“I guess I’ve told about all I’m going to tell about them,” said Philo thoughtfully. “I don’t want to be disobliging, Mister Smith, but I look on them bottles of beer as a clue, and that beer-opener as a clue, and they’re about the only clue I’ve got. I got to save up my clues.”
“Are they in this house?” asked Mr. Smith sharply.
“If they ain’t, they’re somewheres else,” said Philo.
“Mr. Gubb,” said Mr. Smith impressively “there are large interests at stake in this case. Larger interests than you imagine. We are all interested at this moment in clearing your client of the suspicion—which I hope is an unjust suspicion—now resting over and upon him. I need not say what the interests are, but they are very powerful. I feel confident that those interests could succeed in clearing Snooks Turner.”
“Well, I guess, if I was left alone long enough to get down from this ladder, I could clear him myself. I didn’t study in the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency’s Correspondence School of Deteckating for nothing,” said Philo Gubb. “Snooks hired me—”
“And he did well!” said Attorney Smith heartily. “I praise his acumen. I wonder if I might be permitted, on behalf of the powerful interests I represent, to contribute to the expense of the work you will do?”
“I guess you might,” said Philo Gubb. “Deteckating runs into money.”
“The interests I represent,” said Mr. Smith, taking out his wallet, “will contribute ten dollars.”
And they did. They put a crisp ten-dollar bill in Philo Gubb’s hands.