Tish Marches On

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  “I was merely trying to get some peanuts,” said Tish coldly. “What is so extraordinary about that?”

  “That is what I am asking,” he observed. “The fact that you broke into the stand in the middle of the night to do so is not unusual. Nor even the fact that a police officer claims that you broke his nose. All I am asking is why? Why are you here? And why, for instance, the peanuts?”

  And then Tish became her old self, after a night of anxiety and hazard such as few women could have endured.

  “Don’t be a fool,” she said sharply. “For the elephant, of course.”

  It was I believe at that time that the nurse brought him the aromatic ammonia.

  As Tish has said since, it should all have been perfectly clear to him by that time. After all, we had spent the entire night attempting to help him, and that at his own request. As to his observation—made later—that the broken fire plug flooded a number of cellars, all damage has since been paid. And I still maintain that resistance to unjustified capture is a citizen’s duty. We have all seen Officer O’Brien since, and if his nose was broken by the rim of the butterfly net it certainly shows no sign of it.

  Actually it began with Charlie Sands’ request that we find a mouse for him. We had dined with Tish that night, and Hannah, Tish’s maid, had baked one of her celebrated pecan-nut pies. What with that and a glass each of blackberry cordial we were in a contented frame of mind. Then the doorbell rang, and it was Charlie Sands, accompanied by a very pretty girl.

  It appeared that her name was Paula, and that her father was the managing editor of Charlie Sands’ newspaper. Also that she herself did the society column on the paper. But I must admit that we were surprised at the object of their visit.

  They wanted a mouse!

  “Preferably a live one,” said Charlie Sands. “Certainly one of a bland expression, undamaged by the usual sort of trap. A domestic mouse, even a good family mouse, with the usual fangs, whiskers and so on. The taxidermist insists on these.”

  “What taxidermist?” Tish inquired.

  “The one who is going to mount the head,” he said.

  I dare say we looked bewildered, for Paula hastened to explain. Her father had lately returned from a hunting trip in Africa, bringing a number of trophies, such as mounted heads and antlers. What was more, he talked of nothing else, and something had to be done about it.

  “He’s driven mother crazy,” she said. “You know how it is: zebra rugs, lionskins hither and yon, a stuffed giraffe with a ten-foot neck in the corner, an elephant’s foot and leg for an umbrella stand and a hippopotamus over the mantel. And it’s as bad at the office. So now we want a mouse.”

  Tish dropped her knitting and stared at them.

  “But why a mouse?” she inquired. “A bushel of moths would be better.”

  They liked their own plan better, however, the idea being that all the office force give him a bang-up dinner with speeches, and then present him the head of a mouse, properly mounted. It appeared that he had killed a mouse some days before, but had fed it to the office cat.

  “It’s to be a hint,” said Charlie Sands. “A hint that we’re fed up, as you may say. But now that we need one we can’t find a mouse. How about this building? Does the janitor have mice, or does he keep a cat?”

  “He keeps a cat,” Tish informed him.

  Charlie Sands then gave a hollow groan and said that this was Friday and they had to have the mouse by Monday. Only there were no mice.

  “It’s a crying evil,” he said. “There must be millions of cats about. When I think of all the poor little Mus musculus—or whatever the plural is—hounded by millions of cats, it seems both cruel and unfair.”

  In the end they asked us if we would undertake the commission, all else having failed, and Tish finally agreed. Only Aggie protested, having a terror of the creatures, but Tish ignored her.

  “It seems a simple matter,” she observed. “We shall need tomorrow to make a few preparations, but that is all.”

  I remember that Charlie Sands looked rather anxious at that.

  “Of course,” he said hastily, “what we want is merely a mouse. Not a camel or a tiger. Not even a rhinoceros. Just bear that in mind, will you? Knowing you as I do—”

  “I think you can trust me,” said Tish coldly, and took up her knitting again.

  They were more cheerful after that, and as they prepared to go he swore us to secrecy on the whole matter; especially to watch out for one man.

  “One of our fellows got fired the other day,” he said. “He disappeared for a week and the old man let him out. He might be dangerous. He knows the plot.”

  I noticed that Paula colored.

  “That idiot!” she said. “What can he do? I wrote him a note asking him to get me a mouse, and he read it moose and went all the way to Canada for it. Was it my fault that it got him into a tree and then tried to butt the tree down?”

  However that might be, Charlie Sands warned us to be careful of this person, whose name appeared to be Bill Lawrence, and who, having failed to secure the mouse himself, had flatly stated that no one else would. He had indeed said that he would either be reinstated on the paper or he would publish the whole story in the rival newspaper, the Gazette.

  “He would do it too,” said Paula. “He is angry and capable of anything. Also he has a terrible disposition, mean and vindictive. I am sorry for any girl who is idiot enough to marry him.”

  She then sighed and said he was no reporter anyhow, and the office was well rid of him; but he had no idea we were going to help them out, and so we were probably safe.

  They finally departed, and we went into executive session at once. As Charlie Sands had said, mice were like athlete’s foot: many are afflicted but few admit it. And although we are opposed to killing any living creature, all of us being members of the S.P.C.A., there was no doubt that mice carried germs and were therefore a menace to the human race.

  It was Tish’s suggestion that we make the capture as painless as possible, and that to this end a butterfly net and a pound or so of cheese would be the only essentials.

  “In this way,” she said, “will the mouse not only be uninjured, but placed at once in a jar with the cheese, its last hours will be happy and its final expression mild and normal.”

  Our preparations the next day were simple. Tish made out a list, including the butterfly net, a flashlight, a pound of cheese, and a small tin of shoe blacking in case we needed to darken our faces. These we secured. But it became evident after certain inquiries that the search was not to be so simple as we had anticipated.

  Hannah, interrogated as to mice in the kitchen, burst into tears and offered to leave at once; and the janitor of Tish’s building was most unpleasant.

  “Mice!” he said. “There’s none there unless you put them there yourself, Miss Carberry. And that wouldn’t surprise me either,” he added darkly.

  I must say that Aggie, too, was most discouraging. As fear always affects her nasal passages, she sneezed constantly, so that in the end Tish suggested that she need not participate. This only offended her, although time was to prove that our dear Tish as usual had been right. I may say, too, that up to that afternoon we had not considered the matter of a mousetrap. As Tish said, with such a contraption we ran the risk of injury to the mouse.

  But that afternoon a young man called with quite an unusual one. True, it was large and bulky, but he stated at once that mice so caught were not injured at all.

  “Or at least,” he added, “not necessarily. The can or reservoir may of course be filled with water, thus drowning the little creature. But left dry it is quite safe.”

  He then explained the mechanism.

  “You get the idea,” he said. “The mouse enters here on the floor level for the cheese. As it does so it trips the door, which imprisons it quite harmlessly. After eating the cheese it naturally seeks to escape, but the door is closed. It therefore climbs this gentle winding ascent to the top of the reservoir
and steps on this small plank. Its weight trips the plank and it slides painlessly into the reservoir; to life or death as you may decide.”

  He seemed very gratified when we purchased it, and as he was quite pleasant and even good-looking, Tish gave him a glass of cordial. This seemed to cheer him, and he stated that he was only selling mousetraps temporarily.

  “I had hoped for better things,” he said, with a faint smile at all of us. “I had a job. I had a future. I even had a girl. I was,” he added brokenly, “very much in love with her. But in the end she failed me. Any girl who would act as she did—Well, never mind about that. Here’s to the trap, ladies; and the mouse.”

  Before he left he said his name was Jones, and that he might drop in from time to time to see how the mechanism was operating. When I recall that, and his duplicity throughout the entire affair, I am filled with indignation. But it must be stated, here and now, that none of us were responsible for the treatment he received later during the incident at the Zoo. Or for his broken camera.

  II

  WE SPENT THE REMAINDER of the afternoon in laying our plans. Tish was convinced that the family on the second floor of her apartment house would have mice, as they were most untidy. That failing, she arranged with Mr. Beilstein, her butcher, for a visit that night to his basement. And Mr. Caspari, who runs a restaurant in the neighborhood, did not keep a cat and was willing to let us into his cellar if necessary.

  At last all was prepared, and we gathered together our impedimenta, consisting of the mousetrap, the package of cheese, the butterfly net, the flashlight, and the small tin of shoe blacking. With these properties, so to speak, and dressed entirely in dark garments, we felt prepared for anything, and Tish telephoned Charlie Sands and so notified him.

  He seemed rather uneasy, however.

  “Now see here,” he protested. “You are only going after a mouse. You don’t have to kill anybody. No murders, no publicity, and absolutely no trouble with the police. Is that a promise?”

  To which Tish made no reply, simply hanging up the receiver. I have recorded this here, as he has since stated that we committed an absolute breach of contract. There was no contract.

  Nevertheless, I must say that our first attempt that evening was most unsuccessful. Discovering that the family on the second floor was away from home, at nine o’clock that night, having blackened our faces, we went down the fire escape and entered by a window. From the disorder of the kitchen it looked most promising, and Tish was in the act of placing cheese in the trap when to our horror we heard voices in the next room.

  We immediately took refuge in the kitchen closet, but here unluckily Aggie backed against a blueberry pie. It made a most frightful noise as it fell, and we barely managed to escape. And it is indicative of the way things were to go with us that night that someone put a head out of a window and screamed and that a police officer passing below saw us and followed us up the fire escape.

  We had barely time to throw off our hats, wipe our faces, and dump the trap, butterfly net, cheese, flashlight, and shoe blacking into a closet when he was hammering at the window. By that time, however, Tish had sat down and picked up her knitting, and she merely glanced up.

  “See what that is, Lizzie,” she said calmly.

  I let him in, and I must say he looked astonished when he saw us. He took off his cap and mopped his forehead.

  “Sorry, ladies,” he said, “but the people on the second floor have had some burglars, and I sure thought I saw them come in here.”

  “Burglars?” said Tish. “What burglars? There are no burglars here, I assure you.”

  “I saw them clear,” he said. “They had masks on.”

  Aggie sneezed violently, but Tish went on with her knitting.

  “Dear me,” she said. “Masks! I know they wear gloves, but masks! What did they take, officer?”

  “They tried to take a blueberry pie,” he said.

  Here again Aggie sneezed and he looked at her with suspicion. But in the end Tish gave him some cordial and he became more friendly. He said his name was O’Brien; shall I ever forget it! And when he finally departed we heard him going down the fire escape and singing a song about a policeman’s lot not being a happy one.

  I must admit that my nerves were badly shaken, and Aggie implored us to abandon all search for a mouse that night. Tish, however, was firm.

  “We have given our promise,” she said, “and we are engaged in nothing nefarious. I have no intention of coming into conflict with the law.”

  In the end we agreed. As Mr. Beilstein’s shop around the corner closed at ten o’clock, we took an immediate departure in Tish’s car, placing in it the butterfly net, cheese, flashlight, mousetrap, and shoe blacking. I must say for Aggie’s acumen that we had gone only a short distance when she stated that a car was following us, and it is our misfortune that we did not listen to her.

  But we were occupied with other matters. Mr. Beilstein was very amiable and even said that he had already sprinkled some cheese about.

  “Not that I guarantee anything,” he said. “I don’t carry meat on the hoof, so to speak! But I wish you luck, ladies.”

  He then said that there was a spring lock on the front door so that we could leave when ready, and showed us down to the cellar. It was clean but cold, butchers not apparently requiring heat, and Aggie started to sneeze immediately, greatly to Tish’s annoyance.

  The cellar looked exceedingly promising, and it appeared to be a matter of only a brief time when we would have secured our mouse and returned to our beds.

  It required but a few moments to blacken our faces, and almost at once Tish discovered a large hole in a corner and outlined our strategy.

  “It should be quite simple,” she said. “Before I turn out the lights I shall place the trap. On hearing any sounds Aggie will turn on the flashlight, thus blinding the creature, and in case it escapes the trap I shall be ready with the net.”

  It was thus arranged, and in a short time we were plunged into the cold darkness. I was shivering myself, and I could hear Aggie’s teeth hitting together with a sharp clicking noise, alternating with suppressed sneezes. But for a long time nothing happened. There was no pitter-patter of tiny feet, no sounds from the trap. In due time we heard Mr. Beilstein depart, and then to my horror Aggie moved to me in the dark and clutched my arm.

  “There’s sobebody up above!” she whispered.

  There was. I could hear the sounds of muffled footsteps on the bare floor, followed by a rasp of metal. At that instant however Tish asked for a light, and Aggie flashed it on the hole.

  There was a rat there as big as a cat, and with an awful shriek Aggie made for the stairs. I can still hear her voice as she hammered on the door.

  “It’s locked, Tish!” she shouted frantically.

  “Nonsense,” said Tish sternly.

  “It is locked.”

  Well, Tish turned on the lights then, and the door was locked. Never shall I forget my feelings at this discovery or Aggie’s frenzied retreat from the stairs for fear of some murderous creature above, only to retire there again because of the rat below, and moaning softly. To add to our discomfort there was the knowledge that it was Saturday night, and we might be imprisoned until Monday morning.

  The situation was most unpleasant. There were now no sounds from above, and Tish, opening a door, had found only a large refrigerating room, from which came a draft of icy air.

  “There is one comfort,” she said thoughtfully. “There is considerable food there, including a baked ham. We need not starve.”

  “We cad freeze,” said Aggie feebly. “I ab freezig dow.”

  “I should think running about would keep you warm,” said Tish, with disapproval.

  Such was the condition of affairs that we had all forgotten about the mouse. Even Tish, while outwardly calm, must have known some anxious moments, for I recall that she brought out the ham and gave it to Aggie, who regarded it with extreme distaste. But in the end it was Tish w
ho at last saw a narrow airshaft leading to an alley, and decided that it was a possible means of escape.

  It was but the work of a moment to gather together the net, mousetrap, and other things. Then, as I am the largest of us, she urged me to make the attempt first.

  By standing on a heap of coal I reached the shaft and struggled halfway through it. It seemed impossible to go farther, and I was about to retreat once more when a brilliant flash half blinded me; to my horror I felt an enormous hand on my shoulder!

  “You would, would you?” said a voice. “All right, Jim. Here’s one of them, and the others are inside.”

  It was a policeman, and there was another running to his assistance.

  I do not recall a more unpleasant situation, with Aggie and our dear Tish slowly emerging from the cellar, and a police patrol appearing out of nowhere and shrieking into the alley.

  Looking back, I wonder what we could have done; but how were we to know that our arrest was no accident, but part of a deliberate plot? Or that the flash which half blinded me as I stuck in the air shaft was from a camera? Or even that Aggie, dazed with terror, had brought along that wretched baked ham, and that Officer O’Brien would be at the station house where they took us, and see it?

  He walked up to us and gave us a most disagreeable look.

  “So!” he said. “Knitting, were you? And masks, says you! First a blueberry pie and now a ham!” He then turned to a man behind the desk and spoke to him. “Listen, sarge,” he said. “They’re burglars. Food burglars is what they are. What’s more, they doped me. They gave me a glass of—a glass of water, and half an hour after I took it I passed out cold. Just sat down to rest my feet and was out like a light.”

  It was useless to explain about the blackberry cordial, although we attempted to do so, and when Tish said coldly that while unconscious he had been able to sing about a policeman’s lot, he said he had never heard of it, and that maybe we needed strait-jackets. Either that, or he did.

  It looked very unpleasant for all of us, especially as the mouse was a secret and we did not dare to explain. And when they brought in the trap, the cheese, the flashlight, the shoe blacking, and the butterfly net the man at the desk said we’d better be locked up until we could be put under observation.