Tish is the most open and candid of women, and nothing so rouses her
indignation as trickery. Had Mr. Stein not resorted to stratagem to
compel her consent to the final scenes, I believe a compromise might
have been effected.
It was his deliberate attempt to imprison Tish on the lot the night
before those final shots which brought about the catastrophe. To
pretend, as he does now, that he thought we had left at midnight does
not absolve him.
The fact remains that after the final night shots, when Tish had her
make-up off and we started to leave, we found that the gates were
locked and the gatekeeper gone. What is more, there was a man across
the street behind a tree box, watching the exit.
Tish called to him in an angry voice, but he pretended not to be there,
and we finally turned away.
From the beginning Tish had recognized it as a trick, and she lost but
little time in organizing herself for escape. A trial of the high fence
which surrounded the lot, with Aggie on Tish’s shoulders while Tish
stood on a box, revealed three strands of heavy barbed wire. But, more
than that, Aggie declared that there were guards here and there all
around.
On receiving this information Tish stood for a moment in deep thought.
She then instructed Aggie to go on to the balloon hangar and open
the doors, while she and I gathered up her personal possessions and
followed.
It is not our method to question Tish at such times; ours not to
reason why, ours but to do and die. But I confess to a certain
uneasiness. If she proposed to escape by means of the baby blimp, well
and good. At the same time, it required a dozen men to haul the balloon
out of its shed, and we were but three weak women. I believed that she
had overlooked this, but, as usual, I underestimated her.
On reaching the hangar I found the door open, and I could see in the
darkness the large balloon, with what appeared to be a smaller one
beside it, a matter of surprise to me, as I knew of no other. But I
could not see Aggie.