin’ to have him doggin’
me an’ pesterin’ me. I’ve beat
him up twice, an’ now I’m goin’
to give him the worst lickin’ he ever had.
Come out of there, you half-baked ostrich, you.”
“Now, you stop that,”
said Pie-Wagon Pete sternly. “You’re
goin’ to be sorry if you beat him up. He
don’t mean no harm. He’s just foolish.
He don’t know no better. All you got to
do is to explain it to him right.”
“Explain?” said Joe Henry.
“I’d look nice explainin’ anything,
wouldn’t I? Hand him over here, Pete.”
“Now, listen,” shouted
Pie-Wagon Pete angrily. “You ain’t
everything. I’m your pardner, ain’t
I? Well, you let me fix this.” He winked
at Joe Henry. “You let me explain to Mr.
Gubb, an’ if he ain’t satisfied, why all
right.”
For a moment Joe Henry studied Pie-Wagon’s
face, and then he put down the slab.
“All right, you explain,”
he said ungraciously, and Philo Gubb raised his white
face above the counter.
Upon the passage of the State prohibitory
law every saloon in Riverbank had been closed and
there had been growlings from the saloon element.
Five of the leading prohibitionists had received threatening
letters and, a few nights later, the houses of four
of the five were blown up. Kegs of powder had
been placed in the cellar windows of each of the four
houses, wrecking them, and the fifth house was saved
only because the fuse there was damp. Luckily
no one was killed, but that was not the fault of the
“dynamiters,” as every one called them.
The town and State immediately offered
a reward of five thousand dollars for the arrest and
conviction of the dynamiters, and detectives flocked
to Riverbank. Real detectives came to try for
the noble prize. Amateur detectives came in hordes.
Citizens who were not detectives at all tried their
hands at the work.
For the first few days rumors of the
immediate capture of the “ghouls” were
flying everywhere, but day followed day and week followed
week, and no one was incarcerated. The citizen-detectives
went back to their ordinary occupations, the amateur
detectives went home, the real detectives were called
off on other and more promising jobs, and soon the
field was left clear for Philo Gubb.
Not that he made much progress.
Each night he hid himself in the dark doorway of Willcox
Hall waiting to pick up (Lesson Four, Rule Four) some
suspicious-looking person, and having picked him up,
he proceeded to trail and shadow him (Lesson Four,
Rules Four to Seventeen). Six times twice
by Joe Henry he was well beaten by those
he followed. It became such a nuisance to be
followed by Philo Gubb in false mustache or whiskers,
that it was a public relief when Billy Getz and other
young fellows took upon themselves the duty of being
shadowed. With hats pulled over their eyes and
coat-collars turned up, they would pass the dark doorway
of Willcox Hall, let themselves be picked up, and
then lead poor Detective Gubb across rubbish-encumbered
vacant lots, over mud flats or among dark lumber piles,
only to give him the slip with infinite ease when
they tired of the game.
But Philo Gubb was back the next night,
waiting in the shadow of the doorway of Willcox Hall.
He did not progress very rapidly toward the goal of
the reward, but he counted it all good practice.
But being beaten twice in succession
by Joe Henry aroused his suspicion.
Joe Henry ran a small carting business.
He had three teams and three drays, and a small stable
on Locust Street, on the alley corner. He was
a great friend of Pie-Wagon Pete and he ate at the
Pie-Wagon.
Philo Gubb, after leaving Mr. Medderbrook,
had not intentionally picked up Joe Henry. On
his way to the Pie-Wagon it had been necessary for
him to pass the alley opposite Joe Henry’s stable
and his detective instinct told him to hide himself
behind a manure bin in the alley and watch the stable.
In the warm June dusk he had crouched there, watching
and waiting.
Mr. Gubb could see into the stable,
but there was not much to see. The stable boy
sat at the door, his chair tipped back, until a few
minutes after eleven, when one of Joe Henry’s
drays drove up with a load of baled hay.
Philo Gubb heard the voices of the
men as they hoisted the hay to the hay-loft, and he
saw Joe Henry helping with the hoisting-rope.
The hay was water-soaked. Water dripped from
it onto the floor of the stable.
But nothing exciting occurred, and
Philo Gubb was about to consider this a dull evening’s
work, when Joe Henry appeared in the doorway, a pitchfork
in one hand and the slab of pine in the other.
He looked up and down the street and then, with surprising
agility, sprang across the street toward where Philo
Gubb lay hid. With a wild cry, Philo Gubb fled.
The pitchfork clattered at his feet, but missed him,
and he had every advantage of long legs and speed.
His heels clattered on the alley pave, and Joe Henry’s
clattered farther and farther behind at each leap
of the Correspondence School detective.
“All right, you explain,” said Joe Henry
sullenly.
“Now you ain’t to breathe
a word of this, cross-your-heart, hope-to-die, Philo
Gubb. Nor you neither, Billy,” said Pie-Wagon
Pete. “Listen! Me an’ Joe Henry
ain’t what we let on to be. That’s
why we don’t want to be follered. We’re
detectives. Reg’lar detectives. From
Chicago. An’ we’re hired by the Law
an’ Order League to run down them gools.
We’re right clost onto ’em now, ain’t
we, Joe? An’ that’s why we don’t
want to have no one botherin’ us. You wouldn’t
want no one shadowin’ you when you was on a
trail, would you, Gubby?”
“No, I don’t feel like I would,”
admitted Philo Gubb.
“That’s right,”
said Pie-Wagon Pete approvingly. “An’
when these here dynamite gools is the kind of murderers
they is, an’ me and Joe is expectin’ to
be murdered by them any minute, it makes Joe nervous
to be follered an’ spied on, don’t it,
Joe?”
“You bet,” said Joe.
“I’m liable to turn an’ maller up
anybody I see sneakin’ on me. I can’t
take chances.”
“So you won’t interfere
with Joe in the pursoot of his dooty no more, will
you, Gubby?” said Pie-Wagon Pete.
“I don’t aim to interfere
with nobody, Peter,” said Philo Gubb. “I
just want to pursoo my own dooty, as I see it.
I won’t foller Mr. Henry no more, if he don’t
like it; but I got a dooty to do, as a full graduate
of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency’s Correspondence
School of Deteckating. I got to do my level best
to catch them dynamiters myself.”
Joe Henry frowned, and Pie-Wagon Pete shook his head.
“If you’ll take my advice,
Gubby,” he said, “you’ll drop that
case right here an’ now. You don’t
know what dangerous characters them gools are.
If they start to get you ”
“You want to read that book ’The
Pale Avengers’ I just gave you,”
said Billy Getz, “and then you’ll know
more.”
“Well, I won’t interfere
with you, Mr. Henry,” said Philo Gubb. “But
I’ll do my dooty as I see it. Fear don’t
frighten me. The first words in Lesson One is
these: ’The deteckative must be a man devoid
of fear.’ I can’t go back on that.
If them gools want to kill me, I can’t object.
Deteckating is a dangerous employment, and I know it.”
He went out and closed the door.
“There,” said Pie-Wagon Pete. “Ain’t
that better than beatin’ him up?”
“Maybe,” said Joe Henry
grudgingly. “Chances are he’s
such a dummy he’ll go right ahead
follerin’ me. He needs a good scare thrown
into him.”
Billy Getz slid from his stool and
ran his hands deep into his pockets, jingling a few
coins and a bunch of keys.
“Want me to scare him?” he asked pleasantly.
“Say! You can do it, too!”
said Joe Henry eagerly. “You’re the
feller that can kid him to death. Go ahead.
If you do, I’ll give you a case of Six Star.
Ain’t that so, Pete?”
“Absolutely,” said Pie-Wagon.
“That’s a bet,” said Billy Getz
pleasantly. “Leave it to the Kidders.”
Philo Gubb went straight to his room
at the Widow Murphy’s, and having taken off
his shoes and coat, leaned back in his chair with his
feet on the bed, and opened “The Pale Avengers.”
He had never before read a dime novel, and this opened
a new world to him. He read breathlessly.
The style of the story was somewhat like this:
The picture on the wall swung aside
and Detective Brown stared into the muzzles of
two revolvers and the sharp eyes of the youngest
of the Pale Avengers. A thrill of horror swept
through the detective. He felt his doom was at
hand. But he did not cringe.
“Your time has
come!” said the Avenger.
“Be not too sure,”
said Detective Brown haughtily.
“Are you ready
to die?”
“Ever ready!”
The detective extended his hand toward
the table, on which his revolver lay. A
cruel laugh greeted him. It was the last
human voice he was to hear. As if by magic the
floor under his feet gave way. Down, down,
down, a thousand feet he was precipitated.
He tried to grasp the well-like walls of masonry,
but in vain. Nothing could stay him. As he
plunged into the deep water of the oubliette a
fiendish laugh echoed in his ears. The Pale
Avengers had destroyed one more of their adversaries.
Until he read this thrilling tale,
Philo Gubb had not guessed the fiendishness of malefactors
when brought to bay, and yet here it was in black
and white. The oubliette a dark, dank
dungeon hidden beneath the ground was a
favorite method of killing detectives, it seemed.
Generally speaking, the oubliette seemed to be the
prevailing fashion in vengeful murder. Sometimes
the bed sank into the oubliette; sometimes the floor
gave way and cast the victim into the oubliette; sometimes
the whole room sank slowly into the oubliette; but
death for the victim always lurked in the pit.
Before getting into bed Philo Gubb
examined the walls, the floor, and the ceiling of
his room. They seemed safe and secure, but twice
during the night he awoke with a cry, imagining himself
sinking through the floor.
Three nights later, as Philo Gubb
stood in the dark doorway of the Willcox Building
waiting to pick up any suspicious character, Billy
Getz slipped in beside him and drew him hastily to
the back of the entry.
“Hush! Not a word!”
he whispered. “Did you see a man in the
window across the street? The third window on
the top floor?”
“No,” whispered Philo Gubb. “Was was
there one?”
“With a rifle!” whispered
Billy Getz. “Ready to pick you off.
Come! It is suicide for you to try to go out
the front way now. Follow me; I have news for
you. Step quietly!”
He led the paper-hanger through the
back corridor to the open air and up the outside back
stairs to the third floor and into the building.
He tapped lightly on a door and it was opened the merest
crack.
“Friends,” whispered Billy
Getz, and the door opened wide and admitted them.
The room was the club-room of the
Kidders, where they gathered night after night to
play cards and drink illicit whiskey. Green shades
over which were hung heavy curtains protected the
windows. A large, round table stood in the middle
of the floor under the gas-lights; a couch was in
one corner of the room; and these, with the chairs
and a formless heap in a far corner, over which a
couch-cover was thrown, constituted all the furniture,
except for the iron cuspidors. Here the young
fellows came for their sport, feeling safe from intrusion,
for the possession of whiskey was against the law.
There was a fine of five hundred dollars one
half to the informer for the misdemeanor
of having whiskey in one’s possession, but the
Kidders had no fear. They knew each other.
For the moment the cards were put
away and the couch-cover hid the four cases of Six
Star that represented the club’s stock of liquor.
The five young men already in the room were sitting
around the table.
“Sit down, Detective Gubb,”
said Billy Getz. “Here we are safe.
Here we may talk freely. And we have something
big to talk to-night.”
Philo Gubb moved a chair to the table.
He had to push one of the cuspidors aside to make
room, and as he pushed it with his foot he saw an
oblong of paper lying in it among the sand and cigar
stubs. It was a Six Star whiskey label.
He turned his head from it with his bird-like twist
of the neck and let his eyes rest on Billy Getz.
“We know who dynamited those
houses!” said Billy Getz suddenly. “Do
you know Jack Harburger?”
“No,” said Philo Gubb. “I don’t
know him.”
“Well, we do,” said Billy
Getz. “He’s the slickest ever.
He was the boss of the gang. Read this!”
He slid a sheet of note-paper across
to Philo Gubb, and the detective read it slowly:
Billy: Send me
five hundred dollars quick. I’ve got to
get
away from here.
J. H.
“And we made him our friend,”
said Billy Getz resentfully. “Why, he was
here the night of the dynamiting wasn’t
he, boys?”
“He sure was,” said the Kidders.
“Now, he’s nothing to
us,” said Billy Getz. “Now, what do
you say, Detective Gubb? If we fix it so you
can grab him, will you split the reward with us?”
“Half for you and half for me?”
asked Philo Gubb, his eyes as big as poker chips.
“Three thousand for you and
two for us, was what we figured was fair,” said
Billy Getz. “You ought to have the most.
You put in your experience and your education in detective
work.”
“And that ought to be worth
something,” admitted Philo Gubb.
So it was agreed. They explained
to Philo Gubb that Jack Harburger was the son
of old Harburger of the Harburger House at
Derlingport, and that they could count on the clerk
of that hotel to help them. Billy Getz would
go up and get things ready, and the next day Philo
Gubb would appear at the hotel in disguise,
of course and do his part. The clerk
would give him a room next to Jack Harburger’s
room, and see that there was a hidden opening in the
partition; and Billy Getz, pretending he was bringing
the money, would wring a full confession from Jack
Harburger. Then Philo Gubb need only step
into the room and snap the handcuffs on Jack Harburger
and collect the reward.
They shook hands all ’round,
finally, and Billy Getz went to the window to see
that no ghoul was lurking in the street, ready to murder
Philo Gubb when he went out. As he turned away
from the window the toe of his shoe caught in the
fringe of the couch-cover and dragged it partially
from the odd-shaped pile in the corner. With a
quick sweep of his hand Billy Getz replaced the cover,
but not before Philo Gubb had seen the necks of a
full case of bottles and had caught the glint of the
label on one of them, bearing the six silver stars,
like that in the cuspidor. Billy Getz cast a
quick glance at the Correspondence School detective’s
face, but Philo Gubb, his head well back on his stiff
neck, was already gazing at the door.
Two days later Philo Gubb, with his
telescope valise in his hand, boarded the morning
train for Derlingport. The river was on one of
its “rampages” and the water came close
to the tracks. Here and there, on the way to
Derlingport, the water was over the tracks, and in
many places the wagon-road, which followed the railway,
was completely swamped, and the passing vehicles sank
in the muddy water to their hubs. The year is
still known as the “year of the big flood.”
In Riverbank the water had flooded the Front Street
cellars, and in Derlingport the sewers had backed
up, flooding the entire lower part of the town.
When the train reached Derlingport
Philo Gubb, with his telescope valise, which contained
his twelve Correspondence School lessons, “The
Pale Avengers,” a pair of handcuffs, his revolver,
and three extra disguises, walked toward the Harburger
House. He was already thoroughly disguised, wearing
a coal-black beard and a red mustache and an iron-gray
wig with long hair. Luckily he passed no one.
With that disguise he would have drawn an immense
crowd. Nothing like it had ever been seen on
the streets of Derlingport or elsewhere,
for that matter.
A full block away Philo Gubb saw the
sign of the hotel, and he immediately became cautious,
as a detective should. He crossed the street
and observed the exits. There was a main entrance
on the corner, a “Ladies’ Entrance”
at the side, and an entrance to what had once been
the bar-room. From the fire-escape one could drop
to the street without great injury.
Philo Gubb noted all these, and then
walked to the alley. There were two doors opening
on the alley one a cook’s door, and
the other evidently leading to the cellar. At
the latter a dray stood, and as Philo Gubb paused
there, two men came from this door and laid a bale
of hay on the dray, pushing it forward carefully.
They did not toss it carelessly onto the dray but
slid it onto the dray. And the hay was wet.
Moreover, the two men were two of Joe Henry’s
men, and that was odd. It was odd that Joe Henry
should send a dray the full thirty miles to Derlingport
to get a load of wet hay, when he could get all the
dry hay he wanted in Riverbank. But it did not
impress Philo Gubb. He hurried to the main entrance
of the hotel, and entered.
The lobby of the Harburger House
was large, and gloomy in its old-fashioned black-walnut
woodwork. Except for one man sitting at a desk
by the window and writing industriously, and the clerk
behind the counter, the lobby was untenanted.
To the left a huge stairway led to the gloom above,
for the hotel boasted no elevator except the huge
“baggage lift,” which had been put in in
the palmy days of the house, when the great river
packets were still a business factor.
Philo Gubb walked across the lobby
to the clerk’s desk. The industrious penman
by the window glanced over his shoulder. He looked
more like a hotel clerk than like a traveling salesman,
but Philo Gubb gave this no thought. The clerk
behind the desk put his fingers on his lips.
“Sh!” he whispered.
“Are you Detective Gubb? Good! I’ve
been expecting you. Have you a gun?”
“In my telescope case,” whispered Philo
Gubb.
“Take this one,” said
the clerk, handing the paper-hanger-detective a glittering
revolver. “Be careful. Come I’ll
show you the room.”
He came from behind the desk and picked
up Philo Gubb’s telescope valise and led the
way up the dingy stairway. Luckily for Billy Getz’s
great practical joke, Philo Gubb had never seen Jack
Harburger, or he would have recognized him in
the plump little man carrying his telescope valise.
Up three flights of dark stairs, Jack Harburger
led Philo Gubb, and at the landing of the fourth floor
he stopped.
“You were taking a risk a big risk coming
undisguised,” he said.
“But I am disguised,”
said Philo Gubb. “These here is false whiskers
and hair.”
“What!” exclaimed Jack
Harburger. “Wonderful work! A
splendid make-up, detective! You fooled me with
it, and I was on my guard. You’ll do.
Bend down like an old man. That’s it!
Now, listen: I have cut a hole through the wall
from your room into Jack’s. You can hear
every word he speaks. Have you pencil and paper?
Good! Jot down every word you hear. And
don’t make a sound. If you are discovered well,
they’re a desperate gang. Come!”
He led the way through a long, dark
corridor that turned and twisted. At the extreme
end he stopped, put down the telescope valise, and
drew a key from his pocket.
“That’s Jack’s room,”
he breathed softly, “and you go in here.
Sorry it isn’t a better room. We had to
use it, and you won’t be here long, anyway.”
He opened the door. It was a
large door that swung outward, and it occupied one
half of one side of the room. The floor of the
room was carpeted, and the walls were papered, as
was the ceiling. There was no window, but an
electric light burned in the center of the ceiling.
Across the far side of the room stood a narrow iron
bed, with a small bureau beside it. Jack Harburger
pointed to a hole in the wall-paper.
“That’s your ear-hole,”
he whispered, and Philo Gubb stepped into the room.
Instantly the door slammed behind him, the key turned
in the lock, and he heard a heavy iron bar clank as
it fell into place outside. He was a prisoner,
caught like a rat in a trap, and he knew it!
He threw himself against the door, but it did not give.
The electric light above his head went dark.
He put out his hand, and the wall gave slightly.
He drew the revolver and waited, dreading what might
next occur. He heard soft footsteps outside the
door, and, raising the revolver, pulled the trigger.
The trigger snapped harmlessly. He had been tricked,
tricked all around.
“Is the oubliette prepared?” whispered
a voice outside.
“All ready for him. Twelve feet of water.
He’ll drown like a rat.”
“Good. A slow death, like
a rat in a trap like we served the other
two. Then get rid of his body the same way.”
“A stone on it, and the river?”
“Yes. They never come up again.”
The voices died away along the corridor,
and Philo Gubb was left in utter silence. Oubliette!
The fate of the detectives of “The Pale Avengers”
was to be his! Suddenly the room began to quiver.
The floor and the walls trembled and creaked, and
Philo Gubb threw himself once more against the door.
He shouted and beat upon it with his hands. Inch
by inch, creaking and swaying, the room glided downward.
The door seemed to glide upward beyond the ceiling,
giving place to a solid wall. He turned and beat
on the side of the room, and it gave forth a hollow
sound. As he moved, the room swayed under his
feet. He was doomed!
Alone in the darkness, his fear suddenly
gave way to a feeling of pride. He was dangerous
enough, then, to be thought worthy of death?
His last drop of doubt oozed out of his mind.
He was he must be a great detective,
or such means would not have been taken to get rid
of him. He felt a sort of calm joy in this.
His murderers knew his prowess.
Locked in the room, going down to
certain death, he exulted. And if he was as great
as all that, it could not be that his position was
hopeless. Time and again Carl Carroll, the Boy
Detective, had been in equally precarious positions,
but in the end he had brought the Pale Avengers low.
And what a boy, untrained, could do, a graduate of
the Rising Sun Correspondence School of Detecting
ought to be able to do! He drew his knife from
his pocket and cut into the wall-paper of the side
wall.
Being a paper-hanger, the first touch
of his hand against the side wall had told him the
wall-paper was pasted on canvas and not on a solid
wall, and now he ripped the canvas away. The wall
was of rough boards, scarred and marred. The
opposite wall was the same. He kneeled on the
bed and tried the rear wall. He felt the plastered
wall gliding upward. He stood on the bed and
ripped the canvas ceiling away.
As he ripped the ceiling away, light
entered the cage from a dirty skylight far above.
Just over his head a heavy iron grating covered the
cage, barring him in, but high up he could see the
great drum, from which the cable slowly unwound as
the car descended. He was in an elevator, but
this knowledge gave him small comfort. Cage, room,
or elevator call it what he chose it
was relentlessly descending into the flooded cellar.
He watched the drum with fascinated eyes, as the wire
cable unwound itself. He lay back on the bed,
his feet hanging to the floor, and stared upward.
He could not take his eyes from the revolving drum.
It was like a clock, marking the moments he still had
to live.
But suddenly he was galvanized into
action. Over his feet something cold ran, making
him jerk them from the floor. It was the water
of the oubliette, and he gazed on it with horror as
it rose, inch by inch, toward him. Slowly, as
the car dropped, the water crept up. It reached
the first drawer of the small bureau. It crept
up to the side rails of the bed. It wet the mattress and
still it rose. He stood on the bed and grasped
the iron grating above his head.
“Stop!” whispered a voice
above his head, and the creaking cage stopped.
“Gubb! Detective Gubb!”
whispered the voice, and Philo Gubb looked upward.
“Listen, Detective Gubb,” said the voice.
“One touch of my hand on the lever, and you
will be dropped beneath the waters, never to appear
again, except dead. One only chance remains for
your life, and, blackened with crime though we are,
we offer you that chance. If you will swear to
leave the State, never to return, we will spare you.
What say you, Philo Gubb?”
It was an offer no mortal could refuse.
Life, after all, is sweet. Philo Gubb, the relentless
Correspondence School detective, opened his mouth,
but as he turned his head upward, he closed it again
and licked his lips twice.
“No, durn ye!” he shouted
angrily. “I won’t never do no such
thing!”
There was a hurried whispering of
many voices above him.
“Think well,” said the
voice again. “We will give you until midnight
to reconsider your rashness. Until midnight, Detective
Gubb!”
“You can’t scare me!” shouted
Philo Gubb.
“Until midnight!” repeated the voice,
and then there was silence.
Philo Gubb immediately drew his heavy
pocket-knife from his pocket and began cutting out
one of the panels of the door that shut him in on
one side. He did not work hurriedly. He was
not at all frightened. Looking up, he had seen
the drum, and there was no more cable on the drum
to be unwound. The car could descend no farther.
His feet were as wet as they could get. Unless
the river rose to unbelievable height, he could not
be drowned in the makeshift oubliette, unless he voluntarily
lay down in the shallow water and inhaled it.
He worked on the panel slowly, but with the earnestness
of a very angry victim of a hoax. The panel fell
outward with a splash, and floated away. Philo
Gubb bent sideways and squeezed out of the small opening
into the cellar.
The huge cellar was dusky in the dim
light that entered through the cobwebbed panes, high
in the wall. It was an immense place, and now
knee-deep in water, except for a gangway of boards
laid on low trestles, which led from one side of the
cellar to the cellar door. There were coal-bins
and vegetable-bins, like watery bays leading from
the general cellar sea, and strange appliance
to discover in a hotel cellar a small hay-baling
press stood on an extemporized platform against one
wall, and alongside it, on a long table, such as are
seen in factories, bales of hay, some complete and
some torn open and cases! The cases
were labeled “Blue River Canned Tomatoes,”
but one, split across the end, gave evidence that
their contents were not canned tomatoes at all.
Through the crack in the case glittered the six silver
stars of the Six Star whiskey. There were twenty-six
of the cases.
Philo Gubb waded to the raised gangway
and walked to the cellar door. It was double-barred
on the inside, and he lifted the bars cautiously and
stepped into the alley, closing the door carefully
behind him. He pulled his false whiskers and
wig from his face and stuffed them in his pockets
and hurried down the alley.
When he returned, Billy Getz, Jack
Harburger, and six of the Kidders were holding
high revel in the closed bar-room of the Harburger
House, but they all fell silent when the door opened
and the Sheriff of Derling County entered, with Philo
Gubb and three deputies in company. It was evident
that the Sheriff did not consider Philo Gubb a joke.
“Search-warrant, Jack,”
he said to Harburger. “Detective Gubb,
of Riverbank, has been doing some sleuthing in your
hotel, he says. We want to have a look at the
cellar.”
The next morning the “Riverbank
Eagle” was full of Philo Gubb again. Through
the superb acumen of that wonderful detective, three
stores of whiskey had been discovered and confiscated one
in the cellar of the Harburger House at Derlingport;
one in Joe Henry’s stable at Riverbank; and
a smaller one in the room in the Willcox Building
frequented by the “Kidders.”
“How I done it?” said
Philo Gubb to one of his admirers. “I done
it like a deteckative does it a deteckative
that wants to detect picks up some feller
that looks suspicious-like, like it says in Lesson
Four, Rule Four. And then he shadows and trails
him, like it says in Lesson Four, Rules Four to Seventeen.
And then somethin’s bound to happen.”
“But how can you tell what’s
goin’ to happen?” asked his admirer.
“Well, sir,” said Philo
Gubb, “that’s the beauty of the deteckative
business. You don’t ever know what’s
goin’ to happen until it happens.”