TISH IS THE MOST open and candid of women, and nothing so rouses her indignation as trickery. Had Mr. Stein not resorted to stratagem to compel her consent to the final scenes, I believe a compromise might have been effected.
It was his deliberate attempt to imprison Tish on the lot the night before those final shots which brought about the catastrophe. To pretend, as he does now, that he thought we had left at midnight does not absolve him.
The fact remains that after the final night shots, when Tish had her make-up off and we started to leave, we found that the gates were locked and the gatekeeper gone. What is more, there was a man across the street behind a tree box, watching the exit.
Tish called to him in an angry voice, but he pretended not to be there, and we finally turned away.
From the beginning Tish had recognized it as a trick, and she lost but little time in organizing herself for escape. A trial of the high fence which surrounded the lot, with Aggie on Tish’s shoulders while Tish stood on a box, revealed three strands of heavy barbed wire. But, more than that, Aggie declared that there were guards here and there all around.
On receiving this information Tish stood for a moment in deep thought. She then instructed Aggie to go on to the balloon hangar and open the doors, while she and I gathered up her personal possessions and followed.
It is not our method to question Tish at such times; ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die. But I confess to a certain uneasiness. If she proposed to escape by means of the baby blimp, well and good. At the same time, it required a dozen men to haul the balloon out of its shed, and we were but three weak women. I believed that she had overlooked this, but, as usual, I underestimated her.
On reaching the hangar I found the door open, and I could see in the darkness the large balloon, with what appeared to be a smaller one beside it, a matter of surprise to me, as I knew of no other. But I could not see Aggie.
I entered as quietly as possible and advanced into the hangar.
“Aggie!” I called in a low tone. “Aggie! Where are you?”
There was a silence, then from somewhere above came a sneeze, followed by Aggie’s voice, broken and trembling.
“On—on a r-r-rafter, Lizzie,” she said.
I could not believe my ears and advanced towards the sound. Suddenly Aggie yelled, and at the same moment the smaller balloon lurched and came toward me.
“Run!” Aggie yelled. “Run. She’s after you!”
Unfortunately, the warning came too late. Something reached out from the running balloon and caught me around the body, and the next moment, to my horror, I was lifted off the ground and thrust up into the timbers which supported the roof of the building. I am a heavy woman, and only by a desperate effort did I catch a rafter as the thing let go of me, and drew myself to safety. Aggie was somewhere close at hand, sobbing in the darkness.
It was a moment before I could speak. Then I managed to ask what had happened to me.
“It’s Katie, Lizzie,” Aggie said between sobs. “I think she must have found the blackberry cordial we left here, and it’s gone to her head!”
Our position was very unfortunate, especially as time was important. Katie was merely playful, but on any attempt to move on our part she would trumpet loudly and reach up for us. Most annoying of all, she had taken a fancy to one of my shoes and kept reaching up and pulling at it.
“Let her have it, if it keeps her quiet,” Aggie said tartly when I told her. “Give her anything she wants. Give her your bonnet. I never liked it, anyhow.”
It was then after midnight, but fortunately it was very soon after that that we saw an electric flash and heard our dear Tish’s voice.
“Aggie! Lizzie!” she called. And then she saw the elephant and advanced toward her.
“Katie!” she said. “What are you doing here? I’ve been looking for you all over the lot?” She then turned the flash on Katie and beheld her swaying. “Shame on you,” she said. “I believe you’ve been drinking.”
“Don’t reprove her; kill her”; Aggie said suddenly from overhead, and Tish looked up.
“I thought so,” she said rather sharply. “I cannot count on the faintest coöperation. I need two courageous hearts, and I find you roosting like frightened chickens on a beam. That elephant’s harmless. She’s only playing.”
“I don’t like the way she plays, then,” I protested angrily. “If you do, play with her yourself.”
But Tish had no time for irony. She simply picked up a piece of wood from the ground and hit Katie on the trunk with it.
“Now!” she said. “Bring them down, you shame to your sex. And be gentle. Remember you are not quite yourself.”
Thanks to Tish’s dominance over all types of inferior minds, Katie at once obeyed, and brought us down without difficulty.
Then she ambled unsteadily to a corner, and proceeded to empty another bottle of cordial we had concealed there.
I have always considered, in spite of its dénouement, that Tish’s idea of using Katie to drag the blimp out of the shed was a brilliant one. Katie herself made no demur. She stood swaying gently while we harnessed her to the balloon and at the word she bent to her work. Tish was in the car, examining the controls at the time, and turning up what I believe are called the flippers, which direct its course away from Mother Earth.
But I have blamed her for her impatience in starting the engine before we had unfastened Katie’s harness. Tish has a tendency now and then toward hasty action, which she always regrets later. There is this excuse for her, however: She had apparently no idea that the balloon would rise the moment the propeller reached a certain number of revolutions. But it did.
It seemed only a moment after we heard the engine start that I felt the car lifting from the earth, and in desperation flung myself into it, as Aggie did the same thing from the other side.
The next instant we were well above the ground, and from below there was coming a terrible trumpeting and squealing. We all looked over the side, and there beneath us was Katie, fastened to us by her harness and rising with us!
I shall never forget that moment. One and all, we are members of the Humane Society. And if Katie’s ropes and straps gave way, she would certainly fall to a terrible death. Even Tish lost her sang-froid and, frantically starting the engine, endeavored to maneuver the thing to earth again. But anybody who has traveled in a blimp knows that it cannot be brought to earth again without outside aid.
Moreover, we were already outside the studio grounds, and traveling over roofs which Katie barely escaped. Indeed, from certain sounds, we had reason to believe that she was striking numerous chimneys, and I think now that this may account for the stories of a mysterious electric storm that night, which destroyed a half dozen chimneys in one block.
It was a fortunate thing that Tish remembered in time to elevate the flippers still further, thus giving us a certain amount of leeway. But a strong breeze from the sea had sprung up and was carrying us toward the city, and it became increasingly evident that, even if we cleared the highest buildings, Katie would not.
It was a tragic moment Aggie proposed lightening the craft by throwing out the bottles of liquor, which had been a part of the smugglers’ cargo in the picture, but Tish restrained her.
“Better to kill an elephant,” she said, “than to brain some harmless wretch below.”
Katie meanwhile had lapsed into the silence of despair, or possibly had fainted. I do not know, nor is it now pertinent, for in a few moments the situation solved itself. We had barely missed the roof of the First National Bank Building when the blimp gave a terrific jar, and momentarily stopped.
On looking over the side the cause of this was explained. Katie had landed squarely on the flat roof of the building, and had immediately thrown her trunk around a chimney and braced herself. Even as we looked, her harness parted and left her free of us.
Katie was saved.
Glancing again over the side as we quickly rose, we could see her in the moonlight still hugging her chimney and gazing after us. What thoughts were hers we cannot know.
I am glad to solve in this manner a problem which caused much perplexity throughout the country—namely, how an elephant could have reached the roof of the First National Bank Building, to which the only possible entrance was through a trapdoor two feet six inches each way. As will be seen, the explanation, like that of many mysteries, is entirely simple.
It is necessary to touch but lightly on the unfortunate incident which concluded our escape. That the apparently friendly villagers who, the next morning, ran out from their peaceful businesses to haul on our ropes and bring us to a landing, should so change in attitude in a few moments has ever since been a warning to us of the innate suspicion of human nature.
How could they look at Tish’s firm and noble face, and so misread it? Why did they not at once open the smugglers’ rum cargo which had remained in the car, and discover that the liquid in the bottles was only cold tea?
Can it be possible that Charlie Sands’ explanation is correct, and that the fact that many of them purchased the stuff from the sheriff and later threatened to lynch him, can account for his peculiar malignity to us?
One thing is certain—they held us in the local jail for days, until Charlie Sands was able to rescue us.
We never saw Mr. Stein again. Nor, frankly, did we ever expect to see Tish’s picture, since she had not finished it. But, as all the world now knows, it opened in June of this current year, and made a great success.
But our surprise at this was as nothing compared with the fact that Tish’s name did not appear in connection with it, and that the announcements read: “Featuring Miss Betty Carlisle.”
There had been no Miss Carlisle in Tish’s cast.
On the opening night we went to see it, accompanied by Charlie Sands. He said very little while watching Tish perform her various exploits, but when, after the shooting scene, Tish prepared to depart he protested.
“I’ve stood it up to this point,” he said grimly. “I propose to see it through.”
“There will be no more, Charles,” Tish explained in an indulgent manner. “I quit at the end of this scene. Be glad of one picture which does not end with an embrace.”
But she had spoken too soon!
Judge of our amazement when we saw our Tish, on the screen, disappear through a doorway, and return a moment later, a young and beautiful girl, who was at once clasped in Mr. Macmanus’ arms.
The title was: Her Elderly Disguise at Last Removed!