he said, opening the door and leading the way into a narrow hall. "Some of them have been inoculated with several different kinds of germs. That's why we keep this place so well locked up, for fear the germs may escape. You know,"—he unlocked the second door and threw it open, "you know, suppose you were walking up the street and met a solid phalanx of say sixteen billion typhoid germs, or measles! It would be horrible, wouldn't it?"
He stepped into the room and looked about him.
"Come in," he said. "It's a little close. We had a tear-up among the resident staff, and nobody has been here to-day. Hello!"
He threw open the shutters, and a broad shaft of gray daylight lighted the room. Aggie gave a cry of dismay. The doors of the small cages around the walls were all open, and in the center, a pathetic heap of little brown-and-white and black-and-white bodies, lay the guinea-pigs.
Doctor Grim picked one up and examined it closely.
"I'm damned!" he said, and put it down. "Throats cut, every one of them! And where are the rabbits?"
Aggie sat down and began to blubber, but Miss Lewis scolded her soundly. "There'll be plenty more where they came from," she said sharply. "What does concern us is—how would anybody or anything get in here with both doors and all the windows locked, and not a chimney."
Aggie wiped her eyes and got up.
"You laughed at me last night, Miss Lewis," she said with dignity, "but I wish to remind you that to the fourth dimension there are no locks, no bars, no doors or walls."
"When they invent that," said Miss Lewis, opening the door to let us out, "they'll have to invent something like these X-ray-proof screens, or a woman won't dare to change her clothes."
"And what's more," said Aggie, turning in the doorway, "the hand that slew those innocent little creatures is the one I touched last night!"
"Hand!" cried Miss Lewis. "It was a foot then."
But Aggie was holding her shoulder over her face and hurrying across the yard. At the far side she threw back a contemptuous sneeze.
Tish's commission to Charlie Sands had an unexpected result. She was almost bursting with it when I got back.
"Listen," she said while Aggie got her spray, "doesn't this bear out what IVe been saying right along? The Zoo people say positively that none of their animals has escaped. But they took such an interest in his inquiry that Charlie grew suspicious and bribed a keeper. He sent this up by messenger from the office:
" 'Dear and revered spinster aunt,' " she read—"the young rascal! 'I couldn't tell you this over the 'phone, for it's our exclusive property, and will be published to-morrow morning, with photographs of the late deceased, etc. Hero, the biggest ape in captivity, pining for his keeper, Wesley Barker, who has been away, committed suicide in his cage last night by hanging himself with a roller towel. He was found dead when the assistant keeper unlocked the cage at six o'clock this morning. Nobody knows how he got the roller towel. Charlie.'
" 'P. S.—I've got the roller towel, a fine long one and marked S. P. T. Do you think the letters stand for Suicidal Purpose Towel?' "
Tish looked at me triumphantly over her reading-glasses.
"You see, Lizzie, what a little logical thinking will do. If it hadn't been for me, you and Aggie would have gone to your graves expecting to be able to come back at any time and hang from chandeliers or do any of the ridiculous buffoonery that seems to be expected of returned spirits. We search for a ghost and we find a gorilla."
She meant ape, of course, but the other was alliterative.
"I'm not quite clear about it yet, Tish," I said, with my head in a whirl. "If his cage was locked, and the keepers say he hadn't been free, and if Miss Blake—"
"If! If r said Tish impatiently. "I haven't had time to figure it all out, of course. But mark my words, Lizzie, the mystery is solved. We shall sleep to-night."
But, as a matter of fact, we never even went to bed.
Chapter XI.
If It Had Not Been for Love
It is curious to think that if Tish had been able to finish her story to Tommy Andrews that evening, and to have given him Charlie's letter to read, the thing that occurred that night could scarcely have happened. For with Tommy knowing what he did, he could have put two and two together and have gone about things in a different way. Aggie, of course, is a fatalist, and believes it would have happened anyhow.
In the first place, Tish felt so sure that everything was cleared up that she told Aggie the whole story, ending with the suicide at the Zoo. Aggie sat with her mouth open, and didn't speak except to sneeze until Tish was through. Then she surprised us.
"Maybe you are right, Tish." she said. "I know I hope so. I don't know much about gorillas, but I guess they're mostly hairy, aren't they?"
"Mostly," said Tish grimly. "I haven't heard of any Mexican hairless ones."
"Well, the hand by my bed—you needn't sneer, Tish; you can call it a foot if you prefer foot—"
"Listen to the woman!" cried Tish. "I haven't called it anything."
"The hand—or foot—was not hairy!" said Aggie, and stuck to it. She is that kind. Tish says she has a small mind, but I think there are some large minds that can only hold one idea at a time.
Well, we told the whole thing again to Tommy, who had heard about the guinea-pigs from Doctor Grim, and who listened gravely, and Tish was just getting out Charlie's letter to read to him, when Miss Lewis came in.
"Drat that woman!" Tish muttered. "She's never around when she's wanted, and always butting in when she isn't. Well, what is it?"
"Miss Blake is better,. Doctor," she said. "She is sitting up, dressed, and—she's leaving her door unlocked. That's a good sign."
"Thanks, very much," said Tommy, looking conscious.
"It's supper hour now," remarked Miss Lewis. "If, when I come back, you would care to go over to the dormitory—"
"I suppose she hasn't asked for me?"
"No. But she asked if you were in the house."
"Thanks," said Tommy again. "When you come back, then. Ah—thanks, very much."
Miss Lewis left and Tish spread out Charlie's letter. "Dear and revered spinster aunt," she began. But Tommy was looking at his watch.
"How long does she usually take for supper?" he asked. "Excuse me for interrupting. Aunt Tish."
"About an hour," said Tish grimly. "She says she's been ordered to chew her food thoroughly. 'Dear and revered—' "
"You know," said Tommy, "she may get tired and go to sleep, or something like that."
"Not while she's eating," said Tish.
"I mean Miss Blake. I—I think I'll just run over for a moment now, if you don't mind."
"Not alone!" Tish got up and reached for her cane, but Tommy pushed her back in her chair.
"No, indeed, dear Aunt Tish," he said. "You must not use that knee. Nor Miss Aggie either—"
"Aggie has no intention of using my knee," said Tish crossly. Tommy was sending me messages with his eyes. I'm notoriously weak as to love affairs.
I'll go," I volunteered, obeying Tommy's signals, and go I did, leaving Tish clutching her cane with one hand and the letter with the other! Aggie was, as usual, oblivious and quite calm.
It was my suggestion that I play propriety from just outside the door. Tommy went in, and I heard a rustle from the window, as if she had turned to look at him.
"I—my aunt is