There were, of course, occasional misadventures. There was that
terrible day, for instance, when Tish hung from a bridge by her hands,
ready to drop to a train beneath, when through some mistake the train
was switched to another track and our dear Letitia was left hanging,
like Mohammed’s coffin, between heaven and earth. And that other day,
of wretched memory, when on exploding the hillside to imprison the
governor, a large stone flew up and struck Aggie violently in the
mouth, dislodging her upper plate and almost strangling her.
There was, again, the time when the smugglers set fire to the building
Tish was in, and the fire department did not receive its signal and
failed to arrive until almost too late.
But in the main, things went very well. There were peaceful days when
Aggie and I fed peanuts to the little studio elephant, Katie, and
indeed became quite friendly with Katie, who dragged certain heavy
articles about the lot and often roamed at will, her harness chains
dangling. And there were hot days when we sought the shelter of the
cool hangar which housed the smugglers’ dirigible, or baby blimp as it
was called, and where we had concealed several bottles of blackberry
cordial against emergency.
At such times we frequently discussed what Aggie now termed the
Macmanus mystery. For such it had become.
“He’s not hanging around for any good purpose, Lizzie,” Aggie
frequently observed. “He’s in Tish’s picture somehow, and--I think he
is a lover!”
We had not mentioned him to Tish, but on the next day after she took
her parachute leap we learned that she had her own suspicions about him.
I may say here, before continuing with my narrative, that Tish’s
parachute experience was without accident, although not without
incident. She was to leap with the bag of stage money she had captured
in the air from the smugglers, and this she did. But a gust of wind
caught her, and it was our painful experience to see her lifted on the
gale and blown out of sight toward the mountains.
Several automobiles and the dirigible immediately started after her,
but dusk fell and she had not returned to us. Even now I cannot picture
those waiting hours without emotion. At one moment we visualized her
sitting on some lonely mountain crag, and at another still floating
on, perhaps indefinitely, a lonely bit of flotsam at the mercy of the
elements.
At nine o’clock that night, however, she returned, slightly irritable
but unhurt.
“For heaven’s sake, Aggie,” she said briskly, “stop sneezing and
crying, and order me some supper. I’ve been sitting in a ranch house,
with a nervous woman pointing a gun at me, for three hours.”
It developed that she had landed in the country, and had untied the
parachute and started with her valise full of stage money back toward
the studio, but that she had stopped to ask for supper at a ranch, and
the woman there had looked in the bag while Tish was washing, and had
taken her for a bank robber.
“If she had ever looked away,” Tish said, “I could have grabbed the
gun. But she was cross-eyed, and I don’t know yet which eye she watched
with.”
As I have said, it was the next day that we learned that Tish herself
had grown suspicious about Mr. Macmanus.
She sent for us to come to her dressing room, and when we appeared
she said, “I want you both here for a few minutes. Light a cigarette,
Hannah. Mr. Stein’s coming.”
To our horror Hannah produced a box of cigarettes and lighted one by
holding it in the flame of a match. But we were relieved to find that
Tish did not intend to smoke it. Hannah placed it in an ash tray on the
table and left it there.
“Local color,” Tish said laconically. “They think a woman’s queer here
if she doesn’t smoke. Come in, Mr. Stein.”
When Mr. Stein entered he was uneasy, we thought, but he wore his usual
smile.
“Going like a breeze, Miss Carberry,” he said.
“Yes,” said Tish grimly. “And so am I!”
“What do you mean, going?” said Mr. Stein, slightly changing color.
“You can’t quit on us, Miss Carberry. We’ve spent a quarter of a
million dollars already.”
“And I’ve risked a million-dollar life.”
“We’ve been carrying insurance on you.”
“Oh, you have!” said Tish, and eyed him coldly. “I hope you’ve got Mr.
Macmanus insured too.”
“Just why Mr. Macmanus, Miss Carberry?”
“Because,” Tish said with her usual candor, “I propose physical
assault, and possibly murder, if he’s brought on the set with me.”
“Now see here,” he said soothingly, “you’re just tired, Miss Carberry.
Ladies, how about a glass of that homemade TNT for Miss Tish? And a
little all round?”
But when none of us moved he was forced to state his case, as he called
it.
“You see, Miss Carberry,” he said, “we’ve made the old girl pretty
hardboiled, so far. Now the public’s going to want to see her softer
side.”
“As, for instance?”
“Well, something like this: The rancher who’s been the secret head of
the smugglers, he’s a decent fellow at heart, see? Only got into it to
pay the mortgage on the old home. Well, now, why not a bit of sentiment
between you and him at the end? Nothing splashy, just a nice refined
church and a kiss.” When he saw Tish’s face he went on, speaking very
fast. “Not more than a four-foot kiss, if that. We’ve got to do it,
Miss Carberry. I’ve been wiring our houses all over the country, and
they’re unanimous.”
At Tish’s firm refusal he grew almost tearful, saying he dared not fly
in the face of tradition, and that he couldn’t even book the picture if
he did. But Tish merely rose majestically and opened the door.
“I warned you, Mr. Stein, I would have no sex stuff in this picture.”
“Sex stuff!” he cried. “Good Lord, you don’t call that sex stuff, do
you?”
“I dare say you call it platonic friendship here,” Tish said in her
coldest tone. “But my agreement stands. Good afternoon.”
He went out, muttering.