Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective Part 31

Nothing was left untested by Higgins and Burch. The two sides of the paper on which the wills were written were subjected to the minutest scrutiny.

Each will was witnessed by the same pair of witnesses, and these were Philo Gubb and Max Bilton. It was no trouble to get Philo Gubb to tell about signing the will. Judge Mackinnon crossed the hall and brought Philo Gubb to the office.

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Gubb. "I signed my signature onto that doc.u.ment two times as requested so to do by the late deceased. He come over to my official deteckative headquarters and asked me to step across and do him the pleasure of a small favor and I done so. Yes, sir, that's my signed signature. And that's my signed signature also likewise."

"Did he say anything, Mr. Gubb?" asked the Judge.

"He says, 'Gubb, this is my last will and testament, and I wish you to sign your signature onto it as a witness.' So he put the paper in front of me. 'Where'll I sign it?' I says. 'Sign it right here under Mr. Bilton's name,' he says. So I signed my signature like he told me."

"Yes," said the Judge, "and Mr. O'Hara blotted it with a piece of blotting-paper, did he not?"

"He so done," said Mr. Gubb.

"And then what?"

"Then he turned the paper over," said Mr. Gubb, "and he says, 'Now, please sign this one.' So I signed it."

"Under Mr. Bilton's name again?" said the Judge.

"Why, no," said the paper-hanger detective. "Not under it, because it wasn't located nowhere to have an under to it. Mr. Bilton hadn't signed on that side yet."

There was an instant sensation.

"Bilton hadn't signed that side?" said Mr. Higgins. "Which side hadn't he signed?"

"The other side from the side he had signed," said Mr. Gubb.

"Did you notice which side he had not signed?" insisted Mr. Higgins.

"Was it this side that mentions Mrs. Doblin, or this side that mentions Mrs. Kinsey? Which was it?"

Mr. Gubb took the paper and examined it carefully. He turned it over and over.

"Couldn't say," he said briefly.

"In other words," said Mr. Burch, "you signed one side before Mr.

Bilton signed and one side after he signed, but you don't know which?"

"Yes, sir, I don't," said Mr. Gubb.

"So," said Judge Mackinnon, with a smile, "you can swear you signed both these wills as witness, but you have no idea which you signed last, Mr. Gubb."

"E-zactly so!" said Mr. Gubb with emphasis.

"Now, just a minute," said Mr. Burch. "One of these Bilton signatures is 'M. Bilton' and the other is 'Max Bilton.' You don't recall which was on the paper when you signed, do you?"

"Mr. Burch," said Mr. Gubb, "I wasn't taking no extra time to find out if a no-account feller like Mustard Bilton signed his name M. or Max or Methuselah. No, sir."

"Do you know where Mustard Bilton is now?" asked Judge Mackinnon.

"Don't know," said Mr. Gubb.

The three lawyers consulted for a minute or two. Then the Judge turned to Gubb again.

"And did Mr. O'Hara say anything more on the occasion when you signed the will?" asked the Judge.

"He said, 'Thank you,'" said Mr. Gubb. "He said, 'Thank you, Sherlock Holmes.'"

Higgins and Burch laughed, and even the Judge smiled, and they told Mr. Gubb he could go.

An hour or three quarters of an hour after he had been called to identify his signature to the wills, a gentle tap at Mr. Gubb's door caused him to look up from the pamphlet--Lesson Four, Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting--he was reading.

"Come on right in," he called, and in answer the door opened and a young woman entered. She was a sweet-faced, modest-appearing girl, and when she pushed back her veil, Mr. Gubb saw she had been weeping, for her eyes were red. Mr. Gubb hastily pulled out his desk chair.

"Take a seat and set down, ma'am," he said politely. "Is there anything in my lines I can be doing for you to-day?"

"Are you Mr. Philo Gubb?" she asked, seating herself.

"Yes'm, paper-hanging and deteckating done," he said.

"It's about a dog, my dog," said the young woman. "He's lost, or stolen, and--"

Emotion choked her words.

"I know it sounds foolish to ask a detective to look for a dog," she said with a poor attempt at a smile, "but--"

"In the deteckative line nothing sounds foolish," said Mr. Gubb with politeness.

"But Uncle Haddon told me once that if ever I needed a--a detective I should come to you," the young woman continued. "You knew Uncle Haddon, Mr. Gubb?"

"I had the pleasure of being known to and knowing of him," said Mr.

Gubb.

"My name is Dolly O'Hara! I am his niece."

"Glad to make your acquaintance, ma'am," said Philo Gubb, and he shook hands gravely.

"He gave me my dog," said Miss O'Hara. "He gave him to me when the dog was just a puppy, and he called him Waffles. He used to joke about my loving the dog more than I loved him. He used to say--"

Miss O'Hara wiped her eyes. For a moment she could not speak.

"He used to say," she continued in a moment, "that I'd never break my heart over a lost uncle, but that if I lost Waffles I'd die of grief.

It wasn't so, of course. But I'm heart-broken to have Waffles gone. He is all I'll have to remember Uncle Haddon by. And then--to have him--go!"

"I should take it a pleasure to be employed upon a case to fetch him back," said Mr. Gubb.

"Oh, would you?" cried Miss O'Hara. "I'm so glad! I was afraid a--a real detective might not want to bother with a dog. Of course I'll pay--"

"The remuneration will be minimum on account of the smallness of the crime under the statutes made and provided," said Mr. Gubb.