Tish Marches On

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  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.

  II

  BEFORE 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.

  “He’s a bandit, Tish!” she gasped. “He’s got a gun!”

  We could now observe him distinctly, and a more dreadful figure I have never seen. He wore a handkerchief tied over his face, and as he came striding toward us he looked enormous in that light. But his first words surprised us.

  “You little fool!” he said. “Did you think you’d got away with it?”

  Tish had recovered her speech by that time, and she answered him indignantly.

  “I object to your language,” she said coldly. “As to getting away with anything—Give him my purse, Lizzie. It has two dollars and sixty-five cents in it. If that is the value he places on his immortal soul—”

  To my surprise, however, he did not take the purse. Instead, he merely lifted the lantern and inspected us, and then, to our horror, he began to laugh. It took him some time to stop, and when he spoke it was in a choked voice.

  “My apologies, ladies,” he said. “You see, I thought—But never mind what I thought. Just drive on and forget it.”

  “And leave you to attack other innocent women?” Tish demanded.

  “Oh, come, come,” he said. “I haven’t attacked you, have I? You’ve still got your two dollars and sixty-five cents. You’ve still got your—er—honor.” Here he paused and inspected the car, which is far from new. “You’ve still got your automobile too. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?”

  Tish, however, was not satisfied. He had quite a cultivated voice, and was evidently far above the usual gangster in type.
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  “Something quite dreadful must have driven you to the highway,” she said. “Surely you have people, a family, perhaps even a mother. What would she say, could she see you now?”

  This seemed to touch him, for he was silent for a moment.

  Then he said:

  “I am sorry, ladies, but I cannot discuss such subjects. They are too sacred. When I think of my home—” He seemed suddenly overcome with emotion. “Drive on and forget me,” he said huskily. “If anyone had told me six months ago that I would be standing in this road with a gun in my hand—But enough of that,” he said, his voice growing hard. “Tell me,” he went on, “have any of you seen a car something like this tonight, containing a redheaded girl who looks like a forest fire and has a disposition like a wildcat?”

  We had not, and said so. Whereupon he gave what sounded like a groan, and seemed to take a tighter grip on his revolver.

  “It’s as well,” he said ominously. “It’s as well, and then some. Because if I ever lay my hands on that imp of Satan I shall make her stand for a week.”

  “Stand!” Aggie repeated.

  “Stand,” he said firmly. “She’ll stand because she won’t want to sit. I’m fed up. I’m fed up so full that I’m practically gorged. If she comes here tonight, she’ll be sorry. That’s all.”

  We all felt most uneasy, and Tish inquired if he would dare to mistreat a young and innocent girl in that manner. At this, however, he gave a hollow laugh.

  “Young and innocent!” he said bitterly. “Listen to me. She may be young, all right, but she’s been raising hell ever since she wore diapers. If she thinks she can get away with this, she’s mistaken her man. That’s all.” But he saw our faces at that moment, and added: “Don’t worry; I shan’t kill her. That would be too easy! All right, ladies. Just move along and forget you saw me.”

  He then stepped back into the bushes, and Tish started the car again. Aggie was sneezing with excitement, and I must say that even Tish seemed slightly upset. In fact, we had gone only half a mile or so when she suddenly stopped the car.

  “We must go back,” she said in a determined voice. “He dislikes that girl intensely, and I don’t believe he is a bandit. He is probably a discarded lover, and as such is dangerous. We must not leave her to her fate, whatever it may be.”

  I remember begging her not to do anything so rash, and Aggie flatly refused to leave the car. However, anyone who knows Tish Carberry and her hatred of wrong and injustice will know that nothing moved her. She was already on her way, and as I was unwilling to leave her to her fate I followed her. The last sound I heard was our poor Aggie sneezing in the car.

  It was indeed a strange journey, for soon Tish left the road and took to the fields. In the darkness it was quite impossible to see, and at least twice I was caught in barbed wire, and once I stepped into a mud hole and lost a shoe, with no chance of retrieving it.

  At last, however, we were behind the embankment where we had been held up, and could plainly see the bandit, or whatever he was, lurking beside the road. He had dropped the mask and was smoking a cigarette, but he was evidently still in a bad humor, for once he lighted a match and looked at his watch, and we could hear him swearing in a most unseemly manner.

  We waited there for two hours.

  It was certainly a dreadful time. I was cramped, the air was cold, and to add to our anxiety, every now and then a car would come along and he would flag it. But nothing really occurred until midnight, when a car came along very swiftly, and he seemed to know it at once.

  I felt Tish brace herself beside me as he waved the lantern, and my heart sank as the car stopped.

  “What’s the matter?” called a clear girlish voice.

  “Get out of that car,” he said in a most surly manner. “What the hell do you mean by stealing it and running away? Get out, I tell you!”

  And then followed a most surprising situation, for the girl merely sat still.

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” she said in a tired voice. “It’s you again, is it? Get out of my way or I’ll run over you.”

  She actually started the engine, and with a furious step he was beside her. In the excitement the handkerchief fell off his face, but he did not seem to notice it.

  “Listen,” he said; “you’re a pestiferous little idiot, and for two cents I’d yank you out of that car and shake some sense into you. Where have you been?”

  “That’s my business,” she said angrily. “And if you think I’m afraid of you, you can think again. You and your wooden gun!”

  In a second she had stepped on the gas and the car was moving. That, however, was apparently more than he could bear, for at once two shots rang out and the car ran straight into the ditch and stopped.

  It was so horrible that I could not even scream, and indeed it was some days later before we knew that one of the bullets had gone through Tish’s hat from front to back.

  As it was, there was a dreadful silence, and we expected to find the poor child slumped in her seat. But to our surprise she began to crawl out of the car.

  “You would think of that,” she said bitterly. “And they’re your tires. Don’t ask me to pay for them.”

  “All right,” he said. “You asked for it and you got it. Now you can walk home and like it.”

  Well, I must say we were puzzled; especially as all he did after that was to turn off the road and disappear, leaving her standing there. When Tish and I reached her, however, she seemed quite composed. She got out a cigarette and lit it, and then coolly looked us over.

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” she said, “but there is no corpse. That was just a friend of mine. He gets steamed up like that now and then.”

  “Then he is a danger to the community and should be locked up,” said Tish grimly.

  For some reason that seemed to amuse her; but after a moment she looked toward the car in the ditch and scowled.

  “I’ll get him for that,” she said in an ominous tone. “He may think he has his troubles, but he hasn’t started yet.”

  With that she left us abruptly, and the last we saw the car was still in the ditch and she was walking up the road, alone.

  All in all, it was most bewildering, and Tish spoke only once.

  “It may be,” she said, “that this is the love-making of a strange and new generation. I believe they have changed greatly from my mother’s day. But if it is not—”

  That was indeed a portentous and most unhappy night, for, on reaching the car, our dear Aggie was not in it, and a peculiar and overwhelming odor pervaded the entire atmosphere. It was not for some time that we located her among some bushes, and then she stated that a kitten had jumped into the car and she had petted it, with dire results.

  We had some difficulty in getting her out of her retreat, for she had abandoned most of her clothing; but at last we did so, and it was on our way into town, with Aggie clad largely in a motor rug, that I voiced my first uncertainty as to the country as a place of residence.

  “I can stand a great deal, Tish,” I said, “but I prefer my bandits in the city, where there are policemen, and my skunks made into furs. If this is a peaceful country evening, I’m not strong enough for any more.”

  I believe even our dear Tish was shaken for the moment, especially when the man at the garage merely took one sniff and then refused to let the car inside the place. But he offered to turn a hose inside it as it stood outside the garage and let the water run the rest of the night, and at last we went home.

  I must admit, however, that for some time after, we could see people on the sidewalks turn and sniff as we passed them in the street; and for several weeks dogs, of which Aggie is fond, would approach her in friendly fashion and then turn and run like all-possessed.

  III

  WE DID NOT GO to the farm at once. Aggie had taken a heavy cold, due to scant apparel that night and to three or four baths every day for some time following. But the incident of the bandit and the lantern led to an unforeseen experience in th
e interval.

  We were taking an evening drive to get some eggs from Jeremiah Tibbs, the caretaker at the farm, when we again saw a man waving a red lantern. This time, however, Tish did not stop. She stepped hard on the gas instead; the next instant there was a most terrible crash, and we went entirely through the side of a house that was being moved and which practically filled the road.

  There was a complete and dreadful silence for a moment. Then the plaster dust began to settle and I could see where we were. We were inside the building, with the top of the car gone, but no other injuries; and a tall, nice-looking young man who had been frying bacon over a stove by the light of a candle was gazing at us with surprise.

  “Well!” he said. “Welcome to our city! There is a door, but maybe you didn’t notice it.”

  There was quite an excitement for a while; the man on the tractor which was pulling the building stating that the bump had broken his nose, and the man with the lantern stating that Tish had tried to run over him. In the end, however, matters quieted, although it required some time to extricate us, and I must say the young man behaved beautifully. He cooked us some more bacon while our car was being extricated, and, after coffee and a taste of the cordial which we always carry, even became quite talkative.

  He was, he said, a writer by profession, and, as such, liked to carry his house with him.

  “Matter of convenience,” he said pleasantly. “Toothbrush always where it ought to be, and so on. The lowly turtle lives like that and seems to like it. Just now I got tired of where I was; same creek, same cows eating the geraniums—you get the idea, of course. So I decided to change the view. It’s really very simple when you know how. The only drawback is that traveling in this manner is monotonous. The landscape changes too slowly.”

  Well, we were all pleased with him, and glad to find that he had rented a piece of meadow just below Tish’s farm. He said his name was Bellamy, and seemed disappointed when we had never heard of him. He smiled, however, and merely observed that such is fame.