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THE BAT
What this /*ate”. is about- ~
e e e A MYSTERIOUS KILLER—Man? Bedst? Or devil?—
spreading terror throughout a nation, flouting law and law-
less alike . . . Curious GOINGS-ON in a house rented imme-
diately upon the death of its owner ... A WARNING to leave
the house, underlined with threats of death . . . A SHADOW
bearing one gleaming eye . . . A OUIJA BOARD with a
prayer book on it to keep it quiet . . . A young man's BODY at
the feet of a charming girl . . . A corner of BLUEPRINT PAPER,
torn from another scrap, clutched in a dead man's fist . . . A
HOUSE PHONE which emits paralyzing sounds ... A BLOODY
HAND groping for a window fastening ... A HIDDEN ROOM
... A BREAD ROLL which contains the only clue to a desperately
sought secret ... The body of a BAT, the sign of death, neatly
fastened to the living-room door ...A NIGHT of deviltry and
sheer terror.
-
Wouldn't You Like fo Know.—
• What happens when the indomitable Miss Van Gorder
refuses to be frightened from the house of murder?
• What nerve-shaking word is spelled out by the ouija board?
• Who thinks alopecia is a plant?
• Why the doctor tries so desperately to get upstairs?
• Who is the stranger who arrives half dead?
• Who is the Bat? And why everyone gasps at his identity?
--
YOU will learn the answers in this absorbing murder mystery
as you share the excitement and suspense of a night with the
Bat—whose startling identity is revealed in as dramatic a
climax as could be imagined.


A.N.º.º.º.S.: /
• ! ** wºn
*** **ściw
THE BAT
A Novel from the Play by
MARY ROBERTS RINEHART cºnd
AVERY HOPWOOD
D E L L PUB L | SH | N G C O M P A N Y
George T. Delacorte, Jr., President o Helen Meyer, Vice-President
Albert P. Delacorte, Vice-President
261 Fifth Avenue Printed in U.S.A. New York 16, N. Y.
DESIGNED AND PRODUCED BY WESTERN PRINTING & LithoGRAPHING COMPANY


: II. The Indomitable Miss Van Gorder . . 16
Ill. Pistol Practice . . . . . . . . 30
IV. The Storm Gathers . . . . . . . 42
V. Alopecia and Rubeola . . . . . . 54
VI. Detective Anderson Takes Charge . . 69
VII. Cross-Guestion and Crooked Answers . 82
VIII. The Gleaming Eye . . . . . . . 93
IX. A Shot in the Dark . . . . . . . 106
X. The Phone Call From Nowhere . . . . 118
XI. Billy Practices Jiu-Jitsu . . . . . . 131
XII. “I Didn't Kill Him” . . . . . . . 143
XIII. The Blackened Bag . . . . . . . . 155
XIV. Handcuffs . . . . . . . . . . 168
XV. The Sign of the Bat . . . . . . . 180
XVI. The Hidden Room . . . . . . . . . . 194
XVII. Anderson Makes an Arrest . . . . . 202
XVIII. The Bat still Flies . . . . . . . . 211
XIX. Murder on Murder . . . . . . . 221
XX. "He ls—the Bat!" . . . . . . . 233
"The Bat" copyright, MCMXX, by Mary Roberts Rinehort and Avery Hopwood.
All rights reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Murray Hill Books, Inc.,
New York, N. Y.
º --


The Bat
Chapter One: THE SHADow of THE BAT
“You’ve got To GET HIM, Boys—get him or bust!” said a
tired police chief, pounding a heavy fist on a table. The
detectives he bellowed the words at looked at the floor.
They had done their best and failed. Failure meant
“resignation” for the police chief, return to the hated
work of pounding the pavements for them—they knew
it, and, knowing it, could summon no gesture of bra-
vado to answer their chief's. Gunmen, thugs, hi-jackers,
loft-robbers, murderers, they could get them all in
time—but they could not get the man he wanted.
“Get him—to hell with expense—I’ll give you carte
blanche—but get him!” said a haggard millionaire in
the sedate inner offices of the best private detective firm
in the country. The man on the other side of the desk,
man hunter extraordinary, old servant of Government
and State, sleuthhound without a peer, threw up his
hands in a gesture of odd hopelessness. “It isn't the
money, Mr. De Courcy—I’d give every cent I've made
to get the man you want—but I can't promise you re-
sults—for the first time in my life.” The conversation
was ended. - -
“Get him? Huh! I'll get him, watch my smoke!”
It was young ambition speaking in a certain set of
rooms in Washington. Three days later young ambition
lay in a New York gutter with a bullet in his heart
and a look of such horror and surprise on his dead
face that even the ambulance-doctor who found him


6 THE BAT -
felt shaken. “We’ve lost the most promising man I’ve
had in ten years,” said his chief when the news came
in. He swore helplessly, “Damn the luck!”
“Get him—get him—get him—get him!” From a
thousand sources now the clamor arose—press, police,
and public alike crying out for the capture of the mas-
ter criminal of a century—lost voices hounding a spec-
ter down the alleyways of the wind. And still the
meshes broke and the quarry slipped away before the
hounds were well on the scent—leaving behind a trail
of shattered safes and rifled jewel cases—while ever the
clamor rose higher to “Get him—get him—get—”
Get whom, in God's name—get what? Beast, man,
or devil? A specter—a flying shadow—the shadow of a
Bat.
From thieves' hangout to thieves' hangout the word
passed along stirring the underworld like the passage
of an electric spark. “There's a bigger guy than Pete
Flynn shooting the works, a guy that could have Jim
Gunderson for breakfast and not notice he'd et.” The
underworld heard and waited to be shown; after a lit-
tle while the underworld began to whisper to itself in
tones of awed respect. There were bright stars and
flashing comets in the sky of the world of crime—but
this new planet rose with the portent of an evil moon.
The Bat—they called him the Bat. Like a bat he
chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat
he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a
bat he never showed himself to the face of the day.
He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged
him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand,
and fenced his stuff so that even the Fence couldn't
swear he knew his face. Most lone wolves had a moll


THE BAT 7
at any rate—women were their ruin—but if the Bat
had a moll, not even the grapevine telegraph could
locate her.
Rat-faced gunmen in the dingy back rooms of sa-
loons muttered over his exploits with bated breath. In
tawdrily gorgeous apartments, where gathered the
- larger figures, the proconsuls of the world of crime,
cold, conscienceless brains dissected the work of a
colder and swifter brain than theirs, with suave and bit-
ter envy. Evil's Four Hundred chattered, discussed, de-
bated—sent out a thousand invisible tentacles to clutch
at a shadow—to turn this shadow and its distorted
genius to their own ends. The tentacles recoiled, baffled
—the Bat worked alone—not even Evil's Four Hun-
dred could bend him into a willing instrument to ex-
ecute another's plan. -
The men higher up waited. They had dealt with lone
wolves before and broken them. Some day the Bat
would slip and falter; then they would have him. But
the weeks passed into months and still the Bat flew
free, solitary, untamed, and deadly. At last even his
own kind turned upon him; the underworld is like the
upper in its fear and distrust of genius that flies alone.
But when they turned against him, they turned against
a spook—a shadow. A cold and bodiless laughter from
a pit of darkness answered and mocked at their bun-
gling gestures of hate—and went on, flouting Law and
Lawless alike.
Where official trailer and private sleuth had failed,
the newspapers might succeed—or so thought the dis-
illusioned young men of the Fourth Estate—the tire-
less foxes, nose-down on the trail of news—the trackers,
who never gave up until that news was run to earth.


8 THE BAT
Star reporter, leg-man, cub, veteran gray in the trade
—one and all they tried to pin the Bat like a caught
butterfly to the front page of their respective journals
—soon or late each gave up, beaten. He was news—
bigger news each week—a thousand ticking typewrit-
ers clicked his adventures—the brief, staccato recital of
his career in the morgues of the great dailies grew
longer and more incredible each day. But the big news
—the scoop of the century—the yearned-for headline,
Bat Nabbed Red-Handed, Bat Slain in Gun Duel with
Police—still eluded the ravenous maw of the linotypes.
And meanwhile, the red-scored list of his felonies
lengthened and the rewards offered from various
sources for any clue which might lead to his apprehen-
sion mounted and mounted till they totaled a small
fortune.
Columnists took him up, played with the name and
the terror, used the name and the terror as a starting
point from which to exhibit their own particular opin-
ions on everything and anything. Ministers mentioned
him in sermons; cranks wrote fanatic letters denounc-
ing him as one of the seven-headed beasts of the Apo-
calypse and a forerunner of the end of the world; a
popular revue put on a special Bat number wherein
eighteen beautiful chorus girls appeared masked and
black-winged in costumes of Brazilian bat fur; there
were Bat club sandwiches, Bat cigarettes, and a new
shade of hosiery called simply and succinctly Bat. He
became a fad—a catchword—a national figure. And yet
—he was walking Death—cold—remorseless. But
Death itself had become a toy of publicity.
A city editor, at lunch with a colleague, pulled at his
cigarette and talked. “See that Sunday story we had on


THE BAT 9
the Bat?” he asked. “Pretty tidy—huh—and yet we
didn't have to play it up. It's an amazing list—the Mar-
shall jewels—the Allison murder—the mail truck thing
—two hundred thousand he got out of that, all nego-
tiable, and two men dead. I wonder how many peo-
ple he's really killed. We made it six murders and near-
ly a million in loot—didn't even have room for the
small stuff—but there must be more—”
His companion whistled. - -
“And when is the Universe's Finest Newspaper go-
ing to burst forth with Bat Captured by BLADE Report-
er?” he queried sardonically.
“Oh, for—lay off it, will you?” said the city editor
peevishly. “The Old Man's been hopping around about
it for two months till everybody's plumb cuckoo. Even
offered a bonus—a big one—and that shows how crazy
he is—he doesn't love a nickel any better than his right
eye—for any sort of exclusive story. Bonus—huh!” and
he crushed out his cigarette. “It won't be a Blade re-
porter that gets that bonus—or any reporter. It'll be
Sherlock Holmes from the spirit world!”
“Well, can't you dig up a Sherlock?”
The editor spread out his hands. “Now, look here,”
he said. “We’ve got the best staff of any paper in the
country, if I do say it. We've got boys that could get a
personal signed story from Delilah on how she bar-
bered Samson—and find out who struck Billy Patterson
and who was the Man in the Iron Mask. But the Bat's
something else again. Oh, of course, we've panned the
police for not getting him; that's always the game. But,
personally, I won't pan them; they've done their
damnedest. They're up against something new. Scot-
land Yard wouldn't do any better—or any other bunch


10 THE BAT
of cops that I know about.”
“But look here, Bill, you don't mean to tell me he'll
keep on getting away with it indefinitely?”
The editor frowned. “Confidentially—I don't know,”
he said with a chuckle. “The situation's this: for the
first time the super-crook—the super-crook of fiction—
the kind that never makes a mistake—has come to life
—real life. And it'll take a cleverer man than any Cen-
tral Office dick I’ve ever met to catch him!”
“Then you don't think he's just an ordinary crook
with a lot of luck?”
“I do not.” The editor was emphatic. “He’s much
brainier. Got a ghastly sense of humor, too. Look at the
way he leaves his calling card after every job—a black
paper bat inside the Marshall safe—a bat drawn on
the wall with a burnt match where he'd jimmied the
Cedarburg Bank—a real bat, dead, tacked to the man-
telpiece over poor old Allison's body. Oh, he's in a class
by himself—and I very much doubt if he was a crook
at all for most of his life.”
“You mean?” -
“I mean this. The police have been combing the un-
derworld for him; I don't think he comes from there.
I think they've got to look higher, up in our world, for
a brilliant man with a kink in the brain. He may be a
doctor, a lawyer, a merchant, honored in his commu-
nity by day—good line that, I'll use it some time—and
at night, a bloodthirsty assassin. Deacon Brodie—ever
hear of him—the Scotch deacon that burgled his par-
ishioners' houses on the quiet? Well—that's our man.”
“But my Lord, Bill—”
“I know. I've been going around the last month,
looking at everybody I knew and thinking—are you the


- THE BAT 11
Bat? Try it for a while. You'll want to sleep with a
light in your room after a few days of it. Look around
the University Club—that white-haired man over there
—dignified—respectable—is he the Bat? Your own law-
yer—your own doctor—your own best friend. Can
happen you know.”
“Bill! You're giving me the shivers!” .
“Am I?” The editor laughed grimly. “Think it over.
No, it isn't so pleasant. But that's my theory—and I
swear I think I’m right.” He rose.
His companion laughed uncertainly.
“How about you, Bill—are you the Bat?”
The editor smiled. “See,” he said, “it’s got you al-
ready. No, I can prove an alibi. The Bat's been laying
off the city recently—taking a fling at some of the swell
suburbs. Besides I haven’t the brains—I’m free to admit
it.” He strüggled into his coat. “Well, let's talk about
something else. I’m sick of the Bat and his murders.”
His companion rose as well, but it was evident that
the editor's theory had taken firm hold on his mind.
As they went out the door together he recurred to the
subject. - -
“Honestly, though, Bill—were you serious, really
serious—when you said you didn't know of a single
detective with brains enough to trap this devil?”
The editor paused in the doorway. “Serious enough,”
he said. “And yet there's one man—I don't know him
myself but from what I’ve heard of him, he might be
able—but what's the use of speculating?”
“I’d like to know all the same,” insisted the other,
and laughed nervously. “We’re moving out to the coun-
try next week ourselves—right in the Bat's new terri-
tory.”


12 THE BAT
“We-el,” said the editor, “you won't let it go any
further? Of course it's just an idea of mine, but if the
Bat ever came prowling around our place, the detec-
tive I'd try to get in touch with would be—” He put his
lips close to his companion's ear and whispered a name.
The man whose name he whispered, oddly enough,
was at that moment standing before his official superior
in a quiet room not very far away. Tall, reticently good-
looking and well, if inconspicuously, clothed and
groomed, he by no means seemed the typical detective
that the editor had spoken of so scornfully. He looked
something like a college athlete who had kept up his
training, something like a pillar of one of the more
sedate financial houses. He could assume and discard a
dozen manners in as many minutes, but, to the casual
observer, the one thing certain about him would prob-
ably seem his utter lack of connection with the seamier
side of existence. The key to his real secret of life, how-
ever, lay in his eyes. When in repose, as now, they were
veiled and without unusual quality—but they were the
eyes of a man who can wait and a man who can strike.
He stood perfectly easy before his chief for several
moments before the latter looked up from his papers.
“Well, Anderson,” he said at last, looking up, “I got
your report on the Wilhenry burglary this morning.
I'll tell you this about it—if you do a neater and quicker
job in the next ten years, you can take this desk away
from me. I’ll give it to you. As it is, your name's gone
up for promotion today; you deserved it long ago.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied the tall man quietly, “but
I had luck with that case.”
“Of course you had luck,” said the chief. “Sit down,
won't you, and have a cigar—if you can stand my brand.


THE BAT 13
Of course you had luck, Anderson, but that isn't the
point. It takes a man with brains to use a piece of luck
as you used it. I’ve waited a long time here for a man
with your sort of brains and, by Judas, for a while I
thought they were all as dead as Pinkerton. But now I
know there's one of them alive at any rate—and it's a
hell of a relief.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the tall man, smiling and sit-
ting down. He took a cigar and lit it. “That makes it
easier, sir—your telling me that. Because—I’ve come to
ask a favor.”
“All right,” responded the chief promptly. “What-
ever it is, it's granted.” -
Anderson smiled again. “You’d better hear what it
is first, sir. I don't want to put anything over on you.
I want to be assigned to a certain case—that's all.”
The chief's look grew searching. “H'm,” he said.
“Well, as I say, anything within reason. What case do
you want to be assigned to?”
The muscles of Anderson's left hand tensed on the
arm of his chair. He looked squarely at the chief. “I
want a chance at the Bat!” he replied slowly.
The chief's face became expressionless. “I said—any-
thing within reason,” he responded softly, regarding
Anderson keenly.
“I want a chance at the Bat!” repeated Anderson
stubbornly. “If I've done good work so far—I want a
chance at the Bat!”
The chief drummed on the desk. Annoyance and
surprise were in his voice when he spoke.
“But look here, Anderson,” he burst out finally.
“Anything else and I'll—but what's the use? I said a
minute ago, you had brains—but now, by Judas, I


14 THE BAT
doubt it! If anyone else wanted a chance at the Bat, I'd
give it to them and gladly—I'm hard-boiled. But you're
too valuable a man to be thrown away!”
“I’m no more valuable than Wentworth would have
been.”
, “Maybe not—and look what happened to him! A
bullet hole in his heart—and thirty years of work that
he might have done thrown away! No, Anderson, I've
found two first-class men since I’ve been at this desk
—Wentworth and you. He asked for his chance; I gave
it to him—turned him over to the Government—and
lost him. Good detectives aren't so plentiful that I can
afford to lose you both.”
“Wentworth was a friend of mine,” said Anderson
softly. His knuckles were white dints in the hand that
gripped the chair. “Ever since the Bat got him I've
wanted my chance. Now my other work's cleaned up
—and I still want it.” "
“But I tell you—” began the chief in tones of high
exasperation. Then he stopped and looked at his pro-
tégé. There was a silence for a time.
“Oh, well—” said the chief finally in a hopeless voice.
“Go ahead—commit suicide—I’ll send you a ‘Gates
Ajar’ and a card, ‘Here lies a damn fool who would
have been a great detective if he hadn't been so pig-
headed.” Go ahead!” -
Anderson rose. “Thank you, sir,” he said in a deep
voice. His eyes had light in them now. “I can't thank
you enough, sir.”
“Don’t try,” grumbled the chief. “If I weren't as
much of a damn fool as you are I wouldn't let you do
it. And if I weren't so damn old, I'd go after the
slippery devil myself and let you sit here and watch


THE BAT 15
me get brought in with an infernal paper bat pinned
where my shield ought to be. The Bat's supernatural,
Anderson. You haven't a chance in the world but it
does me good all the same to shake hands with a man
with brains and nerve,” and he solemnly wrung An-
derson's hand in an iron grip. -
Anderson smiled. “The cagiest bat flies once too of.
ten,” he said. “I’m not promising anything, chief, but—”
“Maybe,” said the chief. “Now wait a minute, keep
your shirt on, you're not going out bat hunting this
minute, you know—”.
“Sir? I thought I—” -
“Well, you're not,” said the chief decidedly. “I’ve
still some little respect for my own intelligence and it
tells me to get all the work out of you I can, before you
start wild-goose chasing after this—this bat out of hell.
The first time he's heard of again—and it shouldn't be
long from the fast way he works—you're assigned to
the case. That's understood. Till then, you do what I
tell you—and it'll be work, believe me!”
“All right, sir,” Anderson laughed and turned to the
door. “And—thank you again.” -
He went out. The door closed. The chief remained
for some minutes looking at the door and shaking his
head. “The best man I’ve had in years—except Went-
worth,” he murmured to himself. “And throwing him-
self away—to be killed by a cold-blooded devil that
nothing human can catch—you're getting old, John
Grogan—but, by Judas, you can't blame him, can you?
If you were a man in the prime like him, by Judas,
you'd be doing it yourself. And yet it'll go hard–losing
him—” -
He turned back to his desk and his papers. But for


16 THE BAT
some minutes he could not pay attention to the papers.
There was a shadow on them—a shadow that blurred
the typed letters—the shadow of bat's wings.
Chapter Two: THE INDOMITABLE Miss VAN GORDER
Miss CoRNELIA VAN GORDER, indomitable spinster, last
bearer of a name which had been great in New York
when New York was a red-roofed Nieuw Amsterdam
and Peter Stuyvesant a parvenu, sat propped up in bed
in the green room of her newly rented country house
reading the morning newspaper. Thus seen, with an
old soft Paisley shawl tucked in about her thin shoul-
ders and without the stately gray transformation that
adorned her on less intimate occasions, she looked
much less formidable and more innocently placid than
those could ever have imagined who had only felt the
bite of her tart wit at such functions as the state Van
Gorder dinners. Patrician to her finger tips, independ-
ent to the roots of her hair, she preserved, at 65, a hu-
morous and quenchless curiosity in regard to every
side of life, which even the full and crowded years that
already lay behind her had not entirely satisfied. She
was an Age and an Attitude, but she was more than
that; she had grown old without growing dull or losing
touch with youth—her face had the delicate strength
of a fine cameo and her mild and youthful heart pre-
served an innocent zest for adventure.
Wide travel, social leadership, the world of art and
books, a dozen charities, an existence rich with diverse
experience—all these she had enjoyed energetically and
to the full—but she felt, with ingenious vanity, that
there were still sides to her character which even these


THE BAT 17
had not brought to light. As a little girl she had hesi-
tated between wishing to be a locomotive engineer or a
famous bandit—and when she had found, at seven,
that the accident of sex would probably debar her from
either occupation, she had resolved fiercely that some
time before she died she would show the world in gen-
eral and the Van Gorder clan in particular that a
woman was quite as capable of dangerous exploits as a
man. So far her life, while exciting enough at mo-
ments, had never actually been dangerous and time was
slipping away without giving her an opportunity to
prove her hardiness of heart. Whenever she thought
of this the fact annoyed her extremely—and she
thought of it now.
She threw down the morning paper disgustedly.
Here she was at 65—rich, safe, settled for the summer
in a delightful country place with a good cook, excel-
lent servants, beautiful gardens and grounds—every-
thing as respectable and comfortable as—as a limou-
sine! And out in the world people were murdering and
robbing each other, floating over Niagara Falls in bar-
rels, rescuing children from burning houses, taming
tigers, going to Africa to hunt gorillas, doing all sorts
of exciting things! She could not float over Niagara
Falls in a barrel; Lizzie Allen, her faithful old maid,
would never let her! She could not go to Africa to hunt
gorillas; Sally Ogden, her sister, would never let her
hear the last of it. She could not even, as she certainly
would if she were a man, try and track down this
terrible creature, the Bat! -
She sniffed disgruntledly. Things came to her much
too easily. Take this very house she was living in. Ten
days ago she had decided on the spur of the moment


18 THE BAT
—a decision suddenly crystallized by a weariness of
charitable committees and the noise and heat of New
York—to take a place in the country for the summer.
It was late in the renting season—even the ordinary
*ifficulties of finding a suitable spot would have added
some spice to the quest—but this ideal place had prac-
tically fallen into her lap, with no trouble or search at
all. Courtleigh Fleming, president of the Union Bank,
who had built the house on a scale of comfortable
magnificence—Courtleigh Fleming had died suddenly
in the West when Miss Van Gorder was beginning her
house hunting. The day after his death her agent had
called her up. Richard Fleming, Courtleigh Fleming's
nephew and heir, was anxious to rent the Fleming
house at once. If she made a quick decision it was hers
for the summer, at a bargain. Miss Van Gorder had
decided at once; she took an innocent pleasure in bar-
gains.
And yet she could not really say that her move to the
country had brought her no adventures at all. There
had been—things. Last night the lights had gone off
unexpectedly and Billy, the Japanese butler and handy
man, had said that he had seen a face at one of the
kitchen windows—a face that vanished when he went
to the window. Servants' nonsense, probably, but the
servants seemed unusually nervous for people who were
used to the country. And Lizzie, of course, had sworn
that she had seen a man trying to get up the stairs but
Lizzie could grow hysterical over a creaking door. Still
—it was queer! And what had that affable Doctor
Wells said to her—“I respect your courage, Miss Van
Gorder—moving out into the Bat's home country, you
know!” She picked up the paper again. There was a


THE BAT 19
map of the scene of the Bat's most recent exploits and,
yes, three of his recent crimes had been within a twen-
ty-mile radius of this very spot. She thought it over
and gave a little shudder of pleasurable fear. Then she
dismissed the thought with a shrug. No chance! She
might live in a lonely house, two miles from the rail-
road station, all summer long—and the Bat would
never disturb her. Nothing ever did.
She had skimmed through the paper hurriedly; now
a headline caught her eye. Failure of Union Bank—
wasn't that the bank of which Courtleigh Fleming had
been president? She settled down to read the article
but it was disappointingly brief. The Union Bank had
closed its doors; the cashier, a young man named
Bailey, was apparently under suspicion; the article
mentioned Courtleigh Fleming's recent and tragic
death in the best vein of newspaperese. She laid down
, the paper and thought—Bailey—Bailey—she seemed to
have a vague recollection of hearing about a young
man named Bailey who worked in a bank—but she
could not remember where or by whom his name had
been mentioned.
Well, it didn't matter. She had other things to think
about. She must ring for Lizzie, get up and dress. The
bright morning sun, streaming in through the long
window, made lying in bed an old woman's luxury
and she refused to be an old woman.
Though the worst old woman I ever knew was a
man, she thought with a satiric twinkle. She was glad
Sally's daughter, young Dale Ogden, was here in the
house with her. The companionship of Dale's bright
youth would keep her from getting old-womanish if
anything could.


THE BAT 21
py; Miss Cornelia felt sure of it. It isn't matural for a
girl to seem so lackluster and—and quiet—at her age
and she's nervous, too—as if something were preying
on her mind, particularly these last few days. If she
were in love with somebody, somebody Sally didn't ap-
prove of particularly—well, that would account for it,
of course. But Sally didn't say anything that would
make me think that—or Dale either—though I don't
suppose Dale would, yet, even to me. I haven't seen so
much of her in these last two years—
Then Miss Cornelia's mind seized upon a sentence
in a hurried flow of her sister's last instructions, a sen-
tence that had passed almost unnoticed at the time,
something about Dale and “an unfortunate attachment
—but of course, Cornelia, dear, she's so young—and
I'm sure it will come to nothing now her father and I
have made our attitude plaim!”
Pshaw, I bet that's it, thought Miss Cornelia shrewd-
ly. Dale's fallen in love, or thinks she has, with some
decent young man without a penny or an eligibility'.
to his name—and now she's unhappy because her par-
ents don't approve—or because she's trying to give him
up and finds she can't. Well— and Miss Cornelia's
tight little white curls trembled with the vehemence of
her decision, if the young thing ever comes to me for
advice I'll give her a piece of my mind that will sur-
prise her and scandalize Sally Van Gorder Ogden out
of her seven senses. Sally thinks nobody's worth look-
ing at if they didn't come over to America when our
family did.
She was just stretching out her hand to ring for Liz-
zie when a knock came at the door. She gathered her
Paisley shawl more tightly about her shoulders. “Who


22 THE BAT
is it—oh, it's only you, Lizzie,” as a pleasant Irish face,
crowned by an old-fashioned pompadour of graying
hair, peeped in at the door. “Good morning, Lizzie. I
was just going to ring for you. Has Miss Dale had
breakfast—I know it's shamefully late.”
“Good morning, Miss Neily,” said Lizzie, “and a
lovely morning it is, too—if that was all of it,” she
added somewhat tartly as she came into the room with
a little silver tray whereupon the morning mail
reposed.
We have not yet described Lizzie Allen—and she de-
serves description. A fixture in the Van Gorder house-
hold since her sixteenth year, she had long ere now
attained the dignity of a Tradition. The slip of a col-
leen fresh from Kerry had grown old with her mis-
tress, until the casual bond between mistress and ser-
vant had changed into something deeper; more in
keeping with a better-mannered age than ours. One
could not imagine Miss Cornelia without a Lizzie to
grumble at and cherish—or Lizzie without a Miss Cor-
nelia to baby and scold with the privileged frankness of
such old family servitors. The two were at once a contrast
and a complement. Fifty years of American ways had
not shaken Lizzie's firm belief in banshees and lepre-
chauns or tamed her wild Irish tongue; fifty years of
Lizzie had not altered Miss Cornelia's attitude of fond
exasperation with some of Lizzie's more startling ec-
centricities. Together they may have been, as one of
the younger Van Gorder cousins had irreverently put
it, “a scream,” but apart each would have felt lost with-
out the other. -
“Now what do you mean—if that were all of it, Liz-
zie?” queried Miss Cornelia sharply as she took her


THE BAT 23
letters from the tray.
Lizzie's face assumed an expression of doleful
ret1CenCC.
“It's not my place to speak,” she said with a grim
shake of her head, “but I saw my grandmother last
night, God rest her—plain as life she was, the way she
looked when they waked her, and if it was my doing
we'd be leaving this house this hour!”
“Cheese-pudding for supper—of course you saw your
grandmother!” said Miss Cornelia crisply, slitting open
the first of her letters with a paper knife. “Nonsense,
Lizzie, I'm not going to be scared away from an ideal
country place because you happen to have a bad
dream!”
“Was it a bad dream I saw on the stairs last night
when the lights went out and I was looking for the
candles?” said Lizzie heatedly. “Was it a bad dream
that ran away from me and out the back door, as fast
as Paddy's pigº No, Miss Neily, it was a man. Seven
feet tall he was, and eyes that shone in the dark and—”
“Lizzie Allen!”
“Well, it's true for all that,” insisted Lizzie stubborn-
ly. “And why did the lights go out—tell me that, Miss
Neily? They never go out in the city.”
“Well, this isn't the city,” said Miss Cornelia decis-
ively. “It’s the country, and very nice it is, and we're
staying here all summer. I suppose I may be thankful,”
she went on ironically, “that it was only your grand-
mother you saw last night. It might have been the Bat
—and then where would you be this morning?”
“I’d be stiff and stark with candles at me head and
feet,” said Lizzie gloomily. “Oh, Miss Neily, don't talk
of that terrible creature, the Bat!” She came nearer to


f THE BAT 25
Lizzie assumed an attitude of prim rebuff. “Miss
Dale's gone into the city, ma'am.”/
“Gone into the city ?”
“Yes, ma'am. She got a telephone call this morning,
early—long distance it was. I don't know who it was
called her.”
“Lizzie! You didn't listen?”
“Of course not, Miss Neily.” Lizzie's face was a study
in injured virtue. “Miss Dale took the call in her own
room and shut the door.”
“And you were outside the door?”
“Where else would I be dustin' that time in the
mornin’?” said Lizzie fiercely. “But it's yourself knows
well enough the doors in this house is thick and not
a sound goes past them.”
“I should hope not,” said Miss Cornelia rebukingly.
“But tell me, Lizzie, did Miss Dale seem—well—this
morning?” -
“That she did not,” said Lizzie promptly. “When she
came down to breakfast, after the call, she looked like
a ghost. I made her the eggs she likes, too—but she
wouldn't eat 'em.”
“H'm,” Miss Cornelia pondered. “I’m sorry if—well,
Lizzie, we mustn't meddle in Miss Dale's affairs.”
“No, ma'am.” -
“But—did she say when she would be back?”
“Yes, Miss Neily. On the two o'clock train. Oh, and
I was almost forgettin'—she told me to tell you par-
ticular—she said while she was in the city she'd be after
engagin' the gardener you spoke of.”
“The gardener? Oh, yes, I spoke to her about that
the other night. The place is beginning to look run
down—so many flowers to attend to. Well, that's very


26 THE BAT
kind of Miss Dale.”
“Yes, Miss Neily.” Lizzie hesitated, obviously with
some weighty news on her mind which she wished to
impart. Finally she took the plunge. “I might have
told Miss Dale she could have been lookin' for a cook
as well—and a housemaid—” she muttered at last, “but
they hadn't spoken to me then.” -
Miss Cornelia sat bolt upright in bed. “A cook—and
a housemaid? But we have a cook and a housemaid,
Lizzie! You don't mean to tell me—” -
Lizzie nodded her head. “Yes'm. They're leaving.
Both of 'em. Today.”
“But good heav- Lizzie, why on earth didn't you
tell me before?” t
Lizzie spoke soothingly, all the blarney of Kerry in
her voice. “Now, Miss Neily, as if I’d wake you first
thing in the morning with bad news like that! And
thinks I, well, maybe 'tis all for the best after all, for
when Miss Neily hears they're leavin' and her so par-
ticular, maybe she'll go back to the city for just a little
and leave this house to its haunts and its bats and—”
“Go back to the city ? I shall do nothing of the sort.
I rented this house to live in and live in it I will, with
servants or without them. You should have told me at
once, Lizzie. I’m really very much annoyed with you
because you didn't. I shall get up immediately; I want
to give those two a piece of my mind. Is Billy leaving
too?” .
“Not that I know of,” said Lizzie sorrowfully. “And
yet he'd be better riddance than cook or housemaid.”
“Now, Lizzie, how many times have I told you that
you must conquer your prejudices? Billy is an excel-
lent butler. He'd been with Mr. Fleming ten years


, the BAT 27
and has the very highest recommendations. I am very
glad that he is staying, if he is. With you to help him,
we shall do very well until I can get other servants.”
Miss Cornelia had risen now and Lizzie was helping
her with the intricacies of her toilet. “But it's too annoy-
ing,” she went on, in the pauses of Lizzie's deft minis-
trations. “What did they say to you, Lizzie—did they
give any reason?' It isn't as if they were new to the
country like you. They'd been with Mr. Fleming for
some time, though not as long as Billy.”
“Oh, yes, Miss Neily, they had reasons you could
choke a goat with,” said Lizzie viciously as she ar-
ranged Miss Cornelia's transformation. “Cook was the
first of them—she was up late—I think they'd been
talking it over together. She comes into the kitchen
with her hat on and her bag in her hand. ‘Good morn-
ing,’ says I, pleasant enough, ‘you’ve got your hat on,'
says I. ‘I’m leaving,’ says she. ‘Leaving, are you?” says I.
‘Leaving, says she. ‘My sister has twins,’ says she, ‘I
just got word, I must go to her right away.’ ‘What?'
says I, all struck in a heap. “Twins,’ says she, ‘you’ve
heard of such things as twins.’ ‘That I have,’ says I,
‘and I know a lie on a face when I see it, too.’” w
“Lizzie!”
“Well, it made me sick at heart, Miss Neily. Her
with her hat and her bag and her talk about twins and
no consideration for you. Well, I'll go on. ‘You’re a
clever woman, aren't you?” says she—the impudence!
‘I can see through a millstone as far as most,’ says I.
I wouldn't put up with her sauce. ‘Well!” says she, ‘you
can see that Annie the housemaid’s leaving, too.’ ‘Has
her sister got twins as well?” says I and looked at her.
‘No,' says she as bold as brass, but Annie's got a pain


28 THE BAT
in her side and she's feared it's appendycitis—so she's
leaving to go back to her family.’ ‘Oh,' says I, and what
about Miss Van Gorder?’ ‘I’m sorry for Miss Van Gor-
der,’ says she—the falseness of her!—‘But she'll have to
do the best she can for twins and appendycitis is acts
of God and not to be put aside for even the best of
wages.’ ‘Is that so?” says I and with that I left her, for
I knew if I listened to her a minute lenger I’d be giving
her bonnet a shake and that wouldn't be respectable.
So there you are, Miss Neily, and that's the gist of the
matter.” -
Miss Cornelia laughed. “Lizzie, you're unique,” she
said. “But I'm glad you didn't give her bonnet a shake,
though I've no doubt you could.”
“Humph!” said Lizzie snorting, the fire of battle in
her eye. “And is it any Black Irish from Ulster would
play impudence to a Kerrywoman without getting the
flat of a hand in, but that's neither here nor there. The
truth of it is, Miss Neily,” her voice grew solemn, “it’s
my belief they're scared, both of them, by the haunts
and the banshees here—and that's all.”
“If they are they're very silly,” said Miss Cornelia
practically. “No, they may have heard of a better place,
though it would seem as if when one pays the present
extortionate wages and asks as little as we do here—
but it doesn't matter. If they want to go, they may. Am
I ready, Lizzie?” -
“You look like an angel, ma'am,” said Lizzie, clasp-
ing her hands.
“Well, I feel very little like one,” said Miss Cornelia,
rising. “As cook and housemaid may discover before
I'm through with them. Send them into the living-
room, Lizzie, when I’ve gone down. I'll talk to them


32 THE BAT
might get in 'most any way—it's so big and rambling.
All the grounds you want to lurk in, too; it'd take a
company of police to shut them off. Then there's the
house itself. Let's see—third floor—trunk room, ser-
wants' rooms—couldn't get in there very well except
with a pretty long ladder—that's all right. Second floor
—well, I suppose a man could get into my bedroom
from the porch if he were an acrobat, but he'd need to
be a very good acrobat and there's no use borrowing
trouble. Downstairs is the problem, Cornelia, down-
stairs is the problem. . - -
“Take this room now.” She rose and examined it
carefully. “There's the door over there on the right that
leads into the billiard room. There's this door over
here that leads into the hall. Then there's that other
door by the alcove, and all those French windows—
whew!” She shook her head.
It was true. The room in which she stood, while com-
fortable and charming, seemed unusually accessible to
the night prowler. A row of French windows at the
rear gave upon a little terrace; below the terrace, the
drive curved about and beneath the billiard-room win-
dows in a hairpin loop, drawing up again at the main
entrance on the other side of the house. At the left of
the French windows (if one faced the terrace as Miss
Cornelia was doing) was the alcove door of which she
spoke. When open, it disclosed a little alcove, almost
entirely devoted to the foot of a flight of stairs that gave
direct access to the upper regions of the house. The al-
cove itself opened on one side upon the terrace and
upon the other into a large butler's pantry. The ar-
rangement was obviously designed so that, if neces-
sary, one could pass directly from the terrace to the


THE BAT 33
*
downstairs service quarters or the second floor of the
house without going through the living-room, and so
that trays could be carried up from the pantry by the
side stairs without using the main staircase.
The middle pair of French windows were open,
forming a double door. Miss Cornelia went over to
them, shut them, tried the locks. Humph! Flimsy
enoughl she thought. Then she turned toward the bil-
liard room. - -
The billiard room, as has been said, was the last
room to the right in the main wing of the house. A
single door led to it from the living-room. Miss Cor-
nelia passed through this door, glanced about the bil-
liard room, noting that most of its windows were too
high from the ground to greatly encourage a marauder.
She locked the only one that seemed to her particularly
tempting—the billiard-room window on the terrace
side of the house. Then she returned to the living-
room and again considered her defenses.
Three points of access from the terrace to the house:
the door that led into the alcove, the French windows
of the living-room, the billiard-room window. On the
other side of the house there was the main entrance, the
porch, the library and dining-room windows. The
main entrance led into a hall. The main door of the
living-room was on the right as one entered, the dining-
room and library on the left, the main staircase in front.
“My mind is starting to go round like a pinwheel,
thinking of all those windows and doors,” she mur-
mured to herself. She sat down once more, and taking
a pencil and a piece of paper drew a plan of the lower
floor of the house. -
And now I've studied it, she thought after a while,


34 THE BAT -
I'm no further than if I hadn't. As far as I can figure
out, there are so many ways for a clever man to get
into this house that I'd have to be a couple of Siamese
twins to watch it properly. The next house I rent in the
country, she decided, just isn't going to have any win-
dows and doors—or I'll know the reason why.
But of course she was not entirely shut off from the
world, even if the worst developed. She considered the
telephone instruments on a table near the wall, one the
general phone, the other connecting a house line which
also connected with the garage and the greenhouses.
The garage, would not be helpful, since Slocum, her
chauffeur for many years, had gone back to England
for a visit. Dale had been driving the car. But with an
able-bodied man in the gardener's house—
She pulled herself together with a jerk.
“Cornelia Van Gorder, you're going to go crazy be.
fore nightfall if you don't take hold of yourself. What
you need is lunch and a nap in the afternoon if you can
make yourself take it. You'd better look up that re-
volver of yours, too, that you bought when you thought
you were going to take a trip to China. You've never
fired it off yet, but you've got to sometime today;
there's no other way of telling if it will work. You can
shut your eyes when you do it—no, you can't either—
that's silly. -
“Call you a spirited old lady, do they? Well, you
never had a better time to show your spirit than now!”
And Miss Van Gorder, sighing, left the living-room
to reach the kitchen just in time to calm a heated argu-
ment between Lizzie and Billy on the relative merits
of Japanese and Irish-American cooking.
Dale Ogden, taxiing up from the two o'clock train


THE BAT 35 -
some time later, to her surprise discovered the front
door locked and rang for some time before she could
get an answer. At last, Billy appeared, white-coated,
with an inscrutable expression on his face.
“Will you take my bag, Billy—thanks. Where is Miss
Van Gorder—taking a nap?”
“No,” said Billy succinctly. “She take no nap. She
out in srubbery shotting.”
Dale stared at him incredulously. “Shooting, Billy?”
“Yes, ma'am. At least—she not shott yet but she say
she going to soon.”
“But, good heavens, Billy—shooting what?”
“Shotting pistol,” said Billy, his yellow mask of a
face preserving its impish repose. He waved his hand.
“You go srubbery. You see.” -
The scene that met Dale's eyes when she finally
found the “srubbery” was indeed a singular one. Miss
Van Gorder, her back firmly planted against the trunk
of a large elm tree and an expression of ineffable dis-
taste on her features, was holding out a blunt, deadly
looking revolver at arm's length. Its muzzle wavered,
now pointing at the ground, now at the sky. Behind
the tree Lizzie sat in a heap, moaning quietly to her-
self, and now and then appealing to the saints to avert
a visioned calamity.
As Dale approached, unseen, the climax came. The
revolver steadied, pointed ferociously at an inoffensive
grass-blade some 10 yards from Miss Van Gorder and
went off. Lizzie promptly gave vent to a shrill Irish
scream. Miss Van Gorder dropped the revolver like a
hot potato and opened her mouth to tell Lizzie not to
be such a fool. Then she saw Dale; her mouth went
into a round O of horror and her hand clutched weakly


36 THE BAT
at her heart.
“Good heavens, child!” she gasped. “Didn't Billy tell
you what I was doing? I might have shot you like a
rabbit!” and, overcome with emotion, she sat down on
the ground and started to fan herself mechanically
with a cartridge.
Dale couldn't help laughing, and the longer she
looked at her aunt the more she laughed, until that
dignified lady joined in the mirth herself.
“Aunt Cornelia, Aunt Cornelia!” said Dale when
she could get her breath. “That I’ve lived to see the
day! Why on earth were you having pistol practice,
darling—has Billy turned into a spy or what?”
Miss Van Gorder rose from the ground with as much
stateliness as she could muster under the circumstances.
“No, my dear, but there's no fool like an old fool,
that's all,” she stated. “I’ve wanted to fire that infernal
revolver off ever since I bought it two years ago, and
now I have and I’m satisfied. Still,” she went on
thoughtfully, picking up the weapon, “it seems a very
good revolver—and shooting people must be much
easier than I supposed. All you have to do is to point
the-the front of it—like this and—”
“Oh, Miss Dale, dear Miss Dale!” came in woebe-
gone accents from the other side of the tree. “For the
love of heaven, Miss Dale, say no more but take it
away from her. She'll have herself all riddled through
with bullets like a kitchen sieve, and me too, if she's
let to have it again.” - -
“Lizzie, I’m ashamed of you!” said Lizzie's mistress.
“Come out from behind that tree and stop wailing
like a siren. This weapon is perfectly safe in competent
hands and—” She seemed on the verge of another dem-


THE BAT 37
onstration of its powers.
“Miss Dale, for the dear love o' God, will you make
her put it away?”
Dale laughed again. “I really think you'd better,
Aunt Cornelia. Or both of us will have to put Lizzie to
bed with a case of acute hysteria.”
“Well,” said Miss Van Gorder, “perhaps you're right,
dear.” Her eyes gleamed. “I should have liked to try it
just once more though,” she confided. “I feel certain
that I could hit that tree over there if my eye wouldn't
wink so when the thing goes off.”
“Now it's winking eyes,” said Lizzie on a note of
tragic chant, “but next time it'll be bleeding corpses
and—”
Dale added her own protestations to Lizzie's. “Please,
darling, if you really want to practice, Billy can fix up
some sort of target range but I don't want my favorite
aunt assassinated by a ricocheted bullet before my
eyes!” º
“Well, perhaps it would be best to try again another
time,” admitted Miss Van Gorder. But there was a
wistful look in her eyes as she gave the revolver to Dale
and the three started back to the house. -
“I should never have allowed Lizzie to know what
I was doing,” she confided in a whisper, on the way.
“A woman is perfectly capable of managing, firearms
—but Lizzie is really too nervous to live, sometimes.”
“I know just how you feel, darling,” Dale agreed,
suppressed mirth shaking her as the little procession
reached the terrace. “But—oh,” she could keep it no
longer, “oh—you did look funny, darling—sitting un-
der that tree, with Lizzie on the other side of it mak-
ing banshee noises and—”


38 THE BAT * - - -
Miss Van Gorder laughed too, a little shamefacedly.
“I must have,” she said. “But—oh, you needn't shake
your head, Lizzie Allen—I am going to practice with
it. There's no reason I shouldn't and you never can tell
when things like that might be useful,” she ended
rather vaguely. She did not wish to alarm Dale with
her suspicions yet. -
“There, Dale—yes, put it in the drawer of the table
—that will reassure Lizzie. Lizzie, you might make us
some lemonade, I think—Miss Dale must be thirsty
after her long, hot ride.”
“Yes, Miss Cornelia,” said Lizzie, recovering her
normal calm as the revolver was shut away in the
drawer of the large table in the living-room. But she
could not resist one parting shot. “And thank God
it's lemonade I’ll be making—and not bandages for
bullet wounds!” she muttered darkly as she went to-
ward the service quarters. -
Miss Van Gorder glared after her departing back.
“Lizzie is really impossible sometimes!” she said with
stately ire. Then her voice softened. “Though of course
I couldn't do without her,” she added. -
Dale stretched out on the settee opposite her aunt's
chair. “I know you couldn't, darling. Thanks for think-
ing of the lemonade.” She passed her hand over her
forehead in a gesture of fatigue. “I am hot—and tired.”
Miss Van Gorder looked at her keenly. The young
face seemed curiously worn and haggard in the clear
afternoon light. -
“You—you don't really feel very well, do you, Dale?”
“Oh—it's nothing. I feel all right—really.”
“I could send for Doctor Wells if—”
“Oh, heavens, no, Aunt Cornelia.” She managed a


t , , THE BAT 39
wan smile. “It isn't as bad as all that. I’m just tired and
the city was terribly hot and noisy and—” She stole a
glance at her aunt from between lowered lids. “I got
your gardener, by the way,” she said casually.
“Did you, dear? That's splendid, though—but I'll tell
you about that later. Where did you get him?” -
“That good agency, I can't remember its name.”
Dale's hand moved restlessly over her eyes, as if re-
membering details were too great an effort. “But I'm
sure he'll be satisfactory. He'll be out here this eve-
ning—he-he couldn't get away before, I believe. What
have you been doing all day, darling?” . -
Miss Cornelia hesitated. Now that Dale had returned
she suddenly wanted very much to talk over the various
odd happenings of the day with her—get the support
of her youth and her common sense. Then that inde-
pendence which was so firmly rooted a characteristic
of hers restrained her. No use worrying the child un-
necessarily; they all might have to worry enough before
tomorrow morning.
She compromised. “We have had a domestic up-
heaval,” she said. “The cook and the housemaid have
left; if you'd only waited till the next train you could
have had the pleasure of their company into town.”
“Aunt Cornelia, how exciting! I'm so sorry! Why
did they leave?”
“Why do servants ever leave a good place?” asked
Miss Cornelia grimly. “Because if they had sense
enough to know when they were well off, they
wouldn't be servants. Anyhow, they've gone; we'll
have to depend on Lizzie and Billy the rest of this
week. I telephoned—but they couldn't promise me any
others before Monday.”


40 THE BAT . -
“And I was in town and could have seen people for
you—if I’d only known!” said Dale remorsefully.
“Only,” she hesitated, “I mightn't have had time—at
least I mean there were some other things I had to do,
besides getting the gardener and—” She rose. “I think
I will go and lie down for a little if you don't mind,
darling.”
Miss Van Gorder was concerned. “Of course I don't
mind but—won't you even have your lemonade?”
“Oh, I’ll get some from Lizzie in the pantry before I
go up,” Dale managed to laugh. “I think I must have
a headache after all,” she said. “Maybe I'll take an
aspirin. Don't worry, darling.”
“I sha’n’t. I only wish there were something I could
do for you, my dear.”
Dale stopped in the alcove doorway. “There's noth-
ing anybody can do for me, really,” she said soberly.
“At least—oh, I don't know what I’m saying! But
don't worry. I’m quite all right. I may go over to the
country club after dinner—and dance. Won't you come
with me, Aunt Cornelia?” -
“Depends on your escort,” said Miss Cornelia tartly.
“If our landlord, Mr. Richard Fleming, is taking you I
certainly shall—I don't like his looks and never did!”
Dale laughed. “Oh, he's all right,” she said. “Drinks a
good deal and wastes a lot of money, but harmless
enough. No, this is a very sedate party; I’ll be home
early.”
“Well, in that case,” said her aunt, “I shall stay here
with my Lizzie and my ouija-board. Lizzie deserves
some punishment for the very cowardly way she be-
haved this afternoon—and the ouija-board will furnish
it. She's scared to death to touch the thing. I think she


THE BAT 41
believes it's alive.”
“Well, maybe I'll send you a message on it from the
country club,” said Dale lightly. She had paused, half-
way up the flight of side stairs in the alcove, and her
aunt noticed how her shoulders drooped, belying the
lightness of her voice. “Oh,” she went on, “by the way
—have the afternoon papers come yet? I didn't have
time to get one when I was rushing for the train.”
“I don't think so, dear, but I'll ask Lizzie.” Miss
Cornelia moved toward a bell push.
“Oh, don't bother; it doesn't matter. Only if they
have, would you ask Lizzie to bring me one when she
brings up the lemonade? I want to read about—about
the Bat—he fascinates me.” º
“There was something else in the paper this morn-
ing,” said Miss Cornelia idly. “Oh, yes—the Union
Bank—the bank Mr. Fleming, Senior, was president of
has failed. They seem to think the cashier robbed it.
Did you see that, Dale?”
The shoulders of the girl on the staircase straight-
ened suddenly. Then they drooped again. “Yes—I saw
it,” she said in a queerly colorless voice. “Too bad. It
must be terrible to-to have everyone suspect you—
and hunt you—as I suppose they're hunting that poor
cashier.”
“Well,” said Miss Cornelia, “a man who wrecks a
bank deserves very little sympathy to my way of think-
ing. But then I'm old-fashioned. Well, dear, I won't
keep you. Run along and if you want an aspirin, there's
a box in my top bureau-drawer.”
“Thanks, darling. Maybe I'll take one and maybe I
won't—all I really need is to lie down for awhile.”
She moved on up the staircase and disappeared from


THE BAT 43
necessary dusting to a piece of bric-a-brac with her
handkerchief, now taking a book from one of the
shelves in the library only to throw it down before she
read a page. -
This house was queer. She would not have admitted
it to Lizzie, for her soul's salvation—but, for the first
time in her sensible life, she listened for creakings of
woodwork, rustling of leaves, stealthy steps outside,
beyond the safe, bright squares of the windows—for
anything that was actual, tangible, not merely formless
fear.
“There's too much room in the country for things to
happen to you!” she confided to herself with a shiver.
“Even the night—whenever I look out, it seems to me
as if the night were ten times bigger and blacker than .
it ever is in New York!” -
To comfort herself she mentally rehearsed her tele-
phone conversation of the morning, the conversation
she had not mentioned to her household. At the time
it had seemed to her most reassuring—the plans she
had based upon it adequate and sensible in the normal
light of day. But now the light of day had been blotted
out and with it her security. Her plans seemed weapons
of paper against the sinister might of the darkness be-
yond her windows.
She made herself sit down in the chair beside her
favorite lamp on the center table and take up her knit-
ting with stiff fingers. Knit two—purl two— Her
hands fell into the accustomed rhythm mechanically.
A spy, peering in through the French windows, would
have deemed her the picture of calm. But she had never
felt less calm in all the long years of her life.
She wouldn't ring for Lizzie to come and sit with


44 THE BAT
her, she simply wouldn't. But she was very glad, never-
theless, when Lizzie appeared at the door.
“Miss Neily.” -
“Yes, Lizzie?” Miss Cornelia's voice was composed
but her heart felt a throb of relief.
“Can I—can I sit in here with you, Miss Neily, just a
minute?” Lizzie's voice was plaintive. “I’ve been sitting
out in the kitchen watching that Jap read his funny
newspaper the wrong way and listening for ghosts till
I'm nearly crazy!”
“Why, certainly, Lizzie,” said Miss Cornelia primly.
“Though,” she added doubtfully, “I really shouldn't
pamper your absurd fears, I suppose, but—”
“Oh, please, Miss Neily!” -
“Very well,” said Miss Cornelia brightly. “You can
sit here, Lizzie—and help me work the ouija-board.
That will take your mind off listening for things!”
Lizzie groaned. “You know I'd rather be shot than
touch that uncanny ouijie!” she said dolefully. “It gives
me the creeps every time I put my hands on it!”
“Well, of course, if you'd rather sit in the kitchen,
Lizzie-”
“Oh, give me the ouijie!” said Lizzie in tones of
heartbreak. “I'd rather be shot and stabbed than stay
in the kitchen any more.”
“Very well,” said Miss Cornelia, “it’s your own de-
cision, Lizzie—remember that.” Her needles clicked
on. “I’ll just finish this row before we start,” she said.
“You might call up the light company in the mean-
time, Lizzie. There seems to be a storm coming up and
I want to find out if they intend to turn out the lights
tonight as they did last night. Tell them I find it most
inconvenient to be left without light that way.”


- THE BAT 45
“It’s worse than inconvenient,” muttered Lizzie, “it’s
criminal, that's what it is, turning off all the lights in
a haunted house like this one. As if spooks wasn't bad
enough with the lights on—”
“Lizzie!”
“Yes, Miss Neily, I wasn't going to say another
word.” She went to the telephone. Miss Cornelia knit-
ted on—knit two—purl two— In spite of her experi-
ments with the ouija-board she didn't believe in ghosts,
and yet, there were things one couldn't explain by logic.
Was there something like that in this house—a shadow
walking the corridors—a vague shape of evil, drifting
like mist from room to room, till its cold breath whis-
pered on one's back and—there! She had ruined her
knitting, the last two rows would have to be ripped out.
That came of mooning about ghosts like a ninny.
She put down the knitting with an exasperated little
gesture. Lizzie had just finished her telephoning and
was hanging up the receiver.
“Well, Lizzie?”
“Yes'm,” said the latter, glaring at the phone. “That's
what he says—they turned off the lights last night be-
cause there was a storm threatening. He says it burns
out their fuses if they leave 'em on in a storm.”
A louder roll of thunder punctuated her words.
“There!” said Lizzie. “They'll be going off again to.
night.” She took an uncertain step toward the French
windows. - -
“Humph!” said Miss Cornelia, “I hope it will be a
dry summer.” Her hands tightened on each other.
Darkness—darkness inside this house of whispers to
match with the darkness outside! She forced herself
to speak in a normal voice.


46 THE BAT -
“Ask Billy to bring some candles, Lizzie—and have
them ready.” - -
Lizzie had been staring fixedly at the French win-
dows. At Miss Cornelia's command she gave a little
jump of terror and moved closer to her mistress.
“You’re not going to ask me to go out in that hall
alone?” she said in a hurt voice.
It was too much. Miss Cornelia found vent for her
feelings in crisp exasperation.
“What's the matter with you anyhow, Lizzie Allen?”
The nervousness in her own tones infected Lizzie's.
She shivered frankly.
“Oh, Miss Neily—Miss Neily!” she pleaded. “I don't
like it! I want to go back to the city!”
Miss Cornelia braced herself. “I have rented this
house for four months and I am going to stay,” she said
firmly. Her eyes sought Lizzie's, striving to pour some
of her own inflexible courage into the latter's quaking
form. But Lizzie would not look at her. Suddenly she
started and gave a low scream.
“There's somebody on the terrace!” she breathed in
a ghastly whisper, clutching at Miss Cornelia's arm.
For a second Miss Cornelia sat frozen. Then, “Don’t
do that!” she said sharply. “What nonsense!” but she
looked over her shoulder as she said it and Lizzie saw
the look. Both waited, in pulsing stillness—one second
—tWO. -
“I guess it was the wind,” said Lizzie, at last, re-
lieved, her grip on Miss Cornelia relaxing. She began
to look a trifle ashamed of herself and Miss Cornelia
seized the opportunity.
“You were born on a brick pavement,” she said
crushingly. “You get nervous out here at night when-


48 - THE BAT
“I bet a cent the cook never had any sister—and the
sister never had any twins,” she said impressively. “No,
Miss Neily, they couldn't put it over on me like that!
They were scared away. They saw—It!”
She concluded her epic and stood nodding her head,
an Irish Cassandra who had prophesied the evil to
COInc.
“Fiddlesticks!” said Miss Cornelia briskly, more
shaken by the recital than she would have admitted.
She tried to think of another topic of conversation.
“What time is it?” she asked.
Lizzie glanced at the mantel clock. “Half-past ten,
Miss Neily.”
Miss Cornelia yawned, a little dismally. She felt as
if the last two hours had not been hours but years. '
“Miss Dale won't be home for half an hour,” she
said reflectively. And if I have to spend another thirty
minutes listening to Lizzie shiver, she thought, Dale
will find me a nervous wreck when she does come
home. She rolled up her knitting and put it back in
her knitting-bag; it was no use going on, doing work
that would have to be ripped out again and yet she
must do something to occupy her thoughts. She raised
her head and discovered Lizzie returning toward the
alcove stairs with the stealthy tread of a panther. The
sight exasperated her. -
“Now, Lizzie Allen!” she said sharply, “you forget
all that superstitious nonsense and stop looking for
ghosts! There's nothing in that sort of thing.” She
smiled—she would punish Lizzie for her obdurate
timorousness. “Where's that ouija-board?” she ques-
tioned, rising, with determination in her eye.
Lizzie shuddered violently. “It's up there—with a


THE BAT 49
prayer book on it to keep it quiet!” she groaned, jerk-
ing her thumb in the direction of the farther bookcase.
“Bring it here!” said Miss Cornelia implacably; then
as Lizzie still hesitated, “Lizzie!”
Shivering, every movement of her body a conscious
protest, Lizzie slowly went over to the bookcase, lifted
off the prayer book, and took down the ouija-board.
Even then she would not carry it normally but bore it
over to Miss Cornelia at arms-length, as if any closer
contact would blast her with lightning, her face a
comic mask of loathing and repulsion.
She placed the lettered board in Miss Cornelia's lap
with a sigh of relief. “You can do it yourself! I'll have
none of it!” she said firmly.
“It takes two people and you know it, Lizzie Allen!”
Miss Cornelia's voice was stern but it was also amused.
Lizzie groaned, but she knew her mistress. She
obeyed. She carefully chose the farthest chair in the
room and took a long time bringing it over to where
her mistress sat waiting.
“I’ve been working for you for twenty years,” she
muttered. “I’ve been your goat for twenty years and
I've got a right to speak my mind—”
Miss Cornelia cut her off. “You haven't got a mind.
Sit down,” she commanded.
Lizzie sat, her hands at her sides. With a sigh of tried
patience, Miss Cornelia put her unwilling fingers on
the little moving table that is used to point to the let-
ters on the board itself. Then she placed her own hands
on it, too, the tips of the fingers just touching Lizzie's.
“Now make your mind a blank!” she commanded
her factotum.
“You just said I haven't got any mind,” complained


50 THE BAT
the latter. - -
“Well,” said Miss Cornelia magnificently, “make
what you haven't got a blank.”
The repartee silenced Lizzie for the moment, but
only for the moment. As soon as Miss Cornelia had set-
tled herself comfortably and tried to make her mind a
suitable receiving station for ouija messages, Lizzie be-
gan to mumble the 'sorrows of her heart. -
“I’ve stood by you through thick and thin,” she
mourned in a low voice. “I stood by you when you
were a vegetarian, I stood by you when you were a
theosophist, and I seen you through socialism, Fletcher-
ism and rheumatism—but when it comes to carrying
on with ghosts—” -
“Be still!” ordered Miss Cornelia. “Nothing will
come if you keep chattering!”
“That's why I'm chattering!” said Lizzie, driven to
the wall. “My teeth are, too,” she added. “I can hardly
keep my upper set in,” and a desolate clicking of arti-
ficial molars attested the truth of the remark. Then, to
Miss Cornelia's relief, she was silent for nearly two
minutes, only to start so violently at the end of the
time that she nearly upset the ouija-board on her mis-
tress's toes.
“I’ve got a queer feeling in my fingers—all the way
up my arms,” she whispered in awed accents, wrig-
gling the arms she spoke of violently.
“Hush!” said Miss Cornelia indignantly. Lizzie al-
ways exaggerated, of course—yet now her own fingers
felt prickly, uncanny. There was a little pause while
both sat tense, staring at the board. -
“Now, Ouija,” said Miss Cornelia defiantly, “is Liz-
* Allen right about this house or is it all stuff and


THE BAT 51
nonsense?”
For one second—two—the ouija remained anchored
to its resting place in the center of the board. Then—
“My Gawd! It's moving!” said Lizzie in tones of
pure horror as the little pointer began to wander
among the letters.
“You shoved it!”
“I did not. Cross my heart, Miss Neily—I—” Lizzie's
eyes were round, her fingers glued rigidly and awk-
wardly to the ouija. As the movements of the pointer
grew more rapid her mouth dropped open, wider and
wider, prepared for an ear-piercing scream.
“Keep quiet!” said Miss Cornelia tensely. There was
a pause of a few seconds while the pointer darted from
one letter to another wildly.
“B—M—C—X—P—R—S—K—Z—” murmured Miss
Cornelia trying to follow the spelled letters.
“It's Russian!” gasped Lizzie breathlessly and Miss
Cornelia nearly disgraced herself in the eyes of any
spirits that might be present by inappropriate laugh-
ter. The ouija continued to move—more letters—what
was it spelling?—it couldn't be—good heavens—
“B—A—T-Bat!” said Miss Cornelia with a tiny
catch in her voice.
The pointer stopped moving. She took her hands
from the board.
“That's queer,” she said with a forced laugh. She
glanced at Lizzie to see how Lizzie was taking it. But
the latter seemed too relieved to have her hands off the
ouija-board to make the mental connection that her
mistress had feared.
All she said was, “Bats indeed! That shows it's spir-
its. There's been a bat flying around this house all


52 THE BAT
evening.”
She got up from her chair tentatively, obviously hop-
ing that the séance was over. -
“Oh, Miss Neily,” she burst out. “Please let me sleep
in your room tonight! It's only when my jaw drops
that I snore, I can tie it up with a handkerchief!”
“I wish you'd tie it up with a handkerchief now,”
said her mistress absent-mindedly, still pondering the
message that the pointer had spelled. “B–A—T-Bat!”
she murmured. Thought transference—warning—acci-
dent? Whatever it was, it was—nerve-shaking. She put
the ouija-board aside. Accident or not, she was done
with it for the evening. But she could not so easily dis-
pose of the Bat. Sending a protesting Lizzie off for her
reading glasses, Miss Cornelia got the evening paper
and settled down to what by now had become her ob-
session. She had not far to search for a long black
streamer ran across the front page—Bat Baffles Police,
Again.
She skimmed through the article with eerie fasci-
nation, reading bits of it aloud for Lizzie's benefit.
“‘Unique criminal—long baffled the police—record
of his crimes shows him to be endowed with an almost
diabolical ingenuity—so far there is no clue to his iden-
tity—’” Pleasant reading for an old woman who's just
received a threatening letter, she thought ironically—
ah, here was something new in a black-bordered box
on the front page—a statement by the paper.
She read it aloud. “‘We must cease combing the crim-
inal world for the Bat and look higher. He may be a
merchant—a lawyer—a doctor—honored in his com-
munity by day and at night a bloodthirsty assassin—’”
The print blurred before her eyes, she could read no


THE BAT sº
more for the moment. She thought of the revolver in
the drawer of the table close at hand and felt glad that
it was there, loaded.
“I’m going to take the butcher knife to bed with
me!” Lizzie was saying.
Miss Cornelia touched the ouija-board. “That thing
certainly spelled Bat,” she remarked. “I wish I were a
man. I'd like to see any lawyer, doctor, or merchant of
my acquaintance leading a double life without my
suspecting it.”
“Every man leads a double life and some more than
that,” Lizzie observed. “I guess it rests them, like it
does me to take off my corset.”
Miss Cornelia opened her mouth to rebuke her but
just at that moment there was a clink of ice from the
hall, and Billy, the Japanese, entered carrying a tray
with a pitcher of water and some glasses on it. Miss
Cornelia watched his impassive progress, wondering if
the Oriental races ever felt terror; she could not imag-
ine all Lizzie's banshees and kelpies producing a single
shiver from Billy. He set down the tray and was about
to go as silently as he had come when Miss Cornelia
spoke to him on impulse.
“Billy, what's all this about the cook's sister not hav-
ing twins?” she said in an offhand voice. She had not
really discussed the departure of the other servants with
Billy before. “Did you happen to know that this inter-
esting event was anticipated?” -
Billy drew in his breath with a polite hiss. “Maybe
she have twins,” he admitted. “It happen sometime.
Mostly not expected.”
“Do you think there was any other reason for her
leaving?”


$4 THE BAT
“Maybe,” said Billy blandly.
“Well, what was the reason P” -
“All say the same thing—house haunted.” Billy's
reply was prompt as it was calm. -
Miss Cornelia gave a slight laugh. “You know better
than that, though, don't you?”
Billy's Oriental placidity remained unruffled. He
neither admitted nor denied. He shrugged his
shoulders. - - -
“Funny house,” he said laconically. “Find window
open—nobody there. Door slam—nobody there!”
On the heels of his words came a single, startling
bang from the kitchen quarters—the bang of a
slammed door!
Chapter Five: ALOPECIA AND RUBEOLA
Miss CoRNELIA DROPPED her newspaper. Lizzie, frankly
frightened, gave a little squeal and moved closer to her
mistress. Only Billy remained impassive but even he
looked sharply in the direction whence the sound had
COIne. -
Miss Cornelia was the first of the others to recover
her poise. -
“Stop that! It was the wind!” she said, a little irri-
tably—the “Stop that!” addressed to Lizzie who seemed
on the point of squealing again.
“I think not wind,” said Billy. His very lack of per-
turbation added weight to the statement. It made Miss
Cornelia uneasy. She took out her knitting again.
“How long have you lived in this house, Billy?”
“Since Mr. Fleming built.” -
“H'm.” Miss Cornelia pondered. “And this is the


- THE BAT 55
first time you have been disturbed?”
“Last two days only.” Billy would have made an ideal
witness in a courtroom. He restricted himself so pre-
cisely to answering what was asked of him in as few
words as possible.
“What about that face Lizzie said you saw last night
at the window?” she asked in a steady voice.
Billy grinned, as if slightly embarrassed.
“Just face—that's all.”
“A—man's face?”
He shrugged again. . .
“Don’t know—maybe. It there! It gone!”
Miss Cornelia did not want to believe him—but she
did. “Did you go out after it?” she persisted.
Billy's yellow grin grew wider. “No thanks,” he said
cheerfully with ideal succinctness.
Lizzie, meanwhile, had stood first on one foot and
then on the other during the interrogation, terror and
morbid interest fighting in her for mastery. Now she
could hold herself in no longer.
“Oh, Miss Neily!” she exploded in a graveyard moan,
“last night when the lights went out I had a token!
My oil lamp was full of oil but, do what I would, it
kept going out, too—the minute I shut my eyes, out
that lamp would go. There ain't a surer token of death!
The Bible says, ‘Let your light shine’—and when a
hand you can't see puts your lights out—good night!”
She ended in a hushed whisper and even Billy looked
a trifle uncomfortable after her climax. ſ
“Well, now that you've cheered us up,” began Miss
Cornelia undauntedly, but a long, ominous roll of
thunder that rattled the panes in the French windows
drowned out the end of her sentence. Nevertheless she


56 THE BAT
welcomed the thunder as a diversion. At least its men-
ace was a physical one, to be guarded against by phys-
ical means. •
She rose and went over to the French windows. That
flimsy bolt! She parted the curtains and looked out; a
flicker of lightning stabbed the night, the storm must
be almost upon them.
“Bring some candles, Billy,” she said. “The lights
may be going out any moment—and Billy,” as he
started to leave, “there's a gentleman arriving on the
last train. After he comes you may go to bed. I'll wait
up for Miss Dale—oh, and Billy,” arresting him at
the door, “see that all the outer doors on this floor are
locked and bring the keys here.”
Billy nodded and departed. Miss Cornelia took a
long breath. Now that the moment for waiting had
passed, the moment for action come—she felt suddenly
indomitable, prepared to face a dozen Bats!
Her feelings were not shared by her maid. “I know
what all this means,” moaned Lizzie. “I tell you there's
going to be a death, sure!”
“There certainly will be if you don't keep quiet,”
said her mistress acidly. “Lock the billiard-room win-
dows and go to bed.”
But this was the last straw for Lizzie. A picture of
the two long, dark flights of stairs up which she had
to pass to reach her bedchamber rose before her—and
she spoke her mind.
“I am not going to bed!” she said wildly. “I’m going
to pack up tomorrow and leave this house.” That such
a threat would never be carried out while she lived
made little difference to her, she was beyond the need
of Truth's consolations. “I asked you on my bended


THE BAT 59
been shot from a gun—her hair wild—her face stricken
with fear. -
“I heard somebody yell out in the grounds—away
‘down by the gate!” she informed her mistress in a
loud stage whisper which had a curious note of pride
in it, as if she were not too displeased at seeing her dole-
ful predictions so swiftly coming to pass.
Miss Cornelia took her by the shoulder—half-star-
tled, half-dubious.
“What did they yell?”
“Just yelled a yell!”
“Lizzie!” º
“I heard them!”
But she had cried “Wolf!” too often.
“You take a liver pill,” said her mistress disgustedly,
“and go to bed.” -
Lizzie was about to protest both the verdict on her
story and the judgment on herself when the door in
the hall was opened by Billy to admit the new garden-
er. A handsome young fellow, in his late twenties, he
came two steps into the room and then stood there re-
spectfully with his cap in his hand, waiting for Miss
Cornelia to speak to him.
After a swift glance of observation that gave her food
for thought she did so.
“You are Brooks, the new gardener?”
. The young man inclined his head.
“Yes, madam. The butler said you wanted to speak
to me.”
Miss Cornelia regarded him anew. His hands look
soft—for a gardener's, she thought. And his manners
seem much too good for one—still—
“Come in,” she said briskly. The young man ad-


60 THE BAT
vanced another two steps. “You’re the man my niece
engaged in the city this afternoon P” º
“Yes, madam.” He seemed a little uneasy under her
searching scrutiny. She dropped her eyes.
“I could not verify your references as the Brays are
in Canada—” she proceeded.
The young man took an eager step forward. “I am
sure if Mrs. Bray were here—” he began, then flushed
and stopped, twisting his cap.
“Were here?” said Miss Cornelia in a curious voice.
“Are you a professional gardener?”
“Yes.” The young man's manner had grown a trifle
defiant but Miss Cornelia's next question followed re-
morselessly.
“Know anything about hardy perennials?” she said
in a soothing voice, while Lizzie regarded the inter-
view with wondering eyes.
“Oh, yes,” but the young man seemed curiously lack-
ing in confidence. “They—they're the ones that keep
their leaves during the winter, aren't they?”
“Come over here—closer—” said Miss Cornelia im-
periously. Once more she scrutinized him and this
time there was no doubt of his discomfort under her
StarC.
“Have you had any experience with rubeola?” she
queried finally.
“Oh, yes—yes—yes, indeed,” the gardener stam-
mered. “Yes.”
“And—alopecia?” pursued Miss Cornelia.
The young man seemed to fumble in his mind for
the characteristics of such a flower or shrub.
“The dry weather is very hard on alopecia,” he as-
serted finally, and was evidently relieved to see Miss
*


THE BAT 61
Cornelia receive the statement with a pleasant smile.
“What do you think is the best treatment for urti-
caria?” she propounded with a highly professional
Inanner.
It appeared to be a catch-question. The young man
knotted his brows. Finally a gleam of light seemed to
come to him.
“Urticaria frequently needs—er—thinning,” he an-
nounced decisively. -
“Needs scratching you mean!” Miss Cornelia rose
with a snort of disdain and faced him. “Young man,
urticaria is hives, rubeola is measles, and alopecia is
baldness!” she thundered. She waited a moment for his
defense. None came.
“Why did you tell me you were a professional gar-
dener?” she went on accusingly. “Why have you come
here at this hour of night pretending to be something
you're not?”
By all standards of drama the young man should
have wilted before her wrath. Instead he suddenly
smiled at her, boyishly, and threw up his hands in a
gesture of defeat.
“I know I shouldn't have done it!” he confessed with
appealing frankness. “You’d have found me out any-
how! I don't know anything about gardening. The
truth is,” his tone grew somber, “I was desperate! I had
to have work!”
The candor of his smile would have disarmed a
stonier-hearted person than Miss Cornelia. But her sus-
picions were still awake.
“That's all, is it?”
“That's enough when you're down and out.” His
words had an unmistakable accent of finality. She


- THE BAT 63
º
that his interest in the Fleming establishment was not
merely the casual interest of a servant in his new place
of abode. But she had not seen and she could have told
nothing from his present expression.
“Have you had anything to eat lately?” she asked in
a kindly voice. -
He looked down at his cap. “Not since this morn-
ing,” he admitted as Billy answered the bell.
Miss Cornelia turned to the impassive Japanese.
“Billy, give this man something to eat and then show
him where he is to sleep.”
She hesitated. The gardener's house was some dis-
tance from the main building, and with the night and
the approaching storm she felt her own courage weak-
ening. Into the bargain, whether this stranger had lied
about his gardening or not, she was curiously attracted
to him.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that I’ll have you sleep
in the house here, at least for tonight. Tomorrow we
can—the housemaid's room, Billy,” she told the butler.
And before their departure she held out a candle and
a box of matches. -
“Better take these with you, Brooks,” she said. “The
-local light company crawls under its bed every time
there is a thunderstorm. Good night, Brooks.”
“Good night, ma'am,” said the young man smiling.
Following Billy to the door, he paused. “You’re being
mighty good to me,” he said diffidently, smiled again,
and disappeared after Billy. -
As the door closed behind them, Miss Cornelia found
herself smiling too. “That's a pleasant young fellow—
no matter what he is,” she said to herself decidedly, and
not even Lizzie's feverish “Haven't you any sense tak-


64 THE BAT
ing strange men into the house? How do you know he
isn't the Bat?” could draw a reply from her.
Again the thunder rolled as she straightened the
papers and magazines on the table and Lizzie gingerly
took up the ouija-board to replace it on the bookcase
with the prayer book firmly on top of it. And this
time, with the roll of the thunder, the lights in the liv-
ing-room blinked uncertainly for an instant before they
recovered their normal brilliance. y
“There go the lights!” grumbled Lizzie, her fingers
still touching the prayer book, as if for protection. Miss
Cornelia did not answer her directly.
“We'll put the detective in the blue room when he
comes,” she said. “You’d better go up and see if it's all
ready.”
Lizzie started to obey, going toward the alcove to
ascend to the second floor by the alcove stairs. But Miss
Cornelia stopped her. -
“Lizzie—you know that stair rail's just been var-
nished. Miss Dale got a stain on her sleeve there this
afternoon—and Lizzie—”
“Yes’m P”
“No one is to know that he is a detective. Not even
Billy.” Miss Cornelia was very firm.
“Well, what'll I say he is?”
“It's nobody's business.”
“A detective,” moaned Lizzie, opening the hall door
to go by the main staircase. “Tiptoeing around with
his eye to all the keyholes. A body won't be safe in the
bathtub.” She shut the door with a little slap and dis-
appeared. Miss Cornelia sat down—she had many
things to think over. If I ever get time really to think
of anything again, she thought, because with gardeners
i


THE BAT 65
coming who aren't gardeners—and Lizzie hearing yells
in the grounds and—”
She started slightly. The front door bell was ringing
—a long trill, uncannily loud in the quiet house.
She sat rigid in her chair, waiting. Billy came in.
“Front door key, please?” he asked urbanely. She
gave him the key.
“Find out who it is before you unlock the door,” she
said. He nodded. She heard him at the door, then a
murmur of voices—Dale's voice and another's—“Won't
you come in for a few minutes? Oh, thank you.” She
relaxed. - -
The door opened; it was Dale. How lovely she looks
in that evening wrap! thought Miss Cornelia. But how
tired, too. I wish I knew what was worrying her.
She smiled. “Aren't you back early, Dale?”
Dale threw off her wrap and stood for a moment
patting back into its becoming coiffure, hair ruffled by
the wind.
“I was tired,” she said, sinking into a chair.
“Not worried about anything?” Miss Cornelia's eyes
were sharp.
“No,” said Dale without conviction, “but I’ve come
here to be company for you and I don't want to run
away all the time.” She picked up the evening paper
and looked at it without apparently seeing it. Miss Cor-
nelia heard voices in the hall—a man's voice—affable—
“How have you been, Billy?”—Billy's voice in answer,
“Very well, sir.”
“Who's out there, Dale?” she queried. -
Dale looked up from the paper. “Doctor Wells,
darling,” she said in a listless voice. “He brought me
over from the club; I asked him to come in for a few
–


66 THE BAT
minutes. Billy's just taking his coat.” She rose, threw
the paper aside, came over and kissed Miss Cornelia
suddenly and passionately—then, before Miss Cornelia,
a little startled, could return the kiss, went over and
sat on the settee by the fireplace near the door of the
billiard room.
Miss Cornelia turned to her with a thousand ques-
tions on her tongue, but before she could ask any of
them, Billy was ushering in Dr. Wells.
As she shook hands with the doctor, Miss Cornelia
observed him with casual interest—wondering why
such a good-looking man, in his early forties, appar-
ently built for success, should be content with the com-
parative rustication of his local practice. That shrewd,
rather aquiline face, with its keen gray eyes, would
have found itself more at home in a wider sphere of
action, she thought—there was just that touch of ruth-
lessness about it which makes or mars a captain in the
world's affairs. She found herself murmuring the usual
conventionalities of greeting.
“Oh, I’m very well, Doctor, thank you. Well, many
people at the country club?”
“Not very many,” he said, with a shake of his head.
“This failure of the Union Bank has knocked a good
many of the club members sky high.”
“Just how did it happen?” Miss Cornelia was mak-
ing conversation.
“Oh, the usual thing.” The doctor took out his ciga-
rette case. “The cashier, a young chap named Bailey,
looted the bank to the tune of over a million.”
Dale turned sharply toward them from her seat by
the fireplace.
“How do you know the cashier did it?” she said in a


THE BAT 67
low voice.
The doctor laughed. “Well—he's run away, for one
thing. The bank examiners found the deficit. Bailey,
the cashier, went out on an errand and didn't come
back. The method was simple enough—worthless
bonds substituted for good ones—with a good bond
on the top and bottom of each package, so the pack-
ages would pass a casual inspection. Probably been go-
ing on for some time.” - -
The fingers of Dale's right hand drummed restlessly
on the edge of her settee.
“Couldn't somebody else have done it?” she queried
tensely.
The doctor smiled, a trifle patronizingly.
“Of course the president of the bank had access to
the vaults,” he said. “But, as you know, Mr. Courtleigh
Fleming, the late president, was buried last Monday.”
Miss Cornelia had seen her niece's face light up oddly
at the beginning of the doctor's statement—to relapse
into lassitude again at its conclusion. Bailey—Bailey—
she was sure she remembered that name—on Dale's
lips. -
“Dale, dear, did you know this young Bailey?” she
asked point-blank.
The girl had started to light a cigarette. The flame
wavered in her fingers, the match went out.
“Yes—slightly,” she said. She bent to strike another
match, averting her face. Miss Cornelia did not press
her.
“What with bank robberies and communism and the
income tax,” she said, turning the subject, “the only
way to keep your money these days is to spend it.”
“Or not to have any—like myself!” the doctor agreed.


68 THE BAT
“It seems strange,” Miss Cornelia went on, “living in
Courtleigh Fleming's house. A month ago I’d never
even heard of Mr. Fleming, though I suppose I should
have, and now—why, I'm as interested in the failure of
his bank as if I were a depositor!”
The doctor regarded the end of his cigarette.
“As a matter of fact,” he said pleasantly, “Dick Flem-
ing had no right to rent you the property before the
estate was settled. He must have done it the moment
he received my telegram announcing his uncle's death.”
“Were you with him when he died?” -
“Yes, in Colorado. He had angina pectoris and took
me with him for that reason. But with care he might
have lived a considerable time. The trouble was that
he wouldn't use ordinary care. He ate and drank more
than he should, and so—” -
“I suppose,” pursued Miss Cornelia, watching Dale
out of the corner of her eye, “that there is no suspicion
that Courtleigh Fleming robbed his own bank?”
“Well, if he did,” said the doctor amicably, “I can
testify that he didn't have the loot with him.” His tone
grew more serious. “No! He had his faults—but not
that.” 4
Miss Cornelia made up her mind. She had resolved
before not to summon the doctor for aid in her diffi-
culties, but now that chance had brought him here the
opportunity seemed too good a one to let slip.
“Doctor,” she said, “I think I ought to tell you some-
thing. Last night and the night before, attempts were
made to enter this house. Once an intruder actually
got in and was frightened away by Lizzie at the top
of that staircase.” She indicated the alcove stairs. “And
twice I have received anonymous communications


THE BAT 69
threatening my life if I did not leave the house and go
back to the city.”
Dale rose from her settee, startled.
“I didn't know that, Auntie! How dreadful!” she
gasped.
Instantly Miss Cornelia regretted her impulse of con-
fidence. She tried to pass the matter off with tart
humor.
“Don’t tell Lizzie,” she said. “She'd yell like a siren.
It's the only thing she does like a siren, but she does it
superbly!”
For a moment it seemed as if Miss Cornelia had suc-
ceeded. The doctor smiled; Dale sat down again, her
expression altering from one of anxiety to one of
amusement. Miss Cornelia opened her lips to dilate
further upon Lizzie's eccentricities.
But just then there was a splintering crash of glass
from one of the French windows behind her!
Chapter Six: DETECTIVE ANDERSON TAKES CHARGE
“WHAT's THAT P”
“Somebody smashed a windowpane!”
“And threw in a stone!” -
“Wait a minute, I’ll—” The doctor, all alert at once,
ran into the alcove and jerked at the terrace door.
“It's bolted at the top, too,” called Miss Cornelia.
He nodded, without wasting words on a reply, unbolt-
ed the door and dashed out into the darkness of the
terrace. Miss Cornelia saw him run past the French
windows and disappear into blackness. Meanwhile
Dale, her listlessness vanished before the shock of the
strange occurrence, had gone to the broken window


º
70 THE BAT
and picked up the stone. It was wrapped in paper;
there seemed to be writing on the paper. She closed the
terrace door and brought the stone to her aunt.
Miss Cornelia unwrapped the paper and smoothed
out the sheet. -
Two lines of coarse, round handwriting sprawled
across it: Take warming! Leave this house at once! It
is threatened with disaster which will involve you if
you remain!
There was no signature.
“Who do you think wrote it?” asked Dale breath-
lessly. -
Miss Cornelia straightened up like a ramrod—in-
domitable.
“A fool—that's who! If anything was calculated to
make me stay here forever, this sort of thing would
do it!” -
She twitched the sheet of paper angrily.
“But—something may happen, darling!”
“I hope so! That's the reason I–” -
She stopped. The doorbell was ringing again—thrill-
ing, insistent. Her niece started at the sound.
“Oh, don't let anybody in!” she besought Miss Cor.
nelia as Billy came in from the hall with his usual air
of walking on velvet.
“Key, front door please—bell ring,” he explained
tersely, taking the key from the table.
Miss Cornelia issued instructions.
“See that the chain is on the door, Billy. Don't open
it all the way. And get the visitor's name before you
let him in.” -
She lowered her voice.
, “If he says he is Mr. Anderson, let him in and take


THE BAT 71
him to the library.”
Billy nodded and disappeared. Dale turned to her
aunt, the color out of her cheeks. º
“Anderson? Who is Mr.-”
Miss Cornelia did not answer. She thought for a
moment. Then she put her hand on Dale's shoulder in
a gesture of protective affection.
“Dale, dear, you know how I love having you here,
but it might be better if you went back to the city.”
“Tonight, darling?” Dale managed a wan smile.
But Miss Cornelia seemed serious. -
“There's something behind all this disturbance—
something I don't understand. But I mean to.”
She glanced about to see if the doctor was return-
ing. She lowered her voice. She drew Dale closer to her.
“The man in the library is a detective from police
headquarters,” she said.
She had expected Dale to show surprise—excitement
—but the white mask of horror which the girl turned
toward her appalled her. The young body trembled
under her hand for a moment like a leaf in the storm.
“Not—the police!” breathed Dale in tones of utter
consternation. Miss Cornelia could not understand why
the news had stirred her niece so deeply. But there was
no time to puzzle it out, she heard crunching steps on
the terrace, the doctor was returning.
“Ssh!” she whispered. “It isn't necessary to tell the
doctor. “I think he's a sort of perambulating bedside
gossip and once it's known the police are here we'll
never catch the criminals!”
When the doctor entered from the terrace, brushing
drops of rain from his no longer immaculate evening
clothes, Dale was back on her favorite settee and Miss


72 THE BAT
Cornelia was poring over the mysterious missive that
had been wrapped about the stone.
“He got away in the shrubbery,” said the doctor dis-
gustedly, taking out a handkerchief to fleck the spots
of mud from his shoes.
Miss Cornelia gave him the letter of warning. “Read
this,” she said.
The doctor adjusted a pair of pince-nez—read the
two crude sentences over—once—twice. Then he
looked shrewdly at Miss Cornelia.
“Were the others like this?” he queried.
She nodded. “Practically.”
He hesitated for a moment like a man with an un-
pleasant social duty to face.
“Miss Van Gorder, may I speak frankly P”
“Generally speaking, I detest frankness,” said that
lady grimly. “But—go on!”
The doctor tapped the letter. His face was wholly
serious.
“I think you ought to leave this house,” he said
bluntly. -
“Because of that letter? Humph!” His very serious-
ness, perversely enough, made her suddenly wish to
treat the whole matter as lightly as possible.
The doctor repressed the obvious annoyance of a
man who sees a warning, given in all sobriety, unex-
pectedly taken as a quip. -
“There is some deviltry afoot,” he persisted. “You
are not safe here, Miss Van Gorder.”
But if he was persistent in his attitude, so was she in
hers. *
“I’ve been safe in all kinds of houses for sixty-odd
years,” she said lightly. “It’s time I had a bit of a
º


- THE BAT 73
change. Besides,” she gestured toward her defenses,
“this house is as nearly impregnable as I can make it.
The window locks are sound enough, the doors are
locked, and the keys are there,” she pointed to the
keys lying on the table. “As for the terrace door you
just used,” she went on, “I had Billy put an extra bolt
on it today. By the way, did you bolt that door again?”
She moved toward the alcove.
“Yes, I did,” said the doctor quickly, still seeming
unconvinced of the wisdom of her attitude.
“Miss Van Gorder, I confess—I’m very anxious for
you,” he continued. “This letter is—ominous. Have you
any enemies?”
“Don’t insult me! Of course I have. Enemies are an
indication of character.” - -
The doctor's smile held both masculine pity and
equally (masculine exasperation. He went on more
gently.
“Why not accept my hospitality in the village to-
night?” he proposed reasonably. “It’s a little house but
I'll make you comfortable. Or,” he threw out his hands
in the gesture of one who reasons with a willful child,
“if you won't come to me, let me stay here!”
Miss Cornelia hesitated for an instant. The proposi-
tion seemed logical enough—more than that—sensible,
safe. And yet, some indefinable feeling—hardly strong
enough to be called a premonition—kept her from ac-
cepting it. Besides, she knew what the doctor did not,
that help was waiting across the hall in the library.
“Thank you, no, Doctor,” she said briskly, before
she had time to change her mind, “I’m not easily
frightened, And tomorrow I intend to equip this en-
tire house with burglar alarms on doors and windows!”


74 THE BAT - -
she went on defiantly. The incident, as far as she was
concerned, was closed. She moved on into the alcove.
She tried the terrace door. “There, I knew it!” she
said triumphantly. “Doctor—you didn't fasten that
bolt!”
The doctor seemed a little taken aback. “Oh—I'm
sorry—” he said.
“You only pushed it part of the way,” she explained.
She completed the task and stepped back into the liv-
ing-room. “The only thing that worries me now is that
broken French window,” she said thoughtfully. “Any-
one can reach a hand through it and open the latch.”
She came down toward the settee where Dale was sit-
ting. “Please, Doctor!” -
“Oh, what are you going to do?” said the doctor,
coming out of a brown study. - -
“I’m going to barricade that window!” said Miss
Cornelia firmly, already struggling to lift one end of
the settee. But now Dale came to her rescue.
“Oh, darling, you'll hurt yourself. Let me—” and
between them, the doctor and Dale moved the heavy
settee along until it stood in front of the window in
question.
The doctor stood up when the dusty task was fin-
ished, wiping his hands.
“It would take a furniture mover to get in there
now!” he said airily.
Miss Cornelia smiled.
“Well, Doctor, I'll say good night now—and thank
you very much,” she said, extending her hand to the
doctor, who bowed over it silently. “Don’t keep this
young lady up too late; she looks tired.” She flashed
a look at Dale who stood staring out at the night.
55


- THE BAT 75
“I’ll only smoke a cigarette,” promised the doctor.
Once again his voice had a note of plea in it. “You
won't change your mind?” he asked anew.
Miss Van Gorder's smile was obdurate. “I have a
great deal of mind,” she said. “It takes a long time to
change it.” -
Then, having exercised her feminine privilege of the
last word, she sailed out of the room, still smiling, and
closed the door behind her. -
The doctor seemed a little nettled by her abrupt de-
parture.
“It may be mind,” he said, turning back toward
Dale, “but forgive me if I say I think it seems more like
foolhardy stubbornness!” -
Dale turned away from the window. “Then you
think there is really danger?”
The doctor's eyes were grave. -
“Well, those letters—” he dropped the letter on the
table. “They mean something. Here you are—isolated
—the village two miles away—and enough shrubbery
around the place to hide a dozen assassins—”
If his manner had been in the slightest degree melo-
dramatic, Dale would have found the ominous sen-
tences more easy to discount. But this calm, intent
statement of fact was a chill touch at her heart. And
yet—
“But what enemies can Aunt Cornelia have?” she
asked helplessly.
“Any man will tell you what I do,” said the doctor
with increasing seriousness. He took a cigarette from
his case and tapped it on the case to emphasize his
words. “This is no place for two women, practically
alone.”


76 THE BAT
*
Dale moved away from him restlessly, to warm her
hands at the fire. The doctor gave a quick glance
around the room. Then, unseen by her, he stepped
noiselessly over to the table, took the matchbox there
off its holder and slipped in into his pocket. It seemed
a curiously useless and meaningless gesture, but his
next words evinced that the action had been deliberate.
“I don't seem to be able to find any matches—” he
said with assumed carelessness, fiddling with the
matchbox holder.
Dale turned away from the fire. “Oh, aren't there
any? I'll get you some,” she said with automatic po-
liteness, and departed to search for them.
The doctor watched her go, saw the door close be-
hind her. Instantly his face set into tense and wary
lines. He glanced about—then ran lightly into the al-
cove and noiselessly unfastened the bolt on the terrace
door which he had pretended to fasten after his search
of the shrubbery. When Dale returned with the
matches, he was back where he had been when she had
left him, glancing at a magazine on the table.
He thanked her urbanely as she offered him the box.
“So sorry to trouble you—but tobacco is the one drug
every doctor forbids his patients and prescribes for
himself.” -
Dale smiled at the little joke. He lit his cigarette and
drew in the fragrant smoke with apparent gusto. But
a moment later he had crushed out the glowing end in
an ash tray.
“By the way, has Miss Van Gorder a revolver?” he
queried casually, glancing at his wrist watch.
“Yes. She fired it off this afternoon to see if it would
work.” Dale smiled at the memory.


- THE BAT 77
The doctor, too, seemed amused. “If she tries to
shoot anything—for goodness' sake stand behind her!”
he advised. He glanced at the wrist watch again. “Well
—I must be going—”
“If anything happens,” said Dale slowly, “I shall
telephone you at once.”
Her words seemed to disturb the doctor slightly—
but only for a second. He grew even more urbane.
“I’ll be home shortly after midnight,” he said. “I’m
stopping at the Johnsons' on my way. One of their
children is ill—or supposed to be.” He took a step to-
ward the door, then he turned toward Dale again.
“Take a parting word of advice,” he said. “The thing
to do with a midnight prowler is—let him alone. Lock
your bedroom doors and don't let anything bring you
out till morning.” He glanced at Dale to see how she
took the advice, his hand on the knob of the door.
“Thank you,” said Dale seriously. “Good night, Doc-
tor—Billy will let you out, he has the key.”
“By Jovel” laughed the doctor, “you are careful,
aren't you! The place is like a fortress! Well—good
night, Miss Dale—” º
“Good night.” The door closed behind him. Dale
was left alone. Suddenly her composure left her, the
fixed smile died. She stood gazing ahead at nothing,
her face a mask of terror and apprehension. But it was
like a curtain that had lifted for a moment on some
secret tragedy and then fallen again. When Billy re-
turned with the front door key she was as impassive
as he was. -
“Has the new gardener come yet?”
“He here,” said Billy stolidly. “Name Brook.”
She was entirely herself once more when Billy, de-


THE BAT 79
“But the curious thing is,” continued Miss Cornelia,
“that whoever got into the house evidently had a key
to that door.” Again she indicated the terrace door, but
Anderson did not seem to be listening to her.
“Hello—what's this?” he said sharply, his eye light-
ing on the broken glass below the shattered French
window. He picked up a piece of glass and examined
1t.
Dale cleared her throat. “It was broken from the
outside a few minutes ago,” she said. -
“The outside?” Instantly the detective had pulled
aside a blind and was staring out into the darkness. ,
“Yes. And then that letter was thrown in.” She point-
ed to the threatening missive on the center table.
Anderson picked it up, glanced through it, laid it
down. All his movements were quick and sure—each
executed with the minimum expense of effort.
“H'm,” he said in a calm voice that held a glint of
humor. “Curious, the anonymous letter complex! Ap-
parently someone considers you an undesirable tenant!”
Miss Cornelia took up the tale.
“There are some things I haven't told you yet,” she
said. “This house belonged to the late Courtleigh
Fleming.” He glanced at her sharply.
“The Union Bank?”
“Yes. I rented it for the summer and moved in last
Monday. We have not had a really quiet night since I
came. The very first night I saw a man with an electric
flashlight making his way through the shrubbery!”
“You poor dear!” from Dale sympathetically. “And
you were here alone!” -
“Well, I had Lizzie. And,” said Miss Cornelia with
enormous importance, opening the drawer of the cen-


. 80 THE BAT
ter table, “I had my revolver. I know so little about
these things, Mr. Anderson, that if I didn't hiſ a bur-
glar, I knew I’d hit somebody or something!” and she
gazed with innocent awe directly down the muzzle
of her beloved weapon, then waved it with an airy
gesture beneath the detective's nose.
Anderson gave an involuntary start, then his eyes
lit up with grim mirth. -
“Would you mind putting that away?” he said
suavely. “I like to get in the papers as much as anybody,
but I don't want to have them say—omit flowers.”
Miss Cornelia gave him a glare of offended pride, but
he endured it with such quiet equanimity that she
merely replaced the revolver in the drawer, with a hurt
expression, and waited for him to open the next topic
of conversation. *-
He finished his preliminary survey of the room and
returned to her.
“Now you say you don't think anybody has got up.
stairs yet?” he queried.
Miss Cornelia regarded the alcove stairs.
“I think not. I'm a very light sleeper, especially since
the papers have been so full of the exploits of this
criminal they call the Bat. He's in them again tonight.”
She nodded toward the evening paper.
The detective smiled faintly.
“Yes, he's contrived to surround himself with such
an air of mystery that it verges on the supernatural—or
seems that way to newspapermen.”
“I confess,” admitted Miss Cornelia, “I’ve thought of
him in this connection.” She looked at Anderson to see
how he would take the suggestion but the latter mere-
ly smiled again, this time more broadly.


82 - THE RAT
the room. “Lizzie Allen, who has been my personal
maid ever since I was a child, the Japanese butler, and
the gardener. The cook and the housemaid left this
morning—frightened away.”
She smiled as she finished her description. Dale
reached the door and passed slowly out into the hall.
The detective gave her a single, sharp glance as she
made her exit. He seemed to think over the factors
Miss Cornelia had mentioned. .
“Well,” he said, after a slight pause, “you can have
a good night's sleep tonight. I’ll stay right here in the
dark and watch.”
“Would you like some coffee to keep you awake?”
Anderson nodded. “Thank you.” His voice sank
lower. “Do the servants know who I am?”
“Only Lizzie, my maid.”
His eyes fixed hers. “I wouldn't tell anyone I'm re.
maining up all night,” he said. -
A formless fear rose in Miss Cornelia's mind. “You
don't suspect my household?” she said in a low voice.
He spoke with emphasis—all the more pronounced
because of the quietude of his tone. -
“I’m not taking any chances,” he said determinedly.
Chapter Seven: CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANswers
ALL UNCONscious of THE SLUR just cast upon her forty
years of single-minded devotion to the Van Gorder
family, Lizzie chose that particular moment to open
the door and make a little bob at her mistress and the
detective.
“The gentleman's room is ready,” she said meekly.
In her mind she was already beseeching her patron


THE BAT ‘83
saint that she would not have to show the gentleman
to his room. Her ideas of detectives were entirely drawn
from sensational magazines and her private opinion
was that Anderson might have anything in his pocket
from a set of terrifying false whiskers to a bomb!
Miss Cornelia, obedient to the detective's instruc-
tions, promptly told the whitest of fibs for Lizzie's
benefit. -
“The maid will show you to your room now and you
can make yourself comfortable for the night.” There
—that would mislead Lizzie, without being quite a lie.
“My toilet is made for an occasion like this when
I've got my gun loaded,” answered Anderson careless-
ly. The allusion to the gun made Lizzie start ner-
vously, unhappily for her, for it drew his attention to
her and he now transfixed her with a stare.
“This is the maid you referred to?” he inquired.
Miss Cornelia assented. He drew nearer to the unhappy
Lizzie. º
“What's your name?” he asked, turning to her.
“E-Elizabeth Allen,” stammered Lizzie, feeling like
a small and distrustful sparrow in the toils of an offi-
cious python.
Anderson seemed to run through a mental rogues'
gallery of other criminals named Elizabeth Allen that
he had known.
“How old are you?” he proceeded.
Lizzie looked at her mistress despairingly. “Have I
got to answer that?” she wailed. Miss Cornelia nodded
inexorably.
Lizzie braced herself. “Thirty-two,” she said, with
an arch toss of her head.
The detective looked surprised and slightly amused.


84 THE BAT -
“She's fifty if she's a day,” said Miss Cornelia treach-
erously in spite of a look from Lizzie that would have
melted a stone. -
The trace of a smile appeared and vanished on the
detective's face. -
“Now, Lizzie,” he said sternly, “do you ever walk
in your sleep?”
“I do not,” said Lizzie indignantly.”
“Don’t care for the country, I suppose?”
“I do not!”
“Or detectives?” Anderson deigned to be facetious.
“I do not!” There could be no doubt as to the sin-
cerity of Lizzie's answer.
“All right, Lizzie. Be calm. I can stand it,” said the
detective with treacherous suavity. But he favored her
with a long and careful scrutiny before he moved to
the table and picked up the note that had been thrown
through the window. Quietly he extended it beneath
Lizzie's nose.
“Ever see this before?” he said crisply, watching her
face. -
Lizzie read the note with bulging eyes, her face hor.
ror-stricken. When she had finished, she made a ges.
ture of wild disclaimer that nearly removed a portion
of Anderson's left ear.
“Mercy on us!” she moaned, mentally invoking not
only her patron saint but all the rosary of heaven to
protect herself and her mistress.
But the detective still kept his eye on her.
“Didn't write it yourself, did you?” he queried curtly.
“I did not!” said Lizzie angrily. “I did not!”
“And–you're sure you don't walk in your sleep?"
The bare idea strained Lizzie's nerves to the break.


86 THE BAT
the alcove doors behind her, and still unobserved.
“Suppose,” said Miss Cornelia slowly, “that Court.
leigh Fleming took that money from his own bank and
concealed it in this house?” The eavesdropper grew
rigid. -
“That's the theory you gave headquarters, isn't it?”
said Anderson. “But I’ll tell you how headquarters
figures it out. In the first place, the cashier is missing.
In the second place, if Courtleigh Fleming did it and
got as far as Colorado, he had it with him when he
died, and the facts apparently don't bear that out. In
the third place, suppose he had hidden the money in
or around this house. Why did he rent it to you?”
“But he didn't,” said Miss Cornelia obstinately, “I
leased this house from his nephew, his heir.”
The detective smiled tolerantly."
“Well, I wouldn't struggle like that for a theory,”
he said, the professional note coming back to his voice.
“The cashier's missing—that's the answer.”
Miss Cornelia resented his offhand demolition of the
mental card-castle she had erected with such pride.
“I have read a great deal on the detection of crime,”
she said hotly, “and—” *
“Well, we all have our little hobbies,” he said toler-
antly. “A good many people rather fancy themselves
as detectives and run around looking for clues under
the impression that a clue is a big and vital factor that
sticks up like—well, like a sore thumb. The fact is that
the criminal takes care of the big and important fac-
tors. It's only the little ones he may overlook. To go
back to your friend the Bat, it's because of his skill
in little things that he's still at large.”
“Then you don't think there's a chance that the


THE BAT g7
money from the Union Bank is in this house?” persist.
ed Miss Cornelia.
“I think it very unlikely.”
Miss Cornelia put her knitting away and rose. She
still clung tenaciously to her own theories but her be-
lief in them had been badly shaken.
“If you'll come with me, I’ll show you to your room,”
she said a little stiffly. The detective stepped back to
let her pass. - -
“Sorry to spoil your little theory,” he said, and fol-
lowed her to the door. If either had noticed the unob-
trusive listener to their conversation, neither made a
Sign. -
The moment the door had closed on them Dale
sprang into action. She seemed a different girl from
the one who had left the room so inconspicuously such
a short time before. There were two bright spots of
color in her cheeks and she was obviously laboring un-
der great excitement. She went quickly to the alcove
doors—they opened softly—disclosing the young man
who had said that he was Brooks the new gardener—
and yet not the same young man—for his assumed air
of servitude had dropped from him like a cloak, re-
vealing him as a young fellow at least of the same
general social class as Dale's if not a fellow-inhabitant
of the select circle where Van Gorders revolved about
Van Gorders, and a man's great-grandfather was more
important than the man himself.
Dale cautioned him with a warning finger as he ad-
vanced into the room. -
“Sh! Sh!” she whispered. “Be careful! That man's a
detective!” ..
Brooks gave a hunted glance at the door into the hall.


88 THE BAT
“Then they've traced me here,” he said in a dejected
voice.
“I don't think so.”
He made a gesture of helplessness.
“I couldn't get back to my rooms,” he said in a whis-
per. “If they've searched them,” he paused, “as they're
sure to-they'll find your letters to me.” He paused
again. “Your aunt doesn't suspect anything?”
“No, I told her I'd engaged a gardener—and that's
all there was about it.”
He came nearer to her. “Dale!” he murmured in a
tense voice. “You know I didn't take that money!” he
said with boyish simplicity.
All the loyalty of first-love was in her answer.
“Of course! I believe in you absolutely!” she said. He
caught her in his arms and kissed her—gratefully, pas-
sionately. Then the galling memory of the predicament
in which he stood, the hunt already on his trail, came
back to him. He released her gently, still holding one
of her hands.
“But—the police here!” he stammered, turning away.
“What does that mean?”
Dale swiftly informed him of the situation.
“Aunt Cornelia says people have been trying to break
into this house for days—at night.”
Brooks ran his hand through his hair in a gesture
of bewilderment. Then he seemed to catch at a hope.
“What sort of people?” he queried sharply.
Dale was puzzled. “She doesn't know.”
The excitement in her lover's manner came to a
head. “That proves exactly what I've contended right
along,” he said, thudding one fist softly in the palm of
the other. “Through some underneath channel old


90 THE BAT
—two figures huddled in a foxhole, whiling away the
terrible hours of waiting by muttered talk.
“Just an hour or two before—a shell got this friend
of mine,” he resumed. “He told me he had built a
hidden room in this house.”
“Where?” gasped Dale. -
Brooks shook his head. “I don't know. We never
got to finish that conversation. But I remember what
he said. He said, ‘You watch old Fleming. If I get
mine over here it won't break his heart. He didn't want
any living being to know about that room.’”
Now Dale was as excited as he.
“Then you think the money is in this hidden room?"
“I do,” said Brooks decidedly. “I don't think Flem-
ing took it away with him. He was too shrewd for
that. No, he meant to come back all right, the minute
he got the word the bank had been looted. And he'd
fixed things so I’d be railroaded to prison—you
wouldn't understand, but it was pretty neat. And then
the fool nephew rents this house the minute he's dead,
and whoever knows about the money—”
“Jack! Why isn't it the nephew who is trying to
break in P” - \
“He wouldn't have to break in. He could make an
excuse and come in any time.” -
He clenched his hands despairingly.
“If I could only get hold of a blueprint of this place!”
he muttered.
Dale's face fell. It was sickening to be so close to the
secret—and yet not find it. “Oh, Jack, I'm so confused
and worried!” she confessed, with a little sob.
Brooks put his hands on her shoulders in an effort
to cheer her spirits.


- - THE BAT 91
“Now listen, dear,” he said firmly, “this isn't as hard
as it sounds. I’ve got a clear night to work in—and as
true as I’m standing here, that money's in this house.
Listen, honey—it's like this.” He pantomimed the old
nursery rhyme of The House that Jack Built. “Here's
the house that Courtleigh Fleming built—here, some-
where, is the Hidden Room in the house that Court-
leigh Fleming built—and here—somewhere—pray
heaven—is the money—in the Hidden Room—in the
house that Courtleigh Fleming built. When you're low
in your mind, just say that over!”
She managed a faint smile. “I’ve forgotten it al-
ready,” she said, drooping. -
He still strove for an offhand gayety that he did
not feel. -
“Why, look here!” and she followed the play of his
hands obediently, like a tired child, “it’s a sort of game,
dearest. ‘Money, money—who's got the money?’ You
know!” For the dozenth time he stared at the unre-
vealing walls of the room. “For that matter,” he added,
“the Hidden Room may be behind these very walls.”
He looked about for a tool, a poker, anything that
would sound the walls and test them for hollow spaces.
Ah! he had it—that driver in the bag of golf clubs over
in the corner. He got the driver and stood wondering
where he had best begin. That blank wall above the
fireplace looked as promising as any. He tapped it gen-
tly with the golf club—afraid to make too much noise
and yet anxious to test the wall as thoroughly as pos-
sible. A dull, heavy reverberation answered his stroke
—nothing hollow there apparently.
As he tried another spot, again thunder beat the
long roll on its iron drum outside, in the night. The


92 THE BAT
lights blinked—wavered—recovered.
“The lights are going out again,” said Dale dully,
her excitement sunk into a stupefied calm.
“Let them go! The less light the better for me. The
only thing to do is to go over this house room by
room.” He pointed to the billiard-room door. “What's
in there?” .
“The billiard room.” She was thinking hard. “Jack!
Perhaps Courtleigh Fleming's nephew would know
where the blueprints are!”
He looked dubious. “It’s a chance, but not a very
good one,” he said. “Well—” He led the way into the
billiard room and began to rap at random upon its
walls while Dale listened intently for any echo that
might betray the presence of a hidden chamber or slid-
ing panel. -
Thus it happened that Lizzie received the first real
thrill of what was to prove to her—and to others—a
sensational and hideous night. For, coming into the
living-room to lay a cloth for Mr. Anderson's night
supper, not only did the lights blink threateningly and
the thunder roll, but a series of spirit raps was certain-
ly to be heard coming from the region of the billiard
IOOIIl.
“Oh, my God!” she wailed, and the next instant the
lights went out, leaving her in inky darkness. With a
loud shriek she bolted out of the room.
Thunder—lightning—dashing of rain on the stream-
ing glass of the windows—the storm hallooing its
hounds. Dale huddled close to her lover as they groped
their way back to the living-room, cautiously, doing
their best to keep from stumbling against some heavy
piece of furniture whose fall would arouse the house.


- THE FAT *
“There's a candle on the table, Jack, if I can find the
table.” Her outstretched hands touched a familiar ob-
ject. “Here it is.” She fumbled for a moment. “Have
you any matches?” -
“Yes.” He struck one—another—lit the candle—set
it down on the table. In the weak glow of the little
taper, whose tiny flame illuminated but a portion of
the living-room, his face looked tense and strained.
“It's pretty nearly hopeless,” he said, “if all the walls
are paneled like that.”
As if in mockery of his words and his quest, a
muffled knocking that seemed to come from the ceiling
of the very room he stood in answered his despair.
“What's that?” gasped Dale.
They listened. The knocking was repeated—knock–
knock—knock—knock.
“Someone else is looking for the Hidden Room!”
muttered Brooks, gazing up at the ceiling intently, as
if he could tear from it the secret of this new mystery
by sheer strength of will.
Chapter Eight: THE GLEAMING EYE
“It's UPSTAIRs!” Dale took a step toward the alcove
stairs. Brooks halted her.
“Who's in this house besides ourselves?” he queried.
“Only the detective, Aunt Cornelia, Lizzie, and
Billy.” - -
“Billy's the Jap?”
“Yes.”
Brooks paused an instant. “Does he belong to your
aunt?”
“No. He was Courtleigh Fleming's butler.”


94 THE BAT
Knock—knock—knock—knock—the dull, methodi-
cal rapping on the ceiling of the living-room began
again.
“Courtleigh Fleming's butler, eh?” muttered Brooks.
He put down his candle and stole noiselessly into the
alcove. “It may be the Jap!” he whispered.
Knock—knock—knock—knock! This time the mys-
terious rapping seemed to come from the upper hall.
“If it is the Jap, I’ll get him!” Brooks's voice was
tense with resolution. He hesitated—made for the hall
door—tiptoed out into the darkness around the main
staircase, leaving Dale alone in the living-room beset
by shadowy terrors.
Utter silence succeeded his noiseless departure. Even
the storm lulled for a moment. Dale stood thinking,
wondering, searching desperately for some way to help
her lover.
At last a resolution formed in her mind. She went
to the city telephone.
“Hello,” she said in a low voice, glancing over her
shoulder now and then to make sure she was not over-
heard. “1–2–4—please—yes, that's right. Hello—is
that the country club? Is Mr. Richard Fleming there?
Yes, I’ll hold the wire.” -
She looked about nervously. Had something moved
in that corner of blackness where her candle did not
pierce? No! How silly of her!
Buzz-buzz on the telephone. She picked up the re-
ceiver again.
“Hello—is this Mr. Fleming? This is Miss Ogden—
Dale Ogden. I know it must seem odd my calling you
this late, but—I wonder if you could come over here
for a few minutes. Yes—tonight.” Her voice grew


THE BAT 95
stronger. “I wouldn't trouble you but—it's awfully im-
portant. Hold the wire a moment.” She put down the
phone and made another swift survey of the room, lis-
tened furtively at the door—all clear! She returned to
the phone. 2
“Hello—Mr. Fleming—I’ll wait outside the house on
the drive. It-it's a confidential matter. Thank you so
much.”
She hung up the phone, relieved—not an instant too
soon, for, as she crossed toward the fireplace to add a
new log to the dying glow of the fire, the hall door
opened and Anderson, the detective, came softly in
with an unlighted candle in his hand.
Her composure almost deserted her. How much had
he heard. What deduction would he draw if he had
heard? An assignation, perhaps! Well, she could stand
that; she could stand anything to secure the next few
hours of liberty for Jack. For that length of time she
and the law were at war; she and this man were at
War.
But his first words relieved her fears.
“Spooky sort of place in the dark, isn't it?” he said
casually. . .
“Yes, rather.” If he would only go away before
Brooks came back or Richard Fleming arrived! But he
seemed in a distressingly chatty frame of mind.
“Left me upstairs without a match,” continued An-
derson. “I found my way down by walking part of the
way and falling the rest. Don't suppose I'll ever find
the room I left my toothbrush in!” He laughed, light-
ing the candle in his hand from the candle on the
table. º
“You’re not going to stay up all night, are you?”


THE BAT" 97
t
the house phone on the wall by the alcove, mistaking
the direction of the ring.
Dale corrected him quickly.
“No, the other one. That's the house phone.”
Anderson looked the apparatus over.
“No connection with the outside, eh?”
“No,” said Dale absent-mindedly. “Just from room
to room in the house.” -
He accepted her explanation and answered the other
telephone.
“Hello—hello—what the-” He moved the receiver
hook up and down, without result, and gave it up.
“This line sounds dead,” he said.
“It was all right a few minutes ago,” said Dale with-
out thinking.
“You were using it a few minutes ago?”
She hesitated—what use to deny what she had al-
ready admitted, for all practical purposes.
“Yes.” *
The city telephone rang again. The detective
pounced upon it.
“Hello—yes—yes—this is Anderson—go ahead.” He
paused, while the tiny voice in the receiver buzzed for
some seconds. Then he interrupted it impatiently.
“You’re sure of that, are you? I see. All right. ‘By.”
He hung up the receiver and turned swiftly on Dale.
“Did I understand you to say that you were not ac-
quainted with the cashier of the Union Bank?” he
said to her with a new note in his voice.
Dale stared ahead of her blankly. It had come! She
did not reply.
Anderson went on ruthlessly.
“That was headquarters, Miss Ogden. They have


- THE BAt 99
Her eyes met his without weakening, her voice was
cool and composed.
“No.” -
The detective did not comment on her answer. She
could not tell from his face whether he thought she
had told the truth or lied. He turned away from her
brusquely.
“I’ll ask you to bring Miss Van Gorder here,” he said
in his professional voice.
“Why do you want her?” Dale blazed at him re-
belliously.
He was quiet. “Because this case is taking on a new
phase.”
“You don't think I know anything about that mon-
ey?” she said, a little wildly, hoping that a display of
sham anger might throw him off the trail he seemed
to be following.
He seemed to accept her words, cynically, at their
face value.
“No,” he said, “but you know somebody who does.”
Dale hesitated, sought for a biting retort, found none.
It did not matter; any respite, no matter how momen-
tary, from these probing questions, would be a relief.
She silently took one of the lighted candles and left
the living-room to search for her aunt.
Left alone, the detective reflected for a moment, then
picking up the one lighted candle that remained, com-
menced a systematic examination of the living-room.
His methods were thorough, but if, when he came to
the end of his quest, he had made any new discoveries,
the reticent composure of his face did not betray the
fact. When he had finished he turned patiently toward
the billiard room—the little flame of his candle was


102 THE BAT
other candle.
“Who screamed?” said Dale tensely.
“I did!” Lizzie wailed, “I saw a ghost!” She turned
to Miss Cornelia. “I begged you not to come here,” she
vociferated, “I begged you on my bended knees. There's
a graveyard not a quarter of a mile away.”
“Yes, and one more scare like that, Lizzie Allen, and
you'll have me lying in it,” said her mistress unsympa-
thetically. She moved up to examine the scene of Liz-
zie's ghostly misadventure, while Anderson began to
interrogate its heroine.
“Now, Lizzie,” he said, forcing himself to urbanity,
“what did you really see?”
“I told you what I saw.”
His manner grew somewhat threatening.
“You’re not trying to frighten Miss Van Gorder into
leaving this house and going back to the city ?”
“Well, if I am,” said Lizzie with grim, unconscious
humor, “I’m giving myself an awful good scare, too,
ain't I?”
The two glared at each other as Miss Cornelia re-
turned from her survey of the alcove. -
“Somebody who had a key could have got in here,
Mr. Anderson,” she said annoyedly. “That terrace
door's been unbolted from the inside.”
Lizzie groaned. “I told you so,” she wailed. “I knew
something was going to happen tonight. I heard rap-
pings all over the house today, and the ouija-board
spelled Bat!” -
The detective recovered his poise. “I think I see the
answer to your puzzle, Miss Van Gorder,” he said,
with a scornful glance at Lizzie. “A hysterical and not
very reliable woman, anxious to go back to the city


THE BAT 103
and terrified over and over by the shutting off of the
electric light.”
If looks could slay, his characterization of Lizzie
would have laid him dead at her feet at that instant.
Miss Van Gorder considered his theory.
“I wonder,” she said.
The detective rubbed his hands together more cheer-
fully. ' -
“A good night's sleep and—” he began, but the irre-
pressible Lizzie interrupted him.
“My God, we're not going to bed, are we?” she said,
with her eyes as big as saucers.
He gave her a kindly pat on the shoulder, which she
obviously resented.
“You’ll feel better in the morning,” he said. “Lock
your door and say your prayers, and leave the rest to
me.”
Lizzie muttered something inaudible and rebellious,
but now Miss Cornelia added her protestations to his.
“That's very good advice,” she said decisively. “You
take her, Dale.”
Reluctantly, with a dragging of feet and scared
glances cast back over her shoulder, Lizzie allowed her-
self to be drawn toward the door and the main stair-
case by Dale. But she did not depart without one
Parthian shot.
“I’m not going to bed!” she wailed as Dale's strong
young arm helped her out into the hall. “Do you think
I want to wake up in the morning with my throat
cut?” Then the creaking of the stairs, and Dale's
soothing voice reassuring her as she painfully clam-
bered toward the third floor, announced that Lizzie,
for some time at least, had been removed as an active


104 The BAT
factor from the puzzling equation of Cedarcrest.
Anderson confronted Miss Cornelia with certain
relief.
“There are certain things I'want to discuss with you,
Miss Van Gorder,” he said. “But they can wait until
tomorrow morning.” -
Miss Cornelia glanced about the room. His manner
was reassuring. .
“Do you think all this—pure imagination?” she said.
“Don’t you?”
She hesitated. “I’m not sure.”
He laughed. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You go up-
stairs and go to bed comfortably. I'll make a careful
search of the house before I settle down, and if I find
anything at all suspicious, I'll promise to let you know.”
She agreed to that, and after sending the Jap out for
more coffee prepared to go upstairs.
Never had the thought of her own comfortable bed
appealed to her so much. But, inspite of her weari-
ness, she could not quite resign herself to take Lizzie's
story as lightly as the detective seemed to.
“If what Lizzie says is true,” she said, taking her can-
dle, “the upper floors of the house are even less safe
than this one.”
“I imagine Lizzie's account just now is about as
reliable as her previous one as to her age,” Anderson
assured her. “I’m certain you need not worry. Just go
on up and get your beauty sleep; I'm sure you need it.”
On which ambiguous remark Miss Van Gorder took
her leave, rather grimly smiling.
It was after she had gone that Anderson's glance fell
on Brooks, standing warily in the doorway.
“What are you? The gardener?”


THE BAT 107
of down by the drive.
She had telephoned him on an impulse. But now, as
she looked at him in the light of her single candle, she
wondered if this rather dissipated, rather foppish young
man about town, in his early thirties, could possibly
understand and appreciate the motives that had driven
her to seek his aid. Still, it was for Jack! She clenched
her teeth and resolved to go through with the plan
mapped out in her mind. It might be a desperate ex-
pedient but she had nowhere else to turn!
Fleming shut the terrace door behind him and
moved down from the alcove, trying to shake the rain
from his coat.
“Did I frighten you?” -
“Oh, Mr. Fleming—yes!” Dale laid her aunt's re-
volver down on the table. Fleming perceived her nerv-
ousness and made a gesture of apology.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I rapped but nobody seemed
to hear me, so I used my key.”
“You’re wet through—I’m sorry,” said Dale with
mechanical politeness. -
He smiled. “Oh, no.” He stripped off his cap and
raincoat and placed them on a chair, brushing himself
off as he did so with finicky little movements of his
hands.
“Reggie Beresford brought me over in his car,” he
said. “He’s waiting down the drive.”
Dale decided not to waste words in the usual com-
monplaces of social greeting. -
“Mr. Fleming, I’m in dreadful trouble!” she said,
facing him squarely, with a courageous appeal in her
eyes.
He made a polite movement. “Oh, I say! That's too


110 THE BAT -
“Do you know anything about a Hidden Room in
this house?” she asked.
Dick Fleming stared at her for a moment. Then he
burst into laughter.
“A Hidden Room—that's rich!” he said, still laugh-
ing. “Never heard of it! Now, let me get this straight.
The idea is—a Hidden Room—and the money is in it
—is that it?” -
Dale nodded a “Yes.”
“The architect who built this house told Jack Bailey
that he had built a Hidden Room in it,” she persisted.
For a moment Dick Fleming stared at her as if he
could not believe his ears. Then, slowly, his expression
changed. Beneath the well-fed, debonair mask of the
clubman about town, other lines appeared—lines of
avarice and calculation—wolf-marks, betokening the
craft and petty ruthlessness of the small soul within
the gentlemanly shell. His eyes took on a shifty, un-
certain stare—they no longer looked at Dale—their
gaze seemed turned inward, beholding a visioned
treasure, a glittering pile of gold. And yet, the change
in his look was not so pronounced as to give Dale
pause—she felt a vague uneasiness steal over her, true
—but it would have taken a shrewd and long-experi-
enced woman of the world to read the secret behind
Fleming's eyes at first glance—and Dale, for all her
courage and common sense, was a young and head-
strong girl.
She watched him, puzzled, wondering why he made
no comment on her last statement.
“Do you know where there are any blueprints of
the house?” she asked at last.
An odd light glittered in Fleming's eyes for a mo-


THE BAT 111
ment. Then it vanished—he held himself in check—
the casual idler again. w
“Blueprints?” He seemed to think it over. “Why—
there may be some. Have you looked in the old secre-
tary in the library 2 My uncle used to keep all sorts of
papers there,” he said with apparent helpfulness.
“Why, don't you remember—you locked it when we
took the house.” -
“So I did.” Fleming took out his key ring, selected
a key. “Suppose you go and look,” he said. “Don’t you
think I'd better stay here?”
“Oh, yes-—” said Dale, blinded to everything else by
the rising hope in her heart. “Oh, I can hardly thank
you enough!” and before he could even reply, she had
taken the key and was hurrying toward the hall door.
He watched her leave the room, a bleak smile on his
face. As soon as she had closed the door behind her; his
langour dropped from him. He became a hound—a
ferret—questing for its prey. He ran lightly over to
the bookcase by the hall door—a moment's inspection
—he shook his head. Perhaps the other bookcase near
the French windows—no—it wasn't there. Ah, the
bookcase over the fireplace! He remembered now! He
made for it, hastily swept the books from the top shelf,
reached groping fingers into the space behind the sec-
ond row of books. There! A dusty roll of three blue-
prints! He unrolled them hurriedly and tried to make
out the white tracings by the light of the fire—no—
better take them over to the candle on the table.
He peered at them hungrily in the little spot of light
thrown by the candle. The first one—no—nor the sec-
ond—but the third—the bottom one—good heavens!
He took in the significance of the blurred white lines


THE BAT 113
sneer in his tones.
Dale's temper was rising.
“If you won't give it to me—there's a detective in
this house,” she said, with a stamp of her foot. She
made a movement as if to call Anderson—then, re-
membering Jack, turned back to Fleming.
“Give it to the detective and let him search,” she
pleaded.
“A detective?” said Fleming startled. “What's a de-
tective doing here?”
“People have been trying to break in.”
“What people?”
“I don't know.”
Fleming stared out beyond Dale, into the night.
“Then it is here,” he muttered to himself.
Behind his back—was it a gust of air that moved
them?—the double doors of the alcove swung open
just a crack. Was a listener crouched behind those doors
—or was it only a trick of carpentry—a gesture of
chance?
The mask of the clubman dropped from Fleming
completely. His lips drew back from his teeth in the
snarl of a predatory animal that clings to its prey at
the cost of life or death.
Before Dale could stop him, he picked up the dis-
carded blueprints and threw them on the fire, retain-
ing only the precious scrap in his hand. The roll black-
ened and burst into flame. He watched it, smiling.
“I’m not going to give this to any detective,” he said
quietly, tapping the piece of paper in his hand.
Dale's heart pounded sickeningly but she kept her
courage up.
“What do you mean?” she said fiercely. “What are


114 THE BAT
you going to do?” -
He faced her across the fireplace, his airy manner
coming back to him just enough to add an additional
touch of the sinister to the cold self-revelation of his
words. º -
“Let us suppose a few things, Miss Ogden,” he said.
“Suppose my price is a million dollars. Suppose I need
money very badly and my uncle has left me a house
containing that amount in cash. Suppose I choose to
consider that that money is mine—then it wouldn't be
hard to suppose, would it, that I'd make a pretty sin-
cere attempt to get away with it?”
Dale summoned all her fortitude. w
“If you go out of this room with that paper I'll
scream for help!” she said defiantly.
Fleming made a little mock-bow of courtesy. He
smiled.
“To carry on our little game of supposing,” he said
easily, “suppose there is a detective in this house—and
that, if I were cornered, I should tell him where to lay
his hands on Jack Bailey. Do you suppose you would
scream?” -
Dale's hands dropped, powerless, at her sides. If
only she hadn't told him—too late!—she was helpless.
She could not call the detective without ruining Jack
—and yet, if Fleming escaped with the money—how
could Jack ever prove his innocence?
Fleming watched her for an instant, smiling. Then,
seeing she made no move, he darted hastily toward the
double doors of the alcove, flung them open, seemed
about to dash up the alcove stairs. The sight of him
escaping with the only existing clue to the hidden
room galvanized Dale into action. She followed him,
- |


116 THE BAT
A murmur of excited voices sounded from the hall.
The door flew open, feet stumbled through the dark-
ness—“The noise came from this room!” that was An-
derson's voice—“Holy Virgin!” that must be Lizzie-
Even as Dale turned to face the assembled house-
hold, the house lights, extinguished since the storm,
came on in full brilliance—revealing her to them,
standing beside Fleming's body with Miss Cornelia's
revolver between them. -
She shuddered, seeing Fleming's arm flung out
awkwardly by his side. No living man could lie in such
a posture.
“I didn't do it! I didn't do it!” she stammered, after
a tense silence that followed the sudden reillumining
of the lights. Her eyes wandered from figure to figure
idly, noting unimportant details. Billy was still in his
white coat and his face, impassive as ever, showed not
the slightest surprise. Brooks and Anderson were like-
wise completely dressed, but Miss Cornelia had evi-
dently begun to retire for the night when she had heard
the shot—her transformation was askew and she wore
a dressing-gown. As for Lizzie, that worthy shivered
in a gaudy wrapper adorned with incredible orange
flowers, with her hair done up in curlers. Dale saw it
all and was never after to forget one single detail of it.
The detective was beside her now, examining Flem-
ing's body with professional thoroughness. At last he
rose.
“He’s dead,” he said quietly. A shiver ran through
the watching group. Dale felt a stifling hand constrict
about her heart.
There was a pause. Anderson picked up the revolver
beside Fleming's body and examined it swiftly, careful
-


118 THE BAT
back to Fleming's body.
“I’ve been all over the house,” he said. “There's no-
body there.” -
A pause followed. Dale found herself helplessly
looking toward her lover for comfort—comfort he
could not give without revealing his own secret.
Eerily, through the tense silence, a sudden tinkling
sounded—the sharp, persistent ringing of a telephone
bell.
Miss Cornelia rose to answer it automatically. “The
house phone!” she said. Then she stopped. “But we're
all here.”
They looked at each other aghast. It was true. And
yet, somehow—somewhere—one of the other phones
on the circuit was calling the living-room.
Miss Cornelia summoned every ounce of inherited
Van Gorder pride she possessed and went to the phone.
She took off the receiver. The ringing stopped.
“Hello—hello—” she said, while the others stood
rigid, listening. Then she gasped. An expression of
wondering horror came over her face.
Chapter Ten: THE PHONE CALL FROM NowHERE
“SoMEBODY GROANING!” gasped Miss Cornelia. “It’s
horrible!”
The detective stepped up and took the receiver from
her. He listened anxiously for a moment.
“I don't hear anything,” he said.
“I heard it! I couldn't imagine such a dreadful
sound! I tell you—somebody in this house is in terrible
distress.” -
“Where does this phone connect?” queried Anderson


THE BAT 121
glance at the bullet chambers.
“One shot has been fired from this revolver!”
Miss Cornelia sprang to her niece's defense.
“I fired it myself this afternoon,” she said.
The detective regarded her with grudging admira-
tlon.
“You’re a quick thinker,” he said with obvious un-
belief in his voice. He put the revolver down on the
table.
Miss Cornelia followed up her advantage.
“I demand that you get the coroner here,” she said.
“Doctor Wells is the coroner,” offered Lizzie eagerly.
Anderson brushed their suggestions aside.
“I’m going to ask you some questions!” he said menac-
ingly to Dale. - -
But Miss Cornelia stuck to her guns. Dale was not
going to be bullied into any sort of confession, true or
false, if she could help it—and from the way that the
girl's eyes returned with fascinated horror to the ghast-
ly heap on the floor that had been Fleming, she knew
that Dale was on the edge of violent hysteria.
“Do you mind covering that body first?” she asked
crisply. The detective eyed her for a moment in a rather
ugly fashion, then grunted ungraciously and, taking
Fleming's raincoat from the chair, threw it over the
body. Dale's eyes telegraphed her aunt a silent message
of gratitude.
“Now, shall I telephone for the coroner?” persisted
Miss Cornelia. The detective obviously resented her
interference with his methods but he could not well
refuse such a customary request.
“I’ll do it,” he said with a snort, going over to the
city telephone. “What's his number?”


- 122 THE BAT
“He’s not at his office; he's at the Johnsons',” mur-
mured Dale.
Miss Cornelia took the telephone from Anderson's
hands. *
“I’ll get the Johnsons', Mr. Anderson,” she said firm-
ly. The detective seemed about to rebuke her. Then his
manner recovered some of its former suavity. He re-
linquished the telephone and turned back toward his
rey. - -
p “Now, what was Fleming doing here?” he asked
Dale in a gentler voice.
Should she tell him the truth? No-Jack Bailey's
safety was too inextricably bound up with the whole
sinister business. She must lie, and lie again, while
there was any chance of a lie's being believed.
“I don't know,” she said weakly, trying to avoid the
detective's eyes. -
Anderson took thought.
“Well, I'll ask that question another way,” he said.
“How did he get into the house?”
Dale brightened—no need for a lie here.
“He had a key.”
“Key to what door?”
- “That door over there.” Dale indicated the terrace
door of the alcove.
The detective was about to ask another question—
then he paused. Miss Cornelia was talking on the
phone. -
“Hello—is that Mr. Johnson's residence? Is Dr.
Wells there? No?” Her expression was puzzled. “Oh—
all right—thank you—good night—”
Meanwhile Anderson had been listening—but think-
ing as well. Dale saw his sharp glance travel over to


124 THE BAT
story could she tell that would not bring ruin on Jack?
Her face whitened. She put her hand on the back of
a chair for support.
“Yes—that's it,” she said at last, and swayed where
she stood.
Again Miss Cornelia tried to come to the rescue.
“Are all these questions necessary?” she queried
sharply. “You can't for a moment believe that Miss
Ogden shot that man!” But by now, though she did
not show it, she too began to realize the strength of the
appalling net of circumstances that drew with each
minute tighter around the unhappy girl. Dale grate-
fully seized the momentary respite and sank into a
chair. The detective looked at her.
“I think she knows more than she's telling. She's
concealing something!” he said with deadly intentness.
“The nephew of the president of the Union Bank—
shot in his own house the day the bank has failed—
that's queer enough—” Now he turned back to Miss
Cornelia. “But when the only person present at his
murder is the girl who's engaged to the guilty cashier,”
he continued, watching Miss Cornelia's face as the full
force of his words sank into her mind, “I want to know
more about it!”
He stopped. His right hand moved idly over the
edge of the table, halted beside an ash tray, closed upon
something. -
Miss Cornelia rose.
“Is that true, Dale?” she said sorrowfully.
Dale nodded. “Yes.” She could not trust herself to
explain at greater length.
Then Miss Cornelia made one of the most magnifi-
cent gestures of her life.


| THE BAT 125
w
“Well, even if it is—what has that got to do with it?”
she said, turning upon Anderson fiercely, all her pro-
tective instinct for those whom she loved aroused.
Anderson seemed somewhat impressed by the fierce-
ness of her query. When he went on it was with less
harshness in his manner.
“I’m not accusing this girl,” he said more gently.
“But behind every crime there is a motive. When we've
found the motive for this crime, we'll have found the
criminal.”
Unobserved, Dale's hand instinctively went to her
bosom. There it lay—the motive—the precious frag-
ment of blueprint which she had torn from Fleming's
grasp but an instant before he was shot down. Once
Anderson found it in her possession the case was
closed, the evidence against her overwhelming. She
could not destroy it—it was the only clue to the Hidden
Room and the truth that might clear Jack Bailey. But,
somehow, she must hide it—get it out of her hands—
before Anderson's third-degree methods broke her
down or he insisted on a search of her person. Her eyes
roved wildly about the room, looking for a hiding
place. '
The rain of Anderson's questions began anew.
“What papers did Fleming burn in that grate?” he
asked abruptly, turning back to Dale.
“Papers!” she faltered.
“Papers! The ashes are still there.”
Miss Cornelia made an unavailing interruption.
“Miss Ogden has said he didn't come into this
room.”
The detective smiled.
“I hold in my hand proof that he was in this room


126 THE BAT
for some time,” he said coldly, displaying the half-
burned cigarette he had taken from the ash tray a mo-
ment before.
“His cigarette—with his monogram on it.” He put
the fragment of tobacco and paper carefully away in
an envelope and marched over to the fireplace. There
he rummaged among the ashes for a moment, like a
dog uncovering a bone. He returned to the center of
the room with a fragment of blackened blue paper
fluttering between his fingers.
“A fragment of what is technically known as a blue-
print,” he announced. “What were you and Richard
Fleming doing with a blueprint?” His eyes bored into
Dale's.
Dale hesitated—shut her lips. -
“Now think it over!” he warned. “The truth will
come out, sooner or later! Better be frank mow!”
If he only knew how I wanted to be, he wouldn't be
so cruel, thought Dale wearily. But I can't—I can't!
Then her heart gave a throb of relief. Jack had come
back into the room—Jack and Billy—Jack would protect
her! But even as she thought of this her heart sank again.
Protect her, indeed! Poor Jack! He would find it hard
enough to protect himself if once this terrible man with
the cold smile and steely eyes started questioning him.
She looked up anxiously.
Bailey made his report breathlessly.
“Nothing in the house, sir.”
Billy's impassive lips confirmed him.
“We go all over house—nobody!” -
Nobody—nobody in the house! And yet—the mys-
terious ringing of the phone—the groans Miss Cornelia
had heard! Were old wives' tales and witches' fables


- THE BAT 127
true after all? Did a power—merciless—evil—exist, out-
side the barriers of the flesh—blasting that trembling
flesh with a cold breath from beyond the portals of
the grave? There seemed to be no other explanation.
“You men stay here!” said the detective. “I want to
ask you some questions.” He doggedly returned to his
third-degreeing of Dale.
“Now what about this blueprint?” he queried
sharply.
Dale stiffened in her chair. Her lies had failed. Now
she would tell a portion of the truth, as much of it as
she could without menacing Jack.
“I’ll tell you just what happened,” she began. “I sent
for Richard Fleming—and when he came, I asked him
if he knew where there were any blueprints of the
house.” -
The detective pounced eagerly upon her admission.
“Why did you want blueprints?” he thundered.
“Because,” Dale took a long breath, “I believe old Mr.
Fleming took the money himself from the Union Bank
and hid it here.”
“Where did you get that idea?”
Dale's jaw set. “I won't tell you.”
“What had the blueprints to do with it?”
She could think of no plausible explanation but the
true Oil C.
“Because I'd heard there was a Hidden Room in this
house.” -
The detective leaned forward intently.
“Did you locate that room?”
Dale hesitated. “No.”
“Then why did you burn the blueprints?”
Dale's nerve was crumbling—breaking—under the


130 THE BAT
“I asked you if you had a pocket-flash about you!”
answered Bailey indignantly. “If you call a question
like that violence—” He seemed about to restrain the
doctor by physical force.
Miss Cornelia quelled the teapot-tempest.
“It's all right, Brooks,” she said, taking the front
door key from his hand and putting it back on the
table. She turned to Doctor Wells.
“You see, Doctor Wells,” she explained, “just a mo-
ment before you rang the doorbell a circle of white
light was thrown on those window shades.”
The doctor laughed with a certain relief.
“Why, that was probably the searchlight from my
car!” he said. “I noticed as I drove up that it fell di-
rectly on that window.”
His explanation seemed to satisfy all present but
Lizzie. She regarded him with a deep suspicion. He
may be a lawyer, a merchant, a Doctor, she chanted
ominously to herself.
Miss Cornelia, too, was not entirely at ease.
“In the center of this ring of light,” she proceeded,
her eyes on the doctor's calm countenance, “was an
almost perfect silhouette of a bat.”
“A bat!” The doctor seemed at sea. “Ah, I see—the
symbol of the criminal of that name.” He laughed
again.
“I think I can explain what you saw. Quite often
my headlights collect insects at night and a large
moth, spread on the glass, would give precisely the
effect you speak of Just to satisfy you, I'll go out and
take a look.”
He turned to do so. Then he caught sight of the
raincoat-covered huddle on the floor.
-


132 THE BAT
the question. |
“That's what I'm trying to find out,” he said with a
saturnine smile. -
The doctor gave him a look of astonished inquiry.
Miss Cornelia remembered her manners.
“Doctor, this is Mr. Anderson.”
“Headquarters,” said Anderson tersely, shaking
hands.
It was Lizzie's turn to play her part in the tangled
game of mutual suspicion that by now made each
member of the party at Cedarcrest watch every other
member with nervous distrust. She crossed to her mis-
tress on tiptoe.
“Don’t you let him fool you with any of that moth
business!” she said in a thrilling whisper, jerking her
thumb in the direction of the doctor. “He’s the Bat."
Ordinarily Miss Cornelia would have dismissed her
words with a smile. But by now her brain felt as if it
had begun to revolve like a pinwheel in her efforts to
fathom the uncanny mystery of the various events of
the night. -
She addressed Dr. Wells. -
“I didn't tell you, Doctor. I sent for a detective this
afternoon.” Then, with mounting suspicion, “You hap.
pened in very opportunely!” - w
“After I left the Johnsons' I felt very uneasy,” he ex-
plained. “I determined to make one more effort to get
you away from this house. As this shows, my fears were
justified!”
He shook his head sadly. Miss Cornelia sat down.
His last words had given her food for thought. She
wanted to mull them over for a moment.
The doctor removed muffler and topcoat, stuffed the


THE BAT 133
former in his topcoat pocket and threw the latter on
the settee. He took out his handkerchief and began to
mop his face, as if to wipe away some strain of mental
excitement under which he was laboring. His breath
came quickly, the muscles of his jaw stood out.
“Died instantly, I suppose?” he said, looking over
at the body. “Didn't have time to say anything?”
“Ask the young lady,” said Anderson, with a jerk of
his head. “She was here when it happened.”
The doctor gave Dale a feverish glance of inquiry.
“He just fell over,” said the latter pitifully. Her an-
swer seemed to relieve the doctor of some unseen
weight on his mind. He drew a long breath and turned
back toward Fleming's body with comparative calm.
“Poor Dick has proved my case for me better than I
expected,” he said, regarding the still, unbreathing
heap beneath the raincoat. He swerved toward the
detective.
“Mr. Anderson,” he said with dignified pleading, “I
ask you to use your influence to see that these two
ladies find some safer spot than this for the night.”
Lizzie bounced up from her chair, instanter.
“Two?” she wailed. “If you know any safe spot,
lead me to it!”
The doctor overlooked her sudden eruption into the
scene. He wandered back again toward the huddle
under the raincoat, as if still unable to believe that it
was—or rather had been—Richard Fleming.
Miss Cornelia spoke suddenly in a low voice, with-
out moving a muscle of her body.
“I have a strange feeling that I’m being watched by
unfriendly eyes,” she said.
Lizzie clutched at her across the table.


- THE BAT 137
“With searchlight?” barked Anderson.
The young man turned to face this new enemy.
“Well, why shouldn't I be on the terrace with a
searchlight?” he demanded. -
The detective moved toward him menacingly.
“Who are you?” - -
“Who are you?” said the young man with cool im-
pertinence, giving him stare for stare.
Anderson did not deign to reply, in so many words.
Instead he displayed the police badge which glittered
on the inside of the right lapel of his coat.
The young man examined it coolly.
“H'm,” he said. “Very pretty—nice neat design—
very chaste!” He took out a cigarette case and opened
it, seemingly entirely unimpressed by both the badge
and Anderson. The detective chafed.
“If you've finished admiring my badge,” he said with
heavy sarcasm, “I’d like to know what you were doing
on the terrace.”
The young man hesitated—shot an odd, swift glance
at Dale who, ever since his abrupt entrance into the
room, had been sitting rigid in her chair with her
hands clenched tightly together.
“I’ve had some trouble with my car down the road,”
he said finally. He glanced at Dale again. “I came to
ask if I might telephone.”
“Did it require a flashlight to find the house?” Miss
Cornelia asked suspiciously.
“Look here,” the young man blustered, “why are
you asking me all these questions?” He tapped his
cigarette case with an irritated air.
Miss Cornelia stepped closer to him.
“Do you mind letting me see that flashlight?” she


138 THE BAT -
*
said. ,
The young man gave it to her with a little, mocking
bow. She turned it over, examined it, passed it to An-
derson, who examined it also, seeming to devote par-
ticular attention to the lens. The young man stood
puffing his cigarette a little nervously while the exami-
nation was in progress. He did not look at Dale again.
Anderson handed back the flashlight to its owner.
“Now—what's your name?” he said sternly.
“Beresford—Reginald Beresford,” said the young
man sulkily. “If you doubt it I've probably got a card
somewhere—” He began to search through his pockets.
“What's your business?” went on the detective.
“What's my business here?” queried the young man,
obviously fencing with his interrogator. -
“No, how do you earn your living,” said Anderson
sharply. -
“I don't,” said the young man flippantly. “I may
have to begin now, if that is of any interest to you. As
a matter of fact, I’ve studied law but—”
The one word was enough to start Lizzie off on an-
other trail of distrust. He may be a LAwYER— she quot.
ed to herself sepulchrally from the evening newspaper
article that had dealt with the mysterious identity of
the Bat. -
“And you came here to telephone about your car?"
persisted the detective. -
Dale rose from her chair with a hopeless little sigh.
“Oh, don't you see—he's trying to protect me,” she
said wearily. She turned to the young man. “It’s no use,
Mr. Beresford.”
Beresford's air of flippancy vanished.
“I see,” he said. He turned to the others, frankly.


THE FAT 139
“Well, the plain truth is—I didn't know the situation
and I thought I'd play safe for Miss Ogden's sake.”
Miss Cornelia moved over to her niece protectingly.
She put a hand on Dale's shoulder to reassure her. But
Dale was quite composed now. She had gone through
so many shocks already that one more or less seemed
to make very little difference to her overwearied nerves.
She turned to Anderson calmly.
“He doesn't know anything about—this,” she said,
indicating Beresford. “He brought Mr. Fleming here in
his car—that's all.” -
Anderson looked to Beresford for confirmation.
“Is that true?” -
“Yes,” said Beresford. He started to explain. “I got
tired of waiting and so I–” -
The detective broke in curtly.
“All right.” -
He took a step toward the alcove.
“Now, Doctor.” He nodded at the huddle beneath
the raincoat. Beresford followed his glance—and saw
the ominous heap for the first time. -
“What's that?” he said tensely. No one answered
him. The doctor was already on his knees beside the
body, drawing the raincoat gently aside. Beresford
stared at the shape thus revealed with frightened eyes.
The color left his face.
“That's not—Dick Fleming—is it?” he said thickly.
Anderson slowly nodded his head. Beresford seemed
unable to believe his eyes. º
“If you've looked over the ground,” said the doctor
in a low voice to Anderson, “I’ll move the body where
we can have a better light.” His right hand fluttered
swiftly over Fleming's still, clenched fist—extracted


142 THE BAT - -
where to hide it, before her chance had passed? Her
eyes fell on the bread roll that had fallen from the de-
tective's supper tray to the floor when Lizzie had seen
the gleaming eye on the stairs and had lain there un-
noticed ever since. She bent over swiftly and secreted
the tantalizing scrap of blue paper in the body of the
roll, smoothing the crust back above it with trembling
fingers. Then she replaced the roll where it had fallen
originally and straightened up just as Billy and the
detective returned. -
Billy went immediately to the tray, picked it up, and
started to go out again. Then he noticed the roll on
the floor, stooped for it and replaced it upon the tray.
He looked at Miss Cornelia for instructions.
“Take that tray out to the dining-room,” she said
mechanically. But Anderson's attention had already
been drawn to the tiny incident.
“Wait, I'll look at that tray,” he said briskly. Dale,
her heart in her mouth, watched him examine the
knives, the plates, even shake out the napkin to see that
nothing was hidden in its folds. At last he seemed
satisfied.
“All right, take it away,” he commanded. Billy nod.
ded and vanished toward the dining-room with tray
and roll. Dale breathed again. -
The sight of the tray had made Miss Cornelia's
thoughts return to practical affairs. -
“Lizzie,” she commanded now, “go out in the kitch-
en and make some coffee. I'm sure we all need it,” she
sighed.
Lizzie bristled at once.
“Go out in that kitchen alone?”
“Billy's there,” said Miss Cornelia wearily.


144 THE BAT
with crushing terseness. Dale started. She had not re-
membered the cap—why hadn't she burned it, con-
cealed it—as she had concealed the blueprint? She
passed a hand over her forehead wearily.
Miss Cornelia watched her niece. - -
“If you're keeping anything back, Dale—tell him,”
she said.
“She's keeping something back all right,” he said.
“She's told part of the truth, but not all.” He ham-
mered at Dale again. “You and Fleming located that
room by means of a blueprint of the house. He started
—not to go out—but, probably, to go up that staircase.
And he had in his hand the rest of this!” Again he dis-
played the blank corner of blue paper.
Dale knew herself cornered at last. The detective's
deductions were too shrewd; do what she would, she
could keep him away from the truth no longer.
“He was going to take the money and go away with
it!” she said rather pitifully, feeling a certain relief of
despair steal over her, now that she no longer needed
to go on lying—lying—involving herself in an inextrica-
ble web of falsehood.
“Dale!” gasped Miss Cornelia, alarmed. But Dale
went on, reckless of consequences to herself, though
still warily shielding Jack.
“He changed the minute he heard about it. He was
all kindness before that—but afterward—” She shud-
dered, closing her eyes. Fleming's face rose before her
again, furious, distorted with passion and greed—then,
suddenly, quenched of life.
Anderson turned to Miss Cornelia triumphantly.
“She started to find the money—and save Bailey,” he
explained, building up his theory of the crime. “But to


* THE BAT 145
do it she had to take Fleming into her confidence—
and he turned yellow. Rather than let him get away
with it, she—" He made an expressive gesture toward
his hip pocket.
Dale trembled, feeling herself already in the toils.
She had not quite realized, until now, how damningly
plausible such an explanation of Fleming's death could
sound. It fitted the evidence perfectly, it took account
of every factor but one—the factor left unaccounted
for was one which even she herself could not explain.
“Isn't that true?” demanded Anderson. Dale already
felt the cold clasp of handcuffs on her slim wrists.
What use of denial when every tiny circumstance was
so leagued against her? And yet she must deny.
“I didn't kill him,” she repeated perplexedly, weakly.
“Why didn't you call for help? You—you knew I
was here.”
Dale hesitated. “I–I couldn't.” The moment the
words were out of her mouth she knew from his ex-
pression that they had only cemented his growing
certainty of her guilt. -
“Dale! Be careful what you say!” warned Miss Cor-
nelia agitatedly. Dale looked dumbly at her aunt. Her
answers must seem the height of reckless folly to Miss
Cornelia—oh, if there were only someone who under-
stood! -
Anderson resumed his grilling.
“Now I mean to find out two things,” he said, ad-
vancing upon Dale. “Why you did not call for help-
and what you have done with that blueprint.”
“Suppose I could find that piece of blueprint for
you?” said Dale desperately. “Would that establish
Jack Bailey's innocence?”


146 THE BAT -
The detective stared at her keenly for a moment.
“If the money's there—yes.”
Dale opened her lips to reveal the secret, reckless of
what might follow. As long as Jack was cleared—what
matter what happened to herself? But Miss Cornelia
nipped the heroic attempt at self-sacrifice in the bud.
She put herself between her niece and the detective,
shielding Dale from his eager gaze.
“But her own guilt!” she said in tones of great dig-
nity. “No, Mr. Anderson, granting that she knows
where that paper is—and she has not said that she
does, I shall want more time and much legal advice
before I allow her to turn it over to you.” *
All the unconscious note of command that long-
inherited wealth and the pride of a great name can give
was in her voice, and the detective, for the moment,
bowed before it, defeated. Perhaps he thought of men
who had been broken from the Force for injudicious
arrests, perhaps he merely bided his time. At any rate,
he gave up his grilling of Dale for the present and
turned to question the doctor and Beresford who had
just returned, with Jack Bailey, from their grim task
of placing Fleming's body in a temporary resting place
in the library. -
“Well, Doctor?” he grunted.
The doctor shook his head.
“Poor fellow—straight through the heart.” -
“Were there any powder marks?” queried Miss
Cornelia.
“No-and the clothing was not burned. He was ap-
parently shot from some little distance—and I should
say from above.” -
The detective received this information without the


- - - THE BAT 147
change of a muscle in his face. He turned to Beres-
ford—resuming his attack on Dale from another angle.
“Beresford, did Fleming tell you why he came here
tonight?” -
Beresford considered the question.
“No. He seemed in a great hurry, said Miss Ogden
had telephoned him, and asked me to drive him over.”
“Why did you come up to the house?”
“We-el,” said Beresford with seeming candor, “I
thought it was putting rather a premium on friend-
ship to keep me sitting out in the rain all night, so I
came up the drive—and, by the way!” He snapped his
fingers irritatedly, as if recalling some significant inci-
dent that had slipped his memory, and drew a battered
object from his pocket. “I picked this up, about a hun-
dred feet from the house,” he explained. “A man's
watch. It was partly crushed into the ground, and, as
you see, it's stopped running.” -
The detective took the object and examined it care-
fully. A man's open-face gold watch, crushed and bat-
tered in as if it had been trampled upon by a heavy
heel. • *
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “Stopped running at
ten-thirty.” -
Beresford went on, with mounting excitement.
“I was using my pocket-flash to find my way and
what first attracted my attention was the ground—torn
up, you know, all around it. Then I saw the watch it-
self. Anybody here recognize it?”
The detective silently held up the watch so that all
present could examine it. He waited. But if anyone in
the party recognized the watch—no one moved for-
ward to claim it.


148 THE BAT -
“You didn't hear any evidence of a struggle, did
you?” went on Beresford. “The ground looked as if a
fight had taken place. Of course it might have been a
dozen other things.”
Miss Cornelia started.
“Just about ten-thirty Lizzie heard somebody cry out,
in the grounds,” she said.
The detective looked Beresford over till the latter
grew a little uncomfortable. -
“I don't suppose it has any bearing on the case,” ad-
mitted the latter uneasily. “But it's interesting.”
The detective seemed to agree. At least he slipped
the watch in his pocket. •.
“Do you always carry a flashlight, Mr. Beresford?”
asked Miss Cornelia a trifle suspiciously.
“Always at night, in the car.” His reply was prompt
and certain.
“This is all you found?” queried the detective, a
curious note in his voice.
“Yes.” Beresford sat down, relieved. Miss Cornelia
followed his example. Another clue had led into a
blind alley, leaving the mystery of the night's affairs
as impenetrable as ever.
“Some day I hope to meet the real estate agent who
promised me that I would sleep here as I never slept
before!” she murmured acridly. “He’s right! I've slept
with my clothes on every night since I came!”
As she ended, Billy darted in from the hall, his beady
little black eyes gleaming with excitement, a long,
wicked-looking butcher knife in his hand.
“Key, kitchen door, please!” he said, addressing his
Im1StreSS.
“Key P” said Miss Cornelia, startled. “What for?”


- - - THE BAT 149
For once Billy's polite little grin was absent from his
countenance. . . .
“Somebody outside trying to get in,” he chattered.
“I see knob turn, so,” he illustrated with the butcher
knife, “and so—three times.” -
The detective's hand went at once to his revolver.
“You’re sure of that, are you?” he said roughly to
Billy.
“Sure, I sure!”
“Where's that hysterical woman Lizzie?” queried
Anderson. “She may get a bullet in her if she's not
careful.”
“She see too. She shut in closet—say prayers, maybe,”
said Billy, without a smile.
The picture was a ludicrous one but not one of the
little group laughed. -
“Doctor, have you a revolver?” Anderson seemed to
be going over the possible means of defense against this
new peril.
“No.”
“How about you, Beresford?”
Beresford hesitated.
“Yes,” he admitted finally. “Always carry one at
night in the country.” The statement seemed reason-
able enough but Miss Cornelia gave him a sharp glance
of mistrust, nevertheless.
The detective seemed to have more confidence in the
young idler. -
“Beresford, will you go with this Jap to the kitchen?”
as Billy, grimly clutching his butcher knife, retraced
his steps toward the hall. “If anyone's working at the
knob—shoot through the door. I’m going round to take
a look outside.”


150 THE BAT
Beresford started to obey. Then he paused.
“I advise you not to turn the doorknob yourself,
then,” he said flippantly.
The detective nodded. “Much obliged,” he said, with
a grin. He ran lightly into the alcove and tiptoed out
of the terrace door, closing the door behind him. Beres-
ford and Billy departed to take up their posts in the
kitchen. “I’ll go with you, if you don't mind—” and
Jack Bailey had followed them, leaving Miss Cornelia
and Dale alone with the doctor. Miss Cornelia, glad of
the opportunity to get the doctor's theories on the mys-
tery without Anderson's interference, started to ques-
tion him at once.
“Doctor.”
“Yes.” The doctor turned, politely.
“Have you any theory about this occurrence to-
night?” She watched him eagerly as she asked the
question. - *
He made a gesture of bafflement.
“None whatever, it's beyond me,” he confessed.
“And yet you warned me to leave this house,” said
Miss Cornelia cannily. “You didn't have any reason
to believe that the situation was even as serious as it
has proved to be?”
“I did the perfectly obvious thing when I warned
you,” said the doctor easily. “Those letters made a dis-
tinct threat.” -
Miss Cornelia could not deny the truth in his words.
And yet she felt decidedly unsatisfied with the way
things were progressing.
“You said Fleming had probably been shot from
above?” she queried, thinking hard.
The doctor nodded, “Yes.”


THE BAT 151
“Have you a pocket-flash, Doctor?” she asked him
suddenly. -
“Why—yes—” The doctor did not seem to perceive
the significance of the query. “A flashlight is more im-
portant to a country doctor than—castor oil,” he added,
with a little smile. - - i
Miss Cornelia decided upon an experiment. She
turned to Dale. ' -
“Dale, you said you saw a white light shining down
from above?”
“Yes,” said Dale in a minor voice.
Miss Cornelia rose.
“May I borrow your flashlight, Doctor? Now that
fool detective is out of the way,” she continued some-
what acidly, “I want to do something.”
The doctor gave her his flashlight with a stare of be-
wilderment. She took it and moved into the alcove.
“Doctor, I shall ask you to stand at the foot of the
small staircase, facing up.”
“Now?” queried the doctor with some reluctance.
“Now, please.”
The doctor slowly followed her into the alcove and
took up the position she assigned him at the foot of the
Sta11’S.
“Now, Dale,” said Miss Cornelia briskly, “when I
give the word, you put out the lights here—and then
tell me when I have reached the point on the staircase
from which the flashlight seemed to come. All ready?”
Two silent nods gave assent. Miss Cornelia left the
room to seek the second floor by the main staircase and
then slowly return by the alcove stairs, her flashlight
poised, in her reconstruction of the events of the crime.
At the foot of the alcove stairs the doctor waited un-


w THE BAT 153
“All right! Put out the lights!”
Dale pressed the switch. Heavy darkness. The sound
of her own breathing. A mutter from the doctor. Then,
abruptly, a white, piercing shaft of light cut the dark-
ness of the stairs—horribly reminiscent of that other
light-shaft that had signaled Fleming's doom.
“Was it here?” Miss Cornelia's voice came muffledly
from the head of the stairs.
Dale considered. “Come down a little,” she said. The
white spot of light wavered, settled on the doctor's face.
“I hope you haven't a weapon,” the doctor called up
the stairs with an unsuccessful attempt at jocularity.
Miss Cornelia descended another step.
“How's this?” t
“That's about right,” said Dale uncertainly. Miss
Cornelia was satisfied.
“Lights, please.” She went up the stairs again to see
if she could puzzle out what course of escape the man
who had shot Fleming had taken after his crime—if it
had been a man. - - -
Dale switched on the living-room lights with a sense
of relief. The reconstruction of the crime had tried her
sorely. She sat down to recover her poise.
“Doctor! I’m so frightened!” she confessed.
The doctor at once assumed his best manner of pro-
fessional reassurance.
“Why, my dear child?” he asked lightly. “Because
you happened to be in the room when a crime was
committed?” -
“But he has a perfect case against me,” sighed Dale.
“That's absurd!”
- “No.” - - -
“You don't mean?” said the doctor aghast.


154 THE BAT
Dale looked at him with horror in her face.
“I didn't kill him!” she insisted anew. “But, you
know the piece of blueprint you found in his hand?”
“Yes,” from the doctor tensely.
Dale's nerves, too bitterly tested, gave way at last
under the strain of keeping her secret. She felt that she
must confide in someone or perish. The doctor was
kind and thoughtful—more than that, he was an ex-
perienced man of the world—if he could not advise
her, who could? Besides, a doctor was in many ways
like a priest—both sworn to keep inviolate the secrets
of their respective confessionals. -
“There was another piece of blueprint, a larger
piece—” said Dale slowly, “I tore it from him just be.
fore—”
The doctor seemed greatly excited by her words. But
he controlled himself swiftly.
“Why did you do such a thing?” .
“Oh, I’ll explain that later,” said Dale tiredly, only
too glad to be talking the matter out at last, to pay
attention to the logic of her sentences. “It’s not safe
where it is,” she went on, as if the doctor already knew
the whole story. “Billy may throw it out or burn it
without knowing—”
“Let me understand this,” said the doctor. “The but-
ler has the paper now?” -
“He doesn't know he has it. It was in one of the rolls
that went out on the tray.”
The doctor's eyes gleamed. He gave Dale's shoulder
a sympathetic pat. -
“Now don't you worry about it, I’ll get it,” he said.
Then, on the point of going toward the dining-room,
he turned.


15.6 THE BAT
He put his finger to his lips.
“Be careful!” he whispered. He glanced about the
room cautiously.
“I don't trust even the furniture in this house to-.
night!” he said. He took Dale hungrily in his arms and
kissed her once, swiftly, on the lips. Then they parted,
his voice changed to the formal voice of a servant.
“Miss Van Gorder wishes the fire kept burning,” he
announced, with a whispered “Play up!” to Dale.
Dale caught his meaning at once.
“Put some logs on the fire, please,” she said loudly
for the benefit of any listening ears. Then in an under-
tone to Bailey, “Jack—I’m nearly distracted!”
Bailey threw his wood on the fire, which received it
with appreciative crackles and sputterings. Then again,
for a moment, he clasped his sweetheart closely to him.
“Dale, pull yourself together!” he whispered warn-
ingly. “We’ve got a fight ahead of us!”
He released her and turned back toward the fire.
“These old-fashioned fireplaces eat up a lot of wood,”
he said in casual tones, pretending to arrange the logs
with the poker so the fire would draw more cleanly.
But Dale felt that she must settle one point between
them before they took up their game of pretense again.
“You know why I sent for Richard Fleming, don't
you?” she said, her eyes fixed beseechingly on her
lover. The rest of the world might interpret her action
as it pleased but she couldn't bear to have Jack mis-
understand.
But there was no danger of that. His faith in her
was too complete.
“Yes, of course—” he said, with a look of gratitude.
Then his mind reverted to the ever-present problem be.


158 THE BAT
of her knitting-bag. -
“His photograph—sitting on your dresser!” she chid-
ed Dale. “Burn it and be quick about it!”
Dale took the photograph but continued to stare at
her aunt with incredulous eyes.
“Then—you knew?” she stammered.
Miss Cornelia, the effective little tableau she had
planned now accomplished to her most humorous sat-
isfaction, relapsed into a chair.
“My dear child,” said the indomitable lady, with a
sharp glance at Bailey's bewildered face, “I have em-
ployed many gardeners in my time and never before
had one, who manicured his fingernails, wore silk
socks, and regarded baldness as a plant instead of a
calamity.” -
An unwilling smile began to break on the faces of
both Dale and her lover. The former crossed to the
fireplace and threw the damning photograph of Bailey
on the flames. She watched it shrivel, curl up, be re-
duced to ash. She stirred the ashes with a poker till
they were well scattered.
Bailey, recovering from the shock of finding that
Miss Cornelia's sharp eyes had pierced his disguise
without his even suspecting it, now threw himself on
her mercy. -
“Then you know why I'm here?” he stammered.
“I still have a certain amount of imagination! I may
think you are a fool for taking the risk, but I can see
what that idiot of a detective might not—that if you
had looted the Union Bank you wouldn't be trying to
discover if the money is in this house. You would at
least presumably know where it is.”
The knowledge that he had an ally in this brisk and


THE BAT 159
indomitable spinster lady cheered him greatly. But she
did not wait for any comment from him. She turned
abruptly to Dale.
“Now I want to ask you something,” she said more
gravely. “Was there a blueprint, and did you get it
from Richard Fleming?”
It was Dale's turn now to bow her head.
“Yes,” she confessed.
Bailey felt a thrill of horror run through him, She
hadn't told him this!
“Dale!” he said uncomprehendingly, “don’t you see
where this places you? If you had it, why didn't you
give it to Anderson when he asked for it?”
“Because,” said Miss Cornelia uncompromisingly,
“she had sense enough to see that Mr. Anderson con-
sidered that piece of paper the final link in the evidence
against her!”
“But she could have no motivel” stammered Bailey,
distraught, still failing to grasp the significance of
Dale's refusal. f
“Couldn't she?” queried Miss Cornelia pityingly.
“The detective thinks she could—to save you!”
Now the full light of revelation broke upon Bailey.
He took a step back.
“Good God!” he said.
2 Miss Cornelia would have liked to comment tartly
upon the singular lack of intelligence displayed by even
the nicest young men in trying circumstances. But
there was no time. They might be interrupted at any
moment and before they were, there were things she
must find out.
“Where is that paper, now?” she asked Dale sharply.
“Why—the doctor is getting it for me.” Dale seemed


160 THE BAT -
puzzled by the intensity of her aunt's manner.
“What?” almost shouted Miss Cornelia. Dale ex-
plained. - -
“It was on the tray Billy took out,” she said, still
wondering why so simple an answer should disturb
Miss Cornelia so greatly. * -
“Then I'm afraid everything's over,” Miss Cornelia
said despairingly, and made her first gesture of defeat.
She turned away. Dale followed her, still unable to
fathom her course of reasoning.
“I didn't know what else to do,” she said pather
plaintively, wondering if again, as with Fleming, she
had misplaced her confidence at a moment critical for
them all. -
But Miss Cornelia seemed to have no great patience
with her dejection.
“One of two things will happen now,” she said, with
acrid logic. “Either the doctor's an honest man—in
which case, as coroner, he will hand that paper to the
detective.” Dale gasped. “Or he is not an honest
man,” went on Miss Cornelia, “and he will keep it for
himself. I don't think he's an honest man.”
The frank expression of her distrust seemed to calm
her a little. She resumed her interrogation of Dale more
gently. - -
“Now, let's be clear about this. Had Richard Flem-
ing ascertained that there was a concealed room in this
house?”
“He was starting up to it!” said Dale in the voice of
a ghost, remembering. - -
“Just what did you tell him?”
“That I believed there was a Hidden Room in the
house and that the money from the Union Bank might
-


THE BAT 16s
with his revolver, waiting for another attempt on the
door and the detective was still outside in his search.
To Billy she gave her order in a low voice.
“If the doctor attempts to go upstairs,” she said, “let
me know at once. Don't seem to be watching. You can
be in the pantry. But let me know instantly.”
Once back in the living-room the vague outlines of a
plan, a test, formed slowly in Miss Cornelia's mind,
grew more definite.
“Dale, watch that door and warn me if anyone is
coming!” she commanded, indicating the door into the
hall. Dale obeyed, marveling silently at her aunt's ex-
traordinary force of character. Most of Miss Cornelia's
contemporaries would have called for a quiet ambul-
ance to take them to a sanatorium some hours ere this.
But Miss Cornelia was not merely, comparatively
speaking, as fresh as a daisy; her manner bore every
evidence of a firm intention to play Sherlock Holmes
to the mysteries that surrounded her, in spite of doc-
tors, detectives, dubious noises, or even the Bat himself.
The last of the Van Gorder spinsters turned to Bailey
In OW. -
“Get some soot from that fireplace,” she ordered. “Be
quick. Scrape it off with a knife or a piece of paper.
Anything.” - -
Bailey wondered and obeyed. As he was engaged in
his grimy task, Miss Cornelia got out a piece of writing
paper from a drawer and placed it on the center table,
with a lead pencil beside it.
Bailey emerged from the fireplace with a handful of
sooty flakes. -
“Is this all right?”
“Yes. Now rub it on the handle of that bag.” She


164 THE BAT
indicated the little black bag in which Doctor Wells
carried the usual paraphernalia of a country doctor:
A private suspicion grew in Bailey's mind as to
whether Miss Cornelia's fine but eccentric brain had
not suffered too sorely under the shocks of the night.
But he did not dare disobey. He blackened the handle
of the doctor's bag with painstaking thoroughness and
awaited further instructions.
“Somebody's coming!” Dale whispered, warning
from her post by the door. -
Bailey quickly went to the fireplace and resumed his
pretended labors with the fire. Miss Cornelia moved
away from the doctor's bag and spoke for the benefit
of whoever might be coming.
“We all need sleep,” she began, as if ending a con-
versation with Dale, “and I think—”
The door opened, admitting Billy.
“Doctor just go upstairs,” he said, and went out again
leaving the door open. - -
A flash passed across Miss Cornelia's face. She
stepped to the door. She called.
“Doctor! Oh, Doctor!”
“Yes?” answered the doctor's voice from the main
staircase. His steps clattered down the stairs; he en-
tered the room. Perhaps he read something in Miss
Cornelia's manner that demanded an explanation of
his action. At any rate, he forestalled her, just as she
was about to question him. *
“I was about to look around above,” he said. “I don't
like to leave if there is the possibility of some assassin
still hidden in the house.”
“That is very considerate of you. But we are well pro-
tected now. And besides, why should this person re-


THE BAT 167
ing up for a moment. “Still—”
He paused. “What time is it?”
Miss Cornelia glanced at the clock. “Half-past
eleven.”
“Then I'd better bring you the powders myself,” de-
cided the doctor. “The pharmacy closes at eleven. I
shall have to make them up myself.” -
“That seems a lot of trouble.”
“Nothing is any trouble if I can be helpful,” he as-
sured her, smilingly. And Miss Cornelia also smiled,
took the piece of paper from his hand, glanced at it
once, as if out of idle curiosity about the unfinished
prescription, and then laid it down on the table with a
careless little gesture. Dale gave her aunt a glance of
dumb entreaty. Miss Cornelia read her wish for an-
other moment alone with the doctor.
“Dale will let you out, Doctor,” said she, giving the
girl the key to the front door.
The doctor approved her watchfulness.
“That's right,” he said smilingly. “Keep things
locked up. Discretion is the better part of valor!”
But Miss Cornelia failed to agree with him.
“I’ve been discreet for sixty-five years,” she said with
a sniff, “and sometimes I think it was a mistake!”
The doctor laughed easily and followed Dale out of
the room, with a nod of farewell to the others in pass-
ing. The detective, seeking for some object upon whom
to vent the growing irritation which seemed to possess
him, made Bailey the scapegoat of his wrath.
“I guess we can do without you for the present!” he
said, with an angry frown at the latter. Bailey flushed,
then remembered himself, and left the room submis-
sively, with the air of a well-trained servant accepting


168 the BAT
an unmerited rebuke. The detective turned at once to
Miss Cornelia.
“Now I want a few words with you!”
“Which means that you mean to do all the talking!”
said Miss Cornelia acidly.
“Very well! But first I want to show you something.
Will you come here, please?”
She started for the alcove.
“I’ve examined that staircase,” said the detective.
“Not with me!” insisted Miss Cornelia. “I have some-
thing to show you.”
He followed her unwillingly up the stairs, his whole
manner seeming to betray a complete lack of confi-
dence in the theories of all amateur sleuths in general
and spinster detectives of sixty-five in particular. Their
footsteps died away up the alcove stairs. The living-
room was left vacant for an instant.
Vacant? Only in seeming. The moment that Miss
Cornelia and the detective had passed up the stairs, the
crouching, mysterious Unknown, behind the settee, be-
gan to move. The French window-door opened, a
stealthy figure passed through it silently to be swal-
lowed up in the darkness of the terrace.
And poor Lizzie, entering the room at that moment,
saw a hand covered with blood reach back and grop-
ingly, horribly, through the broken pane, refasten the
lock
OCK.
She shrieked madly.
Chapter Fourteen: HANDCUFFs
DALE HAD FAILED with the doctor. When Lizzie's
screams once more had called the startled household to


THE BAT 169
the living-room, she knew she had failed. She fol-
lowed in mechanically, watched an irritated Anderson
send the Pride of Kerry to bed and threaten to lock her
up, and listened vaguely to the conversation between
her aunt and the detective that followed it, without
more than casual interest.
Nevertheless, that conversation was to have vital
results later on. - -
“Your point about that thumbprint on the stair rail
is very interesting,” Anderson said with a certain re-
spect. “But just what does it prove?” -
“It points down,” said Miss Cornelia, still glowing
with the memory of the whistle of surprise the detec-
tive had given when she had shown him the strange
thumbprint on the rail of the alcove stairs.
“It does,” he admitted. “But what then?”
Miss Cornelia tried to put her case as clearly and
tersely as possible. , g
“It shows that somebody stood there for some time,
listening to my niece and Richard Fleming in this
room below,” she said.
“All right, I'll grant that to save argument,” retorted
the detective. “But the moment that shot was fired the
lights came on. If somebody on that staircase shot him,
and then came down and took the blueprint, Miss
Ogden would have seen him.” *
He turned upon Dale.
“Did you?”
She hesitated. Why hadn't she thought of such an
explanation before? But now—it would sound too
flimsy!
“No, nobody came down,” she admitted candidly.
The detective's face altered, grew menacing. Miss


170 THE BAT
Cornelia once more had put herself between him and
Dale. -
“Now, Mr. Anderson—” she warned.
The detective was obviously trying to keep his
temper.
“I’m not hounding this girl!” he said doggedly. “I
haven't said yet that she committed the murder but
she took that blueprint and I want it!”
“You want it to connect her with the murder,” par-
tied Miss Cornelia.
The detective threw up his hands.
“It's rather reasonable to suppose that I might want
to return the funds to the Union Bank, isn't it?” he
queried in tones of heavy sarcasm. “Provided they're
here,” he added doubtfully.
Miss Cornelia resolved upon comparative frankness.
“I see,” she said. “Well, I'll tell you this much, Mr.
Anderson and I'll ask you to believe me as a lady.
Granting that at one time my niece knew something
of that blueprint—at this moment we do not know
where it is or who has it.”
Her words had the unmistakable ring of truth. The
very oath from the detective that succeeded them
showed his recognition of the fact.
“Damnation,” he muttered. “That's true, is it?”
“That's true,” said Miss Cornelia firmly. A silence
of troubled thoughts fell upon the three. Miss Cornelia
took out her knitting.
“Did you ever try knitting when you wanted to
think?” she queried sweetly, after a pause in which the
detective tramped from one side of the room to the
other, brows knotted, eyes bent on the floor.
“No,” grunted the detective. He took out a cigar, bit
-


w THE BAT 171
off the end with a savage snap of teeth, lit it, resumed
his pacing.
“You should, sometimes,” continued Miss Cornelia,
watching his troubled movements with a faint light of
mockery in her eyes, “I find it very helpful.”
“I don't need knitting to think straight,” rasped An-
derson indignantly. Miss Cornelia's eyes danced.
“I wonder!” she said with caustic affability. “You
seem to have so much evidence left over.”
The detective paused and glared at her helplessly.
“Did you ever hear of the man who took a clock
apart and when he put it together again, he had
enough left over to make another clock?” she twitted.
The detective, ignoring the taunt, crossed quickly to
Dale. - -
“What do you mean by saying that paper isn't where
you put it?” he demanded in tones of extreme severity.
Miss Cornelia replied for her niece.
“She hasn't said that.”
The detective made an impatient movement of his
hand and walked away, as if to get out of the reach of
the indefatigable spinster's tongue. But Miss Cornelia
had not finished with him yet, by any means.
“Do you believe in circumstantial evidence?” she
asked him with seeming ingenuousness.
“It's my business,” said the detective stolidly. Miss
Cornelia smiled.
“While you have been investigating,” she an-
nounced, “I, too, have not been idle.”
The detective gave a barking laugh. She let it pass.
“To me,” she continued, “it is perfectly obvious that
one intelligence has been at work behind many of the
things that have occurred in this house.”
-


172 THE BAT
Now Anderson observed her with a new respect.
“Who?” he grunted tersely.
Her eyes flashed.
“I’ll ask you that! Some one person who, knowing
Courtleigh Fleming well, probably knows of the exist-
ence of a Hidden Room in this house and who, finding
us in occupation of the house, has tried to get rid of
me in two ways. First, by frightening me with anony-
mous threats and, second, by urging me to leave. Some-
one, who very possibly entered this house tonight
shortly before the murder and slipped up that stair-
case!”
The detective had listened to her outburst with un-
usual thoughtfulness. A certain wonder—perhaps at
her shrewdness, perhaps at an unexpected confirmation
of certain ideas of his own—grew upon his face. Now
he jerked out two words.
“The doctor P”
Miss Cornelia knitted on as if every movement of
her needles added one more link to the strong chain of
probabilities she was piecing together.
“When Doctor Wells said he was leaving here earlier
in the evening for the Johnsons' he did not go there,”
she observed. “He was not expected to go there. I found
that out when I telephoned.”
“The doctor!” repeated the detective, his eyes nar-
rowing, his head beginning to sway from side to side
like the head of some great cat just before a spring.
“As you know,” Miss Cornelia went on, “I had a
supplementary bolt placed on that terrace door today.”
She nodded toward the door that gave access into the
alcove from the terrace. “Earlier this evening Doctor
Wells said that he had bolted it, when he had left it


THE BAT 175
her features. He allowed himself a little ironic smile.
“Did you ever try a good cigar when you wanted to
think?” he queried suavely, puffing upon his own.
But Miss Cornelia's spirit was too broken by the col-
lapse of her dearly loved and adroitly managed scheme
for her to take up the gauge of battle he offered.
“I still believe it was the doctor,” she said stubbornly.
But her tones were not the tones of utter conviction
which she had used before.
“And yet,” said the detective, ruthlessly demolishing
another link in her broken chain of evidence, “the doc-
tor was in this room tonight, according to your own
statement, when the anonymous letter came through
the window.”
Miss Cornelia gazed at him blankly, for the first
time in her life at a loss for an appropriately sharp re-
tort. It was true. The doctor had been here in the room
beside her when the stone bearing the last anonymous
warning had crashed through the windowpane. And
yet— . -
Billy's entrance in answer to Beresford's ring made
her mind turn to other matters for the moment. Why
had Beresford's manner changed so, and what was he
saying to Billy now? - -
“Tell the gardener Miss Van Gorder wants him and
don't say we're all here,” the young lawyer commanded
the butler sharply. Billy nodded and disappeared. Miss
Cornelia's back began to stiffen; she didn't like other
people ordering her servants around like that.
The detective, apparently, had somewhat of the same
feeling.
“I seem to have plenty of help in this case!” he said
with obvious sarcasm, turning to Beresford.


176 THE BAT
The latter made no reply. Dale rose anxiously from
her chair, her lips quivering.
“Why have you sent for the gardener?” she inquired
haltingly.
Beresford deigned to answer at last.
“I’ll tell you that in a moment,” he said with a grim
tightening of his lips. -
There was a fateful pause, for an instant, while Dale
roved nervously from one side of the room to the other.
Then Jack Bailey came into the room—alone.
He seemed to sense danger in the air. His hands
clenched at his sides, but except for that tiny betrayal
of emotion, he still kept his servant's pose. *
“You sent for me?” he queried of Miss Cornelia sub-
missively, ignoring the glowering Beresford.
But Beresford would be ignored no longer. He came
between them before Miss Cornelia had time to answer.
“How long has this man been in your employ P" he
asked brusquely; manner tense.
Miss Cornelia made one final attempt at evasion.
“Why should that interest you?” she parried, answer-
ing his question with an icy question of her own.
It was too late. Already Bailey had read the truth
in Beresford's eyes.
“I came this evening,” he admitted, still hoping
against hope that his cringing posture of the servitor
might give Beresford pause for the moment.
But the promptness of his answer only crystallized
Beresford's suspicions.
“Exactly,” he said with terse finality. He turned to
the detective.
“I’ve been trying to recall this man's face ever since
I came in tonight—” he said with grim triumph.


- THE BAT 179
“I could have cleared myself in three hours,” said
Bailey with calm despair. - -
Beresford laughed mockingly—a laugh that seemed
to sear into Bailey's consciousness like the touch of a
hot iron. Again he turned frenziedly upon the young
lawyer and Anderson was just preparing to hold them
away from each other, by force if necessary, when the
doorbell rang.
For an instant the ringing of the bell held the vari-
ous figures of the little scene in the rigid postures of
a waxworks tableau–Bailey, one foot advanced toward
Beresford, his hands balled up into fists—Beresford al-
ready in an attitude of defense—the detective about to
step in between them—Miss Cornelia stiff in her chair
—Dale over by the fireplace, her hand at her heart.
Then they relaxed, but not, at least on the part of
Bailey and Beresford, to resume their interrupted con-
flict. Too many nerve-shaking things had already hap-
pened that night for either of the young men not to
drop their mutual squabble in the face of a common
danger.
“Probably the doctor,” murmured Miss Cornelia un-
certainly as the doorbell rang again. “He was to come
back with some sleeping-powders.”
Billy appeared for the key of the front door.
“If that's Doctor Wells,” warned the detective, “ad-
mit him. If it's anybody else, call me.”
Billy grinned acquiescently and departed. The de-
tective moved nearer to Bailey.
“Have you got a gun on you?”
“No.” Bailey bowed his head.
“Well, I'll just make sure of that.” The detective's
hands ran swiftly and expertly over Bailey's form,


182 THE BAT
“Do you realize the significance of this paper?” An-
derson boomed at once.
“Nothing, beyond the fact that Miss Ogden was
afraid it linked her with the crime.” The doctor's voice
was very clear and firm. -
Anderson pondered an instant. Then—
“I’d like to have a few minutes with the doctor
alone,” he said somberly.
The group about him dissolved at once. Miss Cor-
nelia, her arm around her niece's waist, led the latter
gently to the door. As the two lovers passed each other
a glance flashed between them—a glance, pathetically
brief, of longing and love. Dale's finger tips brushed
Bailey's hand gently in passing.
“Beresford,” commanded the detective, “take Bailey
to the library and see that he stays there.”
Beresford tapped his pocket with a significant ges-
ture and motioned Bailey to the door. Then they, too,
left the room. The door closed. The doctor and the
detective were alone.
The detective spoke at once—and surprisingly.
“Doctor, I’ll have that blueprint!” he said sternly,
his eyes the color of steel.
The doctor gave him a wary little glance.
“But I've just made the statement that I didn't find
the blueprint,” he affirmed flatly.
“I heard you!” Anderson's voice was very dry. “Now
this situation is between you and me, Doctor Wells.”
His forefinger sought the doctor's chest. “It has noth-
ing to do with that poor fool of a cashier. He hasn't
got either those securities or the money from them and
you know it. It's in this house and you know that, too!"
“In this house?” repeated the doctor as if stalling for


. . " THE BAT 183
time. -
“In this house! Tonight, when you claimed to be
making a professional call, you were in this house and
I think you were on that staircase when Richard Flem-
ing was killed!”
“No, Anderson, I’ll swear I was not!” The doctor
might be acting, but if he was, it was incomparable act-
ing. The terror in his voice seemed too real to be
feigned.
But Anderson was remorseless.
“I’ll tell you this,” he continued. “Miss Van Gorder
very cleverly got a thumbprint of yours tonight. Does
that mean anything to you?”
His eyes bored into the doctor, the eyes of a poker
player bluffing on a hidden card. But the doctor did
not flinch.
“Nothing,” he said firmly. “I have not been upstairs
in this house in three months.”
The accent of truth in his voice seemed so unmis-
takable that even Anderson's shrewd brain was puzzled
by it. But he persisted in his attempt to wring a con-
fession from this latest suspect.
“Before Courtleigh Fleming died—did he tell you
anything about a Hidden Room in this house?” he
queried cannily. -
The doctor's confident air of honesty lessened, a fur-
tive look appeared in his eyes.
“No,” he insisted, but not as convincingly as he had
made his previous denial.
The detective hammered at the point again.
“You haven't been trying to frighten these women
out of here with anonymous letters so you could get
in P”


THE BAT 185
sardonic smile crossed his face as his eyes took in the
significance of the print. He laid his revolver down on
the table where he could snatch it up again at a mo-
ment's notice.
“Behind a fireplace, eh?” he muttered. “What fire-
place? In what room?”
“I won't tell you!” The doctor's voice was sullen.
He inched, gingerly, cautiously, toward the other side
of the table. -
“All right—I’ll find it, you know.” The detective's
eyes turned swiftly back to the blueprint. Experience
should have taught him never to underrate an adver-
sary, even of the doctor's caliber, but long familiarity
with danger can make the shrewdest careless. For a
moment, as he bent over the paper again, he was off
guard.
The doctor seized the moment with a savage promp-
titude and sprang. There followed a silent, furious
struggle between the two. Under normal circumstances
Anderson would have been the stronger and quicker,
but the doctor fought with an added strength of des-
pair and his initial leap had pinioned the detective's
arms behind him. Now the detective shook one hand
free and snatched at the revolver—in vain—for the
doctor, with a groan of desperation, struck at his hand
as its fingers were about to close on the smooth butt
and the revolver skidded from the table to the floor.
With a sudden terrible movement he pinioned both the
detective's arms behind him again and reached for the
telephone. Its heavy base descended on the back of the
detective's head with stunning force. The next moment
the battle was ended and the doctor, panting with ex-
haustion, held the limp form of an unconscious man


186 THE BAT
in his arms.
He lowered the detective to the floor and straight-
ened up again, listening tensely. So brief and intense
had been the struggle that even now he could hardly
believe in its reality. It seemed impossible, too, that the
struggle had not been heard. Then he realized dully, as
a louder roll of thunder smote on his ears, that the ele.
ments themselves had played into his hand. The storm,
with its wind and fury, had returned just in time to
save him and drown out all sounds of conflict from the
rest of the house with its giant clamor.
He bent swiftly over Anderson, listening to his heart.
Good—the man still breathed; he had enough on his
conscience without adding the murder of a detective
to the black weight. Now he pocketed the revolver and
the blueprint, gagged Anderson rapidly with a knotted
handkerchief and proceeded to wrap his own muffler
around the detective's head as an additional silencer.
Anderson gave a faint sigh. -
The doctor thought rapidly. Soon or late the detec-
tive would return to consciousness; with his hands free
he could easily tear out the gag. He looked wildly
about the room for a rope, a curtain—ah, he had it—
the detective's own handcuffs! He snapped the cuffs on
Anderson's wrists, then realized that, in his hurry, he
had bound the detective's hands in front of him instead
of behind him. Well, it would do for the moment; he
did not need much time to carry out his plans. He
dragged the limp body, its head lolling, into the bil.
liard room where he deposited it on the floor in the
corner farthest from the door.
So far, so good. Now to lock the door of the billiard
room. Fortunately, the key was there on the inside of


190 THE BAT * .
Beresford had been looking about for the detective,
puzzled not to find him, as usual, in charge of affairs.
Now, “Where's Anderson? This is a police matter!”
he said, making a movement as if to go in search of
him. - * -
The doctor stopped him quickly.
“He was here a minute ago, he'll be back presently,”
he said, praying to whatever gods he served that An-
derson, bound and gagged in the billiard room, had not
yet returned to consciousness. -
Unobserved by all except Miss Cornelia, the men-
tion of the detective's name had caused a strange reac-
tion in the Unknown. His eyes had opened—he had
started—the haze in his mind had seemed to clear
away for a moment. Then, for some reason, his shoul-
ders had slumped again and the look of apathy come
back to his face. But, stunned or not, it now seemed
possible that he was not quite as dazed as he appeared.
The doctor gave the slumped shoulders a little
shake. - º
“Rouse yourself, man!” he said. “What has happened
to you?” -
“I’m dazed!” said the Unknown thickly and slowly.
“I can't remember.” He passed a hand weakly over his
forehead. - -
“What a night!” sighed Miss Cornelia, sinking into
a chair. “Richard Fleming murdered in this house—
and now—this!” -
The Unknown shot her a stealthy glance from be-
neath lowered eyelids. But when she looked at him,
his face was blank again. -
“Why doesn't somebody ask his name?” queried
"Pale, and, “Where the devil is that detective?” mut.


THE BAT 191
tered Beresford, almost in the same instant.
Neither question was answered, and Beresford, in-
creasingly uneasy at the continued absence of Ander-
son, turned toward the hall.
The doctor took Dale's suggestion.
“What's your name?”
Silence from the Unknown—and that blank stare of
stupefaction.
“Look at his papers.” It was Miss Cornelia's voice.
The doctor and Bailey searched the torn trouser
pockets, the pockets of the muddied shirt, while the
Unknown submitted passively, not seeming to care
what happened to him. But search him as they would
-1t Was 1n Waln.
“Not a paper on him,” said Jack Bailey at last,
straightening up.
A crash of breaking glass from the head of the alcove
stairs put a period to his sentence. All turned toward
the stairs—or all except the Unknown, who, for a mo-
ment, half-rose in his chair, his eyes gleaming, his face
alert, the mask of bewildered apathy gone from his
face.
As they watched, a rigid little figure of horror backed
slowly down the alcove stairs and into the room—Billy,
the Japanese, his Oriental placidity, disturbed at last, in-
comprehensible terror written in every line of his face.
“Billy!”
“Billy, what is it?”
The diminutive butler made a pitiful attempt at his
usual grin.
“It-nothing,” he gasped. The Unknown relapsed in
his chair—again the dazed stranger from nowhere.
Beresford took the Japanese by the shoulders.


192 THE BAT
“Now see here!” he said sharply. “You’ve seen some-
thing! What was it!”
Billy trembled like a leaf.
“Ghost! Ghost!” he muttered frantically, his face
working.
“He’s concealing something. Look at him!” Miss
Cornelia stared at her servant. l
“No, no!” insisted Billy in an ague of fright. “No,
no!” -
But Miss Cornelia was sure of it. -
“Brooks, close that door!” she said, pointing at the
terrace door in the alcove which still stood ajar after
the entrance of the Unknown. t
Bailey moved to obey. But just as he reached the
alcove the terrace door slammed shut in his face. At
the same moment every light in Cedarcrest blinked
and went out again.
Bailey fumbled for the doorknob in the sudden
darkness.
“The door's locked!” he said incredulously. “The
key's gone too. Where's your revolver, Beresford?”
“I dropped it in the alcove when I caught that man,"
called Beresford, cursing himself for his carelessness.
The illuminated dial of Bailey's wrist watch flickered
in the darkness as he searched for the revolver—a
round, glowing spot of phosphorescence. -
Lizzie screamed. “The eye! The gleaming eye I saw
on the stairs!” she shrieked, pointing at it frenziedly.
“Quick—there's a candle on the table—light it some-
body. Never mind the revolver, I have one!” called
Miss Cornelia.
“Righto!” called Beresford cheerily in reply. He
found the candle, lit it—


194 THE BAT
panying them. And as time went on and chamber after
chamber was discovered empty and undisturbed, grad.
ually the courage of the party began to rise. Lizzie, still
whimpering, stuck closely to Miss Cornelia's heels, but
that spirited lady began to make small side excursions
of her own.
Of the men, only Bailey, Beresford, and the doctor
could really be said to search at all. Billy had remained
below, impassive of face but rolling of eye; the Un-
known, after an attempt to depart with them, had sunk
back weakly into his chair again, and the detective,
Anderson, was still unaccountably missing.
While no one could be said to be grieving over this,
still the belief that somehow, somewhere, he had met
the Bat and suffered at his hands was strong in all of
them except the doctor. As each door was opened
they expected to find him, probably foully murdered;
as each door was closed again they breathed with
relief. -
And as time went on and the silence and peace re-
mained unbroken, the conviction grew on them that
the Bat had in this manner achieved his object and de-
parted; had done his work, signed it after his usual
fashion, and gone.
And thus were matters when Miss Cornelia, happen.
ing on the attic staircase with Lizzie at her heels, decid-
ed to look about her up there. And went up.
Chapter Sixteen: THE HIDDEN Room
A Few MoMENTS LATER Jack Bailey, seeing a thin glow
of candlelight from the attic above and hearing Lizzie's
protesting voice, made his way up there. He found


196 THE BAT
secret springs.
“Jack! Jack!” It was Dale's voice, low and cautious,
coming from the landing of the stairs.
Bailey stepped to the door of the trunk room.
“Come in,” he called in reply. “And lock the door
behind you.”
Dale entered, turned the key in the lock behind her.
“Where are the others?”
“They're still searching the house. There's no sign
of anybody.”
“They haven't found—Mr. Anderson?”
Dale shook her head. “Not yet.”
She turned toward her aunt. Miss Cornelia had be-
gun to enjoy herself once more. -
Rapping on the mantelpiece, poking and pressing
various corners and sections of the mantel itself, she
remembered all the detective stories she had ever read
and thought, with a sniff of scorn, that she could better
them. There were always sliding panels and hidden
drawers in detective stories and the detective discovered
them by rapping just as she was doing, and listening
for a hollow sound in answer. She rapped on the wall
above the mantel—exactly—there was the hollow echo
she wanted.
“Hollow as Lizzie's head!” she said triumphantly.
The fireplace was obviously not what it seemed, there
must be a space behind it unaccounted for in the
building plans. Now what was the next step detectives
always took? Oh, yes—they looked for panels; panels
that moved. And when one shoved them away there
was a button or something. She pushed and pressed
and finally something did move. It was the mantelpiece
itself, false grate and all, which began to swing out


THE BAT 197
into the room, revealing behind a dark, hollow cubby-
hole, some six feet by six—the Hidden Room at last!
“Oh, Jack, be careful!” breathed Dale as her lover
took Miss Cornelia's candle and moved toward the
dark hiding-place. But her eyes had already caught the
outlines of a tall iron safe in the gloom and in spite
of her fears, her lips formed a wordless cry of victory.
But Jack Bailey said nothing at all. One glance had
shown him that the safe was empty. .
The tragic collapse of all their hopes was almost
more than they could bear. Coming on top of the
nerve-racking events of the night, it left them dazed
and directionless. It was, of course, Miss Cornelia who
recovered first.
“Even without the money,” she said, “the mere pres-
ence of this safe here, hidden away, tells the story. The
fact that someone else knew and got here first cannot
alter that.”
But she could not cheer them. It was Lizzie who
created a diversion. Lizzie who had bolted into the hall
at the first motion of the mantelpiece outward and
who now, with equal precipitation, came bolting back.
She rushed into the room, slamming the door behind
her, and collapsed into a heap of moaning terror at
her mistress's feet. At first she was completely inarticu-
late, but after a time she muttered that she had seen
“him” and then fell to groaning again.
The same thought was in all their minds, that in
some corner of the upper floor she had come across
the body of Anderson. But when Miss Cornelia finally
quieted her and asked this, she shook her head.
“It was the Bat I saw,” was her astounding statement.
“He dropped through the skylight out there and ran


198 THE BAT
along the hall. I saw him I tell you. He went right by
me!”
“Nonsense,” said Miss Cornelia briskly. “How can
you say such a thing?”
But Bailey pushed forward and took Lizzie by the
shoulder.
“What did he look like?” .
“He hadn't any face. He was all black where his
face ought to be.”
“Do you mean he wore a mask?”
“Maybe. I don't know.”
She collapsed again but when Bailey, followed by
Miss Cornelia, made a move toward the door she broke
into frantic wailing. -
“Don’t go out there!” she shrieked. “He’s there I tell
you. I'm not crazy. If you open that door, he'll shoot.”
But the door was already open and no shot came.
With the departure of Bailey and Miss Cornelia, and
the resulting darkness due to their taking the candle,
Lizzie and Dale were left alone. The girl was faint
with disappointment and strain; she sat huddled on a
trunk, saying nothing, and after a moment or so Lizzie
roused to her condition.
“Not feeling sick, are you?” she asked.
“I feel a little queer.”
“Who wouldn't in the dark here with that monster
loose somewhere near by ?” But she stirred herself and
got up. “I'd better get the smelling salts,” she said heav-
ily. “God knows I hate to move, but if there's one place
safer in this house than another, I’ve yet to find it.”
She went out, leaving Dale alone. The trunk room
was dark, save that now and then as the candle ap-
peared and reappeared the doorway was faintly out-


THE BAT 203
Lizzie answered from the doorway.
“Oh, oh!” she groaned in stricken accents. “Some-
body knocked me down and tramped on me!”
“Matches, quick!” commanded Miss Cornelia.
“Where's the candle?” -
The doctor was still trying to explain his curious
action of a moment before.
“Awfully sorry, I assure you. It dropped out of the
holder—ah, here it is!”
He held it up triumphantly. Bailey struck a match
and lighted it. The wavering little flame showed Lizzie
prostrate but vocal, in the doorway—and Dale lying
on the floor of the Hidden Room, her eyes shut, and
her face as drained of color as the face of a marble
statue. For one horrible instant Bailey thought she must
be dead.
He rushed to her wildly and picked her up in his
arms. No-still breathing—thank God! He carried her
tenderly to the only chair in the room.
“Doctor!”
The doctor, once more the physician, knelt at her
side and felt for her pulse. And Lizzie, picking herself
up from where the collision with some violent body
had thrown her, retrieved the smelling salts from the
floor. It was onto this picture—the candlelight shining
on strained faces, the dramatic figure of Dale, now
semi-conscious, the desperate rage of Bailey—that a
new actor appeared on the scene.
Anderson, the detective, stood in the doorway, hold-
ing a candle—as grim and menacing a figure as a man
just arisen from the dead.
“That's right!” said Lizzie, unappalled for once.
“Come in when everything's over!”


204 the BAT
The doctor glanced up and met the detective's eyes,
cold and menacing.
“You took my revolver from me downstairs,” he
said. “I’ll trouble you for it.”
The doctor got heavily to his feet. The others, their
suspicions confirmed at last, looked at him with star-
tled eyes. The detective seemed to enjoy the universal
confusion his words had brought. -
Slowly, with sullen reluctance, the doctor yielded up
the stolen weapon. The detective examined it casually
and replaced it in his hip pocket.
“I’ve something to settle with you pretty soon,” he
said through clenched teeth, addressing the doctor.
“And I’ll settle it properly. Now, what's this?”
He indicated Dale, her face still and waxen, her
breath coming so faintly she seemed hardly to breathe
at all as Miss Cornelia and Bailey tried to revive her.
“She's coming to-” said Miss Cornelia triumphant-
ly, as a first faint flush of color reappeared in the girl's
cheeks. “We found her shut in there, Mr. Anderson,”
the spinster added, pointing toward the gaping en-
trance of the Hidden Room.
A gleam crossed the detective's face. He went up to
examine the secret chamber. As he did so, Doctor
Wells, who had been inching surreptitiously toward the
door, sought the opportunity of slipping out unob-
served.
But Anderson was not to be caught napping again.
“Wells!” he barked. The doctor stopped and turned.
“Where were you when she was locked in this
room?”
The doctor's eyes sought the floor—the walls—wildly
-for any possible loophole of escape.


- THE BAT 207
“The next time you put handcuffs on a man be sure
to take the key out of his vest pocket,” he said, biting
off the words.
Rage and consternation mingled on the doctor's
countenance; on the faces of the others astonishment
was followed by a growing certainty. Only Miss Cor-
nelia clung stubbornly to her original theory.
“Perhaps I’m an obstinate old woman,” she said in
tones which obviously showed that if so she was rather
proud of it, “but the doctor and all the rest of us were
locked in the living-room not ten minutes ago!”
“By the Bat, I suppose!” mocked Anderson.
“By the Bat!” insisted Miss Cornelia inflexibly. “Who
else would have fastened a dead bat to the door down-
stairs? Who else would have the bravado to do that?
Or what you call the imagination?”
In spite of himself Anderson seemed to be impressed.
“The Bat, eh?” he muttered, then, changing his tone,
“you knew about this hidden room, Wells?” he shot
at the doctor.
“Yes.” The doctor bowed his head.
“And you knew the money was in the room?”
“Well, I was wrong, wasn't I?” parried the doctor.
“You can look for yourself. That safe is empty.”
The detective brushed his evasive answer aside.
“You were up in this room earlier tonight,” he said
in tones of apparent certainty.
“No, I couldn't get up!” the doctor still insisted, with
strange violence for a man who had already admitted
such damning knowledge.
The detective's face was a study in disbelief.
“You know where that money is, Wells, and I’m go-
ing to find it!”


THE BAT 209
ahead of him, and followed. The faint glow of his
candle flickered a moment and vanished toward the
Sta1ſ S.
It was Bailey who broke the silence.
“I can believe a good bit about Wells,” he said, “but
not that he stood on that staircase and killed Dick
Fleming.”
Miss Cornelia roused from deep thought.
“Of course not,” she said briskly. “Go down and fix
Miss Dale's bed, Lizzie. And then bring up some wine.”
“Down there, where the Bat is?” Lizzie demanded.
“The Bat has gone.”
“Don’t you believe it. He's just got his hand in!”
But at last Lizzie went, and, closing the door behind
her, Miss Cornelia proceeded more or less to think out
loud.
“Suppose,” she said, “that the Bat, or whoever it was
shut in there with you, killed Richard Fleming. Say
that he is the one Lizzie saw coming in by the terrace
door. Then he knew where the money was for he went
directly up the stairs. But that is two hours ago or
more. Why didn't he get the money, if it was here, and
get away?”
“He may have had trouble with the combination.”
“Perhaps. Anyhow, he was on the small staircase
when Dick Fleming started up, and of course he shot
him. That's clear enough. Then he finally got the safe
open, after locking us in below, and my coming up in-
terrupted him. How on earth did he get out on the
roof?”
Bailey glanced out the window.
“It would be possible from here. Possible, but not
»
easy. -


210 THE BAT -
“But, if he could do that,” she persisted, “he could
have got away, too. There are trellises and porches. In-
stead of that he came back here to this room.” She
stared at the window. “Could a man have done that
with one hand?”
“Never in the world.”
Saying nothing, but deeply thoughtful, Miss Cornelia
made a fresh progress around the room.
“I know very little about bank-currency,” she said
finally. “Could such a sum as was looted from the
Union Bank be carried away in a man's pocket?”
Bailey considered the question.
“Even in bills of large denomination it would make
a pretty sizeable bundle,” he said.
But that Miss Cornelia's deductions were correct,
whatever they were, was in question when Lizzie re-
turned with the elderberry wine. Apparently Miss Cor-
nelia was to be like the man who repaired the clock:
she still had certain things left over.
For Lizzie announced that the Unknown was rang-
ing the second floor hall. From the time they had es-
caped from the living-room this man had not been
seen or thought of, but that he was a part of the mys-
tery there could be no doubt. It flashed over Miss Cor-
nelia that, although he could not possibly have locked
them in, in the darkness that followed he could easily
have fastened the bat to the door. For the first time it
occurred to her that the archcriminal might not be
working alone, and that the entrance of the Unknown
might have been a carefully devised ruse to draw them
all together and hold them there.
Nor was Beresford's arrival with the statement that
the Unkown was moving through the house below par-


THE BAT 213
*
it did not seem so much as if he wished to conceal
what he had seen as that he was trying to convince
himself he had seen nothing.
“Nothing!” said Lizzie scornfully. “It was some noth-
ing that would make him drop a bottle of whisky!”
But Billy only backed toward the door, smiling
apologetically.
“Thought I saw ghost,” he said, and went out and
down the stairs, the candlelight flickering, growing
fainter, and finally disappearing. Silence and eerie
darkness enveloped them all as they waited. And sud-
denly out of the blackness came a sound.
Something was flapping and thumping around the
room.
“That's damned oddl” muttered Beresford uneasily.
“There is something moving around the room.”
“It's up near the ceiling!” cried Bailey as the sound
began again.
Lizzie began a slow wail of doom and disaster.
“Oh—h—h—h—”
“Good God!” cried Beresford abruptly. “It hit me in
the face!” He slapped his hands together in a vain
attempt to capture the flying intruder.
Lizzie rose.
“I’m going!” she announced. “I don't know where,
but I'm going!” -
She took a wild step in the direction of the door.
Then the flapping noise was all about her, her nose
was bumped by an invisible object and she gave a hor-
rified shriek.
“It's in my hair!” she screamed madly. “It’s in my
hair!”
The next instant Bailey gave a triumphant cry.


THE BAT 215
“Did you know that room was there?” he questioned,
his doubts still unquieted.
Billy shook his head.
“No.”
“He couldn't have locked us in,” said Miss Cornelia.
“He was with us.”
Bailey demurred, not to her remark itself, but to its
implication of Billy's entire innocence.
“He may know who did it. Do you?”
Billy still shook his head.
Bailey remained unconvinced.
“Who did you see at the head of the small staircase?”
he queried imperatively. “Now we're through with
nonsense; I want the truth!”
Billy shivered. - -
“See face—that's all,” he brought out at last.
“Whose face?”
Again it was evident that Billy knew or thought he
knew more than he was willing to tell.
“Don’t know,” he said with obvious untruth, look-
ing down at the floor.
“Never mind, Billy,” cut in Miss Cornelia. To her
mind questioning Billy was wasting time. She looked
at the Unknown.
“Solve the mystery of this man and we may get at
the facts,” she said in accents, of conviction.
As Bailey turned toward her questioningly, Billy at-
tempted to steal silently out of the door, apparently
preferring any fears that might lurk in the darkness
of the corridor to a further grilling on the subject of
whom or what he had seen on the alcove stairs. But
Bailey caught the movement out of the tail of his eye.
“You stay here,” he commanded. Billy stood frozen.
*


21.6 THE BAT
Beresford raised the candle so that it cast its light full
in the Unknown's face. -
“This chap claims to have lost his memory,” he said
dubiously. “I suppose a blow on the head might do
that, I don't know.” -
“I wish somebody would knock me on the head! I'd
like to forget a few things!” moaned Lizzie, but the
interruption went unregarded.
“Don’t you even know your name?” queried Miss
Cornelia of the Unknown. -
The Unknown shook his head with a slow, laborious
gesture.
“Not—yet.”
“Or where you came from ?”
Once more the battered head made its movement of
negation.
“Do you remember how you got in this house?”
The Unknown made an effort.
“Yes—I—remember—that—all—right—” he said, ap-
parently undergoing an enormous strain in order to
make himself speak at all. He put his hand to his head.
“My—head—aches—to-beat—the-band,” he con-
tinued slowly.
Miss Cornelia was at a loss. If this were acting, it
was at least fine acting.
“How did you happen to come to this house?” she
persisted, her voice unconsciously tuning itself to the
slow, laborious speech of the Unknown.
“Saw—the-lights.”
Bailey broke in with a question. -
“Where were you when you saw the lights?”
º Unknown wet his lips with his tongue, pain-
lly.


218 THE BAT
Cornelia.
The Unknown nodded.
“Yes.” -
Miss Cornelia and Bailey gave each other a look of
wonderment.
“I—leaned against—the button—in the garage—” he
went on. “Then—I think—maybe I—fainted. That's
not clear.” - -
His eyelids drooped. He seemed about to faint again.
Dale rose, and came over to him, with a sympathetic
movement of her hand. -
“You don't remember how you were hurt?” she
asked gently.
The Unknown stared ahead of him, his eyes filming,
as if he were trying to puzzle it out.
“No,” he said at last. “The first thing I remember
—I was in the garage—tied.” He moved his lips. “I
was—gagged—too—that's—what's the matter—with
my tongue—now— Then—I got myself—free—and—
got out—of a window—”
Miss Cornelia made a movement to question him
further. Beresford stopped her with his hand uplifted.
“Just a moment, Miss Van Gorder. Anderson ought
to know of this.”
He started for the door without perceiving the flash
of keen intelligence and alertness that had lit the Un-
known's countenance for an instant, as once before,
at the mention of the detective's name. But just as he
reached the door the detective entered.
He halted for a moment, staring at the strange figure
of the Unknown.
“A new element in our mystery, Mr. Anderson,” said
Miss Cornelia, remembering that the detective might


- THE BAT 219
not have heard of the mysterious stranger before—as
he had been locked in the billiard room when the latter
had made his queer entrance.
The detective and the Unknown gazed at each other
for a moment—the Unknown with his old expression
of vacant stupidity.
“Quite dazed, poor fellow,” Miss Cornelia went on.
Beresford added other words of explanation.
“He doesn't remember what happened to him. Curi-
ous, isn't it?”
The detective still seemed puzzled.
“How did he get into the house?”
“He came through the terrace door some time ago,”
answered Miss Cornelia. “Just before we were locked
in.”
Her answer seemed to solve the problem to Ander-
son's satisfaction. -
“Doesn't remember anything, eh?” he said dryly. He
crossed over to the mysterious stranger and put his
hand under the Unknown's chin, jerking his head up
roughly.
“Look up here!” he commanded.
The Unknown stared at him for an instant with
blank, vacuous eyes. Then his head dropped back upon
his breast again. -
“Look up, you—” muttered the detective, jerking his
head again. “This losing your memory stuff doesn't go
down with me!” His eyes bored into the Unknown's.
“It doesn't—go down—very well—with me—either,”
said the Unknown weakly, making no movement of
protest against Anderson's rough handling.
“Did you ever see me before?” demanded the latter.
Beresford held the candle closer so that he might watch


THE BAT 221
Miss Cornelia was the first to move toward the door.
On her way, she turned.
“Do you believe that money is irrevocably gone?”
she asked of Anderson.
The detective smiled. - -
“There's no such word as “irrevocable' in my vocabu-
lary,” he answered. “But I believe it's out of the house,
if that's what you mean.”
Miss Cornelia still hesitated, on the verge of de-
parture.
“Suppose I tell you that there are certain facts that
you have overlooked?” she said slowly.
“Still on the trail!” muttered the detective sardonic-
ally. He did not even glance at her. He seemed only
anxious that the other members of the group would
get out of his way for once and leave him a clear field
for his work.
“I was right about the doctor, wasn't I?” she insisted.
“Just fifty per cent right,” said Anderson crushingly.
“And the doctor didn't turn that trick alone. Now—”
he went on with weary patience, “if you'll all go out
and close that door—”
Miss Cornelia, defeated, took a candle from Bailey
and stepped into the corridor. Her figure stiffened. She
gave an audible gasp of dismayed surprise.
“Quick!” she cried, turning back to the others and
gesturing toward the corridor. “A man just went
through that skylight and out onto the roof!”
Chapter Nineteen: MURDER ON MURDER
“OUT ON THE Roof!”
“Come on, Beresford
|”


THE BAT 223
man in full possession of his faculties, when she had
given her false cry of alarm. -
“Then why did you—” began Dale dazedly, unable
to fathom her aunt's reasons for her trick.
“Because,” interrupted Miss Cornelia decidedly, “that
money's in this room. If the man who took it out of
the safe got away with it, why did he come back and
hide there?”
Her forefinger jabbed at the hidden chamber where-
in the masked intruder had terrified Dale with threats
of instant death. -
“He got it out of the safe—and that's as far as he did
get with it,” she persisted inexorably. “There's a hat be-
hind that safe, a man's felt hat!” -
So this was the discovery she had hinted of to Ander-
son before he rebuffed her proffer of assistance!
“Oh, I wish he'd take his hat and go home!” groaned
Lizzie, inattentive to all but her own fears.
Miss Cornelia did not even bother to rebuke her. She
crossed behind the wicker clothes hamper and picked
up something from the floor.
“A half-burned candle,” she mused. “Another thing
the detective overlooked.”
She stepped back to the center of the room, looking
knowingly from the candle to the Hidden Room and
back again.
“Oh, my God—another one!” shrieked Lizzie as the
dark shape of a man appeared suddenly outside the
window, as if materialized from the air.
Miss Cornelia snatched up her revolver from the top
of the hamper. -
“Don’t shoot, it's Jack!” came a warning cry from
Dale as she recognized the figure of her lover.


224 THE BAT
Miss Cornelia laid her revolver down on the hamper
again. The vacant eyes of the Unknown caught the
In OVCment.
Bailey swung in through the window, panting a lit-
tle from his exertions.
“The man Lizzie saw drop from the skylight un-
doubtedly got to the roof from this window,” he said.
“It's quite easy.” -
“But not with one hand,” said Miss Cornelia, with
her gaze now directed at the row of tall closets around
the walls of the room. “When that detective comes
back I may have a surprise party for him,” she mut-
tered, with a gleam of hope in her eye.
Dale explained the situation to Jack.
“Aunt Cornelia thinks the money's still here.”
Miss Cornelia snorted.
“I know it's here.” She started to open the closets,
one after the other, beginning at the left. Bailey saw
what she was doing and began to help her.
Not so Lizzie. She sat on the floor in a heap, her eyes
riveted on the Unknown, who in his turn was gazing
at Miss Cornelia's revolver on the hamper with the in-
tent stare of a baby or an idiot fascinated by a glitter-
ing piece of glass.
Dale noticed the curious tableau.
“Lizzie, what are you looking at?” she said with a
nervous shake in her voice.
“What's he looking at?” asked Lizzie sepulchrally,
pointing at the Unknown. Her pointed forefinger drew
his eyes away from the revolver; he sank back into his
former apathy, listless, drooping.
Miss Cornelia rattled the knob of a high closet by the
other wall.


THE BAT 225
“This one is locked and the key’s gone,” she an-
nounced. A new flicker of interest grew in the eyes of
the Unknown. Lizzie glanced away from him, terrified.
“If there's anything locked up in that closet,” she
whimpered, “you'd better let it stay! There's enough
running loose in this house as it is!”
Unfortunately for her, her whimper drew Miss Cor-
nelia's attention upon her.
“Lizzie, did you ever take that key?” the latter
queried sternly. -
“No'm,” said Lizzie, too scared to dissimulate if she
had wished. She wagged her head violently a dozen
times, like a china figure on a mantelpiece.
Miss Cornelia pondered.
“It may be locked from the inside; I’ll soon find out.”
She took a wire hairpin from her hair and pushed it
through the keyhole. But there was no key on the other
side; the hairpin went through without obstruction.
Repeated efforts to jerk the door open failed. And fi-
nally Miss Cornelia bethought herself of a key from the
other closet doors. -
Dale and Lizzie on one side, Bailey on the other, col-
lected the keys of the other closets from their locks
while Miss Cornelia stared at the one whose doors were
closed as if she would force its secret from it with her
eyes. The Unknown had been so quiet during the last
few minutes, that, unconsciously, the others had ceased
to pay much attention to him, except the casual atten-
tion one devotes to a piece of furniture. Even Lizzie's
eyes were now fixed on the locked closet. And the Un-
known himself was the first to notice this.
At once his expression altered to one of cunning—
cautiously, with infinite patience, he began to inch his


226 THE BAT
chair over toward the wicker clothes hamper. The
noise of the others, moving about the room, drowned
out what little he made in moving his chair.
At last he was within reach of the revolver. His
hand shot out in one swift sinuous thrust, clutched the
weapon, withdrew. He then concealed the revolver
among his tattered garments as best he could and, cau-
tiously as before, inched his chair back again to its
original position. When the others noticed him again,
the mask of lifelessness was back on his face and one
could have sworn he had not changed his position by
the breadth of an inch. -
“There, that unlocked it!” cried Miss Cornelia tri-
umphantly at last, as the key to one of the other closet
doors slid smoothly into the lock and she heard the
click that meant victory.
She was about to throw open the closet door. But
Bailey motioned her back.
“I'd keep back a little,” he cautioned. “You don't
know what may be inside.”
“Mercy sakes, who wants to know?” shivered Lizzie.
Dale and Miss Cornelia, too, stepped aside involuntarily
as Bailey took the candle and prepared, with a good
deal of caution, to open the closet door.
The door swung open at last. He could look in. He
did so—and stared appalled at what he saw, while
goose flesh crawled on his spine and the hairs of his
head stood up.
After a moment he closed the door of the closet and
turned back, white-faced, to the others.
“What is it?” said Dale aghast. “What did you see?”
Bailey found himself unable to answer for a mo-
ment. Then he pulled himself together. He turned to


228 THE BAT
here not long ago?”
He spoke without bitterness. Whatever resentment
he might have felt died in that awful presence.
“He got into the house early tonight,” he said, “prob-
ably with the doctor's connivance. That wrist watch
there is probably the luminous eye Lizzie thought she
Saw. -
But Miss Cornelia's face was still thoughtful, and
he went on: -
“Isn't it clear, Miss Van Gorder?” he queried, with
a smile. “The doctor and old Mr. Fleming formed a
conspiracy, both needed money, lots of it. Fleming was
to rob the bank and hide the money here. Wells's part
was to issue a false death certificate in the West, and
bury a substitute body, secured God knows how. It
was easy; it kept the name of the president of the
Union Bank free from suspicion—and it put the blame
on me.”
He paused, thinking it out.
“Only they slipped up in one place. Dick Fleming
leased the house to you and they couldn't get it back.”
“Then you are sure,” said Miss Cornelia quickly,
“that tonight Courtleigh Fleming broke in, with the
doctor's assistance—and that he killed Dick, his own
nephew, from the staircase?”
“Aren't you?” asked Bailey surprised. The more he
thought of it the less clearly could he visualize it any
other way.
Miss Cornelia shook her head decidedly.
“No.”
Bailey thought her merely obstinate—unwilling to
give up, for pride's sake, her own pet theory of the
activities of the Bat.


230 THE BAT -
ment is—the Bat!”.
She paused, impressively. The others stared at her,
no longer able to deny the sinister plausibility of her
theory. But this new tangling of the mystery, just when
the black threads seemed raveled out at last, was almost
too much for Dale.
“Oh, call the detectivel” she stammered, on the verge
of hysterical tears. “Let’s get through with this thing!
I can't bear any more!”
But Miss Cornelia did not even hear her. Her mind,
strung now to concert pitch, had harked back to the
point it had reached some time ago, and which all the
recent distractions had momentarily obliterated.
Had the money been taken out of the house or had
it not? In that mad rush for escape had the man hidden
with Dale in the recess back of the mantel carried his
booty with him, or left it behind? It was not in the
Hidden Room, that was certain.
Yet she was so hopeless by that time that her first
search was purely perfunctory.
During her progress about the room the Unknown's
eyes followed her, but so still had he sat, so amazing
had been the discovery of the body, that no one any
longer observed him. Now and then his head drooped
forward as if actual weakness was almost overpowering
him, but his eyes were keen and observant, and he was
no longer taking the trouble to act—if he had been
acting.
It was when Bailey finally opened the lid of a clothes
hamper that they stumbled on their first clue.
“Nothing here but some clothes and books,” he said,
glancing inside. -
“Books?” said Miss Cornelia dubiously. “I left no


THE BAT 235
“Keep them here where we can watch them!” he
whispered with fierce impatience. “Don’t you under-
stand? There's a killer loose!”
And so for a moment they stood there, waiting for
they knew not what. So swift had been the transition
from joy to deadly terror, and now to suspense, that
only Miss Cornelia's agile brain seemed able to respond.
“I begin to understand,” she said in a low tone. “The
man who struck you down and tied you in the garage
—the man who killed Dick Fleming and stabbed that
poor wretch in the closet—the man who locked us in
downstairs and removed the money from that safe—
the man who started that fire outside—is—”
“Sssh!” warned the Unknown imperatively as a
sound from the direction of the window seemed
to reach his ears. He ran quickly back to the corridor
door and locked it.
“Stand back out of that light! The ladder!”
Miss Cornelia and Dale shrank back against the
mantel. Bailey took up a post beside the window, the
Unknown flattening himself against the wall beside
him. There was a breathless pause.
The top of the extension ladder began to tremble. A
black bulk stood clearly outlined against the diminish-
ing red glow—the Bat, masked and sinister, on his last
foray! -
There was no sound as the killer stepped into the
room. He waited for a second that seemed a year—still
no sound. Then he turned cautiously toward the place
where he had left the satchel—the beam of his flash-
light picked it out.
In an instant the Unknown and Bailey were upon
him. There was a short, ferocious struggle in the dark-


236 THE BAT
ness, a gasp of laboring lungs, the thud of fighting
bodies clenched in a death grapple.
“Get his gun!” muttered the Unknown hoarsely to
Bailey as he tore the Bat's lean hands away from his
throat. “Got it?”
“Yes,” gasped Bailey. He jabbed the muzzle against
a straining back. The Bat ceased to struggle. Bailey
stepped a little away. -
“I’ve still got you covered!” he said fiercely. The Bat
made no sound.
“Hold out your hands, Bat, while I put on the brace-
lets,” commanded the Unknown in tones of terse tri-
umph. He snapped the steel cuffs on the wrists of the
murderous prowler. “Sometimes even the cleverest Bat
comes through a window at night and is caught. Dou-
ble murder—burglary—and arson! That's a good
night's work even for you, Bat!”
He switched his flashlight on the Bat's masked face.
As he did so the house lights came on; the electric
light company had at last remembered its duties. All
blinked for an instant in the sudden illumination.
“Take off that handkerchief!” barked the Unknown,
motioning at the black silk handkerchief that still hid
the face of the Bat from recognition. Bailey stripped it
from the haggard, desperate features with a quick
movement—and stood appalled.
A simultaneous gasp went up from Dale and Miss
Cornelia.
It was Anderson, the detective! And he was—the
Bat!
“It's Mr. Anderson!” stuttered Dale, aghast at the
discovery.
The Unknown gloated over his captive.


THE BAT 237
“I’m Anderson,” he said. “This man has been im-
personating me. You're a good actor, Bat, for a fellow
that's such a bad actor!” he taunted. “How did you get
the dope on this case? Did you tap the wires to head-
quarters?”
The Bat allowed himself a little sardonic smile.
“I’ll tell you that when I–" he began, then, sudden-
ly, made his last bid for freedom. With one swift, des-
perate movement, in spite of his handcuffs, he jerked
the real Anderson's revolver from him by the barrel,
, then wheeling with lightning rapidity on Bailey,
brought the butt of Anderson's revolver down on his
wrist. Bailey's revolver fell to the floor with a clatter.
The Bat swung toward the door. Again the tables were
turned!
“Hands up, everybody!” he ordered, menacing the
group with the stolen pistol. “Hands up—you!” as Miss
Cornelia kept her hands at her sides.
It was the greatest moment of Miss Cornelia's life.
She smiled sweetly and came toward the Bat as if
the pistol aimed at her heart were as innocuous as a
toothbrush.
“Why?” she queried mildly. “I took the bullets out
of that revolver two hours ago.”
The Bat flung the revolver toward her with a curse.
The real Anderson instantly snatched up the gun that
Bailey had dropped and covered the Bat.
“Don’t move!” he warned, “or I'll fill you full of
lead!” He smiled out of the corner of his mouth at
Miss Cornelia who was primly picking up the revolver
that the Bat had flung at her—her own revolver.
“You see—you never know what a woman will do,”
he continued.





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