Ellis Butler - Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective

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. Gubb noted with surprise that the stranger had none of the marks of a sodden criminal. The face was that of a respectably benevolent old German-American gentleman. Kindliness and good-nature beamed from its lines; but at the moment the plump little man seemed in trouble.

“Good-evening,” said Mr. Gubb. “I presume you are taking an observation of the dinner-party within the inside of the club.”

The old gentleman turned sharply.

“Shess!” he said. “I look at der peoples eading and drinking. Alvays I like to see dot. Und sooch goot eaders! Dot man mit der black beard, he vos a schplendid eader!”

Mr. Gubb raised himself to his knees and looked into the dining-room.

“That,” he said, “is the Honorable Mr. Jonas Medderbrook, the wealthiest rich man in Riverbank.”

“Metterbrook? Mettercrook?” said the old German-American. “Not Chones, eh?”

“Not Jones, to my present personal knowledge at this time,” said Philo Gubb.

“Not Chones!” repeated the plumply benevolent-looking German-American. “Dot vos stranche! You vos sure he vos not Chones?”

“I’m quite almost positive upon that point of knowledge,” said Philo Gubb, “for I have under my arm a golf cup I am returning back to Mr. Medderbrook to receive five hundred dollars reward from him for.”

“So?” queried the stranger. “Fife hunderdt dollars? Und it is his cup?”

“It is,” said Philo Gubb. He raised the cup in his hand that the stranger might read the inscription stating that the cup was Jonas Medderbrook’s.

The light of the window made the engraving easy to read, but the old German-American first drew from his pocket a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and adjusted them carefully on his nose. He then took the cup and moved closer to the window and read the inscription.

“Shess! Shess!” he agreed, nodding his head several times, and then he smiled at Mr. Gubb a broadly benevolent smile. “Oxcoose me!” he added, and with gentle deliberation he removed Mr. Gubb’s hat. “Shoost a minute, please!” he continued, and with his free hand he felt gently of the top of Mr. Gubb’s head. He turned Mr. Gubb’s head gently to the right. “So!” he exclaimed: “Dot vos goot!” He raised the cup above his head and brought it down on top of Mr. Gubb’s head in the exact spot he had selected. For two moments Mr. Gubb made motions with his hands resembling those of a swimmer, and then he collapsed in a heap. The kindly looking old German-American gentleman, seeing he was quite unconscious, tucked the golf cup under his own arm, and waddled slowly down the path to the club gates.

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 bump 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 noble 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?’