"Oh, I admit it! I admit it!" said the Bald Impostor hopelessly.
"Yes, sir!" said Philo Gubb. "And I admit it the whilst I admire it.
It is the most perfect disguise of an imitation I ever looked at."
"What?" asked the Bald Impostor.
"The disguise you"ve got onto yourself," said Philo Gubb. "It is most marvelously similar in likeness to the description in the letter. If you will take the complimentary flattery of a student, Mr. Burns, I will say I never seen no better disguise got up in the world. You are a real deteckative artist."
The Bald Impostor could not speak. He could only gasp.
"If I didn"t know who you were of your own self," said Philo Gubb in the most complimentary tones, "I"d have thought you were this here descriptioned Bald Impostor himself."
His visitor moistened his lips to speak, but Mr. Gubb did not give him an opportunity.
"I presume," said Mr. Gubb, "you have so done because you are working upon this Bald Impostor yourself."
"Yes. Oh, yes!" said the Bald Impostor hoa.r.s.ely. "Exactly."
"In that case," said Mr. Gubb, "I consider it a high compliment for you to call upon me. Us deteckatives don"t usually visit around in disguises."
The visitor moistened his lips again.
"I wanted to see," he said, but the words were so hoa.r.s.e they could hardly be heard,--"I wanted to see--"
"Well, now," said Philo Gubb contritely, "you mustn"t feel bad that I didn"t take you for that fraud feller right away off. I hadn"t read the letter through down to the description quite. If I had I would have mistook you for him at once. The resemblance is most remarkably unique."
"Thank you!" said the Bald Impostor, regaining more of his usual confidence. "And it was a hard disguise for me to a.s.sume. I"m not naturally reddish like this. My hair is long. And black. And--and my taste in clothes is quiet--mostly blacks or dark blues. Now the reason I am in this disguise--"
He was interrupted by a loud and strenuous knock on the door.
Mr. Gubb went to the door, but before he reached it his visitor had made one leap and was hidden behind the office desk, for a voice had called, impatiently, "Gubb!" and it was the voice of Judge Orley Morvis. When Detective Gubb had greeted his new visitor he turned to introduce the Judge--and a look of blank surprise swept his features.
Detective Burns was gone!
For a moment only, Detective Gubb was puzzled. There was but one place in the room capable of concealing a full-grown human being, and that was the s.p.a.ce behind the desk. He placed a chair for the Judge exactly in front of the desk and himself stood in a negligent att.i.tude with one elbow on the top of the desk. In this position he was able to turn his head and, by craning his neck a little, look down upon the false Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns made violent gestures, urging secrecy. Mr. Gubb allayed his fears.
"I"m glad you come just now, Judge," he said, "because we can say a few or more words together, there being n.o.body here but you and me. I presume you come to talk about the per diem charge I charged to you, didn"t you?"
"Yes, I did," said the Judge.
"Well, I"ll be able to prove quite presently or sooner that the price is correctly O.K.," said Mr. Gubb, "because the leading head of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency is right in town to-day, and as soon as he gets done with a job he has on hand he"s going up to see you. Maybe you"ve heard of Allwood Burns. He wrote the "Twelve Correspondence Lessons in Deteckating" by which I graduated out of the Deteckative Correspondence School."
"Never heard of him in my life," said the Judge.
"This here," said Mr. Gubb, not without pride, "is a personal letter I got from him this A.M. just now," and he handed the Judge the letter.
Judge Orley Morvis took the letter with an air of disdain and began to read it with a certain irritating superciliousness. Almost immediately he began to turn red behind the ears. Then his ears turned red. Then his whole face turned red. He breathed hard. His hand shook with rage.
"Well, of all the infernal--" he began and stopped.
"Has the aforesaid impostor been to see _you_?" asked Philo Gubb eagerly.
"Me? Nonsense!" exclaimed the Judge violently. "Do you think I would be taken in by a child"s trick like this? Nonsense, Mr. Gubb, nonsense!"
"I didn"t hardly think it was possible," said Detective Gubb.
"Possible?" cried the Judge with anger. "Do you think a common faker like that could hoodwink _me_? Me give an impostor twenty dollars!
Nonsense, sir!"
He arose. He was in a great rage about it. He stamped to the door.
"And don"t let me hear you retailing any such lie about me around this town, sir!" he exclaimed.
He slammed the door, and then the Bald Impostor slowly raised his head above the desk.
"What did you hide for?" asked Philo Gubb.
The Bald Impostor wiped his bedewed brow.
"Hide?" he said questioningly. "Oh, yes, I did hide, didn"t I? Yes.
Yes, I hid. You see--you see the Judge came in."
"If you hadn"t hid," said Philo Gubb, "I could have got that business of the per diem charge per day fixed up right here. I was going to introduce him to you."
"Yes--going to introduce him to me," said the Bald Impostor. "That was it. That was why I hid. You were going to introduce him to me, don"t you see?"
"I don"t quite comprehend the meaning of the reason," said Philo Gubb.
"Why, you see," said the Bald Impostor glibly,--"you see--if you introduced me to him--why--why, he"d know me."
"He"d know you?" said Philo Gubb.
"He"d know me," repeated the false Mr. Burns. "I"ll tell you why. The Bald Impostor _did_ call on him."
"Honest?"
"I was there," said the Bald Impostor. "The Judge gave him twenty dollars and a copy of some book or other he had written, and he wrote his autograph in the book. Remember that. The Judge wrote his autograph in a book--and gave it to the fellow. I"m telling you this so you can tell the Judge. Tell him I told you. Tell him the fellow"s mother is much better now. Tell him Judge Ba.s.s...o...b..tes"s toe is quite well. And then ask him for the twenty dollars he owes you. You"ll get it."
"And you was there?" asked Philo Gubb, amazed.
"Out of sight, but there," said the false Mr. Burns glibly. "Just ready to put my hand on the fellow--but I couldn"t. I hadn"t the heart to do it. I thought of the ridicule it would bring down on the poor old Judge. You know he"s an uncle of mine. I"m his nephew."
"He said," said Philo Gubb hesitatingly, "he"d never heard of you."
"He never did," said the Bald Impostor promptly. "I was his third sister"s adopted child--I am an adopted nephew. And of course you know he would never have anything to do with his sister after she married--ah--General Winston Wells. Not a thing! It was what killed my poor foster mother. Grief!"
He wiped his eyes with his silk handkerchief.
"Grief. Yes, grief. And I hadn"t the heart to bring shame to the old man by arresting the Impostor in his house--by showing that the good old man was such a silly old fellow as to be done by a simple trick.
And what did it matter? I can pick up the Bald Impostor in Derlingport."