Читать книгу The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Mary Roberts Rinehart - 25 Titles in One Edition - Mary Roberts Rinehart - Страница 87

Table of Contents

Both Aggie and I had objected when Tish talked of buying an automobile. But the more you talk against a thing to Tish the more she wants it. It was just the same the time her niece, Maria Lee, went to Europe for the whole summer and offered Tish her motor-boat. Aggie and I protested, but the boat came, and Tish had a lesson or two and sent to town for a yachting cap. Then, one day when we were making elderberry jelly and ran out of sugar, Tish offered to take me to the mainland in the boat. That was the time, you remember, when the stopping lever got jammed, and Tish and I circled around Lake Penzance for seven hours, with people on different docks trying to lasso us with ropes as we flew past, and Aggie in hysterics on the beach below the cottage.

People of Penzance still speak of that day, for we figured out that we had enough gasoline to run one hundred and sixty miles, and after Peter Miller, at Point Lena, had lassoed us and was dragged for a quarter of a mile before he caught hold of a buoy and could let go of the rope, we got desperate. I was at the wheel and Tish was trying to stop the engine, pouring water over it and attempting to stick an iron rod in the wheels. And just as she succeeded, and the rod shot through the awning on the top of the launch like a sky-rocket, I turned the thing toward shore where it looked fairly flat.

"I'm going to get to land," I said with my teeth clenched. "I don't care if it crawls up and dies in a plowed field; I'm going to get my feet on dry land again."

I had not expected it to stop so suddenly, but it did, and Tish and I and the granulated sugar landed some distance ahead of the boat and well above high-water mark; in fact, Tish broke her collar-bone, and that entire summer, whenever the doctor had to peel off the adhesive plaster, Tish would get ugly and turn on me.

Well, we should have known about the automobile. I had a queer feeling when I started out that morning. Tish had had the car out the day before by herself for the first time— both Aggie and I had had the good judgment to refuse—and she got home safely, although she had a queer-looking mark on her right cheek, and one of the mud-guards didn't look exactly right. She said she had had a lovely ride, and we helped her push the machine into the wash-house, where we had had Carpenter knock out a side, and then she went to bed and had a cup of tea. Aggie heard something moving that night, and she found Tish sitting up on the side of her bed, holding like death to the back of a chair and turning it around like a wheel. Aggie got her back to bed, but Tish only looked up at her and said, "Four chickens!" and went to sleep again.

The next morning her left leg was quite stiff from what she called the clutch, and she sat on the porch peacefully and rocked. But at noon she went to the wash-house, and when she came back she was pale but determined.

"I'm going to take it out," she said solemnly. "If I don't I'll forget everything I've learned. Besides, we've been coming here every summer for ten years, and there are plenty of places we have never seen."

Aggie looked at me, but we knew it would have to come some time, and so we all went in and tied up our heads.

"We needn't go fast," Aggie said when she was putting on her bonnet. "We have all afternoon, and one doesn't really enjoy the scenery unless one goes very slowly."

Tish's face was pallid but resolved.

"It's a great deal easier to go fast than slow," she remarked. "I haven't quite got the hang of going slow. But there's one comfort about going fast: you get around much quicker."

At the foot of the stairs she stopped and called up.

"I'm going to take a tablespoonful of blackberry wine," she said. "I feel chilly in the small of my back."

Aggie and I didn't say anything, but we each took a tablespoonful of blackberry wine also.

Tish had written out a list of things to do to start the car, such as "Turn A," "Push forward B," and so on. And she had pasted bits of paper marked A and B on the levers and plugs. So I read:

"Turn A; push up B; crank, and release C."

It started nicely.

"Just one thing," Tish said over her shoulder as we passed the Ostermaier cottage, and they waved to us from the porch: "Don't scream in my ears; don't lean over and clutch me around the neck; and if we run over anything, try to look as if you didn't know we had."

Luckily she had not noticed my traveling bag. After the affair of the launch I was prepared for anything, and I had packed up three nightgowns, a balsam pillow, a roll of bandage, a bottle of arnica, a cake of soap, my sewing box and a prayer-book. Aggie had some sandwiches; so we felt we were prepared for everything, from sudden death to losing a button.

We got on to the ferry safely enough. Carpenter, who runs the cable drum of the ferry with a gas engine, examined the machine with a great deal of interest on the way over.

"It's a pretty hot day. Miss Tish," he called as we were starting off the boat. "You'll have to watch her; she'll boil."

Tish looked worried, but she said nothing,

"What is there to boil?" Aggie whispered tome.

"The gasoline," I told her; "and if it boils it'll explode, I'm no mechanic, but I know that much."

After a few moments' silence Aggie leaned forward.

"Tish," she said.

"Don't take my mind off this machine!" Tish shouted back. "Isn't that a buggy coming?"

"It's too far off to see. It's either a buggy or a wagon," I said. "Tish, where's the gasoline tank?"

But Tish wasn't listening. "Why doesn't that man turn out? Does he want the whole road?" she snapped. There was a silence while we neared the buggy ahead. Then Tish leaned over and began jerking at levers.

"I can't stop the thing," she gasped, "and there isn't room to pass!"

There wasn't time to pray. I saw Aggie shut her eyes, and the next moment there was a terrific jar. Aggie and I were flung together in a corner of the seat, a man yelled, and the next minute we had leaped out of the ditch again and were going smoothly along the road. I glanced behind. The man had halted his horse and was standing up in the buggy, staring after us.

"I didn't think I could do it," said Tish complacently.

"Only the grace of God took you into that ditch and out again, Tish Carberry," I snapped. "And if you are going to do any more circus performances I want to get out.''

She could stop the car well enough when there was no crying need to, and now, to our alarm, she stopped every now and then and got out and held her hand over the front of the machine, like testing the oven for cake. Finally she said:

It's boiling!"

Aggie got ready to jump.

"It'll explode, won't it?" she quavered.

"I don't see why it should explode," Tish replied, wetting her finger to see if it sizzled when she touched it. "But it's hot enough, in all conscience A good rain would cool it."

The sun was blazing down on us, however, and there was no sign of rain. I said I would just as soon be blown up as melted down, and we got in again. The machine would not start. We all took a turn at the handle in front, but it was like winding a clock with a broken spring.

That is where the man and the girl and the little Pomeranian dog enter the story. For they came along in a blue runabout car just as Tish threw her book called Automobile Troubles over the fence and said she was going to walk home. The book said: "Beginners having trouble with their engines should look under the headings Ignition, Carburation, Lubrication, Compression; Circulation and Timing." As Tish remarked, the only one that was understandable was Circulation, and anybody could tell without a book that the car wasn't circulating to any extent.

Just as Tish threw the book away the young man in the blue runabout stopped and got out.

"In trouble?" he asked. "Can I do anything for you?"

"It was boiling," said Tish. "I suppose something has melted inside."

"Oh, I think not." He looked at the car, pushed something, went round and turned the handle—crank, Tish called it, and it's a good name—and the engine started.

"You didn't have your gas on," said the young man. "And don't worry; you're sure to heat up on a day like this, but nothing will melt"

'Or explode?" asked Aggie. 'Or explode."

He looked at the girl and smiled, and when we started off they were still there, watching us. The dog yelped, and the girl smiled and waved her hand. Aggie, who is far-sighted, turned around a second time. "He reminds me of Mr. Wiggins," she said with a sigh, still looking back. Aggie was engaged years ago to a young man in the roofing business, who fell off a roof.

After a minute, "He's kissing her!" she gasped. After that she nearly broke her neck watching them out of sight. Aggie is romantic. I turned around, but I had on my near glasses.

I don't know how we lost the Noblestown Pike. Tish blamed it on having to drive with one eye shut, on account of something getting into the other. Aggie's nose was sunburned and swelling, and I would have given a good bit for something heavy in my lap to anchor me. When I was a girl I rode horseback, and with any kind of a steady horse you can tell when the next jolt is coming; but Tish's machine has a way of coming up and hitting you when you are off guard, so to speak.

To go back, after an hour or so we found we were on the wrong road. It kept growing narrower, and when at last it became only a dusty country lane Tish realized it herself. There was a rickety farmhouse about two hundred feet from the road, with a woman bending over a washtub outside the door. I stood up and made a megaphone of my hands.

"Which way to the Noblestown Pike?" I yelled, while Tish got out and stuck a wet finger on the hood over the engine.

The woman looked up and pointed sullenly in the direction from which we had come. We looked at the road. There wasn't a spot to turn—not another road in sight to back into. It was hotter than ever. The engine hummed like a teakettle on a hot stove, and there were little clouds of blue smoke coming from somewhere or other about it. Aggie said she thought the gasoline tank was on fire.

"If it is you'll soon know it," said Tish grimly. "It's under the seat. I'm going to back up on to this bridge business over the gutter. I think I can make it."

"Do you know how to back up?" I asked; and just at that minute the woman left her tub and started to run down the walk.

Tish backed. With an awful grinding of wheels she got the right lever finally; the machine gave a jerk that would have decapitated a chicken, and we backed slowly on to the timbers that bridged the gutter and made a road toward the house. When it gave the first crack we shouted—Aggie and I. It might not have been too late, but Tish put on the emergency brake by mistake and for a minute we hung on the verge. Then we began to settle. We went down slowly, with Tish above us and rising; and when we stopped, there we were, Aggie and I and the rear of the machine, a good four feet below Tish and the engine, with something grinding like mad and clouds of smoke everywhere.

When we crawled out the woman who owned the bridge was standing on the bank looking down at us, and her face was something awful.

"You'll fix that bridge before you leave!" she said, shutting her mouth hard on the last word.

"You'll fix that automobile before I'm through with you!" said Tish, pointing at the thing, which looked like a horse sitting down in a gutter.

"Oh, rats!" the woman said rudely. "That's four of them things that's gone through that bridge this week, and I'm good and sick of it. Ain't there any other bridges in Chester county?"

"Not like that," retorted Tish, eying the ruins. "You don't call that a bridge, do you?"

"It was," said the woman.

She came forward and a ferocious-looking dog stepped from behind her.

Tish looked at the dog.

"It wasn't much of a bridge," she said, more politely. "If you've got any men on the place I'll give them a dollar apiece to get my machine out of there."

"No men around," said the woman shortly. "Theodore,"—to the dog—"don't you go around bitin' until I give you the word. Sit down."

The dog sat down.

"Before you leave," she said to Tish, "you'll mend that bridge or I'll know the reason why. Meantime your automobile is trespassin', and the fine is twenty dollars."

Then she sat down on the bank and began to tickle the dog's ears with a blade of grass.

"Theodore," she said, "if them three old maids think they can bluff us, they don't know us, do they?"

I had stood about as much as I could, so I walked around in front of her and glared at her.

"I wouldn't sit so close to the automobile if I were you," I remarked emphatically. "Something is likely to explode."

"I feel like it," she said. "When I get mad I'm good an' mad. Anyhow, I own this place, and I'll sit where I please. Theodore, let's put the washing-machine on wheels and go round the country bustin' down folks' bridges and playin' hell generally!"

An oath always rouses Tish. She got the engine stopped. Then she came around beside me with her goggles shoved up on her forehead.

"Woman," she said sternly, "how dare you mention the place of punishment so lightly!" Tish had been superintendent of a Sunday-school for thirty years.

The woman stared at her. Then she got up slowly.

"I wasn't alludin' to the next world," she said bitterly. "Ninety-five degrees of heat, seven inches of dust, five miles to a telephone and ten miles to town, with an automobile sittin' down in your front yard—that's all the hell I want"

Then she walked up the path. We stared after her; between her shoulder-blades her blue wrapper was wet through with sweat, and the dog trailed at her heels. Aggie, who is always sentimental, took a step after her.

"I say," she called. "If we come back for you some nice afternoon, will you let us take you for a ride?"

But she got no answer. To our amazement, the woman turned around at the top of the path and put her thumb to her nose!

We did not see her again for some time, but after Tish had climbed in twice and started the engine, to see if the car couldn't climb out— the only result being that it almost turned over —the woman appeared again. She carried a board that looked like a breadboard nailed to a broom-handle, and on it, in fresh ink, as if she had done it with her finger, were the words: Trespassing—fifty dollars."

"You said twenty before," I protested. That was for those little dinky, one-seated affairs," she said, jabbing the broom-handle into the dirt beside the road. "Two seats, forty dollars; two seats and a folded back buggy-top, fifty." She adjusted the sign carefully, looked up and down the road, and then went back to the house.

So we sat down on the bank and Tish explained how she happened to do it. I am a Christian woman, and Aggie is so gentle that she has to scratch twice to light a match, but I must say we were bitter. We told Tish we didn't care how she happened to do it, and that some day she would be punished for a temper that made her throw away books that she would be sure to need some time; and that, anyhow, an unmarried woman of fifty has no business with an automobile.

"It's my belief," Tish retorted, "that she keeps her old bridge for this very purpose. She could make a good living off it, and all the work she'd have to do would be to build it up after every accident."

"Oh, no," Aggie said bitterly. "We are going to repair it, I believe."

The back of my neck began to smart from the sun, and the dust eddied around us. A white hen came down the path, hopped on to the sloping step of the machine, perked its head at us, and then, with a squawk, flew up into Tish's seat behind the wheel. I was thirsty and my neck prickled.

Early in the afternoon we had a difference of opinion about who should walk the five miles to telephone for help, and after that we did not speak to each other. Tish talked to the machine and Aggie to the chicken. Every now and then Tish, after staring at the machine for a while, would get up and pick up the soundest of the bridge timbers, put it under the dropped end of the car and push with all her might.

"Call this a bridge?"—push—"Why, this is nothing"—push—"but a rotten old fence-rail!" —bang!—the timber broke. Tish stood with her back to us and kicked the pieces; then she turned on us. "As far as I'm concerned," she snapped, "the thing can sit there till it takes root. You're very much mistaken if you think I'm going to walk to that telephone, after bringing you out on a pleasure trip."

"Pleasure trip!" Aggie retorted. "I can get more pleasure out of a three-dollar rocking-chair. The next time you ask me to go on a pleasure trip, Tish Carberry, just push me off the porch backward. It's a good bit quicker."

By four o'clock I had a rash out all over my shoulders and chest, and my mouth was so full of dust that my teeth felt gritty. I had not cared particularly about going up to the house, but every few minutes between three and four the woman had come out, pumped some water, making a mighty splash, and gone back into the house again. It was more than human nature could stand. At a quarter after four o'clock I got up from the baked earth, glared at Tish, looked through Aggie, and walked with as much dignity as I could muster up the path to the well. There was a sign hung on it by a string around the nail in the top. It read: "Water, one dollar a tin. For automobiles, five dollars a bucket."

The woman came out and pumped some. The water ran cool and clear into a trough and then spread over the ground in dreadful waste. I could have lapped it up out of the trough; every bit of skin on me and lining membrane in me yelled "Water!" and—I had no money with me! The woman stood and waited, Theodore beside her.

"That's an outrage," I fumed. "How dare you put up such a sign! I—I shall report you!"

"Who to?" she inquired. "I ain't askin' you to drink it, am I? It's my well, ain't it?"

"I'll send the money to you by mail." I had lost all my pride. "I'll come back and pay you."

"Cash in advance," said the creature; and, pumping enough into a tin basin to have cooled me inside and out, she put it down for the dog to drink!