FullReads

“Except my cook-book,” said Miss Petunia.

“And a person naturally wouldn’t go to think of a cook-book as a real book,” said Mr. Gubb. “If you stop to think, you’ll see that whoever wrote that letter must have beforehand tore out all the page fourteens from the books into your house, for some reason.”

“Why, yes!” exclaimed Miss Scroggs, clapping her hands together. “How wise you are!”

“Deteckative work fetches deteckative wisdom,” said Mr. Gubb modestly. “I don’t want to throw suspicion at Mrs. Canterby, but Letter Number One points at her first of all.”

“O–h, yes! O–h my! And I never even thought of that!” cried Miss Petunia admiringly.

“Us deteckatives have to think of things,” said Philo Gubb. “And so we will say, just for cod, like, that Mrs. Canterby got at your books and ripped out the pages. She’d think: ‘What will Miss Petunia do when she finds she hasn’t any page fourteens to look at? She’ll rush out to borrow a book to look at.’ Now, where would you rush out to borrow a book if you wanted to borrow one in a hurry?”

“To Mrs. Canterby’s house!” exclaimed Miss Petunia.

“Just so!” said Mr. Gubb. “You’d rush over and you’d say, ‘Mrs. Canterby, lend me a book!’ And she would hand you a book, and when you looked at page fourteen, and read the first full sentence on the page, what would you read?”

“What would I read?” asked Miss Scroggs breathlessly.

“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.