Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 2

The Hard-boiled Egg-2

"That ain't a square game," said Mr Gubb seriously, "is it?"

"A crook ain't expected to be square," said Mr Critz. "It stands to reason, if a crook wants to be a crook, he's got to be crooked, ain't he?"

"Yes, of course," said Mr Gubb. "I hadn't looked at it that way."

"As far as I can see," said Mr Critz, "the more I know how a detective acts, the better off I'll be when I start in doin' real business. Ain't that so? I guess, till I get the hang of things better, I'll stay right here."

"I'm glad to hear you say so, Mr Critz," said Mr Gubb with relief. "I like you, and I like your looks, and there's no tellin' who I might get for a roommate next time. I might get some one that wasn't onest."

So it was agreed, and Mr Critz stood over the washstand and manipulated the little rubber pea and the three shells, while Mr Gubb sat on the edge of the bed and studied Lesson Eleven of the "Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting."

When, presently, Mr Critz learned to work the little pea neatly, he urged Mr Gubb to take the part of capper, and each time Mr Gubb won he gave him a five-dollar bill. Then Mr Gubb posed as a "boob" and Mr Critz won all the money back again, beaming over his spectacle rims, and chuckling again and again until he burst into a fit of coughing that made him red in the face, and did not cease until he had taken a big drink of water out of the wash-pitcher. Never had he seemed more like a kindly old gentleman from behind the candy counter of a small village. He hung over the washstand, manipulating the little rubber pea as if fascinated.

"Ain't it curyus how a feller catches onto a thing like that all to once?" he said after a while. "If it hadn't been that I was so anxious, I might have fooled with that for weeks and weeks and not got anywheres with it. I do wisht you could be my capper a while anyway, until I could get one."

"I need all my time to study," said Mr Gubb. "It ain't easy to learn deteckating by mail."

"Pshaw, now!" said Mr Critz. "I'm real sorry! Maybe if I was to pay you for your time and trouble five dollars a night? How say?"

Mr Gubb considered. "Well, I dunno!" he said slowly. "I sort of hate to take money for doin' a favor like that."

"Now, there ain't no need to feel that way," said Mr Critz. "Your time's wuth somethin' to me—it's wuth a lot to me to get the hang of this gold-brick game. Once I get the hang of it, it won't be no trouble for me to sell gold-bricks like this one for all the way from a thousand dollars up. I paid fifteen hundred for this one myself, and got it cheap. That's a good profit, for this brick ain't wuth a cent over one hundred dollars, and I know, for I took it to the bank after I bought it, and that's what they was willin' to pay me for it. So it's easy wuth a few dollars for me to have help whilst I'm learnin'. I can easy afford to pay you a few dollars, and to pay a friend of yours the same."

"Well, now," said Mr Gubb, "I don't know but what I might as well make a little that way as any other. I got a friend—" He stopped short. "You don't aim to sell the gold-brick to him, do you?"

Mr Critz's eyes opened wide behind their spectacles. "Land's sakes, no!" he said.

"Well, I got a friend may be willing to help out," said Mr Gubb. "What'd he have to do?"

"You or him," said Mr Critz, "would be the 'come-on,'and pretend to buy the brick. And you or him would pretend to help me to sell it. Maybe you better have the brick, because you can look stupid, and the feller that's got the brick has got to look that."

"I can look anyway a'most," said Mr Gubb with pride.

"Do tell!" said Mr Critz, and so it was arranged that the first rehearsal of the gold-brick game should lake place the next evening, but as Mr Gubb turned away Mr Critz deftly slipped something into the student detective's coat pocket.

It was toward noon the next day that Mr Critz, peering over his spectacles and avoiding as best he could the pails of paste, entered the parlor of the vacant house where Mr Gubb was at work.

"I just come around," said Mr Critz, rather reluctantly, "to say you better not say nothing to your friend. I guess that deal's off."

"Pshaw, now!" said Mr Gubb. "You don't mean so!"

"I don't mean nothing in the way of aspersions, you mind," said Mr Critz with reluctance, "but I guess we better call it off. Of course, so far as I know, you are all right—"

"I don't know what you're gettin' at," said Mr Gubb. "Why don't you say it?"

"Well, I been buncoed so often," said Mr Critz, "Seems like anyone can get money from me any time and any way, and I got to thinkin' it over. I don't know anything about you, do I? And here I am, going to give you a gold-brick that cost me fifteen hundred dollars, and let you go out and wait until I come for it with your friend, and—well, what's to stop you from just goin' away with that brick and never comin' back?"

Mr Gubb looked at Mr Critz blankly. "I've went and told my friend," he said. "He's all ready to start in."

"I hate it, to have to say it," said Mr Critz, "but when I come to count over them bills I lent you to cap the shell game with, there was five-dollar one short."

"I know," said Gubb, turning red. "And if you go over there to my coat, you'll find it in my pocket, all ready to hand back to you. I don't know how I come to keep it in my pocket. Must ha' missed it, when I handed you back the rest."

"Well, I had a notion it was that way," said Mr Critz kindly. "You look like you was honest, Mr Gubb. But a thousand-dollar gold-brick, that any bank will pay a hundred dollars for—I got to get out of this ay of trustin' everybody—"

Mr Critz was evidently distressed.

"If't was anybody else but you," he said with an effort, "I'd make him put up a hundred dollars to cover the cost of a brick like that whilst he had it. There! I've said it, and I guess you're mad!"

"I ain't mad," protested Mr Gubb, "'long as you're goin' to pay me and Pete, and it's business; I ain't so set against puttin' up what the brick is worth."

Mr Critz heaved a deep sigh of relief. "You don't know how good that makes me feel," he said. "I was lmost losin' what faith in mankind I had left."

Mr Gubb ate his frugal evening meals at the Pie Wagon, on Willow Street, just off Main, where, by day, Pie-Wagon Pete dispensed light viands; and Pie-Wagon Pete was the friend he had invited to share Mr Critz's generosity. The seal of secrecy had been put on Pie-Wagon Pete's lips before Mr Gubb offered him the opportunity to accept or decline; and when Mr Gubb stopped for his evening meal, Pie-Wagon Pete—now off duty—was waiting for him. The story of Mr Critz and his amateur con' business had amused Pie-Wagon Pete. He could hardly believe such utter innocence existed. Perhaps he did not believe it existed, for he had come from the city, and he had had shady companions before he landed in Riverbank. He was a sharp-eyed, red-headed fellow, with a hard fist, and a scar across his face, and when Mr Gubb had told him of Mr Critz and his affairs he had seen an opportunity to shear a country lamb.

"How goes it for to-night, Philo?" he asked Mr Gubb, taking the stool next to Mr Gubb, while the night man drew a cup of coffee.

"Quite well," said Mr Gubb. "Everything is arranged satisfactory. I'm to be on the old houseboat by the wharf-house on the levee at nine, with it." He glanced at the night man's back and lowered his voice. "And Mr Critz will bring you there."

"Nine, eh?" said Pie-Wagon. "I meet him at your room, do I?"

"You meet him at the Riverbank Hotel at eight-forty-five," said Mr Gubb. "Like it was the real thing. I'm goin' over to my room now, and give him the money—"

"What money?" asked Pie-Wagon Pete quickly.

"Well, you see," said Mr Gubb, "he sort of hated to trust the—trust it out of his hands without a deposit. It's the only one he has. So I thought I'd put up a hundred dollars. He's all right—"

"Oh, sure!" said Pie-Wagon. "A hundred dollars, eh?" He looked at Mr Gubb, who was eating a piece of apple pie hand-to-mouth fashion, and studied him in a new light. "One hundred dollars, eh?" he repeated thoughtfully. "You give him a hundred-dollar deposit now and he meets you at nine, and me at eight-forty-five, and the train leaves for Chicago at eight-forty-three, halfway between the house-boat and the hotel! Say, Gubby, what does this old guy look like?"

Mr Gubb, albeit with a tongue unused to description, delineated Mr Critz as best he could, and as he proceeded, Pie-Wagon Pete became interested.

"Pinkish, and bald? Top of his head like a hard-boiled egg? He ain't got a scar across his face? The dickens he has! Short and plump, and a reg'lar old nice grandpa? Blue eyes? Say, did he have a coughin' spell and choke red in the face? Well, sir, for a brand-new detective, you've done well. Listen, Jim: Gubby's got the Hard-Boiled Egg!"

The night man almost dropped his cup of coffee. "Go 'way!" he said. "Old Hard-Boiled? Himself?"

"That's right! And caught him with the goods. Say, listen, Gubby!" For five minutes Pie-Wagon Pete talked, while Mr Gubb sat with is mouth wide open.

"See?" said Pie-Wagon at last. "And don't you mention me at all. Don't mention no one. Just say to the Chief: 'And havin' trailed him this far, Mr Wittaker, and arranged to have him caught with the goods, it's up to you?' See? And as soon as you say that, have him send a couple of bulls with you, and if they can do it, they'll nab Old Hard-Boiled just as he takes your cash. And Old Sleuth and Sherlock Holmes won't be in it with you when tomorrow mornin's papers come out. Get it?"

Mr Gubb got it. When he entered his bedroom, Mr Critz was waiting for him. It was slightly after eight o'clock; perhaps eight-fifteen. Mr Critz had what appeared to be the gold-brick neatly wrapped in newspaper, and he looked up with his kindly blue eyes. He had been reading the "Complete Con' Man," and had pushed his spectacles up on his forehead as Mr Gubb entered.

"I done that brick up for you," he said, indicating it with his hand, "so's it wouldn't glitter whilst you was goin' through the street. If word got passed around there was a gold-brick in town, folks might sort of get suspicious-like. Nice night for goin' out, ain't it? Got a letter from my wife this aft'noon," he chuckled. "She says she hopes I'm doin' well. Sally'd have a fit if she knew what business I was goin' into. Well, time's gettin' along—"

"I brung the money," said Mr Gubb, drawing it from his pocket.

"Don't seem hardly necess'ry, does it?" said Mr Critz mildly. "But I s'pose it's just as well. Thankee, Mister Gubb. I'll just pile into my coat—"

Mr Gubb had picked up the gold-brick, and now he let it fall. Once more the door flew open, but this time it opened for three stalwart policemen, whose revolvers pointed unwaveringly at Mr Critz. The plump little man gave one glance, and put up his hands.

"All right, boys, you've got me," he said in quite another voice, and allowed them to seize his arms. He paid no attention to the police, but at Mr Gubb, who was tearing the wrapper from what proved to be but a common vitrified paving-brick, he looked long and hard.

"Say," said Mr Critz to Mr Gubb, "I'm the goat. You stung me all right. You worked me to a finish. I thought I knew all of you from Burns down, but you're a new one to me. Who are you, anyway?"

Mr Gubb looked up.

"Me?" he said with pride. "Why—why—I'm Gubb, the foremost deteckative of Riverbank, Iowa."