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“No, I don’t feel like I would,” admitted Philo Gubb.

“That’s right,” said Pie-Wagon Pete approvingly. “An’ when these here dynamite gools is the kind of murderers they is, an’ me and Joe is expectin’ to be murdered by them any minute, it makes Joe nervous to be follered an’ spied on, don’t it, Joe?”

“You bet,” said Joe. “I’m liable to turn an’ maller up anybody I see sneakin’ on me. I can’t take chances.”

“So you won’t interfere with Joe in the pursoot of his dooty no more, will you, Gubby?” said Pie-Wagon Pete.

“I don’t aim to interfere with nobody, Peter,” said Philo Gubb. “I just want to pursoo my own dooty, as I see it. I won’t foller Mr. Henry no more, if he don’t like it; but I got a dooty to do, as a full graduate of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency’s Correspondence School of Deteckating. I got to do my level best to catch them dynamiters myself.”

Joe Henry frowned, and Pie-Wagon Pete shook his head.

“If you’ll take my advice, Gubby,” he said, “you’ll drop that case right here an’ now. You don’t know what dangerous characters them gools are. If they start to get you–“

“You want to read that book–‘The Pale Avengers’–I just gave you,” said Billy Getz, “and then you’ll know more.”

“Well, I won’t interfere with you, Mr. Henry,” said Philo Gubb. “But I’ll do my dooty as I see it. Fear don’t frighten me. The first words in Lesson One is these: ‘The deteckative must be a man devoid of fear.’ I can’t go back on that. If them gools want to kill me, I can’t object. Deteckating is a dangerous employment, and I know it.”

He went out and closed the door.

“There,” said Pie-Wagon Pete. “Ain’t that better than beatin’ him up?”

“Maybe,” said Joe Henry grudgingly. “Chances are–he’s such a dummy–he’ll go right ahead follerin’ me. He needs a good scare thrown into him.”

Billy Getz slid from his stool and ran his hands deep into his pockets, jingling a few coins and a bunch of keys.

“Want me to scare him?” he asked pleasantly.

“Say! You can do it, too!” said Joe Henry eagerly. “You’re the feller that can kid him to death. Go ahead. If you do, I’ll give you a case of Six Star. Ain’t that so, Pete?”

“Absolutely,” said Pie-Wagon.

“That’s a bet,” said Billy Getz pleasantly. “Leave it to the Kidders.”

Philo Gubb went straight to his room at the Widow Murphy’s, and having taken off his shoes and coat, leaned back in his chair with his feet on the bed, and opened “The Pale Avengers.” He had never before read a dime novel, and this opened a new world to him. He read breathlessly. The style of the story was somewhat like this:–

The picture on the wall swung aside and Detective Brown stared into the muzzles of two revolvers and the sharp eyes of the youngest of the Pale Avengers. A thrill of horror swept through the detective. He felt his doom was at hand. But he did not cringe.

“Your time has come!” said the Avenger.

“Be not too sure,” said Detective Brown haughtily.

“Are you ready to die?”

“Ever ready!”

The detective extended his hand toward the table, on which his revolver lay. A cruel laugh greeted him. It was the last human voice he was to hear. As if by magic the floor under his feet gave way. Down, down, down, a thousand feet he was precipitated. He tried to grasp the well-like walls of masonry, but in vain. Nothing could stay him. As he plunged into the deep water of the oubliette a fiendish laugh echoed in his ears. The Pale Avengers had destroyed one more of their adversaries.

Until he read this thrilling tale, Philo Gubb had not guessed the fiendishness of malefactors when brought to bay, and yet here it was in black and white. The oubliette–a dark, dank dungeon hidden beneath the ground–was a favorite method of killing detectives, it seemed. Generally speaking, the oubliette seemed to be the prevailing fashion in vengeful murder. Sometimes the bed sank into the oubliette; sometimes the floor gave way and cast the victim into the oubliette; sometimes the whole room sank slowly into the oubliette; but death for the victim always lurked in the pit.