“I got to say I never done what you think I done, whatever it is,” said Wixy. “I don’t know what it is, but I never done it. Some other feller done it.”
“That don’t bother me none,” said Philo Gubb. “If you didn’t do it, I don’t know who did. Just about the best thing you can do is to account for the chicken and pay my expenses of getting you, and the quicker you do it the better off you’ll be.”
Pale as Wixy was, he turned still paler when Philo Gubb mentioned the chicken.
“I never killed the Chicken!” he almost shouted. “I never did it!”
“I don’t care whether you killed the chicken or not,” said Philo Gubb calmly. “The chicken is gone, and I reckon that’s the end of the chicken. But Mrs. Smith has got to be paid.”
“Did she send you?” asked Wixy, trembling. “Did Mother Smith put you onto me?”
“She did so,” said the Correspondence School detective. “And you can pay up or go to jail. How’d you like that?”
Wixy studied the tall detective.
“Look here,” he said. “S’pose I give you fifty and we call it square.” He meant fifty dollars.
“Maybe that would satisfy Mrs. Smith,” said Philo Gubb, thinking of fifty cents, “but it don’t satisfy me. My time’s valuable and it’s got to be paid for. Ten times fifty ain’t a bit too much, and if it had took longer to catch you I’d have asked more. If you want to give that much, all right. And if you don’t, all right too.”