So great was our momentum that we fairly leaped the depression, and the
next moment were breaking our way through a small woods, which is close
to the fourteenth hole of the golf links, and had struck across the
course at that point. Owing to the recent rain, the ground was soft,
and at one time we were fairly brought to bay--on, I think, the fairway
to the eleventh hole, sinking very deep. But we kept on the more
rapidly, as we could now see the lights of the stripped flivver winding
along the bridle path which intersects the links.
I must say that the way the greens committee has acted in this matter
has been a surprise to us. The wagon did a part of the damage, and also
the course is not ruined. A few days’ work with a wheelbarrow and spade
will repair all damage; and as to the missing cup at the eighth hole,
did we put the horse’s foot in it?
Tish’s eyes were on the lights of the flivver, now winding its way
along the road through the course, and it is to that that I lay our
next and almost fatal mishap. For near the tenth hole she did not
notice a sand pit just ahead, and a moment later we had leaped the
bunker at the top and shot down into it.
So abrupt was the descent that the lamps--and, indeed, the entire fore
part of the doctor’s car--were buried in the sand, and both of us were
thrown entirely out. It was at this time that Tish injured one of her
floating ribs, as before mentioned, and sustained the various injuries
which laid her up for some time afterward, but at the moment she said
nothing at all. Leaping to her feet, she climbed out of the pit and
disappeared into the night, leaving me in complete darkness to examine
myself for fractures and to sustain the greatest fright of my life. For
as I sat up I realized that I had fallen across something, and that the
something was a human being. Never shall I forget the sensations of
that moment, nor the smothered voice beneath me, which said:
“Kill be at odce ad be dode with it,” and then sneezed violently.
“Aggie!” I shrieked.
She seemed greatly relieved at my voice, and requested me to move so
she could get her head out of the sand. “Ad dod’t screab agaid,” she
said pettishly. “They’ll cobe back ad fidish us all if you do.”
Well, it appeared that the two men had driven straight to the golf
links with the wagon, and had turned in much as we had done. They had
not known that Aggie was in the rear, and at first she had not been
worried, thinking that Tish and I were in the seat. But finally she had
learned her mistake, and that they were talking about loot from some
place or other, and she was greatly alarmed. They were going too fast
for her to escape, although once or twice they had struck bunkers which
nearly threw her out.
But at last they got into the sand pit, and as the horse climbed up the
steep ascent our poor Aggie had heard her teeth drop out of her pocket
and had made a frantic clutch at them. The next moment she had alighted
on her head in the sand pit and the wagon had gone on.
She was greatly shaken by her experience and had taken a heavy cold;
but although we felt about for the blackberry cordial, we could not
find it, and could only believe it had miraculously remained in the
wagon.
As she finished her narrative our dear Tish slipped quietly over the
edge of the pit and sat down, panting, in the sand. The storm being
definitely over and a faint moon now showing, we perceived that she
carried in her hand a canvas sack tied with a strong cord, and from its
weight as she dropped it we knew that at last we had the treasure.
It was a great moment, and both Aggie and I then set about searching
for the missing teeth. But as Tish learned of Aggie’s experience she
grew thoughtful.
“Undoubtedly,” she said, “those two men are somehow concerned in this
robbery to-night, and very probably the rendezvous of the gang is
somewhere hereabouts. In which direction did they go, Aggie?”
“They’ve parked the wagod over id those woods.”
“Then,” said Tish, “it is our clear duty----”
“----to go hobe,” said Aggie sharply.
“Home nothing!” said Tish. “Jail is where we go unless we get them.
There are fifteen policemen and a sheriff coming for us at this minute,
and----” But here she stopped and listened intently. “It is too late,”
she said, with the first discouragement she had shown all evening. “Too
late, my friends. The police are coming now.”
Aggie wailed dismally, but Tish hushed her and we set ourselves to
listen. Certainly there were men approaching, and talking in cautious
tones. There was a moment when I thought our dear Tish was conquered at
last, but only a moment. Then she roused to incisive speech and quick
action.
“I do not propose to be dug out of here like a golf ball,” she stated.
“I am entitled to defend myself and I shall do so. Lizzie, see if there
are any tools in the car there, and get a wrench.” She then took a
firm hold of the treasure bag and swung it in her hand. “I am armed,”
she said quietly, “and prepared for what may come. Aggie, get the
clothespin, and when I give the word point it like a pistol.”
“Ab I to say ‘bag’?”
But before Tish could reply, the men were fairly on us. We had but time
to get behind the car when we could hear their voices. And suddenly
Aggie whispered, “It’s theb! It’s the baddits! Ad they’ve beed at the
cordial!”
And Aggie was right; they had, indeed, as we could tell by their voices.
“It wash Bill, all righ’,” said one man. “I shaw the litsh of hish car.”
“Well, wheresh he gone to? No car here, no anything. Black ash hell.”
One of them then began to sing a song, in which he requested a
bartender to give him a drink, but was quickly hushed by the others,
for there were now three of them. Whether it was this one or not I do
not know, but at that instant one of them fell over the bunker at the
top of the pit and came rolling down at our feet, and Tish, with her
customary readiness, at once struck him on the head with the bag of
pennies. He was evidently stunned, for he lay perfectly still, and the
men above seemed puzzled.
“Hey, Joe!” they called. “Where are you?”
On receiving no reply, one of them lighted a match, and Tish had only
time to retire behind the car before it flared up.
“Well, can you beat that? He’sh broken hish neck!”
But the man with the match was sober, and he saw the car and stared at
it.
“If that’s Bill’s car,” he said, as the match went out, “we’re up
against it. Only--where the devil’s Bill?”
“He’sh dead too, mosht likely,” said the other. “Everybody’sh dead.
S’terrible night. Car’sh dead, too; buried in a shea of shand. Shinking
rapidly. Poor ole car! Women and children first!”
He then burst into tears and sat down apparently, for the other man
kicked him and told him to get up; and then came sliding into the pit
and bent over Joe, striking another match as he did so. Hardly had he
done so when Tish’s weapon again descended with full force, and he fell
beside his unconscious partner in crime.
We had now only the drunken man to deal with; and as Tish wished no
more bloodshed, she managed him in a different manner.
In a word, she secured the towrope from the rear seat of the doctor’s
car and, leaving Aggie and myself to watch the others, climbed out
and approached him from the rear. It was only the work of a moment
to pinion his arms to his sides, and as Aggie immediately pointed
her impromptu weapon and cried “Hads up!” he surrendered without a
struggle. Having securely roped him, we then rolled him into the sand
pit with the others, who showed no signs of coming to.
Fatigued as we were by that time, and no further danger threatening
for the moment, we rested for a brief time on the ground and ate a few
macaroons which I had carried in a pocket against such an emergency.
But by “we” I mean only Tish and myself, as poor Aggie was unable to
do so--and, indeed, has been living on soft food ever since. Then
retrieving the sack containing the Cummings jewels and silver which
the burglars had been carrying, we prepared to carry our double
treasure back to the town.
Here, however, I feel that our dear Tish made a tactical error, for
after we had found the horse and wagon--in the undergrowth just beyond
the seventh hole--instead of heading at once for the police station she
insisted on going first to the Ostermaier’s.
“It is,” she said, examining her watch by the aid of the flashlight,
“now only half past eleven, and we shall not be late if we hurry. After
that I shall report to the police.”
“And what is to prevent those wretches from coming to and escaping in
the interval?” I asked dryly.
“True,” Tish agreed. “Perhaps I would better go back and hit them
again. But that would take time also.”
In the end we compromised on Tish’s original plan and set out once
more. The trip back across the links was uneventful, save that on the
eighth green the horse got a foot into the hole and was only extricated
with the cup still clinging to his foot.
We had no can opener along, and it is quite possible that the ring of
the tin later on on the macadam road led to our undoing. For we had no
sooner turned away from the town toward the Ostermaier’s cottage on
the beach than a policeman leaped out of the bushes and, catching the
animal by the bridle, turned a lantern on us.
“Hey, Murphy!” he called. “Here they are! I’ve got ’em! Hands up,
there!”
“Stand back!” said Tish in a peremptory voice. “We are late enough
already.”
“Late!” said the policeman, pointing a revolver at us. “Well, time
won’t make much difference to you from now on--not where you’re going.
You won’t ever need to hurry again.”
“But I must deliver this treasure. After that I’ll explain everything.”
“You bet you’ll deliver it, and right here and now. And your weapons
too.”
“Aggie, give up your clothespin,” said Tish in a resigned voice.
“These yokels apparently think us guilty of something or other, but my
conscience is clear. If you want the really guilty parties,” she told
the policeman, “go back to the sand pit by the tenth hole and you will
find them.”
“April fool your own self,” said the one called Murphy. “I’ve been
following you for two hours and I don’t trust you. You’re too
resourceful. Is the stuff there?” he asked the first man, who had been
searching in the wagon.
“All here.”
“Then we’ll be moving along,” he said; and in this fashion did we
reach the town once more, and the station house.
Never shall I forget that moment. Each of us handcuffed and hustled
along by the officers, we were shoved into the station house in a
most undignified manner, to confront the sheriff and a great crowd of
people. Nor shall I ever forget the sheriff’s face when he shouted in
an angry voice:
“Women, by heck! When a woman goes wrong she sure goes!”
The place seemed to be crowded with people. The fish-pier man was
there, and a farmer who said we had smashed his feed cutter. And Doctor
Parkinson, limping about in his bedroom slippers and demanding to know
where we had left his car, and another individual who claimed it was
his horse we had taken, and that we’d put a tin can on his off forefoot
and ought to be sued for cruelty to animals. And even Mr. Stubbs,
because his license plates were on our car--and of course the old fool
had told all about it--and the Cummings butler, who pointed at Tish and
said that after the alarm was raised she had tried to get back into the
house again, which was, of course, ridiculous.
I must say it looked bad for us, especially when the crowd moved and we
saw a man lying in a corner with an overcoat under his head and his
eyes shut. Tish, who had not lost an ounce of dignity, gazed at him
without expression.
“I dare say,” she said, “that you claim that that is our work also.”
“Just about killed him, you have,” said the sheriff. “Went right
through him with that motorcycle you stole. Murder--that’s what it’s
likely to be--murder. D’you get his name, doctor?”
“Only roused enough to say it was Bill,” said Doctor Parkinson. “I
wish myself to lodge a complaint for assault and battery against these
women. I am per----”
But Tish interrupted him.
“Bill?” she said. “Bill?”
Without a word she pushed the crowd aside, and bending over Bill, with
her poor manacled hands she examined him as best she could. Then she
straightened herself and addressed the crowd with composure.
“Under this man’s shirt,” she said, “you will find what I imagine to
be a full set of burglar’s tools. If your hands are not paralyzed like
your brains, examine him and see.”
And they found them! The picture of that moment is indelibly impressed
on my mind--the sheriff holding up the tools and Tish addressing the
mob with majesty and the indignation of outraged womanhood.
“Gentlemen, this is one of the gang which robbed the Cummings house
to-night. Through all this eventful evening, during which I regret to
say some of you have suffered, my friends and I have been on their
track. Had the motorcycle not wrecked that ruffian’s car, they would
now have safely escaped. As it is, when we were so unjustly arrested I
had but just recovered the Cummings silver and jewels, and alone and
unaided had overcome the remainder of the gang. I am exhausted and
weary; I have suffered physical injury and mental humiliation; but I am
not too weak or too weary to go now to the sand pit at the tenth hole
on the golf links and complete my evening’s work by handing over to the
police the three other villains I have captured.”
“Three cheers for the old girl!” somebody called in the crowd. “I’m for
her! Let’s go!”
And this, I think, concludes the narrative of that evening’s events. It
was almost midnight when, our prisoners safely jailed, we arrived at
the Ostermaiers’ to find all the treasure hunters except the Cummingses
there and eating supper, and our angel-food cake gracing the center of
the table. Our dear Tish walked in and laid the sack of pennies on the
table.
“Here is the treasure,” she announced. “It has been an interesting
evening, and I hope we shall soon do it again.”
Mr. Ostermaier took up the bag and examined it.
“I have the honor of stating,” he said, “that this, as Miss Carberry
claims, is the treasure, and that Miss Carberry wins the hand-painted
candlestick which is the prize for the event.” He then examined the bag
more carefully, and added:
“But this sack seems to be stained. Perhaps our good sister will
explain what the stains are.”
Tish eyed the bag with an expressionless face.
“Stains?” she said. “Oh, yes, of course. I remember now. They are
blood.”
Then, leaving them staring and speechless with astonishment, she led
the way out of the house, and home.