"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 amus.e.m.e.nt," 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 n.o.body 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."