Tish Marches On (11 page)

I must say that it seemed simple enough. He was to gain admittance on a card or something he had, while we were to climb the fence into the enclosure where Babe took the air on pleasant days, and there unbolt the sliding door from the outside. Then when the chance came he would get into her pen or cage or whatever it is and so admit us. Aggie looked rather pale at this, but he again observed that Babe was the pet of the Zoo; if she stuck out her trunk, we had only to pet it gently and pass on.

It did seem queer to us that he then produced a camera from his car, but he explained it quite easily.

“Our photographer is sick,” he said, “and they have a new elephant here somewhere. He asked me to get a flashlight picture for him if I could.”

He showed us where to go and then disappeared, but I must confess that any enthusiasm I may have felt as to a mouse for Charlie Sands had entirely vanished. Even Tish, usually so high-spirited, was silent, and Aggie was actually trembling.

“I wish I’d brought sobe peaduts,” she said to me in a low voice. “I’d feel safer.”

Encumbered as we still were with the trap, the flashlight, the cheese, the fence proved rather difficult. Luckily for us, the heavy steel posts were reinforced with a metal netting, and with this as a foothold we finally managed it. Nevertheless, as the minutes went on and a cold wind arose, our dampened condition made us most uncomfortable. Reference to Tish’s watch showed us that the hour by then was 3:00
A.M.
, but the Zoo was not entirely quiet. Every now and then some creature or other gave a piercing scream, and something else either barked or howled. Nor were matters improved by the passage at that time of a night watchman. At Tish’s whispered suggestion we lay down on the cement, and he did not see us. Nevertheless, we were greatly relieved when at last we heard a low voice beyond the door.

“Quiet, Babe,” it said. “It’s all right. It’s only me.”

It was Mr. Jones, and immediately after he slid open the door a bit and squeezed through. It seemed to me that he came through rather rapidly, and that a dull thud shook the door as he left it; but in a moment he was his usual nonchalant self, although somewhat breathless.

“I wakened her rather suddenly,” he explained. “Better give her a minute or two to recover. I’m like that myself,” he said, smiling. “Rouse me too quickly and I—well, I don’t like it.”

He added that he had seen several mice in the cage—which actually was a large room and not a cage at all—and that all we had to do was to enter quietly and let Babe get used to us by standing still for a brief time. After that, he said, we could all go about our business, as she was chained by one foot and would probably go back to sleep again anyhow.

With that he shoved the door back a foot or two, and we squeezed inside, Tish as usual leading the way, and Mr. Jones closing the door behind us.

The cage was dim, the only light being through the bars from somewhere beyond, but even at that it seemed to me that Babe had grown somewhat since last I saw her. I had little time for these observations, however, as at that moment she whipped out her trunk and jerked my hat from my head. Mr. Jones looked rather surprised and somewhat apologetic.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said. “She’s a playful old girl. Like a kitten, aren’t you, Babe? Come on now. Be a sport. Give it up, Babe.”

But Babe had put her foot on it and was already tearing it to pieces; when he tried to stoop and recover it, she gave a squeal and made a pass at him with her trunk. I must say he looked uncomfortable.

“I don’t know, ladies,” he said in a worried voice. “She doesn’t seem to be in the mood, does she? If you’d care to try somewhere else—”

“Id the liod’s cage, I suppose,” said Aggie coldly.

Tish refused to go elsewhere. Whether Babe was in the mood or not, there were certainly mice there, and lacking now the net, she was busily baiting the trap with the cheese and placing it in a corner. In the end Mr. Jones left us there, going to get his camera, which he had hidden somewhere, as they had a new keeper who didn’t like the animals disturbed at night.

Before he left he warned us.

“If anybody comes along,” he said, “just flatten yourselves against the wall and keep quiet.”

Babe made another pass at him with her trunk as he went out, and I saw him stop and hesitate outside. Then he went on, and we were alone. Alone that is save for the elephant, who had now finished my hat and was squealing and still apparently nervous. But Tish was not anxious. Already a mouse had entered the lower portion of the trap, and as she said, it was only a matter of time until, finding itself closed in, it would climb to the top, trip the plank and drop into the reservoir.

But Aggie in the meantime had discovered something, and was staring at me with a pale face.

“Lizzie!” she said. “Isn’t Babe a lady?”

I had no time whatever to reply. There was the blinding light of Mr. Jones’s flash, and then a man’s voice shouting angrily.

“Here, stop that!” he yelled. “What the hell do you mean?”

This was immediately followed by the sounds of two men in a struggle and a loud startled trumpeting by Babe. I fancied, too, that I heard a faint squeal from Aggie and that Tish in a low voice was telling us to keep still. But my eyes were on the passage beyond the bars where Mr. Jones, looking slightly dazed, was being marched off by an irate keeper who was apparently also kicking the camera in front of him.

When I turned, what a sight met my eyes! Our poor Aggie was completely encircled by the elephant’s trunk and was being held high in the air. What is more, a door had clanged shut in the distance and we were now alone in our dreadful situation.

It was as usual Tish who recovered first, and her immediate thought was for our unfortunate companion.

“Are you all right, Aggie?” she asked anxiously.

What a comfort to hear her voice in reply, feeble as it was.

“Do,” she said.

I draw a veil over what followed: our vain attempts to coax Babe to let her down, or even to allow us to approach her; the roars and trumpetings all through the building, so that our calls for help were unheard; even my own frantic excursion into the passage, lined with cages on both sides, to find that we were securely locked in; and my return to find that Babe had placed Aggie on the top of her head and was swinging her trunk to keep us at a distance.

It was indeed a most unhappy experience, and it was Tish who brought her practical mind to the problem.

“It is evident,” she said, “that we must placate her in some way. I am sorry to blame anybody, but Mr. Jones’s use of the flash for a photograph has upset her badly. If we had some peanuts, for instance—”

“Peaduts!” said Aggie in a dreadful voice. “Get a gud ad kill her.”

Here she sneezed violently, and the elephant swung its trunk up again and trumpeted in a most threatening manner.

As I have said, it is easy now to see the simple and yet inevitable sequence of events. What could Tish do but what she did do? And this at the very moment of her triumph, with the mouse in the trap and practically ours. It was for this and no other reason that she broke into the peanut stand near by and was arrested while so doing. She had already placed the money for the broken glass on the counter, and also for the half dozen packages of peanuts in her possession, when the park policeman discovered her.

It is unfortunate that he refused to listen to her explanation, and should be a lesson to the police in general. For she had carried the mousetrap with her, and when she tried to explain it, and that Aggie was in the clutches of the elephant, he simply did not believe her.

“All right,” he said. “All right. Just take it easy, sister. You can tell that to the doctors.”

“To what doctors?”

“Where you’re going,” he said, and telephoned for an ambulance.

It was in vain that she protested. She was obliged to stand by, securely held, while he telephoned that he had caught a woman in the Zoo who was stealing peanuts to feed to a mouse to feed to the elephant. What is more, he took the trap from her and threw it away!

By that time she was desperate, and I believe that he had to call for help. It seems unfortunate that it was Officer O’Brien who first arrived, and that he was about to manacle her brutally when he saw the peanuts and stood back.

“My Gawd!” he said, almost with reverence. “What an appetite!”

He soon recovered and stated that she had tried twice that night to kill him, and that his nose was broken and would never be the same again. In the end I believe it required three men to get her into the ambulance, thence to be taken to the psychopathic ward of the hospital and tied to a bed. As I have said, she had been on the board there for many years, but no one recognized her; and when she spoke of Aggie’s dire situation they merely gave her a sedative. …

Needless to say, neither Aggie nor I knew anything of this at the time. We were occupied with our own problem, and I for one cannot put on paper my sentiments as the time passed and Tish did not return. The elephant showed no signs of relenting, and the sight of Aggie’s desperate face high above was more than I could bear.

In the end I decided to follow Tish and see what had happened, although Aggie protested wildly.

“Don’t be foolish,” I told her. “Mr. Jones said she was playful. She’s playing now. That’s all it is.”

“Just good clead fud!” said Aggie. “Well, let her play with you for a while. I’be fed up. I’d rather have a bouse, ady bidute.”

Here she sneezed once more, and the elephant simply coiled its trunk around her and raised her into the air. I waited only long enough to see her safe on its head again and then hastened outside to the fence. I needed help, and most of all I needed Tish. Behind me I could hear Aggie’s plaintive calls, but I dared not stop. However, misfortune pursued us all that dreadful night; for I had climbed the fence with some difficulty and had just reached the ground when a man caught hold of me, and I recognized the watchman we had seen before. Never have I felt such relief, and never have I been so shocked as when he shook me violently.

“So that’s the game, is it?” he said. “I’ll teach the lot of you. By God, if you reporters won’t even let the animals sleep—!”

“Listen,” I said in a frantic voice. “I’m not a reporter. We came to catch a mouse, that’s all. A live mouse. And Aggie—”

“What did you want a mouse for?” he asked, staring at me.

“To stuff,” I said. “To hang on a wall. To—”

It is incredible, but after that he would not even listen to me! I told him about Aggie, and my fears for Tish, but he only held on to me and shook his head.

“You just come with me, nice and quiet,” he said. “You come along and we’ll find a mouse for you; a nice quiet mouse to hang on the wall.”

He took me into an office somewhere, and all the night people at the Zoo came and looked at me. They even pretended to believe my story, but I could see that they did not, and when in a frenzy I tried to escape and get back to Aggie they locked me in.

I
T WAS BROAD DAYLIGHT
when Mr. Jones, with a quite dreadful black eye, came to release me; and it was much later before the entire staff of the Zoo managed to rescue our poor Aggie. And it was then that I learned the truth, that Babe was not Babe at all, but the new elephant, and that it had taken a fancy to Aggie and was most unwilling to let her go.

Our reunion in that office of the Zoo was touching, and it was not long before we reached Tish’s apartment. It is easy to imagine our horror when we found that she was not there. Instead, a red-eyed Hannah said that Charlie Sands was out searching for her, and there was only Paula, gazing out the window and rather drooping.

She brightened when she saw us, but stiffened when she caught sight of Mr. Jones, and gave him a dreadful look.

“Well!” she said. “And where do
you
come in on this?”

“I’ve been in on it all night. And if you think it’s been easy, look at me.”

“I am looking,” she said nastily. “The only thing I see to admire is that eye.”

“If that’s the way you feel—”

“That’s exactly the way I feel, Bill Lawrence,” she said coldly.

Then at last we knew the truth, and the shocking deception that had been practiced on us. But he did not appear at all ashamed. He merely gave Paula a long look.

“All right,” he said. “All right. Since that’s your state of mind, I know where I can go. And get a job too. A jail’s a darned good place to write, and during the small hours of this morning I did a bit of work. However—”

He then prepared to depart, but she leaped at him and caught his arm.

“Write what?” she demanded.

He pulled some yellow paper from his pocket and glanced at it.

“It’s called ‘The Mouse,’ he said, “and maybe the
Gazette
won’t eat it up, photographs and all! It begins as follows—”

She snatched at the paper, but he held it away from her.

“Bill!” she said. “You wouldn’t! You wouldn’t spoil everything. You wouldn’t let me down like this, would you?”

“Wouldn’t I?” he said, with a bitter laugh. “Listen, my girl. You thought it was damned funny when that moose got me in a tree, didn’t you? It was a laugh, wasn’t it? It was a good laugh when I lost my job too.”

“Bill, I never laughed at that.”

“Didn’t you?” he said coldly. “Well, laugh this off. I’ve got the story of my life here. To get it I have committed felonious entry, barratry and mayhem, been chased by a new elephant at the Zoo, hit by a fellow with a fist like a ham, and spent two hours in a jail cell. I’m not selling.”

Well, I must say I was surprised at her: instead of being angry, she went to him and stroked the sleeve of his coat, looking up at him with a little smile.

“If you’re not selling, Bill, maybe you’re trading,” she said. “I’m sorry, Bill. I’ve missed you.”

To our amazement he grabbed her and shook her violently. Then he simply put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head.

“Of course I’m trading, darling,” he said. “What the devil do you think I did it for?”

I must say they seemed entirely to have forgotten us until Aggie sneezed. They looked a bit sheepish then, but when I told them we had no mouse Paula looked rather vague.