Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 2

The Hard-boiled Egg-1

The Hard-boiled Egg––––––––

Walking close along the wall, to avoid the creaking floor boards, Philo Gubb, paper-hanger and student of the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting, tiptoed to the door of the bedroom he shared with the mysterious Mr Critz. In appearance Mr Gubb was tall and gaunt, reminding one of a modern Don Quixote or a human flamingo; by nature Mr Gubb was the gentlest and most simple-minded of men. Now, bending his long, angular body almost double, he placed his eye to a c***k in the door panel and stared into the room. Within, just out of the limited area of Mr Gubb's vision, Roscoe Critz paused in his work and listened carefully. He heard the sharp whistle of Mr Gubb's breath as it cut against the sharp edge of the c***k in the panel, and he knew he was being spied upon. He placed his chubby hands on his knees and smiled at the door, while a red flush of triumph spread over his face.

Through the c***k in the door Mr Gubb could see the top of the washstand beside which Mr Critz was sitting, but he could not see Mr Critz. As he stared, however, he saw a plump hand appear and pick up, one by one, the articles lying on the washstand. They were:

First, seven or eight half shells of English walnuts; second, a rubber shoe heel out of which a piece had been cut; third, a small rubber ball no larger than a pea; fourth, a paper-bound book; and lastly, a large and glittering brick of yellow gold. As the hand withdrew the golden brick, Mr Gubb pressed his face closer against the door in his effort to see more, and suddenly the door flew open and Mr Gubb sprawled on his hands and knees on the worn carpet of the bedroom.

"There, now!" said Mr Critz. "There, now! Serves you right. Hope you hurt chuself!"

Mr Gubb arose slowly, like a giraffe, and brushed his knees.

"Why?" he asked.

"Snoopin' an' sneakin' like that!" said Mr Critz crossly. "Scarin' me to fits, a'most. How'd I know who 't was? If you want to come in, why don't you come right in, 'stead of snoopin' an' sneakin' an' fallin' in that way?"

As he talked, Mr Critz replaced the shells and the rubber heel and the rubber pea and the gold-brick on the washstand. He was a plump little man with a shiny bald head and a white goatee. As he talked, he bent his head down, so that he might look above the glasses of his spectacles; and in spite of his pretended anger he looked like nothing so much as a kindly, benevolent old gentleman—the sort of old gentleman that keeps a small store in a small village and sells writing-paper that smells of soap, and candy sticks out of a glass jar with a glass cover.

"How'd I know but what you was a detective?" he asked, in a gentler tone.

"I am," said Mr Gubb soberly, seating himself on one of the two beds. "I'm putty near a deteckative, as you might say."

"Ding it all!" said Mr Critz. "Now I got to go and hunt another room. I can't room with no detective."

"Well, now, Mr Critz," said Mr Gubb, "I don't want you should feel that way."

"Knowin' you are a detective makes me all neryous," complained Mr Critz; "and a man in my business has to have a steady hand, don't he?"

"You ain't told me what your business is," said Mr Gubb.

"You needn't pretend you don't know," said Mr Critz. "Any detective that saw that stuff on the washstand would know."

"Well, of course," said Mr Gubb, "I ain't a full deteckative yet. You can't look for me to guess things as quick as a full deteckative would. Of course that brick son of looks like a gold-brick—"

"It is a gold—brick," said Mr Critz.

"Yes," said Mr Gubb. "But—I don't mean no offence, Mr Critz—from the way you look—I sort of thought—well, that it was a gold-brick you'd bought."

Mr Critz turned very red.

"Well, what if I did buy it?" he said. "That ain't any reason I can't sell it, is it? Just because a man buys eggs once—or twice—ain't any reason he shouldn't go into the business of egg-selling, is it? Just because I've bought one or two gold-bricks in my day ain't any reason I shouldn't go to sellin' 'em, is it?"

Mr Gubb stared at Mr Critz with unconcealed surprise. "You ain't—you ain't a con' man, are you, Mr Critz?" he asked.

"If I ain't yet, that's no sign I ain't goin' to be," said Mr Critz firmly. "One man has as good a right to try his hand at it as another, especially when a man has had my experience in it. Mr Gubb, there ain't hardly a con' game I ain't been conned with. I been confidenced long enough; from now on I'm goin' to confidence other folks. That's what I'm goin' to do; and I won't be bothered by no detective livin' in the same room with me. Detectives and con' men don't mix noways! No, sir!"

"Well, sir," said Mr Gubb, "I can see the sense of that. But you don't need to move right away. I don't aim to start in deteckating in earnest for a couple of months yet. I got a couple of jobs of paper-hanging and decorating to finish up, and I can't start in sleuthing until I get my star, anyway. And I don't get my star until I get one more lesson, and learn it, and send in the examination paper, and five dollars extra for the diploma. Then I'm goin'at it as a reg'lar business. It's a good business. Every day there's more crooks—excuse me, I didn't mean to say that."

"That's all right," said Mr Critz kindly. "Call a spade a spade. If I ain't a crook yet, I hope to be soon."

"I didn't know how you'd feel about it," explained Mr Gubb-"Tactfulness is strongly advised into the lessons of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency Correspondence School of Dcteckating—"

"Slocum, Ohio?" asked Mr Critz quickly. "You didn't see the ad. in the 'Hearthstone and Farmside,' did you?"

"Yes, Slocum, Ohio," said Mr Gubb, "and that is the paper I saw the ad. into; 'Big Money in Deteckating. Be a Sleuth. We can make you the equal of Sherlock Holmes in twelve lessons.' Why?"

"Well, sir," said Mr Critz, "that's funny. That ad. was right atop of the one I saw, and I studied quite considerable before I could make up my mind whether 'twould be best for me to be a detective and go out and get square with the fellers that sold me gold-bricks and things by putting them in jail, or to even things up by sending for this book that was advertised right under the 'Rising Sun Correspondence School.' How come I settled to do as I done was that I had a sort of stock to start with, with a fust-class gold-brick, and some green goods I'd bought; and this book only cost a quatter of a dollar. And she's a hummer for a quatter of a dollar! A hummer!"

He pulled the paper-covered book from his pocket and handed it to Mr Gubb. The title of the book was "The Complete Con' Man, by the King of the Grafters. Price 25 cents."

"That there book," said Mr Critz proudly, as if he himself had written it, "tells everything a man need to know to work every con' game there is. Once I get it by heart, I won't be afraid to try any of them. Of course, I got to start in small. I can't hope to pull off a wire-tapping game right at the start, because that has to have a g**g. You don't know anybody you could recommend for a g**g, do you?"

"Not right offhand," said Mr Gubb thoughtfully.

"If you wasn't goin' into the detective business," said Mr Critz, "you'd be just the feller for me. You look sort of honest and not as if you was too bright, and that counts a lot. Even in this here simple little shell game I got to have a podner. I got to have a podner I can trust, so I can let him look like he was winnin' money off of me. You see," he explained, moving to the washstand, "this shell game is easy enough when you know how. I put three shells down like this, on a stand, and I put the little rubber pea on the stand, and then I take up the three shells like this, two in one hand and one in the other, and I wave 'em around over the pea, and maybe push the pea around a little, and I say, 'Come on! Come on! The hand is quicker than the eye!' And all of a suddent I put the shells down, and you think the pea is under one of them, like that—"

"I don't think the pea is under one of 'em," said Mr Gubb. "I seen it roll onto the floor."

"It did roll onto the floor that time," said Mr Critz apologetically. It most generally does for me, yet. I ain't got it down to perfection yet. This is the way it ought to work—oh, pshaw! there she goes onto the floor again! Went under the bed that time. Here she is! Now, the way she ought to work is—there she goes again!"

"You got to practice that game a lot before you try it onto folks in public, Mr Critz," said Mr Gubb seriously.

"Don't I know that?" said Mr Critz rather impatiently. "Same as you've got to practice snoopin', Mr Gubb. Maybe you thought I didn't know you was snoopin' after me wherever I went last night."

"Did you?" asked Mr Gubb, with surprise plainly written on his face.

"I seen you every moment from nine p.m. till eleven!" said Mr Critz. "I didn't like it, neither."

"I didn't think to annoy you," apologized Mr Gubb. "I was practicin' Lesson Four. You wasn't supposed to know I was there at all."

"Well, I don't like it," said Mr Critz. "'Twas all right last night, for I didn't have nothin' important on hand, but if I'd been workin' up a con' game, the feller I was after would have thought it mighty strange to see a man follerin' me everywhere like that. If you went about it quiet and unobtrusive, I wouldn't mind; but if I'd had a customer on hand and he'd seen you it would make him neryous. He'd think there was a—a crazy man follerin' us."

"I was just practicin'," apologized Mr Gubb. "It won't be so bad when I get the hang of it. We all got to be beginners sometime."

"I guess so," said Mr Critz, rearranging the shells and the little rubber pea. "Well, I put the pea down like this, and I dare you to bet which shell she's goin' to be under, and you don't bet, see? So I put the shells down, and you're willin' to bet you see me put the first shell over the pea like this. So you keep your eye on that shell, and I move the shells around like this—"

"She's under the same shell," said Mr Gubb.

"Well, yes, she is," said Mr Critz placidly, "but she hadn't ought to be. By rights she ought to sort of ooze out from under whilst I'm movin' the shells around, and I'd ought to sort of catch her in between my fingers and hold her there so you don't see her. Then when you say which shell she's under, she ain't under any shell; she's between my fingers. So when you put down your money I tell you to pick up that shell and there ain't anything under it. And before you can pick up the other shells I pick one up, and let the pea fall on the stand like it had been under that shell all the time. That's the game, only up to now I ain't got the hang of it. She won't ooze out from under, and she won't stick between my fingers, and when she does stick, she won't drop at the right time."

"Except for that, you've got her all right, have you?" asked Mr Gubb.

"Except for that," said Mr Critz; "and I'd have that, only my fingers are stubby."

"What was it you thought of having me do if I wasn't a deteckative?" asked Mr Gubb.

"The work you'd have to do would he capping work," said Mr Critz. "Capper—that's the professional name for it. You'd guess which shell the ball was under—"

"That would be easy, the way you do it now," said Mr Gubb.

"I told you I'd got to learn it better, didn't I?" asked Mr Critz impatiently. "You'd be capper, and you'd guess which shell the pea was under. No matter which you guessed, I'd leave it under that one, so'd you'd win, and you'd win ten dollars every time you bet—but not for keeps. That's why I've got to have an honest capper."

"I can see that," said Mr Gubb; "but what's the use lettin' me win t if I've got to bring it back?"

"That starts the boobs bettin'," said Mr Critz. "The boobs see how you look to be winnin', and they want to win too. But they don't. When they bet, I win."