THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED-HEADED DETECTIVE, THE LADY CHAUFFEUR, AND THE
MAN WHO COULD NOT TELL THE TRUTH
I
It is easy enough, of course, to look back on our Canadian experience
and see where we went wrong. What I particularly resent is the attitude
of Charlie Sands.
I am writing this for his benefit. It seems to me that a clean statement
of the case is due to Tish, and, in less degree, to Aggie and myself.
It goes back long before the mysterious cipher. Even the incident of our
abducting the girl in the pink tam-o'-shanter was, after all, the
inevitable result of the series of occurrences that preceded it.
It is my intention to give this series of occurrences in their proper
order and without bias. Herbert Spencer says that every act of one's
life is the unavoidable result of every act that has preceded it.
Naturally, therefore, I begin with the engagement by Tish of a girl as
chauffeur; but even before that there were contributing causes. There
was the faulty rearing of the McDonald youth, for instance, and Tish's
æsthetic dancing. And afterward there was Aggie's hay fever, which made
her sneeze and let go of a rope at a critical moment. Indeed, Aggie's
hay fever may be said to be one of the fundamental causes, being the
reason we went to Canada.
It was like this: Along in June of the year before last, Aggie suddenly
announced that she was going to spend the summer in Canada.
"It's the best thing in the world for hay fever," she said, avoiding
Tish's eye. "Mrs. Ostermaier says she never sneezed once last year. The
Northern Lights fill the air with ozone, or something like that."
"Fill the air with ozone!" Tish scoffed. "Fill Mrs. Ostermaier's skull
with ozone, instead of brains, more likely!"
Tish is a good woman--a sweet woman, indeed; but she has a vein of
gentle irony, which she inherited from her maternal grandfather, who was
on the Supreme Bench of his country. However, that spring she was
inclined to be irritable. She could not drive her car, and that was
where the trouble really started.
Tish had taken up æsthetic dancing in March, wearing no stays and a
middy blouse and short skirt; and during a fairy dance, where she was to
twirl on her right toes, keeping the three other limbs horizontal, she
twisted her right lower limb severely. Though not incapacitated, she
could not use it properly; and, failing one day to put on the brake
quickly, she drove into an open-front butter-and-egg shop.
[This was the time one of the newspapers headed the article: "Even the
Eggs Scrambled."]
When Tish decided to have a chauffeur for a time she advertised. There
were plenty of replies, but all of the applicants smoked cigarettes--a
habit Tish very properly deplores. The idea of securing a young woman
was, I must confess, mine.
"Plenty of young women drive cars," I said, "and drive well. And, at
least, they don't light a cigarette every time one stops to let a train
go by."
"Huh!" Tish commented. "And have a raft of men about all the time!"
Nevertheless, she acted on the suggestion, advertising for a young woman
who could drive a car and had no followers. Hutchins answered.
She was very pretty and not over twenty; but, asked about men, her face
underwent a change, almost a hardening. "You'll not be bothered with
men," she said briefly. "I detest them!"
And this seemed to be the truth. Charlie Sands, for instance, for whose
benefit this is being written, absolutely failed to make any impression
on her. She met his overtures with cold disdain. She was also adamant
to the men at the garage, succeeding in having the gasoline filtered
through a chamois skin to take out the water, where Tish had for years
begged for the same thing without success.
Though a dashing driver, Hutchins was careful. She sat on the small of
her back and hurled us past the traffic policemen with a smile.
[Her name was really Hutchinson; but it took so long to say it at the
rate she ran the car that Tish changed it to Hutchins.]
Really the whole experiment seemed to be an undoubted success, when
Aggie got the notion of Canada into her head. Now, as it happened,
owing to Tish's disapproval, Aggie gave up the Canada idea in favor
of Nantucket, some time in June; but she had not reckoned with Tish's
subconscious self. Tish was interested that spring in the subconscious
self.
You may remember that, only a year or so before, it had been the fourth
dimension.
[She became convinced that if one were sufficiently earnest one could go
through closed doors and see into solids. In the former ambition she was
unsuccessful, obtaining only bruises and disappointment; but she did
develop the latter to a certain extent, for she met the laundress going
out one day and, without a conscious effort, she knew that she had the
best table napkins pinned to her petticoat. She accused the woman
sternly--and she had six!]
"Nantucket!" said Tish. "Why Nantucket?"
"I have a niece there, and you said you hated Canada."
"On the contrary," Tish replied, with her eyes partly shut, "I find
that my subconscious self has adopted and been working on the Canadian
suggestion. What a wonderful thing is this buried and greater ego!
Worms, rifles, fishing-rods, 'The Complete Angler,' mosquito netting,
canned goods, and sleeping-bags, all in my mind and in orderly array!"
"Worms!" I said, with, I confess, a touch of scorn in my voice. "If you
will tell me, Tish Carberry--"
"Life preservers," chanted Tish's subconscious self, "rubber blankets,
small tent, folding camp-beds, a camp-stove, a meat-saw, a wood-saw,
and some beads and gewgaws for placating the Indians." Then she opened
her eyes and took up her knitting. "There are no worms in Canada,
Lizzie, just as there are no snakes in Ireland. They were all destroyed
during the glacial period."
"There are plenty of worms in the United States," I said with spirit.
"I dare say they could crawl over the border--unless, of course, they
object to being British subjects."
She ignored me, however, and, getting up, went to one of her bureau
drawers. We saw then that her subconscious self had written down
lists of various things for the Canadian excursion. There was one
headed Foodstuffs. Others were: Necessary Clothing; Camp Outfit;
Fishing-Tackle; Weapons of Defense; and Diversions. Under this last
heading it had placed binoculars, yarn and needles, life preservers,
a prayer-book, and a cribbage-board.
"Boats," she said, "we can secure from the Indians, who make them, I
believe, of hollow logs. And I shall rent a motor boat. Hutchins says
she can manage one. When she's not doing that she can wash dishes."
[We had been rather chary of motor boats, you may remember, since the
time on Lake Penzance, when something jammed on our engine, and we had
gone madly round the lake a number of times, with people on various
docks trying to lasso us with ropes.]
Considering that it was she who had started the whole thing, and got
Tish's subconscious mind to working, Aggie was rather pettish.
"Huh!" she said. "I can't swim, and you know it, Tish. Those canoe
things turn over if you so much as sneeze in them."
"You'll not sneeze," said Tish. "The Northern Lights fill the air with
ozone."
Aggie looked at me helplessly; but I could do nothing. Only the year
before, Tish, as you may recall, had taken us out into the Maine woods
without any outfit at all, and we had lived on snared rabbits, and
things that no Christian woman ought to put into her stomach. This time
we were at least to go provisioned and equipped.
"Where are we going?" Aggie asked.
"Far from a white man," said Tish. "Away from milk wagons and children
on velocipedes and the grocer calling up every morning for an order.
We'll go to the Far North, Aggie, where the red man still treads his
native forests; we'll make our camp by some lake, where the deer come at
early morning to drink and fish leap to see the sunset."
Well, it sounded rather refreshing, though I confess that, until Tish
mentioned it, I had always thought that fish leaped in the evening to
catch mosquitoes.
We sent for Hutchins at once. She was always respectful, but never
subservient. She stood in the doorway while Tish explained.
"How far north?" she said crisply. Tish told her. "We'll have no
cut-and-dried destination," she said. "There's a little steamer goes up
the river I have in mind. We'll get off when we see a likely place."
"Are you going for trout or bass?"
Tish was rather uncertain, but she said bass on a chance, and Hutchins
nodded her approval.
"If it's bass, I'll go," she said. "I'm not fond of trout-fishing."
"We shall have a motor boat. Of course I shall not take the car."
Hutchins agreed indifferently. "Don't you worry about the motor boat,"
she said. "Sometimes they go, and sometimes they don't. And I'll help
round the camp; but I'll not wash dishes."
"Why not?" Tish demanded.
"The reason doesn't really matter, does it? What really concerns you is
the fact."
Tish stared at her; but instead of quailing before Tish's majestic eye
she laughed a little.
"I've camped before," she said. "I'm very useful about a camp. I like to
cook; but I won't wash dishes. I'd like, if you don't mind, to see the
grocery order before it goes."
Well, Aggie likes to wash dishes if there is plenty of hot water; and
Hannah, Tish's maid, refusing to go with us on account of Indians, it
seemed wisest to accept Hutchins's services.
Hannah's defection was most unexpected. As soon as we reached our
decision, Tish ordered beads for the Indians; and in the evenings we
strung necklaces, and so on, while one of us read aloud from the works
of Cooper. On the second evening thus occupied, Hannah, who is allowed
to come into Tish's sitting-room in the evening and knit, suddenly
burst into tears and refused to go.
"My scalp's as good to me as it is to anybody, Miss Tish," she said
hysterically; and nothing would move her.
She said she would run no risk of being cooked over her own camp-fire;
and from that time on she would gaze at Tish for long periods
mournfully, as though she wanted to remember how she looked when she was
gone forever.
Except for Hannah, everything moved smoothly. Tish told Charlie Sands
about the plan, and he was quite enthusiastic.
"Great scheme!" he said. "Eat a broiled black bass for me. And take the
advice of one who knows: don't skimp on your fishing-tackle. Get the
best. Go light on the canned goods, if necessary; but get the best reels
and lines on the market. Nothing in life hurts so much," he said
impressively, "as to get a three-pound bass to the top of the water and
have your line break. I've had a big fellow get away like that and chase
me a mile with its thumb on its nose." This last, of course, was purely
figurative.
He went away whistling. I wish he had been less optimistic. When we came
back and told him the whole story, and he sat with his mouth open and
his hair, as he said, crackling at the roots, I reminded him with some
bitterness that he had encouraged us. His only retort was to say that
the excursion itself had been harmless enough; but that if three elderly
ladies, church members in good standing, chose to become freebooters and
pirates the moment they got away from a corner policeman, they need not
blame him.
The last thing he said that day in June was about fishing-worms.
"Take 'em with you," he said. "They charge a cent apiece for them up
there, assorted colors, and there's something stolid and British about a
Canadian worm. The fish aren't crazy about 'em. On the other hand, our
worms here are--er--vivacious, animated. I've seen a really brisk and
on-to-its-job United States worm reach out and clutch a bass by the
gills."
I believe it was the next day that Tish went to the library and read
about worms. Aggie and I had spent the day buying tackle, according to
Charlie Sands's advice. We got some very good rods with nickel-plated
reels for two dollars and a quarter, a dozen assorted hooks for each
person, and a dozen sinkers. The man wanted to sell us what he called a
"landing net," but I took a good look at it and pinched Aggie.
"I can make one out of a barrel hoop and mosquito netting," I whispered;
so we did not buy it.
Perhaps he thought we were novices, for he insisted on showing us all
sorts of absurd things--trolling-hooks, he called them; gaff hooks for
landing big fish and a spoon that was certainly no spoon and did not
fool us for a minute, being only a few hooks and a red feather. He asked
a dollar and a quarter for it!
[I made one that night at home, using a bit of red feather from a
duster. It cost me just three cents. Of that, as of Hutchins, more
later.]
Aggie, whose idea of Canada had been the Hotel Frontenac, had grown
rather depressed as our preparations proceeded. She insisted that night
on recalling the fact that Mr. Wiggins had been almost drowned in
Canada.
"He went with the Roof and Gutter Club, Lizzie," she said, "and he was a
beautiful swimmer; but the water comes from the North Pole, freezing
cold, and the first thing he knew--"
The telephone bell rang just then. It was Tish.
"I've just come from the library, Lizzie," she said. "We'd better raise
the worms. We've got a month to do it in. Hutchins and I will be round
with the car at eight o'clock to-night. Night is the time to get them."
She refused to go into details, but asked us to have an electric flash
or two ready and a couple of wooden pails. Also she said to wear
mackintoshes and rubbers. Just before she rang off, she asked me to see
that there was a package of oatmeal on hand, but did not explain. When I
told Aggie she eyed me miserably.
"I wish she'd be either more explicit or less," she said. "We'll be
arrested again. I know it!"
[Now and then Tish's enthusiasms have brought us into collision with the
law--not that Tish has not every respect for law and order, but that she
is apt to be hasty and at times almost unconventional.]
"You remember," said Aggie, "that time she tried to shoot the sheriff,
thinking he was a train robber? She started just like this--reading up
about walking-tours, and all that. I--I'm nervous, Lizzie."
I was staying with Aggie for a few days while my apartment was being
papered. To soothe Aggie's nerves I read aloud from Gibbon's "Rome"
until dinner-time, and she grew gradually calmer.
"After all, Lizzie," she said, "she can't get us into mischief with two
wooden pails and a package of oatmeal."
Tish and Hutchins came promptly at eight and we got into the car. Tish
wore the intent and dreamy look that always preceded her enterprises.
There was a tin sprinkling-can, quite new, in the tonneau, and we placed
our wooden pails beside it and the oatmeal in it. I confess I was
curious, but to my inquiries Tish made only one reply:--
"Worms!"
Now I do not like worms. I do not like to touch them. I do not even like
to look at them. As the machine went along I began to have a creepy
loathing of them. Aggie must have been feeling the same way, for when my
hand touched hers she squealed.
Over her shoulder Tish told her plan. She said it was easy to get
fishing-worms at night and that Hutchins knew of a place a few miles out
of town where the family was away and where there would be plenty.
"We'll put them in boxes of earth," she said, "and feed them coffee or
tea grounds one day and oatmeal water the next. They propagate rapidly.
We'll have a million to take with us. If we only have a hundred thousand
at a cent apiece, that's a clear saving of a thousand dollars."
"We could sell some," I suggested sarcastically; for Tish's enthusiasms
have a way of going wrong.
But she took me seriously. "If there are any fishing clubs about," she
said, "I dare say they'll buy them; and we can turn the money over to
Mr. Ostermaier for the new organ."
Tish had bought the organ and had an evening concert with it before we
turned off the main road into a private drive.
"This is the place," Hutchins said laconically.
Tish got out and took a survey. There was shrubbery all round and a very
large house, quite dark, in the foreground.
"Drive onto the lawn, Hutchins," she said. "When the worms come up, the
lamps will dazzle them and they'll be easy to capture."
We bumped over a gutter and came to a stop in the middle of the lawn.
"It would be better if it was raining," Tish said. "You know, yourself,
Lizzie, how they come up during a gentle rain. Give me the
sprinkling-can."
I do not wish to lay undue blame on Hutchins, who was young; but it was
she who suggested that there would probably be a garden hose somewhere
and that it would save time. I know she went with Tish round the corner
of the house, and that they returned in ten minutes or so, dragging a
hose.
"I broke a tool-house window," Tish observed, "but I left fifty cents
on the sill to replace it. It's attached at the other end. Run back,
Hutchins, and turn on the water; but not too much. We needn't drown the
little creatures."
Well, I have never seen anything work better. Aggie, who had refused to
put a foot out of the car, stood up in it and held the hose. As fast as
she wet a bit of lawn, we followed with the pails. I spread my
mackintosh out and knelt on it.
[Illustration: As fast as she wet a bit of lawn, we followed with the
pails]
The thing took skill. The worms had a way of snapping back into their
holes like lightning.
Tish got about three to my one, and talked about packing them in moss
and ice, and feeding them every other day. Hutchins, however, stood on
the lawn, with her hands in her pockets, and watched the house.
Suddenly, without warning, Aggie turned the hose directly on my left ear
and held it there.
"There's somebody coming!" she cried. "Merciful Heavens, what'll I do
with the hose?"
"You can turn it away from me!" I snapped.
So she did, and at that instant a young man emerged from the shrubbery.
He did not speak at once. Probably he could not. I happened to look at
Hutchins, and, for all her usual _savoir-faire_, as Charlie Sands called
it, she was clearly uncomfortable.
Tish, engaged in a struggle at that moment and sitting back like a
robin, did not see him at once.
"Well!" said the young man; and again: "Well, upon my word!"
He seemed out of breath with surprise; and he took off his hat and
mopped his head with a handkerchief. And, of course, as though things
were not already bad enough, Aggie sneezed at that instant, as she
always does when she is excited; and for just a second the hose was
on him.
It was unexpected and he almost staggered. He looked at all of us,
including Hutchins, and ran his handkerchief round inside his collar.
Then he found his voice.
"Really," he said, "this is awfully good of you. We do need rain--don't
we?"
Tish was on her feet by that time, but she could not think of anything
to say.
"I'm sorry if I startled you," said the young man. "I--I'm a bit
startled myself."
"There is nothing to make a fuss about!" said Hutchins crisply. "We are
getting worms to go fishing."
"I see," said the young man. "Quite natural, I'm sure. And where are you
going fishing?"
Hutchins surprised us all by rudely turning her back on him. Considering
we were on his property and had turned his own hose on him, a little
tact would have been better.
Tish had found her voice by that time. "We broke a window in the
tool-house," she said; "but I put fifty cents on the sill."
"Thank you," said the young man.
Hutchins wheeled at that and stared at him in the most disagreeable
fashion; but he ignored her.
"We are trespassing," said Tish; "but I hope you understand. We thought
the family was away."
"I just happened to be passing through," he explained. "I'm awfully
attached to the place--for various reasons. Whenever I'm in town I spend
my evenings wandering through the shrubbery and remembering--er--happier
days."
"I think the lamps are going out," said Hutchins sharply. "If we're to
get back to town--"
"Ah!" he broke in. "So you have come out from the city?"
"Surely," said Hutchins to Tish, "it is unnecessary to give this
gentleman any information about ourselves! We have done no damage--"
"Except the window," he said.
"We've paid for that," she said in a nasty tone; and to Tish: "How do we
know this place is his? He's probably some newspaper man, and if you
tell him who you are this whole thing will be in the morning paper, like
the eggs."
"I give you my word of honor," he said, "that I am nothing of the sort;
in fact, if you will give me a little time I'd--I'd like to tell all
about myself. I've got a lot to say that's highly interesting, if you'll
only listen."
Hutchins, however, only gave him a cold glance of suspicion and put the
pails in the car. Then she got in and sat down.
"I take it," he said to her, "that you decline either to give or to
receive any information."
"Absolutely!"
He sighed then, Aggie declares.
"Of course," he said, "though I haven't really the slightest curiosity,
I could easily find out, you know. Your license plates--"
"Are under the cushion I'm sitting on," said Hutchins, and started the
engine.
"Really, Hutchins," said Tish, "I don't see any reason for being so
suspicious. I have always believed in human nature and seldom have I
been disappointed. The young man has done nothing to justify rudeness.
And since we are trespassing on his place--"
"Huh!" was all Hutchins said.
The young man sauntered over to the car, with his hands thrust into this
coat pockets. He was nice-looking, especially then, when he was smiling.
"Hutchins!" he said. "Well, that's a clue anyhow. It--it's an uncommon
name. You didn't happen to notice a large 'No-Trespassing!' sign by the
gate, did you?"
Hutchins only looked ahead and ignored him. As Tish said afterward, we
had a good many worms, anyhow; and, as the young man and Hutchins had
clearly taken an awful dislike to each other at first sight, the best
way to avoid trouble was to go home. So she got into the car. The young
man helped her and took off his hat.
"Come out any time you like," he said affably. "I'm not here at all in
the daytime, and the grounds are really rather nice. Come out and get
some roses. We've some pretty good ones--English importations. If you
care to bring some children from the tenements out for a picnic, please
feel free to do it. We're not selfish."
Hutchins rudely started the car before he had finished; but he ignored
her and waved a cordial farewell to the rest of us.
"Bring as many as you like," he called. "Sunday is a good day. Ask
Miss--Miss Hutchins to come out and bring some friends along."
We drove back at the most furious rate. Tish was at last compelled to
remonstrate with Hutchins.
"Not only are we going too fast," she said, "but you were really rude to
that nice young man."
"I wish I had turned the hose on him and drowned him!" said Hutchins
between her teeth.