very good," she said, "You see I am better." Tommy beamed.
"And just in time!" said I. "One more fainting fit, and Doctor Tommy Andrews would have been tied up in a strait-jacket."
She colored a little and looked at him.
"I've been telling her," said Tommy, catching my eye, "about Miss Lewis and the mouse last night. A girl with a set of lungs like that is lost in a hospital. She ought to be in a garage blowing up auto tires."
"And—everything was quiet last night?"
"Not a sound—except the aforesaid yell. Never knew the house quieter." He reached over and caught her wrist. "Nerves as tight as a string!" he said. "You're going to have a hypodermic and relax a bit."
"Since you will be my medical adviser—" she said, half shyly, and held out her right arm.
Tommy fixed the hypodermic and came over to the bed. "Ready!" he said, but instead of the right arm, he leaned across and drew up the short white sleeve of the left She made a quick movement, but was too late.
"Good heavens!" Tommy said, and we both stared. The arm was covered with bruises from elbow to shoulder!
Tommy walked back with me to Tish's room, but at first he said nothing, and neither did I. The girl had offered no explanation, and he had asked none. The poor little arm had been too pathetic.
Just before we reached Tish's door, however, he stopped.
"The sheer brutality of it!" he said. "She's only a bit of a girl, and she's been through something horrible. But I'm not going to ask her about it, and I won't have her questioned by anybody else. If I'm satisfied, it's nobody else's affair."
"Listen to the egoist!" said I. "And why is it your affair only."
"Because I'm going to many her, if shell have me," he said hotly. "And after I have her, and can protect her, I'm going to kill whoever put those finger-prints on her arm."
"Finger-prints!" I cried.
"Yes, finger-prints," he said, and opened the door.
Bates had gone, and Aggie and Tish were together. Tish still wore her bonnet, and she had a crimson spot on each cheek.
"Tommy," she said, the moment we entered. "I've sent for the linen woman, and I want you to stay by. As soon as I've seen her, we're going to the Blake girl's room."
"Oh, no; you're not," said Tommy calmly. "You'll go there over my dead body."
"That wouldn't be much of an obstacle!"
"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
