uld. If you expect that
you're unreasonable. But the principle is just the same. Shootin' is
shootin'. You know how that pome goes--

'The constant drip of water
Wears away the hardest stone--'

and that's just as true of murderin' a man with a pea-shooter.

"And the beauty of it is that nobody knows you're committin' a murder.
If anybody catches you and asks you what you're doin' you just say,
'Oh, nothin'. Just shootin' peas.'"

"Maybe that's so," agreed Philo Gubb. "It sounds reasonable. But the
thing for me to do is to wait until you're dead and then catch the
feller. It ain't a murder until you're dead."

"It ain't, ain't it?" sneered old Gabe. "You'd wait until I am dead, I
suppose, and then start out to catch the feller. And you'd lose all
the help I can give you. It ain't often a detective can get the corpse
to help him like this."

"No, it ain't," agreed Philo Gubb.

"I got a suspicion who the feller is," said Gabe.

"Who?" asked Philo Gubb.

"You'll go ahead with the case? On the terms we settled on?" asked old
Gabe.

Philo Gubb considered this carefully.

"Why, yes," he said at length, "I will. Who is the feller you think is
doin' it?"

"Farrin'ton Pierce, the cashier of the Farmers' and Citizens' Bank,"
said old Gabe, his eyes shining with malice and shrewdness, as he
leaned forward and whispered the words. "My own son-in-law, he is. An'
I'll tell you why he's tryin' it. For my money. So his wife'll get it,
an' he can be president of the bank in my place."

"You've seen him have a pea-shooter?" asked Philo Gubb.

"No, sir!" said old Gabe. "And I never seen one of the peas. All I
ever felt was the sting of it when it hit me."

"Maybe," said Philo Gubb eagerly, "maybe it ain't a pea-shooter. Maybe
it's a twenty-two short pistol with a silencer onto it. Maybe it's
only because he's been afraid to come nigh enough to you that he ain't
killed you yet. It don't seem to me that any man would try to murder
any one with a pea-shooter."

"Humph!" said old Gabe. "Maybe you are right, at that. That's
something I never thought of. It sounds likely, too."

"A deteckative has to think of all them things," said Philo simply.
"If I was you I'd be more careful."

"I will!" said old Gabe. "See here, if he's shootin' at me like that,
it ain't no joke, is it? Tell you what I'll do. I'll let you off from
payin' me that dollar five a day. Just you hustle onto this case and
keep at it, a