Ellis Butler - Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective

Walking close along the wall, to avoid the creaking floor boards, Philo Gubb, paper-hanger and student of the Rising Sun Detective Agency’s Correspondence School of Detecting, tiptoed to the door of the bedroom he shared with the mysterious Mr. Critz. In appearance Mr. Gubb was tall and gaunt, reminding one of a modern Don Quixote or a human flamingo; by nature Mr. Gubb was the gentlest and most simple-minded of men. Now, bending his long, angular body almost double, he placed his eye to a crack in the door panel and stared into the room. Within, just out of the limited area of Mr. Gubb’s vision, Roscoe Critz paused in his work and listened carefully. He heard the sharp whistle of Mr. Gubb’s breath as it cut against the sharp edge of the crack in the panel, and he knew he was being spied upon. He placed his chubby hands on his knees and smiled at the door, while a red flush of triumph spread over his face.

Through the crack in the door Mr. Gubb could see the top of the washstand beside which Mr. Critz was sitting, but he could not see Mr. Critz. As he stared, however, he saw a plump hand appear and pick up, one by one, the articles lying on the washstand. They were: First, seven or eight half shells of English walnuts; second, a rubber shoe heel out of which a piece had been cut; third, a small rubber ball no larger than a pea; fourth, a paper-bound book; and lastly, a large and glittering brick of yellow gold. As the hand withdrew the golden brick, Mr. Gubb pressed his face closer against the door in his effort to see more, and suddenly the door flew open and Mr. Gubb sprawled on his hands and knees on the worn carpet of the bedroom.

“There, now!” said Mr. Critz. “There, now! Serves you right. Hope you hurt chuself!”

Mr. Gubb arose slowly, like a giraffe, and brushed his knees.

“Why?” he asked.

“Snoopin’ an’ sneakin’ like that!” said Mr. Critz crossly. “Scarin’ me to fits, a’most. How’d I know who ’twas? If you want to come in, why don’t you come right in, ’stead of snoopin’ an’ sneakin’ an’ fallin’ in that way?”

As he talked, Mr. Critz replaced the shells and the rubber heel and the rubber pea and the gold-brick on the washstand. He was a plump little man with a shiny bald head and a white goatee. As he talked, he bent his head down, so that he might look above the glasses of his spectacles; and in spite of his pretended anger he looked like nothing so much as a kindly, benevolent old gentleman – the sort of old gentleman that keeps a small store in a small village and sells writing-paper that smells of soap, and candy sticks out of a glass jar with a glass cover.

“How’d I know but what you was a detective?” he asked, in a gentler tone.

“I am,” said Mr. Gubb soberly, seating himself on one of the two beds. “I’m putty near a deteckative, as you might say.”

“Ding it all!” said Mr. Critz. “Now I got to go and hunt another room. I can’t room with no detective.”

“Well, now, Mr. Critz,” said Mr. Gubb, “I don’t want you should feel that way.”

“Knowin’ you are a detective makes me all nervous,” complained Mr. Critz; “and a man in my business has to have a steady hand, don’t he?”

“You ain’t told me what your business is,” said Mr. Gubb.

“You needn’t pretend you don’t know,” said Mr. Critz. “Any detective that saw that stuff on the washstand would know.”

“Well, of course,” said Mr. Gubb, “I ain’t a full deteckative yet. You can’t look for me to guess things as quick as a full deteckative would. Of course that brick sort of looks like a gold-brick – ”

“It is a gold-brick,” said Mr. Critz.

“Yes,” said Mr. Gubb. “But – I don’t mean no offense, Mr. Critz – from the way you look – I sort of thought – well, that it was a gold-brick you’d bought.”

Mr. Critz turned very red.

“Well, what if I did buy it?” he said. “That ain’t any reason I can’t sell it, is it? Just because a man buys eggs once – or twice – ain’t any reason he shouldn’t go into the business of egg-selling, is it? Just because I’ve bought one or two gold-bricks in my day ain’t any reason I shouldn’t go to sellin’ ’em, is it?”

Mr. Gubb stared at Mr. Critz with unconcealed surprise.

“You ain’t, – you ain’t a con’ man, are you, Mr. Critz?” he asked.

“If I ain’t yet, that’s no sign I ain’t goin’ to be,” said Mr. Critz firmly. “One man has as good a right to try his hand at it as another, especially when a man has had my experience in it. Mr. Gubb, there ain’t hardly a con’ game I ain’t been conned with. I been confidenced long enough; from now on I’m goin’ to confidence other folks. That’s what I’m goin’ to do; and I won’t be bothered by no detective livin’ in the same room with me. Detectives and con’ men don’t mix noways! No, sir!”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Gubb, “I can see the sense of that. But you don’t need to move right away. I don’t aim to start in deteckating in earnest for a couple of months yet. I got a couple of jobs of paper-hanging and decorating to finish up, and I can’t start in sleuthing until I get my star, anyway. And I don’t get my star until I get one more lesson, and learn it, and send in the examination paper, and five dollars extra for the diploma. Then I’m goin’ at it as a reg’lar business. It’s a good business. Every day there’s more crooks – excuse me, I didn’t mean to say that.”

“That’s all right,” said Mr. Critz kindly. “Call a spade a spade. If I ain’t a crook yet, I hope to be soon.”

“I didn’t know how you’d feel about it,” explained Mr. Gubb. “Tactfulness is strongly advised into the lessons of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency Correspondence School of Deteckating – ”

“Slocum, Ohio?” asked Mr. Critz quickly. “You didn’t see the ad. in the ‘Hearthstone and Farmside,’ did you?”

“Yes, Slocum, Ohio,” said Mr. Gubb, “and that is the paper I saw the ad. into; ‘Big Money in Deteckating. Be a Sleuth. We can make you the equal of Sherlock Holmes in twelve lessons.’ Why?”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Critz, “that’s funny. That ad. was right atop of the one I saw, and I studied quite considerable before I could make up my mind whether ’twould be best for me to be a detective and go out and get square with the fellers that sold me gold-bricks and things by putting them in jail, or to even things up by sending for this book that was advertised right under the ‘Rising Sun Correspondence School.’ How come I settled to do as I done was that I had a sort of stock to start with, with a fust-class gold-brick, and some green goods I’d bought; and this book only cost a quatter of a dollar. And she’s a hummer for a quatter of a dollar! A hummer!”

He pulled the paper-covered book from his pocket and handed it to Mr. Gubb. The title of the book was “The Complete Con’ Man, by the King of the Grafters. Price 25 cents.”

“That there book,” said Mr. Critz proudly, as if he himself had written it, “tells everything a man need to know to work every con’ game there is. Once I get it by heart, I won’t be afraid to try any of them. Of course, I got to start in small. I can’t hope to pull off a wire-tapping game right at the start, because that has to have a gang. You don’t know anybody you could recommend for a gang, do you?”

“Not right offhand,” said Mr. Gubb thoughtfully.

“If you wasn’t goin’ into the detective business,” said Mr. Critz, “you’d be just the feller for me. You look sort of honest and not as if you was too bright, and that counts a lot. Even in this here simple little shell game I got to have a podner. I got to have a podner I can trust, so I can let him look like he was winnin’ money off of me. You see,” he explained, moving to the washstand, “this shell game is easy enough when you know how. I put three shells down like this, on a stand, and I put the little rubber pea on the stand, and then I take up the three shells like this, two in one hand and one in the other, and I wave ’em around over the pea, and maybe push the pea around a little, and I say, ‘Come on! Come on! The hand is quicker than the eye!’ And all of a suddent I put the shells down, and you think the pea is under one of them, like that – ”