“Goodness!” said Mr. Gubb again. “I guess I’ll go on my way and look at your wall-paper some other day.”
Mrs. Canterby laughed.
“Just as you wish,” she said, “but if Petunia has set out after you, you won’t get away from her that easy.”
But Mr. Gubb was already moving to the door. He heard Miss Petunia’s voice calling Mrs. Canterby, and coming nearer and nearer, and he fled.
At Higgins’s book-store he stopped and asked to see a copy of “Weldon Shirmer,” and turned to page fourteen. “‘Fate,’” ran the first full sentence, “‘has decreed that you wed a solver of mysteries.’” Mr. Gubb shivered. This was the mysterious passage Miss Scroggs had meant to bring to his eyes in an impressive manner. He was sure of one thing: whatever Fate had decreed in the case of the heroine of “Weldon Shirmer,” Philo Gubb had no intention of allowing Fate to decree that one particular Correspondence School solver of mysteries should marry Miss Petunia Scroggs. He hurried to his office.
At the office door he paused to take his key from his pocket, but when he tried it in the lock he found the door had been left unlocked and he opened the door hastily and hurried inside. Miss Petunia Scroggs was sitting in his desk-chair, a winning smile on her lips and “Myra’s Lover, or The Hidden Secret,” in her lap.
“Dear, wonderful Mr. Gubb!” she said sweetly. “It was just as you said it would be. Here is the book Mrs. Canterby loaned me.”
For a moment Mr. Gubb stood like a flamingo fascinated by a serpent.
“You detectives are such wonderful men!” cooed Miss Petunia. “You live such thrilling lives! Ah, me!” she sighed. “When I think of how noble and how strong and how protective such as you are—”
Mr. Gubb kept his bird-like eyes fixed on Miss Petunia’s face, but he pawed behind himself for the door. He felt his hand touch the knob.