“Hold on!” said Mr. Gribble, and then, “Oh, all right!”
“And he said, ‘No,’” said Mr. Witzel, frowning. “‘Very well,’ I said to Gribble, ‘he’ll be back. He’ll come back after the suitcase.’ So Gribble hid me in his private office. I waited.”
“And he came back?” asked Detective Gubb eagerly.
“He did not,” said Mr. Witzel.
Philo Gubb sighed with relief. “Then I’ve got a chance at an opportunity to get that five thousand dollars,” he said.
“Mr. Gubb,” said Mr. Witzel, “you have a chance to get twenty-five hundred. It was to offer you the chance to get twenty-five hundred that I came here. What did I say to you, Gribble?”
“You go ahead and tell it, if you want it told,” said Gribble. “You don’t like the way I tell things. Tell ’em yourself.”
“I said to Gribble,” said Mr. Witzel slowly, “‘Gribble, is this the town where a detective by the name of Grubb lives?’”
“Gubb is the name,” said Mr. Gubb.
“Gubb. That’s what I said,” said Mr. Witzel. “That made me think a bit. ‘Gribble,’ I says, ‘by to-morrow there will be forty Chicago detectives in his town, all looking for Master. And I don’t care a whoop for any of them,’ I says. ‘I’m the leader of them all, as anybody who has read the exploits of—of George Augustus Wechsler—.’”