"Yes, Had' O'Hara reckoned you'd detect around awhile before you got
track of me," said Mustard without emotion. "He says, when I'd signed
that there will for him, 'Day or so after I kick the bucket, Mustard,
you go up and steal Waffles,' he says, 'and fetch him over to the
cattle-shed on the Illinoy side,' he says, 'and keep him there until
Gubb comes for him. Take a day or so, maybe,' he says, 'for Dolly to
remember I told her to get Gubb, and take Gubb a day or two to scrooge
round before he hits on the clue I've fixed up to point him to you,
but he'll come. He's a wonder, Gubb is,' says O'Hara, 'and no mistake.
If a feller was to steal the sardines out of a can,' he says, 'bet you
Gubb would want to see what was inside the empty can before he'd start
out to find the feller. You just sit quiet an' wait till Gubb snoops
round enough,' he says, 'and he'll come.'"
"You have possession of the Waffles dog at the present time?" asked
Detective Gubb.
"In yonder," said Mustard, pointing over his shoulder. "Say, what's
the joke O'Hara was cookin' up, anyway?"
"You accompany yourself with me to the office of Judge Mackinnon,"
said Mr. Gubb, "and you'll discover it out for yourself and I'll
remunerate you to twenty dollars also. Fetch the dog."
Mr. Gubb, quite properly, left Mustard and Waffles in his own office
while he visited Mr. Higgins and Mr. Burch, collecting two hundred
dollars from each. Then he turned Mr. Mustard Bilton over to them.
"You signed those wills of O'Hara's," said Mr. Burch when all had
gathered in Judge Mackinnon's office. "Do you know which you signed
last?"
"Sure, I do," said Mustard.
Mr. Burch handed him the double will.
"Which did you sign last?" asked Mr. Burch energetically.
Mustard took the document and looked at it. The Kinsey side was toward
him.
"It wasn't this one," he said positively.
"Ah, ha!" cried Lawyer Higgins, turning the paper over. "Then it was
this one you signed last!"
"No," said Mustard, glancing at the Doblin side of the paper. "I
signed this'n the same time as I signed the other side of it. I signed
both these the first day of the month. The one I signed last I signed
on the second of the month."
"Ah, yes!" said Judge Mackinnon, looking at a document he had taken
from the envelope Philo Gubb had handed him. "You mean this one:--
Last will and testament--and all else with which I may die
possessed--to my niece Dorothy O'Hara--and hope she can take
a joke--Haddon O'Hara.
You mean this one, Mr. Bilton?"
"Yep," said Mustard, looking at the document that gave to Dolly O'Hara
every jot and tittle of Haddon O'Hara's property. "That's the one.
That's the one I signed last. Me and old Sam Fliggis signed her--same
day O'Hara hired me to steal the dog. Well, I guess I'll be takin' the
dog back home. So 'long, gents. Old Had' was bound to have his joke,
wasn't he?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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