ON THE ROOF AND ELSEWHERE
We came back in an hour to find Tish waiting with her bonnet still on,
and in a more agreeable frame of mind. She asked Tommy and me to go
around the hospital with her, but refused to take Aggie, who retired
sulking to her room. Tish rolled up the S. P. T. towels and led the way
herself, a strange gleam in her eye. Considering what she had in mind,
it was a courageous thing she was doing, but I don’t mind admitting now
that there were moments that day when I thought she had lost her reason.
She led the way to the mortuary first, with her bundle under her arm,
and Tommy and I trailing at her heels, like two bewildered lambs after
a wild-eyed sheep. Seen in daylight, there was nothing horrible about
the mortuary. There were no bodies there, and the daylight came in
in churchly fashion through the two large stained-glass windows in
the end. Indeed, the room looked like a small chapel, being finished
in dark wood, with pale walls, chairs in a row around the edge of the
floor, and only the row of tables in the center instead of pews, to
spoil its ecclesiastical appearance.
At the far end, to the left, and near the windows, was the door to the
linen closet. Tish gave the room only a casual glance, and stalked
across to the linen closet. She hesitated a moment and grasped her
stick closely. Then she inserted the key she had carried up with her,
and slowly turned it.
The door flew open immediately and I took a hasty step back. But it had
been pushed only by the draft of air from a small window at the side,
which was open, and except for piles of neatly folded linen, the closet
was empty. Tish looked slightly disappointed, but not discouraged.
She went in and stuck her head out through the open window, looking in
every direction.
“Exactly,” she said and prepared to close and lock the closet again.
But she waited to close the small window first, and when she turned,
Tommy had stooped over something lying on the floor just inside the
door.
“Look!” he said, holding it out on his palm. “Briggs’ old pipe, with
the stem gone! The one he was smoking when--!”
If he expected Tish to be impressed he was disappointed.
“There’s nothing astonishing about that!” she said calmly, and
proceeding to climb out one of the stained-glass windows on to the
fire-escape--although it was the fifth floor and Tish had always
declared she’d rather burn up than put a foot on one of the things--she
ran nimbly up and over the cornice to the roof.
It was a very ordinary roof. One part was flat, and evidently used
occasionally as a breathing spot. There were benches around and a
flower pot or two, and directly in the center was a four-foot iron
fence, enclosing a skylight. Two men at work there showed where Tommy
had gone through, and when I glanced at him he was staring at it with a
rueful smile.
“When you remember,” he said, “that I weigh a hundred and seventy
pounds, and that I went over that fence head first, it makes you wonder
what grudge old Johnson had against me. _I_ was decent enough to him,
if Briggs wasn’t.”
“Do you mean that--that Briggs was _cruel_ to him?” I asked Tommy.
“With a refined form of cruelty, yes. The sort that lets an old man go
without sugar in his tea, and won’t hear him begging for ice-water.”
“Then I’m glad he’s dead,” I snapped, “and if I’d been Johnson, I’d
have--”
Tish had wandered across the roof, and was standing on a part of it
about two feet higher than the rest, looking at a second and smaller
skylight.
“What’s this, Tommy?” she called.
“Elevator, I think,” said Tommy, and we went over. Tish was looking
around her with speculative eyes.
“I guess this is about right,” she said. “I miss my guess,
unless--Tommy, get down with your ear to the roof and see if you hear
anything.”
“It’s dirty,” said Tommy.
“I guess you’ll wash without spoiling,” Tish snapped. “It ain’t a
Carberry trait to be afraid of dirt. Get down.”
Tommy pulled up his trousers legs and got down gingerly, and I followed
suit. I daresay we looked queer, both kneeling, and each with an eager
ear to the tin. The two men at the other skylight stared at us over the
railing nervously.
We didn’t hear anything, and Tish looked disappointed. But she didn’t
stop her half hop, half run, over the roof. At the end of fifteen
minutes she was back at the top of the fire-escape, ready to descend.
But going down was different from going up, and I guess we were both
relieved when Tommy said there was a staircase.
When we got to the bottom, I was clear out of breath, and even Tommy
was panting. But Tish hadn’t turned a hair. Some sort of inward
excitement was stimulating her like a fever, and knowing Tish, I felt
she would cave in like a pricked balloon when it was over.
The next thing she demanded was to be put on the top of the elevator
cage. But Tommy absolutely balked at that and Tish seemed to realize
herself that it wouldn’t do.
“I’ll go for you,” Tommy said. “I’m willing to sacrifice myself
for you any time, Aunt Tish, but you can see for yourself that a
self-respecting woman in her prime can’t ride on top of an elevator
without causing comment. It isn’t being done in our set this winter,
Aunt Tish.”
Tish gave in, or pretended to, and we went back to her room. Aggie
was there, dressed but sulky, and we had tea all around and tried to
talk about indifferent things. We told Aggie we had been up to see the
mortuary, whereon she insisted on seeing it, too, and Miss Lewis and I
took her.
We left Tish still working over her notes, with a cup of tea in one
hand, which she was absently stirring with her lead pencil, and went
up-stairs. Tommy had gone to see Miss Blake again.
We showed Aggie the mortuary and she got weak in the knees and had to
sit a few minutes. It must have been fifteen minutes, therefore, when,
supporting her between us, we led her down the steps and rang for the
elevator. It travels, as I say, very quietly, and when it came into
view, all we could do was to stare, our mouths open.
Riding majestically on top of it, one hand in a dignified manner
holding to the cable, the other clutching her stick, and with her head
thrown back and staring up, was Tish! She went past us without seeing
us, and a moment later we heard her say calmly:
“Stop now, Frank. Stop!”
Almost immediately on that she said, “Go down! _Go down_, I tell you!
_Go down!_”
The cage went down past us, with Tish still holding on, still looking
up. But on her face there was the most terrible expression of mingled
fright and satisfaction I ever saw.
The next moment there began, from above, a shower of sticks, pieces of
plaster, and finally, a small creature that looked like, and proved to
be, a dead rabbit. Aggie began to scream and to tear at the elevator
doors, but luckily they held.
Well, as the newspapers have told, the idiot of an elevator man kept
on to the first floor in his excitement, and it’s a great wonder Tish
was not brained. But nothing hit her, and she got to the lower floor in
safety. If she had waited until the cage was lowered sufficiently, she
would not have been hurt, but just as the top was still four feet from
the floor, the rabbit landed, and Tish jumped and broke her arm.