"I could try to find them," said Philo Gubb.

"Well, that's all I want," said Slippery. "I don't want to do nothin'

with them. All I want to know is--where are they? Here's five dollars."

Philo Gubb took the money.

"All right," said Slippery, "now, you find them. They're upstairs in Mrs. Turner's bed, between the quilt and the mattress. Go find them."

"Not until Miss Turner comes home," said Philo firmly. "It's her house."

"Why, you long-legged stork you!" said Slippery, "she knows I'm here for that beer. She sent me."

"I thought you said Snooks sent you for his clothes," said Philo.

"Never you mind who sent me for what!" said Slippery, angrily. "You're a dandy detective, ain't you? Sittin' on top of a ladder, and not lettin' a friend of Snooks help him out. Say, listen, Gubby!

Everybody's goin' to get into worse trouble if I don't get away with that beer. Understand? Come on! Let me take it away!"

"When Miss Turner comes back!" said Philo Gubb.

A new knock on the door interrupted them, and Slippery glided to the cellar door, through which Snooks had so recently fled. The kitchen door opened to admit Attorney Smith. He was a thin man, but intelligent-looking, as thin men quite frequently are.

"Don't get down, Mr. Gubb, don't get down!" he said. "I came in the back way, hoping to find Miss Turner. She is not here?"

"She's out," said Philo.

"Too bad!" said Attorney Smith. "I wanted to see her about her nephew.

You have heard he is in jail?"

"Why, yes," said Philo, crossing one leg over the other. "He hired me to do some deteckating. I'm sort of in charge of that case. I'm just going to start in looking it up."

Attorney Smith took a turn to the end of the room and back. He was known in Riverbank as the unsuccessful compet.i.tor against Attorney Mullen for the City Attorneyship, and was supposed to be the counselor of the liquor interests.

"You have done nothing yet?" he asked suddenly, stopping below Philo Gubb's elevated seat.

"No, I'm just about beginning to commence," said Philo.

"Then you know nothing regarding the--the articles young Turner is charged with stealing?"

"Well, maybe I do know something about that," said Philo. "If you mean seven bottles of beer and a beer-opener, I do."

"Where are they?" asked Attorney Smith in the sharp tone he used in addressing a witness for the other side when he was trying a case.

"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 ac.u.men.

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.

"And now, having shown our unity of interest with young Mr. Turner, there can be no harm in telling us where that beer is, can there?"

He turned toward the kitchen door--for Nan Kilfillan stood there. Her eyes were red and swollen. Attorney Smith hastily excused himself and went away, and Nan came into the kitchen.

"Oh, Mr. Gubb!" she exclaimed. "You _will_ get Snooks out of jail, won't you? It would break my heart if he was sent to the penitentiary, and I _know_ he has done nothing wrong! He is depending on you, Mr.

Gubb. I brought you ten dollars--it is all I have left of last month's wages, but it will help a little, won't it?"

"Thank you," said Philo Gubb, taking the money. "I cannot estimate in advance what the cost of his clearance will be. It may be more, and it may be less. It is a complicated case. I am just about going to get down from this ladder and start working on it vigorously. If you--"

He stopped.

"If you wish to help us in this case, Miss Kilfillan," he said, "will you go to the jail and ask Snooks where is the beer and the beer-opener?"

"Where is--" Her face went white. "What beer and what beer-opener?"

she asked tensely.

"Seven bottles and a beer-opener," said Philo Gubb.

"Oh!" she moaned. "And he said he didn't do it! He swore he didn't do it! Oh, Snooks, how could you--how could you!"

"Now, don't you weep like that," said Philo Gubb soothingly. "You go and ask him. I'll have my things ready for my immediate departure onto the case by the time you get back."

Nan hurried away, and Philo Gubb waited only to count the money he had so far received. It amounted to fifty-five dollars. He slipped it into his pocket and stood up on the stepladder. He had even proceeded so far as to put one foot on a lower step, when Mrs. Wilmerton entered the kitchen.

She was a stout woman, and she was almost out of breath. She had to stand a minute before she could speak, but as she stood she made gestures with her hands, as if _that_ much of her delivery could be given, at any rate, and the words might catch up with their appropriate gestures if they could.

"Mister Gubb! Mister Gubb!" she gasped. "Oh, this is terrible!

Terrible! Miss Turner should never have dared it! Oh, my breath! Do you--do you know where the beer is?"

"I wouldn't advise you to take beer for shortness of the breath," said Philo Gubb. "Just rest a minute."

"But," gasped poor Mrs. Wilmerton, "I _told_ Miss Turner it was folly!

She's so stubborn! Ah--h! I thought I'd never get a full breath again as long as I lived. How can we get rid of the beer?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE MADE GESTURES WITH HER HANDS]

"There's plenty want to take it," said Mr. Gubb. "Attorney Smith--"