ly alighted on it. Sometimes, when more than one
fly alighted on his toes at once, he wiggled all ten toes
simultaneously.

A trunk, a varnished oak washstand and a cot showed that the room was
not only a decorator's shop, but a living-place; and that this was
the office of Philo Gubb, detective, was shown by a row of hooks from
which hung various disguises used by the celebrated detective, by a
portrait of William J. Burns, cut from a magazine and pasted on the
wall, and by a placard which read, "P. Gubb, Graduate and Diploma-ist
of the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of
Detecting. Detecting done by the Day or Job. Terms on Application."

On the cot at Philo Gubb's side lay a copy of that day's morning
Chicago paper, with a two-column spread headline reading, "Wife Offers
$5000 Reward," and it was this that had driven Philo Gubb, the
paper-hanger detective, to renewed study of Lesson Eleven--"Procedure
in Abduction and Missing Men Cases."

Mr. Custer Master, of Chicago, had mysteriously disappeared. One
paragraph in the article had caught Mr. Gubb's particular attention:--

Mrs. Master feels that her husband is still alive, and
insists that Mr. Master will be found in one of the Iowa
towns on the Mississippi River. The police of these towns
have been notified, and detectives have gone to investigate.
The Masters stand high in South-Side society. Mr. Master, it
is understood, recently inherited $450,000 from a maternal
uncle. At the time the will was probated considerable
interest was aroused by the fact that the legacy was to go
to Mr. Master only on condition that he carried out certain
provisions contained in a sealed envelope, to be read only
by the executors and Mr. Master.

And so on. The paper pointed out that Mr. Master had been a sufferer
from dyspepsia for many years, but this had not had a permanently
depressing effect on his mind. His home relations were most
satisfactory. His own business--he was a dealer in laundry supplies
and laundry machinery--was doing well, and no trace of outside
troubles could be discovered.

On the morning of his disappearance, Mr. Master had shown some signs
of mental eccentricity. A neighbor, happening to be at her window, saw
Mr. Master come hurriedly from the door of his house. An hour later a
friend passed him as he was standing on a corner six blocks from home.
Mr. Master seemed greatly distres