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 who 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.
Eventually, however, Tish prevailed on them to call up Charlie Sands. He had been asleep and was in a very bad humor. At first, what with the blacking still on our faces, he told the police captain in charge that he did not know us. Then he looked again, and closed his eyes and shuddered.
“I hate to admit it,” he said, “but they’re mine. At least one of them is. And if we can go off in a corner somewhere I guess I can explain. All but the ham,” he added firmly. “I don’t propose to explain the ham. It was not on the agenda.”
It was one o’clock in the morning before we were released, and the last thing I saw was the sergeant at the desk with a knife, cutting at that wretched ham while a group of hungry-looking policemen surrounded him. But on the way out Aggie caught at my arm again and sneezed once more.
“There it is agaid,” she hissed.
“What is?”
“The car that followed us,” she said.
There was a car across the street, but when we looked at it it moved on. Also our attention was distracted by Charlie Sands, who was looking at us and our belongings in a most unpleasant manner.
“Now get this,” he said. “The mouse business is out. Definitely out. I don’t want a mouse. I never want to hear of a mouse again. If anyone says ‘mouse’ to me from now on I shall froth at the mouth. Now I am taking you to wherever you left your car and after that I am taking the receiver off my telephone hook and going to bed. Is that understood?”
“You asked us to do you a favor,” Tish said tartly. “If this is your gratitude—”
“Gratitude!” he said bitterly. “Look at me! I am aging rapidly. I am stoop-shouldered with care. If anyone mentions the police to me I shiver, and if my telephone rings at night I leap out of bed with a loud shriek. I ask you, why?”
He said nothing more until he had driven us back to our car. Then he saw the trap which Tish was carrying, and looked at it in surprise.
“What in God’s name is that?” he demanded. “The model of a steel mill?”
“It is a mousetrap,” Tish informed him.
But he merely gave a low moan, got into his car, and drove off with extreme rapidity.