Ellis Parker Butler

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 nobly 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, buttermilk, cider, soda-water, root beer, tea, koumyss, coffee, ginger ale, bevo, Bronx cocktails, grape juice, and absinthe frappÉ. 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. “Scrape 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.”

She handed the second letter to Mr. Gubb. It ran thus:—

P. Scroggs:—

A complete study of the history and antiquities of Diocese of Ossory fails to reveal the presence of a single individual bearing the name of Scroggs from the year 1085 to date.

Like the first letter this was signed with a waved line. Mr. Gubb studied it carefully.

“I don’t see no sign of a threat in that,” he said.

“Not unless you should say it was belittling me to tell me to my face that no Scroggs ever lived wherever that says they didn’t live,” said Miss Petunia. “Now, here’s the next letter.”

Mr. Gubb read it. It ran thus:—

“I shouldn’t call that exactly scurrilous, neither,” said Mr. Gubb.

“It ain’t,” said Miss Petunia, “and unless you can call a mention of threatening weather a threat, I wouldn’t call it a threatening letter. And then I got this letter.”

She handed Mr. Gubb the fourth letter, and he read it. It ran:—

Mr. Gubb, having read this letter, shook his head and placed the letter on top of those he had previously read. It was signed with the wiggle like the others.

“Speaking as a deteckative,” he said, “I don’t see anything into these letters yet that would fetch the writer into the grasp of the law. Are they all like this?”

“If you mean do they say they are going to murder me, or do they call me names,” said Miss Scroggs, “they don’t. Here, take them!”

Mr. Gubb took the remaining letters and read them. There were about a dozen of them. While peculiar epistles to write to a maiden lady of forty-five years, they were not what one might call violent. They were, in part, as follows:—

“I don’t see nothing much into them,” said Mr. Gubb, when he had read them all. “I don’t see much of a deteckative case into them. If I was to get letters like these I wouldn’t worry much about them. I’d let them come.”

“You may say that,” said Miss Petunia, “because you are a man, and big and strong and brave-like. But when a person is a woman, and lives alone, and has some money laid by that some folks would be glad enough to get, letters coming right along from she don’t know who, scare her. Every time I get another of those Anonymous Wiggle letters I get more and more nervous. If they said, ‘Give me five thousand dollars or I will kill you,’ I would know what to do, but when a letter comes that says, like that one does, ‘Swedish iron is largely used in the manufacture of upholstery tacks,’ I don’t know what to think or what to do.”

“I can see to understand that it might worry you some,” said Mr. Gubb sympathetically. “What do you want I should do?”

“I want you should find out who wrote the letters,” said Miss Scroggs.

Mr. Gubb looked at the pile of letters.

“It’s going to be a hard job,” he said. “I’ve got to try to guess out a cryptogram in these letters. I ought to have a hundred dollars.”

“It’s a good deal, but I’ll pay it,” said Miss Petunia. “I ain’t rich, but I’ve got quite a little money in the bank, and I own the house I live in and a farm I rent. Pa left me money and property worth about ten thousand dollars, and I haven’t wasted it. So go ahead.”

“I’ll so do,” said Philo Gubb; “and first off I’ll ask you who your neighbors are.”

“My neighbors!” exclaimed Miss Petunia.

“On both sides,” said Mr. Gubb, “and who comes to your house most?”

“Well, I declare!” said Miss Petunia. “I don’t know what you are getting at, but on one side I have no neighbors at all, and on the other side is Mrs. Canterby. I guess she comes to my house oftener than anybody else.”

“I am acquainted with Mrs. Canterby,” said Mr. Gubb. “I did a job of paper-hanging there only last week.”

“Did you, indeed?” said Miss Scroggs politely. “She’s a real nice lady.”

“I don’t give opinions on deteckative matters until I’m sure,” said Mr. Gubb. “She seems nice enough to the naked eye. I don’t want to get you to suspicion her or nobody, Miss Scroggs, but about the only clue I can grab hold of is that first letter you got. It said to look on page fourteen, and all the pages by that number was torn out of your books—”

“Except my cook-book,” said Miss Petunia.

“And a person naturally wouldn’t go to think of a cook-book as a real book,” said Mr. Gubb. “If you stop to think, you’ll see that whoever wrote that letter must have beforehand tore out all the page fourteens from the books into your house, for some reason.”

“Why, yes!” exclaimed Miss Scroggs, clapping her hands together. “How wise you are!”

“Deteckative work fetches deteckative wisdom,” said Mr. Gubb modestly. “I don’t want to throw suspicion at Mrs. Canterby, but Letter Number One points at her first of all.”

“O—h, yes! O—h my! And I never even thought of that!” cried Miss Petunia admiringly.

“Us deteckatives have to think of things,” said Philo Gubb. “And so we will say, just for cod, like, that Mrs. Canterby got at your books and ripped out the pages. She’d think: ‘What will Miss Petunia do when she finds she hasn’t any page fourteens to look at? She’ll rush out to borrow a book to look at.’ Now, where would you rush out to borrow a book if you wanted to borrow one in a hurry?”

“To Mrs. Canterby’s house!” exclaimed Miss Petunia.

“Just so!” said Mr. Gubb. “You’d rush over and you’d say, ‘Mrs. Canterby, lend me a book!’ And she would hand you a book, and when you looked at page fourteen, and read the first full sentence on the page, what would you read?”

“What would I read?” asked Miss Scroggs breathlessly.

“You would read what she meant you to read,” said Mr. Gubb triumphantly. “So, then what? If I was in her place and I had written a letter to you, meaning to give you a threat in a roundabout way, and it went dead, I’d write some foolish letters to you to make you think the whole thing was just foolishness. I’d write you letters about weather and tacks and cats and lime and trout, and such things, to throw you off the scent. Maybe,” said Mr. Gubb, with a smile, “I’d just copy bits out of a newspaper.”

“How wonderfully wonderful!” exclaimed Miss Petunia.

“That is what us deteckatives spend the midnight oil learning the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency’s Correspondence School lessons for,” said Mr. Gubb. “So, if my theory is right, what you want to do when you get back home is to rush over to Mrs. Canterby’s and ask to borrow a book, and look on page fourteen.”

“And then come back and tell you what it says?” asked Miss Petunia.

“Just so!” said Philo Gubb.

Miss Petunia arose with a simper, and Mr. Gubb arose to open the door for her. He felt particularly gracious. Never in his career had he been able to apply the inductive system before, and he was well pleased with himself. His somewhat melancholy eyes almost beamed on Miss Petunia, and he felt a warm glow in his heart for the poor little thing who had come to him in her trouble. As he stood waiting for Miss Scroggs to gather up her feather boa and her parasol and her black hand-bag, he felt the dangerous pity of the strong for the weak.

Miss Petunia held out her hand with a pretty gesture. She was fully forty-five, but she was kittenish for her age. There was something almost girlish in her manner, and the long, dancing brown curls that hung below her very youthful hat added to the effect. When she had shaken Mr. Gubb’s hand she half-skipped, half-minced out of his office.

“An admirable creature,” said Mr. Gubb to himself, and he turned to his microscope and began to study the ink of the letters under that instrument. His next work must be to find the identical ink and the identical writing-paper. He had no doubt he would find them in Mrs. Canterby’s home. The ink was a pale blue in places, deepening to a strong blue in other places, with grainy blue specks. He decided, rightly, that this “ink” had been made of laundry blue. The paper was plain note-paper, glossy of surface and with blue lines, and, in the upper left corner, the maker’s impress. This was composed of three feathers with the word “Excellent” beneath. The envelopes were of the proper size to receive the letters. They bore an unmistakable odor of toilet soap and chewing-gum.

“Dusenberry!” said Mr. Gubb, and smiled.

Hod Dusenberry kept a small store near the home of Mrs. Canterby. There seemed no doubt that the coils of the investigation were tightening around Mrs. Canterby, and Mr. Gubb put on his hat and went out. He went to Hod Dusenberry’s store. Mr. Dusenberry sat behind the counter.

“I came in,” said Mr. Gubb, “to purchase a bottle of ink off of you.”

“There, now!” said Mr. Dusenberry self-accusingly. “That’s the third call for ink I’ve had in less’n two months. I been meanin’ to lay in more ink right along and it allus slips my mind. I told Miss Scroggs when she asked for ink—”

“And what did you tell Mrs. Canterby when she asked for ink?” asked Mr. Gubb.

“Mrs. Canterby?” said Hod Dusenberry. “Maybe I ought to see the joke, but I’m feelin’ stupid to-day, I reckon. What’s the laugh part?”

“It wasn’t my intentional aim to furnish laughable amusement,” said Detective Gubb seriously. “What did Mrs. Canterby say when she asked for ink and you didn’t have none?”

“She didn’t say nothin’,” said Mr. Dusenberry, “because she never asked me for no ink, never! She don’t trade here. That’s all about Mrs. Canterby.”

The Correspondence School detective had been leaning on the show-case, and with the shrewdness of his kind had let his eyes search its contents. In the show-case was writing-paper of the very sort the Anonymous Wiggle letters had been written on—also envelopes strangely similar to those that had held the letters.

Mr. Gubb smiled pleasantly at Mr. Dusenberry.

“I’d make a guess that Mrs. Canterby don’t buy her writing-paper off you neither?” he hazarded.

“You guess mighty right she don’t,” said Mr. Dusenberry.

“And maybe you don’t recall who ever bought writing-paper like this into the case here?” said Mr. Gubb.

“I guess maybe I do, just the same,” said Mr. Dusenberry promptly. “And it ain’t hard to recall, either, because nobody buys it but Miss ’Tunie Scroggs. ’Tunie is the all-firedest female I ever did see. Crazy after a husband, ’Tunie is.” He chuckled. “If I wasn’t married already I dare say ’Tunie would have worried me into matrimony before now. ’Tunie’s trouble is that everybody knows her too well—men all keep out of her way. But she’s a dandy, ’Tunie is. They tell me that when Hinterman, the plumber, hired a new man up to Derlingport and ’Tunie found out he was a single feller, she went to work and had new plumbing put in her house, just so’s the feller would have to come within her reach. But he got away.”

“He did?” said Mr. Gubb nervously.

“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Dusenberry. “He stood ’Tunie as long as he could, and then he threw up his job and went back to Derlingport. They tell me she don’t do nothin’ much now but set around the house and think up new ways to git acquainted with men that ain’t heard enough of her to stay shy of her. Sorry I ain’t got no ink, Mr. Gubb.”

“It’s a matter of no consequential importance, thank you,” said Mr. Gubb, and he went out. He was distinctly troubled. He recalled now that Miss Scroggs had smiled in a winning way when she spoke to him, and that she had quite warmly pressed his hand when she departed. With a timid bachelor’s extreme fear of designing women, Mr. Gubb dreaded another meeting with Miss Scroggs. Only his faithfulness to his Correspondence School diploma had power to keep him at work on the Anonymous Wiggle case, and he walked thoughtfully toward the home of Mrs. Canterby. He went to the back door and knocked gently. Mrs. Canterby came to the door.

“Good-afternoon,” said Mr. Gubb. “I been a little nervous about that paper I hung onto your walls. If I could take a look at it—”

“Well, now, Mr. Gubb, that’s real kind of you,” said Mrs. Canterby. “You can look and welcome. If you just wait until I excuse myself to Miss Scroggs—”

“Is she here?” asked Mr. Gubb with a hasty glance toward his avenues of escape.

“She just run in to borrow a book to read,” said Mrs. Canterby, “and she’s having some trouble finding one to suit her taste. She’s in my lib’ry sort of glancing through some books.”

“Does—does she glance through to about near to page fourteen?” asked Mr. Gubb nervously.

“Now that you call it to mind,” said Mrs. Canterby, “that’s about how far she is glancing through them. She’s glanced through about sixteen, and she’s still glancing. She thinks maybe she’ll take ‘Myra’s Lover, or The Hidden Secret,’ but she ain’t sure. She come over to borrow ‘Weldon Shirmer,’ but I had lent that to a friend. She was real disappointed I didn’t have it.”

Mr. Gubb wiped the perspiration from his face. He too would have liked at that moment to have seen a copy of “Weldon Shirmer,” and to have read what stood at the top of page fourteen.

“If it ain’t too much trouble, Mrs. Canterby,” he said, “I wish you would sort of fetch that Myra book out here without Miss Scroggs’s knowing you done so. I got a special reason for it, in my deteckative capacity. And I wish you wouldn’t mention to Miss Scroggs about my being here.”

“Land sakes!” said Mrs. Canterby. “What’s up now? Miss Scroggs she’s right interested in you, too. She made inquiries of me about you when you was working here. She says she thinks you are a real handsome gentleman.”

Mrs. Canterby laughed coyly and went out, and Mr. Gubb dropped into a chair and wiped his face again nervously. His eye, falling on the kitchen table, noted a sheet of writing-paper. It was the same style of paper as that on which the Anonymous Wiggle letters had been written. He bent forward and glanced at it. In blue ink evidently made of indigo dissolved in water, was written on the sheet a recipe. The writing, although undisguised and slanting properly, was beyond doubt the same as that of the Wiggle letters. When Mrs. Canterby returned to the kitchen with “Myra’s Lover” hidden in the folds of her skirt, the perplexed Mr. Gubb held the recipe in his hand.

“By any chance of doubt,” he said, “do you happen to be aware of whom wrote this?”

“Petunia wrote it,” said Mrs. Canterby promptly, “and whatever are you being so mysterious for? There’s no mystery about that, for it’s her mince-meat recipe.”

“There is often mystery hidden into mince-meat recipes when least expected,” said Mr. Gubb. “I see you got the book.”

He took it and turned to page fourteen. At the top of the page were the words, completing a sentence, “—without turning a hair of his head.” Then followed the first complete sentence. It ran: “‘A woman like you,’ said Lord Cyril, ‘should be loved, cherished, and obeyed.’”

“Goodness!” exclaimed Mr. Gubb, and handed the book back to Mrs. Canterby.

“Why did you say that?” asked Mrs. Canterby.

“I was just judging by the book that Miss Scroggs is fond of love and affection in fiction tales,” he said.

“Fond of!” exclaimed Mrs. Canterby. “Far be it from me to say anything about a neighbor lady, but if Petunia Scroggs ain’t crazy over love and marriage I don’t know what. She’d do anything in the world to get a husband. I recall about Tim Wentworth—Furnaces Put In and Repaired—and how hungry Petunia used to look after him when he went by in his wagon, but she couldn’t get after him because she hasn’t a furnace in her house, but the minute he hung up the sign ‘Chimneys Cleaned,’ she was down to his shop and had him up to the place, and I know it for a fact, for I took some of the soot out of her eye myself, that she courted him so hard when he got to her house that even when he went to the roof to clean the chimney she stuck her head in the fireplace and talked up the flue at him.”

“Goodness!” said Mr. Gubb again. “I guess I’ll go on my way and look at your wall-paper some other day.”

Mrs. Canterby laughed.

“Just as you wish,” she said, “but if Petunia has set out after you, you won’t get away from her that easy.”

But Mr. Gubb was already moving to the door. He heard Miss Petunia’s voice calling Mrs. Canterby, and coming nearer and nearer, and he fled.

At Higgins’s book-store he stopped and asked to see a copy of “Weldon Shirmer,” and turned to page fourteen. “‘Fate,’” ran the first full sentence, “‘has decreed that you wed a solver of mysteries.’” Mr. Gubb shivered. This was the mysterious passage Miss Scroggs had meant to bring to his eyes in an impressive manner. He was sure of one thing: whatever Fate had decreed in the case of the heroine of “Weldon Shirmer,” Philo Gubb had no intention of allowing Fate to decree that one particular Correspondence School solver of mysteries should marry Miss Petunia Scroggs. He hurried to his office.

At the office door he paused to take his key from his pocket, but when he tried it in the lock he found the door had been left unlocked and he opened the door hastily and hurried inside. Miss Petunia Scroggs was sitting in his desk-chair, a winning smile on her lips and “Myra’s Lover, or The Hidden Secret,” in her lap.

“Dear, wonderful Mr. Gubb!” she said sweetly. “It was just as you said it would be. Here is the book Mrs. Canterby loaned me.”

For a moment Mr. Gubb stood like a flamingo fascinated by a serpent.

“You detectives are such wonderful men!” cooed Miss Petunia. “You live such thrilling lives! Ah, me!” she sighed. “When I think of how noble and how strong and how protective such as you are—”

Mr. Gubb kept his bird-like eyes fixed on Miss Petunia’s face, but he pawed behind himself for the door. He felt his hand touch the knob.

“And when I think of how helpless and alone I am,” said Miss Petunia, rising from her chair, “although I have ample money in the bank—”

Bang! slammed the door behind Mr. Gubb. Click! went the lock as he turned the key. His feet hurried to the stairs and down to the nearest street almost falling over Silas Washington, seated on the lowest step. The little negro looked up in surprise.

“Do you want to earn half a dollar?” asked Mr. Gubb hastily.

“’Co’se Ah do,” said Silas Washington. “What you want Ah shu’d do fo’ it?”

“Wait a portion of time where you are,” said Mr. Gubb, “and when you hear a sound of noise upstairs, go up and unlock Mister Philo Gubb, Deteckative, his door, and let out the lady.”

“Yassah!” said Silas.

“And when you let her exit out of the room,” said Mr. Gubb, “say to her: ‘Mister Gubb gives up the case.’ Understand?”

“Yassah!”

“Yes,” said Mr. Gubb, and he glanced up and down the street. “And say ‘—because it don’t make no particle bit of difference who the lady is, Mister Gubb wouldn’t marry nobody at no time of his life.’”

“Yassah!” said the little negro.