“WHO SENT YOU HERE, ANYWAY?”
Detective Gubb, outside the house, examined the cellar window as well as he could. There was not a mark to be seen from the outside, but a pansy-bed bore the marks of the un-burglar’s exit. To get out of the cellar, the un-burglar had had to wiggle himself out of the small window, and had crushed the pansies flat. Detective Gubb felt carefully among the crushed pansies, and his hand found something hard and round. It was the drumstick bone of a chicken’s leg. Detective Gubb threw it away. Even an un-burglar would not have chosen a chicken’s leg bone as a weapon. Evidently Billy Getz had not left any clue in the pansy-bed.
Philo Gubb had no doubt that Billy was putting up a joke on him. The detective decided that his best method would be to shadow Billy Getz from sundown each day, until he caught him un-burgling another house, or found something to connect him with the un-burglaries. So he went home. It was eleven when he began to undress.
It was then he first realized that the knees of his light trousers were damp from kneeling in the pansy-bed, and he looked at them ruefully. The knees were stained like Joseph’s coat of many colors, and they were his best trousers. He hung them carefully over the back of his chair, and went to bed.
The next morning he rolled the trousers in a bundle and took them with him on his way to his paper-hanging job. On Main Street he stopped at Frank the Tailor’s—“Pants Cleaned and Pressed, 35 Cents.” He unrolled the trousers and laid them across the counter.
“Can you remove those stains?” he asked.
“Oh, sure I couldt!” said Frank. “I make me no droubles by dot, Mister Gupp. Shust dis morning alretty I didt it der same ding. You fall ofer der vire too, yes?”
“Certainly. I expect it was the same wire. Into a flower-bed.”
“Chess,” said Frank. “Like Misder Vestcote, yes? Cudding across der corner, yes, und didn’t see der vire?”
“That so?” said Detective Gubb. “You don’t mean old Mr. Westcote, do you?”