“Have you got a closet where, neatly looped and tagged,You keep the sturdy symbols of the game you’ve bagged?”
“Have you got a closet where, neatly looped and tagged,You keep the sturdy symbols of the game you’ve bagged?”
“Have you got a closet where, neatly looped and tagged,You keep the sturdy symbols of the game you’ve bagged?”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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 ofwoe 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’svoice 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 theeffect 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 apparentthat 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 unfortunate 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 near by, 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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 andeat 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 strucka 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.
“We are undoubtedly on a farm,” she said. “Where there’s a farm there’s a horse, and where there’s a horse there is a wagon. I am not through yet.”
And so, indeed, it turned out to be. We had no particular mischance in the barn, where we found both a horse and a wagon, only finding it necessary to connect the two.
This we accomplished in what I fear was but an eccentric manner, and soon we were on our way once more, Aggie lying flat in the wagon bed because of her neck. How easy to pen this line, yet to what unforeseen consequences it was to lead!
As we wished to avoid the spot where the motorcycle had struck something, we took back lanes by choice, and after traveling some three miles or so had the extraordinary experience of happening on the motorcycle itself once more,comfortably settled in a small estuary of the lake and with several water fowl already roosting upon it.
But we reached the town safely, and leaving Aggie, now fast asleep, in the rear of the wagon, entered the all-night restaurant.
There was no actual grille to be seen in this place, but a stout individual in a dirty white apron was frying sausages on a stove at the back end and a thin young man at a table was waiting to eat them.
Tish lost no time, but hurried back, and this haste of hers, added to the dirt and so on with which she was covered and the huskiness of her voice, undoubtedly precipitated the climax which immediately followed. Breathless as she was, she leaned to him and said:
“All is discovered.”
“The hell you say!” said the man, dropping the fork.
“I’ve told you,” she repeated. “All is discovered. And now no funny business. Give me what you’ve got; I’m in a hurry.”
“Give you what I’ve got?” he repeated. “You know damn well I haven’t got anything, and whatI’m going to get is twenty years! Where are the others?”
Well, Tish had looked rather blank at first, but at that she brightened up.
“In the penitentiary,” she said. “At least——”
“In the pen!” yelped the man. “Here, Joe!” he called to the person at the table. “It’s all up! Quick’s the word!”
“Not at all,” said Tish. “I was to say ‘All is discovered,’ and——”
But he only groaned, and throwing off his apron and grabbing a hat, the next moment he had turned out the lights and the two of them ran out the front door. Tish and I remained in the darkness, too astonished to speak, until a sound outside brought us to our senses.
“Good heavens, Lizzie,” she cried. “They have taken the wagon—and Aggie’s in it!”
We ran outside, but it was too late to do anything. The horse was galloping wildly up the street, and after following it a block or two, we were obliged to desist. I leaned against a lamp-post and burst into tears, but Tish was made of stronger fiber. While others mourn, Tish acts, and in this case she acted at once.
As it happened, we were once more at Doctor Parkinson’s, and even as we stood there the doctor himself brought his car out of the garage,and leaving it at the curb, limped into his house for something he had forgotten. He was wearing a pair of loose bedroom slippers, and did not see us at first, but when he did he stopped.
“Still at large, are you?” he said in an unpleasant tone.
“Not through any fault of yours,” said Tish, glaring at him. “After your dastardly attack on us——”
“Attack!” he shouted. “Who’s limping, you or me? I’m going to lose two toenails, and possibly more. I warn you, whoever you are, I’ve told the police and they are on your track.”
“Then they are certainly traveling some,” said Tish coldly.
He then limped into the house, and Tish caught me by the arm.
“Into the car!” she whispered. “He deserves no consideration whatever, and our first duty is to Aggie.”
Before I could protest, I was in the car and Tish was starting the engine; but precious time had been lost, and although we searched madly, there was no trace of the wagon.
When at last in despair we drove up to the local police station it was as a last resort. But like everything else that night, it too failed us. The squad room was empty, and someone was telephoningfrom the inner room to Edgewater, the next town.
“Say,” he was saying, “has the sheriff and his crowd started yet?... Have, eh? Well, we need ’em. All the boys are out, but they haven’t got ’em yet, so far’s I know.... Yes, they’ve done plenty. Attacked Doctor Parkinson first. Then busted down the pier at the fish house and stole a boat there, and just as Murphy corraled them near the pen, they grabbed his motorcycle and escaped. They hit a car with it and about killed a man, and a few minutes ago old Jenkins, out the Pike, telephoned they’d lifted a horse and wagon and beat it. And now they’ve looted the Cummings house and stolen Parkinson’s car for a get-away.... Crazy? Sure they’re crazy! Called the old boy at the fish cannery dearie! Can you beat it?”
We had just time to withdraw to the street before he came through the doorway, and getting into the car we drove rapidly away. Never have I seen Tish more irritated; the unfairness of the statements galled her, and still more her inability to refute them. She said but little, merely hoping that whoever had robbed the Cummings house had made a complete job of it, and that we would go next to the railway station.
“It is possible,” she said, “that the men in thatrestaurant are implicated in this burglary, and certainly their actions indicate flight. In that case the wagon—and Aggie—may be at the depot.”
This thought cheered us both. But alas, the waiting room was empty and no wagon stood near the tracks. Only young George Welliver was behind the ticket window, and to him Tish related a portion of the situation.
“Not only is Miss Pilkington in the wagon,” she said, “but these men are probably concerned in the Cummings robbery. I merely said to them ‘All is discovered,’ when they rushed out of the place.”
Suddenly George Welliver threw back his head and laughed.
“Well!” he said. “And me believing you all the time! So you’re one of that bunch, are you? All that rigmarole kind of mixed me up. Here’s your little clew, and you’re the first to get one.”
He then passed out an envelope, and Tish, looking bewildered, took it and opened it. It was the next clew, right enough. The password was “Three-toed South American sloth,” and the clew as follows:
“Wives of great men all remind us,We can make our wives sublime,And departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sands of time.”
“Wives of great men all remind us,We can make our wives sublime,And departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sands of time.”
“Wives of great men all remind us,We can make our wives sublime,And departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sands of time.”
“Wives of great men all remind us,
We can make our wives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.”
“That ought not to be difficult,” said Tish. “If only Aggie hadn’t acted like a fool——”
“It’s the cemetery,” I said, “and I go to no cemetery to-night, Tish Carberry.”
“Nonsense!” said Tish briskly. “Time certainly means a clock. I’m just getting the hang of this thing, Lizzie.”
“‘Hang’ may be right before we’re through. And when I think of poor Aggie——”
“Still,” she went on, “sands might be an hourglass. Sands of time, you know.”
“And if somebody broke it by stepping on it, it would be footprints in the sands of time!” I retorted. “Go on! All we have to do is to find an hourglass and step on it. And in the meantime Aggie——”
However, at that instant a train drew in and a posse from Edgewater, heavily armed, got out of it and made for a line of waiting motor hacks. Never have I seen a more ruthless-looking lot of men, and Tish felt as I did, for as they streamed into the waiting room she pushed me into a telephone booth and herself took another.
And with her usual competency she took advantage of the fact to telephone Hannah to see if Aggie had returned home, but she had not.
As soon as the posse had passed through we made our escape by the other door and were ableto reach the doctor’s car unseen, and still free to pursue our search. But I insist that I saw Tish scatter no tacks along the street as we left the depot. If she did, then I must also insist that she had full reason; it was done to prevent an unjustified pursuit by a body of armed men, and not to delay the other treasure hunters.
Was it her fault that the other treasure seekers reached the station at that time? No, and again no. Indeed, when the first explosive noises came as the cars drew up she fully believed that the sheriff was firing on us, and it was in turning a corner at that time that she broke the fire plug.
Certainly to assess her damages for flooded cellars is, under these circumstances, a real injustice.
But to return to the narrative: Quite rightly, once beyond pursuit, Tish headed for the Cummings property, as it was possible that there we could pick up some clew to Aggie, as well as establish our own innocence. But never shall I forget our reception at that once friendly spot.
As the circumstances were peculiar, Tish decided to reconnoiter first, and entered the property through a hedge with the intention of working past the sundial and so toward the house. But hardly had she emerged into the glow from the windows when a shot was fired at her and shewas compelled to retire. As it happened, she took the shortest cut to where she had left me, which was down the drive, and I found myself exposed to a fusillade of bullets, which compelled me to seek cover on the floor of the car. Two of the car windows were broken at once and Letitia Carberry herself escaped by a miracle, as a bullet went entirely through the envelope she held in her hand.
Yes, with her customary astuteness she had located the fresh clew. The Ostermaier boy had had them by the sundial, and had gone asleep there. She fell over him in the darkness, as a matter of fact, and it was his yell which had aroused the house afresh.
There was clearly nothing to do but to escape at once, as men were running down the drive and firing as they ran. And as it seemed to make no difference in which direction we went, we drove more or less at random while I examined the new clew. On account of the bullet holes, it was hard to decipher, but it read much as follows:
The password was “Keep your head down, —— boy,” and the clew was as follows:
“Search where affection ceases,By soft and —— sands.The digit it increases,On its head it stands.”
“Search where affection ceases,By soft and —— sands.The digit it increases,On its head it stands.”
“Search where affection ceases,By soft and —— sands.The digit it increases,On its head it stands.”
“Search where affection ceases,
By soft and —— sands.
The digit it increases,
On its head it stands.”
“After all,” Tish said, “we have tried to help Aggie and failed. If that thing made sense I would go on and locate the treasure. But it doesn’t. A digit is a finger, and how can it stand on its head?”
“A digit is a number too.”
“So I was about to observe,” said Tish. “If you wouldn’t always break in on my train of thought, I’d get somewhere. And six upside down is nine, so it’s six we’re after. Six what? Six is half a dozen. Half a dozen eggs; half a dozen rolls; half a dozen children. Who has half a dozen children? That’s it, probably. I’m sure affection would cease with six children.”
“Somebody along the water front. It says: ‘By soft and something-or-other sands.’”
We pondered the matter for some time in a narrow lane near the country club, but without result; and might have been there yet had not the sudden passing of a car which sounded like the Smith boys’ flivver toward the country club gate stimulated Tish’s imagination.
“I knew it would come!” she said triumphantly. “The sixth tee, of course, and the sand box! And those dratted boys are ahead of us!”
Anyone but Tish, I am convinced, would have abandoned hope at that moment. But with her, emergencies are to be met and conquered, and so now. With a “Hold tight, Lizzie!” she swung the car about, and before I knew what was on the tapis she had let in the clutch and we were shooting off the road and across a ditch.
So great was our momentum that we fairly leaped the depression, and the next moment were breaking our way through a small woods, which is close to the fourteenth hole of the golf links, and had struck across the course at that point. Owing to the recent rain, the ground was soft, and at one time we were fairly brought to bay—on, I think, the fairway to the eleventh hole, sinking very deep. But we kept on the more rapidly, as we could now see the lights of the stripped flivver winding along the bridle path which intersects the links.
I must say that the way the greens committee has acted in this matter has been a surprise to us. The wagon did a part of the damage, and also the course is not ruined. A few days’ work with a wheelbarrow and spade will repair all damage;and as to the missing cup at the eighth hole, did we put the horse’s foot in it?
Tish’s eyes were on the lights of the flivver, now winding its way along the road through the course, and it is to that that I lay our next and almost fatal mishap. For near the tenth hole she did not notice a sand pit just ahead, and a moment later we had leaped the bunker at the top and shot down into it.
So abrupt was the descent that the lamps—and, indeed, the entire fore part of the doctor’s car—were buried in the sand, and both of us were thrown entirely out. It was at this time that Tish injured one of her floating ribs, as before mentioned, and sustained the various injuries which laid her up for some time afterward, but at the moment she said nothing at all. Leaping to her feet, she climbed out of the pit and disappeared into the night, leaving me in complete darkness to examine myself for fractures and to sustain the greatest fright of my life. For as I sat up I realized that I had fallen across something, and that the something was a human being. Never shall I forget the sensations of that moment, nor the smothered voice beneath me, which said:
“Kill be at odce ad be dode with it,” and then sneezed violently.
“Aggie!” I shrieked.
She seemed greatly relieved at my voice, and requested me to move so she could get her head out of the sand. “Ad dod’t screab agaid,” she said pettishly. “They’ll cobe back ad fidish us all if you do.”
Well, it appeared that the two men had driven straight to the golf links with the wagon, and had turned in much as we had done. They had not known that Aggie was in the rear, and at first she had not been worried, thinking that Tish and I were in the seat. But finally she had learned her mistake, and that they were talking about loot from some place or other, and she was greatly alarmed. They were going too fast for her to escape, although once or twice they had struck bunkers which nearly threw her out.
But at last they got into the sand pit, and as the horse climbed up the steep ascent our poor Aggie had heard her teeth drop out of her pocket and had made a frantic clutch at them. The next moment she had alighted on her head in the sand pit and the wagon had gone on.
She was greatly shaken by her experience and had taken a heavy cold; but although we felt about for the blackberry cordial, we could not find it, and could only believe it had miraculously remained in the wagon.
As she finished her narrative our dear Tishslipped quietly over the edge of the pit and sat down, panting, in the sand. The storm being definitely over and a faint moon now showing, we perceived that she carried in her hand a canvas sack tied with a strong cord, and from its weight as she dropped it we knew that at last we had the treasure.
It was a great moment, and both Aggie and I then set about searching for the missing teeth. But as Tish learned of Aggie’s experience she grew thoughtful.
“Undoubtedly,” she said, “those two men are somehow concerned in this robbery to-night, and very probably the rendezvous of the gang is somewhere hereabouts. In which direction did they go, Aggie?”
“They’ve parked the wagod over id those woods.”
“Then,” said Tish, “it is our clear duty——”
“——to go hobe,” said Aggie sharply.
“Home nothing!” said Tish. “Jail is where we go unless we get them. There are fifteen policemen and a sheriff coming for us at this minute, and——” But here she stopped and listened intently. “It is too late,” she said, with the first discouragement she had shown all evening. “Too late, my friends. The police are coming now.”
Aggie wailed dismally, but Tish hushed her andwe set ourselves to listen. Certainly there were men approaching, and talking in cautious tones. There was a moment when I thought our dear Tish was conquered at last, but only a moment. Then she roused to incisive speech and quick action.
“I do not propose to be dug out of here like a golf ball,” she stated. “I am entitled to defend myself and I shall do so. Lizzie, see if there are any tools in the car there, and get a wrench.” She then took a firm hold of the treasure bag and swung it in her hand. “I am armed,” she said quietly, “and prepared for what may come. Aggie, get the clothespin, and when I give the word point it like a pistol.”
“Ab I to say ‘bag’?”
But before Tish could reply, the men were fairly on us. We had but time to get behind the car when we could hear their voices. And suddenly Aggie whispered, “It’s theb! It’s the baddits! Ad they’ve beed at the cordial!”
And Aggie was right; they had, indeed, as we could tell by their voices.
“It wash Bill, all righ’,” said one man. “I shaw the litsh of hish car.”
“Well, wheresh he gone to? No car here, no anything. Black ash hell.”
One of them then began to sing a song, inwhich he requested a bartender to give him a drink, but was quickly hushed by the others, for there were now three of them. Whether it was this one or not I do not know, but at that instant one of them fell over the bunker at the top of the pit and came rolling down at our feet, and Tish, with her customary readiness, at once struck him on the head with the bag of pennies. He was evidently stunned, for he lay perfectly still, and the men above seemed puzzled.
“Hey, Joe!” they called. “Where are you?”
On receiving no reply, one of them lighted a match, and Tish had only time to retire behind the car before it flared up.
“Well, can you beat that? He’sh broken hish neck!”
But the man with the match was sober, and he saw the car and stared at it.
“If that’s Bill’s car,” he said, as the match went out, “we’re up against it. Only—where the devil’s Bill?”
“He’sh dead too, mosht likely,” said the other. “Everybody’sh dead. S’terrible night. Car’sh dead, too; buried in a shea of shand. Shinking rapidly. Poor ole car! Women and children first!”
He then burst into tears and sat down apparently, for the other man kicked him and toldhim to get up; and then came sliding into the pit and bent over Joe, striking another match as he did so. Hardly had he done so when Tish’s weapon again descended with full force, and he fell beside his unconscious partner in crime.
We had now only the drunken man to deal with; and as Tish wished no more bloodshed, she managed him in a different manner.
In a word, she secured the towrope from the rear seat of the doctor’s car and, leaving Aggie and myself to watch the others, climbed out and approached him from the rear. It was only the work of a moment to pinion his arms to his sides, and as Aggie immediately pointed her impromptu weapon and cried “Hads up!” he surrendered without a struggle. Having securely roped him, we then rolled him into the sand pit with the others, who showed no signs of coming to.
Fatigued as we were by that time, and no further danger threatening for the moment, we rested for a brief time on the ground and ate a few macaroons which I had carried in a pocket against such an emergency. But by “we” I mean only Tish and myself, as poor Aggie was unable to do so—and, indeed, has been living on soft food ever since. Then retrieving the sack containing the Cummings jewels and silver which theburglars had been carrying, we prepared to carry our double treasure back to the town.
Here, however, I feel that our dear Tish made a tactical error, for after we had found the horse and wagon—in the undergrowth just beyond the seventh hole—instead of heading at once for the police station she insisted on going first to the Ostermaier’s.
“It is,” she said, examining her watch by the aid of the flashlight, “now only half past eleven, and we shall not be late if we hurry. After that I shall report to the police.”
“And what is to prevent those wretches from coming to and escaping in the interval?” I asked dryly.
“True,” Tish agreed. “Perhaps I would better go back and hit them again. But that would take time also.”
In the end we compromised on Tish’s original plan and set out once more. The trip back across the links was uneventful, save that on the eighth green the horse got a foot into the hole and was only extricated with the cup still clinging to his foot.
We had no can opener along, and it is quite possible that the ring of the tin later on on the macadam road led to our undoing. For we had no sooner turned away from the town toward theOstermaier’s cottage on the beach than a policeman leaped out of the bushes and, catching the animal by the bridle, turned a lantern on us.
“Hey, Murphy!” he called. “Here they are! I’ve got ’em! Hands up, there!”
“Stand back!” said Tish in a peremptory voice. “We are late enough already.”
“Late!” said the policeman, pointing a revolver at us. “Well, time won’t make much difference to you from now on—not where you’re going. You won’t ever need to hurry again.”
“But I must deliver this treasure. After that I’ll explain everything.”
“You bet you’ll deliver it, and right here and now. And your weapons too.”
“Aggie, give up your clothespin,” said Tish in a resigned voice. “These yokels apparently think us guilty of something or other, but my conscience is clear. If you want the really guilty parties,” she told the policeman, “go back to the sand pit by the tenth hole and you will find them.”
“April fool your own self,” said the one called Murphy. “I’ve been following you for two hours and I don’t trust you. You’re too resourceful. Is the stuff there?” he asked the first man, who had been searching in the wagon.
“All here.”
“Then we’ll be moving along,” he said; and inthis fashion did we reach the town once more, and the station house.
Never shall I forget that moment. Each of us handcuffed and hustled along by the officers, we were shoved into the station house in a most undignified manner, to confront the sheriff and a great crowd of people. Nor shall I ever forget the sheriff’s face when he shouted in an angry voice:
“Women, by heck! When a woman goes wrong she sure goes!”
The place seemed to be crowded with people. The fish-pier man was there, and a farmer who said we had smashed his feed cutter. And Doctor Parkinson, limping about in his bedroom slippers and demanding to know where we had left his car, and another individual who claimed it was his horse we had taken, and that we’d put a tin can on his off forefoot and ought to be sued for cruelty to animals. And even Mr. Stubbs, because his license plates were on our car—and of course the old fool had told all about it—and the Cummings butler, who pointed at Tish and said that after the alarm was raised she had tried to get back into the house again, which was, of course, ridiculous.
I must say it looked bad for us, especially when the crowd moved and we saw a man lying in acorner with an overcoat under his head and his eyes shut. Tish, who had not lost an ounce of dignity, gazed at him without expression.
“I dare say,” she said, “that you claim that that is our work also.”
“Just about killed him, you have,” said the sheriff. “Went right through him with that motorcycle you stole. Murder—that’s what it’s likely to be—murder. D’you get his name, doctor?”
“Only roused enough to say it was Bill,” said Doctor Parkinson. “I wish myself to lodge a complaint for assault and battery against these women. I am per——”
But Tish interrupted him.
“Bill?” she said. “Bill?”
Without a word she pushed the crowd aside, and bending over Bill, with her poor manacled hands she examined him as best she could. Then she straightened herself and addressed the crowd with composure.
“Under this man’s shirt,” she said, “you will find what I imagine to be a full set of burglar’s tools. If your hands are not paralyzed like your brains, examine him and see.”
And they found them! The picture of that moment is indelibly impressed on my mind—the sheriff holding up the tools and Tish addressingthe mob with majesty and the indignation of outraged womanhood.
“Gentlemen, this is one of the gang which robbed the Cummings house to-night. Through all this eventful evening, during which I regret to say some of you have suffered, my friends and I have been on their track. Had the motorcycle not wrecked that ruffian’s car, they would now have safely escaped. As it is, when we were so unjustly arrested I had but just recovered the Cummings silver and jewels, and alone and unaided had overcome the remainder of the gang. I am exhausted and weary; I have suffered physical injury and mental humiliation; but I am not too weak or too weary to go now to the sand pit at the tenth hole on the golf links and complete my evening’s work by handing over to the police the three other villains I have captured.”
“Three cheers for the old girl!” somebody called in the crowd. “I’m for her! Let’s go!”
And this, I think, concludes the narrative of that evening’s events. It was almost midnight when, our prisoners safely jailed, we arrived at the Ostermaiers’ to find all the treasure hunters except the Cummingses there and eating supper, and our angel-food cake gracing the center of the table. Our dear Tish walked in and laid the sack of pennies on the table.
“Here is the treasure,” she announced. “It has been an interesting evening, and I hope we shall soon do it again.”
Mr. Ostermaier took up the bag and examined it.
“I have the honor of stating,” he said, “that this, as Miss Carberry claims, is the treasure, and that Miss Carberry wins the hand-painted candlestick which is the prize for the event.” He then examined the bag more carefully, and added:
“But this sack seems to be stained. Perhaps our good sister will explain what the stains are.”
Tish eyed the bag with an expressionless face.
“Stains?” she said. “Oh, yes, of course. I remember now. They are blood.”
Then, leaving them staring and speechless with astonishment, she led the way out of the house, and home.