Tish Marches On (12 page)

“Mouse?” she said. “Oh, yes, I’d forgotten. Well, it doesn’t really matter. We can get one somewhere.”

Aggie went at once to bed, the hay in the elephant cage having greatly increased her hay fever; but I remained on watch in a frenzy of anxiety. The thought of our dear Tish alone somewhere and in trouble was more than I could bear; and when the telephone rang I rushed to it.

It was only Mr. Beilstein to inquire how the night had gone. When he heard my voice he said, “And did you get a nice little mouse, Miss Lizzie?”

“We got an elephant,” I said tartly.

“An elephant? In my cellar?”

But I hung up. I felt that I could bear no more. …

It was fully noon before Charlie Sands located Tish. She was in a room at the local hospital in the psychopathic ward, and as I have said, tied to the bed. The doctor in charge took him in and observed that it was a very sad case.

“You take women of a certain age,” he said, “and you often get a psychosis of this nature. Man becomes the animal in pursuit, in this case an elephant, and—”

Charlie Sands pushed him aside and confronted Tish, who merely closed her eyes.

“What does this mean?” was his opening speech, in a stern voice. “Open your eyes and look at me.
What
about an elephant?”

“Aggie’s on it,” she said. “I’ve told them that but they won’t believe me.”

“You see,” said the doctor. “She’s been saying that ever since she was brought here. Trying to escape too, so she had to be restrained.”

But Charlie Sands was not listening. He got a chair and sat down by the bed, and I believe he asked for a glass of water.

“All right,” he said. “Aggie’s on an elephant somewhere, but you’re here. Why? And how?”

“I was merely trying to get some peanuts. That’s all.”

“What for?”

And then Tish became her old self.

“Don’t be a fool,” she said sharply. “For the elephant, of course.”

He looked so strange that a nurse brought him some aromatic ammonia. He waved it away, however, as Tish spoke again.

“I had just captured a good mouse,” she said, “but the policeman threw it away.”

“A mouse!” said the doctor. “Now that’s new. She has mentioned a fire hydrant—symbolic, of course—and, curiously enough, a baked ham. But a mouse—that’s strange.”

“You don’t know her,” said Charlie Sands bitterly. “It’s not strange. It’s quite normal. Ask her for a steel rivet and she’d go after the Brooklyn Bridge.” He then stood up and gazed down at Tish. “I have a theory,” he said, “that if I could leave you here life would be a long, sweet song. Dull perhaps, but quiet. However—” He drew a long breath. “You’d better tell me where this elephant is. Aggie may be tired of it.” …

It was some hours later that our dear Tish returned home, and it was only after Charlie Sands had had a glass or two of our blackberry cordial that he at last heard the full story of the night.

“I see,” he said finally. “Of course, it is all quite easy, once you understand. Merely theft, assault and battery, destruction of property, attacking a policeman, and so on.” He then poured himself another glass of the cordial and finally grinned.

“It must have been quite a night for Bill,” he said. “Well, he’s a stronger man than I am.”

He seemed relieved when he heard that Paula had got the story and burned it. But he shook his head.

“That’s love,” he said, “and heaven defend me from it.”

It was then that Hannah came in, holding a Mason jar, and there was a live mouse in it! She had found it in the pantry that morning.

I believe that they had the head mounted later on, and that Bill Lawrence, who had been reinstated, made the presentation speech. I believe also that the old man, as they call the managing editor, took the hint and even smiled, and that the mouse hangs in his office today. But only yesterday Tish, coming home from the market, dropped her basket and food of all sorts rolled over the pavement.

She was picking up what she could when Officer O’Brien came by. He stopped and gave her a hard look.

“I see you’ve had a good day,” he said, and walked on.

O
NLY THE OTHER DAY
, while our poor Aggie was still recovering from the shock of our recent night high above the city, I read the story of a man somewhere in the country who passed a red lantern and, running plump into a circus which was on the move, actually ended with an enormous and indignant elephant sitting on the radiator of his car. As our introduction to the terrible affair which landed both Tish Carberry and me in jail bears some resemblance to this incident, I at once determined to make a record of what actually occurred.

To know all is to forgive all, and I must say that the press has been very unkind, especially to Tish. She was actuated throughout only by the highest principles, and even while stoically sitting in that dreadful cell she was calm and self-contained.

“I don’t even know what you are talking about,” she said to Charlie Sands. “If I have tried to help a pair of young lovers, that is entirely my affair. I have committed no felony.”

“Maybe not in this state,” he said coldly, “but in some parts of this great and glorious Union shooting at a sheriff and then filling him full of splinters is not regarded with any favor.”

“He slipped,” said Tish calmly.

“He says you pushed him,” Charlie Sands retorted. “I’ve been in to see him, and he has two constables and a deputy working over him with tweezers.”

He then looked at me and accused me of shooting a state trooper—which, as everyone now knows, was purely accidental, the man being out of the hospital the next day. And only then did he notice Aggie’s absence and demand to know where she was.

“So far as I know,” said Tish with her usual dignity, “she is still in the top of the tree.”

“The tree?” he said, looking astonished. “What tree? What do you mean, a tree?”

“A tree in the mountains,” Tish explained patiently. “We had to leave her there.”

I must say he looked bewildered at that.

“I see,” he said. “You left her in a tree. But what was she doing in a tree? Building a nest?”

We explained then, but when he finally left us it was with a strange look on his face; and we heard later that he sat down somewhere outside for a lengthy period, appearing rather dazed.

However, that is the end of the story, and I must relate the events which led up to it.

It was early autumn when both Aggie and I noticed that Tish was growing restless, and one day while we were there the evening paper came, and she merely crumpled it into a ball and threw it into the wastebasket.

“I am not a nervous woman,” she said, “but when all the news I read is bad it is time to call a halt. Not only is crime rampant in the land, but there is even a possibility that the Communists will drive us into a state of revolution. In that case, where will we be?”

“I know where I will be,” I said firmly. “I’ll be in the front row of the mob, waving the red flag and singing Russian songs with the best of them. If you think I’m going to lay my head on any guillotine, you can think again.”

I am afraid that this displeased her, for she was silent for some time; and when at last she spoke, it was to say that there was but one refuge from both revolution and crime, and that was some quiet spot in the country.

“What we need,” she said, “is a small farm, capable of supporting us all in case of necessity, and in the interval providing peace and contentment. A subsistence homestead, to use the words of our present Administration. That is all I ask during these turbulent days—subsistence and to be at peace.”

Aggie at once protested, as a ragweed even ten miles away greatly aggravates her hay fever; but Tish was firm, and some weeks later she notified us that she had bought a small farm.

“It lies,” she said, “at the foot of heavily wooded mountains, which will offer us sanctuary if necessary. And as it is only thirty miles from here it is easy of access. I shall hope to spend my declining days there in contemplation and quiet.”

Well, that—as Charlie Sands observed—was something. We did not, however, see the place that winter, as it had no heating plant, and the only news we had about it was when Charlie Sands went there once to shoot pheasants that fall.

I must say that he was rather vague about it when he returned.

“It’s all right for them as likes it,” he said.

What is important is that he said he had left his shotgun there, a fact which the newspapers used later to reveal us in the darkest possible colors; as a matter of record, the only time the wretched thing was fired by any of us, I did it by accident, and it knocked out a perfectly good pivot tooth, which I almost swallowed.

Late in the winter, however, Tish began to think of the farm with a certain yearning. The crime wave had broken out again, and Mr. Ostermaier, our clergyman, returned from the parish house one night to find that his best cuff links and a ten-dollar bill hidden in the toe of a shoe had been taken. Also a sensational paper reported that the daughter of one of our wealthy citizens, a girl named Edith Lee, had been threatened with kidnaping for ransom and was under police protection.

We did not know her, but Tish was moved to profound indignation. I remember that Charlie Sands was dining with her that night, as were Aggie and myself, and she expressed herself strongly. Charlie Sands, however, was more calm.

“I imagine she can take care of herself,” he observed. “There is a story that she was kidnaped a year or two ago, and that two strong men with tears in their eyes brought her back the next day and left her on the doorstep.”

That was all that occurred at the dinner and, so far as I recall it, was the only mention of the girl ever made in my hearing. Charlie Sands left soon after and, having had one or two glasses of our blackberry cordial, declared that with a propeller and a gallon of oil he could swim the Atlantic Ocean. And shortly after he had gone came the incident of the bat.

I relate it here only because of the unpleasant emphasis placed later on the bottle of chloroform found by the police in Tish’s bathroom, and partly used. To say that it was used for any nefarious purpose is manifestly absurd.

He had been gone only a short time when we heard a curious flapping against the walls and ceiling; and Aggie, who had worn her new switch that night, suddenly caught a sofa pillow and held it on top of her head.

“It’s a bat!” she cried wildly. “Open the windows, somebody! Help! Help!”

Tish managed to silence her, but as the creature was now making various low dives, we tied towels over our heads and attempted to drive it outside. It would go no farther than the curtain, however, where it hung upside down and stared at us with a truly hideous expression.

It was all most unpleasant, especially as Hannah had gone and we were alone with it. Tish’s active mind, however, was at work; and as the bat remained in the same position for some time, she turned to me.

“Get the vacuum cleaner from the closet, Lizzie,” she said, “and take the thing off the end of the tube. We shall then be able to capture the creature without cruelty.”

“And thed what?” said Aggie, with whom excitement always affects the nasal passages.

“We can consider that when the time comes,” Tish replied calmly.

Well, I brought the cleaner and, although the creature seemed suspicious when it began to operate, it allowed us to bring the end fairly close to it. In a short time the suction caught it; it was too large to go through the tube, but was held as securely as a butterfly impaled on a pin. It was certainly an ugly thing, and Tish surveyed it with distaste.

“We can release it,” she said thoughtfully, “or we can put it to a painless death.”

“Drowd it,” said Aggie in a bloodthirsty voice. “Drowdig is painless.”

Tish, however, had a better idea, and at once requested me to get some chloroform from the drugstore. This I did, and soon the bat lay still and quite dead on the floor. If anyone still doubts this story, it is only necessary to consult the pharmacist himself. And I myself put the chloroform bottle back in Tish’s closet, where, as the result of a single humane act, it was to be used so shockingly against her.

Aggie’s cries for help, however, had been heard, plus the smashing of one or two vases during the excitement; and as the janitor later circulated the rumor that we had actually had a battle in the apartment there was a distinct coldness to all of us among the neighbors.

It was for this reason that we went to the farm early the following spring. Also, the crime wave still continued. There was a rumor that the Lee family had been sent another threat and that the girl was in hiding somewhere; and one rainy night Aggie came in breathless from prayer meeting, to say that a man had followed her and tried to take her umbrella. When she screamed, he pretended that he had been merely following what he had thought was one of the young girls from the choir, but it was evident that no one was now safe, and Tish finally determined to seek sanctuary in the country.

B
EFORE WE MOVED
out we made a preliminary visit to the farm, and both Aggie and I were most favorably impressed. It had certain deficiencies, as I have noted, but it lay on a slope, with wooded mountains behind it, and below in the valley were the summer estates of several wealthy families.

Nevertheless, that night was to see the real beginning of our troubles. It was a calm and quiet evening, and we had no premonition whatever as, through the darkness, we drove in Tish’s car down the hill and onto the main road. I remember that Tish was commenting on the simplicity and honesty of the rural districts.

“The very air,” she said, “smells of peace. Who could imagine violence here, or trickery?”

And then it happened. We had just passed the driveway into one of the summer estates, when suddenly and without warning a man stepped into the road and waved a red lantern.

We had been moving rapidly, and as Tish suddenly applied the brakes I was thrown forward against the windshield with considerable force. When I recovered, Aggie was picking herself off the floor of the car, and as the man approached us she gave a wild shriek.