IF IT HAD NOT BEEN FOR LOVE
It is curious to think that if Tish had been able to finish her story
to Tommy Andrews that evening, and to have given him Charlie’s letter
to read, the thing that occurred that night could scarcely have
happened. For with Tommy knowing what he did, he could have put two and
two together and have gone about things in a different way. Aggie, of
course, is a fatalist, and believes it would have happened anyhow.
In the first place, Tish felt so sure that everything was cleared up
that she told Aggie the whole story, ending with the suicide at the
Zoo. Aggie sat with her mouth open, and didn’t speak except to sneeze
until Tish was through. Then she surprised us.
“Maybe you are right, Tish,” she said. “I know I hope so. I don’t know
much about gorillas, but I guess they’re mostly hairy, aren’t they?”
“Mostly,” said Tish grimly. “I haven’t heard of any Mexican hairless
ones.”
“Well, the hand by my bed--you needn’t sneer, Tish; you can call it a
foot if you prefer foot--”
“Listen to the woman!” cried Tish. “_I_ haven’t called it anything.”
“The hand--or foot--was _not_ hairy!” said Aggie, and stuck to it. She
is that kind. Tish says she has a small mind, but I think there are
some large minds that can only hold one idea at a time.
Well, we told the whole thing again to Tommy, who had heard about the
guinea-pigs from Doctor Grimm, and who listened gravely, and Tish was
just getting out Charlie’s letter to read to him, when Miss Lewis came
in.
“Drat that woman!” Tish muttered. “She’s never around when she’s
wanted, and always butting in when she isn’t. Well, what is it?”
“Miss Blake is better, Doctor,” she said. “She is sitting up, dressed,
and--she’s leaving her door unlocked. That’s a good sign.”
“Thanks, very much,” said Tommy, looking conscious.
“It’s supper hour now,” remarked Miss Lewis. “If, when I come back, you
would care to go over to the dormitory--”
“I suppose she hasn’t asked for me?”
“No. But she asked if you were in the house.”
“Thanks,” said Tommy again. “When you come back, then. Ah--thanks, very
much.”
Miss Lewis left and Tish spread out Charlie’s letter. “Dear and revered
spinster aunt,” she began. But Tommy was looking at his watch.
“How long does she usually take for supper?” he asked. “Excuse me for
interrupting, Aunt Tish.”
“About an hour,” said Tish grimly. “She says she’s been ordered to chew
her food thoroughly. ‘Dear and revered--’”
“You know,” said Tommy, “she may get tired and go to sleep, or
something like that.”
“Not while she’s eating,” said Tish.
“I mean Miss Blake. I--I think I’ll just run over for a moment _now_,
if you don’t mind.”
“Not alone!” Tish got up and reached for her cane, but Tommy pushed her
back in her chair.
“No, indeed, dear Aunt Tish,” he said. “You must not use that knee. Nor
Miss Aggie either--”
“Aggie has no intention of using my knee,” said Tish crossly. Tommy
was sending me messages with his eyes. I’m notoriously weak as to love
affairs.
“I’ll go,” I volunteered, obeying Tommy’s signals, and go I did,
leaving Tish clutching her cane with one hand and the letter with the
other! Aggie was, as usual, oblivious and quite calm.
It was my suggestion that I play propriety from just outside the door.
Tommy went in, and I heard a rustle from the window, as if she had
turned to look at him.
“I--my aunt is just outside,” he began, hesitating. I am not his aunt,
as I have said.
“Won’t you ask her in?” She had a low, sweet voice.
“Certainly, if you wish,” he said, and made no move to do it. “You
dismissed me to-day,” he accused her.
“I didn’t need a doctor.”
“I need not have come professionally. I am here now only--well, because
I couldn’t stay away.”
She said nothing to that, as far as I could hear.
“I came also,” he said, “to ask you not to stay here alone to-night.”
“What do you mean?” she asked sharply.
“Only that you might do the same thing again to-night--walk in your
sleep, you know.”
I heard her chair move, as if she had turned abruptly and faced him.
“Why do you say that?” she demanded. “You _know_ I was not asleep last
night.”
“I assure you--” he began, clearly startled. “I--really thought--”
“Please!” she said, and there was another silence. Then I realized she
was crying softly.
“Don’t do that!” pleaded Tommy. “Don’t!”
“I thought you were killed!” she said, in a smothered tone. “All the
rest of the night I sat and wanted to die. I thought I had killed you!”
“Where did you sit?” asked Tommy gently.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Very much--to me.”
“I was--here,” she said, after a hesitation.
“You were _not_ here,” said Tommy. “Between _that_ and morning, I was
here four times. Where were you?”
[Illustration]
“I was safe,” she said. “Why do you question me so?”
“Because,” he said gently, “I was in the laboratory at two o’clock
this morning. Jacobs helped me with a--wound on my shoulder. I had
looked everywhere for you and failed to find you. I thought I heard
somebody moving across the hall, and we made a casual search. We
found nothing, nobody. But during the fifteen minutes that that door
was unlocked, somebody entered the building, and cut the throats of
eleven guinea-pigs, piling them in the center of the room. And--on the
floor underneath them I picked up this afternoon a small pink rosette,
apparently off the toe of a woman’s bedroom slipper.”
“Ah!” she said, as if she found it suddenly hard to breathe. And then
she burst out unexpectedly. “After all, was it so terrible? They--they
were only guinea-pigs!”
“Yes,” said Tommy gravely, “they were only guinea-pigs.”
He came out the next moment and went back along the hall into the
hospital, having quite forgotten me. His chin was sunk on his breast,
and he walked heavily. He was as bewildered as I had been. We saw
him only once again that evening, and then only for a minute. He was
preparing to station his guards through the house, much to Tish’s
disgust.
“It’s idiotic,” she confided to Aggie and me that night as Aggie was
getting ready for bed. “Isn’t the creature dead? Do they expect it to
come back from the spirit world and do a materializing seance for them
while they wait?”
“That’s all very well, Tish,” said Aggie, turning on all the lights and
getting into bed, “but that hand was not hairy.”
“Foot, you mean,” said Tish. “If that is a footprint on the wall of
that room up-stairs, it was a foot you touched last night.”
At nine o’clock that night Tommy had a talk with Miss Durand, the
night nurse of K ward. She denied being out of the ward between
twelve-ten and one o’clock, and characterized Bates’ whole story as a
fabrication.
“He’s always making trouble, Doctor,” she told Tommy. “He brings in
tobacco and morphine and sells it to the men, and you take his word
against mine!”
And Tommy said that Bates, with Miss Durand’s outraged eyes on him,
reduced the time of her absence to ten minutes, and might have gone
further if Tommy hadn’t turned away in disgust.