Owing to the fact that the cars still in the hunt had all gone to the
Duck Club, the brief delay had not lost us our lead, and we proceeded
at once, after landing near the penitentiary, to the gate. Our halt
there was brief. Tish merely said to the sentry at the entrance, “‘Good
evening, dearie.’”
“The same to you and many of them,” he replied cheerfully, and unlocked
the gate. We then found ourselves in a large courtyard, with the
looming walls of the building before us, and on ringing the bell and
repeating the phrase were at once admitted.
There were a number of men in uniform, who locked the grating behind us
and showed us into an office where a young man was sitting at a desk.
I had an uneasy feeling the moment I saw him, and Aggie has since
acknowledged the same thing. Instead of smiling as had the others, he
simply pushed a large book toward us and asked us to sign our names.
“Register here, please,” was what he said.
“Register?” said Tish. “What for?”
“Like to have our guests’ names,” he said solemnly. “You’ll find
your cells all ready for you. Very nice ones--view of the lake and
everything. Front, show these ladies to their cells.”
Aggie gave a low moan, but Tish motioned her to be silent.
“Am I to understand you are holding us here?”
“That’s what we’re here for. We specialize in holding, if you know what
I mean.”
“If it’s that fish pier----”
“Is it the fish pier?” the young man asked of two or three men around,
but nobody seemed to know.
Tish cast a desperate glance about her.
“I may have made a mistake,” she said, “but would it mean anything to
you if I said ‘Good evening, dearie’?”
“Why, it would mean a lot,” he said politely. “Any term
of--er--affection, you know. I’m a soft-hearted man in spite of my
business.”
But Tish was eying him, and now she leaned over the desk and asked very
clearly:
“_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._”
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 of woe 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’s voice 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 the effect 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 apparent that 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._”
“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
and eat 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 struck a 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.
V
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 what I’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 telephoning from 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 that restaurant 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 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 able to 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 she
was 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._”
“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.