“I presume,” said Mr. Gubb, “you have so done because you are working upon this Bald Impostor yourself.”
“Yes. Oh, yes!” said the Bald Impostor hoarsely. “Exactly.”
“In that case,” said Mr. Gubb, “I consider it a high compliment for you to call upon me. Us deteckatives don’t usually visit around in disguises.”
The visitor moistened his lips again.
“I wanted to see,” he said, but the words were so hoarse they could hardly be heard,—“I wanted to see—”
“Well, now,” said Philo Gubb contritely, “you mustn’t feel bad that I didn’t take you for that fraud feller right away off. I hadn’t read the letter through down to the description quite. If I had I would have mistook you for him at once. The resemblance is most remarkably unique.”
“Thank you!” said the Bald Impostor, regaining more of his usual confidence. “And it was a hard disguise for me to assume. I’m not naturally reddish like this. My hair is long. And black. And—and my taste in clothes is quiet—mostly blacks or dark blues. Now the reason I am in this disguise—”
He was interrupted by a loud and strenuous knock on the door.
Mr. Gubb went to the door, but before he reached it his visitor had made one leap and was hidden behind the office desk, for a voice had called, impatiently, “Gubb!” and it was the voice of Judge Orley Morvis. When Detective Gubb had greeted his new visitor he turned to introduce the Judge—and a look of blank surprise swept his features. Detective Burns was gone!
For a moment only, Detective Gubb was puzzled. There was but one place in the room capable of concealing a full-grown human being, and that was the space behind the desk. He placed a chair for the Judge exactly in front of the desk and himself stood in a negligent attitude with one elbow on the top of the desk. In this position he was able to turn his head and, by craning his neck a little, look down upon the false Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns made violent gestures, urging secrecy. Mr. Gubb allayed his fears.