He was not at all frightened.
Looking up, he had seen the drum, and there was no more cable on the
drum to be unwound. The car could descend no farther. His feet were as
wet as they could get. Unless the river rose to unbelievable height,
he could not be drowned in the makeshift oubliette, unless he
voluntarily lay down in the shallow water and inhaled it. He worked on
the panel slowly, but with the earnestness of a very angry victim of a
hoax. The panel fell outward with a splash, and floated away. Philo
Gubb bent sideways and squeezed out of the small opening into the
cellar.

The huge cellar was dusky in the dim light that entered through the
cobwebbed panes, high in the wall. It was an immense place, and now
knee-deep in water, except for a gangway of boards laid on low
trestles, which led from one side of the cellar to the cellar door.
There were coal-bins and vegetable-bins, like watery bays leading from
the general cellar sea, and--strange appliance to discover in a hotel
cellar--a small hay-baling press stood on an extemporized platform
against one wall, and alongside it, on a long table, such as are seen
in factories, bales of hay, some complete and some torn open--and
cases! The cases were labeled "Blue River Canned Tomatoes," but one,
split across the end, gave evidence that their contents were not
canned tomatoes at all. Through the crack in the case glittered the
six silver stars of the Six Star whiskey. There were twenty-six of the
cases.

Philo Gubb waded to the raised gangway and walked to the cellar door.
It was double-barred on the inside, and he lifted the bars cautiously
and stepped into the alley, closing the door carefully behind him. He
pulled his false whiskers and wig from his face and stuffed them in
his pockets and hurried down the alley.

When he returned, Billy Getz, Jack Harburger, and six of the Kidders
were holding high revel in the closed bar-room of the Harburger House,
but they all fell silent when the door opened and the Sheriff of
Derling County entered, with Philo Gubb and three deputies in company.
It was evident that the Sheriff did not consider Philo Gubb a joke.

"Search-warrant, Jack," he said to Harburger. "Detective Gubb, of
Riverbank, has been doing some sleuthing in your hotel, he says. We
want to have a look at the cellar."

The next morning the "Riverbank Eagle" was full of Philo Gubb again.
Through the superb acumen of that wonderful detective, three stores of
whi