"Why, killing Hen Smitz--what crime did you think?" said Mr. Wiggins.
"Do I look like a man that would go and murder a man just because--"
He hesitated and Mr. Gubb, who was slipping his suspenders over his bony shoulders, looked at Mr. Wiggins with keen eyes.
"Well, just because him and me had words in fun," said Mr. Wiggins, "I leave it to you, can"t a man say words in fun once in a while?"
"Certainly sure," said Mr. Gubb.
"I guess so," said Mr. Wiggins. "Anybody"d know a man don"t mean all he says. When I went and told Hen Smitz I"d murder him as sure as green apples grow on a tree, I was just fooling. But this fool policeman--"
"Mr. O"Toole?"
"Yes. They gave him this Hen Smitz case to look into, and the first thing he did was to arrest me for murder. Nervy, I call it."
Policeman O"Toole opened the door a crack and peeked in. Seeing Mr.
Gubb well along in his dressing operations, he opened the door wider and a.s.sisted Mrs. Smitz to a chair. She was still limp, but she was a brave little woman and was trying to control her sobs.
"Through?" O"Toole asked Wiggins. "If you are, come along back to jail."
"Now, don"t talk to me in that tone of voice," said Mr. Wiggins angrily. "No, I"m not through. You don"t know how to treat a gentleman like a gentleman, and never did."
He turned to Mr. Gubb.
"The long and short of it is this: I"m arrested for the murder of Hen Smitz, and I didn"t murder him and I want you to take my case and get me out of jail."
"Ah, stuff!" exclaimed O"Toole. "You murdered him and you know you did. What"s the use talkin"?"
Mrs. Smitz leaned forward in her chair.
"Murdered Henry?" she cried. "He never murdered Henry. I murdered him."
"Now, ma"am," said O"Toole politely, "I hate to contradict a lady, but you never murdered him at all. This man here murdered him, and I"ve got the proof on him."
"I murdered him!" cried Mrs. Smitz again. "I drove him out of his right mind and made him kill himself."
"Nothing of the sort," declared O"Toole. "This man Wiggins murdered him."
"I did not!" exclaimed Mr. Wiggins indignantly. "Some other man did it."
It seemed a deadlock, for each was quite positive. Mr. Gubb looked from one to the other doubtfully.
"All right, take me back to jail," said Mr. Wiggins. "You look up the case, Mr. Gubb; that"s all I came here for. Will you do it? Dig into it, hey?"
"I most certainly shall be glad to so do," said Mr. Gubb, "at the regular terms."
O"Toole led his prisoner away.
For a few minutes Mrs. Smitz sat silent, her hands clasped, staring at the floor. Then she looked up into Mr. Gubb"s eyes.
"You will work on this case, Mr. Gubb, won"t you?" she begged. "I have a little money--I"ll give it all to have you do your best. It is cruel--cruel to have that poor man suffer under the charge of murder when I know so well Henry killed himself because I was cross with him.
You can prove he killed himself--that it was my fault. You will?"
"The way the deteckative profession operates onto a case," said Mr.
Gubb, "isn"t to go to work to prove anything particularly especial. It finds a clue or clues and follows them to where they lead to. That I shall be willing to do."
"That is all I could ask," said Mrs. Smitz gratefully.
Arising from her seat with difficulty, she walked tremblingly to the door. Mr. Gubb a.s.sisted her down the stairs, and it was not until she was gone that he remembered that she did not know the body of her husband had been found--sewed in a sack and at the bottom of the river. Young husbands have been known to quarrel with their wives over matters as trivial as bedroom wall-paper; they have even been known to leave home for several days at a time when angry; in extreme cases they have even been known to seek death at their own hands; but it is not at all usual for a young husband to leave home for several days and then in cold blood sew himself in a sack and jump into the river.
In the first place there are easier ways of terminating one"s life; in the second place a man can jump into the river with perfect ease without going to the trouble of sewing himself in a sack; and in the third place it is exceedingly difficult for a man to sew himself into a sack. It is almost impossible.
To sew himself into a sack a man must have no little skill, and he must have a large, roomy sack. He takes, let us say, a sack-needle, threaded with a good length of twine; he steps into the sack and pulls it up over his head; he then reaches above his head, holding the mouth of the sack together with one hand while he sews with the other hand.
In hot anger this would be quite impossible.
Philo Gubb thought of all this as he looked through his disguises, selecting one suitable for the work he had in hand. He had just decided that the most appropriate disguise would be "Number 13, Undertaker," and had picked up the close black wig, and long, drooping mustache, when he had another thought. Given a bag sufficiently loose to permit free motion of the hands and arms, and a man, even in hot anger, might sew himself in. A man, intent on suicidally bagging himself, would sew the mouth of the bag shut and would then cut a slit in the front of the bag large enough to crawl into. He would then crawl into the bag and sew up the slit, which would be immediately in front of his hands. It could be done! Philo Gubb chose from his wardrobe a black frock coat and a silk hat with a wide band of c.r.a.pe.
He carefully locked his door and went down to the street.
On a day as hot as this day promised to be, a frock coat and a silk hat could be nothing but distressingly uncomfortable. Between his door and the corner, eight various citizens spoke to Philo Gubb, calling him by name. In fact, Riverbank was as accustomed to seeing P. Gubb in disguise as out of disguise, and while a few children might be interested by the sight of Detective Gubb in disguise, the older citizens thought no more of it, as a rule, than of seeing Banker Jennings appear in a pink shirt one day and a blue striped one the next. No one ever accused Banker Jennings of trying to hide his ident.i.ty by a change of shirts, and no one imagined that P. Gubb was trying to disguise himself when he put on a disguise. They considered it a mere business custom, just as a butcher tied on a white ap.r.o.n before he went behind his counter.
This was why, instead of wondering who the tall, dark-garbed stranger might be, Banker Jennings greeted Philo Gubb cheerfully.
"Ah, Gubb!" he said. "So you are going to work on this Smitz case, are you? Glad of it, and wish you luck. Hope you place the crime on the right man and get him the full penalty. Let me tell you there"s nothing in this rumor of Smitz being short of money. We did lend him money, but we never pressed him for it. We never even asked him for interest. I told him a dozen times he could have as much more from us as he wanted, within reason, whenever he wanted it, and that he could pay me when his invention was on the market."
"No report of news of any such rumor has as yet come to my hearing,"
said P. Gubb, "but since you mention it, I"ll take it for less than it is worth."
"And that"s less than nothing," said the banker. "Have you any clue?"
"I"m on my way to find one at the present moment of time," said Mr.
Gubb.
"Well, let me give you a pointer," said the banker. "Get a line on Herman Wiggins or some of his crew, understand? Don"t say I said a word,--I don"t want to be brought into this,--but Smitz was afraid of Wiggins and his crew. He told me so. He said Wiggins had threatened to murder him."
"Mr. Wiggins is at present in the custody of the county jail for killing H. Smitz with intent to murder him," said Mr. Gubb.
"Oh, then--then it"s all settled," said the banker. "They"ve proved it on him. I thought they would. Well, I suppose you"ve got to do your little bit of detecting just the same. Got to air the camphor out of the false hair, eh?"
The banker waved a cheerful hand at P. Gubb and pa.s.sed into his banking inst.i.tution.
Detective Gubb, cordially greeted by his many friends and admirers, pa.s.sed on down the main street, and by the time he reached the street that led to the river he was followed by a large and growing group intent on the pleasant occupation of watching a detective detect.
As Mr. Gubb walked toward the river, other citizens joined the group, but all kept a respectful distance behind him. When Mr. Gubb reached River Street and his false mustache fell off, the interest of the audience stopped short three paces behind him and stood until he had rescued the mustache and once more placed its wires in his nostrils.
Then, when he moved forward again, they too moved forward. Never, perhaps, in the history of crime was a detective favored with a more respectful gallery.
On the edge of the river, Mr. Gubb found Long Sam Fliggis, the mussel dredger, seated on an empty tar-barrel with his own audience ranged before him listening while he told, for the fortieth time, the story of his finding of the body of H. Smitz. As Philo Gubb approached, Long Sam ceased speaking, and his audience and Mr. Gubb"s gallery merged into one great circle which respectfully looked and listened while Mr.
Gubb questioned the mussel dredger.
[Ill.u.s.tration: HE WAS FOLLOWED BY A LARGE AND GROWING GROUP INTENT ON WATCHING A DETECTIVE DETECT]
"Suicide?" said Long Sam scoffingly. "Why, he wan"t no more a suicide than I am right now. He was murdered or wan"t nothin"! I"ve dredged up some suicides in my day, and some of "em had stones tied to "em, to make sure they"d sink, and some thought they"d sink without no ballast, but nary one of "em ever sewed himself into a bag, and I give my word," he said positively, "that Hen Smitz couldn"t have sewed himself into that burlap bag unless some one done the sewing. Then the feller that did it was an a.s.sistant-suicide, and the way I look at it is that an a.s.sistant-suicide is jest the same as a murderer."