"She's very ill. I won't have her disturbed," said Tommy, and set his jaw. They both have the Carberry jaw. Tish made an impatient movement. "Oh, well, 'I can manage without her. Is the top of the elevator flat?' " she added.
"The center is, I believe," Tommy was doubtful. "What on earth—"
"Never mind!" said Tish grandly, and the linen woman knocked.
"Mrs. Jenkins?" asked Tish.
"Yes'm," said Mrs. Jenkins. She was a tall woman, in black, with a white apron and a thimble as badges of office.
"I wanted to ask you for the key to the mortuary linen closet, Mrs. Jenkins," said Tish.
Mrs. Jenkins fidgeted, and glanced at Tommy.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I—haven't got it just now."
"Indeed!" Tish raised her eyebrows.
"Aren't you responsible for that closet? I have a particular reason for asking."
Mrs. Jenkins turned to Tommy. "Since you're here, Doctor Andrews," she said, "I suppose it's all right, but we don't give the keys to any of the closets to patients usually."
"Since you haven't got it, that needn't disturb you," Tish said sharply. "If you wish a reason, however, I'm a member of the Ladies' Committee of this hospital, and as I am undertaking a special inquiry into things that have happened here lately, I want that key."
"Mrs. Jenkins looked dazed. She had never seen a female detective, I daresay, and to see one sitting before her in a kimono over a nightgown, with a black bonnet with jet bugles over one ear, and her foot out on a stool, clearly bewildered her.
"I'm sorry," she said respectfully, when she'd recovered, "but the key that usually hangs in the mortuary is lost, and I gave Miss Linda Smith the other one."
"Hah!" cried Tish, "When?"
"Yesterday, I think. I'm not sure."
'Thank you very much, Mrs. Jenkins. I'll not keep you any longer." And as the linen woman went out, Tish got up and reached for her cane.
"Now then. Tommy," she said, "I'll trouble you to take Lizzie and Aggie somewhere and keep them, so I can think. Take them out and get them some soda water."
"Soda water! Perhaps you would like me to go back to the Zoo," I observed with biting sarcasm. But it was lost on Tish.
"I shouldn't advise it," she said. "It's raining again. Just get out—go anywhere, so you go. And come back in an hour."
"I've half a mind—" Aggie began nastily.
"Why, so you have!" said Tish. "Shut the door behind you." And as Aggie, who was the last, slammed out, we heard Tish opening the lower bureau drawer.
Chapter XVII.
On the Roof and Elsewhere
We came back in an hour to find Tish waiting with her bonnet still on, and in a more agreeable frame of mind. She asked Tommy and me to go around the hospital with her, but refused to take Aggie, who retired sulking to her room. Tish rolled up the S. P. T. towels and led the way herself, a strange gleam in her eye. Considering what she had in mind, it was a courageous thing she was doing, but I don't mind admitting now that there were moments that day when I thought she had lost her reason.
She led the way to the mortuary first, with her bundle under her arm, and Tommy and I trailing at her heels, like two bewildered lambs after a wild-eyed sheep. Seen in daylight, there was nothing horrible about the mortuary. There were no bodies there, and the daylight came in in churchly fashion through the two large stained glass windows in the end. Indeed, the room looked like a small chapel, being finished in dark wood, with pale walls, chairs in a row around the edge of the floor, and only the row of tables in the center instead of pews, to spoil its ecclesiastical appearance.
At the far end, to the left, and near the windows, was the door to the linen closet. Tish gave the room only a casual glance, and stalked across to the linen closet She hesitated a moment and grasped her stick closely. Then she inserted the key she had carried up with her, and slowly turned it.
The door flew open immediately and I took a hasty step back. But it had been pushed only by the draft of air from a small window at the side, which was open, and except for piles of neatly folded linen, the closet was empty. Tish looked slightly disappointed, but not discouraged. She went in and stuck her head out through the open window, looking in every direction.
"Exactly," she said and prepared to close and lock the closet again. But she waited to close the small window first, and when she turned. Tommy had stooped over something lying on the floor just inside the door.
"Look!" he said, holding it out on his palm. "Briggs' old pipe, with the stem gone! The one he was smoking when—!"
If he expected Tish to be impressed he was disappointed.
"There's nothing astonishing about that!" she said calmly, and proceeding to climb out one of the stained-glass windows on to the fire-escape—although it was the fifth floor and Tish had always declared she'd rather bum up than put a foot on one of the things—she ran nimbly up and over the cornice to the roof.
It was a very ordinary roof. One part was flat, and evidently used occasionally as a breathing spot. There were benches around and a flower pot or two, and directly in the center was a four-foot iron fence, enclosing a skylight. Two men at work there showed where Tommy had gone through, and when I glanced at him he was staring at it with a rueful smile.
"When you remember," he said, "that I weigh a hundred and seventy pounds, and that I went over that fence head first, it makes you wonder what grudge old Johnson had against me. I was decent enough to him, if Briggs wasn't."
"Do you mean that—that Briggs was cruel to him?" I asked Tommy.
"With a refined form of cruelty, yes. The sort that lets an old man go without sugar in his tea, and won't hear him begging for ice-water."
"Then I'm glad he's dead," I snapped, "and if I'd been Johnson, I'd have—"
Tish had wandered across the roof, and was standing on a part of it about two feet higher, than the rest, looking at a second and smaller skylight.
"What's this. Tommy?" she called.
"Elevator, I think," said Tommy, and we went over. Tish was looking around her with speculative eyes.
"I guess this is about right," she said. "I miss my guess, unless— Tommy, get down with your ear to the roof and see if you hear anything."
"It's dirty," said Tommy.
"I guess you'll wash without spoiling," Tish snapped. "It ain't a Carberry trait to be afraid of dirt. Get down."
Tommy pulled up his trousers legs and got down gingerly, and I followed suit. I daresay we looked queer, both kneeling, and each with an eager ear to the tin. The two men at the other skylight stared at us over
