Tish: The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  TISH'S SPY

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED-HEADED DETECTIVE, THE LADY CHAUFFEUR, AND THEMAN WHO COULD NOT TELL THE TRUTH

  I

  It is easy enough, of course, to look back on our Canadian experienceand see where we went wrong. What I particularly resent is the attitudeof Charlie Sands.

  I am writing this for his benefit. It seems to me that a clean statementof the case is due to Tish, and, in less degree, to Aggie and myself.

  It goes back long before the mysterious cipher. Even the incident of ourabducting the girl in the pink tam-o'-shanter was, after all, theinevitable result of the series of occurrences that preceded it.

  It is my intention to give this series of occurrences in their properorder and without bias. Herbert Spencer says that every act of one'slife is the unavoidable result of every act that has preceded it.

  Naturally, therefore, I begin with the engagement by Tish of a girl aschauffeur; but even before that there were contributing causes. Therewas the faulty rearing of the McDonald youth, for instance, and Tish'saesthetic dancing. And afterward there was Aggie's hay fever, which madeher sneeze and let go of a rope at a critical moment. Indeed, Aggie'shay fever may be said to be one of the fundamental causes, being thereason we went to Canada.

  It was like this: Along in June of the year before last, Aggie suddenlyannounced that she was going to spend the summer in Canada.

  "It's the best thing in the world for hay fever," she said, avoidingTish's eye. "Mrs. Ostermaier says she never sneezed once last year. TheNorthern Lights fill the air with ozone, or something like that."

  "Fill the air with ozone!" Tish scoffed. "Fill Mrs. Ostermaier's skullwith ozone, instead of brains, more likely!"

  Tish is a good woman--a sweet woman, indeed; but she has a vein ofgentle irony, which she inherited from her maternal grandfather, who wason the Supreme Bench of his country. However, that spring she wasinclined to be irritable. She could not drive her car, and that waswhere the trouble really started.

  Tish had taken up aesthetic dancing in Mareb, wearing no stays and amiddy blouse and short skirt; and during a fairy dance, where she was totwirl on her right toes, keeping the three other limbs horizontal, shetwisted her right lower limb severely. Though not incapacitated, shecould not use it properly; and, failing one day to put on the brakequickly, she drove into an open-front butter-and-egg shop.

  [This was the time one of the newspapers headed the article: "Even theEggs Scrambled."]

  When Tish decided to have a chauffeur for a time she advertised. Therewere plenty of replies, but all of the applicants smoked cigarettes--ahabit Tish very properly deplores. The idea of securing a young womanwas, I must confess, mine.

  "Plenty of young women drive cars," I said, "and drive well. And, atleast, they don't light a cigarette every time one stops to let a traingo by."

  "Huh!" Tish commented. "And have a raft of men about all the time!"

  Nevertheless, she acted on the suggestion, advertising for a young womanwho could drive a car and had no followers. Hutchins answered.

  She was very pretty and not over twenty; but, asked about men, her faceunderwent a change, almost a hardening. "You'll not be bothered withmen," she said briefly. "I detest them!"

  And this seemed to be the truth. Charlie Sands, for instance, for whosebenefit this is being written, absolutely failed to make any impressionon her. She met his overtures with cold disdain. She was also adamantto the men at the garage, succeeding in having the gasoline filteredthrough a chamois skin to take out the water, where Tish had for yearsbegged for the same thing without success.

  Though a dashing driver, Hutchins was careful. She sat on the small ofher back and hurled us past the traffic policemen with a smile.

  [Her name was really Hutchinson; but it took so long to say it at therate she ran the car that Tish changed it to Hutchins.]

  Really the whole experiment seemed to be an undoubted success, whenAggie got the notion of Canada into her head. Now, as it happened,owing to Tish's disapproval, Aggie gave up the Canada idea in favorof Nantucket, some time in June; but she had not reckoned with Tish'ssubconscious self. Tish was interested that spring in the subconsciousself.

  You may remember that, only a year or so before, it had been the fourthdimension.

  [She became convinced that if one were sufficiently earnest one could gothrough closed doors and see into solids. In the former ambition she wasunsuccessful, obtaining only bruises and disappointment; but she diddevelop the latter to a certain extent, for she met the laundress goingout one day and, without a conscious effort, she knew that she had thebest table napkins pinned to her petticoat. She accused the womansternly--and she had six!]

  "Nantucket!" said Tish. "Why Nantucket?"

  "I have a niece there, and you said you hated Canada."

  "On the contrary," Tish replied, with her eyes partly shut, "I findthat my subconscious self has adopted and been working on the Canadiansuggestion. What a wonderful thing is this buried and greater ego!Worms, rifles, fishing-rods, 'The Complete Angler,' mosquito netting,canned goods, and sleeping-bags, all in my mind and in orderly array!"

  "Worms!" I said, with, I confess, a touch of scorn in my voice. "If youwill tell me, Tish Carberry--"

  "Life preservers," chanted Tish's subconscious self, "rubber blankets,small tent, folding camp-beds, a camp-stove, a meat-saw, a wood-saw,and some beads and gewgaws for placating the Indians." Then she openedher eyes and took up her knitting. "There are no worms in Canada,Lizzie, just as there are no snakes in Ireland. They were all destroyedduring the glacial period."

  "There are plenty of worms in the United States," I said with spirit."I dare say they could crawl over the border--unless, of course, theyobject to being British subjects."

  She ignored me, however, and, getting up, went to one of her bureaudrawers. We saw then that her subconscious self had written downlists of various things for the Canadian excursion. There was oneheaded Foodstuffs. Others were: Necessary Clothing: Camp Outfit;Fishing-Tackle; Weapons of Defense: and Diversions. Under this lastheading it had placed binoculars, yarn and needles, life preservers,a prayer-book, and a cribbage-board.

  "Boats," she said, "we can secure from the Indians, who make them, Ibelieve, of hollow logs. And I shall rent a motor boat. Hutchins saysshe can manage one. When she's not doing that she can wash dishes."

  [We had been rather chary of motor boats, you may remember, since thetime on Lake Penzance, when something jammed on our engine, and we hadgone madly round the lake a number of times, with people on variousdocks trying to lasso us with ropes.]

  Considering that it was she who had started the whole thing, and gotTish's subconscious mind to working, Aggie was rather pettish.

  "Huh!" she said. "I can't swim, and you know it, Tish. Those canoethings turn over if you so much as sneeze in them."

  "You'll not sneeze," said Tish. "The Northern Lights fill the air withozone."

  Aggie looked at me helplessly; but I could do nothing. Only the yearbefore, Tish, as you may recall, had taken us out into the Maine woodswithout any outfit at all, and we had lived on snared rabbits, andthings that no Christian woman ought to put into her stomach. This timewe were at least to go provisioned and equipped.

  "Where are we going?" Aggie asked.

  "Far from a white man," said Tish. "Away from milk wagons and childrenon velocipedes and the grocer calling up every morning for an order.We'll go to the Far North, Aggie, where the red man still treads hisnative forests; we'll make our camp by some lake, where the deer come atearly morning to drink and fish leap to see the sunset."

  Well, it sounded rather refreshing, though I confess that, until Tishmentioned it, I had always thought that fish leaped in the evening tocatch mosquitoes.

  We sent for Hutchins at once. She was always respectful, but neversubservient. She stood in the doorway while Tish explained.

  "How far north?" she said crisply. Tish told her. "We'll have nocut-and-dried destination," she said. "There's
a little steamer goes upthe river I have in mind. We'll get off when we see a likely place."

  "Are you going for trout or bass?"

  Tish was rather uncertain, but she said bass on a chance, and Hutchinsnodded her approval.

  "If it's bass, I'll go," she said. "I'm not fond of trout-fishing."

  "We shall have a motor boat. Of course I shall not take the car."

  Hutchins agreed indifferently. "Don't you worry about the motor boat,"she said. "Sometimes they go, and sometimes they don't. And I'll helpround the camp; but I'll not wash dishes."

  "Why not?" Tish demanded.

  "The reason doesn't really matter, does it? What really concerns you isthe fact."

  Tish stared at her; but instead of quailing before Tish's majestic eyeshe laughed a little.

  "I've camped before," she said. "I'm very useful about a camp. I like tocook; but I won't wash dishes. I'd like, if you don't mind, to see thegrocery order before it goes."

  Well, Aggie likes to wash dishes if there is plenty of hot water; andHannah, Tish's maid, refusing to go with us on account of Indians, itseemed wisest to accept Hutchins's services.

  Hannah's defection was most unexpected. As soon as we reached ourdecision, Tish ordered beads for the Indians; and in the evenings westrung necklaces, and so on, while one of us read aloud from the worksof Cooper. On the second evening thus occupied, Hannah, who is allowedto come into Tish's sitting-room in the evening and knit, suddenlyburst into tears and refused to go.

  "My scalp's as good to me as it is to anybody, Miss Tish," she saidhysterically; and nothing would move her.

  She said she would run no risk of being cooked over her own camp-fire;and from that time on she would gaze at Tish for long periodsmournfully, as though she wanted to remember how she looked when she wasgone forever.

  Except for Hannah, everything moved smoothly. Tish told Charlie Sandsabout the plan, and he was quite enthusiastic.

  "Great scheme!" he said. "Eat a broiled black bass for me. And take theadvice of one who knows: don't skimp on your fishing-tackle. Get thebest. Go light on the canned goods, if necessary; but get the best reelsand lines on the market. Nothing in life hurts so much," he saidimpressively, "as to get a three-pound bass to the top of the water andhave your line break. I've had a big fellow get away like that and chaseme a mile with its thumb on its nose." This last, of course, was purelyfigurative.

  He went away whistling. I wish he had been less optimistic. When we cameback and told him the whole story, and he sat with his mouth open andhis hair, as he said, crackling at the roots, I reminded him with somebitterness that he had encouraged us. His only retort was to say thatthe excursion itself had been harmless enough; but that if three elderlyladies, church members in good standing, chose to become freebooters andpirates the moment they got away from a corner policeman, they need notblame him.

  The last thing he said that day in June was about fishing-worms.

  "Take 'em with you," he said. "They charge a cent apiece for them upthere, assorted colors, and there's something stolid and British about aCanadian worm. The fish aren't crazy about 'em. On the other hand, ourworms here are--er--vivacious, animated. I've seen a really brisk andon-to-its-job United States worm reach out and clutch a bass by thegills."

  I believe it was the next day that Tish went to the library and readabout worms. Aggie and I had spent the day buying tackle, according toCharlie Sands's advice. We got some very good rods with nickel-platedreels for two dollars and a quarter, a dozen assorted hooks for eachperson, and a dozen sinkers. The man wanted to sell us what he called a"landing net," but I took a good look at it and pinched Aggie.

  "I can make one out of a barrel hoop and mosquito netting," I whispered;so we did not buy it.

  Perhaps he thought we were novices, for he insisted on showing us allsorts of absurd things--trolling-hooks, he called them; gaff hooks forlanding big fish and a spoon that was certainly no spoon and did notfool us for a minute, being only a few hooks and a red feather. He askeda dollar and a quarter for it!

  [I made one that night at home, using a bit of red feather from aduster. It cost me just three cents. Of that, as of Hutchins, morelater.]

  Aggie, whose idea of Canada had been the Hotel Frontenac, had grownrather depressed as our preparations proceeded. She insisted that nighton recalling the fact that Mr. Wiggins had been almost drowned inCanada.

  "He went with the Roof and Gutter Club, Lizzie," she said, "and he was abeautiful swimmer; but the water comes from the North Pole, freezingcold, and the first thing he knew--"

  The telephone bell rang just then. It was Tish.

  "I've just come from the library, Lizzie," she said. "We'd better raisethe worms. We've got a month to do it in. Hutchins and I will be roundwith the car at eight o'clock to-night. Night is the time to get them."

  She refused to go into details, but asked us to have an electric flashor two ready and a couple of wooden pails. Also she said to wearmackintoshes and rubbers. Just before she rang off, she asked me to seethat there was a package of oatmeal on hand, but did not explain. When Itold Aggie she eyed me miserably.

  "I wish she'd be either more explicit or less," she said. "We'll bearrested again. I know it!"

  [Now and then Tish's enthusiasms have brought us into collision with thelaw--not that Tish has not every respect for law and order, but that sheis apt to be hasty and at times almost unconventional.]

  "You remember," said Aggie, "that time she tried to shoot the sheriff,thinking he was a train robber? She started just like this--reading upabout walking-tours, and all that. I--I'm nervous, Lizzie."

  I was staying with Aggie for a few days while my apartment was beingpapered. To soothe Aggie's nerves I read aloud from Gibbon's "Rome"until dinner-time, and she grew gradually calmer.

  "After all, Lizzie," she said, "she can't get us into mischief with twowooden pails and a package of oatmeal."

  Tish and Hutchins came promptly at eight and we got into the car. Tishwore the intent and dreamy look that always preceded her enterprises.There was a tin sprinkling-can, quite new, in the tonneau, and we placedour wooden pails beside it and the oatmeal in it. I confess I wascurious, but to my inquiries Tish made only one reply:--

  "Worms!"

  Now I do not like worms. I do not like to touch them. I do not even liketo look at them. As the machine went along I began to have a creepyloathing of them. Aggie must have been feeling the same way, for when myhand touched hers she squealed.

  Over her shoulder Tish told her plan. She said it was easy to getfishing-worms at night and that Hutchins knew of a place a few miles outof town where the family was away and where there would be plenty.

  "We'll put them in boxes of earth," she said, "and feed them coffee ortea grounds one day and oatmeal water the next. They propagate rapidly.We'll have a million to take with us. If we only have a hundred thousandat a cent apiece, that's a clear saving of a thousand dollars."

  "We could sell some," I suggested sarcastically; for Tish's enthusiasmshave a way of going wrong.

  But she took me seriously. "If there are any fishing clubs about," shesaid, "I dare say they'll buy them; and we can turn the money over toMr. Ostermaier for the new organ."

  Tish had bought the organ and had an evening concert with it before weturned off the main road into a private drive.

  "This is the place," Hutchins said laconically.

  Tish got out and took a survey. There was shrubbery all round and a verylarge house, quite dark, in the foreground.

  "Drive onto the lawn, Hutchins," she said. "When the worms come up, thelamps will dazzle them and they'll be easy to capture."

  We bumped over a gutter and came to a stop in the middle of the lawn.

  "It would be better if it was raining," Tish said. "You know, yourself,Lizzie, how they come up during a gentle rain. Give me thesprinkling-can."

  I do not wish to lay undue blame on Hutchins, who was young; but it wasshe who suggested that there would probably be a garden
hose somewhereand that it would save time. I know she went with Tish round the cornerof the house, and that they returned in ten minutes or so, dragging ahose.

  "I broke a tool-house window," Tish observed, "but I left fifty centson the sill to replace it. It's attached at the other end. Run back,Hutchins, and turn on the water; but not too much. We needn't drown thelittle creatures."

  Well, I have never seen anything work better. Aggie, who had refused toput a foot out of the car, stood up in it and held the hose. As fast asshe wet a bit of lawn, we followed with the pails. I spread mymackintosh out and knelt on it.

  As fast as she wet a bit of lawn, we followed with thepails]

  The thing took skill. The worms had a way of snapping back into theirholes like lightning.

  Tish got about three to my one, and talked about packing them in mossand ice, and feeding them every other day. Hutchins, however, stood onthe lawn, with her hands in her pockets, and watched the house.

  Suddenly, without warning, Aggie turned the hose directly on my left earand held it there.

  "There's somebody coming!" she cried. "Merciful Heavens, what'll I dowith the hose?"

  "You can turn it away from me!" I snapped.

  So she did, and at that instant a young man emerged from the shrubbery.

  He did not speak at once. Probably he could not. I happened to look atHutchins, and, for all her usual _savoir-faire_, as Charlie Sands calledit, she was clearly uncomfortable.

  Tish, engaged in a struggle at that moment and sitting back like arobin, did not see him at once.

  "Well!" said the young man; and again: "Well, upon my word!"

  He seemed out of breath with surprise; and he took off his hat andmopped his head with a handkerchief. And, of course, as though thingswere not already bad enough, Aggie sneezed at that instant, as shealways does when she is excited; and for just a second the hose wason him.

  It was unexpected and he almost staggered. He looked at all of us,including Hutchins, and ran his handkerchief round inside his collar.Then he found his voice.

  "Really," he said, "this is awfully good of you. We do need rain--don'twe?"

  Tish was on her feet by that time, but she could not think of anythingto say.

  "I'm sorry if I startled you," said the young man. "I--I'm a bitstartled myself."

  "There is nothing to make a fuss about!" said Hutchins crisply. "We aregetting worms to go fishing."

  "I see," said the young man. "Quite natural, I'm sure. And where are yougoing fishing?"

  Hutchins surprised us all by rudely turning her back on him. Consideringwe were on his property and had turned his own hose on him, a littletact would have been better.

  Tish had found her voice by that time. "We broke a window in thetool-house," she said; "but I put fifty cents on the sill."

  "Thank you," said the young man.

  Hutchins wheeled at that and stared at him in the most disagreeablefashion; but he ignored her.

  "We are trespassing," said Tish; "but I hope you understand. We thoughtthe family was away."

  "I just happened to be passing through," he explained. "I'm awfullyattached to the place--for various reasons. Whenever I'm in town I spendmy evenings wandering through the shrubbery and remembering--er--happierdays."

  "I think the lamps are going out," said Hutchins sharply. "If we're toget back to town--"

  "Ah!" he broke in. "So you have come out from the city?"

  "Surely," said Hutchins to Tish, "it is unnecessary to give thisgentleman any information about ourselves! We have done no damage--"

  "Except the window," he said.

  "We've paid for that," she said in a nasty tone; and to Tish: "How do weknow this place is his? He's probably some newspaper man, and if youtell him who you are this whole thing will be in the morning paper, likethe eggs."

  "I give you my word of honor," he said, "that I am nothing of the sort;in fact, if you will give me a little time I'd--I'd like to tell allabout myself. I've got a lot to say that's highly interesting, if you'llonly listen."

  Hutchins, however, only gave him a cold glance of suspicion and put thepails in the car. Then she got in and sat down.

  "I take it," he said to her, "that you decline either to give or toreceive any information."

  "Absolutely!"

  He sighed then, Aggie declares.

  "Of course," he said, "though I haven't really the slightest curiosity,I could easily find out, you know. Your license plates--"

  "Are under the cushion I'm sitting on," said Hutchins, and started theengine.

  "Really, Hutchins," said Tish, "I don't see any reason for being sosuspicious. I have always believed in human nature and seldom have Ibeen disappointed. The young man has done nothing to justify rudeness.And since we are trespassing on his place--"

  "Huh!" was all Hutchins said.

  The young man sauntered over to the car, with his hands thrust into thiscoat pockets. He was nice-looking, especially then, when he was smiling.

  "Hutchins!" he said. "Well, that's a clue anyhow. It--it's an uncommonname. You didn't happen to notice a large 'No-Trespassing!' sign by thegate, did you?"

  Hutchins only looked ahead and ignored him. As Tish said afterward, wehad a good many worms, anyhow; and, as the young man and Hutchins hadclearly taken an awful dislike to each other at first sight, the bestway to avoid trouble was to go home. So she got into the car. The youngman helped her and took off his hat.

  "Come out any time you like," he said affably. "I'm not here at all inthe daytime, and the grounds are really rather nice. Come out and getsome roses. We've some pretty good ones--English importations. If youcare to bring some children from the tenements out for a picnic, pleasefeel free to do it. We're not selfish."

  Hutchins rudely started the car before he had finished; but he ignoredher and waved a cordial farewell to the rest of us.

  "Bring as many as you like," he called. "Sunday is a good day. AskMiss--Miss Hutchins to come out and bring some friends along."

  We drove back at the most furious rate. Tish was at last compelled toremonstrate with Hutchins.

  "Not only are we going too fast," she said, "but you were really rude tothat nice young man."

  "I wish I had turned the hose on him and drowned him!" said Hutchinsbetween her teeth.