Tish Plays the Game (16 page)

He then disappeared, and one of the piles yielding somewhat, the car fell a foot or two more, while Aggie wailed and sneezed alternately. But Tish remained composed. She struck a match, and leaning over the side inspected the water and so on below us.

“There’s a boat down there, Lizzie,” she said. “Get the towrope from under Aggie and fasten it to something. If we can get down, we’ll be all right. The penitentiary isn’t more than a half mile from here.”

“I slide down no rope into no boat, Tish Carberry,” I said firmly.

But at that moment we heard the engine of a motorcycle coming along the road and realized that our enemy the policeman had followed us. And as at that same instant the car again slipped with a sickening jar, we were compelled to this heroic attempt after all.

However, it was managed without untoward incident, Aggie even salvaging the flask of blackberry cordial. But the boat was almost filled with water, and thus required frantic bailing with our hats, a matter only just accomplished when the motorcycle policeman came running onto the pier.

Whether the watchman had failed to tell him of the break or not, I cannot say, but we were no more than under way when we heard a splash followed by strangled oaths, and realized that for a time at least we were safe from pursuit.

Wet as we now were, we each took a small dose of the cordial and then fell to rowing. Tish’s watch showed only ten o’clock, and we felt greatly cheered and heartened. Also, as Tish said by way of comforting Aggie, the license plates on the car belonging to Mr. Stubbs, it was unlikely that we would be further involved for the present at least.

O
WING TO THE FACT
that the cars still in the hunt had all gone to the Duck Club, the brief delay had not lost us our lead, and we proceeded at once, after landing near the penitentiary, to the gate. Our halt there was brief. Tish merely said to the sentry at the entrance, “‘Good evening, dearie.’”

“The same to you and many of them,” he replied cheerfully, and unlocked the gate. We then found ourselves in a large courtyard, with the looming walls of the building before us, and on ringing the bell and repeating the phrase were at once admitted.

There were a number of men in uniform, who locked the grating behind us and showed us into an office where a young man was sitting at a desk.

I had an uneasy feeling the moment I saw him, and Aggie has since acknowledged the same thing. Instead of smiling as had the others, he simply pushed a large book toward us and asked us to sign our names.

“Register here, please,” was what he said.

“Register?” said Tish. “What for?”

“Like to have our guests’ names,” he said solemnly. “You’ll find your cells all ready for you. Very nice ones—view of the lake and everything. Front, show these ladies to their cells.”

Aggie gave a low moan, but Tish motioned her to be silent.

“Am I to understand you are holding us here?”

“That’s what we’re here for. We specialize in holding, if you know what I mean.”

“If it’s that fish pier—”

“Is it the fish pier?” the young man asked of two or three men around, but nobody seemed to know.

Tish cast a desperate glance about her.

“I may have made a mistake,” she said, “but would it mean anything to you if I said ‘Good evening, dearie’?”

“Why, it would mean a lot,” he said politely. “Any term of—er—affection, you know. I’m a soft-hearted man in spite of my business.”

But Tish was eying him, and now she leaned over the desk and asked very clearly:

“Have you got a closet where, neatly looped and tagged,

You keep the sturdy symbols of the game you’ve bagged?”

Suddenly all the guards laughed, and so did the young man.

“Well, well!” he said. “So that’s what brought you here, Miss Carberry? And all of us hoping you’d come for a nice little stay! Jim, take the ladies to the closet.”

Well, what with the accident and the hard rowing, as well as this recent fright, neither Aggie nor I was able to accompany Tish. I cannot therefore speak with authority; but knowing Tish as I do, I do not believe that Mrs. Cummings’ accusation as to what happened at this closet is based at all on facts.

Briefly, Mrs. Cummings insists that having taken out her own clew, Tish then placed on top of the others a number of similar envelopes containing cross-word puzzles, which caused a considerable delay, especially over the Arabic name for whirling dervishes. This not, indeed, being solved at all, somebody finally telephoned to Mr. Ostermaier to look it up in the encyclopedia, and he then stated that no cross-word puzzles had been included among the clews. Whereupon the mistake was rectified and the hunt proceeded.

As I say, we did not go with Tish to the closet and so cannot be certain, but I do know that the clew she brought us was perfectly correct, as follows:

Password: “All is discovered.”

“Where are you going, my pretty maid?”

“’Most anywhere else,” said she.

“Behind the grille is a sweet young man,

And he’ll give my clew to me.”

We had no more than read it when we heard a great honking of horns outside, and those who had survived trooped in. But alas, what a pitiful remnant was left! Only ten cars now remained out of twenty. The Smith boys had not been heard from, and the Phillipses had been arrested for speeding. Also Mr. Gilbert had gone into a ditch and was having a cut on his chin sewed up, the Jenningses’ car had had a flat tire and was somewhere behind in the road, and the Johnstons were in Backwater Creek, waiting for a boat to come to their rescue.

And we had only just listened to this tale of woe when Mrs. Cummings sailed up to Tish with an unpleasant smile and something in her hand.

“Your scissors, I believe, dear Miss Carberry,” she said. But Tish only eyed them stonily.

“Why should you think they are my scissors?” she inquired coldly.

“The eldest Smith boy told me to return them to you, with his compliments. He found them in the engine of his car.”

“In his car? What were they doing there?”

“That’s what I asked him. He said that you would know.”

“Two pairs of scissors are as alike as two pairs of pants,” Tish said calmly, and prepared to depart.

But our poor Aggie now stepped up and examined the things and began to sneeze with excitement.

“Why, Tish Carberry!” she exclaimed. “They are your scissors. There’s the broken point and everything. Well, if that isn’t the strangest thing!”

“Extraordinary,” said Mrs. Cummings. “Personally, I think it a matter for investigation.”

She then swept on, and we left the penitentiary. But once outside, the extreme discomfort of our situation soon became apparent. Not only were we wet through, so that Aggie’s sneezing was no longer alleviated by the clothespin, but Tish’s voice had become hardly more than a hoarse croaking. Also, we had no car in which to proceed. Indeed, apparently the treasure hunt was over so far as we were concerned. But once again I had not counted on Tish’s resourcefulness. We had no sooner emerged than she stopped in the darkness and held up her hand.

“Listen!” she said.

The motorcycle was approaching along the lake road, with that peculiar explosive sound so reminiscent of the machine gun Tish had used in the capture of X— during the war.

It was clear that we had but two courses of action—one to return to the penitentiary and seek sanctuary, the other to remain outside. And Tish, thinking rapidly, chose the second. She drew us into an embrasure of the great wall and warned us to be silent, especially Aggie.

“One sneeze,” she said, “and that wretch will have us. You’ll spend the night in jail.”

“I’d rather be there thad here any day,” said Aggie, shivering. However, she tried the clothespin once more, and for a wonder it worked.

“He’ll hear by teeth chatterig, I’b certaid,” she whispered.

“Take them out,” Tish ordered her, and she did so.

How strange, looking back, to think of the effect which that one small act was to have on the later events of the evening! How true it is that life is but a series of small deeds and great results! We turn to the left instead of the right and collide with a motorbus, or trip over the tail of an insignificant tea gown, like my Cousin Sarah Pennell, and fall downstairs and break a priceless bottle of medicinal brandy.

So Aggie took out her teeth and placed them in her ulster pocket, and tied her scarf over her mouth to prevent taking cold without them, and later on—

However, at the moment we were concentrated on the policeman. First he discovered and apparently examined the boat on the shore, and then, pushing and grunting, shoved his machine past us and up to the road. There he left it, the engine still going, and went toward the penitentiary, whistling softly and plainly outlined against the lights of the cars outside. A moment later Tish had led us to the motorcycle and was examining the mechanism by the aid of the flashlight.

“It looks easy enough,” she said in her usual composed manner. “Lizzie, get into the side car and take Aggie on your lap—and hold on to her. I wish no repetition of the Miss Watkins incident.”

We watched for a short time, hoping the policeman would go inside, but he was talking to the Cummingses’ chauffeur, who seemed to be pointing in our direction. Seeing then that no time was to be lost, Tish hastily adjusted her goggles and pulled down her hat, and being already in knickerbockers, got quickly into the saddle. With the first explosion of the engine the motorcycle officer looked up, and an instant later began to run in our direction.

But I saw no more. Tish started the machine at full speed, and to a loud cry from Aggie we were off with a terrific jerk.

“By deck’s broked!” she cried. “Stop her! By deck’s broked!”

Her neck was not broken, however, I am happy to say, and the osteopath who is attending her, promises that she will soon be able to turn her head.

How shall I describe the next brief interval of time? To those who have ridden in such fashion, no description is necessary; and to those who have not, words are inadequate. And, in addition, while it was speedily apparent that we were leaving our pursuers behind—for the Cummingses’ car followed us for some distance, with the policeman on the running board—it was also soon apparent that our dear Tish had entirely lost control of the machine.

Unable to turn her eyes from the road to examine the various controls, an occasional flash of lightning from an approaching storm showed her fumbling blindly with the mechanism. Farmhouses loomed up and were gone in an instant; on several curves the side car was high in the air, and more than once our poor Aggie almost left us entirely. As the lightning became more frequent we could see frightened animals running across the fields; and finally, by an unforunate swerve, we struck and went entirely through some unseen obstacle, which later proved to be
a
fence.

However, what might have been a tragedy worked out to the best possible advantage, for another flash revealing a large haystack nearby, Tish turned the machine toward it with her usual farsightedness and we struck it fairly in the center. So great was our impact, indeed, that we penetrated it to a considerable distance and were almost buried, but we got out without difficulty and also extricated the machine. Save for Aggie’s neck, we were unhurt; and the rain coming up just then, we retired once more into the stack and with the aid of the flash again read over the clew:

“Where are you going, my pretty maid?”

“‘Most anywhere else,” said she.

“Behind the grille is a nice young man.

And he’ll give my clew to me.”

“Going?” said Tish thoughtfully. “‘’Most anywhere else’? There’s no sense to that.” The hay, however, had brought back Aggie’s hay fever, and as sneezing hurt her neck, she was utterly wretched.

“There’s a heap of sedse,” she said in a petulant voice. “Bost adywhere else would suit be all right. Ad if you’re goig to try that dabbed bachide agaid, Tish Carberry, I ab dot.”

“If you must swear, Aggie,” Tish reproved her, “go outside, and do not pollute the clean and wholesome fragrance of this hay.”

“I’d have said worse if I knew adythig worse,” said Aggie. “And bebbe this hay is wholesobe, but if you had by dose you wouldn’t thig so.”

“Grille?” said Tish. “A nice young man behind a grille? Is there a grillroom at the Eden Inn?”

But we could not remember any, and we finally hit on the all-night restaurant in town, which had.

“‘’Most anywhere else’ must refer to that,” Tish said. “The food is probably extremely poor. And while there we can get a sandwich or so and eat it on the way. I confess to a feeling of weakness.”

“Weakness!” said Aggie bitterly. “Thed I dod’t ever wadt to see you goig strog, Tish Carberry!”

It was owing to Aggie’s insistence that Tish test out the mechanism of the motorcycle before any of us mounted again that our next misfortune occurred. So far, when one thing failed us, at least we had been lucky enough to find a substitute at hand, but in this instance we were for a time at a loss.

It happened as follows: As soon as the rain ceased, Tish, flashlight in hand, went to the machine and made a few experiments with it. At first all went well, but suddenly something happened, I know not what, and in a second the motorcycle had darted out of our sight and soon after out of hearing, leaving our dear Tish still with a hand out and me holding a flashlight on the empty air. Pursuit was useless, and, after a few moments, inadvisable, for as it reached the highroad it apparently struck something with extreme violence.

“If that’s a house it’s docked it dowd,” Aggie wailed.

But as we were to learn later, it had not struck a house, but something far more significant. Of that also more later on.

Our situation now was extremely unpleasant. Although the storm was over, it was almost eleven o’clock, and at any time we expected to see the other cars dashing past toward victory. To walk back to town was out of the question in the condition of Aggie’s neck. Yet what else could we do? However, Tish had not exhausted all her resources.