“For heaven’s sake, Aggie,” she said briskly, “stop sneezing and crying, and order me some supper. I’ve been sitting in a ranch house, with a nervous woman pointing a gun at me, for three hours.”
It developed that she had landed in the country, and had untied the parachute and started with her valise full of stage money back toward the studio, but that she had stopped to ask for supper at a ranch, and the woman there had looked in the bag while Tish was washing, and had taken her for a bank robber.
“If she had ever looked away,” Tish said, “I could have grabbed the gun. But she was cross-eyed, and I don’t know yet which eye she watched with.”
As I have said, it was the next day that we learned that Tish herself had grown suspicious about Mr. Macmanus.
She sent for us to come to her dressing room, and when we appeared she said, “I want you both here for a few minutes. Light a cigarette, Hannah. Mr. Stein’s coming.”
To our horror Hannah produced a box of cigarettes and lighted one by holding it in the flame of a match. But we were relieved to find that Tish did not intend to smoke it. Hannah placed it in an ash tray on the table and left it there.
“Local color,” Tish said laconically. “They think a woman’s queer here if she doesn’t smoke. Come in, Mr. Stein.”
When Mr. Stein entered he was uneasy, we thought, but he wore his usual smile.
“Going like a breeze, Miss Carberry,” he said.
“Yes,” said Tish grimly. “And so am I!”