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diff --git a/75922-0.txt b/75922-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..de45755 --- /dev/null +++ b/75922-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6722 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75922 *** + + +[Illustration] + + + + + _The_ AMAZING + ADVENTURES OF + LETITIA CARBERRY + + _By_ + MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + + _Author of_ + WHEN A MAN MARRIES + THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE + THE MAN IN LOWER TEN + THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT, ETC. + + ILLUSTRATIONS BY + HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY + + INDIANAPOLIS + THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + + + + COPYRIGHT 1911 + THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + + PRESS OF + BRAUNWORTH & CO. + BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS + BROOKLYN, N. Y. + + + + +THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF LETITIA CARBERRY + + + + +THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF LETITIA CARBERRY + +Part One + + + + +CHAPTER I + +WHAT HAPPENED TO JOHNSON + + +Strictly speaking, this is Tish’s story, but Tish is unable to write +it, being laid up, as you probably know from the newspapers. But we all +three felt that a record of the affair ought to be kept while it was +fresh in our minds, although goodness knows we’re not likely to forget +any of it. A good many people wondered, when the story came out, how +Tish had come to be mixed up with it at all, but as Tish herself says, +it was very simple. The people at the hospital had become demoralized, +and some firm hand had to take hold. Besides, Tish was a member of the +Ladies’ Committee, and felt responsible. + +Tish says the first thing she knew about it was a piercing scream, just +outside her room. This was followed by a number of short, sharp cries, +feminine, and steps running past her bedroom door. Now, as Tish also +remarks with truth, one hears a variety of strange sounds in a hospital +at night, and at first she thought it was the woman across the hall, +who had had her appendix removed that afternoon, and who had been very +unpleasant as a neighbor all evening. But when the noise kept up, and +only died away to be followed by somebody crying hysterically down the +hall, Tish was roused. She sat up in bed and threw her small traveling +clock at Miss Lewis. + +(Miss Lewis was Tish’s nurse, a splendid woman, but a heavy sleeper. +She slept on a cot in the room, and until Tish learned that it did not +hurt the clock to throw it, she had been obliged to ring for one of the +night nurses to come in and waken her. So now she threw the clock.) + +Miss Lewis picked the clock from off her chest and sat up, yawning, to +look at it. + +“Twenty minutes after one, Miss Carberry,” she said. “Would you like +some buttermilk?” + +Now Tish was not really ill. She was taking a rest cure last autumn +while her apartment was being painted and papered, and while she +recovered from a twisted knee. She’d bought a second-hand automobile +some months before, and learned to run it herself, and the knee was the +result of her being thrown out over the steering wheel and ten feet +beyond the potato wagon she had collided with. Although, as Tish says, +it is a strange thing that her _knee_ was twisted, when she brought up +standing on her head in three inches of muddy water and a family of +tadpoles. + +Both Aggie and I went to see her daily, the three of us being old +friends, although not related, and she was always glad to see us, +although she grew sarcastic when Aggie casually remarked that except +for the meeting of the anti-vivisection society, we might also have +been flung over the potato wagon. Well-- + +“Would you like some buttermilk?” asked Miss Lewis again, beginning to +draw on her kimono. Tish says that provoked her and she reached for the +clock again, but of course Miss Lewis had it in her hand. + +“No,” she snapped. “Go out in the hall and see what has happened.” + +Miss Lewis yawned again and groped around in the half light for her +slippers. It was more than Tish could stand. She hopped out of bed in +her bare feet and limped to the door. + +The hall was almost dark and across it the woman with the appendix--or +with_out_--was groaning. But half way along, where the night nurse +has her desk and keeps her papers and where the annunciator for the +patients’ bells is fastened to the wall, Tish saw a group of five +or six nurses, gathered about somebody in a chair. One of them came +running past with a glass of something, and the crowd opened to admit +the girl and the glass and closed again. Miss Lewis came and looked +over Tish’s shoulder. + +“Gee!” she said, and ran down the hall with her slippers flapping and +her braid switching from side to side. Just then the woman across gave +another groan, and it being dark and the scream still echoing in her +ears, Tish reached inside the door for her cane and hobbled out in her +nightgown. + +The girl in the chair, she said, was as white as milk, and her lips +were blue. She was half-lying, with her head against the back of the +chair, and a violent shudder now and then was the only sign of life +about her. One of the other nurses was stroking her hands and talking +to her in a soothing tone. + +“Now listen, Miss Blake,” she said. “It _couldn’t_ be. We all have +these queer feelings here. It’s the nervous strain and loss of sleep. +I’ll never forget the first time _I_ had to do it.” + +“Nor I,” said another girl, “I went with you. Do you remember? It was +that dwarf that died in J. We’d forgotten something, and you had to go +and leave me alone.” + +“Hush!” another nurse broke in, and Miss Blake began to shudder again. +“If we had some hot coffee for her--will you drink some coffee if we +make it, Miss Blake?” + +The girl in the chair shook her head and Miss Lewis dragged one of the +nurses from the group and whispered to her. Tish heard part of the +answer. + +“Went up with Linda Smith and as usual Linda forgot something--she’s +been over-working; went to raise the window for fresh air--she says she +heard a sound, but didn’t notice it--when she turned around”--then more +whispering that Tish couldn’t catch. + +“_No!_” Miss Lewis said, and looked queer herself. “Then, if it’s true, +_it_ is still--?” + +[Illustration] + +“Yes.” + +Miss Blake sat up just then and tried to wipe her blue lips with her +handkerchief, but her hands shook so that one of the nurses did it for +her. She mopped the girl’s pallid forehead, too, and put her arm over +her shoulders protectingly. + +“You’re going off duty, girl,” she said. “About all the hard work in +the place has been falling to you lately, and if we don’t take care we +will be minus the class flower.” + +Tish says the girl tried to smile at that and was very pretty. I can +answer for her looks myself, having seen her often enough later. She +had soft, wavy, black hair and Irish-blue eyes, and she was rather +small. Partly for that and partly because she was so young, we fell +into the way of calling her the Little Nurse. But to go back to Tish’s +story. + +“You’re sure you didn’t doze off?” one of the girls asked, pressing +forward. But the Little Nurse shook her head. + +“Asleep! There?” she said, in a low voice. “Could you?” + +“What enrages me,” Miss Lewis burst out, glaring at the group through +her glasses, “is _why_ Linda Smith left her there alone.” + +“She forgot something,” said Miss Blake. + +“She usually forgets something!” Miss Lewis began. “When she dies, +Linda’ll forget--” + +“Hush!” somebody whispered. “Here she is.” + +Miss Smith came quickly along the hall, her arms full of bundles. She +stopped when she saw the group and ran her eye over it. + +“Well!” she said, “what is it? Fudge?” + +One of the girls detached herself from the group and started for her. +Miss Smith was a tall, raw-boned woman, with short, curly hair and a +rugged but good-natured face, and Tish says she stood smiling at them. + +“I suppose you know,” she said. “The spiritualist from K has ‘passed +over.’ Didn’t want to go, poor old man. Said he had three wives +waiting in the spirit world.” + +The other girl came up to her then and caught her by the elbow and +whispered to her. Tish was standing in the shadow, leaning on her cane, +and she didn’t know from Adam what was the matter, but she was covered +with goose flesh. + +“Nonsense!” said Miss Linda Smith suddenly. “She’s been dozing.” + +Miss Blake got up and steadied herself by the back of the chair, +looking across at the other woman. + +“I’m afraid not, Miss Smith,” she said. “You--remember when--when the +orderlies carried up poor old--Johnson. They--laid him on the table in +the mortuary, didn’t they?” + +“Yes,” said Miss Smith, half smiling. “They usually do. They don’t +generally throw ’em out the window.” + +Miss Blake clutched the chair tighter, Tish says, and her lips +trembled. + +“I want you to come with me and see,” she said. “We--covered the body +with a sheet, didn’t we?” + +“Yes,” Miss Smith stopped smiling. + +“And then you left, and I was alone. I--I tried not to mind. I haven’t +been here very long. But I was afraid, after a minute or two, that I +was--getting faint. I--seemed to feel eyes on me.” + +Some of the girls nodded as if they understood. + +“So I went to the window and threw it up to get air. Then I thought I +heard something moving behind me. I--I felt it, like the eyes, rather +than heard it. And--I didn’t look around at once; I couldn’t. It was so +far from the rest of the house, and--I was alone with _it_. And when I +turned--” She stopped and moistened her lips with her tongue, and her +face was ghastly--“_it_ was gone, Miss Smith. Gone!” + +Now Tish isn’t easy to frighten, but at that moment the appendix woman +gave a deep groan and she says her heart jumped once or twice and +turned over in her chest. The nurses were all standing huddled together +in a little group, and one of them kept looking over her shoulder. + +“Gone!” said Miss Smith, and sat down in a chair suddenly, as if her +legs had given way. “Wha--what have you done?” + +“Sent for Jacobs, the night watchman,” one of the nurses explained. +“Doctor Grimm and Doctor Sands are in the operating room--a night case, +and the medical internes had a row with Mr. Harrison and left last +night. We’ll be in nice shape if G ward gets busy.” + +“What’s G ward?” Tish asked, edging over to Miss Lewis. + +“G ward,” said Miss Lewis coolly, “G ward is where the stork drops that +part of the population that has only half the legal number of parents. +You’ll have to go back to bed, Miss Carberry.” + +“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Tish, and glared at her. + +Tish told us the rest of the story the next morning, sitting propped +up in bed with Aggie on one side and me on the other. We’d brought her +some creamed sweetbreads, but she was so excited she could not eat. The +change in her was horrible; she had passed through a crisis, and she +showed it. + +“You’d better let us take you home, Tish,” Aggie pleaded, when Tish had +finished. “This is no place for a nervous woman.” + +Tish took a mouthful of the sweetbread and made a face over it. + +“Heavens,” she said, “it’s easy seen salt’s cheap. No, I am not going +home. I shall stay to see the end of this if it’s the end of me.” + +“Listen, Tish,” Aggie said miserably. “Hasn’t my advice always been +good? Didn’t I beg you on my bended knees not to buy that automobile? +Didn’t both Lizzie and I protest with tears against the motor-boat, +and you’ll carry _that_ scar till your dying day. And now--now it’s +spirits, Tish. Don’t tell me it wasn’t.” + +“Where’s that Lewis woman?” was all Tish would say. “Speaking of +spirits reminds me I haven’t been rubbed with alcohol yet.” + +But I’d better tell Tish’s story in her own words: + +“Once for all, before I begin, Aggie,” she ordered--Tish is a masterful +woman--“you open the collar of your waist and put a pillow behind you. +I’m not going to be broken in on in the middle of this by your fainting +away. Faint if you want, but get ready beforehand. Lewis is not usually +around when she’s wanted.” + +“I don’t want to hear it if it’s as bad as that,” Aggie protested, +opening the neck of her waist. “Lizzie, reach me that pillow.” + +“I don’t know that _I_ want to hear it myself, Tish,” I said. “You’d +better do as Aggie says and come home. You’re a wreck this morning, +and I’ve telephoned for Tommy Andrews.” + +Tommy is Tish’s doctor, the son of her cousin, Eliza Peabody Andrews, +a nice enough boy, but frivolous. He is on the visiting staff at the +hospital, and makes rounds once a day, I believe, with an attentive +interne at his elbow and the prettiest nurse he can find carrying the +order book. + +Tish set the sweetbread on the bedside table with a bang and looked at +me for an instant over her glasses. + +“Don’t be a fool, Lizzie,” she said. “Do you think Tommy Andrews can +make me do anything I don’t want to? Do you think the entire connection +could move me one foot if I didn’t want to go?” + +“You can’t spend another night here,” I put in, somewhat feebly. + +“Can’t I?” she said grimly. “Not only I can, and will, but you and +Aggie are going to take turns here with me, night and night about, +until this is cleared up. Mark my words, last night was not the end.” + +She turned over on her side then, and proceeded to have her back rubbed +with alcohol. And while Miss Lewis rubbed, she told us the story. + +“Miss Lewis wanted me to go back to bed,” she said, when she had +reached that point, “but I refused to go. (You needn’t take the skin +off, Miss Lewis.) I stood there in my gown, and I watched them making +up their minds to go to the mortuary. That’s up a narrow flight of +stairs from this end of the hall, not far from this very room. Nobody +was anxious to lead off, but Miss Blake seemed determined to go back +and prove she hadn’t been asleep, and at last they moved off huddled in +a group and left me there. (You haven’t got a spite against my right +shoulder, have you?) Miss Lewis followed them.” + +“I didn’t,” said Miss Lewis sourly. Tish turned and looked up at her +over her shoulder. + +“You looked as if you were going to, and you know it,” she asserted. +“And don’t interrupt me. Miss Lewis followed, and seeing I was going to +be left alone, and feeling somewhat creepy along the back, I followed +her.” + +“Really--!” Miss Lewis began. + +“We went up the staircase, and if you and Aggie go out and look, you’ll +see how it leads. There’s a hall up there, with a few private rooms +along one side, and a small ward across. The mortuary is up a flight of +about eight steps, at the far end. + +“The hall was dark, and all the light came from the mortuary. The door +was open, and it seemed bright and cheerful enough. I was feeling +pretty sure the black-haired girl had dozed and had a dream, when I saw +Miss Smith, who was in the lead, stoop and pick something up, and hold +it out to the other nurses. + +“‘That’s queer!’ she said, and her eyes were fairly starting out of her +head. + +“‘What is it?’ said I, limping forward. + +“The nurses were staring at the thing she held. + +“‘It’s impossible,’ she muttered, ‘but--that’s the bandage I tied +Johnson’s hands together with!’ Miss Lewis, will you let Miss +Pilkington sniff that alcohol for a moment?” + +“Fiddle!” Aggie protested feebly. “I’m not at all upset.” Then she put +her head back on her pillow and fainted, as Tish had arranged, with +decency and order. + +Well, to go on, it seemed that Tish began to lose her courage about +that time, and when one of the braver nurses came running back, after +a hasty look, and said that Miss Blake was right, and there was no +body in the mortuary, there was almost a stampede. And then it was, I +believe, that heavy steps were heard on the staircase, and it proved to +be Jacobs, the night watchman. + +Now, Tish was in her nightgown, and I fancy, although she never +confessed it, that she fell into some sort of a panic and darted into +one of the empty rooms. She herself says Miss Lewis pushed her in, out +of sight, and closed the door, but Miss Lewis indignantly denies this. + +“I stood inside the door, in the darkness,” Tish said. “The night +watchman was just outside, and I could hear everything that was said, +plainly. He didn’t believe the body was gone, and said so. I heard him +go toward the mortuary door, and the young women followed him. I could +feel a chair just beside me, and my knee was jumping again, so I sat +down. + +“That was when I saw I’d stepped into an occupied room. There was a man +in his night clothes standing not ten feet away, in the middle of the +room, and I jumped up in a hurry. + +“‘Good heavens!’ I said, ‘I didn’t know there was anybody here! You’ll +have to excuse me.’” + +Tish is an extraordinary woman. She was apparently quite cool, but I +happened to glance at Miss Lewis, and she was pouring a small stream +of alcohol into the lap of Aggie’s black broadcloth tailor-made. She +was a pasty yellow-white. + +“The man didn’t say anything, although I could see him moving,” Tish +went on, “I thought he was rude. I got the door open and stepped into +the hall, almost into the arms of the Blake girl. + +“‘Well, were you right?’ I asked her. + +“She nodded. + +“‘Absolutely gone, without a trace!’ she said with a catch in her voice. + +“‘Maybe he wasn’t dead,’ I suggested. ‘There’s a lot of catalepsy +around just now.’ + +“‘He was dead,’ she insisted. ‘Quite dead. He’s been dying for a week.’ + +“Well, what with the watchman and lights moving around, I wasn’t so +nervous as I had been, and I was pretty much interested. + +“‘There’s one thing sure, my dear,’ I said, ‘he won’t go far in that +state. I’ll just hobble down and get my wrapper on and we’ll have a +search. I stepped into that room in my nightgown and I daresay the man +in there nearly died himself--of the shock.’ + +“‘The man in _there_!’ she said. ‘Why, all these rooms are empty, Miss +Carberry!’ + +“We stood staring at each other. + +“‘There’s a man in there,’ I repeated. ‘He stood up and stared at me +when I went in.’ + +“She got very white, but she walked right over to the door and pushed +it open. I saw her throw up her hands, and the next minute she had +fallen flat on her face in the doorway, and the night watchman was +running toward us with a lighted candle.” + +Tish leaned over and took a drink of water. + +“This bed’s full of crumbs, Miss Lewis,” she grumbled. “It’s queer to +me that the only part of this hospital toast that is crisp is the part +I get in the bed!” + +“For heaven’s sake, Tish,” I said impatiently, “I suppose she didn’t +faint because there were crumbs in your bed!” + +“No,” Tish said, hitching herself over to the other side of the +mattress. “She fainted because the body of the missing spiritualist was +hanging by its neck to the chandelier, fastened up with a roller towel.” + +“Dead?” Aggie asked, opening her eyes for the first time. + +“Still dead,” Tish replied grimly. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE LITTLE NURSE + + +Aggie was really frightfully upset. Aggie is rather emotional at any +time, and although she herself is a Methodist, her mother’s only sister +had been a believer in Spiritualism. (They dug her up ten years after +she died, to make room for somebody else, and Aggie’s mother said her +hair had grown to be fully ten feet long, and was curly, whereas in +life it had always been straight. We may sneer at Spiritualism all we +want, but things like that are hard to account for.) + +Well, of course, Aggie declared that no human hand had strung poor +old Johnson to the chandelier by a roller towel around his neck, and +although Tish ridiculed the idea, she had to admit that the fourth +dimension had never been accounted for, and that table levitation was +an accepted fact, and even known to the ancients. + +We sat there gloomily enough while Miss Lewis fixed Tish’s hair and +massaged her knee. In the middle of the massage Tommy Andrews came in, +whistling. + +“Morning, Aunt Tish,” he said. “Morning, Miss Aggie, morning, Miss +Lizzie. How’s the knee? Looks as handsome as ever.” + +“She’s been walking on it,” said Miss Lewis sourly, and giving the knee +an extra jab. + +Tommy gave Tish a ferocious frown over his glasses. + +“Humph!” he said. “I told you to keep off it! Miss Lewis, if she is +obstreperous again, just tie her down with a half-dozen roller towels.” + +“Roller towels!” Tish ejaculated. “Why, it was a roller towel +that--that--” + +“So you said,” Aggie said somberly, and we stared at each other, we +hardly knew why. + +Tish told Tommy the whole story as he strapped her knee with adhesive +plaster. He hadn’t heard it, and he was as much puzzled as we were. +It was Aggie who remarked afterward how his face changed when Tish +mentioned Miss Blake. + +“Blake!” he said, glancing up quickly, “not the little nurse with the +dark hair?” + +“Yes,” Tish said. + +“Damn!” said Tommy. “To have left her alone, like that!” And to Miss +Lewis: “Is she ill to-day?” + +“She’s in bed, but she’s not sleeping,” said Miss Lewis, with more +feeling than I’d have expected. “I was going to ask you if you would +see her, Doctor. Since the shake-up yesterday, we have no medical +internes, and the surgical side is full up.” + +“She--she didn’t ask for me!” said Tommy, with his brown eyes kindling. +But Miss Lewis shook her head. + +“She’s hardly spoken at all. She just lies there with her eyes wide +open and her face white, watching the door. An hour ago one of the +nurses pushed it open quietly, for fear she was asleep. Miss Blake lay +and watched it moving, and when Linda--Miss Smith went in, she fainted +again.” + +Tommy took a turn up and down the room. “She’s had a profound shock,” +he said. “I’m not afraid of it, unless--” He stopped at the window and +stood looking out. + +“Unless what?” said Tish, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he stalked +over and rang the bell. + +“I’ll have the hall nurse relieve you, Miss Lewis,” he said. “We can’t +leave my aunt alone, and somebody must see to Miss Blake. There’s some +natural explanation for what happened last night, and we must find it +and tell her.” + +Aggie began to tell about the aunt with the hair, but before she had +even buried her, the door opened and Miss Blake herself came in. + +“Did you ring?” she asked. She was dead white, lips and all, with deep +circles around her eyes, but her step was brisk and her voice cheerful. +As Tish said, if you could only have heard her and not seen her, nobody +would have believed what had happened. + +Tommy gave her one look, and hauled a chair forward. + +“Sit down,” he ordered. “You are not fit to be on duty.” + +“Thank you, but--I am all right again,” she said, hesitating. + +“Please sit down,” said Tommy, with a note in his voice which I never +heard him use to Tish. And she took the chair, glancing around at all +three of us and then at him. + +“Miss Blake,” he said, “I have decided to become your medical adviser!” + +“Thanks very much!” she said, with the ghost of a smile. + +“On one condition,” he went off, polishing his glasses very hard with +his handkerchief. “You will have to obey orders.” + +“That’s the first lesson in the training school,” she assented, the +smile deepening. “Always obey the doctor’s orders.” + +“Stuff!” said Tommy sternly. “If I order you to bed this minute, +you’ll not go! The trouble is, Aunt Tish and Honorary Aunts Lizzie and +Aggie,” he said, addressing us each in turn, “the trouble is that in a +hospital medicine is a drug on the market. It’s too accessible. So are +doctors. They’re always on tap, like city water, plentiful and free and +therefore subject, like the said water, to the scorn and contumely of +the beneficiaries.” + +“Indeed, Doctor,” Miss Blake began, but he interrupted her. + +“Now, Miss Blake,” he said, “at your earnest solicitation I am about to +undertake your case, and the first condition is--” + +“Obedience?” She shot a glance at him from under her long, dark +lashes, and Aggie raised her eyebrows across the bed at me. + +“Exactly,” he said. “The three aunts, actual and honorary, are +witnesses. You have promised obedience. The first condition is--you are +to leave the hospital immediately and go to a place I know just out of +town, a nice place, with a dog and kittens--no, Aunt Tish, _not_ a cat +and kittens, a--” + +But Miss Blake stood up suddenly, she was paler than before. + +“Not _that_!” she said almost wildly. + +Tommy came over and put his hand on her shoulder. “We can dispose of +the animals,” he said gently. “Can’t you see yourself, little girl, +that you are about at the end of your string? Quiet nights, sleep, +fresh milk--you won’t know yourself in a week.” + +“I can not go,” she said, and stood looking straight ahead with such +misery in her face that Aggie’s eyes filled up. + +“You can take your vacation,” Tommy persisted, gently. “I’ll take you +out myself in my machine.” + +“I don’t want to go, Doctor; I--I can’t be spared just now. _Don’t_ +send me away! Don’t!” + +She began to cry, wildly, hysterically, with her shoulders quivering +and her whole body tense. I was considerably upset, and Tommy looked +dumbfounded. After all, it was Miss Lewis who knew what to do. She is +a large woman, and she simply took the little nurse into her arms and +petted her into quiet. Finally, she coaxed her into the hall, and as +the door closed behind them, the four of us sat silent. + +Aggie was sniveling, and wiping her eyes, and Tish turned on her in a +rage. + +“What in the name of sense are you bleating about?” she demanded. + +“The child’s in trouble,” said Aggie. “I--I never _could_ see anybody +cry, and you know it, Tish.” + +“I know something else, too,” said Tish grimly, sliding her feet out of +bed carefully and reaching for her cane. “That young woman knows more +than she’s telling, Tommy Andrews. We’re not through with this yet.” + +Now Tommy will always have his joke with Tish, and they differ on a +good many subjects, politics, for one thing, and religion, Tommy not +believing very much in a future existence, and maintaining that no +medical man ought to--it made them more saving of life in this. But he +has a great respect for Tish’s opinion. + +“You may be right,” he said. “There must be some reason--, but whatever +it is--it’s not to her discredit. I’ll swear to that.” + +“Listen to the boy!” Tish sneered, picking up the traveling clock and +putting it back on the bedside table again. “That’s what a pretty face +will do. Suppose it had been Lewis, who stood there, crying into a +starched apron and saying she couldn’t leave--don’t, don’t ask her?” + +“Why should she leave when she has _you_, dear Aunt Letitia?” asked +Tommy, and Tish reached for the clock again. + +Well, we talked the thing over, but we couldn’t come to any conclusion. +There didn’t seem to be any matter of doubt that Johnson, having died +peaceably and in order, had been carried to the mortuary and laid on +the table, there to await the final preparations for burial. And the +fact was incontestable that shortly after, the said Johnson, as Tommy +put it, was hanging by the neck to the chandelier in a room fifty feet +away and down eight steps. We all agreed up to that point. As Tommy +said, the question then became simply, did he do it himself or was it +done for him? + +Aggie was confident that he had done it himself. + +“Why not?” she demanded. “Isn’t it the constant endeavor of the people +who have--passed over, to come back and prove their continued existence +on a spirit plane? Shall I ever forget that the third night after Mr. +Wiggins died--” Aggie was once engaged to a roofer, who ‘passed over’ +by falling off a roof--“can I ever forget that a light like a flame of +a candle rose in one corner of the bedroom, crossed the ceiling and +disappeared in my sewing basket, where I kept Mr. Wiggins’ photograph? +Why should not Mr. Johnson, before deserting the earth plane for the +spirit world, have come back and _proved_ his continued existence? Why?” + +Tommy lighted a cigarette and puffed at it. “Well,” he said, “I should +call it indecent of him if he did, and bad taste, too. Maybe he didn’t +think much of his body, but it had lasted pretty well and carried him +around a good many years. And to have his spirit cast off its outer +garment and hang it to a chandelier--it was heartless! Heartless!” + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ANOTHER ROLLER TOWEL + + +Now Tish is a peculiar woman. Once she starts a thing, whether it is +house-cleaning or learning to roller skate, she keeps right on at it. +She learned to skate backwards, you may remember, although she nearly +died learning, and lay once twenty minutes insensible on the back of +her head. And as Tish acknowledged later, she had made up her mind to +find out _who_ or _what_ had hung Johnson by the neck to the chandelier. + +So after Tommy had gone, she got into her roller chair and asked me to +ring for Miss Lewis. + +“What time do you go to your lunch?” she asked her sharply, when she +came. + +“I don’t eat lunch,” said Miss Lewis. + +“Why?” + +“It’s making me stout. Besides, there’s never anything fit to eat.” + +“Humph!” said Tish, “I guess the meals provided in this training school +are above the average. I myself engaged the housekeeper. You’d better +have lunch to-day.” + +“But--” + +“At twelve o’clock,” said Tish firmly. “Any nurse who takes care of me +eats three meals a day.” + +Miss Lewis stood in the doorway, with her cap over one ear, and stared +at Tish, and Tish glared back. + +“I prefer not,” she said defiantly, giving her apron belt a twitch. + +“At twelve o’clock!” Tish repeated, and then Miss Lewis gave it up. + +“Very well,” she said unpleasantly. “Does it make any difference _what_ +I eat?” + +“None whatever. And now send me the Smith woman,” said Tish calmly. +“And shut the door. There’s a draught.” + +Miss Lewis slammed out. And whatever reason Tish had for wanting to get +rid of her at noon, she deigned no explanation. In ten minutes Miss +Smith knocked at the door and came in. She looked tired, but cheerful. + +“Do you want me, Miss Carberry?” she asked. + +“If you are not busy,” said Tish in her pleasantest manner. “Sit down, +Miss Smith. Lizzie, Aggie, this is the Miss Smith I told you about. You +will pardon the curiosity of three old women, won’t you, Miss Smith, +and answer a question or two about last night?” + +“Certainly.” She looked surprised, and I fancied amused. + +“In the first place,” Tish asked, getting a pencil and sheet of letter +paper from the table, “has any investigation been begun?” + +“I think not,” said Miss Smith. “There are always queer goings-on in a +hospital, and besides, there has been a stir-up in the management, and +things are at sixes and sevens. Two internes left last night, and the +superintendent is pretty busy this morning.” + +“Indeed,” said Tish, and wrote something down. “Where is the--er--body +now?” + +“It went to the anatomical board this morning. He had no relatives and +no money. If he isn’t claimed in a certain time, he’ll be sent to the +college dissecting room.” + +Aggie shuddered. + +“And now, Miss Smith,” said Tish, leaning back in her roller chair, +“would you mind telling me _exactly_ what happened last night?” + +“Not at all!” said Miss Smith, smiling. “We have a rule here that when +a patient dies in one of the wards at night, the day nurses for that +ward go with the body to the mortuary and prepare it for burial. The +night nurse, having charge of several wards, can not easily leave. I am +in charge of K ward, and Miss Blake is my assistant.” + +“She’s not in K ward to-day,” said Tish. + +“No, she is relieving the hall nurse here for her off duty. Miss Blake +is not well, and this is lighter.” + +“One moment,” said Tish, “what is the K ward’s night nurse’s name?” + +“Miss Durand.” + +“What time did Mr. Johnson die?” + +“Shortly after midnight. It was marked twelve-ten on the record.” + +“And you were called at once?” + +“I--think not,” Miss Smith said slowly. “It was nearly one o’clock.” + +“Is that customary?” Tish demanded. + +“Not usually,” said Miss Smith, “but it is not extraordinary, either. +The night nurse may have been giving a fever bath, or something else +she could not leave.” + +“You are very indulgent to the curiosity of three old women,” Tish said +with her pleasantest smile. “Will you be amiable a little longer, and +tell us what happened in the mortuary?” + +“Well, really, _nothing_ happened to me. Doctor Grimm had seen Johnson +and pronounced him dead; he had been called from the operating room to +do it, although Johnson was a medical case. The night orderlies, Briggs +and Marshall, took the body to the mortuary and waited with it until +Miss Blake and I arrived.” + +“Briggs and Marshall,” Tish put down. + +“The lights were on, and Briggs was smoking. We had a few words over +that, because the orderlies are not allowed to smoke on duty, and +tobacco makes my head ache.” + +Tish leaned forward in her chair and looked at Miss Smith. + +“Do you often have words with the orderlies, Miss Smith?” + +Miss Smith smiled cheerfully. + +“Quite often,” she said. “They’re such a stupid lot.” + +“You don’t think it possible that these men may have retaliated by +playing a practical joke on you?” + +Miss Smith considered. + +“No,” she said, “I don’t. When I found the linen closet up there +locked and went down-stairs for sheets, they were both at work in the +wards. Anyhow, they might be willing to play a ghastly trick on _me_, +but I don’t think they would try to frighten Miss Blake. She’s very +well liked.” + +“And after you went for the sheets?” + +“That’s all I know, Miss Carberry. The rest you heard Miss Blake tell.” + +“Are you sure,” Aggie broke in suddenly, leaning forward, “are you +sure, Miss Smith, that he didn’t do it himself?” + +Miss Smith stared. “Why, he was dead, Miss Pilkington,” she said. “He’d +been sick for months, and if he was alive as I am this minute, he +couldn’t hang himself by the neck, the way he was hanging, with nothing +to stand on near, or any chair kicked away. The center of the room was +clear when we found him, and the nearest thing was the foot of the bed, +a good eight feet away.” + +“He was a--Spiritualist, I think?” + +“Yes--yes, indeed,” Miss Smith laughed. “It would have made you creepy +to hear him, lying there carrying on whole conversations with nobody +near, and raps on his bed until the nurses balked at changing the +sheets!” + +Aggie shivered. “Gracious!” she said, “I hope they don’t send him back +here for the dissecting room. I shan’t be easy until he is safely +buried.” + +“Oh, you needn’t worry about that,” Miss Smith said cheerfully, getting +up to go. “We wouldn’t be likely to get _all_ of him anyhow.” + +Well, as Tish said, she hadn’t learned much she hadn’t known before, +except that Johnson had been left in the ward fifty minutes after he +died, instead of ten. But although the people in the hospital seemed +disposed to let the affair alone after sending the body away, and to +get back to its business, which, as Miss Smith said, is full of curious +things anyhow, Tish, as I say, having taken hold, was not going to let +go. + +Promptly at noon by the traveling clock, Miss Lewis having taken +herself off, Tish lifted herself out of her wheel chair and reached for +her cane. + +“You can stay here, Aggie,” she said, “and if Lewis comes back, I’m +seeing Lizzie to the elevator.” + +“She won’t believe a word of it,” Aggie objected. + +“Then think up something she will believe. Lizzie is coming with me.” + +I wasn’t surprised when Tish turned to the left, in the corridor, and +hobbled to the foot of a flight of stairs. She stopped there and turned. + +“We’re going up to see that room in daylight, Lizzie,” she said, “but +I want you to read this first. You’re a practical woman, and if any +of your family ever grew a head of hair after they died, at least you +don’t brag about it.” + +She took a page of the morning paper, folded small, from the sleeve of +her dressing-gown, and pointed to a paragraph. + +“Amos Johnson, once a well-known local medium, died last night at the +Dunkirk hospital, after a long illness. Johnson was sixty-seven years +of age, and had lived in retirement and poverty since the murder of his +wife some years ago, a crime for which he was tried and exonerated. The +woman’s body was found in the parlor of the Johnson home, hanging to a +chandelier by a roller towel knotted about the neck.” + +Tish was watching me. + +“Well, what do you make of that, Lizzie?” she asked. + +“Coincidence,” I said, with affected calmness. “Many a man’s hung his +wife to something when he got tired of her, and when you come to think +of it, a roller towel is usually handy.” + +We didn’t look at each other. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE FOOTPRINT ON THE WALL + + +Well, Tish and I examined the room, and I must say at first sight it +was disappointing. It was an ordinary hospital room, with two windows, +and a bureau between them, a washstand, a single brass bed, set high +and not made up, the pillows being piled in the center of the mattress +and all covered with a sheet, and two chairs, a straight one and a +rocker. Except that the heavy chandelier was bent somewhat from the +perpendicular, there was no sign of what had happened there. + +Tish sat down in the rocker and looked thoughtfully about the room. + +“Under ordinary circumstances,” she said, “if you hang a broadcloth +skirt on a chandelier to brush it, you’ll have the whole business and +half the ceiling about your head in a minute. And yet, look at that, +hardly bent!” + +The room had evidently not been disturbed since Johnson had been found +there. The straight chair had been drawn beneath the chandelier, and +Tish pointed out the scratches made by the feet of whoever had cut +down the body. Over the back of the chair still hung the roller towel, +twisted into a grisly rope. + +Tish picked it up and examined it. + +“Pretty extravagant of material, aren’t they?” she said. “No Ladies’ +Aid that I ever saw would put more than two yards of twelve-cent stuff +in a roller towel. Look at the weight of that, and the length!” + +“There’s something on it,” I said, and we looked together. What we +found were only three letters, stamped in blue ink. + +“S. P. T.?” said Tish. “What in creation is S. P. T.?” + +She sat down with the towel in her hand, and we puzzled over it +together. + +“It’s the initials of the sewing circle that sent it in,” I asserted. +“That S. stands for Society.” + +“I’ve got it,” said Tish. “Society for the Prevention of Tetanus.” + +“That doesn’t help much,” I said. “We could find out by asking; I +daresay the nurses know.” + +But Tish wouldn’t hear of it. She said the towel was the only clue we +had, and she wasn’t going to give it to a hospital full of people who +didn’t seem to care whether their corpses walked around at night or not. + +She rolled up the towel under her arm, and in the doorway she turned to +take a final survey of the room. + +“Well,” she said, “we haven’t examined the dust with the microscope, +but I think it’s been worth while. It would be curious, Lizzie, if his +murdered wife’s initials were S. P. T.” + +“They couldn’t be,” I said. “Her last name was Johnson, wasn’t it?” + +But Tish wasn’t looking at me. She was staring intently at the wall +over the head of the bed, and I followed her eyes. + +The wall was gray, a dull gray below, and a frieze of paler gray above. +The dividing line between the two colors was not a picture molding--the +room had no pictures--but a narrow iron pipe, perhaps an inch in +thickness, and painted the color of the frieze. Why a pipe, I never +asked, but I fancy its roundness, its lack of angles and lines, had +been thought, like the gray walls, to be restful to the eyes. + +Directly over the head of the bed, the pipe-molding was loosened from +the wall, as if by a powerful wrench, and sagged at least four inches. + +“Look at that!” said Tish, pointing her cane. “Lizzie, I want you to +help me up on the bureau.” + +“I’ll do nothing of the sort, Tish,” I snapped. “You ought to be +ashamed with that leg.” + +But she had pulled out the lowest drawer and was standing on it by +that time, and there wasn’t anything for it but to help her up. She +caught hold of the pipe-molding between the windows, and jerked at it. + +“I thought so,” she said. “It doesn’t give a hair’s breadth! Lizzie, no +picture ever pulled that molding down like that.” + +Well, it was curious, when you think about it. It’s easy enough to read +Mr. Conan Doyle’s stories, knowing that no matter how puzzling the +different clues seem to be, Mr. Doyle knows exactly what made them, +and at the right time he’ll let you into his secret, and you’ll wonder +why you never thought of the right explanation at the time. But it is +different to have to work them out yourself, and to save my life I +couldn’t see anything to that bended pipe but a bended pipe. + +Tish’s next move was to crawl upon the bed, and that time I helped her +willingly. She stood for quite a while, gazing at the pipe, with her +nostrils twitching, steadying herself with one hand against the wall +to put on her glasses with the other. + +“Humph!” she said. “I can’t quite make it out. There are prints against +the wall just underneath, but it doesn’t seem to be a hand.” + +I got up beside her and we both looked. It was a hand, and it wasn’t. +It seemed like a long hand with short fingers. Tish leaned down and +rubbed her hand on the headboard of the bed, which was dusty, as she +expected, and then pressed its imprint against the wall beside the +other. They were alike, and they were different, and suddenly it came +to me, and it made me dizzy. + +“I know what it is now, Tish,” I said as calmly as I could. “That’s the +mark of a foot!” + +Tish nodded. She’d seen it almost as soon as I had. + +“A foot,” she repeated gravely, and we climbed off the bed in a hurry +and went out into the hall. + +Tish had left her cane in her excitement, and she refused to go back +for it alone. I went with her, finally, and we stood at the bottom of +the bed and looked at the foot, with its toes pointed up toward the +ceiling, and Tish’s hand beside it. + +“You know, Lizzie,” she said, clutching my arm, “if there _were_ a +fourth dimension, we could walk up walls easily.” + +And we went down to her room again. + +It was careless of us to forget Tish’s hand-print on the wall, for when +things got worse, and they discovered the two marks, somebody suggested +that no two hands make exactly the same print, and they had an expert +take an impression of it. As Tish said, she expected to be discovered +every time she had her pulse counted, and the strain was awful. They +might have accused _her_, you know, of carrying off old Johnson +and stringing him up, for they reached a state when they suspected +everybody. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WHEN AGGIE SCREAMED + + +Now Aggie has hay fever, and the slightest excitement, any time in the +year, starts her off. So when we heard her sneezing as we went down +the stairs, we were not surprised to find Tommy Andrews in front of +her with an order book on his knee, and Aggie trying to hold a glass +thermometer in her mouth. + +“I can’t,” she was protesting around the thermometer. “Justh try +sneething yourthelf with a--a--choo.” + +Her teeth came down on it just then with a snap and her face grew +agonized. + +“There!” she said. “What did I tell you?” And pulled the thermometer +out minus an end. + +“Where’s the rest?” Tommy demanded. + +“I--I swallowed it!” + +Tommy jumped up and looked frightened. + +“Great heavens, it’s glass!” he said. “What in thunder--why, there it +is in your lap!” + +“I swallowed the inside,” Aggie said stiffly. “I should think that’s +bad enough. It’s poison, isn’t it?” + +Tommy laughed. “It won’t hurt you,” he said. “It’s only quicksilver.” + +But Aggie was only partly reassured. “I daresay I’ll be coated inside +like the back of a mirror,” she snapped. “Between being frightened +to death until I’m in a fever, and then swallowing the contents of a +thermometer, and having it expand with the heat of my body, and maybe +blow up, I feel as though I’m on the border of the spirit land myself.” + +In spite of Tommy’s reassurances, she refused to be comforted, and sat +the rest of the afternoon waiting for something to happen. She ate no +luncheon, and she absolutely refused to go home. Aggie is like most +soft-mannered people, trying to make her do something she doesn’t want +is like pounding a pillow. It seems to give way, and the next minute +it’s back where it was at first, and you can pound till your hands +ache. So when she said she was going to stay at the hospital until she +felt sure the mercury wasn’t going to blow up or poison her, we had to +yield. + +We got the room next to Tish’s and put her to bed, and she lay there +alternately sneezing and sleeping the rest of the day. I went out +during the afternoon and brought a nightgown for her and one for +myself, and the mentholated cotton wool for her nose. The walk did me +good, and by the time I got back I was ready to sneer at footprints +that go up a wall and Johnson hanging to a chandelier. + +As I left the elevator at Tish’s door, I met Miss Linda Smith and +stopped her. “Is there anything new?” I asked. + +“Nothing, except that Miss Blake has been sent back to bed,” she said. +“She’s a nervous little thing anyhow, and she has not been here very +long. When she has had almost three years, as I have, she’ll learn +to let each day take care of itself--not to worry about yesterday or +expect anything of to-morrow.” + +“And how about to-day?” I asked, smiling at the contradiction of her +pessimistic speech and her cheerful face. + +“And to work like the deuce to-day,” she said, and went smiling down +the hall. + +I had brought in some pink roses, and when I’d put Aggie’s nightgown on +her and the wool in her nose, I had Miss Lewis take me to Miss Blake’s +room. + +It was close at hand. If you know the Dunkirk Hospital, you know +that the nurses’ dormitory is directly beside the main building, and +connected with it by doors on every floor. One of these doors was at +the end of Tish’s corridor, and Miss Blake’s room was the first on the +other side. + +Miss Lewis knocked and tried the door, but it was bolted. + +“Who’s there?” asked a startled voice, quite close, as if its owner +had been standing just inside. + +“Miss Lewis, dear.” + +“Just a moment.” + +She opened the door almost immediately and admitted us. She had on only +her nightgown and slippers, and her hair was down in a thick braid. I +have reached the time of life when I brush most of my hair by holding +one end of it in my teeth, so I always notice hair. + +“You’re up,” said Miss Lewis accusingly. + +“Only to be sure the door was fastened,” she protested, and got into +her single bed again obediently. + +“Now don’t be silly!” Miss Lewis said. “Why should you lock that door +in the middle of the afternoon? I thought you were the girl who rescued +the kitten from the ridge pole of the roof!” + +“That was different,” said Miss Blake, and shut her eyes. + +“I don’t want to disturb you,” I said. “Only--my friend and I felt +sorry that she caused you such a shock last night. And I want you to +have these flowers.” + +She seemed much pleased and Miss Lewis put them on the table by the +bed, beside another bouquet already there, a huge bunch of violets and +lilies of the valley. Violets and lilies of the valley are Tommy’s +favorite combination! + +“Doctor Andrews been here this afternoon?” Miss Lewis asked, looking up +from arranging the roses. + +“Once--twice,” said the little nurse, with heightened color. + +“I see,” said Miss Lewis. “And the husband of thirty-six telephoning +all over the city for him.” + +“The husband of thirty-six!” I repeated, astounded. They both laughed, +and Miss Blake looked for a moment almost gay. + +“He is not a Mormon,” she said. “It’s a case of ‘container for the +thing contained.’ Thirty-six is a room.” + +I think the laugh did the little nurse good, but when we left, a few +minutes later, Miss Lewis halted me a few steps from the door. We heard +her cross the room quickly and the bolt of the door slip into place. + +“Queer, isn’t it?” asked Miss Lewis. And I thought it was. + +Tommy Andrews came back late that night to see Aggie, but she had +stopped sneezing and dropped into a doze. He beckoned me out into the +hall. + +“How is she?” he asked. “Having been quick-silvered inside, I daresay +she’s been reflecting! Never mind, Miss Lizzie--I couldn’t help that.” + +“Tish wants to see you, Tommy,” I said. “She--we found something this +afternoon and I don’t mind saying we are puzzled.” + +“More mystery?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me somebody +else has shed his fleshy garment and hung it up--” + +“Please _don’t_,” I said, looking over my shoulder nervously. The hall +was almost dark. + +“Look here,” Tommy suggested in a whisper, “I’ll make a bargain with +you. I’ll go in and listen to Aunt Tish without levity--I give you my +word, no frivolity--if you’ll come over and play propriety while I see +Miss Blake.” + +Seeing me eye him, he went on guiltily: “She’s--sick, you know, and +I’ve been there two or three times to-day already. If it gets out among +the nurses--_please_, dear, good Aunt Lizzie!” + +Now, I’m not his aunt. For that matter, I’m a good ten years younger +than Tish, but he’s a handsome young rascal, and when a woman gets too +old to be influenced by good looks, it’s because she’s gone blind with +age, so I agreed on one condition. + +“Yes, if you’ll see Tish first,” I said, and he agreed. + +That was how we happened to be in Tish’s room when Aggie screamed. +Tish had just got to the footprint-on-the-wall part of her story, +and even Tommy was looking rather queer, when Aggie sneezed. Then +almost immediately she shrieked and the three of us were on our feet +and starting for the door before she stopped. As we reached the hall, +a nurse was running toward us, and the stillness in Aggie’s room was +horrible. + +It was dark. Which was strange, for I’d left the night light on at +Aggie’s request. Tommy pushed into the room first. + +“Where’s the light switch?” he demanded. “Are you there, Miss Aggie?” + +There was no answer, but in the darkness every one heard a peculiar +rustling sound, such as might be made by rubbing a hand over a piece of +stiff silk. It was the nurse who found the switch almost instantly, and +I think we expected nothing less than Aggie hanging by her neck to the +chandelier. But she was lying quietly in bed, in a dead faint. + +When she came to, she muttered something about a dead foot and fainted +again. By eleven o’clock she seemed pretty much herself once more and +even smiled sheepishly when Tommy suggested that it had been the fault +of the thermometer. She thought herself that she had dreamed it, and +Tish and I let her think so. But both of us had seen the same thing. + +Just over the head of Aggie’s bed the pipe-molding was wrenched loose +and pulled down out of line! + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +CANDLE AND SKYLIGHT + + +Tish sent Miss Lewis in to sit with Aggie, and the three of us, +including Tommy, met in Tish’s room. She had brought her alcohol +teakettle with her, and she insisted on making a cup of tea all around +before we talked things over. + +“Besides,” she remarked, measuring out the tea, “it’s about a quarter +of twelve now, and we may need a little tea-courage by midnight.” + +“If that’s the way you feel,” Tommy said, from the bed, holding his +empty cup ready for the tea. “I can get something from the medicine +cupboard outside that has tea knocked out in the first round.” + +“Not whiskey, Tommy!” Tish said with the teapot in the air. + +“Certainly _not_! _Spiritus frumenti_,” Tommy said with dignity, and +Tish was reassured. But I knew what he meant, my great uncle having +conducted a country pharmacy and done a large business among the +farmers in that very remedy. + +When we’d had our tea and some salted wafers, Tish drew up a chair and +faced Tommy and myself. + +“Now,” she said, “what did Aggie see?” + +“Personally,” Tommy remarked, balancing his teaspoon across the bridge +of his nose, and holding his head far back to do it, “personally, I’m +glad she only saw--or felt--a foot. It proves her really remarkable +quality of mind. The ordinary woman, in a stew like that, would have +seen an entire corpse, not to mention smelling sulphur.” + +Tish took the spoon off his nose and gave him a smart slap on the ear. + +“Thomas!” she said, “you will either be serious or go home. Do you +remember what we told you about the room up-stairs, a _foot_-mark on +the wall not three feet from the ceiling?” + +Tommy nodded, with both hands covering his ears. + +“Do you realize,” Tish went on, “that _that_ room is directly over the +one Aggie is occupying?” + +“Hadn’t thought of it,” said Tommy. “Is it?” + +“Yes. Tommy Andrews, Aggie may or may not have dreamed of that ice-cold +foot, but one thing she did _not_ dream; Lizzie and I both saw it. The +pipe-molding over Aggie’s bed is pulled loose from the wall and bent +down.” + +Tommy stared at us both. Then he whistled. + +“No!” he said, and fell into a deep study, with his hands in his heavy +thatch of hair. After a minute he got off the bed and sauntered toward +the door. + +“I’ll just wander in and have a look at it,” he said, and disappeared. + +It was Tish’s suggestion that we put the light out and sit in the +dark. Probably Tommy’s nearness gave us courage. As Tish said, in five +minutes it would be midnight, and almost anything might happen under +the circumstances. + +“And as honest investigators,” she said, “we owe it to the world and to +science to put ourselves _en rapport_. These things _never_ happen in +the light.” + +We could hear Tommy speaking in a low tone to Miss Lewis, but soon +that stopped, although he did not come back. Even with the door open, +a dimly-outlined rectangle, I wasn’t any too comfortable. Tish sat +without moving. Once she leaned over and touched my elbow. + +“I’ve got a tingle in both legs to the knee,” she whispered. “Do you +feel anything?” + +“Nothing but the slat across the back of this chair,” I replied, and +we sat silent again. I must have dozed almost immediately, for when I +roused, the traveling clock was striking midnight, and Tish was shaking +my arm. + +“What’s that light?” she quavered. + +I looked toward the hall, and sure enough the outline of the door was a +pale and quavering yellow. + +“The door frame is moving!” gasped Tish. + +“Fiddle!” I snapped, wide awake. “Somebody’s out there with a moving +light. Where’s Tommy?” + +“He hasn’t come back. Lizzie, go and look out. I can’t find my cane.” + +“Go yourself!” I said sourly. + +Well, we went together, finally, tiptoeing to the door and peering out. +The light was gone; only a faint gleam remained, and that came down the +staircase to the upper floor. + +“Damnation!” said Tommy’s voice, just at our elbow. And with that he +darted along the hall and up the stairs, after the light. + +Now Tish is essentially a woman of action. She’s only timid when she +can’t do anything. And now she hobbled across to the foot of the +stairs, with me at her heels. + +“That was no earthly light, Lizzie!” she said in a subdued tone. “Do +you remember what Aggie said, about the light when Mr. Wiggins died?” + +I’d been thinking about it myself that very moment. + +“I’d feel better with some sort of weapon, Tish,” I protested, as we +started up, but Tish only looked at me in the darkness and shook her +head. I knew perfectly well what she meant: that no earthly weapon +would be of any avail. Considering what we thought, I think that we got +up the staircase at all is very creditable. + +The light was there, coming from one of the empty rooms, and streaming +out into the dark hall. There was somebody moving in the room. We heard +a window closing, and then the footsteps coming toward the door. The +next moment the light itself came into the hall. It was a candle, and +Miss Blake was carrying it! + +I made out Tommy’s figure flattened in a doorway, and then the light +disappeared again as Miss Blake went into the next room, the one where +Johnson had been found. She was there a long time, and once we heard +her exclaim something and the light from the doorway wavered, as if the +candle had almost gone out. + +She went into each private room, then into the ward, and finally there +remained only the mortuary. Tish clutched my arm. Would this bit of a +girl, in her long white wrapper, her childish braid, her small bare +feet thrust into bedroom slippers, would she dare that grisly place? + +She did not keep us in doubt long. She went directly to the foot of the +mortuary steps and stood, her candle held high, looking up. Then she +began to mount them, slowly, as if every atom of her will were required +to urge her frightened muscles. Tommy stirred uneasily in his doorway. + +The large double doors to the mortuary stood partly open. She pushed +them back quietly and hesitated, candle still high. Then she went in, +and by the paling light we knew she had gone to the far end of the +room. Tommy came out from the doorway and tiptoed down the hall. We +could see his outline against the gleam. + +The stillness was terrible. We could hear her moving around that +awful place, could hear, even at that distance, the soft swish of her +negligée on the floor. And then, without any warning, she spoke. It was +uncanny beyond description, although we heard nothing she said. + +“My God!” said Tish, forgetting herself. + +There was a sound immediately after. Tish said it was a thud, as if a +chair had been upset, but I insisted that it sounded more like a window +thrown up with terrific force. The light went out immediately, and we +heard footsteps running away from us. + +“Tommy!” Tish called. But nobody answered. We were left there alone in +the darkness, shivering with fright. + +I am very shaky about what happened next. I remember Tish fumbling for +her cane, and saying she was going to follow Tommy, and my holding her +back and telling her not to be a fool--that the boy was safe enough. +And I remember seeing a light behind us and the old night watchman +coming up the staircase with his electric flash, and trying to tell him +something was wrong in the mortuary. + +And then, as my voice gave way, we heard a shout overhead, and +immediately the crash of broken glass and a thud into the hall just +ahead of us. The watchman pushed us aside and ran. + +Tommy was lying unconscious on the floor with the pieces of a broken +skylight all around him. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +INSINUATIONS AND RECRIMINATIONS + + +Miss Lewis had heard the crash and came running, with the hall nurse +from the floor below. Tish was sitting on the floor among the pieces of +glass, with Tommy’s head on her knee, crying over him, when they got +there. He opened his eyes just then, and lay staring up at the hole in +the skylight above, as if he was puzzled. Then he turned his head and +saw who was holding him, and made an effort to sit up. + +“You--needn’t look so tragic, Aunt Tish,” he said. “I’m--I’m all +right,” and fell back on her lap again. + +Miss Lewis got down and began to feel him for broken bones. + +“Skull’s whole, thank goodness!” she muttered. “Can you move your legs, +Doctor?” + +Tommy lifted them in turn, making grimaces of pain. Then he lifted his +right arm. It fell as if he couldn’t support its weight. + +“I’ve bruised my shoulder,” he said, and lay back with his eyes closed. + +“Get his coat off,” ordered Miss Lewis, and I knelt to help her. But +Tommy resisted. + +“I’m all right,” he said crossly. “I’ll look after it later myself.” + +“Tommy!” said Tish. “Let them take your coat off.” + +“I won’t have it off,” he insisted, and when she persisted he was +almost vicious. + +Miss Lewis sat back on her heels and shook her head at me. + +“He’s a little dazed,” she said. “How in the world did it happen?” + +“I was walking on the roof,” said Tommy more agreeably, “and I stepped +on the skylight by mistake. It was dark underneath. It was a darn fool +thing to do!” + +The hall nurse and Miss Lewis exchanged glances, and the hall nurse +looked at me and smiled. + +“He is still dazed,” she said, smiling. “How could he step on the +skylight? It has a four-foot fence around it!” + +We waited for him to explain further, but he let it go at that, and +lay for a little while with his mouth shut hard and a queer thoughtful +look on his face. He roused pretty soon, however, and grunted as if his +shoulder pained him. Then he made Tish get up, and after a minute or so +he sat up himself. He sat there gazing at the skylight, and a few drops +of rain came down through the opening. Tish and I shivered. We were +only partly dressed. + +He saw it and was on his feet at once, pretty much himself. + +“Now don’t let’s have any fuss about this, please,” he said, addressing +us all. “I forgot the skylight. That’s all. I’m not hurt, Aunt Tish, +and you and Miss Lizzie must go to bed this instant.” + +“What are _you_ going to do?” Tish demanded sharply. “Going up on the +roof again?” + +“I’ll be down pretty soon,” he evaded. “Jacobs and I will just +straighten this mess a bit.” + +I caught a look of intelligence between the two of them, and Jacobs +spoke up. + +“If the doctor’ll lend a hand--” + +“Tommy,” Tish said suddenly, “the shoulder of your coat is soaked with +blood!” + +Tommy put his hand up and felt it. + +“I’ve got a scratch somewhere up there,” he said coolly. “It isn’t +going to be touched until the two ladies in negligée and curl papers +are safe in bed with hot-water bottles at their feet. Miss Lewis, Miss +Carberry is using her knee again!” + +“I’d use a switch if I had one,” said Tish, almost with tears in her +eyes. But Tommy has the same will that she has herself, and we were +down-stairs between blankets, I on the couch in Tish’s room and Tish +in bed, with our feet against hot-water bottles, and drinking cups of +hot milk, almost before we knew it. + +But Tommy and the watchman did not clean up the broken glass in the +upper hall. Whatever they did, that glass was still there the next +morning, and none of us disturbed the general belief that it had been +broken by the hail-storm that came just before dawn. + +I was so hoarse the next morning that I could hardly speak, and Tish +kept me on her couch. Her knee was stiff again, too. Including Aggie, +although she had slept through the skylight incident, we were pretty +well used up, and Tish would not let us go home. It was just as well. +She should hardly have faced the events of the next two days without us. + +Aggie had her breakfast in bed, but Tish and I had Briggs, the orderly +who carried in our trays, set out a table for us, and were really very +snug. Tish was as cross as two sticks until she’d had her tea, when +she grew more companionable. + +“I want to ask you something, Lizzie,” she said as she poured her +second cup. “How, when we saw Tommy go into the mortuary, as plain as +day, could he fall down from the roof?” + +“Well,” I said, buttering my toast, “you know about the what-you-call-’ems +in India. They send up a rope into the sky and then a boy up the rope, +and after he has disappeared they give the rope a jerk and he falls, +apparently from nowhere. It’s some sort of optical illusion.” + +“Don’t be a fool,” Tish observed sharply. “I’ve been thinking it over +in bed. There must be a fire-escape there somewhere.” + +“Oh!” I hadn’t thought of a fire-escape. + +“Now, then,” said Tish, “suppose there is a fire-escape, and the Blake +girl went up by it to the roof, and Tommy followed her. Which is what +happened, Lizzie. I’m nobody’s fool; I’ve got eyes in my head. If that +young woman had jumped off the window sill, Tommy Andrews would have +jumped too. Now, then, _why_ did the Blake girl go to the roof?” + +“Maybe she wanted air,” I suggested. Tish waved her napkin at me. + +“Air!” she snapped. “When you want air, do you generally climb a +fire-escape to a roof, when there’s a staircase up to it, and entice +young men to fall down through skylights and break their shoulders? +Lizzie,”--she leaned over--“Lizzie, that young vixen pushed him through +that skylight and I can prove it!” + +“No!” + +“Yes.” She got up and, going to the cupboard, lifted down her best hat. + +“Look here!” she said, and took from its crown a brass candlestick, the +base bent almost double. + +“I was sitting on that when I held Tommy’s head last night. It came +down with the skylight,” she said. “That’s the candlestick the Blake +girl was carrying. What do you make of it?” + +I was speechless. Tish unlocked the lower bureau drawer and put +the candlestick in it, beside the roller towel marked S. P. T. and +something else, which I learned later was the bandage Linda Smith +had found in the upper hall, and identified as the one that had tied +Johnson’s hands. + +“Now,” she said, locking the drawer again, “I’m going to have a little +chat with Miss Blake. It’s my belief that she let old Johnson die from +neglect, or gave him poison by mistake. And now he’s haunting her--or +she’s haunting him, which is what it looks like.” + +But we had no chat with Miss Blake that day. The day nurse, taking her +a tray of breakfast, found her delirious in bed, with a raging fever. +Miss Lewis went over to see her. + +“She’s been preparing for this for some time,” she said when she came +back. “She was queer yesterday--you remember, Miss Lizzie--and last +night she did a funny thing. She got the night nurse to give her a +bottle of morphine--enough to kill a horse. And I found it under her +pillow this morning, almost half of it gone!” + +“Great heavens!” Tish said. “Why, the girl’s a potential murderess!” + +Miss Lewis turned, with a pillow in her arms. “Not a bit of it,” she +said. “There’s something queer about this place lately, and I don’t +care who hears me say it. But folks will have to make insinuations +against Ruth Blake over my dead body!” + +She glared at Tish, and Tish at her. + +“I have reasons to doubt that Miss Blake is all you think her,” said +Tish stiffly. But Miss Lewis came and stood over her unpleasantly. + +“I’m not for making any trouble, Miss Carberry,” she said, “but this +house was calm enough until two days ago, and Ruth Blake has been here +six months, and what’s more, I notice one thing. The most of the +excitement has been around where you are. Maybe you’re psychic, as they +call it, and don’t know it. Maybe it’s--something else. But it wasn’t +Miss Blake who first saw Johnson hanging by his neck, and it wasn’t +Miss Blake the skylight all but fell on, and it wasn’t Miss Blake’s +nephew that fell through the skylight, and it wasn’t in the room of +Miss Blake’s best friend next door that a death-cold foot--” + +But Tish put her fingers in her ears and fled to Aggie. + +Nevertheless, Miss Lewis had set me to thinking. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OVERHEARD IN THE DORMITORY + + +Aggie’s hay fever was bad that morning, and she stayed in bed. Tish +and I went in and sat with her after breakfast, and she was very +disagreeable. + +“I shall certaidly tell Tobby whad I thig of hib,” she grumbled. “I +told hib I could dot hold that therbobeter. _That_ is what gave be that +dreab. If it _was_ a dreab!” + +“Certainly it was a dream,” said Tish. + +“I’b dot so sure!” Aggie retorted. + +Well, relieved of the hay fever, Aggie’s story was something like this: + +She had been asleep, and was dreaming she had turned into a thermometer +herself, and as she got hotter, having too many blankets on, she said +she felt herself expanding until her head touched something that she +thought was the head of the bed. But she said in her dream she kept on +expanding, and she was just saying to Tommy Andrews, in a fury, that +if it grew any hotter she’d burst, when something gave way at the head +of the bed with a sort of tearing sound, and she wakened. She said it +was a full minute before she was certain she _wasn’t_ a thermometer and +hadn’t expanded right up through the top. Then she reached up to turn +over her pillow, and just beside her was a dead foot. She had thought +she was still dreaming and had actually caught hold of it. But it +disappeared under her fingers, dissolved, as you might say, and there +was no body. Aggie was positive about that. It was then she sat up and +screamed. + +Well, we kept the knowledge of what had happened to Tommy from her, and +left her sitting up in bed using a nasal spray. Tish was wonderfully +better after breakfast, and we walked up and down the corridor, she +without the cane and hardly a limp. + +It was Tish who suggested that we go into the nurses’ dormitory and ask +how Miss Blake was, and after we had located Miss Lewis, gossiping with +the day nurse in a corner, we slipped in. Patients are forbidden in the +dormitory. + +The door to Miss Blake’s room was closed, but somebody was inside, +talking. Tish and I waited outside, and we could hardly help hearing +what was said. It was a woman’s voice, familiar enough, but I couldn’t +place it. + +“You must stay in bed, Ruth,” she was pleading. “Oh, my dear, how can I +forgive myself!” + +“Let me up!” Ruth Blake’s voice, insistent and querulous. “They are +hanging him up by the neck--” her voice died away in a groan. + +The other woman broke into frightened sobbing, and Tish put her hand on +the knob. But I held her back. + +“I have killed her!” said the voice. “Always thinking of myself! Ruth! +Listen to me!” + +“Through the skylight!” babbled Ruth. “I tell you, he is dead!” + +“Ruth!” begged the voice, and more sobbing, growing gradually quieter. +Then silence, as if the sick girl had dropped asleep. + +Tish and I slipped away, and back through the connecting door to our +room. Once there, by common mute consent we left the door into the +corridor open and took up such positions as enabled us to watch the +people who passed along the hall. Ten minutes brought nobody. Then we +heard the door open, and brisk steps coming along the hall. + +“Well,” said Miss Linda Smith, in her cheerful way, “well, how’s the +knee this morning, Miss Carberry?” + +“Better,” Tish replied genially. + +“That’s fine,” said Miss Smith and hurried along, humming a bit of a +song. Tish and I looked at each other. In spite of the cheerfulness, +of the eyes bathed in cold water and carefully powdered, it was Miss +Smith’s voice we had heard in the Blake girl’s room. + +But when we got to talking it over we couldn’t see that what we had +heard had really any importance. Miss Smith had left the girl alone +in the mortuary, and was reproaching herself for having done it. That +was all. But as Tish said, what did she mean by saying she was always +thinking of herself? It was hardly, as Tish pointed out, an act of +supreme selfishness to go down and get an armful of sheets to cover a +corpse! + +Tommy came in at eleven o’clock, freshly shaved and linened, and +apparently as well as ever. He had been over to see Miss Blake first, +but found her sleeping, which he considered a good sign. I noticed that +he kept his right hand in his pocket, and did not use the arm at all. +He said the shoulder was stiff, naturally, and that he must have been +sleep-walking himself to get over that fence and through the skylight +the way he had. + +“Sleep-walking!” said Tish sharply. “Do you think that that girl was +sleep-walking?” + +“I certainly do,” said Tommy. + +“Then you’re a fool,” said Tish. “If she _was_ sleep-walking, so was +the burglar who took my disciple spoons last fall. Sleep-walking!” + +“I wish you--” + +“You’re wishing me bad luck if you feel the way you look!” said Tish +shrewdly. “Now, Tommy, I’m going to get to the bottom of all this, +and so are you. It will take twice the amount of effort separated as +united. Don’t try any evasions with me--half a truth is worse than +a good lie. Now--out with it. What really happened on the roof last +night?” + +“I wish I knew!” said Tommy, and looked at us gravely. “You saw what +there was to see up-stairs. I happened to see Miss Blake going up +the stairs with the candle, and I noticed something strange in her +expression. I followed her and you followed me. She went into each +room and then to the mortuary. That’s proof, isn’t it, that she was +sleep-walking? I’ve worried over it all night, and I’m sure of it. +Anyhow, why would she take a candle, when there is electric light +everywhere? I tell you, the shock of the night before was on the girl’s +mind while she slept.” + +Tish had got out her sheet of letter paper. + +“Well?” she said, putting something down. + +“I saw her go into the mortuary, and I heard her talking; I couldn’t +make out what she said. Then there was a crash, and I ran. When I got +there one of the stained-glass windows was wide open, and she was +climbing up the fire-escape outside. The candle had gone out. Aunt +Tish, that fire-escape up there is the merest skeleton, and it is five +high stories from the ground. Awake, she couldn’t have done it.” + +“Humph!” said Tish. “It isn’t hard at night, when you can’t see how far +it is to the ground.” Then, seeing that Tommy was looking sulky, she +added: “Still, you may be right.” + +“Up to that point,” said Tommy, “I’m perfectly clear. I was out on the +escape by the time she got to the roof, and I lost her there. I saw her +again, however, when I climbed on the roof, and went toward her. I’ve +heard a lot about the danger of waking sleep-walkers suddenly, and I +spoke to her quietly. I said ‘Miss Blake.’” + +“Yes?” + +“Well,” he confessed, “that’s about all I remember. Or no, it isn’t. +The girl was asleep, and not responsible. She turned like a flash when +I spoke, and cried out, and--I think she threw her brass candlestick +at me! Then--I seemed to be falling forward--and when I knew anything +again I was in the hall below.” + +“Having fainted over a four-foot fence!” Tish observed sharply. “Tommy, +that won’t do.” + +“I give you my word, Aunt Tish,” he said, “I haven’t any idea _how_ I +got over that fence and through that skylight.” + +“I have!” Tish said, and put away her note-paper. We both stared at her +and Tommy even smiled. + +“Exactly,” he said. “I’ve thought of that, but how do you account for +the fact that not a patient left his ward or private room last night? +That every servant and nurse was in his proper place? Jacobs and I took +pains to find that out. And that I’ve got as pretty a bite in my right +shoulder as you would care to see?” + +“Bite!” Tish exclaimed, and reached feebly for the note-paper. + +“Bite!” I repeated. “Then it must be an animal--!” + +“Who knows?” Tommy said quietly. “Jacobs and I got it cauterized. +I don’t want the internes to get hold of the story--they’re apt to +talk to the nurses. I hardly know what to do next. Since Mr. Harrison +had the trouble last night with the two medical men, he is too busy +holding down his job to have much time for anything else. If there is +to be anything done, I rather think it’s up to me.” + +“It’s up to _us_!” said Tish firmly. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ORDERLY BRIGGS AND DISORDERLY BATES + + +After all, it was my suggestion that we bring in Briggs, the orderly, +and ask him about the night Johnson’s body was moved. Tish acknowledges +this, and if she does not realize how much poor Briggs helped us in +unraveling the mystery, I am not one to remind her. But Briggs was on +night duty, and went to bed after carrying the breakfast trays on our +floor. + +Tish, however, having approved of my idea, had appropriated it as her +own--which is a way most self-willed people have, and she insisted that +Tommy send for him. + +He came about twelve o’clock, looking rather surly, and presenting a +general appearance of having his coat and trousers on over his night +shirt. + +“Come in, Briggs,” said Tommy, when he knocked. “Sorry to wake you, old +man.” + +“I wasn’t sleeping,” he replied sourly. “The noise in the place is +enough to waken the dead.” + +“Perhaps,” said Tish, “perhaps that’s what ailed Johnson!” + +Briggs turned quickly and looked at her. He was a tall man, with +a heavy black mustache and powerful stooped shoulders. He had one +drooping eyelid, that gave him an unpleasant appearance. Whether it was +consciousness of this, or shiftiness, which was Tish’s theory, he never +looked directly at one. As Tish said, his gaze seemed to stop at your +collar, but if you averted your eyes you were sure to have the feeling +that he’d darted a stealthy glance at you and got away with it before +you could catch him. + +“No,” he said, after a moment, “nothing will waken Johnson but the +trumpet on the last day.” + +“Do you know, Briggs,” Tish said coolly, “I have my own little theory +about that night? You don’t like Miss Smith, and you and Marshall +prepared a little surprise for her. Shame on you, Briggs.” + +He positively looked straight at her. It was so surprising that it +presented him in a new light with a sort of aureole of outraged virtue. + +“No, _mam_,” he said. “You’re right, I don’t get along with Miss Smith, +but as for playing a trick of that sort--!” He took his handkerchief +out and wiped his forehead. “I wouldn’t have done it on anybody,” he +said, “and as for Johnson--” he glanced at Tommy, half ashamed--“I tell +you, the things I’ve seen about that man’s bed would make me respect +him, dead or living. Raps on the foot-board, and his bedside stand with +two legs in the air, beating time like a drum. No, _mam_, if you think +I did that, you think I’m a braver man than I am.” + +“Humph!” said Tish, and put down “Raps and bedside stand. Johnson.” + +“Suppose,” Tommy suggested, “now that you are here, you tell us exactly +what happened the night Johnson died.” + +“He died at ten minutes after twelve on Tuesday night, sir. I was +staying by a delirious patient in the next ward, Doctor. Miss Durand, +the night nurse, was busy and asked me to watch him. It wasn’t until an +hour after he died that I was notified to take Johnson’s body to the +mortuary. I called Marshall from the floor below, and we took the body +up on the elevator. Jacobs runs the elevator after midnight, it being +not used except for emergency, night operations, ambulance cases coming +in, or a death. + +“We put the body on the receiving table, and Marshall uncovered the +face. Maybe we were both nervous, having talked many a time during his +sickness with the old man, and him saying he’d come back and bring us +some sign from the spirit world, after he’d ‘passed over.’ Anyhow, +Marshall uncovered his face and looked at him, and he said, ‘Johnson, +now’s your time to make good. Here _you_ are and here _we_ are. Come +over with the sign!’” + +Briggs looked at Tommy and Tommy nodded. + +“Sign,” wrote Tish. “Then what happened, Briggs?” Neither of us would +have been a bit surprised if he had said the dead man moved a foot, or +that unseen hands pulled the pipe-molding loose and bent it down before +their very eyes. But Briggs shook his head. + +“Nothing--then,” he said, “but when I heard about what happened later, +I had a talk with Marshall. I don’t believe in fooling with things you +don’t know anything about.” + +“Briggs,” Tommy said suddenly, “you say the body lay in the ward almost +an hour before removal. Why was that?” + +“Because,” Briggs replied significantly, “there was no nurse in that +ward when he died, or for nearly an hour after. The ward was in charge +of a convalescent typhoid named Bates.” + +“Why was that?” Tommy demanded. But Briggs only shrugged his shoulders, +with his good eye fixed about four inches below Tommy’s chin. + +When he got no answer, “Bring Bates here,” Tommy said sharply, and +during the interval until the two men appeared he walked somberly up +and down, his face thoughtful. + +Bates was hardly prepossessing. He shuffled in in a pair of +carpet-slippers much too large, a pair of faded trousers, and a garment +that was evidently his nightshirt with the tail tucked in. But Bates +was shrewd if unshaven, as we found out. + +“Bates,” said Tommy, “you are a patient in K ward?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“You helped to look after Johnson, the man who died night before last?” + +“Sometimes--when the nurses were busy.” + +“Have you heard anything about--of what happened after his death?” + +Bates smiled. + +“There’s been a good bit of talk going around, sir,” he said. “He’d got +the ward worked up some--talking about coming back after he’d chipped +in. One of the men claims to have seen him looking in the window near +his bed last night, and there’s a story about his corpse being found +hanging--but that’s ridiculous, sir.” + +“It’s true, Bates.” + +Bates’ jaw dropped. “Oh, no, sir. Surely not!” he said, and changed +color. + +“Now, Bates,” Tommy said, “we are men of sense, you and I. We know +Johnson didn’t do it himself, don’t we?” + +“Yes, sir.” Not as convinced as he might have been. + +“Then it was done for him.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Presumably by somebody in this house.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Bates, was any one missing from your ward during either last night or +the night before, that you know of?” + +Bates thought. “No, sir,” he said. “I don’t sleep much; that’s my +trouble, insomnia. I can hear a kitten stir in my ward--not, of course, +that we’re liable to kittens, sir. Night before last I was up and +dressed all night, wandering around, and last night, as you know, I sat +up with that railroad case. The boy was out of his head.” + +“Then, either night, no patient could have stolen out from K ward into +the house and been absent for any length of time without your knowing +it?” + +“It’s hardly possible,” Bates said. “Mr. Briggs or I would know for +sure, sir.” + +“Do you help in the other wards on the men’s floor?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Are there any delirious patients?” + +“None able to stand or walk about.” + +“I see,” Tommy said thoughtfully. “And now, Bates, is it correct that +Miss Durand, the night nurse, left her ward for fifty minutes, knowing +that Johnson was dying?” + +“Fifty-five minutes, sir.” Bates’ shrewd eyes said more than his words. + +“It was, possibly, for night supper?” + +“That’s at two o’clock.” Bates knew a good bit about the hospital, and +enjoyed showing his knowledge. + +“You have no idea _why_ she left?” + +“No, sir. Miss Smith came to the door, and they went away together. +Miss Smith looked upset and nervous, as if she’d been crying--if you’ll +excuse my saying so, sir.” + +“Did you notice in which direction they went?” + +“They went down-stairs. When they came back Miss Smith was looking more +cheerful, and she had a bundle in her hand.” + +“What sort of a bundle?” + +“Darkish. It might have been clothing. Miss Durand was frightened when +she found Johnson had died, and she asked me not to say she had been +away.” + +“Thanks, Bates. You’d better go back now,” said Tommy, “and Bates, if +you hear or see anything that strikes you as curious, let me know, will +you?” + +Bates promised and flapped out, with Briggs behind him. Tommy called +Briggs back. “Briggs,” he said, “I have asked the superintendent to let +me put on a few guards to-night. This thing has gone beyond a joke. Mr. +Harrison will give us the scrubbers, Frank, from the elevator and two +assistants from the laundry. The internes have volunteered, also, that +makes eleven; with you and myself, thirteen.” + +“Thirteen!” said Briggs. “Would you mind making it fourteen, Doctor?” + +Tommy looked surprised. + +“Briggs!” he said. “Surely you--” Then he took a good look at Briggs’ +pasty face and nodded. “All right,” he said. “We can have Hicks from +the ambulance. And just a word,” he said, as Briggs made for the door. +“We are not talking, Briggs. Most of these men are watching for a +thief. Do you understand? And I’d be glad to have your help in placing +them where they’ll do the most good.” + + + + +CHAPTER X + +AN APE AND SOME GUINEA-PIGS + + +Miss Lewis came in a few minutes after Briggs had gone, and, closing +the door behind her, looked at Tommy. + +“Miss Blake is conscious,” she said. “Temperature only ninety-nine, +pulse a hundred and forty.” + +“Good!” Tommy said heartily. It was evident to us all how relieved he +was. “But I don’t like the pulse.” He was brushing his hair back with +Tish’s brush. “She’s had a terrific shock of some sort.” + +“Yes, sir,” said Miss Lewis, still with her back to the door. + +Tommy leaned over and kissed Tish’s cheek. He was delighted at the mere +prospect of seeing the Little Nurse, and showed it. “Now, try to be +good until I come back, both of you,” he said. “All right, Miss Lewis, +we’ll have a look at our patient in the dormitory.” + +Miss Lewis looked flushed and uncomfortable. + +“I’m sorry, Doctor,” she said. “Miss--Miss Blake doesn’t--she has asked +for Doctor Willson instead.” + +“What!” said Tommy, and turned a dark red. + +“She’s asked for Doctor Willson,” repeated Miss Lewis. “There’s no +mistake. I’ve been coaxing her for ten minutes.” + +“She’s still delirious,” Tish snapped. “And it is not necessary to coax +people to retain my nephew’s professional services, Miss Lewis.” + +“Why, that’s all right,” Tommy said with affected cheerfulness. +“Willson’s a fine chap--she couldn’t do better.” + +“Fiddle!” Tish was angry. “Who is Willson, anyhow?” + +“Big fellow, dark eyes--very distinguished looking man,” said Tommy +humbly. Tommy is handsome, if being straight and slim and young count +for anything, but I daresay one could hardly call him distinguished. +Tish and I differ about this. “Good gracious, Aunt Tish, the girl ought +to have the privilege of selecting her own medical adviser.” + +“Humph!” + +“Suppose you go back to the dormitory, Miss Lewis,” Tommy said, “and +say to Miss--Miss Blake that she’s made a wise choice, and I’ll send +Willson to her as soon as he comes in. And ask her if she will let me +see her for a moment, not professionally.” + +Miss Lewis looked doubtful, but she went. When she came back, in five +minutes, she was evidently irritated, and her cap was more than ever on +one ear. + +“She’s sitting on the side of the bed, half dressed,” she grumbled, +“and she says she won’t see anybody.” + +“Then she doesn’t want--Willson?” asked Tommy, looking relieved. + +“No. Says she’s all right, and if people don’t stop bothering her +she is going out somewhere in the country where they have a dog and +kittens! That’s what she said! Not _cat_ and kittens--” + +“Sensible girl,” said Tommy, happy again. “She--hasn’t changed her mind +about seeing me?” + +“No, nor about locking the door. And what’s more--” She stopped and +glanced at Tommy. “I’d like to speak to you a moment in the hall, +Doctor.” + +“What sort of shilly-shallying is that?” demanded Tish. “Can’t you +speak to him here?” + +“I can _not_,” said Miss Lewis, glaring back at Tish, her thumbs inside +her apron belt. “It isn’t considered shilly-shallying in this hospital +for a nurse to make a report to a doctor, and if you’ll read the rules +on that door--” + +“I’ll speak to you in the hall,” said Tommy. “Miss Lewis is right, Aunt +Tish. If it’s in line with what we’ve been discussing, I’ll tell you.” + +But Tish isn’t a woman to take chances. Afterward, she justified +her looking through the keyhole on the plea that she was making a +scientific theory to fit the case, and if it were not for keyholes many +a murderer would have gone unhung to his grave. At the time, however, I +was rather horrified. + +She had plenty of time to tell me what she saw, as it happened, +for Tommy did not come back until late in the afternoon, after the +guinea-pig incident. + +Tish says that when she’d got them in focus, as you may say, Miss Lewis +was pulling something out of her sleeve. It was a knife, Tish says, +with a short, thin blade that looked as sharp as a razor. + +“One of the knives from the operating room, Doctor,” Miss Lewis said. +“I thought I’d better not let the old ladies see it.” + +I daresay that was when I saw Tish’s back stiffen. + +“Great Scott!” said Tommy. + +“I found it on the floor under her bed,” Miss Lewis went on. “She +didn’t see me pick it up.” + +Tommy was staring at the blade. + +“It’s been used,” he said. “Look at this!” + +“Exactly,” said Miss Lewis. “It’s from the operating room, Doctor, and +they don’t put away their knives in that condition.” + +“What do you mean by that?” Tommy demanded sharply. But Miss Lewis only +looked at him. + +“I don’t mean anything against Ruth Blake, if that’s what you are +indignant about,” she said. “But I’m glad I found that knife. There’s +enough talk, Doctor.” + +They moved down the hall then, so that was all Tish heard. But she +added, “Knife, blood-stained,” to her sheet of paper. + +Aggie being half drowsy and altogether sulky, we took a little time to +go over the notes Tish had made, and they pointed as many different +ways as a porcupine--Johnson, with his raps and his talk about coming +back, taken from the mortuary and hung by his neck with a roller towel +marked S. P. T.; the coincidence of Johnson’s wife murdered a few years +before and hung up the same way; Miss Blake wandering around at night +with a brass candlestick and a blood-stained knife from the operating +room, and Tommy Andrews falling or being pushed through a skylight and +coming out of the excitement with a _bite_ instead of a fracture! And +then there were smaller things, though strange enough--the twisted +pipe-molding and the footprints on the wall up-stairs in the room where +Johnson’s body was found; the loosened molding in Aggie’s room and her +story about the foot; the fact that Johnson was left to die in the +care of a convalescent typhoid and the ward left alone for fifty-five +minutes; Linda Smith and her speech to Miss Blake, not to mention the +darkish bundle. + +It was Tish who advanced the gigantic ape theory. She’d been reading +_The Murders in the Rue Morgue_, and some of the clues seemed to +fit, especially Tommy’s shoulder. The loosened molding helped out the +theory, and as Tish said, also the stringing up of Johnson’s body, +which, if you left out the supernatural, had apparently been done by +something tremendously strong, but without intelligence. + +Well, the more we thought of it the more certain we felt. The footprint +part of it, too, we considered corroborative evidence, until we got the +encyclopedia and learned that the great apes have the equivalent of +four hands, and not a foot at all. + +But Tish was undaunted. “Mark my words, Lizzie,” she said, “they’ve +lost a chimpanzee or a gorilla from the Zoological Garden--not that +they’ll acknowledge it. You remember when the lion got loose and +ate a colored woman out the Ralston road, and how the papers denied +everything until they found the beast dead of indigestion in a cellar? +But that is what has happened.” + +Well, I thought it likely enough myself, and Tish called up Charlie +Sands, who is on a newspaper and is another of Tish’s nephews. + +“Lizzie and I,” said Tish over the ’phone, “have reason to believe that +there is a great ape--a-p-e--ape! Monkey, _monkey_--yes. A large monkey +loose, and we want you to trace it.” + +There was a long pause. Tish said afterward that Charlie claimed to +have fainted at the other end of the wire, and to have had to be +restored with whisky and soda. However, which is more to the point, +he promised to find out for us what he could, and Tish hung up the +receiver. + +“He’ll do it, too, Lizzie,” she said, “although he spoke to me gently, +as if he thought my reason had entirely gone. But, as he said, it won’t +hurt to scare up the Zoo people anyhow. They’re very casual about their +animals.” + +Now, two things were discovered that afternoon, neither of them to be +explained by anything we knew. The first one was that Tommy Andrews +and Mr. Harrison, the superintendent, making a careful examination of +the roof, found a spattering of dried blood leading from the broken +skylight to the ridge pole, where it ceased abruptly. The second one +was made by Aggie and myself. + +About three o’clock that afternoon Aggie got into her clothes and +insisted on coming into Tish’s room, which was inconvenient, Tish +expecting the message from Charlie Sands at any moment. Aggie was +nervous, but her head was clearer. She’d been thinking things over, and +she knew now that what had happened the night before had been a message +from the roofer. + +“Then the least said about it the better!” Tish snapped. “If he hasn’t +any better sense than to materialize his foot, and you a woman of your +years and respectability, he’d better go back where he came from.” + +“For heaven’s sake, Tish,” Aggie pleaded, looking over her shoulder. +“He may be listening to us now!” + +“I don’t care if he is,” said Tish recklessly. “If he’d materialize a +will, now, leaving you that house in Groveton! But a foot!” + +“I’m not so sure it _was_ a foot,” Aggie said restlessly. “I’ve been +thinking, Tish--he was a large man, you know. It may have been a hand.” + +Now at that moment the telephone bell rang, and Tish signaled to me to +take Aggie out at once. I got up and took her by the arm. + +“I’ll walk up and down the corridor with you, Aggie,” I said. “You need +exercise.” + +“I don’t care to walk,” she objected, trying to sit down. “See who is +at the telephone, Tish. I expect my laundress is through washing and +wants her money.” + +“I’d like you to see the hospital,” I said desperately as the ’phone +rang again. “The--the guinea-pigs, Aggie.” Miss Lewis had told me about +them. + +Now, Aggie loves a guinea-pig. It’s a queer taste, but she says they +neither bark like dogs nor scratch like cats, and they _have_ a nice +way of wiggling their noses. + +“Guinea-pigs!” she said in an ecstasy. “Where?” + +“In the laboratory,” said I, and led her out of the room. + +She put on all her wraps and Miss Lewis took us to the laboratory, +which is a small brick building set off by itself in the hospital yard, +with Aggie cooing in anticipation and wanting to send out and buy a +cabbage for them. Doctor Grimm, who was the surgical interne, met us as +we were crossing the yard, and volunteered to let us in. + +“You know,” he said, feeling in his pocket for the keys, “they’re not as +attractive as some guinea-pigs and rabbits I have known under happier +circumstances. They scratch a good bit--some think it’s fleas; some say +it’s germs.” + +“Germs?” Aggie asked, puzzled. + +“Oh, yes,” he said, opening the door and leading the way into a narrow +hall. “Some of them have been inoculated with several different kinds +of germs. That’s why we keep this place so well locked up, for fear the +germs may escape. You know,”--he unlocked the second door and threw it +open, “you know, suppose you were walking up the street and met a solid +phalanx of say sixteen billion typhoid germs, or measles! It would be +horrible, wouldn’t it?” + +He stepped into the room and looked about him. + +“Come in,” he said. “It’s a little close. We had a tear-up among the +resident staff, and nobody has been here to-day. Hello!” + +He threw open the shutters, and a broad shaft of gray daylight lighted +the room. Aggie gave a cry of dismay. The doors of the small cages +around the walls were all open, and in the center, a pathetic heap of +little brown-and-white and black-and-white bodies, lay the guinea-pigs. + +Doctor Grimm picked one up and examined it closely. + +“I’m damned!” he said, and put it down. “Throats cut, every one of +them! And where are the rabbits?” + +Aggie sat down and began to blubber, but Miss Lewis scolded her +soundly. “There’ll be plenty more where they came from,” she said +sharply. “What _does_ concern us is--how would anybody or anything get +in here with both doors and all the windows locked, and not a chimney.” + +Aggie wiped her eyes and got up. + +“You laughed at me last night, Miss Lewis,” she said with dignity, “but +I wish to remind you that to the fourth dimension there are no locks, +no bars, no doors or walls.” + +“When they invent that,” said Miss Lewis, opening the door to let us +out, “they’ll have to invent something like these X-ray-proof screens, +or a woman won’t dare to change her clothes.” + +“And what’s more,” said Aggie, turning in the doorway, “the hand that +slew those innocent little creatures is the one I touched last night!” + +“Hand!” cried Miss Lewis. “It was a _foot_ then.” + +But Aggie was holding her shoulder over her face and hurrying across +the yard. At the far side she threw back a contemptuous sneeze. + + * * * * * + +Tish’s commission to Charlie Sands had an unexpected result. She was +almost bursting with it when I got back. + +“Listen,” she said while Aggie got her spray, “doesn’t this bear out +what I’ve been saying right along? The Zoo people say positively that +none of their animals has escaped. But they took such an interest in +his inquiry that Charlie grew suspicious and bribed a keeper. He sent +this up by messenger from the office: + +“‘Dear and revered spinster aunt,’” she read--“the young rascal! +‘I couldn’t tell you this over the ’phone, for it’s our exclusive +property, and will be published to-morrow morning, with photographs of +the late deceased, etc. Hero, the biggest ape in captivity, pining for +his keeper, Wesley Barker, who has been away, committed suicide in his +cage last night by hanging himself with a roller towel. He was found +dead when the assistant keeper unlocked the cage at six o’clock this +morning. Nobody knows how he got the roller towel. Charlie.’ + +“‘P. S.--I’ve got the roller towel, a fine long one and marked S. P. T. +Do you think the letters stand for Suicidal Purpose Towel?’” + +Tish looked at me triumphantly over her reading-glasses. + +“You see, Lizzie, what a little logical thinking will do. If it hadn’t +been for me, you and Aggie would have gone to your graves expecting to +be able to come back at any time and hang from chandeliers or do any +of the ridiculous buffoonery that seems to be expected of returned +spirits. We search for a ghost and we find a gorilla.” + +She meant ape, of course, but the other was alliterative. + +“I’m not quite clear about it yet, Tish,” I said, with my head in a +whirl. “If his cage was locked, and the keepers say he hadn’t been +free, and if Miss Blake--” + +“If! If!” said Tish impatiently. “I haven’t had time to figure it all +out, of course. But mark my words, Lizzie, the mystery is solved. We +shall sleep to-night.” + +But, as a matter of fact, we never even went to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +IF IT HAD NOT BEEN FOR LOVE + + +It is curious to think that if Tish had been able to finish her story +to Tommy Andrews that evening, and to have given him Charlie’s letter +to read, the thing that occurred that night could scarcely have +happened. For with Tommy knowing what he did, he could have put two and +two together and have gone about things in a different way. Aggie, of +course, is a fatalist, and believes it would have happened anyhow. + +In the first place, Tish felt so sure that everything was cleared up +that she told Aggie the whole story, ending with the suicide at the +Zoo. Aggie sat with her mouth open, and didn’t speak except to sneeze +until Tish was through. Then she surprised us. + +“Maybe you are right, Tish,” she said. “I know I hope so. I don’t know +much about gorillas, but I guess they’re mostly hairy, aren’t they?” + +“Mostly,” said Tish grimly. “I haven’t heard of any Mexican hairless +ones.” + +“Well, the hand by my bed--you needn’t sneer, Tish; you can call it a +foot if you prefer foot--” + +“Listen to the woman!” cried Tish. “_I_ haven’t called it anything.” + +“The hand--or foot--was _not_ hairy!” said Aggie, and stuck to it. She +is that kind. Tish says she has a small mind, but I think there are +some large minds that can only hold one idea at a time. + +Well, we told the whole thing again to Tommy, who had heard about the +guinea-pigs from Doctor Grimm, and who listened gravely, and Tish was +just getting out Charlie’s letter to read to him, when Miss Lewis came +in. + +“Drat that woman!” Tish muttered. “She’s never around when she’s +wanted, and always butting in when she isn’t. Well, what is it?” + +“Miss Blake is better, Doctor,” she said. “She is sitting up, dressed, +and--she’s leaving her door unlocked. That’s a good sign.” + +“Thanks, very much,” said Tommy, looking conscious. + +“It’s supper hour now,” remarked Miss Lewis. “If, when I come back, you +would care to go over to the dormitory--” + +“I suppose she hasn’t asked for me?” + +“No. But she asked if you were in the house.” + +“Thanks,” said Tommy again. “When you come back, then. Ah--thanks, very +much.” + +Miss Lewis left and Tish spread out Charlie’s letter. “Dear and revered +spinster aunt,” she began. But Tommy was looking at his watch. + +“How long does she usually take for supper?” he asked. “Excuse me for +interrupting, Aunt Tish.” + +“About an hour,” said Tish grimly. “She says she’s been ordered to chew +her food thoroughly. ‘Dear and revered--’” + +“You know,” said Tommy, “she may get tired and go to sleep, or +something like that.” + +“Not while she’s eating,” said Tish. + +“I mean Miss Blake. I--I think I’ll just run over for a moment _now_, +if you don’t mind.” + +“Not alone!” Tish got up and reached for her cane, but Tommy pushed her +back in her chair. + +“No, indeed, dear Aunt Tish,” he said. “You must not use that knee. Nor +Miss Aggie either--” + +“Aggie has no intention of using my knee,” said Tish crossly. Tommy +was sending me messages with his eyes. I’m notoriously weak as to love +affairs. + +“I’ll go,” I volunteered, obeying Tommy’s signals, and go I did, +leaving Tish clutching her cane with one hand and the letter with the +other! Aggie was, as usual, oblivious and quite calm. + +It was my suggestion that I play propriety from just outside the door. +Tommy went in, and I heard a rustle from the window, as if she had +turned to look at him. + +“I--my aunt is just outside,” he began, hesitating. I am not his aunt, +as I have said. + +“Won’t you ask her in?” She had a low, sweet voice. + +“Certainly, if you wish,” he said, and made no move to do it. “You +dismissed me to-day,” he accused her. + +“I didn’t need a doctor.” + +“I need not have come professionally. I am here now only--well, because +I couldn’t stay away.” + +She said nothing to that, as far as I could hear. + +“I came also,” he said, “to ask you not to stay here alone to-night.” + +“What do you mean?” she asked sharply. + +“Only that you might do the same thing again to-night--walk in your +sleep, you know.” + +I heard her chair move, as if she had turned abruptly and faced him. + +“Why do you say that?” she demanded. “You _know_ I was not asleep last +night.” + +“I assure you--” he began, clearly startled. “I--really thought--” + +“Please!” she said, and there was another silence. Then I realized she +was crying softly. + +“Don’t do that!” pleaded Tommy. “Don’t!” + +“I thought you were killed!” she said, in a smothered tone. “All the +rest of the night I sat and wanted to die. I thought I had killed you!” + +“Where did you sit?” asked Tommy gently. + +“It doesn’t matter, does it?” + +“Very much--to me.” + +“I was--here,” she said, after a hesitation. + +“You were _not_ here,” said Tommy. “Between _that_ and morning, I was +here four times. Where were you?” + +[Illustration] + +“I was safe,” she said. “Why do you question me so?” + +“Because,” he said gently, “I was in the laboratory at two o’clock +this morning. Jacobs helped me with a--wound on my shoulder. I had +looked everywhere for you and failed to find you. I thought I heard +somebody moving across the hall, and we made a casual search. We +found nothing, nobody. But during the fifteen minutes that that door +was unlocked, somebody entered the building, and cut the throats of +eleven guinea-pigs, piling them in the center of the room. And--on the +floor underneath them I picked up this afternoon a small pink rosette, +apparently off the toe of a woman’s bedroom slipper.” + +“Ah!” she said, as if she found it suddenly hard to breathe. And then +she burst out unexpectedly. “After all, was it so terrible? They--they +were only guinea-pigs!” + +“Yes,” said Tommy gravely, “they were only guinea-pigs.” + +He came out the next moment and went back along the hall into the +hospital, having quite forgotten me. His chin was sunk on his breast, +and he walked heavily. He was as bewildered as I had been. We saw +him only once again that evening, and then only for a minute. He was +preparing to station his guards through the house, much to Tish’s +disgust. + +“It’s idiotic,” she confided to Aggie and me that night as Aggie was +getting ready for bed. “Isn’t the creature dead? Do they expect it to +come back from the spirit world and do a materializing seance for them +while they wait?” + +“That’s all very well, Tish,” said Aggie, turning on all the lights and +getting into bed, “but that hand was not hairy.” + +“Foot, you mean,” said Tish. “If that is a footprint on the wall of +that room up-stairs, it was a foot you touched last night.” + +At nine o’clock that night Tommy had a talk with Miss Durand, the +night nurse of K ward. She denied being out of the ward between +twelve-ten and one o’clock, and characterized Bates’ whole story as a +fabrication. + +“He’s always making trouble, Doctor,” she told Tommy. “He brings in +tobacco and morphine and sells it to the men, and you take his word +against mine!” + +And Tommy said that Bates, with Miss Durand’s outraged eyes on him, +reduced the time of her absence to ten minutes, and might have gone +further if Tommy hadn’t turned away in disgust. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE CARBOLIC CASE AND A BROWN COAT + + +Tommy was very gloomy that night. He went about placing guards, with +his mouth set in a grim line and his eyes hard. A few of the nurses +knew what was going on, but with the exception of the three of us, none +of the patients had been told. + +To Tish’s assurance that the trouble was over, that the death of Hero, +the ape, meant the end of the disturbance, Tommy turned a tolerant +smile and a deaf ear. I would have given a good bit to have had Tish’s +conviction, but no theory that was based on Hero at the Zoo could +possibly involve Miss Blake. And Tommy and I knew that Miss Blake was +involved. + +I had not told Tish the particulars of Tommy’s visit to the girl’s +room, or about the rosette he had confronted her with. To be candid, +Tish was disagreeable about my having gone with Tommy, and only relaxed +when, at supper time, a package came from Charlie Sands, and proved to +contain the very towel with which the giant ape had been killed. + +“Thought you might like it,” Charlie wrote. “I snitched it while the +keeper’s back was turned. Gruesome, but interesting, isn’t it? The +beast was almost human, and as far as I know this may be the towel with +which he performed his final ablutions--or do apes ablute?” + +Tish laid it solemnly out on the bed and, going to the dresser drawer, +brought out the one that had, as you may say, suspended Johnson. They +were absolutely alike, even to the position of the S. P. T. which +distinguished them both. + +Tommy came into Aggie’s room about eleven o’clock and sat, as usual, +on the foot of the bed. He had lost his customary air of good-natured +raillery, and looked tired. + +“I’ve placed them all,” he said. “Counting myself, there are fourteen +of us, and I don’t think a germ could escape from any of the wards +without my knowing it.” + +“How about the private rooms?” I asked. “There’s as apt to be mischief +done by pay patients as by charities.” + +“You’re right, there. Well, every corridor is under secret +surveillance. The doors into the nurses’ dormitory are being watched on +every floor, and we have a man on the roof.” + +“Humph!” said Aggie, from the bed. “You’d do better to have a barrel of +holy water. Things that dissolve under your fingers, just as the clock +strikes midnight--it _was_ midnight, Tish. The clock in the hall is +five minutes fast by my watch.” + +“Fiddlesticks!” Tish said tartly. “Then the sun’s too fast; you’d +better have it regulated. No, Tommy, it would have been more to the +point if you’d taken all these precautions last night. You are too +late.” + +“I hope so,” Tommy observed and got off the bed. “I’ll come around now +and then and keep you posted.” He started toward the door and stopped, +looking at me. “You haven’t seen--Miss Blake? She has not come from the +dormitory?” + +“No.” + +He looked relieved at that and went out, and for an hour we saw nothing +of him. + +A little before midnight Miss Lewis brought in on a tray three glasses +of buttermilk and some crackers. + +“I knew none of you were sleeping,” she said. “This will do you good. +I don’t mind saying _my_ nerves are all twittering. This house is +enough to set you crazy. If you go around a corner unexpectedly, you +come across a figure ducking into a doorway. A nurse from L ward just +fell across one of the moppers squatting in a corner by the pantry and +threw a bowl of chicken broth at him, thinking it was Johnson himself.” + +“They might as well calm themselves,” Tish observed, sipping her +buttermilk. “Nothing will happen.” + +“Then why don’t you take off your clothes and go to bed?” Aggie asked, +but Tish scornfully refused to answer. + +“I’m not expecting anything myself,” observed Miss Lewis, straightening +her cap at the mirror. “These things have a way of petering out--and +yet, on the other hand, things in a hospital usually go in threes. If +we have one burned case, we’ll get two more. Shot cases will come in +threes every time, and as for suicides! Well, I’ve seen three carbolic +acids every time I’ve seen one. And that reminds me,” she said, turning +from the mirror and with a dive thrusting a foot-rest under Tish’s leg, +“a carbolic case has just piped out in one of the wards. There are +things I’d rather do than go up and lay it out.” + +And at that instant the hall nurse appeared in the doorway and spoke to +her. + +“Miss Lewis,” she said, “you are to go to the mortuary with that case. +Miss Grimes is having an attack of hysteria.” + +Miss Lewis turned and surveyed us through her spectacles. “Can you beat +that?” she demanded. “Wouldn’t a self-respecting mongrel pup rebel at +a life like this?” She jerked her head--and her cap fell over her ear +with the facility of long practice. “All right,” she said to the nurse, +“I’m coming, but--” she turned in the doorway and waved her hand to us. +“If I am found strung up with an S. P. T.,” she said, “I’ll not hang +alone, believe _me_.” + +An S. P. T.! We all three stared at each other, and Tish tried to call +her back. But she had gone. Could it be, we wondered, that Miss Lewis +knew the meaning of the three letters? And if she did--! + +At five minutes of midnight Tommy stopped in to see us. + +“Nothing yet,” he said. “Heaven knows, I hope there won’t be anything +at all, but there’s an uneasy feeling in the house--I’ve had to make a +few changes. The man on the roof refused to stay.” + +“Naturally,” Tish observed, with the lofty air she’d had all evening. +“If the wind blew he would declare he heard groans.” + +“Exactly what he _did_ say,” replied Tommy. “Says he heard groans and +felt eyes looking at him. But we had the roof searched, and found +nothing. I put Hicks, the ambulance man, there instead. He hasn’t any +nerves.” + +“I beg your pardon, Doctor,” said the hall nurse, from the doorway. +“But--Hicks wants to see you.” + +“Just for a moment,” a voice came from behind the nurse. “I’ll go back +up there, Doctor, if I’ve got to kick myself up, but--” + +“Well?” + +“Doctor, as sure as I’m a living man, something is singing on the +roof.” + +“Singing!” said Tommy. + +“Half singing, half chanting. I--I’m going back, Doctor. Nothing ain’t +ever scared me yet. But--it’s singing ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee’--not +the words. Just the tune.” + +“Did anybody else hear it?” + +“They heard something in the mortuary. They said it didn’t sound +exactly like singing. But I heard it as plain as I hear you, sir. +It--it’s horrible.” + +“Are the nurses still there?” + +“No, sir. Miss Lewis was sent to take Miss Grimes’ place, but she +insisted on having her night supper first. Mr. Briggs is in the +mortuary with the--you know, until she comes.” + +“I’ll go up with you to the roof,” said Tommy, and went at once. + +Aggie had been getting white around the lips during the whole scene, +and when Hicks said “Nearer, my God, to Thee,” she almost keeled over +against her pillows. The moment Tommy had gone, she burst into tears, +declaring that something awful was going to happen, that being the tune +they had sung at the roofer’s funeral. + +Tish, however, was stonily calm, although I could see she was shaken. +She had got out her Irish lace, and sat making picots as if her life +depended on it. + +“I don’t for the life of me see what you are bleating about,” she +snapped. “If you argue from hearing that tune that _he’s_ coming back +to-night, there will be more ghosts walking than this hospital can +hold. It’s been sung at a good many funerals. And another thing, if +he was as good as you think he was, he’s sitting around with a harp, +learning celestial melodies, not coming back to string up innocent +corpses with roller towels, and break skylights. It’s only the bad ones +that aren’t satisfied where they are and come back.” + +It is hard to say just why that line of reasoning made Aggie dry her +tears, but it did, and she sat up and finished her buttermilk. + +[Illustration] + +It was when I was reaching her the crackers that I heard a creak, and +knew that somebody had stealthily opened the door into the nurses’ +dormitory. Tish heard it, too, and put down her crocheting. + +All our lights were on, while the hall was dark. This time we saw no +candlelight, but we each felt who it was. I stepped to the door and +looked out. + +Miss Blake, fully dressed, was on the narrow staircase to the floor +above, and at the top somebody with an electric flash was barring the +way. + +“Sorry, Miss,” said Jacobs, the night watchman. “We have orders not to +let anybody pass here to-night.” + +“But I must!” she pleaded. “I can’t endure the suspense another moment, +Jacobs! Where is Doctor Andrews?” + +“On the roof, Miss Blake.” + +“Oh, no, not on the roof!” she cried. “Let me pass. I _must_ pass.” + +“Sorry,” he said, not moving. “My orders--” + +Suddenly, from somewhere overhead came a woman’s scream, a shrill note +of horror that left my ears aching, my heart beating madly. It rose and +fell and then rose again, and the silence that followed was the silence +of paralysis. + +Immediately after, there was the sound of scurrying feet. Tish and I +never knew afterward how we got up the stairs, or were almost the first +on the scene. + +The hall was dark, as on the floor below, but from the mortuary a +bright light streamed down the short, wide flight of steps that served +as its approach. + +On one side of the receiving table Tommy was standing. On the other, +Miss Lewis stood, as if frozen, with one hand turning down the covering +sheet. But the body on the table was not wrapped in a shroud. It +was the figure of a tall man fully dressed, and with the head and +shoulders tightly wrapped in what looked like a brown coat. + +Tish gripped my arm, shaking so she could scarcely speak. “Johnson!” +she said. “Oh, my God, Lizzie, it’s Johnson!” + +But it was not. When they had untied the sleeves, tightly knotted about +the neck, Tommy himself gave a cry of horror. + +It was Briggs, the orderly, dead about ten minutes, and with his ribs +crushed in like a broken barrel. + +The “carbolic case” was lying in placid peace under the table, its +bandaged hands folded, its jaw relaxed, its half-shut eyes looking +calmly up at the horror overhead. + +Tish and I put Miss Lewis to bed that night and Tish sat with her until +morning. It was dawn when Tommy came in. They had found nothing--except +one curious fact: + +The brown coat that had covered poor Briggs’ head had belonged to +Johnson. The pockets were full of his private papers. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +JACOBS’ ELEVATOR + + +As I have said, Tommy came in about dawn. Miss Lewis had dropped into +an uneasy sleep, and Tish was dozing in the chair beside her; Aggie was +stretched out on the couch, with a cubeb cigarette burning in a saucer +beside her, and was resurrecting her mother’s sister again when he came +in. He beckoned me out into the hall after he had told us about the +coat. + +“Miss Blake is ill again,” he said. “The second shock, after the first, +you know.” + +“Not seriously, Tommy?” I asked, putting my hand on his arm. + +“I don’t know,” he said miserably. “People don’t go from one fainting +attack into another without--I guess you’ve seen how it is, Miss +Lizzie. I--it would kill me if any harm came to her!” + +“No harm is coming to her,” I reassured him. “If the strain has had +this effect on Miss Lewis, who has about the same nervous system as a +cow, of course it would go hard with a finely organized girl like Miss +Blake. And--don’t be foolish, Tommy. No finding of surgical knives in +that girl’s room, or of rosettes where they don’t happen to belong, is +going to make her guilty of anything wrong. If she’s in trouble, it’s +not of her own making.” + +He fairly put his arm around me and hugged me, to the horror of a +passing nurse. + +“Blessed are the spinsters!” he cried, “for they are the salt of the +earth! Do you really think that?” + +“I do,” I said firmly. “And shame on you, Tommy Andrews, for having +thought anything else. I shall stay with her for an hour or two.” + +“If you will,” he said gratefully, and we started toward the dormitory. + +On the way over, Tommy told me more clearly what had happened. The body +of the “carbolic case” had been taken to the mortuary by Jacobs and +Briggs, Marshall, the other night orderly, having refused to go. On the +way up, Jacobs, who was running the elevator, complained that it was +out of order. It was an old-fashioned lift, moving always very slowly, +and built on the familiar cable and wheel principle. Twice during the +ascent the cage stopped entirely. + +Near the top floor the cage began to vibrate wildly and Briggs had been +obliged to steady the wheeled table containing the corpse. + +Jacobs, who had told Tommy the story, said that both he and Briggs were +alarmed, fearing that one of the cables had broken; while he worked +with the lever in the cage, Briggs looked up apprehensively through the +metal grill in the center of the cage. The car was still shaking from +side to side, and refused to obey the lever. Jacobs turned to Briggs +and threw up his hands. + +“It’s stuck!” he said. “Either it’s going to drop, when it gets ready, +or--” + +He said Briggs wasn’t listening, but was standing looking up at the +grill with his face blue-white. Jacobs looked up, too, but he was a +second too late. He had a sense of something white moving just out of +his range of vision, and then the car ceased vibrating. + +Briggs was still staring up and the car was moving again as if nothing +had happened to it. At the mortuary floor he had touched Briggs on the +arm, and he shivered and helped him wheel the table out of the cage. +Then Briggs asked him to lower the cage until he could see the top, but +there was nothing there. After that they took the body to the mortuary. + +“What did Briggs think he saw?” I asked nervously, holding to Tommy’s +arm. The hall was dark. + +“It’s rather fantastic,” Tommy said, “but--he declared there was a bare +foot planted directly on the grill of the cage.” + +“A foot!” I gasped. + +“A foot,” said Tommy soberly. “And I’m going to tell you what I +wouldn’t care to tell Aunt Tish or Miss Aggie. I’ve been on top of the +cage myself, just now, with a candle. There are innumerable footprints +in the dust, distinct marks of a naked foot. But it is always the right +foot!” + +I shivered. “Tommy!” I quavered. “The mark on the wall where Johnson +was found was--the print of a _naked right_ foot.” + +“I know,” he replied, and fell to thinking. “Well,” he said, after a +moment, “I’d better go on. Jacobs moved the cage down, but there was +nothing on it, or in the shaft over their heads. It ends just above +that floor, and as the doors to the shaft were all locked, if anything +had been above the cage, it could hardly have got away. Briggs himself +said that he thought it was an optical illusion, and was apparently +not nervous when Jacobs went down to get Miss Lewis. He was gone some +time, Miss Lewis, as I have said, having insisted on being fortified +with food before she went up.” + +Finally, as we knew, he had got Miss Lewis and they went back to the +mortuary. Briggs was sitting there quietly, with his pipe lighted and +a newspaper on his knee. But he was neither reading nor smoking and +Jacobs said he was staring overhead, with a queer expression on his +face, as if he were listening to something. + +He started to say something to Jacobs, but Jacobs signaled him to be +cautious and pointed to Miss Lewis. Briggs had nodded and resumed his +pipe. Everything was quiet and peaceful, Jacobs insisted. Tommy and +Hicks had appeared sometime before and had gone up the stairs to the +roof. The man who had been sent to guard that corridor, one of the +laundry men, was dozing in a chair half way down. Jacobs, not being +needed in the mortuary, went down to him and roused him by shaking. He +and the laundry man were talking when Miss Lewis came down to the empty +ward across from them, and turning on the lights, went in search of +something she needed. + +Jacobs was positive there had not been a sound from the mortuary, +except that a gust of air from its open windows had swept along the +hall, and the glass-topped doors slammed shut. There had been no +outcry, no struggle. When Miss Lewis went back briskly, and opened the +doors, she found Briggs apparently gone, and the sheeted figure on the +table as before. + +It was only when she turned down the sheet that she discovered the +truth--the body of the murdered orderly on the table and the corpse not +to be seen. It was then she screamed. + +“We have sent for the police,” Tommy finished. “We didn’t want any +publicity, but now it has to come. It’s beyond us. The strange thing +is,” he said, “at the time it happened, every corridor, every ward, +every possible means of access to the mortuary was guarded.” + +“Yes, and with the one nearest it sound asleep!” I commented +scornfully. “And goodness knows how many of the others!” + +“Jacobs was in the upper hall,” he contended, “and whoever was asleep +beforehand, none of them was asleep after Miss Lewis shrieked, Miss +Lizzie. There are only two means of access to the mortuary, one is the +fire-escape and the other the steps. Jacobs was just beyond the steps +all the time, and Hicks and I were on the roof near the fire-escape. +Nobody left by those two exits. That’s positive.” + +“There is another door in the mortuary,” I said. “What is that?” + +“Mortuary linen closet,” said Tommy. “Always kept locked, and still +locked.” + +“You haven’t examined it?” + +“The linen room woman carries the key, and she is away over night.” + +“Nobody was missing in the house?” + +“We made a tally immediately, with the guards all watching every door +and window. Two internes and I made the count ourselves, not a soul was +missing.” + +“He was--strangled?” + +“No. That’s one of the queerest things about it. He had been +_squeezed_--his chest is caved in, and I think the autopsy will show +that a point of one of the ribs entered the heart. Death was almost +instantaneous.” + +“And the brown coat?” I asked. “How did it get there?” + +“God knows,” said Tommy, and rapped at Miss Blake’s door. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +BAG AND BAGGAGE + + +Tish stared at me the next morning when I told her the story Tommy had +told me, and laid the key of the mortuary linen closet on her breakfast +tray. + +“The Blake girl is still out of her head,” I finished up, “and I found +the key, as I tell you, on her dresser, labeled as you see it. I don’t +want you to show it to Tommy, Tish.” + +“Tommy!” said Tish scornfully, and pushed away her breakfast untasted. +“I tell you, Lizzie, if _I_ had had charge of things last night, that +poor wretch would have carried in this tray this morning, with the tea +slopped over everything as usual. Tommy is a nice boy, but he’s stupid.” + +“But I don’t understand,” said Aggie from the bed. “If you think, Tish +Carberry, that finding the key to a linen closet is going to prove +anything against that pretty little nurse, I’ll tell Tommy about it +myself.” + +“Exactly,” said Tish, coldly. “And if you do, I wash my hands of the +whole affair. As far as I’m concerned in that case, she can go under +suspicion the rest of her life.” + +“Suspicion of what?” Aggie demanded tartly. “She didn’t kill Briggs, +I suppose. Even if she could have broken his ribs, as Tish says, and +she’s a perfectly respectable girl--you can see _that_ in her face--she +was right on the stairs here when it happened, wasn’t she?” + +Tish got up and put the key of the linen closet in the lower bureau +drawer. + +“Don’t be any more of a fool than you can help, Aggie,” she said, and +shut the drawer. “I _don’t_ think Miss Blake killed Briggs, or got +up on the wall and made a footprint a foot and a half long near the +ceiling, or hung Johnson by the neck to a chandelier. And if my nephew +chooses to be so head over ears in love with the young woman that he’s +no more capable of logical thought than a guinea-pig, _I_ shall look +into the thing myself.” + +“Guinea-pig,” said Aggie. “Now then, that’s another thing, Tish. The +rabbits--” + +“Lizzie,” Tish said, snubbing her completely. “Will you see if Miss +Durand is off duty yet? I want to talk to her. Lewis won’t be back from +breakfast for an hour. She can’t Fletcherize and tell that story at the +same time.” + +The hall nurse promised me to find Miss Durand and send her to Tish’s +room, and started at once in the search for her. She turned to say, +over her shoulder and with bated breath, that detectives were in the +building now, that Tommy was with them, and that there was a story +that they’d found some curious prints on the wall in the room where +Johnson’s body had hung. + +“A foot, and just beside it a woman’s hand,” she said. “I hear they are +going to take impressions of all the hands in the hospital to-day!” + +I carried this to Tish, and she affected indifference. But she was +visibly uneasy and at different times I caught her staring fixedly at +her palm. + +At eight o’clock Miss Durand came in looking tired and white, Tish +asked her to sit down and offered her a little port wine, but she +refused. + +“No, thanks,” she said. “I’m off to bed soon, and if I can only +sleep--I didn’t sleep much yesterday.” + +“Too noisy, I daresay,” said Tish. “Poor Briggs complained of the same +thing in this very room yesterday.” + +“Oh, it wasn’t the noise. I--I got to thinking.” She tried to smile. +“There have been so many strange things happening!” + +“I should think so,” said Aggie. “That poor Miss Blake! Do you think--” + +Tish fixed her with a cold eye, and Aggie’s voice trailed off to +nothing. She looked frightened. + +“Miss Durand,” said Tish, suddenly hitching her chair forward, “I +should like you to tell me why you left Johnson to die alone and why +you absented yourself from your ward for fifty minutes.” + +Miss Durand turned even paler, and got up. “I didn’t understand that +you--” + +“Sit down,” said Tish. “I guess you know I’m chairman of the Ladies’ +Committee here, and you’d better tell me than tell the police. I don’t +start with the belief that half the hospital’s guilty and the other +half accessories to the crime, and that’s what the police will do, +according to my experience.” + +“You may ask Bates--” she began. + +“So I may,” said Tish cheerfully. “And if you are around he’ll say you +were away a scant ten minutes and if he’s alone, he’ll swear to an hour +or more.” + +“It was less than an hour, I’d swear to that anywhere,” said Miss +Durand. “It couldn’t have taken so long!” + +“What couldn’t have taken so long?” Tish demanded. + +Miss Durand looked around at the three of us and seemed to be thinking. + +“What do you mean by saying I’d better tell you than tell the police?” +she asked. + +“Just this,” Tish said briskly getting out her sheet of note-paper. “I +flatter myself I can see as far through a stone wall as most people, +especially if there’s a crack to look through. I’ve been looking at +this particular stone wall off and on since four o’clock this morning, +and--well, I think I begin to see daylight.” + +“Humph!” said Aggie. “Then the least I can say, Tish--” + +“Now, Miss Durand,” Tish began, biting a point on her pencil, “we’ll +get at this systematically. Did Briggs have any enemies in K Ward?” + +“He wasn’t popular. I guess old Johnson hated him about the most.” + +“Ah!” said Tish, and put that down. “Did you know Johnson was dying +when you left the ward?” + +“He’d been dying for twenty-four hours and had been unconscious for +six,” she defended herself. “Nobody can tell when that sort will make a +clean get-away.” + +“Good gracious!” Aggie ejaculated, and even Tish looked shocked. Miss +Durand was clearly not in Miss Blake’s class: seen in the morning +light, her face looked hard as well as tired. + +“I see,” said Tish, and put down “clean get-away.” “Now, Miss Durand, +why had Linda Smith been crying when she came to you at midnight that +night?” + +“She said she had had some words with the head nurse. She had missed a +lecture that evening.” + +“Why did she miss the lecture?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“Don’t know or won’t tell?” asked Tish, over her note-paper. + +“Don’t know,” snapped Miss Durand, and for all I didn’t like her, I +thought she was telling the truth. + +“Now, Miss Durand,” Tish observed, sitting back and fixing her lame leg +on its hassock, “I’d be glad to hear why Miss Linda Smith took you away +from your ward that night, and where you went.” + +“She had forgotten to attend to something, and she came back to fix it.” + +“What?” + +Miss Durand stared at Tish and Tish leaned back, with her pencil stuck +through the knob of her hair, and stared at Miss Durand. As I have said +somewhere else, Tish is a masterful woman, and Miss Durand felt it. + +“She had forgotten to turn in Johnson’s clothes,” she said. “That is +always done after a death: the clothes are held in the office for the +friends to get. We went to the basement clothes room.” + +“But Johnson was not dead!” + +“The chances were he would die that night. The clothes should have been +ready in case relatives had wished to remove the body at once.” + +“The trip to the clothes room would take about ten minutes, I daresay,” +Tish said dryly. “Why didn’t she go alone?” + +“I--I hardly know. She was nervous and upset. You see, her three years +is almost up, and she and the superintendent are on bad terms. She has +always said that he would make use of any small mistake she made, to +keep her from getting her diploma.” + +“When would she get it, everything going well?” + +“Next week.” + +“Very good,” said Tish, and put something down. “Now then, what +happened in the clothes room?” + +“I didn’t go in.” + +“Where were you?” + +“The morning milk cans were being delivered. I went to the other end +of the basement, past the engine room, and got a glass of milk. I was +thirsty.” + +“I see. And that took forty minutes?” + +“No,” said Miss Durand. “When I got back to the clothes room, I +couldn’t find Miss Smith. The cellar man, sitting on the stairs, said +she had not gone up. I was worried, and we both searched for her. We +couldn’t find her.” + +“But you did find her. You went back to K ward together.” + +“I didn’t find her,” said Miss Durand. “When I came back to the stairs, +she was sitting there, with a bundle in her lap. She was white. The +cellar man asked her if she felt sick.” + +“How did she explain her absence?” + +“She didn’t,” said Miss Durand with her curious smile. “She’s a very +queer woman, Miss Smith is.” + +“Humph!” Tish said, and put down a line or two. “Well, I reckon the +next thing to do is to see Miss Smith. She looks pleasant enough, but +you can’t tell by looking at a toad how far it can hop.” + +Miss Durand got up and prepared to go. She still wore her curious smile. + +“I think it has hopped a good ways, Miss Carberry,” she said. “Linda +Smith has gone, bag and baggage, nobody knows where!” + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +TO THE ZOO + + +Aggie being better, and having declared that no power on earth would +make her spend another night in the place, we planned to leave about +noon that day. But Tish’s astonishing conduct drove all idea of going +from our minds. + +In the first place, Miss Lewis came in from breakfast looking a little +bit better, and insisted on giving Tish’s knee its massage, as usual. +But Tish was sitting poring over the notes she had made, and wouldn’t +even so much as look up. + +“Get away,” she snarled, with her pencil in her teeth. “There’s nothing +wrong with my knee.” + +Miss Lewis looked at me. + +“There was something wrong with it yesterday,” she said, with her +thumbs tucked inside her belt and her spectacles flashing. “It’s got +cured pretty quick, I think.” + +“I don’t employ you to think,” said Tish, hopping past her and opening +the lower bureau drawer. + +“You needn’t employ me at all.” + +“That’s a fact,” Tish said. “It hadn’t occurred to me. You go in and +take care of Miss Pilkington to-day, Miss Lewis. There’s nothing +pleases her like being taken care of.” + +“There’s nothing the matter with Miss Pilkington, either,” snapped Miss +Lewis, but Tish was getting down on her knees by the drawer, groaning +as she did it, and she only threw an absent reply over her shoulder. +“Oh, well,” she said, “you know what I mean. I didn’t mean to offend +you. You’re a good nurse, but I’ve got something else on hand. Give +Miss Pilkington a bath and put talcum on; she’ll take to it like a +baby.” + +Miss Lewis opened her mouth to refuse, thought better of it, and went +to Aggie’s room. Tish drew a long sigh. + +“Thank heaven!” she said. “They’ll keep each other busy for the rest of +the day.” + +Which they did. Aggie emerged from her room when Tish and I, breathless +and dirty, got back late that morning. She was powdered and manicured, +curled and French-puffed, and she knew the history of every private +case on the floor; name, age, family scandal and operation. She was +primed to talk, but by that time Tish and I had no time to stop. Things +were approaching a climax. + +Well, Miss Lewis and Aggie off our hands, Tish emptied the lower drawer +and spread its contents on the floor in front of her. First of all, +she laid out the two roller towels, with the S. P. T. showing. Then +followed the brown tweed coat, secured by a dollar to Jacobs, the small +surgeon’s knife, the dented brass candlestick, the bandage Linda Smith +had picked up in the upper hall, the linen room key, and Charlie +Sands’ letter about Hero at the Zoo. Then with the sheet of note-paper +in her hand, she began to play a sort of checkers with the different +things. The two S. P. T. towels she put together and using this +combination as a king, she proceeded to jump the other articles, one by +one, moving them around aimlessly in the intervals and consulting her +notes. + +At the end of the game, as well as I could make out, the king had +it. At least, the two towels seemed to have Charlie Sands’ letter +checkmated in a corner, and the other articles lay in a humiliated heap +on Tish’s lap. + +“Well,” I said, “I see the towels win, although I think you cheated +once.” + +Tish stuffed the notes into the bosom of her dress and tumbled the +other things back in the drawer. Then she got up, making horrible faces +as she straightened her knee. + +“I’m sorry it’s raining, Lizzie,” she said. “We’ll have to go out.” + +“Where!” I asked sarcastically. “To the matinée?” + +“To the Zoo,” she replied, and hauling down her bonnet from the +cupboard, stuck it on her head. “Shall we need a taxicab?” + +“Probably, if you intend to go out in your nightgown,” I said coldly. + +But if I expected Tish to be confused, I was disappointed. With +her bonnet still on, she put on her shoes and stockings, her black +broadcloth skirt, a lamb’s wool vest and her long fur coat. It wasn’t +until she was finished that she remembered her nightgown underneath +everything. + +“It’s a little long, isn’t it?” she said, when she’d started for the +door, with six inches of white trailing all around her. “Pin it up, +Lizzie; that’s a good girl.” + +“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” I said. “If you want to make a goose of +yourself with a knee that you are forbidden to step on, and maybe a +taxicab accident with you fixed like that underneath, I’m not going to +be a party to it.” + +“Very well!” said Tish, and getting a pair of scissors, she was about +to cut off eight inches of her best French gown, when I weakened +and got the safety pins. It was plain, Tish was in no mood to stop +at trifles. I made her as respectable as possible, at least on the +surface, and by that time, seeing she was determined to go, I got ready +and went with her. + +Now, a patient can’t leave a hospital without a card being sent down, +signed by the interne and countersigned by the superintendent, and +brought back by the elevator boy for the signatures of his family, his +friends and the police bureau, or something almost as complicated. But +not knowing anything of this, Tish and I went down in the elevator, +past the door-man and out the front door, called a taxicab and drove +away with perfect ease and calmness. + +We went to the Zoo. That is generally known now, although that Tish +went in her nightgown is here for the first time set forth. But what we +did at the Zoo I do not know exactly. I might as well have been back +with Aggie, being bathed and talcumed. Tish let me pay the taxicab, +pointed to a chair in the ante-room, and spent twenty minutes in the +private office of the superintendent. + +I was rather bitter about it. In the first place, I don’t like Zoos, +and in the second place, after I had been there ten minutes, a man in +uniform came in and examined all the corners of the room and turned +over every chair. When he came to the one I was in, he said, “Excuse +me, ma’am, but you haven’t noticed a small green snake with red and +yellow markings anywhere around here, have you?” + +I was frozen in my chair. + +“No,” I replied as calmly as I possibly could, “unless I +absent-mindedly put him in my hand-bag!” + +“Oh, I didn’t mean that, lady,” he hastened to explain, “I meant--he +may be curled on the rungs of your chair.” + +I got up at that almost instantaneously and he turned the chair over. +“Not here,” he said, disappointed. “Little devil, this is the third +time this week!” + +“Is he--is he poisonous?” I asked. + +“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “personally, I shouldn’t care to sit down +on him in the dark.” + +He went out and closed the door, and when Tish came back, she declares +I was standing in the middle of the room with my skirts held up, and +turning slowly around in a circle. + +There was a glitter in Tish’s eye that I had never seen there before, +as we drove back to the hospital. I attempted to explain a little of +how I felt at being left in a place like that, where at any moment +something might break loose for the third time that week, and why I was +turning around, but she told me tartly not to bother her. + +We returned to the hospital in silence, and I paid for the taxicab. It +was not until we were back in Tish’s room, and had put her into her +chair and got a hot-water bottle under her knee, which had gone on a +strike about that time and refused to bend at all, that I spoke. + +“Well?” I asked. + +“Well--what?” + +“Have they lost anything? Any animals?” + +“No,” said Tish calmly. “I knew that before I went there. Aggie, what +day was it the two medical internes left?” + +“This is Friday,” I said. “It was Tuesday evening, Tish.” + +“I thought so,” she observed. “Now reach me my notes, Lizzie, and go +call Bates.” + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +TOMMY TELLS WHY + + +Bates came unwillingly. His shrewd face was pale and twitching, and he +insisted on knowing why he was wanted. + +“I can not tell you, because I do not know, Mr. Bates,” I said. “Miss +Carberry wants to speak to you. That is all.” + +“I haven’t time,” he said. “I’m helping out in the wards to-day. One of +the day orderlies has to take Mr. Briggs’ place to-night, and he has +gone to bed to get some sleep.” + +But I got him to go finally, and we went together along the hall, his +carpet-slippers flapping loosely as he walked, his shirt open at the +throat and showing his lean brown neck. I thought to myself uneasily +that the man looked like, at least, a potential criminal himself. But +just as we reached Tish’s door Tommy came out. + +I sent Bates in, for Tommy had put his hand on my arm. + +“What has she been up to?” he asked, as the door closed. “She’s sitting +in there in a kimono, with her foot on a stool, and she’s got her +bonnet on.” + +“We’ve been out,” I said tartly. “Or she’s been out. I only went along. +We went to the Zoo, Tommy, and she left me to sit on snakes with green +and red markings--” + +“What!” + +“Well, it only happened that I didn’t. And she’s got hold of something: +I never saw her in such a state.” + +“The Zoo!” cried Tommy and whistled. Then he smiled. “I see,” he said; +“_The Murders in the Rue Morgue_, eh? Well, what happened?” + +“I haven’t any idea. She’s got some sort of a scent, and she’s got her +nose to the ground and running like mad. If she’s interfered with +to-day, she’ll bite.” + +“I see,” said Tommy again thoughtfully. “Well, good luck to her.” + +“How is Miss Blake?” + +He lowered his voice. “She’s conscious, but don’t tell Aunt Tish, +please. She wants to ask her some questions, and I don’t want her +disturbed. She’s very weak.” He looked down at a little case he had +in his hand, and then at me. “I’m going to give her a hypodermic,” he +said, “and the nurse is doing something else. Would you mind coming +over with me?” + +Well, of course, I’d wanted to hear what Tish asked Bates, but as I’ve +admitted before, I’m a good bit of a fool where there’s a love affair +on hand, and I’m fond of Tommy. + +“All right,” I said, and we went. I thought I heard Tish’s voice raised +angrily as we left the door, but the next moment there was only the +quiet hum of Bates speaking. + +The little nurse was lying in bed with her eyes closed. She looked +white, but her lips had more color than the day before. She opened her +eyes as we came in, and put out her hand to me. + +“You’re very good,” she said. “You see I am better.” Tommy beamed. + +“And just in time!” said I. “One more fainting fit, and Doctor Tommy +Andrews would have been tied up in a strait-jacket.” + +She colored a little and looked at him. + +“I’ve been telling her,” said Tommy, catching my eye, “about Miss Lewis +and the mouse last night. A girl with a set of lungs like that is lost +in a hospital. She ought to be in a garage blowing up auto tires.” + +“And--everything was quiet last night?” + +“Not a sound--except the aforesaid yell. Never knew the house quieter.” +He reached over and caught her wrist. “Nerves as tight as a string!” he +said. “You’re going to have a hypodermic and relax a bit.” + +“Since you _will_ be my medical adviser--” she said, half shyly, and +held out her right arm. + +Tommy fixed the hypodermic and came over to the bed. “Ready!” he said, +but instead of the right arm, he leaned across and drew up the short +white sleeve of the left. She made a quick movement, but was too late. + +“Good heavens!” Tommy said, and we both stared. The arm was covered +with bruises from elbow to shoulder! + + * * * * * + +Tommy walked back with me to Tish’s room, but at first he said nothing, +and neither did I. The girl had offered no explanation, and he had +asked none. The poor little arm had been too pathetic. + +Just before we reached Tish’s door, however, he stopped. + +“The sheer brutality of it!” he said. “She’s only a bit of a girl, +and she’s been through something horrible. But I’m not going to ask +her about it, and I won’t have her questioned by anybody else. If I’m +satisfied, it’s nobody else’s affair.” + +“Listen to the egoist!” said I. “And why is it your affair only?” + +“Because I’m going to marry her, if she’ll have me,” he said hotly. +“And after I have her, and can protect her, I’m going to kill whoever +put those finger-prints on her arm.” + +“Finger-prints!” I cried. + +“Yes, finger-prints,” he said, and opened the door. + +Bates had gone, and Aggie and Tish were together. Tish still wore her +bonnet, and she had a crimson spot on each cheek. + +“Tommy,” she said, the moment we entered. “I’ve sent for the linen +woman, and I want you to stay by. As soon as I’ve seen her, we’re going +to the Blake girl’s room.” + +“Oh, no; you’re not,” said Tommy calmly. “You’ll go there over my dead +body.” + +“That wouldn’t be much of an obstacle!” + +“She’s very ill. I won’t have her disturbed,” said Tommy, and set his +jaw. They both have the Carberry jaw. Tish made an impatient movement. +“Oh, well, I can manage without her. Is the top of the elevator flat?” +she added. + +“The center is, I believe,” Tommy was doubtful. “What on earth--” + +“Never mind!” said Tish grandly, and the linen woman knocked. + +“Mrs. Jenkins?” asked Tish. + +“Yes’m,” said Mrs. Jenkins. She was a tall woman, in black, with a +white apron and a thimble as badges of office. + +“I wanted to ask you for the key to the mortuary linen closet, Mrs. +Jenkins,” said Tish. + +Mrs. Jenkins fidgeted, and glanced at Tommy. + +“I’m sorry,” she said. “I--haven’t got it just now.” + +“Indeed!” Tish raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t you responsible for that +closet? I have a particular reason for asking.” + +Mrs. Jenkins turned to Tommy. “Since you’re here, Doctor Andrews,” she +said, “I suppose it’s all right, but we don’t give the keys to any of +the closets to patients usually.” + +“Since you haven’t got it, that needn’t disturb you,” Tish said +sharply. “If you wish a reason, however, I’m a member of the Ladies’ +Committee of this hospital, and as I am undertaking a special inquiry +into things that have happened here lately, _I want that key_.” + +Mrs. Jenkins looked dazed. She had never seen a female detective, +I daresay, and to see one sitting before her in a kimono over a +nightgown, with a black bonnet with jet bugles over one ear, and her +foot out on a stool, clearly bewildered her. + +“I’m sorry,” she said respectfully, when she’d recovered, “but the key +that usually hangs in the mortuary is lost, and I gave Miss Linda Smith +the other one.” + +“Hah!” cried Tish. “When?” + +“Yesterday, I think. I’m not sure.” + +“Thank you very much, Mrs. Jenkins. I’ll not keep you any longer.” And +as the linen woman went out, Tish got up and reached for her cane. + +“Now then, Tommy,” she said, “I’ll trouble you to take Lizzie and Aggie +somewhere and keep them, so I can think. Take them out and get them +some soda water.” + +“Soda water! Perhaps you would like me to go back to the Zoo,” I +observed with biting sarcasm. But it was lost on Tish. + +“I shouldn’t advise it,” she said. “It’s raining again. Just get +out--go anywhere, so you go. And come back in an hour.” + +“I’ve half a mind--” Aggie began nastily. + +“Why, so you have!” said Tish. “Shut the door behind you.” And as +Aggie, who was the last, slammed out, we heard Tish opening the lower +bureau drawer. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ON THE ROOF AND ELSEWHERE + + +We came back in an hour to find Tish waiting with her bonnet still on, +and in a more agreeable frame of mind. She asked Tommy and me to go +around the hospital with her, but refused to take Aggie, who retired +sulking to her room. Tish rolled up the S. P. T. towels and led the way +herself, a strange gleam in her eye. Considering what she had in mind, +it was a courageous thing she was doing, but I don’t mind admitting now +that there were moments that day when I thought she had lost her reason. + +She led the way to the mortuary first, with her bundle under her arm, +and Tommy and I trailing at her heels, like two bewildered lambs after +a wild-eyed sheep. Seen in daylight, there was nothing horrible about +the mortuary. There were no bodies there, and the daylight came in +in churchly fashion through the two large stained-glass windows in +the end. Indeed, the room looked like a small chapel, being finished +in dark wood, with pale walls, chairs in a row around the edge of the +floor, and only the row of tables in the center instead of pews, to +spoil its ecclesiastical appearance. + +At the far end, to the left, and near the windows, was the door to the +linen closet. Tish gave the room only a casual glance, and stalked +across to the linen closet. She hesitated a moment and grasped her +stick closely. Then she inserted the key she had carried up with her, +and slowly turned it. + +The door flew open immediately and I took a hasty step back. But it had +been pushed only by the draft of air from a small window at the side, +which was open, and except for piles of neatly folded linen, the closet +was empty. Tish looked slightly disappointed, but not discouraged. +She went in and stuck her head out through the open window, looking in +every direction. + +“Exactly,” she said and prepared to close and lock the closet again. +But she waited to close the small window first, and when she turned, +Tommy had stooped over something lying on the floor just inside the +door. + +“Look!” he said, holding it out on his palm. “Briggs’ old pipe, with +the stem gone! The one he was smoking when--!” + +If he expected Tish to be impressed he was disappointed. + +“There’s nothing astonishing about that!” she said calmly, and +proceeding to climb out one of the stained-glass windows on to the +fire-escape--although it was the fifth floor and Tish had always +declared she’d rather burn up than put a foot on one of the things--she +ran nimbly up and over the cornice to the roof. + +It was a very ordinary roof. One part was flat, and evidently used +occasionally as a breathing spot. There were benches around and a +flower pot or two, and directly in the center was a four-foot iron +fence, enclosing a skylight. Two men at work there showed where Tommy +had gone through, and when I glanced at him he was staring at it with a +rueful smile. + +“When you remember,” he said, “that I weigh a hundred and seventy +pounds, and that I went over that fence head first, it makes you wonder +what grudge old Johnson had against me. _I_ was decent enough to him, +if Briggs wasn’t.” + +“Do you mean that--that Briggs was _cruel_ to him?” I asked Tommy. + +“With a refined form of cruelty, yes. The sort that lets an old man go +without sugar in his tea, and won’t hear him begging for ice-water.” + +“Then I’m glad he’s dead,” I snapped, “and if I’d been Johnson, I’d +have--” + +Tish had wandered across the roof, and was standing on a part of it +about two feet higher than the rest, looking at a second and smaller +skylight. + +“What’s this, Tommy?” she called. + +“Elevator, I think,” said Tommy, and we went over. Tish was looking +around her with speculative eyes. + +“I guess this is about right,” she said. “I miss my guess, +unless--Tommy, get down with your ear to the roof and see if you hear +anything.” + +“It’s dirty,” said Tommy. + +“I guess you’ll wash without spoiling,” Tish snapped. “It ain’t a +Carberry trait to be afraid of dirt. Get down.” + +Tommy pulled up his trousers legs and got down gingerly, and I followed +suit. I daresay we looked queer, both kneeling, and each with an eager +ear to the tin. The two men at the other skylight stared at us over the +railing nervously. + +We didn’t hear anything, and Tish looked disappointed. But she didn’t +stop her half hop, half run, over the roof. At the end of fifteen +minutes she was back at the top of the fire-escape, ready to descend. +But going down was different from going up, and I guess we were both +relieved when Tommy said there was a staircase. + +When we got to the bottom, I was clear out of breath, and even Tommy +was panting. But Tish hadn’t turned a hair. Some sort of inward +excitement was stimulating her like a fever, and knowing Tish, I felt +she would cave in like a pricked balloon when it was over. + +The next thing she demanded was to be put on the top of the elevator +cage. But Tommy absolutely balked at that and Tish seemed to realize +herself that it wouldn’t do. + +“I’ll go for you,” Tommy said. “I’m willing to sacrifice myself +for you any time, Aunt Tish, but you can see for yourself that a +self-respecting woman in her prime can’t ride on top of an elevator +without causing comment. It isn’t being done in our set this winter, +Aunt Tish.” + +Tish gave in, or pretended to, and we went back to her room. Aggie +was there, dressed but sulky, and we had tea all around and tried to +talk about indifferent things. We told Aggie we had been up to see the +mortuary, whereon she insisted on seeing it, too, and Miss Lewis and I +took her. + +We left Tish still working over her notes, with a cup of tea in one +hand, which she was absently stirring with her lead pencil, and went +up-stairs. Tommy had gone to see Miss Blake again. + +We showed Aggie the mortuary and she got weak in the knees and had to +sit a few minutes. It must have been fifteen minutes, therefore, when, +supporting her between us, we led her down the steps and rang for the +elevator. It travels, as I say, very quietly, and when it came into +view, all we could do was to stare, our mouths open. + +Riding majestically on top of it, one hand in a dignified manner +holding to the cable, the other clutching her stick, and with her head +thrown back and staring up, was Tish! She went past us without seeing +us, and a moment later we heard her say calmly: + +“Stop now, Frank. Stop!” + +Almost immediately on that she said, “Go down! _Go down_, I tell you! +_Go down!_” + +The cage went down past us, with Tish still holding on, still looking +up. But on her face there was the most terrible expression of mingled +fright and satisfaction I ever saw. + +The next moment there began, from above, a shower of sticks, pieces of +plaster, and finally, a small creature that looked like, and proved to +be, a dead rabbit. Aggie began to scream and to tear at the elevator +doors, but luckily they held. + +Well, as the newspapers have told, the idiot of an elevator man kept +on to the first floor in his excitement, and it’s a great wonder Tish +was not brained. But nothing hit her, and she got to the lower floor in +safety. If she had waited until the cage was lowered sufficiently, she +would not have been hurt, but just as the top was still four feet from +the floor, the rabbit landed, and Tish jumped and broke her arm. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +COMMON SENSE + + +Well, that’s all there was to it. As I said at the beginning, this is +really Tish’s story. She told us the whole thing that night sitting up +in bed, with the Chief of Police and the hospital superintendent on one +side of the bed, and Miss Lewis and I on the other. Aggie lay on the +couch with a cubeb cigarette burning beside her, and stared at Tish +with admiration mixed with awe. + +“In the first place,” said Tish, to the Chief of Police, “here are the +two towels that figure in the case. One of them is the one that hung +Mr. Johnson’s body three nights ago to the chandelier, the other is the +one with which the ape, Hero, is supposed to have committed suicide at +the Zoo the following night. As you see, the two towels are alike. Do +you know what S. P. T. stands for?” she asked. + +“I can’t say I do,” said the Chief of Police, and picked up one of the +towels. + +“Humph!” said Tish. “Well, it means ‘Sick Patient Towel,’ and they are +used in hospitals for tying up delirious patients. The trouble was, +there wasn’t a delirious patient in the hospital strong enough to walk, +let alone tie up a body to a chandelier. + +“But before I learned from Bates what S. P. T. meant, I’d been to the +Zoo. That was yesterday morning. Maybe you believe that a lonely monkey +will commit suicide; maybe he will, I don’t know. But when he hangs +himself with a roller towel from the Dunkirk hospital, I want to know +how he got that towel.” + +“Oho!” said the Chief of Police, “so the little rascal got loose, did +he?” + +“He did not,” said Tish tartly. “They said he was lonely for his +keeper. Very well, said I, where is his keeper? Where is this man +he was so fond of that he couldn’t live without him? The answer, +gentlemen, was that this keeper was a patient in the Dunkirk hospital, +as the result of being crushed almost to death by the beast that was +supposed to be pining for him! The keeper’s name was Wesley Barker!” + +“Barker!” said Tommy. “Why, that was the big Englishman--! Go on, Aunt +Tish.” + +“I came back to the hospital with a strong desire to talk to Wesley +Barker, but Wesley Barker was not in the hospital. He had been +dismissed three days ago. Bates recalled taking his dismissal card to +the elevator man, about seven o’clock Tuesday evening. That put Barker +out of the case, apparently, but I sent for Jacobs and asked him how +easily a man could get into the building at night. He said it was +impossible. The doors are always locked, the basement entrances and +fire-escapes lead from the courtyard, and the courtyard is locked and +in charge of a gate man. That seemed to cut out Wesley Barker, as I +say. If he was out, he could hardly get back without using dynamite. + +“I got out my notes again, and went over them. I couldn’t see how Miss +Blake and Miss Linda Smith were mixed up in it. They were the day +nurses in K ward, Miss Smith in charge and Miss Blake assisting. I had +several notes on them: Tuesday at midnight Miss Smith coaxed the night +nurse to go to the basement with her, where the patients’ clothes are +kept in lockers: she was missing for a time, and when Bates saw her +later she carried a ‘darkish bundle,’ possibly clothing. Why?” + +The Chief of Police looked wise; he had a way of wriggling his nose +like a rabbit. + +“The next morning, Miss Blake being ill, we heard Miss Smith crying in +her room and blaming herself for the girl’s condition,” Tish went on. +“Again, why? + +“On Wednesday night Miss Blake, still weak and ill, made a complete +search of the third floor. Not another nurse in the house would have +gone there, or to the mortuary and later to the roof, as she did. Some +strong purpose sent the girl, of course--but what? + +“That night, following Miss Blake to the roof, my nephew was thrown +through a skylight. Later he confessed to a bite on the shoulder. The +same night, apparently in a spirit of wanton mischief, the guinea-pigs +in the laboratory were killed and three rabbits were taken away. Miss +Blake had been there. My nephew confessed later to finding a rosette +from her slipper there. Again--why?” + +Tish stopped and looked at the Chief of Police, who sat stroking his +chin. + +“How would you have gone about the case, Mr. Chief of Police?” Tish +demanded. + +“Probably much as you did,” he said, looking at her with a patronizing +smile. “It’s a simple matter when we know the answer, to say that two +and two make four, but you are giving me the four, and asking me +whether you reached that conclusion by adding three and one, or two and +two, or four and nothing. Given a certain number of clues, the logical +mind often achieves remarkable results, but it is usually the trained +mind. That you succeeded so well, my dear lady, I consider remarkable. +Remarkable!” + +“Given the same clues,” Tish persisted, “you’d have reached the same +result?” + +“Undoubtedly.” + +“Well,” said Tish, mildly. “It’s strange that I couldn’t. There were a +few gaps my mind wouldn’t jump. And I noticed your men here seemed to +feel the same way. It seemed like some distance from a roller towel in +the Zoo to Johnson’s brown tweed coat.” + +The Chief of Police looked uneasy. + +“By exactly _what_ mental process did you connect the two?” he asked, +wriggling his nose. + +“I didn’t,” said Tish calmly. “While you and your men were measuring +finger-prints and reassembling Mr. Johnson from where he’d been +scattered to, I did what any person with common sense would have done, +_I went to Miss Blake and asked her_!” + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +NOTE BY DOCTOR THOMAS ANDREWS, LATE VISITING PHYSICIAN AT THE DUNKIRK +HOSPITAL, AND NOW ON THE ORTHOPÆDIC STAFF OF THE SAME INSTITUTION, +DATED THREE WEEKS LATER, FROM BERMUDA + + +Miss Lizzie’s narrative stops here. My Aunt Letitia, during her +convalescence in the hospital, having been discovered poring over books +of aerial navigation, and having written to the Wrights, offering to +turn over a second-hand automobile of standard make, a thirty-foot +motor-launch, and an equity in money, for one of their model biplanes, +Miss Lizzie and Miss Aggie hurriedly took her to Mount Clemens for a +series of baths. + +“I shall take up Miss Lizzie’s narrative with the story told to my +Aunt Letitia by Miss Blake, now my wife. Miss Blake was young, only +nineteen, and had been in the hospital only six months. Miss Smith was +the head day nurse in K ward, with Miss Blake as her assistant. Miss +Smith had almost completed her three years’ course, and was not popular +with the officers. She was, however, a good nurse, and unlike Miss +Blake, was dependent on her earnings for her support. + +“On Tuesday evening, trouble between the two medical _internes_ and the +hospital superintendent, Mr. Harrison, reached a climax. The three men +had a wordy argument on the staircase near K ward, and Linda Smith (who +was not over-scrupulous) had shut herself in a small supply room near +to listen. The ward was in charge of Miss Blake, who was serving the +patients’ suppers from a table in the center of the long room. Behind +a screen, in the second bed from the far end of the ward lay Amos +Johnson, peacefully dying. Beyond him, in the end bed, lay a delirious +patient named Wesley Barker, an Englishman, who had been sent in from +the Zoological Garden, badly injured by the great ape, Hero, since dead. + +“Barker was tied down. Two long towels, one over his arms and one over +his legs, were knotted beyond his reach under the edge of the bed. His +fractured ribs had healed, but he was still delirious. His delirium +in the last day or two had taken on an acuter form, and was mania. +Articulate speech had changed to noisy ape-like chatterings. He made +strange facial grimaces, and being tied, had more than once tried to +bite his nurses. + +“Miss Blake filled a feeding cup with broth, and having attended to the +other patients, went behind Johnson’s screen to feed the maniac in the +last bed. To her horror, the bed was empty! + +“Nervous, but not excessively alarmed, Miss Blake called Linda Smith, +and they searched the ward. Barker had gone, perhaps by creeping +behind the heads of the beds to the doorway, and there, watching his +chance, escaping to the fire-escape by a hall window near. Although +only late September, it was cold, and he wore only the clothing he had +worn in bed, a hospital nightshirt. + +“Miss Blake wished to raise an immediate alarm, but Linda Smith +refused. She was responsible: an investigation would show she had been +absent from her ward without reason, and for some time. She was in +disfavor already, and she could not risk losing her diploma. She had +an invalid sister dependent on her. By threats and tears she made Miss +Blake promise to say nothing of Barker’s escape and to help her find +him. + +“It was almost dark by that time, and the girls were in despair. Linda +Smith went down the fire-escape to the courtyard, and found the gate +man staring through the bars at the river. + +“‘I dropped a rubber sheet out the window,’ she said, ‘but I don’t see +it. What are you looking at?’ + +“The gate man pointed to the Center Street bridge, which crosses the +river near the hospital. ‘There’s a woman out there in white,’ he said, +‘and she looks as if she might be thinking--there, look at that!’ + +“The bridge was practically deserted. She and the gate man saw the +figure move back a step or two, run forward and dive over the rail. The +gate man unlocked the gate and ran out, but the toll house is at the +east end of the bridge, and by the time he had raised the alarm there +was nothing to be seen. Linda Smith went back to Miss Blake, and had +hysteria in the K ward linen room. + +“Discovery meant disgrace to her, so she made up her mind not to +be discovered. Barker had had no family and no friends. No one had +visited him except the assistant keeper, and he had not shown any +particular solicitude. Linda Smith thought she saw a way out, and half +frightened, half coaxed Miss Blake into helping her. Remember, they +both thought Barker was dead, and Linda Smith threatened in case of +discovery, to throw herself off the roof. Miss Blake’s part, therefore, +was the acquiescence of a young and terrified girl, in a situation that +would have shaken older and stronger nerves. + +“The two medical _internes_ left at seven o’clock, as a result of the +dispute with the superintendent. At ten minutes past seven, Linda Smith +sent down a dismissal card for one Wesley Barker, with the forged +signature of one of the departed _internes_. At twenty minutes past, +the yellow ticket came back from the office, the ticket which would +permit Wesley Barker to pass the door-man and leave the hospital for +good. Linda Smith destroyed it. + +“At seventy-thirty the night nurse, Miss Durand, was told that one +of the heaviest burdens had been taken from her, and went to work +cheerfully. But at ten o’clock that night Linda Smith, lying awake +in bed in her room in the dormitory, saw Wesley Barker climb up the +fire-escape outside her window, stopping now and then, monkey fashion, +to swing out over the dizzy height by his hands. + +“The girl was almost frenzied. She got up and dressed and went to the +roof. To her horror she found the superintendent, Mr. Harrison, smoking +there and she almost fainted when she got back to her room. But the +superintendent was not molested. There was no alarm. + +“At midnight she formed the resolution of getting Barker’s clothes from +the basement clothes room and putting them on the roof, in the hope +that he would put them on and go away. Properly dressed, even if he +went back to the Zoo, she could claim that he had been taken away by +somebody in a carriage, and might still put through the deception. In +any event, his clothes could not be left there. Their discovery meant +her disgrace. + +“She had forgotten, however, that Barker had been brought in in the +ambulance, and had no clothes. Afraid to go to the basement alone, she +asked Miss Durand to go to the clothes room with her, giving as an +excuse that she had forgotten to send Johnson’s clothes to the office, +a rule in case of death, and on finding nothing there in Barker’s +name, she did the only thing she could think of--took Johnson’s old +brown suit, which, with his worn shoes and not very clean linen, was +tied in a bundle with a piece of bandage and marked with the dying +spiritualist’s name. + +“Miss Durand had disappeared, carrying the bundle. Miss Smith searched +the far corners of the basement, but found nothing. Finally, she and +Miss Durand went up-stairs again, to find that Johnson had been dead +for some time. Bates, the convalescent, had seen them go and saw +them return. He had, however, been detected a day or so before by +Miss Durand selling cocaine to a colored man in one of the wards, +and later, under Miss Durand’s eye, he said she had been absent ten +minutes. As a matter of fact, it had been fifty. + +“Linda Smith went back to her room at once. She knew she and Miss Blake +would be called to attend to Johnson in the mortuary, and she waited +for the summons. The ghastly trick of hanging the poor old body to the +chandelier followed in due course. + +“Thinking Barker still dead, it had been as great a shock to Ruth Blake +as to the others. It was not until the next morning that Linda Smith +told her Barker was still alive, and somewhere in the building. There +was only one comfort: Linda had put the bundle of clothing on the roof, +and it had disappeared. + +“The other things followed in quick succession. Miss Blake, half +frenzied, conceived the idea of putting food heavily doped with +morphia, on the roof, along the fire-escape, anywhere that the maniac +might find it. She hardly knew what she hoped to do by this: she was +in an abnormal frame of mind by this time: ill, sleepless and unable to +eat. The food disappeared, but if the morphia had any effect, it was in +daylight, when he probably slept, hidden away under the roof or in the +linen closet. + +“The following night she searched the fifth, or mortuary floor, +carrying a candle. She had suspected, from the night before, that +Barker was hiding in the linen closet, and Linda Smith got the key. The +plan had been that Miss Smith should go with her, but she was given +a special case that night, and Miss Blake, courageously enough, went +alone. + +“Barker was in the closet, and when she opened the door he seized +her arm in a murderous grip that left it blue and swollen. She tried +speaking to him, and releasing his hold, he darted out through the +closet window and leaped to the fire-escape. Miss Blake pluckily +followed him to the roof, but he had disappeared. As Miss Lizzie has +told, I followed Miss Blake. Just before I reached her, she cried +out and flung her brass candlestick at something behind me. The next +instant I was grasped from behind and thrown head first through the +skylight. + +“I did not know I had been bitten in the shoulder. I thought I had been +stabbed, until Jacobs and I together cauterized the wound that night in +the laboratory. Probably during the time we were there, the door being +unlocked, Barker entered and hid in the building. Miss Blake was there +at the same time, having watched Jacobs and myself enter, and being +fearful of further harm. She did not see anything of Barker, however, +and went back to the roof, where she sat huddled until dawn, waiting +for Barker to appear again. But he did not come, and at daylight, +shaking with cold, she went back to her room. There she had a chill, +followed by violent fever and delirium, and there I believe Linda Smith +came, bringing a surgical knife stained with blood, that she had found +on the roof, and which Miss Lewis subsequently found in Miss Blake’s +room. + +“The condition of the two girls by that time was pitiable. Miss Blake, +younger and more nervous, had entirely succumbed: Miss Smith, sleepless +and unable to eat, was still making a fight to cover the whole thing +and to drive Barker away from the building. They could not discover +where he hid in the daytime, but at night evidences of his ape-like +mischief were everywhere apparent. He swung by his feet from the +pipe-molding of the walls, squatted on the foot-board of the bed in +private room thirty-six, making hideous grimaces--a story which caused +the nurse in charge to mark ‘delirious’ on the record of a perfectly +rational woman--leaped at giddy heights about the fire-escape and the +roof, and alarmed Miss Aggie into her story of a ghostly foot. The +man’s strength was almost super-human. + +“Johnson died on Tuesday night, and it was on Wednesday night that +I was thrown through the skylight. Toward dawn of Thursday morning, +Barker went to the Zoo, distant about a mile from the hospital. By that +time he had donned Johnson’s trousers, but remained in his bare feet. +Access to the monkey house proved easy. The assistant keeper, sleeping +in a small room just inside the entrance, was not aroused until too +late. The key to Hero’s cage hung over his bed, it being his habit to +go in to see the ape several times during the night. On that night, +he opened the cage at one o’clock, and spoke to the ape, who had been +sulky all day. He locked the door and went back to bed, hanging the key +up again on its nail. It was still there in the morning at six o’clock, +but the ape was dead. In spite of his tremendous strength and length of +arm, he had been literally crushed to death, and then hung to the top +of the cage by a roller towel which did not belong to the Zoo. + +“The police were put on the case, and had already arrested the +assistant keeper, who had been heard to say that either the ape would +get him or he would get the ape. + +“On Wednesday night, Briggs, who had been most unpopular with Barker, +met his death in an almost similar manner, his ribs being crushed +in. In this case, however, Barker’s ingenuity utilized the useless +brown coat, the two towels being gone. Previous to that time, he had +rocked the elevator in impish mischief, or possibly wrath. It was this +incident which caused my Aunt Letitia to suspect a space under the roof +at the top of the elevator shaft, as a hiding place. + +“The result of her courageous investigation is well known: mounted on +top of the cage, she was taken to the upper position of the shaft, and +there found what she had been looking for, an unboarded spot behind the +elevator wheel. She was disappointed, however, in finding the space +too dark for inspection, and in hearing or seeing nothing suspicious. + +“Being a courageous woman and convinced that what she sought was there +in the cave-like recess, my Aunt Letitia threw her slipper with all the +strength she could summon, and was answered by a growl. + + * * * * * + +“My wife has just read this and confirms most of it. She suggests, +however, that I have omitted our theory of how Briggs was murdered +without discovery, while Jacobs was in the hall nearby and I myself +guarded the only other means of exit, the fire-escape. + +“Barker probably took refuge in the linen closet, arriving at the +mortuary floor ahead of the slow progress of the cage, by scurrying +up the cable. He hid in the closet, and by throwing the coat over +Briggs and squeezing him in his muscular arms, he prevented any outcry. +Immediately after, he locked himself in the closet again, where he +smoked Briggs’ pipe, perhaps in itself the object of the attack. + +“On the alarm being raised, Hicks and I came in through the window, +and Jacobs through the door. This left the fire-escape and the roof +unwatched, and he climbed out the window of the linen closet, swinging +himself easily to the fire-escape. + +“The rest of the story we know. Barker was found, exhausted and half +starving, and was promptly put in a padded cell, where, a week later, +he died, probably from an infection, having cut his left foot badly, +possibly with the very knife that killed the laboratory guinea-pigs. +The injured foot, which he had crudely bandaged, probably explains +why only prints of a right foot were discovered. With the removal of +suspense Miss Blake recovered, and is now with me, enjoying the lilies +and onion fields of Bermuda. My Aunt Letitia is at Mount Clemens, +taking a series of baths and--I am informed by Miss Lizzie--carrying +on what she believes is a clandestine correspondence with the Wright +brothers. Miss Aggie’s hay fever left with the first frost. I am sorry +to say that Miss Linda Smith has never been heard from.” + + + + +THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF LETITIA CARBERRY + +PART TWO + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A CIGARETTE CASE, A SHOE, AND A MENU CARD + + +It was three o’clock in the morning when we got back to the lake, and +it was twenty minutes before Carpenter heard us and started the ferry +across. Tish had lost her glasses in the excitement at the Sherman +House, and she did not see that Carpenter had forgotten to put the bar +across the end of the boat. Aggie and I screamed, but it was too late: +she drove the car down the bank in the moonlight and she did not stop +in time. The first we knew we were sitting waist-deep in Lake Penzance, +with Tish still holding the steering wheel and the stars making little +twinkles in our laps. + +As Tish said afterward, it was a fit ending to a sensational night, +but, what with the wetting aggravating Aggie’s hay fever, and my having +bitten through the side of my tongue when the machine struck the bottom +of the lake, it more nearly finished us. The engine drowned with a +gurgle, and after Carpenter’s first yell there wasn’t a sound. Then we +heard him come to the end of the ferry-boat and look down at us, and +the next moment he had dropped the lantern and was doubled up on the +dock, laughing like the fool he is. + +“Are you both there?” said Tish, without turning her head. + +Aggie sneezed, as she always does after a shock, and a wave moved +slowly in and raised the water level with my breastbone. + +“We are both here,” I said, with a bitterness that was natural under +the circumstances. “No thanks to you, Tish Carberry. There’s no fool +like an old fool.” + +“What do you mean?” Tish demanded fiercely, twisting around in the +water with her dust cap over her eye. “Who was it said I ought to +buy the dratted thing? Drive it yourself if you think you can do any +better.” + +“Row it,” I corrected. “It’s finished for good as a touring car, but by +putting an awning over it we might make it into a tolerable gasoline +launch.” + +Aggie was crying. + +“I told you something would happen,” she sniffled. “You’ll kill us all +yet, Tish Carberry--and me in my _foulard_ silk that spots with a drop +of rain!” + +But Tish wasn’t paying any attention. She picked up the wrench that she +had kept by her as a sort of weapon and stood up on the seat. Tish is a +large woman. + +“Abraham Carpenter,” she snapped, with as much dignity as she could +with her clothes glued to her, “if you do not stop that noise I will +brain you.” + +Carpenter eased down gradually, and, holding his sides, he leaned over +the end of the ferry. + +“What’ll I do, Miss Tish?” he asked, beginning to jerk again, but with +an eye on the wrench. “I can go around to the other dock and get a +rowboat, but it’ll take time.” + +“Don’t bother about the other dock,” Tish snapped. “Get that board +there on the ferry and put one end of it down to the automobile. Then +turn your back.” + +That’s the way we got out. I went up the board first, on my hands +and knees, and barring a few splinters I got up very nicely. Aggie +came next, and as the board was getting wet she had more trouble. But +Tish had the worst, for by that time the board was as slippery as a +toboggan; twice she got as far as the middle, only to slide back on +her stomach, and the last time she refused to try again. She sat down +on one of the seats, with the water up to her waist, and said that +she was skinned alive, and that she wished there was a tide to come +up and drown her and the miserable machine. We got her up finally by +throwing her a rope to put under her arms, and once up she collapsed +on the ferry-bench. It was then that Aggie missed the money. Carpenter +had slid down the board and was preparing to salvage the cushions when +Aggie clutched at her stocking and yelled. + +“It’s gone!” she screeched, and then she sat plump down on the floor of +the ferry-boat and began to cry. + +“What’s gone?” Tish demanded. + +“The money,” Aggie said, feeling frantically around the tops of her +shoes. “When we went over the edge something broke--I felt it--and the +money’s gone.” + +Tish had both her arms in the air and the rope over her shoulder, but +she stopped struggling and stared at Aggie. + +“Gone!” she said in an awful voice. “Aggie Pilkington, every dollar of +that money was graft money. Only the prospect of stuffing it between +that red-haired man’s teeth has kept me alive through this terrible +night. Don’t tell me you’ve lost it.” + +“We can give him a check,” said Aggie feebly. + +“We can!” Tish snorted, and not another word did she say until +Carpenter had taken us across the lake and we stood dripping on the +front porch of the cottage, while Aggie got the key from under a flower +pot. Then Tish looked across the moonlit lake to where the cushions of +the machine floated in a nest of stars at the end of the ferry-dock. +“We averaged thirty miles an hour coming home,” she said triumphantly, +“and for the first time I feel that I have mastered the machine.” + +Wet as we were, we remembered to put the lantern in the window as we +had promised, and we thought we saw a skiff shoot out in the starlight +from the other side of the lake. Tish and I took some hot milk, and +Aggie had a raw egg and some more baking soda, and we went to bed. The +stars were fading by that time, but after I got into bed I distinctly +heard footsteps on the gravel below my window. + +“Are you sure you said the first house on the left?” Tish called to me. +And then we heard Mr. Ostermaier’s voice from the upper window next +door, and we knew it was all right. I crawled out and tried to see into +the preacher’s parlor, but the shade was partly down. I could only make +out a sleeve of Mrs. Ostermaier’s kimono. I was disappointed after all +we had gone through. + +She--Mrs. Ostermaier--came over the next morning after breakfast, while +Aggie’s _foulard_ silk was hanging on the clothes-line. She had been +down with the other cottagers, looking across to where the red leather +of Tish’s machine stuck up above water-level. + +“Be careful,” Tish said under her breath when she saw her; “she’s got +something in her hand!” + +“What a terrible accident, and how lucky nobody was hurt!” Mrs. +Ostermaier began, holding the thing she was carrying against her skirt +and staring from the three of us to Aggie’s _foulard_. “The spots did +run, didn’t they? I told Mr. Ostermaier they would. He thinks you are +wonderful women, to go around the country as the three of you do at all +hours of the night.” + +Just then the sunlight caught the thing she held in her hand, and I +knew in a moment what it was--it was Mr. Lewis’ silver cigarette case. +Tish saw it too, and ran her needle into her finger. + +“We had an exciting night too,” Mrs. Ostermaier went on. “Dear me, Miss +Carberry, you’ve jabbed your finger!” + +“An exciting night?” I asked, to keep her attention from Aggie. Aggie +had just seen the cigarette case and she had gone blue around the nose. + +“Most exciting. About three o’clock this morning--about the time you +three ladies were having such a dreadful experience--a young couple +came to our cottage and wakened Mr. Ostermaier. I think they threw +gravel through the window. They wanted to be married.” + +Tish sat up and tried to look scandalized. + +“I hope your husband didn’t do it,” she said. I had to pinch Aggie; she +was leaning forward with her eyes bulging. + +That put Mrs. Ostermaier on the defensive. “Why not?” she demanded. +“They had a license, and they were of age. I believe in encouraging +young love; Mr. Ostermaier says it is the most beautiful thing in the +world. Cousin Maggie and I were witnesses, and we threw rice after +them. It was barley, really, but we didn’t discover that until this +morning.” + +Aggie gave a sigh of relief; we had guessed, but it was the first time +we had really known. + +“I told Mr. Ostermaier that it gave me quite a thrill the way he +looked at her as Harold pronounced them man and wife. ‘All the world +loves a lover,’ and Cousin Maggie has been reading Ella Wheeler Wilcox +diligently all morning.” + +She turned to go and we breathed easier. Now that we knew they were +safely married--Mrs. Ostermaier turned and started back. + +“I nearly forgot what brought me,” she called. “My Willie found this in +the bed of your automobile, Miss Tish.” She held out the cigarette case +and Tish took it and dropped it into her work-basket. + +“It belongs to my nephew, Charlie Sands,” she said, looking Mrs. +Ostermaier in the eye. Tish has plenty of courage, but I felt calamity +coming. + +“So I told Mr. Ostermaier,” the creature said, with a smile. “But he +insists on remarking the coincidence that the initials on the cigarette +case are W. L. and that the young man’s name on the license was Walter +Lewis.” + +I have always thanked Heaven that at that moment her Willie fell off +the dock, and although the child was not drowned, still, as Tish +wrote to Maria Lee, her niece, “he had swallowed enough water to wash +the initials off the tablets of his mother’s memory.” And so far as +we know, although the papers came out with great headlines about +the marriage, and another article about the post-office having been +robbed--we had nothing whatever to do with that--and about three +men disguised as women making their escape toward Canada in a red +automobile and having run over a pig at Dorchester Junction--I told +Tish at the time it was a pig, but she insisted it was a cow--although +the papers came out with all this, nobody ever suspected the truth +except Carpenter. He happened to find a menu from the Sherman House at +Noblestown floating in the body of the car, and the good-for-nothing +took a trip to the city and traced us. + +He did not say anything, but about a week later he came to the cottage +and put a package on the table in the kitchen. + +“It’s been puzzlin’ me for four days, Miss Lizzie,” he said, fumbling +with the string of the bundle. “I sez to Mrs. C., sez I, ‘It ain’t +possible,’ I sez. ‘She sez she lost her shoe when the automobile went +into the water, and she’s a truthful woman; and yet, two days after, +the chambermaid at the Sherman House finds it high and dry under a +bureau, forty miles away. It’s spooky,’ I sez.” + +Aggie was pouring hot water into the teapot, and she kept on pouring +till it went all over the place. + +“Nonsense,” said Tish. “That shoe doesn’t belong to Miss Lizzie.” + +But I looked at Carpenter’s face and I knew it was hopeless. + +“You’ve been a good friend to us, Mr. Carpenter,” I said. “We’ve always +felt we’ve owed you something. Here’s a little present, and thank you +for the shoe.” + +He took the money and we looked each other straight in the eye. Then he +grinned. + +“For twenty dollars, Miss Lizzie,” he said, “I’d be willing to swallow +my tongue backward. And the shoe ain’t the tongue kind.” + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A BLUE RUNABOUT AND A BAD BRIDGE + + +Both Aggie and I had objected when Tish talked of buying an automobile. +But the more you talk against a thing to Tish the more she wants it. It +was just the same the time her niece, Maria Lee, went to Europe for the +whole summer and offered Tish her motor-boat. Aggie and I protested, +but the boat came, and Tish had a lesson or two and sent to town for a +yachting cap. Then, one day when we were making elderberry jelly and +ran out of sugar, Tish offered to take me to the mainland in the boat. +That was the time, you remember, when the stopping lever got jammed, +and Tish and I circled around Lake Penzance for seven hours, with +people on different docks trying to lasso us with ropes as we flew +past, and Aggie in hysterics on the beach below the cottage. + +People of Penzance still speak of that day, for we figured out that we +had enough gasoline to run one hundred and sixty miles, and after Peter +Miller, at Point Lena, had lassoed us and was dragged for a quarter of +a mile before he caught hold of a buoy and could let go of the rope, +we got desperate. I was at the wheel and Tish was trying to stop the +engine, pouring water over it and attempting to stick an iron rod in +the wheels. And just as she succeeded, and the rod shot through the +awning on the top of the launch like a sky-rocket, I turned the thing +toward shore where it looked fairly flat. + +“I’m going to get to land,” I said with my teeth clenched. “I don’t +care if it crawls up and dies in a plowed field; I’m going to get my +feet on dry land again.” + +I had not expected it to stop so suddenly, but it did, and Tish and I +and the granulated sugar landed some distance ahead of the boat and +well above high-water mark; in fact, Tish broke her collar-bone, and +that entire summer, whenever the doctor had to peel off the adhesive +plaster, Tish would get ugly and turn on me. + +Well, we should have known about the automobile. I had a queer feeling +when I started out that morning. Tish had had the car out the day +before by herself for the first time--both Aggie and I had had the +good judgment to refuse--and she got home safely, although she had a +queer-looking mark on her right cheek, and one of the mud-guards didn’t +look exactly right. She said she had had a lovely ride, and we helped +her push the machine into the wash-house, where we had had Carpenter +knock out a side, and then she went to bed and had a cup of tea. Aggie +heard something moving that night, and she found Tish sitting up on the +side of her bed, holding like death to the back of a chair and turning +it around like a wheel. Aggie got her back to bed, but Tish only +looked up at her and said, “Four chickens!” and went to sleep again. + +The next morning her left leg was quite stiff from what she called the +clutch, and she sat on the porch peacefully and rocked. But at noon +she went to the wash-house, and when she came back she was pale but +determined. + +“I’m going to take it out,” she said solemnly. “If I don’t I’ll forget +everything I’ve learned. Besides, we’ve been coming here every summer +for ten years, and there are plenty of places we have never seen.” + +Aggie looked at me, but we knew it would have to come some time, and so +we all went in and tied up our heads. + +“We needn’t go fast,” Aggie said when she was putting on her bonnet. +“We have all afternoon, and one doesn’t really enjoy the scenery unless +one goes very slowly.” + +Tish’s face was pallid but resolved. + +“It’s a great deal easier to go fast than slow,” she remarked. “I +haven’t quite got the hang of going slow. But there’s one comfort +about going fast: you get around much quicker.” + +At the foot of the stairs she stopped and called up. + +“I’m going to take a tablespoonful of blackberry wine,” she said. “I +feel chilly in the small of my back.” + +Aggie and I didn’t say anything, but we each took a tablespoonful of +blackberry wine also. + +Tish had written out a list of things to do to start the car, such as +“Turn A,” “Push forward B,” and so on. And she had pasted bits of paper +marked A and B on the levers and plugs. So I read: + +“Turn A; push up B; crank, and release C.” + +It started nicely. + +“Just one thing,” Tish said over her shoulder as we passed the +Ostermaier cottage, and they waved to us from the porch: “Don’t scream +in my ears; don’t lean over and clutch me around the neck; and if we +run over anything, try to look as if you didn’t know we had.” + +Luckily she had not noticed my traveling bag. After the affair of +the launch I was prepared for anything, and I had packed up three +nightgowns, a balsam pillow, a roll of bandage, a bottle of arnica, +a cake of soap, my sewing box and a prayer-book. Aggie had some +sandwiches; so we felt we were prepared for everything, from sudden +death to losing a button. + +We got on to the ferry safely enough. Carpenter, who runs the cable +drum of the ferry with a gas engine, examined the machine with a great +deal of interest on the way over. + +“It’s a pretty hot day, Miss Tish,” he called as we were starting off +the boat. “You’ll have to watch her; she’ll boil.” + +Tish looked worried, but she said nothing. + +“What is there to boil?” Aggie whispered to me. + +“The gasoline,” I told her; “and if it boils it’ll explode. I’m no +mechanic, but I know that much.” + +After a few moments’ silence Aggie leaned forward. + +“Tish,” she said. + +“Don’t take my mind off this machine!” Tish shouted back. “Isn’t that a +buggy coming?” + +“It’s too far off to see. It’s either a buggy or a wagon,” I said. +“Tish, where’s the gasoline tank?” + +But Tish wasn’t listening. “Why doesn’t that man turn out? Does he want +the whole road?” she snapped. There was a silence while we neared the +buggy ahead. Then Tish leaned over and began jerking at levers. + +“I can’t stop the thing,” she gasped, “and there isn’t room to pass!” + +There wasn’t time to pray. I saw Aggie shut her eyes, and the next +moment there was a terrific jar. Aggie and I were flung together in a +corner of the seat, a man yelled, and the next minute we had leaped +out of the ditch again and were going smoothly along the road. I +glanced behind. The man had halted his horse and was standing up in the +buggy, staring after us. + +“I didn’t think I could do it,” said Tish complacently. + +“Only the grace of God took you into that ditch and out again, Tish +Carberry,” I snapped. “And if you are going to do any more circus +performances I want to get out.” + +She could stop the car well enough when there was no crying need to, +and now, to our alarm, she stopped every now and then and got out and +held her hand over the front of the machine, like testing the oven for +cake. Finally she said: + +“It’s boiling!” + +Aggie got ready to jump. + +“It’ll explode, won’t it?” she quavered. + +“I don’t see why it should explode,” Tish replied, wetting her finger +to see if it sizzled when she touched it. “But it’s hot enough, in all +conscience. A good rain would cool it.” + +The sun was blazing down on us, however, and there was no sign of rain. +I said I would just as soon be blown up as melted down, and we got in +again. The machine would not start. We all took a turn at the handle in +front, but it was like winding a clock with a broken spring. + +That is where the man and the girl and the little Pomeranian dog enter +the story. For they came along in a blue runabout car just as Tish +threw her book called _Automobile Troubles_ over the fence and said she +was going to walk home. The book said: “Beginners having trouble with +their engines should look under the headings Ignition, Carburation, +Lubrication, Compression, Circulation and Timing.” As Tish remarked, +the only one that was understandable was Circulation, and anybody could +tell without a book that the car wasn’t circulating to any extent. + +Just as Tish threw the book away the young man in the blue runabout +stopped and got out. + +“In trouble?” he asked. “Can I do anything for you?” + +“It was boiling,” said Tish. “I suppose something has melted inside.” + +“Oh, I think not.” He looked at the car, pushed something, went round +and turned the handle--crank, Tish called it, and it’s a good name--and +the engine started. + +“You didn’t have your gas on,” said the young man. “And don’t worry; +you’re sure to heat up on a day like this, but nothing will melt.” + +“Or explode?” asked Aggie. + +“Or explode.” + +He looked at the girl and smiled, and when we started off they were +still there, watching us. The dog yelped, and the girl smiled and waved +her hand. Aggie, who is far-sighted, turned around a second time. “He +reminds me of Mr. Wiggins,” she said with a sigh, still looking back. +Aggie was engaged years ago to a young man in the roofing business, who +fell off a roof. + +After a minute, “He’s kissing her!” she gasped. After that she nearly +broke her neck watching them out of sight. Aggie is romantic. I turned +around, but I had on my near glasses. + +I don’t know how we lost the Noblestown Pike. Tish blamed it on having +to drive with one eye shut, on account of something getting into the +other. Aggie’s nose was sunburned and swelling, and I would have given +a good bit for something heavy in my lap to anchor me. When I was a +girl I rode horseback, and with any kind of a steady horse you can tell +when the next jolt is coming; but Tish’s machine has a way of coming up +and hitting you when you are off guard, so to speak. + +To go back, after an hour or so we found we were on the wrong road. It +kept growing narrower, and when at last it became only a dusty country +lane Tish realized it herself. There was a rickety farmhouse about two +hundred feet from the road, with a woman bending over a washtub outside +the door. I stood up and made a megaphone of my hands. + +“Which way to the Noblestown Pike?” I yelled, while Tish got out and +stuck a wet finger on the hood over the engine. + +The woman looked up and pointed sullenly in the direction from which +we had come. We looked at the road. There wasn’t a spot to turn--not +another road in sight to back into. It was hotter than ever. The engine +hummed like a teakettle on a hot stove, and there were little clouds +of blue smoke coming from somewhere or other about it. Aggie said she +thought the gasoline tank was on fire. + +“If it is you’ll soon know it,” said Tish grimly. “It’s under the seat. +I’m going to back up on to this bridge business over the gutter. I +think I can make it.” + +“Do you know how to back up?” I asked; and just at that minute the +woman left her tub and started to run down the walk. + +Tish backed. With an awful grinding of wheels she got the right lever +finally; the machine gave a jerk that would have decapitated a chicken, +and we backed slowly on to the timbers that bridged the gutter and made +a road toward the house. When it gave the first crack we shouted--Aggie +and I. It might not have been too late, but Tish put on the emergency +brake by mistake and for a minute we hung on the verge. Then we began +to settle. We went down slowly, with Tish above us and rising; and when +we stopped, there we were, Aggie and I and the rear of the machine, a +good four feet below Tish and the engine, with something grinding like +mad and clouds of smoke everywhere. + +When we crawled out the woman who owned the bridge was standing on the +bank looking down at us, and her face was something awful. + +“You’ll fix that bridge before you leave!” she said, shutting her mouth +hard on the last word. + +“You’ll fix that automobile before I’m through with you!” said Tish, +pointing at the thing, which looked like a horse sitting down in a +gutter. + +“Oh, rats!” the woman said rudely. “That’s four of them things that’s +gone through that bridge this week, and I’m good and sick of it. Ain’t +there any other bridges in Chester county?” + +“Not like that,” retorted Tish, eying the ruins. “You don’t call that a +bridge, do you?” + +“It was,” said the woman. + +She came forward and a ferocious-looking dog stepped from behind her. + +Tish looked at the dog. + +“It wasn’t much of a bridge,” she said, more politely. “If you’ve got +any men on the place I’ll give them a dollar apiece to get my machine +out of there.” + +“No men around,” said the woman shortly. “Theodore,”--to the +dog--“don’t you go around bitin’ until I give you the word. Sit down.” + +The dog sat down. + +“Before you leave,” she said to Tish, “you’ll mend that bridge or I’ll +know the reason why. Meantime your automobile is trespassin’, and the +fine is twenty dollars.” + +Then she sat down on the bank and began to tickle the dog’s ears with a +blade of grass. + +“Theodore,” she said, “if them three old maids think they can bluff us, +they don’t know us, do they?” + +I had stood about as much as I could, so I walked around in front of +her and glared at her. + +“I wouldn’t sit so close to the automobile if I were you,” I remarked +emphatically. “Something is likely to explode.” + +“I feel like it,” she said. “When I get mad I’m good an’ mad. Anyhow, I +own this place, and I’ll sit where I please. Theodore, let’s put the +washing-machine on wheels and go round the country bustin’ down folks’ +bridges and playin’ hell generally!” + +An oath always rouses Tish. She got the engine stopped. Then she came +around beside me with her goggles shoved up on her forehead. + +“Woman,” she said sternly, “how dare you mention the place of +punishment so lightly!” Tish had been superintendent of a Sunday-school +for thirty years. + +The woman stared at her. Then she got up slowly. + +“I wasn’t alludin’ to the next world,” she said bitterly. “Ninety-five +degrees of heat, seven inches of dust, five miles to a telephone and +ten miles to town, with an automobile sittin’ down in your front +yard--that’s all the hell I want.” + +Then she walked up the path. We stared after her; between her +shoulder-blades her blue wrapper was wet through with sweat, and the +dog trailed at her heels. Aggie, who is always sentimental, took a step +after her. + +“I say,” she called. “If we come back for you some nice afternoon, will +you let us take you for a ride?” + +But she got no answer. To our amazement, the woman turned around at the +top of the path and put her thumb to her nose! + +We did not see her again for some time, but after Tish had climbed in +twice and started the engine, to see if the car couldn’t climb out--the +only result being that it almost turned over--the woman appeared +again. She carried a board that looked like a breadboard nailed to a +broom-handle, and on it, in fresh ink, as if she had done it with her +finger, were the words: + +“Trespassing--fifty dollars.” + +“You said twenty before,” I protested. + +“That was for those little dinky, one-seated affairs,” she said, +jabbing the broom-handle into the dirt beside the road. “Two seats, +forty dollars; two seats and a folded back buggy-top, fifty.” She +adjusted the sign carefully, looked up and down the road, and then went +back to the house. + +So we sat down on the bank and Tish explained how she happened to do +it. I am a Christian woman, and Aggie is so gentle that she has to +scratch twice to light a match, but I must say we were bitter. We told +Tish we didn’t care how she happened to do it, and that some day she +would be punished for a temper that made her throw away books that she +would be sure to need some time; and that, anyhow, an unmarried woman +of fifty has no business with an automobile. + +“It’s my belief,” Tish retorted, “that she keeps her old bridge for +this very purpose. She could make a good living off it, and all the +work she’d have to do would be to build it up after every accident.” + +“Oh, no,” Aggie said bitterly. “We are going to repair it, I believe.” + +The back of my neck began to smart from the sun, and the dust eddied +around us. A white hen came down the path, hopped on to the sloping +step of the machine, perked its head at us, and then, with a squawk, +flew up into Tish’s seat behind the wheel. I was thirsty and my neck +prickled. + +Early in the afternoon we had a difference of opinion about who should +walk the five miles to telephone for help, and after that we did not +speak to each other. Tish talked to the machine and Aggie to the +chicken. Every now and then Tish, after staring at the machine for a +while, would get up and pick up the soundest of the bridge timbers, put +it under the dropped end of the car and push with all her might. + +“Call this a bridge?”--push--“Why, this is nothing”--push--“but a +rotten old fence-rail!”--bang!--the timber broke. Tish stood with her +back to us and kicked the pieces; then she turned on us. “As far as +I’m concerned,” she snapped, “the thing can sit there till it takes +root. You’re very much mistaken if you think I’m going to walk to that +telephone, after bringing you out on a pleasure trip.” + +“Pleasure trip!” Aggie retorted. “I can get more pleasure out of +a three-dollar rocking-chair. The next time you ask me to go on a +pleasure trip, Tish Carberry, just push me off the porch backward. It’s +a good bit quicker.” + +By four o’clock I had a rash out all over my shoulders and chest, and +my mouth was so full of dust that my teeth felt gritty. I had not cared +particularly about going up to the house, but every few minutes between +three and four the woman had come out, pumped some water, making a +mighty splash, and gone back into the house again. It was more than +human nature could stand. At a quarter after four o’clock I got up from +the baked earth, glared at Tish, looked through Aggie, and walked with +as much dignity as I could muster up the path to the well. There was +a sign hung on it by a string around the nail in the top. It read: +“Water, one dollar a tin. For automobiles, five dollars a bucket.” + +The woman came out and pumped some. The water ran cool and clear into +a trough and then spread over the ground in dreadful waste. I could +have lapped it up out of the trough; every bit of skin on me and lining +membrane in me yelled “Water!” and--I had no money with me! The woman +stood and waited, Theodore beside her. + +“That’s an outrage,” I fumed. “How dare you put up such a sign! I--I +shall report you!” + +“Who to?” she inquired. “I ain’t askin’ you to drink it, am I? It’s my +well, ain’t it?” + +“I’ll send the money to you by mail.” I had lost all my pride. “I’ll +come back and pay you.” + +“Cash in advance,” said the creature; and, pumping enough into a tin +basin to have cooled me inside and out, she put it down for the dog to +drink! + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION AND A BARGAIN + + +I have always felt that we did the right thing that night. It was all +very well for Charlie Sands, Tish’s nephew, when he heard the story, +to say: “And they talk about giving women the vote! Why, for sense +they would substitute sentiment; they would buy their opinions at the +department stores along with their bargains, and a little two-penny +love affair could upset the Government!” + +Tish was raging. + +“It does not matter whether you approve or not, Charlie,” she said +loftily, “as long as our consciences approve.” + +“Approve!” He nearly fell back out of his chair. “My dear ladies, +you should every one have been jailed! As for conscience, I’d give a +thousand dollars to have a conscience that would set the seal of its +approval on assault and battery, highway robbery and abduction.” + +“The end justifies the means,” I retorted; “and when did you get a +conscience, Charlie Sands?” + +“I think I got one Aunt Tish used to have,” he said, and I got up and +went into the house. + +Well, I left the dog drinking, to go back, and at that instant I +happened to look at Tish, who was standing on the bank waving her +handkerchief at something in the road. I stepped to the corner of the +house and saw what it was--creeping along a lane we had not noticed was +the blue runabout car. Creeping is the word. It would crawl forward +a dozen feet and stop, and it kept on repeating the performance. But +what puzzled me was a spot of pink, just in front of the car and moving +slowly forward. + +At the end of the lane the pink spot hesitated and then turned our way. +Once beyond the hedge, it proved to be the girl with her pink motor +veil. She was walking with her hands in the pockets of her ulster, and +she was limping. About a dozen feet behind her, and stopping every now +and then so as not to overtake her, came the runabout. It was very +peculiar. The young man had his jaws set tight, and as he was staring +at the girl, and as she was staring straight ahead, neither of them saw +us on the bank just above their heads. + +The girl--she was a very pretty girl, although streaky just then--had +a tight grip on the Pomeranian. She had it tucked under her arm and it +was wriggling and yelping to be free. Just after the blue machine had +turned the corner the little beast got loose, and with a yelp he dashed +to the car and into the empty seat. + +The girl stopped. So did the car. She faced about and the young man +gazed over her head. + +Suddenly the girl looked up and saw us, and with a quick glance she +spied the lamps of Tish’s machine around a curve. No one would have +guessed from the front end of the thing that the rear had died in a +gutter. + +“Oh!” she said. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here! Are you going back to +town?” + +“We are not going anywhere,” Tish replied shortly, “unless your young +man can help us.” + +“He is not my young man,” the girl retorted, with distinctness; “but if +there isn’t very much the matter I daresay he can do something.” + +“I am not an automobile expert,” he said, “but I probably can help +a little, as, for instance, stuffing a puncture with rags until we +get back to the city.” The girl flushed. It was evidently a personal +allusion. + +“We haven’t any rags,” said Aggie, “and it isn’t a puncture.” + +“There are two things we might do,” said the young gentleman as he +eyed our machine critically. “I might go to the nearest telephone and +have help sent out from town, but as it’s almost sunset it’s pretty +late for that; or, with a jack and a little help, we might fix it +ourselves.” + +[Illustration] + +“A jack!” Tish said with scorn. “What kind of a jack--a bootjack or a +jackass? I daresay they have them both at that farmhouse; I know they +have one.” + +“A jack--a lever,” explained the young man, beginning to work at the +lock of the tool-box. “Where are you going--to Noblestown?” + +“To the lake,” I replied. Tish was fumbling for the keys to the machine +which she kept in a pocket in her petticoat. “We have a summer cottage +there.” + +“I’ll make a bargain with you,” he suggested. “The--the--er--young lady +refuses to go back in my car. We--the fact is, we have had a small +difference of opinion, and--she insists on walking home. If I get your +machine in shape, will you take her to the city?” + +We would have taken her anywhere short of a planet to get away +ourselves, and that was how it began; for the young gentleman took off +his coat and fell to work immediately. Once, when he had raised the car +on the jack and Tish was holding the ends of the boards that he shoved +under, while Aggie and I pushed, something gave way and the whole thing +settled back with a jerk. Mr. Lewis--that was his name--lifted the +broken fence-rails off Tish and helped her to her feet. + +“There’s something almost alive about automobiles occasionally,” he +said. “They are so blamed vicious.” + +“If it was alive,” Tish gasped, hunting for her glasses, “I’d kill it.” +But it never occurred to her that she was going to drown it that very +night! + +By seven o’clock we had lifted the thing on five fence-rails and the +breadboard sign, and Mr. Lewis announced it was now or never. The girl +had not come near us. She had taken off her veil and smoothed up her +hair, and was busy with a bit of a silver mirror. She was very pretty. + +Mr. Lewis got into the car and put on the power. There was a terrible +grinding, but nothing moved. From behind, the three of us shoved, and +Aggie said between gasps that if anything gave way her niece was to +have her amethyst pin. + +“Anne!” cried the young gentleman. But Miss Anne was powdering her nose +and we all saw her turn it up. + +“Anne!” called the young man who was not her young man, “you’ll have to +help here.” + +“Help yourself,” said Anne coolly, and, moistening her finger, she +proceeded to wipe the powder off her eyebrows. + +Mr. Lewis shut off the engine, got out of the car and put on his +coat. The girl did not turn her head, but she was watching through +the mirror, for as he picked up his cap she rose lazily, put away her +toilet things and started in our direction. + +“What shall I do?” she asked Tish, ignoring him. + +“Push,” said Tish sharply--“unless you are too lame.” + +“My being lame won’t matter, unless you wish me to kick the machine +out,” retorted the girl sweetly; and with that, the power being on, +she put her brown arms against the car and her shoulder-muscles leaped +up under her thin dress, and before I had planted my feet in the ditch +the car rose, clung for a minute to the edge, and was over into the +road. The girl said nothing. She looked at her hands, stepped out of +the ditch, patronizingly helped Aggie out of it, and swung up the path +with her head in the air. When I saw her again she had taken the sign +off the pump and thrown it in the grass, and was washing her hands +unconcernedly while the woman stood in the door and yapped at her. + +If she had a mite of sense she would have gone back to the city in +the blue car and let us go home to bed. But when she had come back +to the road and the young man suggested it--not to her, of course, +but casually to us--she whistled to her dog and started to limp down +the road. You can’t do anything with a girl in that state of mind. +I took her in the tonneau with me, and Aggie, who prefers a love +affair to a scandal and always reads the marriage licenses with the +obituaries--Aggie went in the blue car to keep Mr. Lewis from being +lonely. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE APPETIZERS AND THE HOTEL BUREAU + + +We didn’t talk very much. Tish was anxious to show she could drive, for +all she had sat us down in a ditch, and after she took a wrong turning +and stampeded a herd that was being milked in a barnyard, I could not +keep my mind off the road. Once I looked at the girl, and there were +tears running down her nose and dropping into her lap. I gave her my +smelling salts, which I always carry in Tish’s machine, and after a +while she reached over and slid her hand into mine. + +“I shouldn’t care if the car went to pieces,” she said. “I’d be happier +dead.” + +“If you are always as unpleasant to that young man as you were this +evening, I doubt it,” I snapped. + +“Didn’t you ever quarrel with your husband before you were married?” +she demanded, looking at me sideways. + +“I thank Heaven I never had a husband,” I replied, and with that she +looked uncomfortable and drew her hand away. + +“Is your--friend married?” she inquired. And it took me a moment to +realize that she meant Aggie and that the minx was jealous. Aggie is +fifty, and so thin that when she wears a tailor-made suit she has +to build out with pneumatics. You remember, at the Woman’s Suffrage +Convention, how Mrs. Bailey pinned a badge to Aggie, and how there was +a slow hissing immediately, and Aggie caved in before our very eyes? + +Mr. Lewis checked our wild career after a few miles by getting ahead of +us, and we got into town about eight. But after we had left the girl at +her house--an imposing place, with a man at the door and a limousine at +the curb--it was too late to go back home. Aggie and the blue car were +waiting down the street, and they piloted us to the hotel. + +Now, Tish belongs to the Ladies’ Relief Corps of the G. A. R., and when +Mr. Lewis said we looked tired and that he was going to order supper +for us all, and three Martinis, Tish said it was all right, although +she didn’t see why we needed guns. It looked like a safe place. But +they were not guns--that’s part of the story. + +While we were washing for supper Aggie told us what the quarrel was +about. + +“They are--were--engaged,” she said, “and the girl’s father is +Robertson--the boss of the city, Mr. Lewis called him. And Mr. Lewis +is the youngest councilman--they call him ‘Baby’ Lewis, and he hates +it--and there’s something to be voted for to-morrow; and if Mr. Lewis +is for it he is to get the girl.” + +“And the girl refuses to be sold!” Tish said triumphantly. “Quite +right, too. I admire her strength. That’s the typical womanly attitude +these days--right before anything, honor above all.” Tish waved the +hairbrush and then she turned on the maid. “Girl,” she snapped, “why is +this brush chained?” + +“The ladies steal them,” said the girl. Tish stared at the chain. + +“You are so quick, Letitia,” Aggie protested. “It was the other way +round. The girl was angry because he wouldn’t sell his vote, even for +her.” + +Tish sat down in a chair, speechless; but just then Mr. Lewis came to +the door and said that supper and the Martinis were ready. The Martinis +proved to be something to drink, and after Mr. Lewis had raised his +hand and sworn there was no whisky in them we drank them. He said they +were appetizers, and the other day Tish said she was going to write to +the Sherman House for the recipe before she has the minister to dinner +next week. + +Never did I eat so delightful a meal. Tish forgot her sprained shoulder +and the splinter under her nail, and Aggie talked about the roofer. +And the food! I recall distinctly shaking hands with Tish and agreeing +to come to the hotel to live, and asking the waiter to find out from +the cook how something or other was made. And when Aggie had buried the +roofer, and Tish said it was funny, but Mr. Lewis had four brown eyes +instead of two, he suggested that we must be tired, and a boy took us +to our room. Room, not rooms. We could only get one. The last things I +remember are our shaking hands with Mr. Lewis, and that Tish tried to +get into the elevator before the door was opened. + +About eleven o’clock I heard some one groaning and I sat up in bed. It +was Aggie, whom, being the thinnest, we had put on the cot. She said +her nose was smarting from the sunburn and she had heartburn something +awful. We rang for some baking soda, and she drank some in water and +made a plaster for her nose with the rest. After a while she felt +better, but we were all wide awake and the heat was terrible. We could +look out the window and see there was a breeze, but not a breath came +in. + +We sent for the bell-boy again, and he said there wasn’t another room +and nobody he could move around to give us a room on the breezy side of +the house. + +We took the rules and regulations card off the door and fanned with it, +but it did not help much. After half an hour or so Tish got up, pushed +the washstand in front of a door that connected with the next room and +crawled up on it. + +“If I had a chair,” she said, measuring the distance with her eye, “I +could see if that corner room next door is occupied. I could tell by +that boy’s face that he was lying.” + +Aggie was trying to hold down the baking soda, so, although I didn’t +feel any too well myself, I held the chair and Tish climbed up on it. + +“What did I tell you?” she demanded when she got down. “That room’s +empty, and what’s more there’s nobody belonging there. There’s nothing +on the dresser but the towel; and there’s a breeze coming in that sends +the curtains straight into the room.” + +The connecting door was locked, and Tish put a bed sheet around her and +tried the hall door. That was locked, too. And all the time we were +getting hotter and hotter, and by putting our ears to the keyhole we +could hear the breeze blowing on the other side. It was too much for +Tish. + +“I’m going over the transom,” she announced, after we had tried the +dresser key in the door without any effect. And go over she did, after +putting on her stockings to keep her legs from being scraped. + +It was much cooler. We brought in our clothes and Aggie’s cot, +and spread up the bed in the room we had left. Then we locked the +connecting door again, and after Aggie had had some more baking soda, +in and out, we went to bed. + +Well, as I was saying, I went to sleep. I was awakened by Tish sitting +up in bed and clutching me somewhere about the diaphragm. By the light +from the hall over the transom I could see Aggie sound asleep, with her +mouth opened, and Tish’s arm stretched out and pointed at the yellow +hotel bureau. I sat straight up and looked. I couldn’t see anything, +and at first I thought Tish was dreaming. Then I saw it too. The front +of that bureau on the left side moved out a good six inches, stayed +that way while I could count ten, and then closed up again without a +sound. + +Tish had put a leg out of bed, but she jerked it in again, and just at +that awful moment a clock outside boomed twelve. And then, over in her +corner, Aggie began to talk in her sleep. + +“Turn around and run over it again,” she said, with startling +distinctness. “It isn’t quite dead.” + +Tish put her hand up and held her shaking lower jaw. + +“I--it’s those dr-dratted Martinis,” she quavered. “I’ve--no--d-doubt +Mr. Lewis meant well, Lizzie, but I’ve b-been feeling very strange all +evening.” + +“Your stomach being upset needn’t affect my eyes,” I retorted in a +whisper. “I saw it move.” + +“Are you sure?” she insisted. “I didn’t say anything, Lizzie, but while +we were eating supper down-stairs I distinctly saw the piano move out +six feet from the wall and go back again.” + +I didn’t say anything to Tish, but the fact was that I distrusted +my own vision--not that I had seen anything so ridiculous as pianos +walking, but I had had a peculiar feeling in the dining-room that my +eyes were looking in different directions, and when I focused them on +anything I saw double at once. It had got so bad that when I wanted +my fork I had to shut my eyes and feel for it. And so, neither of us +being certain the bureau had moved, and nothing more occurring, we +lay back again. The next minute Tish clutched me and I looked over. +Something had happened to the bureau. + +It looked phosphorescent, or as though it was on fire inside. There was +a glow all around it. The keyholes stood out like dots of flame, and +every crack gleamed. It was the most awful thing I have ever seen. + +“Look!” gasped Tish, and, reaching over the side of the bed, she picked +up a shoe and flung it with all her might at the thing. The thump was +followed by a thud inside the bureau. Aggie stirred. + +“The milkman’s knocking,” she said thickly, and sat up and yawned with +her eyes shut. Tish and I leaped out of bed and I turned on the light. +That gave us new courage, and the dresser stood there, just like any +other dresser, with a towel on its yellow-pine top and fly-specks on +the mirror. Tish and I looked at each other and smiled in a sickly +way. We felt foolish. But Tish wasn’t satisfied. She picked up a +hairbrush and banged it on the top. + +“Coming, Mr. Gibbs,” bawled Aggie, still with her eyes shut, and she +began to fumble around on the floor for her slippers. + +“Wake her!” Tish commanded. “There’s something moving in this thing. +Lizzie, give me that pitcher of scalding water.” + +Of course there wasn’t any hot water nearer than the bath-room, which +was three turns to the right, one to the left and down a flight of +stairs. + +And at that minute the bureau spoke. + +“Don’t, for God’s sake, ladies!” it said. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE REPORTER AND THE RED-HAIRED MAN + + +I screamed, and, as was perfectly natural, I backed away from the +thing. My foot tripped over Tish’s water-pitcher, and my sitting down +was what wakened Aggie. She says she never will forget how she felt +when she saw me prostrate and Tish holding a chair aloft and begging +the bureau to come out so she could brain it. Of course she thought +Tish had gone crazy, what with the sun and excitement of the day. + +“Tish!” she screeched. + +“Come out!” said Tish to the bureau. “Make no resistance; we are armed!” + +As Aggie says, when she saw the left-hand side of that bureau move +slowly forward like a door when Tish spoke to it, she thought she had +a touch of sun herself. But when she saw a human figure crawl out of +that place on its hands and knees, and opened her mouth to scream, her +breath was gone as completely as if she had been hit in the stomach. + +The figure got to its feet, and it had neither horns nor tail. It had +curly, light-brown hair and blue eyes, and it was purplish red as +to face. We stood paralyzed while it stood erect and blinked. Tish +lowered her chair slowly and the apparition dropped down on it. It was +masculine and shaking. Also young. + +“Ladies,” it said, “could I--could I thank you for a drink of water? I +have been almost stifled.” + +When the haze cleared away from my eyes I saw that the young man had on +a light gray suit, and that in his hand he carried his collar and an +electric flashlight. Perspiration was pouring off his face and we could +see that he was as scared as we were. + +“Give him a drink, Lizzie,” Tish said firmly, “and then press that +button.” + +But the young man jumped to his feet at that and looked at us squarely. + +“Ladies,” he said earnestly, “please do not raise an alarm. I am not a +thief. The manager of the hotel put me in that bureau himself.” + +“The hotel must be crowded,” Tish scoffed. “I hope they don’t charge +you much for it.” + +From the street below came a sudden confusion of men’s voices and the +sound of feet on the pavement. The young man threw up his hands. + +“Madam,” he said to Tish, “you look like a woman of large mind.” +Tish stopped putting the bedspread around her and stared at him. “By +your unfortunate--er--invasion here to-night you are preventing the +discovery of a crime against civic morality. The councilmanic banquet +down-stairs is over; in a few minutes Robertson--well, probably you +don’t understand, but I represent the _Morning Star_. The Civic Purity +League has learned that in this room, after the banquet, a bribe is +going to be offered. That bureau has been ready for a month. Ladies, I +implore you, go back to the other room!” + +It was too late. At that moment there were voices in the hall and +somebody put a key into the lock of the door. There was no time to put +the light out. The young man dropped behind the foot of the bed, the +door swung open and a red-haired man stepped into the room. + +“Suffering cats!” he exclaimed. + +“Go out immediately!” I said, pointing to the door. Tish was unwinding +herself from the counterpane. She took it off airily and flung it +over the foot of the bed, so that it covered the young man. It looked +abandoned, but the necessity was terrible. As Tish said afterward, +fifty years of respectable living would not have prevented the tongue +of scandal licking up such a spicy morsel as that compromising +situation. + +The red-haired man retreated a step or two, opened the door part way, +and went out and looked at the number. Then he came in again. + +“Madam--ladies,” he said, “this room belongs to me. There must be some +mistake.” + +“I don’t believe it belongs to you,” Tish snapped. “Why haven’t you got +some brushes on the dresser?” + +“If you were a gentleman,” Aggie wailed from the cot, “you would go out +and let us get to sleep. I never put in such a night. First the other +room is too hot, and we crawl over the transom to get a cool place, and +then--” + +“Over the transom,” said the red-haired gentleman. “Do you mean to +say--” Then he laughed a little and spoke over his shoulder. + +“I’m sorry, Lewis,” he said, “but my room’s taken.” + +“Kismet,” said our Mr. Lewis’ voice, but it sounded reckless and +strained. “Fate has crooked her finger; I’m going home.” + +“Don’t be an ass,” said the red-haired gentleman. “These women in here +came over the transom from the next room. It’s empty.” + +“Good gracious!” Aggie gasped. “I left my forms hanging to the gas-jet!” + +The red-haired man backed into the hall, but he still held the door. + +“I’m going home,” said our Mr. Lewis again. “I’m sick of things around +here, anyhow. I’ve got a chance to get an orange grove cheap in +California.” + +“Fiddlesticks!” retorted the red-haired man. “Why don’t you stick by +the plum tree here at home?” + +On that the door closed, and we could hear them talking guardedly in +the hall. + +“The wretches!” Tish fumed. “Oh, why haven’t women the vote? I tell +you”--she fixed Aggie and me with a gesture--“the day of conscience is +coming. Women stand for civic purity, for the home, for right against +might!” + +It was the “right against might” that we repeated to her afterward, +when we had stolen--but that is coming soon. + +“But he loves the girl,” said Aggie, beginning to sniffle. “I--I think +as much of ci--civic purity as you do, Tish Carberry, but I th--think +he is just p--pig-headed.” + +“The girl’s a fool and so are you,” said Tish, beginning to take the +counterpane off the reporter. And at that second there was a knock and +the red-haired man opened the door again. + +“I beg your pardon,” he apologized, “but will you give me the key to +the other room?” + +We did. Aggie unlocked the connecting door and brought back the key +to our old room and the things she had left on the gas-jet. In the +excitement she threw the key on the dresser and was just about to reach +the other articles through the crack in the door when Tish caught her +arm. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A BRIBE AND A BRIDE AND IT’S ALL OVER + + +Now I am not defending what followed. But the Lewis man had been nice +to us, and, as Tish said tartly to Charlie Sands, women who had lived +in single blessedness as long as we had, learned to think quick and +act quicker. As to the law, we sent a check to the farmer whose pig we +killed--and with pork at its present price it was ruinous, although +we were glad it had not been a cow; and as to using our missionary +money to make up for the packet Aggie lost--as we said, we considered +that it had been used in missionary work. It was hardest, of course, +on the _Morning Star_ reporter. Only a week or so ago we had to go to +Noblestown to get a new handle for the meat-chopper. We were in the +machine outside the store, and when we saw him it was too late. Tish +was wearing his necktie--having gathered it up with her clothes that +awful night, and not knowing his name she could not send it back to +him--and she clapped her hand over it. But he saw it. + +“Good afternoon,” he said, grinning. + +“What do you mean by addressing us?” Tish demanded, trying to pull the +collar of her duster over the tie. + +“You don’t mean to say you’ve forgotten me already!” he exclaimed, +looking grieved. “Don’t you remember--your--our room at the Sherman +House?” + +“Certainly not,” Tish said haughtily. + +He pulled out a card and scribbled something on it. “My card,” he said. +He leaned over from the curb and gave it to Tish. + +“Don’t bother about the tie,” he said. “I never liked it anyhow. But--I +lost a scarfpin that night. I--I suppose you don’t know anything about +it?” + +Out of the corner of her eye Tish saw Aggie make a clutch at her neck, +and she threw her a warning glance. + +“I am afraid you have made a mistake,” she said stiffly, and just then +the hardware man brought out the handle. Tish was so excited that she +started the car without paying for it, and when we looked back he and +the reporter were staring after us; and the reporter distinctly said, +“Those women will be wealthy some day.” + +“Why didn’t you let me give him his pin?” Aggie demanded when we were +safely out of sight. “I--I feel like a thief.” + +“Fiddle! And confess?” said Tish. “We’ll send it to him. I’ve got his +card.” + +But all he had written on it, after all, was, “A. Dresser. Private +Bureau.” Charlie Sands has promised to return the pin. + +Well, all this time I have left the three of us huddled in our +nightgowns on the side of the bed, with sheets draped over us, and +the _Morning Star_ gentleman with his ear to the connecting door and +taking down every word that was said, in shorthand. Robertson was +offering the girl, and enough money for Mr. Lewis to marry on, for his +vote on something or other. I reckon the balance between a man’s honor +and his cupidity hangs pretty even anyhow, and when you throw a girl to +one side or the other it swings the scale. The Lewis man was yielding +and Tish was breathing hard. + +“The hussy!” she muttered. + +“Did you notice how pretty her hair was in the sunlight?” whispered +Aggie. + +Somehow it came over me then how young the girl was, and what kind of +moral sense could one expect of a girl with that red-headed scamp for a +father? + +Strangely enough, the plot was gentle Aggie’s. Aggie is like baking +powder--she rises when she gets heated up. And she was mad clear +through. We had no trouble gathering our clothes in our arms, although +I could not find my shoe, which Tish had thrown at the bureau. Then we +sat and waited. At the last minute Aggie got a little weak and wanted +blackberry wine, but I had nothing in the satchel but arnica. + +All we intended to do was to get the yellow notebook--to meet strategy +with strategy. The rest, while unexpected, followed naturally. But when +I look out the window from my desk and see Aggie’s placid face, and +Tish’s austere Methodist profile, it is difficult to associate them or +myself with the three partly dressed creatures who-- But to go back. + +We had locked the door into the hall and each of us had her clothes. +When the two men in the next room went out Mr. _Morning Star_ turned to +us with a chuckle. + +“Thanks for your forbearance, ladies,” he said, “we’ve got that villain +Robertson where he ought to have been a dozen years ago. And as for +Lewis--” He shut his notebook with a bang, and there was something in +his face besides exultation. “To buy a girl like that!” he said--and I +knew. He wanted the girl himself. + +Aggie was to ask to see the notebook and then toss it over the transom +into the corridor. While the reporter was trying to get out the locked +door into the hall we could escape into the adjoining room, lock the +connecting door, walk around easily and get the notebook, and then make +our escape comfortably. + +It would have been all right, but Aggie can not throw. The first +attempt failed by seven feet. The young man was so astonished, however, +that he stood with his mouth open, and the second trial sent it through. + +“What in the name of Heaven did you do that for?” he demanded, thinking +Aggie had suddenly gone mad. Then he rushed to the door. It was locked +and I had the key! We were all in the next room and a bolted door +between us before he realized what had happened. + +We had expected, of course, to get the notebook, to dress, and to leave +in the machine quietly, but from that time on there was no time to +think of the conventions. The young man began to hammer on the door +and other doors opened along the hall. Then a bell-boy came up and ran +off in a hurry for a key. I saw Tish putting on her ulster over her +petticoat, and Aggie and I did the same. The next thing we knew we were +down in the empty lobby, and Tish had forgotten the spark plugs! + +We got started finally with a steel hairpin for a plug, and as we moved +away I heard the chase coming down the stairs after us. They were +howling “Stop thief!” We were hardly well under way when the bell-boy +came in sight with the bureau man at his heels and a collection of +people in all sorts of costumes following. + +Tish says we did forty miles an hour going down the main street. I +should have guessed more than that. I had a fearful exaltation: Aggie +had advanced her speed limit since morning from four miles an hour to +the capacity of the engine, and kept bawling to Tish a phrase she had +caught from Charlie Sands. + +“Letter out!” she cried, over and over. “Letter out!” + +We stopped on a quiet side street and listened, but there was no noise +of pursuit. Tish got out and stuck her wet finger on the hood, but it +wasn’t boiling. + +“There’s nothing coming,” she said. “I’m going to stop long enough to +put on my stockings.” + +“I don’t see why you couldn’t have flung your own shoe, Tish,” I +snapped. “What use is one shoe?--unless I lose a leg, and that’s as +like as not before this night’s over.” + +“Do you see where we are?” Aggie asked. “Isn’t this where we brought +Miss Anne?” + +It was, for Anne opened the door just then and peered down at the car. + +“Is that you, father?” she called. She came down the steps, and +the light from the hall fell full on us. We must have looked rather +strange, with Tish putting on her stocking in the driving seat and the +most of our clothing in our laps instead of on us. + +“Something has happened!” she said, catching her breath. “Ted!” + +“Something _has_ happened,” Tish retorted grimly, and held up the +notebook. “Here’s the _Morning Star’s_ shorthand report of the +interview in which your Ted sold his honor for a mess of pottage--you +being the pottage.” + +“Oh, no,” said Miss Anne, going wobbly. “Oh, he wouldn’t--he didn’t do +such a thing!” + +“Upon my soul!” I broke in. “Weren’t you fighting him all day to do it?” + +“You couldn’t understand,” she said, looking at me with the eyes of a +baby. “I didn’t want him to do it; I wanted him to want to do it.” + +“Well, if that’s being in love, thank Heaven for the mind of a +spinster,” I retorted angrily. + +“You’ve won,” Tish said. “You’ve got him kneeling at your feet, as +you wanted. But he went down in the mud to do it. And the only reason +the newspapers won’t be slinging some of that very mire to-morrow +is because three elderly women, who ought to have more sense, have +resorted to thievery and lost their reputations and parts of their +garments to save him!” + +“I hate him,” said the young woman, with her chin quivering. “I knew +all along I should hate him if he did it. I--I’ll never marry him.” + +And with that she turned and started up the steps. Half way up she +turned. + +“I’m sorry you went to so much trouble,” she said. “I don’t think he is +worth saving.” + +Aggie’s early experience with the roofer stood her in good stead then. +She understood; Tish and I never would have. She got out of the +machine and went up into the vestibule, and a minute later, against the +hall light, we saw the girl’s head on Aggie’s shoulder. Then they both +came down again with their arms wrapped around each other, and Aggie +asked me to move over. + +“We’re going to Mr. Lewis’ apartment,” she announced, with a thrill in +her voice. She was maudlin with romance. “It will be proper enough, I +think, with three chaperons. She wants to see him.” + +“Not until I put on my other stocking,” Tish put in grimly. “And we +don’t get out of the machine; I’ve been compromised once to-night.” + +“They are both young,” Aggie rebuked her gently. “I think, having begun +this thing, we ought to see it through. We will have to be mothers to +her, for she has none.” + +Well, we passed Mr. Robertson at the corner of the next street, and +the girl shrank back and covered her face. And then she directed us, +and we overtook the other one as he was going into his doorway. The +girl jumped out and ran after him. We distinctly heard him say, “Anne! +Darling!” And then, what with anxiety and excitement, Aggie took the +worst sneezing spell of the summer, and the rest was lost. + +He was terribly ashamed and humiliated, and he said he would take the +girl away and be married right off, only he had that wretched package +of bribe money that made him think, every time he saw it, how unworthy +he was of her! He was going to put it down a sewer drop, but Tish +suggested that they be married and go on a honeymoon, and let us return +the bribe to Mr. Robertson. + +So he gave us the package; and, as you know, Aggie lost it later. Then +he asked us if there was a minister in the summer colony at Penzance, +and Tish mentioned Mr. Ostermaier. “I don’t like him,” she remarked, +“and his wife is a dowdy, but I suppose you don’t expect an organ +prelude and floral decorations. Get in.” + +I did not mind their sitting back with me, and his kissing her hand +whenever he thought I was not looking. But the thing I objected to was +this: I distinctly overheard him say: + +“I was desperate to-night, sweetheart; and, oh, my love, you saved me!” + +She saved him! + +At a crossroads near Penzance, Tish made them get out, and we directed +them to a landing where they would find a rowboat. We all kissed the +bride; and Mr. Lewis said he had nobody to cheer him on his way, +and wouldn’t we kiss him, too. So we did, and after they had gone +we prepared for Carpenter’s sharp eyes by going into the bushes and +putting on the rest of our clothes. + +It was the first thing Carpenter said that caused the accident. He +brought in the ferry-boat and came up the bank to us. + +“I’ve been expectin’ you,” he said, with a grin. “I was thinkin’ you +might come over by the Carrick Ferry, and the folks there wouldn’t know +you.” + +“I guess they’d take my money without knowing me,” Tish said sharply. + +“Well,” he drawled, with a sharp eye on the three of us, “I didn’t want +you to have any trouble. We got a telephone message from Noblestown not +very long ago to look out for an automobile containing three female +desperadoes. The police wants them.” + +That was when Tish sent the car over the end of the ferry. + +Well, as I said early in the narrative, after Tish and Aggie had +dried off and gone to bed I stood at my window and tried to see into +Ostermaier’s parlor, but all I could see was the sleeve of Mrs. +Ostermaier’s kimono. + +As I stood there shivering, the door opened and two shadowy figures +came out of the house and crossed the lawn. Just under my window they +stopped and the tall shadow held open its arms. The smaller one went +into them with a little cry, and they stood there a disgraceful time. +Then they lifted their heads and looked up at our cottage. + +“Bless their dear, romantic hearts!” said the girl. I was glad Tish was +asleep. + +“They should have been pirates!” said the man. “They are true old +sports. I suppose they’ve had their catnip tea by now and are sound +asleep. Beloved!” he said, and held out his arms again. + +Pirates! I went back to bed in a rage, but I couldn’t sleep. Somehow I +kept seeing that young idiot holding out his arms, and I felt lonely. +Finally I filled the hot-water bottle and put it at my back. + +“It’s all over, Aggie!” I called--but the only response was a snore +that turned into a sneeze. + + + + +THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF LETITIA CARBERRY + +PART THREE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE GREEN KIMONO + + +Nothing would have induced me to tell the scandalous story had it +not been for Letitia’s green kimono. But when it was found at the +Watermelon Camp, two miles from our cottage, hanging to the branch of a +tree, instead of the corduroy trousers and blue flannel shirt that one +of the campers said he had hung there overnight, it seemed to require +explanation. For _one of the men at the Watermelon Camp knew the +kimono_. + +He brought it up the next morning, hanging over his arm, and asked +Letitia for the trousers and shirt! He said that the young man who +owned them had to wear a blanket until we returned them, not having +any other clothes in camp. Also, he said there was a particular kind +of bass hook in one of the pockets, and if there was any reason why we +could not return the trousers, would we be kind enough to send back the +hook. + +Now Tish is a teacher in the Sunday-School and has been for thirty-five +years. But she looked up from the bowl she was wiping--we had made a +pretense at breakfast, although nobody could eat--and she _lied_. + +“I don’t know what you mean by coming here for your corduroy trousers +and flannel shirt,” she said, with a three-cornered red spot in each +cheek. “As for that kimono, I _never saw it before_!” + +Then she dropped the bowl. She had to pay twenty cents into the cottage +exchequer for it afterward, and she explained that she felt the bowl +going, and the falsehood slipped out before she knew what she was +saying. Anyhow, it did no good, for the young man in knickerbockers +and a bathing shirt held up the kimono, grinning and pointing to the +laundry tag. It said “Letitia Carberry,” as plain as ink could make it. + +Aggie weakened at once. It is always Aggie that weakens. She sat down +on the porch step and began to cry. She had been crying off and on all +morning, having lost her upper teeth when the boat--but that brings me +to the boat. + +Just as Aggie threw her apron over her face, we saw old Carpenter, the +boatman, coming up the path. I caught Tish’s arm as she was escaping +into the house. “Not a step,” I whispered sternly. “If they arrest one +of us, they take us all.” + +“You see, it was like this,” the young man was saying, “Carleton, one +of our fellows, was out in his motor canoe last night, and it upset. +When he came in, he says he hung his trousers and shirt out on a branch +to dry. Anyhow, when he got up an hour or so ago, his clothes were +gone, and this--er--garment was there instead.” He was staring very +hard at Tish. “He didn’t notice the change, being half asleep, and he +got his feet in the sleeves all right, but when it came to drawing it +up, he noticed something strange about it.” + +At the name “Carleton” Aggie threw me an agonized glance from her +apron. She would not speak without her teeth, and Tish was stooping +over the pieces of the bowl. I am a Christian woman, but seeing Aggie +weak-kneed and Tish as shaky as gelatine, I hoped that Carpenter, +the boatman, would have apoplexy or fall and break his leg before he +reached the porch. I turned on the young man at the foot of the steps. + +“If you think,” I said indignantly, “that three ladies, past their +youth and with affairs of their own to look after, have nothing better +to do than to wander around at night stealing clothing that they +could not possibly wear, and leaving in exchange articles that they +er--cherish, go in and examine the house.” + +Carpenter had come up and stood respectfully by, listening, and to my +horror I saw that he held the other half of Aggie’s broken oar. + +“He won’t go into _my_ room!” Aggie said suddenly, and with amazing +clearness, considering her teeth. + +“Nonsense,” I snapped. “This young man has seen an unmade bed before.” +But Aggie had gone pale, and suddenly I remembered. The handle of the +very oar Carpenter carried was lying on a chair beside her bed. All +that terrible night she had held on to it as a weapon. + +The young man in the bathing shirt only smiled, however, and shifted +Tish’s kimono to the other shoulder. + +“Certainly, if you say you haven’t seen Carleton’s clothes,” he said +easily, “the matter is settled. No doubt the same breeze last night +that blew the kimono down to the camp and hung it on the branch of +a tree took the trousers to make a sensation on one of the nearby +islands. I am sorry Carleton didn’t know they were going traveling, he +would at least have had them brushed.” + +While I was glaring at him Carpenter stepped forward and placed the oar +blade on the porch. When Aggie saw the name “Witch Hazel” she opened +her mouth like a fish, and I daresay if I had not pinched her she would +have told the whole miserable story then and there. Not that I am +ashamed of it--I am not too old, thank the Lord, to know real love when +I see it--but Aggie has no sense of proportion, and in her telling, +what was pure romance would have become merely assault and battery, +with intent to compound a felony. + +“I reckon, Miss Lizzie,” Carpenter said, addressing me, “that you and +Miss Tish and Miss Aggie didn’t take the _Witch Hazel_ out last night +and forget to bring her back, did you?” + +Aggie shut her mouth and swallowed. + +“Certainly,” I retorted sarcastically. “We decided to take a midnight +row yesterday evening, but the boat leaked. In the middle of the lake +it filled and sank under our feet.” + +Tish gave me an awful look, and snapped: + +“I suppose if we’d taken your boat out, we’d have brought it back, not +being mermaids.” + +“That’s what I argued down at the camp,” he meditated. “I said to them, +‘you boys have been up to some devilment or other, and I’ll git you +yet. It ain’t likely that them three old--them three ladies that can’t +row a stroke or swim a yard would take the _Witch Hazel_ out in the +middle of the night in a storm, sink the boat, and swim home four miles +in time to put up their crimps and get breakfast.’” + +“Thirtainly not,” Aggie said with injured dignity, “I can’t thwim a +thtroke.” + +Carpenter spat on one of our whitewashed cobblestones. “It’s what +you might call _ree_markable,” he observed. “Not another soul on the +island, and won’t be ’til the Methodist camp meeting next week; one of +the boys at the Watermelon Camp with a blanket on instead of his pants +and a bandage on his head, and the _Witch Hazel_ stole last night by +somebody who cut through her painter with a pair of scissors and takes +her out with two oars that ain’t mates.” + +The young man with the kimono dropped it carelessly into Aggie’s lap +and straightened with a glance at her stricken face. + +“Scissors!” he repeated. “Oh, come, Abe, you’re no detective. How the +mischief do you know whether the rope was cut with scissors or chewed +off?” + +Abe dived into his pocket and brought up two articles on the palm of +his hand. + +“Scissored off or chewed off,” he said triumphantly. “Take your choice.” + +There, gleaming in the sunlight, were _Tish’s buttonhole scissors and +Aggie’s upper teeth_! + +“Found them in four feet of water at the end of the boat dock,” he +said, “where I left the _Witch Hazel_ last night. If them teeth ever +belonged in a fish, then I’m a dentist.” + +I remember the next ten minutes through a red haze; I knew in a dim way +that Aggie had clutched at her teeth and disappeared; I heard from far +off Tish’s voice, explaining that Aggie had dropped the scissors in the +water the previous afternoon, and had lost her teeth while lying on the +dock trying to fish them up--the scissors, of course--with a hairpin +on the end of a string. And finally, with the line of the waterfront +undulating before my dizzy eyes like a marcel wave--which is a figure +of speech and not a pun--I realized that Carpenter and the sleeveless +and neckless young man from the camp were retreating down the path, and +I knew that the ordeal was over. + +I believe I fainted, for when I opened my eyes again Tish was standing +in front of me with a cup of tea, and she had been crying. + +“You needn’t feel so badly about it,” I said, when I had taken a sip of +the tea. “There are times when to lie is humanity.” + +“It isn’t that,” Tish whimpered, breaking down again, “but--but the +wretches didn’t believe me!” + +“No,” I echoed sadly, “they didn’t believe you.” + +“I could think of so many better ones now,” she wailed. + +“Never mind,” I said, with a feeble attempt to console her, “they won’t +jail us for lying, anyhow. We are reasonably safe, Tish, unless Mr. +Carleton has Aggie arrested for assault and battery.” + +But he did not. The only court concerned was the marriage license +court, from which you will know that this is a love story. Even if it +does begin with a mangy dog. + +At least Aggie said it was mange; her parrot had the same moth-eaten +look before it died. But Tish has always maintained that it was fleas. +She says they breed in the grass, and attack dogs in swarms in hot +weather. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IT WAS THE DOG + + +The dog was put ashore under our very noses, by the crew of a passing +launch. We were knitting on our veranda that afternoon, looking across +at Sunset Island, which is four miles away. Carpenter was not in sight, +and from down the beach came the yells and splashes that told that the +college boys at the Watermelon Camp were bathing. We were sitting with +our backs to them, when Tish said suddenly: + +“There is a launch coming in.” + +There was, a very fine one, although handsome is as handsome does, as +the colored man said about the hippopotamus. For as the launch steamed +past, a man in a white uniform threw something with a thud on to the +dock. It was a dog. The next moment they headed out into the lake +again, paying no attention to Tish, who ran down the path and tried to +signal them with the raffia basket she was making. + +The dog came up and sniffed at her. + +Now we never had any dogs on the island, even in the season. Tish’s +uncle had been bitten by a dog once, and although he never had +hydrophobia, he was always strange afterward. They say that when he +coughed it was exactly like a bark, and the very sight of a cat upset +him terribly. Also, although the family never said much about this, I +have heard that after he died they found quite a collection of bones +in his upper washstand drawer. And my grandmother saw him once eating +raw meat mixed with onion, between slices of bread! So when we bought +the island, and sold parts of it for cottages, we always put in the +agreement of sale: “No intoxicants, no phonographs and no dogs.” + +You may imagine how we felt, therefore, when we saw the dog following +Tish up the path, and biting at her heels. (When a dog bites at your +heels, and isn’t wagging his tail, he is not playing; he is in earnest. +It is much like that line in _The Virginian_--“When you say that, +smile!” But this dog did not smile.) + +Tish shouted to us, as she came, to run and shut Paulina, her cat, in +the spare room, and to give her her catnip ball (the cat, not Tish). +And then she came up and dropped on the porch step and covered up her +feet, and the creature sat down before her and dared her to move. + +That was the most terrible afternoon of my life. He sat there and +drooled over the step, and growled now and then, and Tish told about +her uncle, and Aggie said she knew a man who had been attacked by a +bulldog, and the only way they got him loose was to give him--the +dog--a hypodermic of poison and pry him off after he died. + +To make matters worse, there did not seem to be a soul on the island. +The boys from the camp had disappeared; Carpenter’s cabin was closed +and locked. At tea time the dog heard Paulina wailing up-stairs and he +made a hole in the screen door and went after her. He had chewed almost +through the guest room door before Aggie called him off with the chops +for supper. + +That decided us. + +About eight o’clock that evening, while the creature was gnawing +at a leg of the dining-room table, we held a whispered conference, +and Tish came forward with a plan. It was very daring, and Aggie +immediately objected. “It’s all very well,” she said, “to sit here in a +rocking-chair and talk about rowing four miles to Sunset Island, with +not one of us knowing anything about a boat, and Lizzie told by that +fortune teller last spring that she would die by drowning. Not only +that. _How are you going to get the dog into the boat?_” + +Tish leaned forward cautiously. The Dog was still gnawing in the next +room. + +“Chloroform him!” she whispered. “Wait until he gets sleepy. Then take +Lizzie’s bath sponge, soak it with your chloroform liniment, Aggie, and +when he’s stupefied, carry him down and dump him in the boat.” + +“Why not let Carpenter do it, in the morning?” Aggie objected. She was +green with nervousness. + +“Carpenter!” Tish snorted. “If he ever sees that flea-bitten creature +he will keep him.” + +(Carpenter, being an original settler, had never subscribed to the +liquor, phonograph and dog clause.) + +At eleven o’clock the Dog turned over on his side and went to sleep. We +were ready. My sponge, saturated with Aggie’s liniment and impaled on +the end of Tish’s umbrella, was held to his nostrils, and we each drew +a long breath. But we had counted without Aggie’s hay fever. Just as +the creature seemed about settled and was growing limp, Aggie began to +sneeze, and by the time the paroxysm was over the dog was awake and +had eaten part of the sponge. It was a terrible disappointment. As Tish +said afterward, we should have anæsthetized Aggie first. + +However, perhaps it was for the best, after all, for it made him very +ill, and when, after Tish had washed the floor, she prodded him with +the wooden handle of the mop and he only groaned, he had ceased to be +formidable. + +“It’s now or never,” Tish said, with determination, and put on her +overshoes. It had been raining, and luckily Aggie put her plaid shawl +around her shoulders. What we should have done later without that shawl +I shudder to think. Tish put on a knitted cape and I tied a scarf over +my head. Then, with the dog--no longer a capital D--wobbling at the end +of a clothes-line, we started. + +At the last minute Tish had a spell of conscience and hunted up a +bottle of cleaning fluid to put in the boat. + +[Illustration] + +“It’s mostly gasoline,” she said. “If it’s mange it won’t do any +harm, and if it’s fleas it will kill them. We can put it on just before +we leave him on Sunset Island. You start pouring it at his nose and +work along his back. The fleas will drop off his tail. Every creature +deserves a chance.” + +None of us thought of the ether in the stuff, although, as it turned +out, it did not hurt the dog. _It was never used on the dog._ + +We got to the dock without incident, Aggie ahead with the dog, and Tish +and I feeling for the rope of Carpenter’s skiff. Tish had the scissors, +in case we couldn’t untie it. Just as we found it and stooped, +something splashed. Tish straightened and gripped me by the arm. + +“Did you throw anything in?” she demanded in an awful tone. + +“Stop pinching me, Tish Carberry!” I snapped, “or I will.” + +There was silence for a minute; then there was a swirling whitish +appearance at our very feet, and something dark raised itself up in +the water and stood waving its arms. Then it gave a gurgle or two, +choked, coughed and finally sneezed. We knew the sneeze; it was Aggie! + +It was when she got her breath that she said the incredible thing, the +thing she flatly denied afterward, but for which she was obliged to pay +five dollars into the fine box. + +“That damned dog pulled me in!” she gurgled. “I’ve thwallowed--” She +clapped her hands to her mouth, and we knew at once. Her teeth! + +We pulled them both out grimly--Aggie and the dog, and Tish ordered +Aggie to the house for dry clothes at once. “And it might be as well, +Agatha,” she added coldly, “if you would wash your mouth out with soap. +You can buy new teeth, but you can not buy another immortal soul.” + +Agatha sloshed a half-dozen steps up the dock. Then she turned on us +both in the darkness. + +“If _you_ had thwallowed two gallonth of dirty water, tho that you can +feel it thaking in you when you walk, and had lotht your thell back +comb and your betht upper teeth, you wouldn’t care, Tith Carberry, +whether you had an immortal thoul or not.” + +Then she thtalked--stalked, I mean, up to the house. Tish was furious, +but luckily, I have a sense of humor. With Aggie’s soul hanging fire, +so to speak, I sat down on the dock in the rain and laughed. That was +the beginning of my deterioration; from that instant, when I braved +rheumatism and Tish’s displeasure, to that later moment just at dawn, +when we came back to the dock again, draggled, dirty and guilty, I was +forty-nine years young, reckless, disdainful of consequences, unmindful +of wet feet and the proprieties, forgetful even of law and order. That +awful, glorious night, when young Love--but that’s the story. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A WET YOUNG MAN + + +Well, Tish and I got the boat loose, and Tish dropped the scissors into +the water. Then when we got in, Tish insisted on rowing with her face +to the bow of the boat. She said she couldn’t see where she was going +if she didn’t, which, of course, was true enough. We dragged the dog in +by his tail and then sat and waited for Aggie. When she did come she +was sulky, and almost the only words she said that entire night were +“Kill him!” And that was under stress of great excitement, at three +o’clock in the morning. + +The night was very black, but a light on the boat-landing at Sunset +Island gave us our direction. Tish and I rowed, I behind her, and as +she had an unexpected habit of scooping the top off a wave with her +oar and throwing it over my face and chest, finally, in desperation I +turned my back to her. It was really easier rowing that way, although +we did not keep very good time. But, as I explained when Tish objected, +it was really safer, for by rowing back to back we could see in both +directions at once. + +When we were about a mile from shore, Aggie spoke for the first time. + +“The boat’th leaking!” she said. + +“Gracious!” I exclaimed, and felt my petticoats. They were sopping. + +“Nonsense!” Tish sneered. “It’s the water Lizzie’s been ladling in with +her oars.” Then she caught a wave with her oar, and poured it down my +back. At that minute the dog moved uneasily in the bottom of the boat +and crawled up on the seat in the bow, where he sat and wailed. + +We should have gone back. I said so then, but Tish is like all the +Carberrys--immovably obstinate. When I tried to row back to the +landing, _she_ was rowing for Sunset Island, and all we did was to +make as much splash as a paddle-wheel steamer, and not move an inch in +either direction. And just then Tish broke an oar. + +“There!” she snapped, turning on me, of course. “Just look what your +pig-headedness--” + +She never finished. She was staring, petrified, at the rim of the +boat, which was just visible. There were two white splotches on it +that looked like hands. The more I looked, the more I knew they _were_ +hands! And then the boat tilted to that side until we all screamed, +and a head and shoulders appeared, fell back out of sight, upreared +themselves with a mighty heave, and--dropped into the boat. + +It was a man--a young man. Even in the darkness he gleamed white from +head to foot. We shut our eyes and screamed. When we stopped he had +sat down on the dog, discovered him, slid him with a splash into the +bottom of the boat and had settled himself comfortably in the bow. + +“I’m sorry I frightened you,” he was saying, “but--I’d been swimming +for a good while, and your boat was an oasis in the dusty desert.” + +“Get back into the water instantly!” Tish commanded, turning her +profile to him. “Have you no shame?” + +“Oh, as to _that_,” he said aggrieved, “I--I have something on, you +know. Of course, they are wet, and they stick to me, but--” + +“Give him thith,” Aggie broke in, and unwound herself from her shawl. I +passed it to Letitia over my shoulder, and Letitia averted her face and +held it out to him. + +“Thanks, awfully,” he said. “After all that exercise, the night air is +cold on a fellow’s back.” + +At that Letitia turned on him in a rage. + +“_Will_ you open that shawl out and cover yourself?” she asked +furiously. “_Cover_ yourself. Your _back_! Look at your _legs_!” + +“As long as you sit quiet and behave yourself, you may stay in the +boat,” I added with as much composure as I could get over my trembling +lips. “Otherwise, I warn you, we have a dog.” + +At that I think he prodded the dog with his foot, for he set up a +nauseated whine--the dog, of course--and the young gentleman laughed. + +“Your dog is quite safe, madam,” he said. “I wouldn’t bite him for +anything.” Then he leaned forward in the darkness and stared at Tish +and myself. + +“Upon my soul!” he muttered, and then aloud: “How in the name of all +that is nautical did you ladies get as far from shore as this, when you +are rowing in different directions?” + +Tish refused to answer, and fell to rowing madly with her one oar, so +that we turned around and around in a circle. Aggie had not said a +word since she gave the young man her shawl. She was sitting in the +stern with the jug in her lap and her handkerchief over her mouth. + +“This is a wonderful piece of luck,” he said finally. “I must have been +blown up the lake. I hope I didn’t startle you?” + +“Not at all,” I said, as coolly as I could. At least he didn’t have a +revolver: there was no place to hide one, or a knife either. “Are you +out for a pleasure trip? Or did you have any definite objective point?” +This scathingly. + +“Just land,” he said. “Any old land will do. Near a boat-house, if +possible.” + +“We are going to Thunthet Island,” Aggie lisped, encouraged by his good +humor. + +This seemed to surprise him, but after a minute he threw back his head +and laughed: it was almost a chuckle. Certainly, if he was a lunatic, +he was a cheerful one. + +“To Sunset Island, then!” he exclaimed. “Forward, and God with us!” + +The rain was over, and by the starlight we could make out a little +more about our intruder. He seemed large and not bad looking, and he +had a nice voice. (It was a disappointment, when we finally saw him in +the daylight, to find that his hair was red, but it was offset by an +attractive smile and exceedingly good teeth. Next to a nice nose, I +like a man to have good teeth.) But, of course, some of the greatest +rascals have all the physical attributes at the expense of the moral +ones. As to his good humor, every one knows that a man can smile and +smile and be a villain still. He wanted to take the oars, but an oar +is a mighty effective weapon: neither Tish nor I would give ours up. +Finally-- + +“I suppose you haven’t any gasoline with you?” he inquired, leaning +forward and hugging the shawl under his chin. + +“There’th a quart bottle of cleaning fluid--” Aggie began, but Tish +interrupted her. + +“Agatha!” she said. + +“I suppose you don’t know of a boat-house near where we could steal +some, do you?” he reflected. + +“_We!_” + +Tish lifted her oar out of the water and leaned on it. There is no +space here to set down what she said, but she did it thoroughly. She +told him what she thought of his going around in his present costume; +she told him that two of us were Methodist Protestants and one an +Episcopalian, and that we would not assist him to steal anybody’s +gasoline, or his wife or his silver spoons: and she ended up by +demanding that he go back where he came from immediately: that we +could not compromise ourselves by landing him anywhere in his existing +undress--only Tish called it negligée. + +He listened meekly. + +“If that’s the way you feel,” he said finally, “of course I’ll drop +back into the water. Drowning’s an easy death. But if during your +excursion you happen to come across a motor-boat containing a girl, I +wish you would tell her that I did the best I could.” + +He stood up and began to take off the shawl. Tish poked at him with her +oar. + +“Don’t be a young idiot,” she snapped. “We’re not making you walk the +plank. What about the young lady?” + +“It’s rather a story,” he said, drawing the shawl around him again and +sitting down. “But the idea is this: when a fellow starts to elope +with a girl, and then funks it, by getting drowned or running out of +gasoline or anything of that sort, and leaves her sitting in a dead +motor-boat in the middle of the night, she’s--she’s apt to be touchy +about it.” + +“Lord have mercy!” said Tish. “You were abducting a young woman!” + +“Penitentiary offense,” he confirmed coolly. + +“When she didn’t want to be eloped with!” I added. I confess I had a +queer thrill up and down my back. + +“Well,” he considered, “hardly that. She only thought she didn’t. +She has been told so many times that she mustn’t like me that now she +thinks she doesn’t. Pure power of suggestion. If she hadn’t pitched a +can of gasoline overboard in a temper, we’d have been miles away by +this time,” he finished, with his first suggestion of gloom. + +In the darkness I heard Aggie draw a long breath. Aggie is romantic, +having been engaged a long time ago to a young man in the roofing +business, who fell off a roof. + +“How you mutht love her!” she said, and one could imagine her clasping +her hands. “And how alarmed _the_ mutht be for you.” + +“She said she hoped I would drown,” he said, more cheerfully, “but +that’s only girl’s talk. When she gets over thinking she doesn’t like +me, she’s going to be crazy about me. When a girl hates a fellow, she’s +next door to loving him.” + +“‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,’” Tish snorted with scorn, +and just then the dog began to whine again and tried to crawl up into +Aggie’s lap. The young man in the shawl started to say something about +having a minister waiting at Telusah, and stopped suddenly. + +“It isn’t raining now,” he said, “and yet this boat is filling. Does +she leak?” + +She did: we knew it then. The water that had been sloshing around in +the bottom was almost to the top of our overshoes, and an instant later +Aggie, with a fine disregard of the proprieties, had her feet up on the +thwarts. We are all vague about the next few minutes, but after a great +deal of screeching and tipping of the boat, our young man, with the +shawl belted around him as a petticoat, was in Tish’s seat, rowing like +mad, and we were all bailing like mad with our rubber shoes. + +We headed the boat straight for Sunset Island, which was as near as +any place, but in spite of us it kept on getting fuller. And just when +Aggie had lifted her jug into her lap to lighten her end of the boat, +and the water was well above our shoe tops, and climbing, and Tish was +muttering the alphabet under the impression that she was praying, the +boat stopped suddenly and the young man said: + +“Why don’t you women bail? What are you doing? Tickling the ribs of the +boat? We’ll never get to shore at this rate!” + +Aggie began to sniffle, and the man in the shawl stood up and peered +over the water. + +“Lillian!” he shouted. “Wave the lantern! Coo--ee!” + +We all heard it. From far down the lake came a distant “coo--ee” that +was not an echo. The shawl man muttered something and lurched where he +stood: the boat tipped, of course, and more water came over the edge. + +Aggie began fervently, “For what we are about to receive, O Lord, make +us duly thankful,” when the boat bumped without warning into something. + +It was just in time. As I, the last, was hauled into the motor-launch, +the _Witch Hazel_ slid greasily under the surface, to rise no more. + +(The loss of the _Witch Hazel_ was deplorable, and later on we sent +Carpenter, anonymously, money to buy a new boat. He has one, which he +calls the _Urticaria_, but the ghost of the _Witch Hazel_ still walks, +a sort of Pond’s Extract in his memory.) + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +CLEANING FLUID TO THE RESCUE + + +It was some time before we could realize that eternity had ceased +staring us in the face and had taken a back seat, so to speak. The +first thing Tish said was that, man or no man, her shoes were going to +come off, and while Aggie was wringing alternately her hands and her +petticoats, I happened to notice the Shawl Man. He was standing holding +his garment around him and staring over the dark water ahead. + +“You needn’t feel so badly,” I said to him. “We’re only glad Aggie had +the shawl, and now, if you can run the launch, why don’t you hunt up +your own, with the young lady in it?” + +“_This_ is the boat!” he said heavily, and, sitting down, he dropped +his chin in his hands. + +Well, there was no girl. Dark as it was, we could all see that. Tish +looked up suspiciously from where she was stuffing her wet shoes with +her stockings to keep them in shape. + +“I don’t see any clothes either,” she said tartly. “I suspect your lady +friend tied them into a bundle and swam ashore with them in her teeth!” + +“I left her there in that chair!” he affirmed. He looked dazed. +“She--she didn’t want to--to go, you know, and she threw the extra +gasoline can overboard. When we stalled there was nothing to do +but swim ashore, borrow a skiff, and steal some gasoline from the +boat-house on one of the islands. I wasn’t going to sit out there in a +dead motor-boat and let her people stand on the bank in the morning and +pot at me with a target rifle.” + +“Thirtainly not!” said Aggie, who had shamelessly allied herself with +him. + +“Not only that,” he went on defiantly, “but when a man cares for a girl +the way I care for--her, he either carries her off and marries her or +he dies trying.” + +“And quite right, I’m thure.” Thus Aggie. She was still clutching her +jug; the dog, the first to be saved, had sniffed the cork, got a whiff +of the ether, and retired with a moan to the corner. + +“If she tried to swim to shore,” began the Shawl Man, and groaned. But +Aggie had forgotten her lisp in her rôle of comforter. + +“Nonthenth!” she said. “Probably Mithther Carleton came along with hith +motor canoe and took her home. He’th alwayth mooning around the lake +late at night.” + +The Shawl Man jumped to his feet and the boat rocked. + +“Denby Carleton!” he said. “Hell!” + +Then he went to pieces. As Tish wrote to her niece, Martha Ann Lee, +afterward, “his composure went to pieces on the rocks of adversity, +and sank in a sea of woe.” He raged up and down the launch, muttering +strange and awful things, and every now and then he stooped over the +engine in the middle of the boat and gritted his teeth and turned +something. And the engine would draw a quick breath and turn over +on its other side and settle down to sleep again. And then, when he +finally gave up, he declared he was going to swim after the canoe and +kill Carleton for stealing the girl and throwing his clothes overboard. + +(Yes, we found a soft hat floating, and the rest were gone.) + +He stood up on the front peak of the launch and began to untie the +shawl, but Tish pulled him back and told him if the girl wanted Mr. +Carleton instead of him he was well rid of her. And she asked him his +name. This brought him around a little. He said, “Mansfield, Donald +Mansfield,” and stalked back and sat down in the stern squarely on the +dog. + +“Keep away from that dog!” Aggie exclaimed. “He hath mange.” + +“Fleas!” Tish snapped. + +“Mange!” said Aggie. + +“Upon my word, Aggie Pilkington,” Tish sniffed, “if the creature has +mange, why on earth are you still hugging that jar of gasoline?” + +Then, of course, the Shawl Man, who shall be Mansfield now, gave a +whoop and seized the jug. + +“Ith cleaning fluid,” Aggie protested. “Thereth ether and alcohol--” + +“Never mind what’s in it,” he said excitedly. “I know this engine. +It’ll run on the gas out of a bottle of Apollinaris.” And while he +poured the stuff into the tank he explained his plan. If the engine ran +on the mixture, and didn’t get something that he called a “bun on,” +we could get back to Sunset Island, which I gathered belonged to the +girl’s father, get into somebody’s boat-house (preferably the father’s) +and obtain some gasoline. Also, he would try to find some clothes. It +shows how thoroughly demoralized we were that not one of us objected +to his stealing anything he needed, and that Tish asked him to bring +her a blanket if he happened on one! + +The engine would not start at once. And after he had explained that +he had only one hand to crank with, having to hold on the shawl with +the other, we turned our backs, and almost immediately there was an +explosion. The boat jumped out of the water and dropped back with a +thud. I could not scream. Then there came a series of reports, and +I sat waiting for the floor to separate and drop me into sixty feet +of water and mud and crawly things with the family burial lot full, +provided my body was ever found, unless they moved Cousin James beside +his first wife, where he ought to be anyhow. And then I realized that +we were moving. + +We did not float. We got to shore by a distinct species of leaps; once +or twice I am quite sure we left the surface of the lake. If that stuff +had ever been put on the dog, the fleas would have killed themselves +jumping. And all the time there was a combination of odors that as Tish +said afterward reminded one individually of burnt brandy sauce and an +operating room, and collectively of something that has died in the +alley. And whenever we stopped Mr. Mansfield would do something that he +called “spinner again.” + +When we got near enough to shore we could see that the big white Lovell +house was lighted up, late as it was, and there were people on the boat +dock with lanterns. Mr. Mansfield saw it too, and changed the course of +the launch, so we stopped at a smaller landing, half a mile or so down +the beach, and tied up there. + +“You are perfectly safe here,” he said, “and I’ll be back in ten +minutes. The only way Major Lovell could recognize this boat in the +dark would be by the sound of the engine, and if he heard this racket +he’ll take us for a battle in a moving picture show. Just sit tight and +keep warm.” + +He threw the shawl to us and dived into the darkness. Somebody +was shouting at the Lovell dock, but we sat in safe obscurity and +listened to the wash of the water against the piles. The absurdity of +the situation began to dawn on me, and the sight of Tish and Aggie, +luminous in the starlight--it had stopped raining--trying to get into +their wet shoes, made me fairly hysterical. To add to it all, the +patter of Mr. Mansfield’s bare feet on the boards of the dock waked our +sleeping dog, and with a series of staccato barks he was at our unlucky +young man’s heels. He seemed to have a fondness for feet. + +“If you could see yourself, Lizzie, I might understand your mirth,” +Tish said scathingly. “But I fail to see anything funny.” + +“Then for goodness sake, Tish,” I cried, “stop dangling that shoe on +your toe and see what is the matter with your figure. It has slipped up +under your chin.” + +“Good heaventh!” said Aggie. “They are coming down the beach after uth!” + +It was true. The lanterns had left the Lovell dock and were bobbing +wildly along the waterfront in our direction, guided by the barking +of the dog. Of all the hours of that awful night, that was the most +terrible. We sat there shivering and helpless and watched Nemesis +chasing and bobbing down on us. About half way to us the first lantern +stopped and fired a gun, and back along the beach new lanterns kept +adding themselves to the line that stretched out like the tail of a +comet. + +Tish thought she was very cool, but both Aggie and I distinctly heard +her say that the stars had stopped raining. And once she said that she +had always been a respected member of the community, and that nobody in +his sober senses would believe her if she told the true story. And when +the first lantern was so close that we could see a vague outline of +the man behind it, desperation gave me a courage that has appalled me +since. + +I went over to the engine and tried to “spinner.” + +What is more to the point, I did it. The wheels began to revolve with +a sickening speed: the whole frame of the boat jarred and quivered. I +sank back on my knees and closed my eyes. + +“We’re not moving,” Tish said with awful calmness. + +And at that a white figure hurled itself from the darkness at the end +of the landing and flew down the dock to us. It had a can in one hand +and a lantern in the other. It hesitated a second to throw off the +rope, which was why we hadn’t moved, of course, and, as the engine was +going full, he had only time to catch one of the awning supports as it +flew past. It went as if it had been shot out of a gun, and when Aggie +and Tish and I had assorted ourselves from a heap on the floor, we +were well out from shore. + +It was lucky that Aggie took one of her awful sneezing spells just +then, as she always does when she is excited, for by the time she was +breathing easily again the shore was well behind and Mr. Mansfield had +put on the shawl again. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CAVE-MAN AND HIS WOMAN + + +It is a little difficult, looking back, to explain our state of mind +that night. It was only our second taste of romance--Aggie’s roofer +being too far back to count. Now, with six months of perspective, I +think we were intoxicated with adventure to the point of abandon. For +when Mr. Mansfield offered to take us home, before starting on his +pursuit of the motor canoe, we refused to go. As Tish said: + +“No doubt when you do overtake them, Mr. Mansfield, the young woman +will feel the need of some of her own sex, women of--er--maturity and +experience, to advise her. I consider it our duty to go.” + +“Oh, leth go!” said Aggie. “Mr. Carletonth a large man. Do you think +you will have to fight him for your lady?” Aggie’s tone was cheerfully +bloodthirsty, and she clutched the end of the broken oar like a club. +Aggie, the apostle of peace! + +“Frankly, I should like to see the end of the affair myself,” I +admitted. “I should like to see the young lady’s face when she finds +you eloping with three maiden ladies, and--I am curious to know how +your cave-man theory works out.” + +He was working over the engine, and we were headed down the lake. While +I was speaking he moved to the other side of the launch, and it tilted +villainously. He loomed very large in the darkness, and the strength of +his bare arms and heavy chest, his sinewy legs, made him not unlike his +prototype. + +He did not answer me at once. He had found some cigarettes in the boat, +and he lighted one. Only when it was well aglow did he show that he had +heard me. + +“The original cave-man was no fool,” he observed, calmly looking ahead. +“A man doesn’t carry a woman off unless he’s crazy about her, in the +first place. If he’s got sufficient force of character to dare her +daddy’s stone club--jail, in this case--and enough physical strength to +hold her to him with one arm and fight off pursuit and rivals with the +other, it--well, it doesn’t matter much what the girl thinks of him in +the beginning: she’ll die for him, in the end.” + +Aggie positively thrilled in the darkness beside me, and even Tish was +silenced by the vision of this masculine point of view. As for me, just +at that instant I quite agreed with the young savage! + +“Ith--ith the very pretty?” Aggie ventured, after swallowing hard. + +“I don’t know,” he said indifferently, straining his eyes ahead. +“Oh--yes, I suppose she is. I never thought about it. I haven’t thought +of anybody else--_anything_ else, for the week I’ve known her.” + +“The week!” we all repeated faintly. + +“When her groom lifts her off her horse, I want to kill him. If that +ass Carleton gets her to Telusah first and marries her, I’ll take her +from him. She’s my woman.” + +Tish stood right up in the boat and pointed her finger at him. “You +d-don’t know what you are talking about,” she stuttered. “How--how dare +you speak of taking a married woman from her husband!” + +“Figs!” he said disrespectfully. “In the first place, if the engine +holds out, we’ll run them down at least a mile from Telusah, and in +the second place, while I judge you are talking by the book and not by +experience--a few words said over a man and a woman don’t make them +husband and wife. It gives the woman the man’s name, but--the man don’t +necessarily get the woman. Mine--or nobody’s,” he added under his +breath. + +Tish collapsed into her chair. I admit I felt queer all over, and +Aggie’s heart had fluttered back to the thin young man with the +curled-up mustache and a dimple in his chin, who had fallen off a roof. + +“Mister Wigginth usthed to talk exactly that way!” she said softly. + +That is the way we went down toward Telusah: the prehistoric gentleman +in the bow steering and watching the engine, now and then stopping +it dead to listen for the throb of the motor canoe ahead. Aggie +twitteringly in the past, with her bare feet tucked under her for +warmth and the broken oar in her lap. Tish blazing with indignation and +excitement, and I saved by my sense of humor from going into violent +hysteria and embracing the hot-headed, mad, ridiculous and altogether +satisfactory young animal at the wheel. I merely said: + +“I wish somebody had wooed me like that thirty years ago. I wouldn’t be +earning my own living, young man.” + +“That’s what she wants to do--stay single and work for a livelihood,” +he said with disgust. “I told her it was all fool nonsense; that the +place for her kind of woman was in some man’s home--” + +“Cave,” I suggested. + +“Bearing his children--” + +“Silence!” Tish shouted, and even Aggie was roused out of a dream. + +He shut down the engine just then, and we all heard it: a faint +throbbing that one felt in the ears, rather than heard. He leaped up on +the peak of the boat and stared into the darkness ahead. + +“Better than I expected,” he said with suppressed excitement. “They’re +not a mile ahead. I wish I had a stick of some sort: I may have to +knock that chump on the head.” + +Luckily he did not see Aggie’s oar, and to his everlasting honor be it +said, he went dauntlessly into the battle with his bare hands. “And +bare arms and legs,” Tish ironically suggests that I add. + +For battle it was. + +We overtook the canoe somewhere about Long Point, and our lantern +showed two people, as we expected. It was Mr. Carleton, who evidently +hadn’t dressed to elope, and who wore the shirt of a bathing suit and a +pair of corduroy trousers, and the Girl. She was in a white party frock +of some sort. She stopped paddling and stared up at us defiantly as we +must have loomed black behind our lantern. She was very pretty, and she +had two triangular red spots in her cheeks. Our gentleman pulled the +shawl around him and stepped on the thwarts, and even at that distance +we could see the angry fear in the girl’s eyes. + +“Lillian,” Mr. Mansfield said cheerfully, “I am not going to do that +puppy with you the honor of asking you to choose between us. I give you +your choice--either get into the launch comfortably, or stay where you +are--in which case I shall run you down and pick you out of the water.” + +[Illustration] + +“You coward!” said Mr. Carleton from the stern of the canoe. “You can’t +try your high-handed methods with me. Run us down if you like. It’s +a penitentiary offense to kidnap a girl and marry her.” + +“Oh, piffle!” said Mr. Mansfield rudely. “I suppose you didn’t intend +to marry her yourself at Telusah!” + +“I intended to return her to her parents in safety, by way of the +trolley,” retorted Carleton stiffly. + +The Mansfield man threw back his head and laughed. + +“Did you hear that, Lillian?” he called. “That’s love for you! Why, the +idiot didn’t even intend to marry you! He was going to take you home to +your people!” He laughed again in pure delight. + +But the girl had plenty of spirit. + +“I don’t intend to be married at all,” she flared at him. “Certainly +not to you, Donald Mansfield. Run us down if you like. I would rather +die than marry you.” + +“You hear what she says,” said Carleton, from the darkness. “If you +are a gentleman you will take your boat and your ruffianly accomplices +back to where you came from--or to hell, as far as I’m concerned.” + +“Ruffian yourself,” Tish said furiously, but I pulled her down. There +was silence, then-- + +“Lillian,” Mr. Mansfield said very gently, “‘Lady’ Carleton is right. +If it’s as bad as that I’ll take you home. I had a sort of fool idea +that you would know it was inevitable--that you were my woman. If I’ve +been a bit raw about it, it’s because the thing seemed so clear to me. +Give me your hand.” + +“I shall not get into the launch,” the girl said haughtily. + +“Your hand.” + +“Confound you, Mansfield, can’t you see she hates you?” This was +Carleton, of course. + +“The girlth a fool,” Aggie muttered angrily, behind me. In the instant +that I turned my head, something happened--I don’t know just what. For +the girl was alone in the canoe, we were alone in the launch, and just +below me the water was boiling into white spray. Now and then an arm +shot into the air, or a leg, and occasionally, not often, both heads +were above water at the same time. And it was then that Aggie, the +president of the Civic Club and corresponding secretary of the Working +Girls’ Home, with her draggled skirts pinned up above her bare feet, +stood up suddenly and banged Mr. Carleton on the head with what was +left of her oar! + +But if that was amazing, the most surprising thing followed. The Girl +stood up in the canoe and-- + +“Oh, you’ve killed him!” she screeched. “Oh, Don! Don!” _Donald being +the Mansfield man!_ + +Then, of course, the canoe turned over, and the rest of what she was +saying ended in a gurgle. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +“I WILL GO WITH YOU” + + +We got them all into the launch finally, for there was only five feet of +water, which explained much that we had not understood about the fight, +and they were as disconsolate looking a lot of lovers as I ever wish +to see. Mr. Carleton sat in the stern and held his head, which Aggie’s +oar had almost broken, and the girl dripped and shivered in a corner by +herself and stared at the Mansfield man, who was coaxing Tish for one +of her petticoats so he could give the girl his shawl. + +Aggie was for trying to explain to the girl how we came to be there +at all, and without our shoes at that. But it was such a long story, +beginning with the dog that had fleas (“mange,” says Aggie) and +extending through robbery to attempted murder (“I only meant to stun +him,” says Aggie), that I advised her not to begin it. + +The launch would not start after all, and it developed that the +propeller shaft was choked with weeds. This meant that the Mansfield +man must crawl overboard, get on his back under the launch (which +is much more unpleasant, I should think, than getting under an +automobile), and clear off the shaft. And while he was holding his +breath under the boat, and while Tish had turned her back on everybody +and with the aid of the lantern was trying to take a splinter out of +the sole of her foot, the Carleton man got up dizzily and went over to +the girl. + +“Surely, Lillian,” he said, steadying himself by the awning frame, +“you--you don’t intend to let that--” + +“Please go away,” she said. “I don’t want to talk. How funny you look +with that bandage around your head.” And then, to me (she had accepted +the presence of three bare-footed maiden ladies in the launch without +comment): “Oh, do you think he might be caught in the weeds and--and +_drown_?” + +But he did not drown. He came magnificently over the edge of the boat +in a few minutes, with a string of green water-weeds clinging to his +head. Aggie, who, as you have seen, is romantic, muttered something +about “grape leaves in his hair,” which she said afterward was Ibsen, +although the only use I have ever known for grape leaves was to wrap +pats of butter in, in the country. + +He turned the launch around and we started for home. I do not recall +that any one spoke on the way back, except Tish, who asked me if I had +any castor oil at the house: she wanted it to soften her shoes if they +dried stiff. The Girl sat by herself and watched the big fellow in +the shawl-toga. And once or twice, when he glanced up and saw her, he +smiled over at her, but he did not go near her or speak to her. + +[Illustration] + +It was pale dawn when we stopped at the dock of the Watermelon Camp. +We, who had been sodden shadows in the night, were now damp and +shivering outlines. Mr. Mansfield, having given the girl the shawl, +drew around him still closer the awning curtain with which he had +draped himself, and Aggie, still clutching the oar, held up one hand in +the gray light to hide the deficiencies of her mouth. No one stirred in +the camp. + +Mr. Carleton got up stiffly and glanced around at all of us. Then +he stalked over to the man at the wheel, who was staring ahead and +whistling under his breath. + +“Will you give me your word to take her home?” he said. + +“Ask her if she _wants_ to go home.” He threw this over his shoulder, +between whistles, as it were. Then the girl, looking very pretty, but +slim and slinky in her wet things, went over to the Mansfield man and +put her hand on his shoulder. + +“I--I think I will go with you, Don!” she said. And that practically +ends the story. + +We left Mr. Carleton on the dock, staring after us through the mist, +and we all went back to the cottage and put the girl to bed. We gave +Mr. Mansfield a pillow by the sitting-room wood fire, and _Tish’s +green kimono_ to sleep in. And after that we all three took a mustard +foot-bath and some camphor sprinkled on sugar and went to bed. + +Aggie wakened me at nine o’clock the next morning by hunting in my +bureau for her second best teeth, and it was then that we found our +lovers had gone. In the girl’s room there was a letter of thanks. She +said she did not wish to disturb us after that awful night, but that +she could not sleep, and that she and Mr. Mansfield were going down to +Telusah to be married. + +Tish read the letter aloud and stared at us, while Paulina whined for +her breakfast. + +“Upon my soul,” Tish gasped, when she could speak. “Instead of clapping +him into jail, she’s going to marry him!” + +“Do you thuppoth he went to Telutha in that kimono?” Aggie said in a +husky whisper. She had taken a terrible cold. + +But Mr. Mansfield did not go to Telusah in Tish’s kimono. + +After all, the beginning of this story is also the end. For now you +can understand why Tish dropped the bowl when the young man brought +her kimono back from the Watermelon Camp and asked for Mr. Carleton’s +trousers! + +I have told the story in defense of Tish and the rest of us. I wish to +brand as false the story told by the man from the hotel who happened to +be fishing for muskalunge early that morning. He said, you remember, +that he saw Miss Carberry _in her green kimono_ leave our cottage just +after dawn and go stealthily along the beach through the mist to the +Watermelon Camp. When she got there, he said, to his horror he saw her +strip off the green kimono and hang it to a tree. Just then the mist +shut down and he saw nothing more. + +In his anxiety for Miss Carberry’s sanity he was on the point of +landing to investigate, when he hooked the largest ’lunge of the season +(registered weight at the hatcheries, thirty-seven pounds four ounces), +and when he looked again at the shore all he saw was a red-haired man +hurrying along the beach in a pair of corduroy trousers and a bathing +shirt! + +Tish closed the incident with one comment. + +“Young millionaire!” she snapped when she saw the newspapers. “Young +scamp, _I_ say, stealing poor Mr. Carleton’s sweetheart and then his +trousers. As for my green kimono, after all we did for him, he might at +least have had the grace to roll it up and stick it under a barrel. I +shall burn it.” + +But she did not. Aggie saw it only the other day, put away in +a lavender silk sachet, with a bundle of newspaper clippings, a +half-eaten bath sponge, and a particular kind of bass hook, which we +had found on the sitting-room floor. + + +THE END + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: + + + Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. + + Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. + + Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75922 *** |