Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective Part 3

Philo Gubb's experienced eye saw at once that this creature was less wild than he was painted. He lowered the paste-brush.

"Come into this house," said Philo Gubb. "Inside the house we can discuss pants in calmness."

The Tasmanian Wild Man accepted.

"Now, then," said Philo Gubb, when they were safe in the kitchen. He seated himself on a roll of wall-paper, and the Tasmanian Wild Man, whose real name was Waldo Emerson Snooks, told his brief story.

Upon graduating from Harvard, he had sought employment, offering to furnish entertainment by the evening, reading an essay ent.i.tled, "The Comparative Mentality of Ibsen and Emerson, with Sidelights on the Effect of Turnip Diet at Brook Farm," but the agency was unable to get him any engagements. They happened, however, to receive a request from Mr. Dorgan, manager of the side-show, asking for a Tasmanian Wild Man, and Mr. Snooks had taken that job. To his own surprise, he made an excellent Wild Man. He was able to rattle his chains, dash up and down the cage, gnaw the iron bars of the cage, eat raw meat, and howl as no other Tasmanian Wild Man had ever done those things, and all would have been well if an interloper had not entered the side-show.

The interloper was Mr. Winterberry, who had introduced the subject of Ibsen's plays, and in a discussion of them the Tasmanian Wild Man and Mr. Hoxie, the Strong Man, had quarreled, and Mr. Hoxie had threatened to tear Mr. Snooks limb from limb.

"And he would have done so," said the Tasmanian Wild Man with emotion, "if I had not fled. I dare not return. I mean to work my way back to Boston and give up Tasmanian Wild Man-ing as a profession. But I cannot without pants."

"I guess you can't," said Philo Gubb. "In any station of Boston life, pants is expected to be worn."

"So the question is, old chap, where am I to be panted?" said Waldo Emerson Snooks.

"I can't pant you," said Philo Gubb, "but I can overall you."

The late Tasmanian Wild Man was most grateful. When he was dressed in the overalls and had wiped the grease-paint from his face on an old rag, no one would have recognized him.

"And as for thanks," said Philo Gubb, "don't mention it. A deteckative gent is obliged to keep up a set of disguises. .h.i.therto unsuspected by the mortal world. This Tasmanian Wild Man outfit will do for a hermit disguise. So you don't owe me no thanks."

As Philo Gubb watched Waldo Emerson Snooks start in the direction of Boston--only some thirteen hundred miles away--he had no idea how soon he would have occasion to use the Tasmanian Wild Man disguise, but hardly had the Wild Man departed than a small boy came to summon Mr.

Gubb, and it was with a sense of elation and importance that he appeared before the meeting of the Riverbank Ladies' Social Service League.

"And so," said Mrs. Garthwaite, at the close of the interview, "you understand us, Mr. Gubb?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Philo Gubb. "What you want me to do, is to find Mr.

Winterberry, ain't it?"

"Exactly," agreed Mrs. Garthwaite.

"And, when found," said Mr. Gubb, "the said stolen goods is to be returned to you?"

"Just so."

"And the fiends in human form that stole him are to be given the full limit of the law?"

"They certainly deserve it, abducting a nice little gentleman like Mr.

Winterberry," said Mrs. Garthwaite.

"They do, indeed," said Philo Gubb, "and they shall be. I would only ask how far you want me to arrest. If the manager of the side-show stole him, my natural and professional deteckative instincts would tell me to arrest the manager; and if the whole side-show stole him I would make bold to arrest the whole side-show; but if the whole circus stole him, am I to arrest the whole circus, and if so ought I to include the menagerie? Ought I to arrest the elephants and the camels?"

"Arrest only those in human form," said Mrs. Garthwaite.

Philo Gubb sat straight and put his hands on his knees.

"In referring to human form, ma'am," he asked, "do you include them oorangootangs and apes?"

"I do," said Mrs. Garthwaite. "a.s.sociation with criminals has probably inclined their poor minds to criminality."

"Yes, ma'am," said Philo Gubb, rising. "I leave on this case by the first train."

Mr. Gubb hastily packed the Tasmanian garment and six other disguises in a suitcase, put the fourteen dollars given him by Mrs. Garthwaite in his pocket, and hurried to catch the train for Bardville, where the World's Monster Combined Shows were to show the next day. With true detective caution Philo Gubb disguised even this simple act.

Having packed his suitcase, Mr. Gubb wrapped it carefully in manila paper and inserted a laundry ticket under the twine. Thus, any one seeing him might well suppose he was returning from the laundry and not going to Bardville. To make this seem the more likely, he donned his Chinese disguise, Number Seventeen, consisting of a pink, skull-like wig with a long pigtail, a blue jumper, and a yellow complexion. Mr. Gubb rubbed his face with crude ochre powder, and his complexion was a little high, being more the hue of a pumpkin than the true Oriental skin tint. Those he met on his way to the station imagined he was in the last stages of yellow fever, and fled from him hastily.

He reached the station just as the train's wheels began to move; and he was springing up the steps onto the platform of the last car when a hand grasped his arm. He turned his head and saw that the man grasping him was Jonas Medderbrook, one of Riverbank's wealthiest men.

"Gubb! I want you!" shouted Mr. Medderbrook energetically, but Philo Gubb shook off the detaining arm.

"Me no savvy Melican talkee," he jabbered, bunting Mr. Medderbrook off the car step.

Bright and early next morning, Philo Gubb gave himself a healthy coat of tan, with rather high color on his cheek-bones. From his collection of beards and mustaches--carefully tagged from "Number One" to "Number Eighteen" in harmony with the types of disguise mentioned in the twelve lessons of the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting--he selected mustache Number Eight and inserted the spring wires in his nostrils.

Mustache Number Eight was a long, deadly black mustache with up-curled ends, and when Philo Gubb had donned it he had a most sinister appearance, particularly as he failed to remove the string tag which bore the legend, "Number Eight. Gambler or Card Sharp. Manufactured and Sold by the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting Supply Bureau." Having put on this mustache, Mr. Gubb took a common splint market-basket from under the bed and placed in it the matted hair of the Tasmanian Wild Man, his make-up materials, a small mirror, two towels, a cake of soap, the Tasmanian Wild Man's animal skin robe, the hair rope, and the abbreviated trunks. He covered these with a newspaper.

The sun was just rising when he reached the railway siding, and hardly had Mr. Gubb arrived when the work of unloading the circus began.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. WINTERBERRY DID NOT SEEM TO BE CONCEALED AMONG THEM]

Mr. Gubb--searching for the abducted Mr. Winterberry--sped rapidly from place to place, the string tag on his mustache napping over his shoulder, but he saw no one answering Mrs. Garthwaite's description of Mr. Winterberry. When the tent wagons had departed, the elephants and camels were unloaded, but Mr. Winterberry did not seem to be concealed among them, and the animal cages--which came next--were all tightly closed. There were four or five cars, however, that attracted Philo Gubb's attention, and one in particular made his heart beat rapidly.

This car bore the words, "World's Monster Combined Shows Freak Car."

And as Mr. Winterberry had gone as a social reform agent to the side-show, Mr. Gubb rightly felt that here if anywhere he would find a clue, and he was doubly agitated since he knew the beautiful Syrilla was doubtless in that car.

Walking around the car, he heard the door at one end open. He crouched under the platform, his ears and eyes on edge. Hardly was he concealed before the head ruffian of the unloading gang approached.

"Mister Dorgan," he said, in quite another tone than he had used to his laborers, "should I fetch that wild man cage to the grounds for you to-day?"

"No," said Dorgan. "What's the use? I don't like an empty cage standing around. Leave it on the car, Jake. Or--hold on! I'll use it.

Take it up to the grounds and put it in the side-show as usual. I'll put the Pet in it."

"Are ye foolin'?" asked the loading boss with a grin. "The cage won't know itself, Mister Dorgan, afther holdin' that rip-snortin' Wild Man to be holdin' a cold corpse like the Pet is."

"Never you mind," said Dorgan shortly. "I know my business, Jake. You and I know the Pet is a dead one, but these country yaps don't know it. I might as well make some use of the remains as long as I've got 'em on hand."

"Who you goin' to fool, sweety?" asked a voice, and Mr. Dorgan looked around to see Syrilla, the Fat Lady, standing in the car door.

"Oh, just folks!" said Dorgan, laughing.

"You're goin' to use the Pet," said the Fat Lady reproachfully, "and I don't think it is nice of you. Say what you will, Mr. Dorgan, a corpse is a corpse, and a respectable side-show ain't no place for it.

I wish you would take it out in the lot and bury it, like I wanted you to, or throw it in the river and get rid of it. Won't you, dearie?"

"I will not," said Mr. Dorgan firmly. "A corpse may be a corpse, Syrilla, any place but in a circus, but in a circus it is a feature.

He's goin' to be one of the Seven Sleepers."

"One of what?" asked Syrilla.