"Friends," whispered Billy Getz, and the door opened wide and admitted them.

The room was the club-room of the Kidders, where they gathered night after night to play cards and drink illicit whiskey. Green shades over which were hung heavy curtains protected the windows. A large, round table stood in the middle of the floor under the gas-lights; a couch was in one corner of the room; and these, with the chairs and a formless heap in a far corner, over which a couch-cover was thrown, const.i.tuted all the furniture, except for the iron cuspidors. Here the young fellows came for their sport, feeling safe from intrusion, for the possession of whiskey was against the law. There was a fine of five hundred dollars--one half to the informer--for the misdemeanor of having whiskey in one's possession, but the Kidders had no fear. They knew each other.

For the moment the cards were put away and the couch-cover hid the four cases of Six Star that represented the club's stock of liquor.

The five young men already in the room were sitting around the table.

"Sit down, Detective Gubb," said Billy Getz. "Here we are safe. Here we may talk freely. And we have something big to talk to-night."

Philo Gubb moved a chair to the table. He had to push one of the cuspidors aside to make room, and as he pushed it with his foot he saw an oblong of paper lying in it among the sand and cigar stubs. It was a Six Star whiskey label. He turned his head from it with his bird-like twist of the neck and let his eyes rest on Billy Getz.

"We know who dynamited those houses!" said Billy Getz suddenly. "Do you know Jack Harburger?"

"No," said Philo Gubb. "I don't know him."

"Well, we do," said Billy Getz. "He's the slickest ever. He was the boss of the gang. Read this!"

He slid a sheet of note-paper across to Philo Gubb, and the detective read it slowly:--

Billy: Send me five hundred dollars quick. I've got to get away from here. J. H.

"And we made him our friend," said Billy Getz resentfully. "Why, he was here the night of the dynamiting--wasn't he, boys?"

"He sure was," said the Kidders.

"Now, he's nothing to us," said Billy Getz. "Now, what do you say, Detective Gubb? If we fix it so you can grab him, will you split the reward with us?"

"Half for you and half for me?" asked Philo Gubb, his eyes as big as poker chips.

"Three thousand for you and two for us, was what we figured was fair,"

said Billy Getz. "You ought to have the most. You put in your experience and your education in detective work."

"And that ought to be worth something," admitted Philo Gubb.

So it was agreed. They explained to Philo Gubb that Jack Harburger was the son of old Harburger of the Harburger House at Derlingport, and that they could count on the clerk of that hotel to help them. Billy Getz would go up and get things ready, and the next day Philo Gubb would appear at the hotel--in disguise, of course--and do his part.

The clerk would give him a room next to Jack Harburger's room, and see that there was a hidden opening in the part.i.tion; and Billy Getz, pretending he was bringing the money, would wring a full confession from Jack Harburger. Then Philo Gubb need only step into the room and snap the handcuffs on Jack Harburger and collect the reward.

They shook hands all 'round, finally, and Billy Getz went to the window to see that no ghoul was lurking in the street, ready to murder Philo Gubb when he went out. As he turned away from the window the toe of his shoe caught in the fringe of the couch-cover and dragged it partially from the odd-shaped pile in the corner. With a quick sweep of his hand Billy Getz replaced the cover, but not before Philo Gubb had seen the necks of a full case of bottles and had caught the glint of the label on one of them, bearing the six silver stars, like that in the cuspidor. Billy Getz cast a quick glance at the Correspondence School detective's face, but Philo Gubb, his head well back on his stiff neck, was already gazing at the door.

Two days later Philo Gubb, with his telescope valise in his hand, boarded the morning train for Derlingport. The river was on one of its "rampages" and the water came close to the tracks. Here and there, on the way to Derlingport, the water was over the tracks, and in many places the wagon-road, which followed the railway, was completely swamped, and the pa.s.sing vehicles sank in the muddy water to their hubs. The year is still known as the "year of the big flood." In Riverbank the water had flooded the Front Street cellars, and in Derlingport the sewers had backed up, flooding the entire lower part of the town.

When the train reached Derlingport Philo Gubb, with his telescope valise, which contained his twelve Correspondence School lessons, "The Pale Avengers," a pair of handcuffs, his revolver, and three extra disguises, walked toward the Harburger House. He was already thoroughly disguised, wearing a coal-black beard and a red mustache and an iron-gray wig with long hair. Luckily he pa.s.sed no one. With that disguise he would have drawn an immense crowd. Nothing like it had ever been seen on the streets of Derlingport--or elsewhere, for that matter.

A full block away Philo Gubb saw the sign of the hotel, and he immediately became cautious, as a detective should. He crossed the street and observed the exits. There was a main entrance on the corner, a "Ladies' Entrance" at the side, and an entrance to what had once been the bar-room. From the fire-escape one could drop to the street without great injury.

Philo Gubb noted all these, and then walked to the alley. There were two doors opening on the alley--one a cook's door, and the other evidently leading to the cellar. At the latter a dray stood, and as Philo Gubb paused there, two men came from this door and laid a bale of hay on the dray, pushing it forward carefully. They did not toss it carelessly onto the dray but slid it onto the dray. And the hay was wet. Moreover, the two men were two of Joe Henry's men, and that was odd. It was odd that Joe Henry should send a dray the full thirty miles to Derlingport to get a load of wet hay, when he could get all the dry hay he wanted in Riverbank. But it did not impress Philo Gubb.

He hurried to the main entrance of the hotel, and entered.

The lobby of the Harburger House was large, and gloomy in its old-fashioned black-walnut woodwork. Except for one man sitting at a desk by the window and writing industriously, and the clerk behind the counter, the lobby was untenanted. To the left a huge stairway led to the gloom above, for the hotel boasted no elevator except the huge "baggage lift," which had been put in in the palmy days of the house, when the great river packets were still a business factor.

Philo Gubb walked across the lobby to the clerk's desk. The industrious penman by the window glanced over his shoulder. He looked more like a hotel clerk than like a traveling salesman, but Philo Gubb gave this no thought. The clerk behind the desk put his fingers on his lips.

"Sh!" he whispered. "Are you Detective Gubb? Good! I've been expecting you. Have you a gun?"

"In my telescope case," whispered Philo Gubb.

"Take this one," said the clerk, handing the paper-hanger-detective a glittering revolver. "Be careful. Come--I'll show you the room."

He came from behind the desk and picked up Philo Gubb's telescope valise and led the way up the dingy stairway. Luckily for Billy Getz's great practical joke, Philo Gubb had never seen Jack Harburger, or he would have recognized him in the plump little man carrying his telescope valise. Up three flights of dark stairs, Jack Harburger led Philo Gubb, and at the landing of the fourth floor he stopped.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THESE HERE IS FALSE WHISKERS AND HAIR"]

"You were taking a risk--a big risk--coming undisguised," he said.

"But I am disguised," said Philo Gubb. "These here is false whiskers and hair."

"What!" exclaimed Jack Harburger. "Wonderful work! A splendid make-up, detective! You fooled me with it, and I was on my guard. You'll do.

Bend down like an old man. That's it! Now, listen: I have cut a hole through the wall from your room into Jack's. You can hear every word he speaks. Have you pencil and paper? Good! Jot down every word you hear. And don't make a sound. If you are discovered--well, they're a desperate gang. Come!"

He led the way through a long, dark corridor that turned and twisted.

At the extreme end he stopped, put down the telescope valise, and drew a key from his pocket.

"That's Jack's room," he breathed softly, "and you go in here. Sorry it isn't a better room. We had to use it, and you won't be here long, anyway."

He opened the door. It was a large door that swung outward, and it occupied one half of one side of the room. The floor of the room was carpeted, and the walls were papered, as was the ceiling. There was no window, but an electric light burned in the center of the ceiling.

Across the far side of the room stood a narrow iron bed, with a small bureau beside it. Jack Harburger pointed to a hole in the wall-paper.

"That's your ear-hole," he whispered, and Philo Gubb stepped into the room. Instantly the door slammed behind him, the key turned in the lock, and he heard a heavy iron bar clank as it fell into place outside. He was a prisoner, caught like a rat in a trap, and he knew it! He threw himself against the door, but it did not give. The electric light above his head went dark. He put out his hand, and the wall gave slightly. He drew the revolver and waited, dreading what might next occur. He heard soft footsteps outside the door, and, raising the revolver, pulled the trigger. The trigger snapped harmlessly. He had been tricked, tricked all around.

"Is the oubliette prepared?" whispered a voice outside.

"All ready for him. Twelve feet of water. He'll drown like a rat."

"Good. A slow death, like a rat in a trap--like we served the other two. Then get rid of his body the same way."

"A stone on it, and the river?"

"Yes. They never come up again."

The voices died away along the corridor, and Philo Gubb was left in utter silence. Oubliette! The fate of the detectives of "The Pale Avengers" was to be his! Suddenly the room began to quiver. The floor and the walls trembled and creaked, and Philo Gubb threw himself once more against the door. He shouted and beat upon it with his hands.

Inch by inch, creaking and swaying, the room glided downward. The door seemed to glide upward beyond the ceiling, giving place to a solid wall. He turned and beat on the side of the room, and it gave forth a hollow sound. As he moved, the room swayed under his feet. He was doomed!

Alone in the darkness, his fear suddenly gave way to a feeling of pride. He was dangerous enough, then, to be thought worthy of death?

His last drop of doubt oozed out of his mind. He was--he must be--a great detective, or such means would not have been taken to get rid of him. He felt a sort of calm joy in this. His murderers knew his prowess.

Locked in the room, going down to certain death, he exulted. And if he was as great as all that, it could not be that his position was hopeless. Time and again Carl Carroll, the Boy Detective, had been in equally precarious positions, but in the end he had brought the Pale Avengers low. And what a boy, untrained, could do, a graduate of the Rising Sun Correspondence School of Detecting ought to be able to do!

He drew his knife from his pocket and cut into the wall-paper of the side wall.

Being a paper-hanger, the first touch of his hand against the side wall had told him the wall-paper was pasted on canvas and not on a solid wall, and now he ripped the canvas away. The wall was of rough boards, scarred and marred. The opposite wall was the same. He kneeled on the bed and tried the rear wall. He felt the plastered wall gliding upward. He stood on the bed and ripped the canvas ceiling away.