near this show.”
“But, Mr. Dorgan, dearie, think how he’d draw crowds,” said Syrilla.
“Crowds? Of course he’d draw crowds,” said Mr. Dorgan. “But what would I say when I lectured about him? What would I call him? No, he’s got to go. Boys,” he said to the four roustabouts, two of whom were those Mr. Gubb had seen in the property tent, “throw this feller out of the tent.”
“Stop!” said Mr. Gubb, raising one hand. “I will admit I have tried to deceive you: I am not a Tasmanian Wild Man. I am a deteckative!”
“Detective?” said Mr. Dorgan.
“In disguise,” said Mr. Gubb modestly. “In the deteckative profession the assuming of disguises is often necessary to the completion of the clarification of a mystery plot.”
He pointed down at the Pet, whose newly rouged and powdered face rested smirkingly in the box below the cage.
“I arrest you all,” he said, but before he could complete the sentence, the red-headed man and the black-headed man turned and bolted from the tent. Mr. Gubb beat and jerked at the bars of his cage as frantically as Mr. Waldo Emerson Snooks had ever beaten and jerked, but he could not rend them apart.
“Get those two fellers,” Mr. Gubb shouted to Mr. Hoxie, and the strong man ran from the tent.
“What’s this about arrest?” asked Mr. Dorgan.
“I arrest this whole side-show,” said Mr. Gubb, pressing his face between the bars of the cage, “for the murder of that poor, gentle, harmless man now a dead corpse into that blue box there—Mr. Winterberry by name, but called by you by the alias of the ‘Pet.’”
“Winterberry?” exclaimed Mr. Dorgan. “That Winterberry? That ain’t Winterberry! That’s a stone man, a made-to-order concrete man, with hollow tile stomach and reinforced concrete arms and legs. I had him made to order.”
“The criminal mind is well equipped with explanations for use in time of stress,” said Mr. Gubb. “Lesson Six of the Correspondence School of Deteckating warns the deteckative against explanations of murderers when confronted by the victim. I demand an autopsy onto Mr. Winterberry.”
“Autopsy!” exclaimed Mr. Dorgan. “I’ll autopsy him for you!”
He grasped one of the Pet’s hands and wrenched off one concrete arm. He struck the head with a tent stake and shattered it into crumbling concrete. He jerked the Roman tunic from the body and disclosed the hollow tile stomach.
“Hello!” he said, lifting a rag-wrapped parcel from the interior of the Pet. “What’s this?”
When unwrapped it proved to be two dozen silver forks and spoons and a good-sized silver trophy cup.
“‘Riverbank Country Club, Duffers’ Golf Trophy, 1909?’” Mr. Dorgan read. “‘Won by Jonas Medderbrook.’ How did that get there?”
“Jonas Medderbrook,” said Mr. Gubb, “is a man of my own local town.”
“He is, is he?” said Mr. Dorgan. “And what’s your name?”
“Gubb,” said the detective. “Philo Gubb, Esquire, deteckative and paper-hanger, Riverbank, Iowa.”
“Then this is for you,” said Mr. Dorgan, and he handed the telegram to Mr. Gubb. The detective opened it and read:—
Gubb,
Care of Circus,
Bardville, Ia.
My house robbed circus night. Golf cup gone. Game now rotten: never win another. Five hundred dollars reward for return to me.
Jonas Medderbrook
“You didn’t actually come here to find Mr. Winterberry, did you?” asked Syrilla.
Mr. Gubb folded the telegram, raised his matted hair, and tucked the telegram between it and his own hair for safe-keeping.
“When a deteckative starts out to detect,” he said calmly, “sometimes he detects one thing and sometimes he detects another. That cup is one of the things I deteckated to-day. And now, if all are willing, I’ll step outside and get my pants on. I’ll feel better.”
“And you’ll look better,” said Mr. Dorgan. “You couldn’t look worse.”
“In the course of the deteckative career,” said Mr. Gubb, “a gent has to look a lot of different ways, and I thank you for the compliment. The art of disguising the human physiology is difficult. This disguise is but one of many I am frequently called upon to assume.”
“Well, if any more are like this one,” said Mr. Dorgan with sincerity, “I’m glad I’m not a detective.”
Syrilla, however, heaved her several hundred pounds of bosom and cast her eyes toward Mr. Gubb.
“I think detectives are lovely in any disguise,” she said, and Mr. Gubb’s heart beat wildly.
The Eagle’s Claws
As Philo Gubb boarded the train for Riverbank after recovering the silver loving-cup from the interior of the petrified man, he cast a regretful glance backward. It was for Syrilla. There was half a ton of her pinky-white beauty, and her placid, cow-like expression touched an echoing chord in Philo Gubb’s heart.
Philo felt, however, that his admiration must be hopeless, for Syrilla must earn a salary in keeping with her size, and his income was too irregular and small to keep even a thin wife.
Five hundred dollars was a large reward for a loving-cup that cost not over thirty dollars, it is true, but Mr. Jonas Medderbrook could afford to pay what he chose, and as he was passionately fond of golf and passionately poor at the game, and as this was probably the only golf prize he would ever win, he was justified in paying liberally, especially as this cup was not merely a tankard, but almost large enough to be called a tank.
Detective Gubb hastened to the home of Mr. Medderbrook, but when the door of that palatial house opened, the colored butler told Mr. Gubb that Mr. Medderbrook was at the Golf Club, attending the annual banquet of the Fifty Worst Duffers. Mr. Gubb started for the Golf Club. As he walked he thought of Syrilla, and he was at the gate of the Golf Club before he knew it.
He walked up the path toward the club-house, but when halfway, he stopped short, all his detective instincts aroused. The windows of the club-house glowed with light, and sounds of merriment issued from them, but the cause of Philo Gubb’s sudden pause was a head silhouetted against one of the glowing windows. As Mr. Gubb watched, he saw the head disappear in the gloom below the window only to reappear at another window. Mr. Gubb, following the directions as laid down in Lesson Four of the Correspondence Lessons, dropped to his hands and knees and crept silently toward the “Paul Pry.” When within a few feet of him, Mr. Gubb seated himself tailor-fashion on the grass.
As Philo sat on the damp grass, the man at the window turned his head, and Mr.
