railing nervously.
We didn't hear anything, and Tish looked disappointed. But she didn't stop her half hop, half run, over the roof. At the end of fifteen minutes she was back at the top of the fire-escape, ready to descend. But going down was different from going up, and I guess we were both relieved when Tommy said there was a staircase.
When we got to the bottom, I was clear out of breath, and even Tommy was panting. But Tish hadn't turned a hair. Some sort of inward excitement was stimulating like a fever, and knowing Tish, I felt she would cave in like a pricked balloon when it was over.
The next thing she demanded was to be put on the top of the elevator cage. But Tommy absolutely balked at that and Tish seemed to realize herself that it wouldn't do.
"I'll go for you," Tommy said. "I'm willing to sacrifice myself for you any time. Aunt Tish, but you can see for yourself that a self-respecting woman in her prime can't ride on top of an elevator without causing comment. It isn't being done in our set this winter. Aunt Tish."
Tish gave in, or pretended to, and we went back to her room. Aggie was there, dressed but sulky, and we had tea all around and tried to talk about indifferent things. We told Aggie we had been up to see the mortuary, whereon she insisted on seeing it, too, and Miss Lewis and I took her.
We left Tish still working over her notes, with a cup of tea in one hand, which she was absently stirring with her lead pencil, and went up-stairs. Tommy had gone to see Miss Blake again.
We showed Aggie the mortuary and she got weak in the knees and had to sit a few minutes. It must have been fifteen minutes, therefore, when supporting her between us, we led her down the steps and rang for the elevator. It travels, as I say, very quietly, and when it came into view, all we could do was to stare, our mouths open.
Riding majestically on top of it, one hand in a dignified manner holding to the cable, the other clutching her stick, and with her head thrown back and staring up, was Tish! She went past us without seeing us, and a moment later we heard her say calmly:
"Stop now, Frank. Stop!"
Almost immediately on that she said, "Go down! Go down, I tell you! Go down!"
The cage went down past us, with Tish still holding on, still looking up. But on her face there was the most terrible expression of mingled fright and satisfaction I ever saw.
The next moment there began, from above, a shower of sticks, pieces of plaster, and finally, a small creature that looked like, and proved to be, a dead rabbit Aggie began to scream and to tear at the elevator doors, but luckily they held.
Well, as the newspapers have told, the idiot of an elevator man kept on to the first floor in his excitement, and it's -a great wonder Tish was not brained. But nothing hit her, and! she got to the lower floor in safety. If she had waited until the cage was lowered sufficiently, she would not have been hurt, but just as the top was still four feet from the floor, the rabbit landed, and Tish jumped and broke her arm.
Chapter XVIII.
Common Sense
Well, that's all there was to it. As I said at the beginning, this is really Tish's story. She told us the whole thing that night sitting up in bed, with the Chief of Police and the hospital superintendent on one side of the bed, and Miss Lewis and I on the other. Aggie lay on the couch with a cubeb cigarette burning beside her, and stared at Tish with admiration mixed with awe.
"In the first place," said Tish, to the Chief of Police, "here are the two towels that figure in the case. One of them is the one that hung Mr. Johnson's body three nights ago to the chandelier, the other is the one with which the ape, Hero, is supposed to have committed suicide at the Zoo the following night. As you see, the two towels are alike. Do you know what S. P. T. stands for?" she asked.
"I can't say I do," said the Chief of Police, and picked up one of the towels.
"Humph!" said Tish. "Well, it means 'Sick Patient Towel,' and they are used in hospitals for tying up delirious patients. The trouble was, there wasn't a delirious patient in the hospital strong enough to walk, let alone tie up a body to a chandelier.
"But before I learned from Bates what S. P. T. meant, I'd been to the Zoo. That was yesterday morning. Maybe you believe that a lonely monkey will commit suicide; maybe he will, I don't know. But when he hangs himself with a roller towel from the Dunkirk hospital, I want to know how he got that towel."
"Oho!" said the Chief of Police, "so the little rascal got loose, did he?"
"He did not," said Tish tartly. "They said he was lonely for his keeper. Very well, said I, where is his keeper? Where is this man he was so fond of that he couldn't live without him? The answer, gentlemen, was that this keeper was a patient in the Dunkirk hospital, as the result of being crushed almost to death by the beast that was supposed to be pining for him! The keeper's name was Wesley Barker!"
''Barker!" said Tommy. "Why, that was the big Englishman—! Go on. Aunt Tish."
"I came back to the hospital with a strong desire to talk to Wesley Barker, but Wesley Barker was not in the hospital. He had been dismissed three days ago. Bates recalled taking his dismissal card to the elevator man, about seven o'clock Tuesday evening. That put Barker out of the case, apparently, but I sent for Jacobs and asked him how easily a man could get into the building at night. He said it was impossible. The doors are always locked, the basement entrances and fire-escapes lead from the courtyard, and the courtyard is locked and in charge of a gate man. That seemed to cut out Wesley Barker, as I say. If he was out, he could hardly get back without using dynamite.
"I got out my notes again, and went over then I couldn't see how Miss Blake and Miss Linda Smith were mixed up in it. They were the day nurses in K ward. Miss Smith in charge and Miss Blake assisting. I had several notes on them: Tuesday at midnight Miss Smith coaxed the night nurse to go to the basement with her, where the patients' clothes are kept in lockers: she was missing for a time, and when Bates saw her later she carried a 'darkish bundle,' possibly clothing. Why?"
The Chief of Police looked wise; he had a way of wriggling his nose like a rabbit.
"The next morning, Miss Blake being ill, we heard Miss Smith crying in her room and blaming herself for the girl's condition," Tish went on. "Again, why?"
"On Wednesday night Miss Blake, still weak and ill, made a complete search of the third floor. Not another nurse in the house would have gone there, or to the mortuary and later to the roof, as she did. Some strong purpose sent the girl, of course—but what?
"That night, following Miss Blake to the roof, my nephew was thrown through a skylight. Later he confessed to a bite on the shoulder. The same night, apparently in a spirit of wanton mischief, the guinea-pigs in the laboratory were killed and three rabbits were taken away. Miss Blake had been there. My nephew confessed later to finding a rosette from her slipper there. Again—why?"
Tish stopped and looked at the Chief of Police, who sat stroking his chin.
"How would you have gone about the case, Mr. Chief of Police?" Tish demanded.
"Probably much as you did," he said, looking at her with a patronizing smile. "It's a simple matter when we know the answer, to say that two and two make four, but you are giving me the four,
