The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  "Do you know why he's here?"

  He looked uneasy for once.

  "Well, I've got a theory," he replied; but, though his voice was calm, he changed color.

  "Then perhaps you'll tell me what that signal means?"

  Tish gave him the glasses and he saw the red flag. I have never seen a man look so unhappy.

  "Holy cats!" he said, and almost dropped the glasses. "Why, he--he must be expecting somebody!"

  "So I should imagine," Tish commented dryly. "He sent a letter by the boat to-day."

  "The h--l he did!" And then: "That's ridiculous! You're mistaken. As a--as a matter of fact, I went over there the other night and commandeered his fountain pen."

  So it had not fallen out of his pocket!

  "I'll be frank, ladies," he said. "It's my object just now to keep that chap from writing letters. It doesn't matter why, but it's vital."

  He was horribly cast down when we told him about Hutchins and the pen and ink.

  "So that's it!" he said gloomily. "And the flag's a signal, of course. Ladies, you have done it out of the kindness of your hearts, I know; but I think you have wrecked my life."

  He took a gloomy departure and left us all rather wrought up. Who were we, as Tish said, to imperil a fellow man? And another thing--if there was a reward on him, why should we give it to a red-haired detective, who was rude to harmless animals and ate canned corn for breakfast?

  With her customary acumen Tish solved the difficulty that very evening.

  "The simplest thing," she said, "of course, would be to go over during the night and take the flag away; but he may have more red handkerchiefs. Then, too, he seems to be a light sleeper, and it would be awkward to have him shoot at us."

  She sat in thought for quite a while. Hutchins was watching the sunset, and seemed depressed and silent. Tish lowered her voice.

  "There's no reason why we shouldn't have a red flag, too," she said. "It gives us an even chance to get in on whatever is about to happen. We can warn Mr. McDonald, for one thing, if any one comes here. Personally I think he is unjustly suspected."

  [But Tish was to change her mind very soon.]

  We made the flag that night, by lantern light, out of Tish's red silk petticoat. Hutchins was curious, I am sure; but we explained nothing. And we fastened it obliquely over the river, like the one on the other side.

  Tish's change of heart, which occurred the next morning, was due to a most unfortunate accident that happened to her at nine o'clock. Hutchins, who could swim like a duck, was teaching Tish to swim, and she was learning nicely. Tish had put a life-preserver on, with a clothes-line fastened to it, and Aggie was sitting on the bank holding the rope while she went through the various gestures.

  Having completed the lesson Hutchins went into the woods for red raspberries, leaving Tish still practicing in the water with Aggie holding the rope. Happening to sneeze, the line slipped out of her hand, and she had the agonizing experience of seeing Tish carried away by the current.

  I was washing some clothing in the river a few yards down the stream when Tish came floating past. I shall never forget her expression or my own sense of absolute helplessness.

  "Get the canoe," said Tish, "and follow. I'm heading for Island Eleven."

  [Illustration: "Get the canoe and follow. I'm heading for Island Eleven"]

  She was quite calm, though pale; but, in her anxiety to keep well above the water, she did what was almost a fatal thing--she pushed the life-preserver lower down round her body. And having shifted the floating center, so to speak, without warning her head disappeared and her feet rose in the air.

  For a time it looked as though she would drown in that position; but Tish rarely loses her presence of mind. She said she knew at once what was wrong. So, though somewhat handicapped by the position, she replaced the cork belt under her arms and emerged at last.

  Aggie had started back into the woods for Hutchins; but, with one thing and another, it was almost ten before they returned together. Tish by that time was only a dot on the horizon through the binocular, having missed Island Eleven, as she explained later, by the rope being caught on a submerged log, which deflected her course.

  We got into the motor boat and followed her, and, except for a most unjust sense of irritation that I had not drowned myself by following her in the canoe, she was unharmed. We got her into the motor boat and into a blanket, and Aggie gave her some blackberry cordial at once. It was some time before her teeth ceased chattering so she could speak. When she did it was to announce that she had made a discovery.

  "He's a spy, all right!" she said. "And that Indian is another. Neither of them saw me as I floated past. They were on Island Eleven. Mr. McDonald wrote something and gave it to the Indian. It wasn't a letter or he'd have sent it by the boat. He didn't even put it in an envelope, so far as I could see. It's probably in cipher."

  Well, we took her home, and she had a boiled egg at dinner.

  The rest of us had fish. It is one of Tish's theories that fish should only be captured for food, and that all fish caught must be eaten. I do not know when I have seen fish come as easy. Perhaps it was the worms, which had grown both long and fat, so that one was too much for a hook; and we cut them with scissors, like tape or ribbon. Aggie and I finally got so sick of fish that while Tish's head was turned we dropped in our lines without bait. But, even at that, Aggie, reeling in her line to go home, caught a three-pound bass through the gills and could not shake it off.

  We tried to persuade Tish to lie down that afternoon, but she refused.

  "I'm not sick," she said, "even if you two idiots did try to drown me. And I'm on the track of something. If that was a letter, why didn't he send it by the boat?"

  Just then her eye fell on the flagpole, and we followed her horrified gaze. The flag had been neatly cut away!

  Tish's eyes narrowed. She looked positively dangerous; and within five minutes she had cut another flag out of the back breadth of the petticoat and flung it defiantly in the air. Who had cut away the signal--McDonald or the detective? We had planned to investigate the nameless lake that afternoon, Tish being like Colonel Roosevelt in her thirst for information, as well as in the grim pugnacity that is her dominant characteristic; but at the last minute she decided not to go.

  "You and Aggie go, Lizzie," she said. "I've got something on hand."

  "Tish!" Aggie wailed. "You'll drown yourself or something."

  "Don't be a fool!" Tish snapped. "There's a portage, but you and Lizzie can carry the canoe across on your heads. I've seen pictures of it. It's easy. And keep your eyes open for a wireless outfit. There's one about, that's sure!"

  "Lots of good it will do to keep our eyes open," I said with some bitterness, "with our heads inside the canoe!"

  We finally started and Hutchins went with us. It was Hutchins, too, who voiced the way we all felt when we had crossed the river and were preparing for what she called the portage.

  "She wants to get us out of the way, Miss Lizzie," she said. "Can you imagine what mischief she's up to?"

  "That is not a polite way to speak of Miss Tish, Hutchins," I said coldly. Nevertheless, my heart sank.

  Hutchins and I carried the canoe. It was a hot day and there was no path. Aggie, who likes a cup of hot tea at five o'clock, had brought along a bottle filled with tea, and a small basket containing sugar and cups.

  Personally I never had less curiosity about a lake. As a matter of fact I wished there was no lake. Twice--being obliged, as it were, to walk blindly and the canoe being excessively heavy--I, who led the way, ran the front end of the thing against the trunk of a tree, and both Hutchins and I sat down violently, under the canoe as a result of the impact.

  To add to the discomfort of the situation Aggie declared that we were being followed by a bear, and at the same instant stepped into a swamp up to her knees. She became calm at once, with the calmness of despair.

  "Go and leave me, Lizzie!" she said. "He is just behind those bushes. I
may sink before he gets me--that's one comfort."

  Hutchins found a log and, standing on it, tried to pull her up; but she seemed firmly fastened. Aggie went quite white; and, almost beside myself, I poured her a cup of hot tea, which she drank. I remember she murmured Mr. Wiggins's name, and immediately after she yelled that the bear was coming.

  It was, however, the detective who emerged from the bushes. He got Aggie out with one good heave, leaving both her shoes gone forever; and while she collapsed, whimpering, he folded his arms and stared at all of us angrily.

  "What sort of damnable idiocy is this?" he demanded in a most unpleasant tone.

  Aggie revived and sat upright.

  "That's our affair, isn't it?" said Hutchins curtly.

  "Not by a blamed sight!" was his astonishing reply.

  "The next time I am sinking in a morass, let me sink," Aggie said, with simple dignity.

  He did not speak another word, but gave each of us a glance of the most deadly contempt, and finished up with Hutchins.

  "What I don't understand," he said furiously, "is why you have to lend yourself to this senile idiocy. Because some old women choose to sink themselves in a swamp is no reason why you should commit suicide!"

  Aggie said afterward only the recollection that he had saved her life prevented her emptying the tea on him. I should hardly have known Hutchins.

  "Naturally," she said in a voice thick with fury, "you are in a position to insult these ladies, and you do. But I warn you, if you intend to keep on, this swamp is nothing. We like it here. We may stay for months. I hope you have your life insured."

  Perhaps we should have understood it all then. Of course Charlie Sands, for whom I am writing this, will by this time, with his keen mind, comprehend it all; but I assure you we suspected nothing.

  How simple, when you line it up: The country house and the garden hose; the detective, with no camp equipment; Mr. McDonald and the green canoe; the letter on the train; the red flag; the girl in the pink tam-o'-shanter--who has not yet appeared, but will shortly; Mr. McDonald's incriminating list--also not yet, but soon.

  How inevitably they led to what Charlie Sands has called our crime!

  The detective, who was evidently very strong, only glared at her. Then he swung the canoe up on his head and, turning about, started back the way we had come. Though Hutchins and Aggie were raging, I was resigned. My neck was stiff and my shoulders ached. We finished our tea in silence and then made our way back to the river.

  I have now reached Tish's adventure. It is not my intention in this record to defend Tish. She thought her conclusions were correct. Charlie Sands says she is like Shaw--she has got a crooked point of view, but she believes she is seeing straight. And, after a while, if you look her way long enough you get a sort of mental astigmatism.

  So I shall confess at once that, at the time, I saw nothing immoral in what she did that afternoon while we were having our adventure in the swamp.

  I was putting cloths wrung out of arnica and hot water on my neck when she came home, and Hutchins was baking biscuit--she was a marvelous cook, though Aggie, who washed the dishes, objected to the number of pans she used.

  Tish ignored both my neck and the biscuits, and, marching up the bank, got her shotgun from the tent and loaded it.

  "We may be attacked at any time," she said briefly; and, getting the binocular, she searched the river with a splendid sweeping glance. "At any time. Hutchins, take these glasses, please, and watch that we are not disturbed."

  "I'm baking biscuit, Miss Letitia."

  "Biscuit!" said Tish scornfully. "Biscuit in times like these?"

  She walked up to the camp stove and threw the oven door open; but, though I believe she had meant to fling them into the river, she changed her mind when she saw them.

  "Open a jar of honey, Hutchins," she said, and closed the oven; but her voice was abstracted. "You can watch the river from the stove, Hutchins," she went on. "Miss Aggie and Miss Lizzie and I must confer together."

  So we went into the tent, and Tish closed and fastened it.

  "Now," she said, "I've got the papers."

  "Papers?"

  "The ones Mr. McDonald gave that Indian this morning. I had an idea he'd still have them. You can't hurry an Indian. I waited in the bushes until he went in swimming. Then I went through his pockets."

  "Tish Carberry!" cried Aggie.

  "These are not times to be squeamish," Tish said loftily. "I'm neutral; of course; but Great Britain has had this war forced on her and I'm going to see that she has a fair show. I've ordered all my stockings from the same shop in London, for twenty years, and squarer people never lived. Look at these--how innocent they look, until one knows!"

  She produced two papers from inside her waist. I must confess that, at first glance, I saw nothing remarkable.

  "The first one looks," said Tish, "like a grocery order. It's meant to look like that. It's relieved my mind of one thing--McDonald's got no wireless or he wouldn't be sending cipher messages by an Indian."

  It was written on a page torn out of a pocket notebook and the page was ruled with an inch margin at the left. This was the document:--

  1 Dozen eggs. 20 Yards fishing-line. 1 pkg. Needles--anything to sew a button on. 1 doz. A B C bass hooks. 3 lbs. Meat--anything so it isn't fish. 1 bot. Ink for fountain pen. 3 Tins sardines. 1 Extractor.

  Well, I could not make anything of it; but, of course, I have not Tish's mind. Aggie was almost as bad.

  "What's an extractor?" she asked.

  "Exactly!" said Tish. "What is an extractor? Is the fellow going to pull teeth? No! He needed an e; so he made up a word."

  She ran her finger down the first letters of the second column. "D-y-n-a-m-i-t-e!" she said triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you?"

  IV

  Well, there it was--staring at us. I felt positively chilled. He looked so young and agreeable, and, as Aggie said, he had such nice teeth. And to know him for what he was--it was tragic! But that was not all.

  "Add the numbers!" said Tish. "Thirty-one tons, perhaps, of dynamite! And that's only part," said Tish. "Here's the most damning thing of all--a note to his accomplice!"

  "Damning" is here used in the sense of condemnatory. We are none of us addicted to profanity.

  We read the other paper, which had been in a sealed envelope, but without superscription. It is before me as I write, and I am copying it exactly:--

  I shall have to see you. I'm going crazy! Don't you realize that this is a matter of life and death to me? Come to Island Eleven to-night, won't you? And give me a chance to talk, anyhow. Something has got to be done and done soon. I'm desperate!

  Aggie sneezed three times in sheer excitement; for anyone can see how absolutely incriminating the letter was. It was not signed, but it was in the same writing as the list.

  Tish, who knows something about everything, said the writing denoted an unscrupulous and violent nature.

  "The y is especially vicious," she said. "I wouldn't trust a man who made a y like that to carry a sick child to the doctor!"

  The thing, of course, was to decide at once what measures to take. The boat would not come again for two days, and to send a letter by it to the town marshal or sheriff, or whatever the official is in Canada who takes charge of spies, would be another loss of time.

  "Just one thing," said Tish. "I'll plan this out and find some way to deal with the wretch; but I wouldn't say anything to Hutchins. She's a nice little thing, though she is a fool about a motor boat. There's no case in scaring her."

  For some reason or other, however, Hutchins was out of spirits that night.

  "I hope you're not sick, Hutchins?" said Tish.

  "No, indeed, Miss Tish."

  "You're not eating your fish."

  "I'm sick of fish," she said calmly. "I've eaten so much fish that when I see a hook I have a mad desire to go and hang myself on it."

  "Fish," said Tish grimly, "is good for the brain. I do not care to boast, but
never has my mind been so clear as it is to-night."

  Now certainly, though Tish's tone was severe, there was nothing in it to hurt the girl; but she got up from the cracker box on which she was sitting, with her eyes filled with tears.

  "Don't mind me. I'm a silly fool," she said; and went down to the river and stood looking out over it.

  It quite spoiled our evening. Aggie made her a hot lemonade and, I believe, talked to her about Mr. Wiggins, and how, when he was living, she had had fits of weeping without apparent cause. But if the girl was in love, as we surmised, she said nothing about it. She insisted that it was too much fish and nervous strain about the Mebbe.

  "I never know," she said, "when we start out whether we're going to get back or be marooned and starve to death on some island."

  Tish said afterward that her subconscious self must have taken the word "marooned" and played with it; for in ten minutes or so her plan popped into her head.

  "'Full-panoplied from the head of Jove,' Lizzie," she said. "Really, it is not necessary to think if one only has faith. The supermind does it all without effort. I do not dislike the young man; but I must do my duty."

  Tish's plan was simplicity itself. We were to steal his canoe.

  "Then we'll have him," she finished. "The current's too strong there for him to swim to the mainland."

  "He might try it and drown," Aggie objected. "Spy or no spy, he's somebody's son."

  "War is no time to be chicken-hearted," Tish replied.

  I confess I ate little all that day. At noon Mr. McDonald came and borrowed two eggs from us.

  "I've sent over to a store across country, by my Indian guide, philosopher, and friend," he said, "for some things I needed; but I dare say he's reading Byron somewhere and has forgotten it."

  "Guide, philosopher, and friend!" I caught Tish's eye. McDonald had written the Updike letter! McDonald had meant to use our respectability to take him across the border!

  We gave him the eggs, but Tish said afterward she was not deceived for a moment.

  "The Indian has told him," she said, "and he's allaying our suspicions. Oh, he's clever enough! 'Know the Indian mind and my own!'" she quoted from the Updike letter. "'I know Canada thoroughly.' 'My object is not money.' I should think not!"