on the broad,
level board that formed the middle part of Henry Smitz's machine.

The effect was instantaneous. The cogs and wheels of the machine began
to revolve rapidly. Two strong, steel arms flopped down and held
Detective Gubb to the table, clamping his arms to his side. The roll
of burlap unrolled, and as it unrolled, the loose end was seized and
slipped under Mr. Gubb and wrapped around him and drawn taut, bundling
him as a sheep's carcass is bundled. An arm reached down and back and
forth, with a sewing motion, and passed from Mr. Gubb's head to his
feet. As it reached his feet a knife sliced the burlap in which he was
wrapped from the burlap on the roll.

And then a most surprising thing happened. As if the board on which he
lay had been a catapult, it suddenly and unexpectedly raised Philo
Gubb and tossed him through the open window. The stock-keeper heard a
muffled scream and then a great splash, but when he ran to the window,
the great paper-hanger detective had disappeared in the bosom of the
Mississippi.

Like Henry Smitz he had tried to reach the ceiling by standing on the
chair-back; like Henry Smitz he had fallen upon the newly invented
burlaping and loading machine; like Henry Smitz he had been wrapped
and thrown through the window into the river; but, unlike Henry Smitz,
he had not been sewn into the burlap, because Philo Gubb had the
double-pointed shuttle-action needle in his pocket.

Page Seventeen of Lesson Eleven of the Rising Sun Detective Agency's
Correspondence School of Detecting's Course of Twelve Lessons, says:--

In cases of extreme difficulty of solution it is well for
the detective to reenact as nearly as possible the probable
action of the crime.

Mr. Philo Gubb had done so. He had also proved that a man may be sewn
in a sack and drowned in a river without committing willful suicide or
being the victim of foul play.

THE END

The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS

U . S . A

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise,
every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
intent.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Philo Gubb Correspondence-School
Detective, by Ellis Parker Butler

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHILO GUBB ***

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