Well, what with the accident and the hard rowing, as well as this recent fright, neither Aggie nor I was able to accompany Tish. I cannot therefore speak with authority; but knowing Tish as I do, I do not believe that Mrs. Cummings’ accusation as to what happened at this closet is based at all on facts.
Briefly, Mrs. Cummings insists that having taken out her own clew, Tish then placed on top of the others a number of similar envelopes containing cross-word puzzles, which caused a considerable delay, especially over the Arabic name for whirling dervishes. This not, indeed, being solved at all, somebody finally telephoned to Mr. Ostermaier to look it up in the encyclopedia, and he then stated that no cross-word puzzles had been included among the clews. Whereupon the mistake was rectified and the hunt proceeded.
As I say, we did not go with Tish to the closet and so cannot be certain, but I do know that the clew she brought us was perfectly correct, as follows:
Password: “All is discovered.”
“Where are you going, my pretty maid?”
“’Most anywhere else,” said she.
“Behind the grille is a sweet young man,
And he’ll give my clew to me.”
We had no more than read it when we heard a great honking of horns outside, and those who had survived trooped in. But alas, what a pitiful remnant was left! Only ten cars now remained out of twenty. The Smith boys had not been heard from, and the Phillipses had been arrested for speeding. Also Mr. Gilbert had gone into a ditch and was having a cut on his chin sewed up, the Jenningses’ car had had a flat tire and was somewhere behind in the road, and the Johnstons were in Backwater Creek, waiting for a boat to come to their rescue.
And we had only just listened to this tale of woe when Mrs. Cummings sailed up to Tish with an unpleasant smile and something in her hand.