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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Bat, by Stephen Vincent Benét, Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Bat
+
+Author: Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart
+        Ghostwritten by Stephen Vincent Benét
+
+Release Date: January, 1999 [eBook #2019]
+[Most recently updated: April 2, 2023]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAT ***
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+The Bat
+
+by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ CHAPTER ONE. THE SHADOW OF THE BAT
+ CHAPTER TWO. THE INDOMITABLE MISS VAN GORDER
+ CHAPTER THREE. PISTOL PRACTICE
+ CHAPTER FOUR. THE STORM GATHERS
+ CHAPTER FIVE. ALOPECIA AND RUBEOLA
+ CHAPTER SIX. DETECTIVE ANDERSON TAKES CHARGE
+ CHAPTER SEVEN. CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS
+ CHAPTER EIGHT. THE GLEAMING EYE
+ CHAPTER NINE. A SHOT IN THE DARK
+ CHAPTER TEN. THE PHONE CALL FROM NOWHERE
+ CHAPTER ELEVEN. BILLY PRACTICES JIU-JITSU
+ CHAPTER TWELVE. “I DIDN’T KILL HIM.”
+ CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE BLACKENED BAG
+ CHAPTER FOURTEEN. HANDCUFFS
+ CHAPTER FIFTEEN. THE SIGN OF THE BAT
+ CHAPTER SIXTEEN. THE HIDDEN ROOM
+ CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. ANDERSON MAKES AN ARREST
+ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. THE BAT STILL FLIES
+ CHAPTER NINETEEN. MURDER ON MURDER
+ CHAPTER TWENTY. “HE IS—THE BAT!”
+ CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. QUITE A COLLECTION
+
+
+
+
+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 bravado 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 results—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 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 master criminal of a century—lost voices hounding a specter 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 little 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
+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 saloons 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 bitter envy. Evil’s Four Hundred
+chattered, discussed, debated—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 Hundred could bend him into a willing
+instrument to execute 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 bungling 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 disillusioned young men of the Fourth
+Estate—the tireless foxes, nose-down on the trail of news—the trackers,
+who never gave up until that news was run to earth. 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 typewriters 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 apprehension 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 opinions on everything and anything. Ministers mentioned him
+in sermons; cranks wrote fanatic letters denouncing him as one of the
+even-headed beasts of the Apocalypse 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
+in these days of limelight and jazz.
+
+A city editor, at lunch with a colleague, pulled at his cigarette and
+talked. “See that Sunday story we had on the Bat?” he asked. “Pretty
+tidy—huh—and yet we didn’t have to play it up. It’s an amazing list—the
+Marshall jewels—the Allison murder—the mail truck thing—two hundred
+thousand he got out of that, all negotiable, and two men dead. I wonder
+how many people he’s really killed. We made it six murders and nearly 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 going to burst forth with
+_Bat Captured by_ BLADE _Reporter?_” 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_ reporter 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
+barbered 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. Scotland Yard wouldn’t do any
+better—or any other bunch 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 Central 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 mantelpiece 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 underworld 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 community 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
+parishioners’ 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 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 lawyer—your own
+Doctor—your own best friend. Can happen you know—look at those Chicago
+boys—the thrill-killers. Just brilliant students—likeable boys—to the
+people that taught them—and cold-blooded murderers all the same.”
+
+“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 already. 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 struggled 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 country next week ourselves—right
+in the Bat’s new territory.”
+
+“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 detective 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 probably seem his utter lack of
+connection with the seamier side of existence. The key to his real
+secret of life, however, 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. 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 sitting 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. “Whatever 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.”
+
+“Try it!” said the chief. “What is it—vacation? Take as long as you
+like—within reason—you’ve earned it—I’ll put it through today.”
+
+Anderson shook his head, “No sir—I don’t want a vacation.”
+
+“Well,” said the chief impatiently. “Promotion? I’ve told you about
+that. Expense money for anything—fill out a voucher and I’ll O.K. it—be
+best man at your wedding—by Judas, I’ll even do that!”
+
+Anderson laughed. “No, sir—I’m not getting married and—I’m pleased
+about the promotion, of course—but it’s not that. 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—anything 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 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 protege. 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 _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 Anderson’s hand in an iron
+grip.
+
+Anderson smiled. “The cagiest bat flies once too often,” 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 Wentworth,” he murmured to himself. “And throwing himself
+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 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 Cornelis 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 shoulders 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, independent to the roots
+of her hair, she preserved, at sixty-five, a humorous 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
+preserved 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
+had not brought to light. As a little girl she had hesitated 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 general 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 moments, 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, excellent servants, beautiful gardens and grounds—everything as
+respectable and comfortable as—as a limousine! And out in the world
+people were murdering and robbing each other, floating over Niagara
+Falls in barrels, 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—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 difficulties of finding a suitable spot would
+have added some spice to the quest—but this ideal place had practically
+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 bargains. The next day the keys were hers—the servants
+engaged to stay on—within a week she had moved. All very pleasant and
+easy no doubt—adventure—pooh!
+
+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 map of the scene of the Bat’s most recent
+exploits and, yes, three of his recent crimes had been within a
+twenty-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 railroad 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.
+
+She smiled, thinking of Dale. Dale was a nice child—her favorite niece.
+Sally didn’t understand her, of course—but Sally wouldn’t. Sally read
+magazine articles on the younger generation and its wild ways. _Sally
+doesn’t remember when she was a younger generation herself_, thought
+Miss Cornelia. _But I do—and if we didn’t have automobiles, we had
+buggies—and youth doesn’t change its ways just because it has cut its
+hair._ Before Mr. and Mrs. Ogden left for Europe, Sally had talked to
+her sister Cornelia ... long and weightily, on the problem of Dale.
+_Problem of Dale, indeed!_ thought Miss Cornelia scornfully. _Dale’s
+the nicest thing I’ve seen in some time. She’d be ten times happier if
+Sally wasn’t always trying to marry her off to some young snip with
+more of what fools call ‘eligibility’ than brains! But there, Cornelia
+Van Gorder—Sally’s given you your innings by rampaging off to Europe
+and leaving Dale with you all summer and you’ve a lot less sense than I
+flatter myself you have, if you can’t give your favorite niece a happy
+vacation from all her immediate family—and maybe find her someone
+who’ll make her happy for good and all in the bargain._ Miss Cornelia
+was an incorrigible matchmaker.
+
+Nevertheless, she was more concerned with “the problem of Dale” than
+she would have admitted. Dale, at her age, with her charm and
+beauty—_why, she ought to behave as if she were walking on air_,
+thought her aunt worriedly. _And instead she acts more as if she were
+walking on pins and needles. She seems to like being here—I know she
+likes me—I’m pretty sure she’s just as pleased to get a little holiday
+from Sally and Harry—she amuses herself—she falls in with any plan I
+want to make, and yet_— And yet Dale was not happy—Miss Cornelia felt
+sure of it. _It isn’t natural 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 approve 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 sentence 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
+_plain!_”
+
+_Pshaw—I bet that’s it_, thought Miss Cornelia shrewdly. _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
+parents don’t approve—or because she’s trying to give him up and finds
+she can’t. Well—_ and Miss Cornelia’s tight little gray 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 surprise her
+and scandalize Sally Van Gorder Ogden out of her seven senses. Sally
+thinks nobody’s worth looking at if they didn’t come over to America
+when our family did—she hasn’t gumption enough to realize that if some
+people hadn’t come over later, we’d all still be living on crullers and
+Dutch punch!_
+
+She was just stretching out her hand to ring for Lizzie when a knock
+came at the door. She gathered her Paisley shawl more tightly about her
+shoulders. “Who 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 deserves description. A
+fixture in the Van Gorder household since her sixteenth year, she had
+long ere now attained the dignity of a Tradition. The slip of a colleen
+fresh from Kerry had grown old with her mistress, until the casual bond
+between mistress and servant 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 Cornelia 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 leprechauns 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 eccentricities.
+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 without the other.
+
+“Now what do you mean—if that were all of it, Lizzie?” queried Miss
+Cornelia sharply as she took her letters from the tray.
+
+Lizzie’s face assumed an expression of doleful reticence.
+
+“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 pig? 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 stubbornly. “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 decisively. “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 grandmother 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 her mistress. _There’s bats in this house,
+too—real bats_, she whispered impressively. “I saw one yesterday in the
+trunk room—the creature! It flew in the window and nearly had the
+switch off me before I could get away!”
+
+Miss Cornelia chuckled. “Of course there are bats,” she said. “There
+are always bats in the country. They’re perfectly harmless,—except to
+switches.”
+
+“And the Bat ye were talking of just then—he’s harmless too, I
+suppose?” said Lizzie with mournful satire. “Oh, Miss Neily, Miss
+Neily—do let’s go back to the city before he flies away with us all!”
+
+“Nonsense, Lizzie,” said Miss Cornelia again, but this time less
+firmly. Her face grew serious. “If I thought for an instant that there
+was any real possibility of our being in danger here—” she said slowly.
+“But—oh, look at the map, Lizzie! The Bat has been flying in this
+district—that’s true enough—but he hasn’t come within ten miles of us
+yet!”
+
+“What’s ten miles to the Bat?” the obdurate Lizzie sighed. “And what of
+the letter ye had when ye first moved in here? _The Fleming house is
+unhealthy for strangers_, it said. _Leave it while ye can_.”
+
+“Some silly boy or some crank.” Miss Cornelia’s voice was firm. “I
+never pay any attention to anonymous letters.”
+
+“And there’s a funny-lookin’ letter this mornin’, down at the bottom of
+the pile—” persisted Lizzie. “It looked like the other one. I’d half a
+mind to throw it away before you saw it!”
+
+“Now, Lizzie, that’s quite enough!” Miss Cornelia had the Van Gorder
+manner on now. “I don’t care to discuss your ridiculous fears any
+further. Where is Miss Dale?”
+
+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, particular—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 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?”
+
+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
+particular—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—the heathern Japanese!” 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 excellent butler—he’d been with Mr. Fleming ten
+years 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
+annoying,” she went on, in the pauses of Lizzie’s deft ministrations.
+“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 arranged 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 morning,’ 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.’”
+
+“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 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 Gorder,’ 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 longer 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, clasping 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 livingroom, Lizzie, when I’ve gone down. I’ll talk to them
+there.”
+
+An hour or so later, Miss Cornelia sat in a deep chintz chair in the
+comfortable living-room of the Fleming house going through the pile of
+letters which Lizzie’s news of domestic revolt had prevented her
+reading earlier. Cook and housemaid had come and gone—civil enough, but
+so obviously determined upon leaving the house at once that Miss
+Cornelia had sighed and let them go, though not without caustic
+comment. Since then, she had devoted herself to calling up various
+employment agencies without entirely satisfactory results. A new cook
+and housemaid were promised for the end of the week—but for the next
+three days the Japanese butler, Billy, and Lizzie between them would
+have to bear the brunt of the service. _Oh, yes—and then there’s Dale’s
+gardener, if she gets one_, thought Miss, Cornelia. _I wish he could
+cook—but I don’t suppose gardeners can—and Billy’s a treasure_. Still,
+its inconvenient—now, stop—Cornelia Van Gorder—you were asking for an
+adventure only this morning and the moment the littlest sort of one
+comes along, you want to crawl out of it.”
+
+She had reached the bottom of her pile of letters—these to be thrown
+away, these to be answered—ah, here was one she had overlooked somehow.
+She took it up. It must be the one Lizzie had wanted to throw away—she
+smiled at Lizzie’s fears. The address was badly typed, on cheap
+paper—she tore the envelope open and drew out a single unsigned sheet.
+
+_If you stay in this house any longer_—DEATH. _Go back to the city at
+once and save your life._
+
+
+Her fingers trembled a little as she turned the missive over but her
+face remained calm. She looked at the envelope—at the postmark—while
+her heart thudded uncomfortably for a moment and then resumed its
+normal beat. It had come at last—the adventure—and she was not afraid!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+PISTOL PRACTICE
+
+
+She knew who it was, of course. The Bat! No doubt of it. And yet—did
+the Bat ever threaten before he struck? She could not remember. But it
+didn’t matter. The Bat was unprecedented—unique. At any rate, Bat or no
+Bat, she must think out a course of action. The defection of cook and
+housemaid left her alone in the house with Lizzie and Billy—and Dale,
+of course, if Dale returned. _Two old women, a young girl, and a
+Japanese butler to face the most dangerous criminal in America_, she
+thought grimly. And yet—one couldn’t be sure. The threatening letter
+might be only a joke—a letter from a crank—after all. Still, she must
+take precautions; look for aid somewhere. But where could she look for
+aid?
+
+She ran over in her mind the new acquaintances she had made since she
+moved to the country. There was Doctor Wells, the local physician, who
+had joked with her about moving into the Bat’s home territory—He seemed
+an intelligent man—but she knew him only slightly—she couldn’t call a
+busy Doctor away from his patients to investigate something which might
+only prove to be a mare’s-nest. The boys Dale had met at the country
+club—“Humph!” she sniffed, “I’d rather trust my gumption than any of
+theirs.” The logical person to call on, of course, was Richard Fleming,
+Courtleigh Fleming’s nephew and heir, who had rented her the house. He
+lived at the country club—she could probably reach him now. She was
+just on the point of doing so when she decided against it—partly from
+delicacy, partly from an indefinable feeling that he would not be of
+much help. _Besides_, she thought sturdily, _it’s my house now, not
+his. He didn’t guarantee burglar protection in the lease._
+
+As for the local police—her independence revolted at summoning them.
+They would bombard her with ponderous questions and undoubtedly think
+she was merely a nervous old spinster. _If it was just me_, she
+thought, _I swear I wouldn’t say a word to anybody—and if the Bat flew
+in he mightn’t find it so easy to fly out again, if I am sixty-five and
+never shot a burglar in my life! But there’s Dale—and Lizzie. I’ve got
+to be fair to them._
+
+For a moment she felt very helpless, very much alone. Then her courage
+returned.
+
+“Pshaw, Cornelia, if you have got to get help—get the help _you_ want
+and hang the consequences!” she adjured herself. “You’ve always
+hankered to see a first-class detective do his detecting—well, _get_
+one—or decide to do the job yourself. I’ll bet you could at that.”
+
+She tiptoed to the main door of the living-room and closed it
+cautiously, smiling as she did so. Lizzie might be about and Lizzie
+would promptly go into hysterics if she got an inkling of her
+mistress’s present intentions. Then she went to the city telephone and
+asked for long distance.
+
+When she had finished her telephoning, she looked at once relieved and
+a little naughty—like a demure child who has carried out some piece of
+innocent mischief unobserved. “My stars!” she muttered to herself. “You
+never can tell what you can do till you try.” Then she sat down again
+and tried to think of other measures of defense.
+
+_Now if I were the Bat, or any criminal_, she mused, _how would I get
+into this house? Well, that’s it—I 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, servants’ 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,
+downstairs 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 comfortable 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 windows
+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 alcove itself opened on one side upon the
+terrace and upon the other into a large butler’s pantry. The
+arrangement was obviously designed so that, if necessary, one could
+pass directly from the terrace to the 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 enough!_ she thought. Then she turned toward the billiard 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 Cornelia passed through this door, glanced about the
+billiard 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-living-room, and the main door of the
+living-room was on the right as one entered, the dining-room and
+library on the left, main staircase in front. “My mind is starting to
+go round like a pinwheel, thinking of all those windows and doors,” she
+murmured 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, _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 windows 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 before 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
+revolver 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 argument between Lizzie and Billy on the
+relative merits of Japanese and Irish-American cooking.
+
+Dale Ogden, taxiing up from the two o’clock train 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 shoot 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
+distaste 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 herself, 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 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—and they call US the wild generation!
+Why on earth were you having pistol practice, darling—has Billy turned
+into a Japanese 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 woebegone 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 demonstration of its powers.
+
+“_Miss Dale, for the dear love o’ God will yuo 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!”
+
+“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 under
+that tree, with Lizzie on the other side of it making banshee noises
+and—”
+
+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 toward 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 thinking 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 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 remembering details were too great an
+effort. “But I’m sure he’ll be satisfactory. He’ll be out here this
+evening—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
+independence which was so firmly rooted a characteristic of hers
+restrained her. No use worrying the child unnecessarily; they all might
+have to worry enough before tomorrow morning.
+
+She compromised. “We have had a domestic upheaval,” 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.”
+
+“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 shan’t. I only wish there were something I could do for you, my
+dear.”
+
+Dale stopped in the alcove doorway. “There’s nothing 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 behaved this afternoon—and the ouija-board will
+furnish it. She’s scared to death to touch the thing. I think she
+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.”
+
+“There was something else in the paper this morning,” 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 straightened 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 thinking. 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 a while.”
+
+She moved on up the staircase and disappeared from the range of Miss
+Cornelia’s vision, leaving Miss Cornelia to ponder many things. Her
+trip to the city had done Dale no good, of a certainty. If not actually
+ill, she was obviously under some considerable mental strain. And why
+this sudden interest, first in the Bat, then in the failure of the
+Union Bank? Was it possible that Dale, too, had been receiving
+threatening letters?
+
+_I’ll be glad when that gardener comes_, she thought to herself. _He’ll
+make a man in the house at any rate._
+
+When Lizzie at last came in with the lemonade she found her mistress
+shaking her head.
+
+“Cornelia, Cornelia,” she was murmuring to herself, “you should have
+taken to pistol practice when you were younger; it just shows how
+children waste their opportunities.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+THE STORM GATHERS
+
+
+The long summer afternoon wore away, sunset came, red and angry, a
+sunset presaging storm. A chill crept into the air with the twilight.
+When night fell, it was not a night of silver patterns enskied, but a
+dark and cloudy cloak where a few stars glittered fitfully. Miss
+Cornelia, at dinner, saw a bat swoop past the window of the dining room
+in its scurrying flight, and narrowly escaped oversetting her glass of
+water with a nervous start. The tension of waiting—waiting—for some
+vague menace which might not materialize after all—had begun to prey on
+her nerves. She saw Dale off to the country club with relief—the girl
+looked a little better after her nap but she was still not her normal
+self. When Dale was gone, she wandered restlessly for some time between
+living-room and library, now giving an unnecessary 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 telephone 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 beyond her windows. A little wind wailed somewhere in that
+darkness like a beaten child—beyond the hills thunder rumbled, drawing
+near, and with it lightning and the storm.
+
+She made herself sit down in the chair beside her favorite lamp on the
+center table and take up her knitting 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 her, she simply
+wouldn’t. But she was very glad, nevertheless, 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 decision,
+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 meantime, 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.”
+
+“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 knitted on—knit two—purl two— In spite of her
+experiments 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 whispered 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 because 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.
+
+“Ask Billy to bring some candles, Lizzie—and have them ready.”
+
+Lizzie had been staring fixedly at the French windows. 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, relieved, 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 whenever a cricket begins to sing—or scrape
+his legs—or whatever it is they do!”
+
+Lizzie bowed before the blast of her mistress’s scorn and began to move
+gingerly toward the alcove door. But obviously she was not entirely
+convinced.
+
+“Oh, it’s more than that, Miss Neily,” she mumbled. “I—”
+
+Miss Cornelia turned to her fiercely. If Lizzie was going to behave
+like this, they might as well have it out now between them—before Dale
+came home.
+
+“What did you _really_ see last night?” she said in a minatory voice.
+
+The instant relief on Lizzie’s face was ludicrous; she so obviously
+preferred discussing any subject at any length to braving the dangers
+of the other part of the house unaccompanied.
+
+“I was standing right there at the top of that there staircase,” she
+began, gesticulating toward the alcove stairs in the manner of one who
+embarks upon the narration of an epic. “Standing there with your switch
+in my hand, Miss Neily—and then I looked down and,” her voice dropped,
+“I saw a _gleaming eye!_ It looked at me and _winked!_ I tell you this
+house is haunted!”
+
+“A flirtatious ghost?” queried Miss Cornelia skeptically. She snorted.
+“Humph! Why didn’t you yell?”
+
+“I was too scared to yell! And I’m not the only one.” She started to
+back away from the alcove, her eyes still fixed upon its haunted
+stairs. “Why do you think the servants left so sudden this morning?”
+she went on. “Do you really believe the housemaid had appendicitis? Or
+the cook’s sister had twins?”
+
+She turned and gestured at her mistress with a long, pointed
+forefinger. Her voice had a note of doom.
+
+“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 come.
+
+“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 questioned,
+rising, with determination in her eye.
+
+Lizzie shuddered violently. “It’s up there—with a prayer book on it to
+keep it quiet!” she groaned, jerking 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 letters 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 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 settled herself comfortably and tried to
+make her mind a suitable receiving station for ouija messages, Lizzie
+began 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, Fletcherism 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 artificial 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 mistress’s toes.
+
+“I’ve got a queer feeling in my fingers—all the way up my arms,” she
+whispered in awed accents, wriggling the arms she spoke of violently.
+
+“Hush!” said Miss Cornelia indignantly. Lizzie always 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 Lizzie Allen right
+about this house or is it all stuff and 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 awkwardly 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 laughter. 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 spirits. There’s been a
+bat flying around this house all evening.”
+
+She got up from her chair tentatively, obviously hoping 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—accident? 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 dispose
+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 obsession. 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 fascination, 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 identity—’” _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 criminal world for the
+Bat and look higher. He may be a merchant—a lawyer—a Doctor—honored in
+his community by day and at night a bloodthirsty assassin—’” The print
+blurred before her eyes, she could read no 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 imagine 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 having 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
+interesting 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?”
+
+“Maybe,” said Billy blandly.
+
+“Well, what was the reason?”
+
+“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 come.
+
+Miss Cornelia was the first of the others to recover her poise.
+
+“Stop that! It was the wind!” she said, a little irritably—the “Stop
+that!” addressed to Lizzie who seemed on the point of squealing again.
+
+“I think not wind,” said Billy. His very lack of perturbation 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 first time you have
+been disturbed?”
+
+“Last two days only.” Billy would have made an ideal witness in a
+courtroom. He restricted himself so precisely to answering what was
+asked of him in as few words as possible.
+
+Miss Cornelia ripped out a row in her knitting. She took a deep breath.
+
+“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.
+
+“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
+welcomed the thunder as a diversion. At least its menace was a physical
+one—to be guarded against by physical 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 windows 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
+knees not to take this place two miles from a railroad,” she went on
+heatedly. “For mercy’s sake, Miss Neily, let’s go back to the city
+before it’s too late!”
+
+Miss Cornelia was inflexible.
+
+“I’m not going. You can make up your mind to that. I’m going to find
+out what’s wrong with this place if it takes all summer. I came out to
+the country for a rest and I’m going to _get_ it.”
+
+“You’ll get your heavenly rest!” mourned Lizzie, giving it up. She
+looked pitifully at her mistress’s face for a sign that the latter
+might be weakening—but no such sign came. Instead, Miss Cornelia seemed
+to grow more determined.
+
+“Besides,” she said, suddenly deciding to share the secret she had
+hugged to herself all day, “I might as well tell you, Lizzie. I’m
+having a detective sent down tonight from police headquarters in the
+city.”
+
+“A detective?” Lizzie’s face was horrified. “Miss Neily, you’re keeping
+something from me! You know something I don’t know.”
+
+“I hope so. I daresay he will be stupid enough. Most of them are. But
+at least we can have one proper night’s sleep.”
+
+“Not I. I trust no man,” said Lizzie. But Miss Cornelia had picked up
+the paper again.
+
+“‘The Bat’s last crime was a particularly atrocious one,’” she read.
+“‘The body of the murdered man...’”
+
+But Lizzie could bear no more.
+
+“Why don’t you read the funny page once in a while?” she wailed and
+hurried to close the windows in the billiard room. The door leading
+into the billiard room shut behind her.
+
+Miss Cornelia remained reading for a moment. Then—was that a sound from
+the alcove? She dropped the paper, went into the alcove and stood for a
+moment at the foot of the stairs, listening. No—it must have been
+imagination. But, while she was here, she might as well put on the
+spring lock that bolted the door from the alcove to the terrace. She
+did so, returned to the living-room and switched off the lights for a
+moment to look out at the coming storm. It was closer now—the lightning
+flashes more continuous. She turned on the lights again as Billy
+re-entered with three candles and a box of matches.
+
+He put them down on a side table.
+
+“New gardener come,” he said briefly to Miss Cornelia’s back.
+
+Miss Cornelia turned. “Nice hour for him to get here. What’s his name?”
+
+“Say his name Brook,” said Billy, a little doubtful. English names
+still bothered him—he was never quite sure of them at first.
+
+Miss Cornelia thought. “Ask him to come in,” she said. “And Billy—where
+are the keys?”
+
+Billy silently took two keys from his pocket and laid them on the
+table. Then he pointed to the terrace door which Miss Cornelia had just
+bolted.
+
+“Door up there—spring lock,” he said.
+
+“Yes.” She nodded. “And the new bolt you put on today makes it fairly
+secure. One thing is fairly sure, Billy. If anyone tries to get in
+tonight, he will have to break a window and make a certain amount of
+noise.”
+
+But he only smiled his curious enigmatic smile and went out. And no
+sooner had Miss Cornelia seated herself when the door of the billiard
+room slammed open suddenly and Lizzie burst into the room as if she had
+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 doleful
+predictions so swiftly coming to pass.
+
+Miss Cornelia took her by the shoulder—half-startled, half-dubious.
+
+“What did they yell?”
+
+“Just yelled a yell!”
+
+“Lizzie!”
+
+“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 gardener. A handsome young fellow, in his late twenties,
+he came two steps into the room and then stood there respectfully 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 advanced another two steps.
+“You’re the man my niece engaged in the city this afternoon?”
+
+“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 remorselessly.
+
+“Know anything about hardy perennials?” she said in a soothing voice,
+while Lizzie regarded the interview with wondering eyes.
+
+“Oh. yes,” but the young man seemed curiously lacking in confidence.
+“They—they’re the ones that keep their leaves during the winter, aren’t
+they?”
+
+“Come over here—closer—” said Miss Cornelia imperiously. Once more she
+scrutinized him and this time there was no doubt of his discomfort
+under her stare.
+
+“Have you had any experience with rubeola?” she queried finally.
+
+“Oh, yes—yes—yes, indeed,” the gardener stammered. “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 asserted finally, and
+was evidently relieved to see Miss Cornelia receive the statement with
+a pleasant smile.
+
+“What do you think is the best treatment for urticaria?” she propounded
+with a highly professional manner.
+
+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 announced 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 gardener?” 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 anyhow! 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 suspicions 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 couldn’t help wanting to believe him, and yet,
+he wasn’t what he had pretended to be—and this night of all nights was
+no time to take people on trust!
+
+“How do I know you won’t steal the spoons?” she queried, her voice
+still gruff.
+
+“Are they nice spoons?” he asked with absurd seriousness.
+
+She couldn’t help smiling at his tone. “Beautiful spoons.”
+
+Again that engaging, boyish manner of his touched something in her
+heart.
+
+“Spoons are a great temptation to me, Miss Van Gorder—but if you’ll
+take me, I’ll promise to leave them alone.”
+
+“That’s extremely kind of you,” she answered with grim humor, knowing
+herself beaten. She went over to ring for Billy.
+
+Lizzie took the opportunity to gain her ear.
+
+“I don’t trust him, Miss Neily! He’s too smooth!” she whispered
+warningly.
+
+Miss Cornelia stiffened. “I haven’t asked for your opinion, Lizzie,”
+she said.
+
+But Lizzie was not to be put off by the Van Gorder manner.
+
+“Oh,” she whispered, “you’re just as bad as all the rest of ’em. A
+good-looking man comes in the door and your brains fly out the window!”
+
+Miss Cornelia quelled her with a gesture and turned back to the young
+man. He was standing just where she had left him, his cap in his
+hands—but, while her back had been turned, his eyes had made a stealthy
+survey of the living-room—a survey that would have made it plain to
+Miss Cornelia, if she had seen him, 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 morning,” 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 distance from the main
+building, and with the night and the approaching storm she felt her own
+courage weakening. 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 taking 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 living-room
+blinked uncertainly for an instant before they recovered their normal
+brilliance.
+
+“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 varnished. Miss Dale got a
+stain on her sleeve there this afternoon—and Lizzie—”
+
+“Yes’m?”
+
+“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
+disappeared. 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 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
+smooth, smart bob, 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
+Cornelia 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 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 questions on her tongue,
+but before she could ask any of them, Billy was ushering in Doctor
+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, apparently built for success, should be content with the
+comparative 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 ruthlessness 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 making conversation.
+
+“Oh, the usual thing.” The Doctor took out his cigarette 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 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 packages would pass a casual inspection.
+Probably been going 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.
+
+“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 Fleming 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.”
+
+Miss Cornelia made up her mind. She had resolved before not to summon
+the Doctor for aid in her difficulties, 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 something. 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 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 confidence. 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 succeeded. 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?”
+
+“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, unbolted 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 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
+warning! 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 breathlessly.
+
+Miss Cornelia straightened up like a ramrod—indomitable.
+
+“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—thrilling, insistent. Her
+niece started at the sound.
+
+“Oh, don’t let anybody in!” she besought Miss Cornelia 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 him to the
+library.”
+
+Billy nodded and disappeared. Dale turned to her aunt, the color out of
+her cheeks.
+
+“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 returning. 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 Cornelia was poring over the mysterious missive that
+had been wrapped about the stone.
+
+“He got away in the shrubbery,” said the Doctor disgustedly, 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 unpleasant social duty to
+face.
+
+“Miss Van Gorder, may I speak frankly?”
+
+“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 seriousness, 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, unexpectedly 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 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 proposition seemed logical
+enough—more than that—sensible, safe. And yet, some indefinable
+feeling—hardly strong enough to be called a premonition—kept her from
+accepting 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 entire house with burglar alarms on doors and windows!” she
+went on defiantly. The incident, as far as she was concerned, was
+closed. She moved on into the alcove. The Doctor stared at her, shaking
+his head.
+
+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 living-room. “The only thing that
+worries me now is that broken French window,” she said thoughtfully.
+“Anyone can reach a hand through it and open the latch.” She came down
+toward the settee where Dale was sitting. “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 finished, 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.
+
+“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 departure.
+
+“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 round the place to hide a dozen assassins—”
+
+If his manner had been in the slightest degree melodramatic, Dale would
+have found the ominous sentences 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.”
+
+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 it 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 politeness, and departed to search for
+them.
+
+The Doctor watched her go—saw the door close behind her. Instantly his
+face set into tense and wary lines. He glanced about—then ran lightly
+into the alcove 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 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 toward 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, Doctor—Billy will let
+you out, he has the key.”
+
+“By Jove!” laughed the Doctor, “you _are_ careful, aren’t you! The
+place is like a fortress! Well—good night, Miss Dale—”
+
+“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 returned 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, departing, held the door
+open wide—to admit Miss Cornelia Van Gorder and a tall, strong-featured
+man, quietly dressed, with reticent, piercing eyes—the detective!
+
+Dale’s first conscious emotion was one of complete surprise. She had
+expected a heavy-set, blue-jowled vulgarian with a black cigar, a
+battered derby, and stubby policeman’s shoes. _Why this man’s a
+gentleman!_ she thought. _At least he looks like one—and yet—you can
+tell from his face he’d have as little mercy as a steel trap for anyone
+he had to—catch—_ She shuddered uncontrollably.
+
+“Dale, dear,” said Miss Cornelia with triumph in her voice. “This is
+Mr. Anderson.”
+
+The newcomer bowed politely, glancing at her casually and then looking
+away. Miss Cornelia, however, was obviously in fine feather and
+relishing to the utmost the presence of a real detective in the house.
+
+“This is the room I spoke of,” she said briskly. “All the disturbances
+have taken place around that terrace door.”
+
+The detective took three swift steps into the alcove, glanced about it
+searchingly. He indicated the stairs.
+
+“That is not the main staircase?”
+
+“No, the main staircase is out there,” Miss Cornelia waved her hand in
+the direction of the hall.
+
+The detective came out of the alcove and paused by the French windows.
+
+“I think there must be a conspiracy between the Architects’ Association
+and the Housebreakers’ Union these days,” he said grimly. “Look at all
+that glass. All a burglar needs is a piece of putty and a
+diamond-cutter to break in.”
+
+“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 lighting on the broken
+glass below the shattered French window. He picked up a piece of glass
+and examined it.
+
+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 pointed 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! Apparently 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 center table, “I had my revolver. I know so
+little about these things, Mr. Anderson, that if I didn’t hit a
+burglar, 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 upstairs 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 merely smiled again, this time more broadly.
+
+“That’s going rather a long way for a theory,” he said. “And the Bat is
+not in the habit of giving warnings.”
+
+“Nevertheless,” she insisted, “somebody has been trying to get into
+this house, night after night.”
+
+Anderson seemed to be revolving a theory in his mind.
+
+“Any liquor stored here?” he asked.
+
+Miss Cornelia nodded. “Yes.”
+
+“What?”
+
+Miss Cornelia beamed at him maliciously. “Eleven bottles of home-made
+elderberry wine.”
+
+“You’re safe.” The detective smiled ruefully. He picked up the evening
+paper, glanced at it, shook his head. “I’d forget the Bat in all this.
+You can always tell when the Bat has had anything to do with a crime.
+When he’s through, he signs his name to it.”
+
+Miss Cornelia sat bolt upright. “His name? I thought nobody knew his
+name?”
+
+The detective made a little gesture of apology. “That was a figure of
+speech. The newspapers named him the Bat because he moved with
+incredible rapidity, always at night, and by signing his name I mean he
+leaves the symbol of his identity—the Bat, which can see in the dark.”
+
+“I wish I could,” said Miss Cornelia, striving to seem unimpressed.
+“These country lights are always going out.”
+
+Anderson’s face grew stern. “Sometimes he draws the outline of a bat at
+the scene of the crime. Once, in some way, he got hold of a real bat,
+and nailed it to the wall.”
+
+Dale, listening, could not repress a shudder at the gruesome
+picture—and Miss Cornelia’s hands gave an involuntary twitch as her
+knitting needles clicked together. Anderson seemed by no means
+unconscious of the effect he had created.
+
+“How many people in this house, Miss Van Gorder?”
+
+“My niece and myself.” Miss Cornelia indicated Dale, who had picked up
+her wrap and was starting to leave 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 remaining 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 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 instructions, 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 carelessly. The allusion to the gun made
+Lizzie start nervously, 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.
+
+“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 officious 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.
+
+“She’s fifty if she’s a day,” said Miss Cornelia treacherously 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 sincerity 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 horror-stricken. When
+she had finished, she made a gesture 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 breaking point.
+
+“When I get into bed in this house I wouldn’t put my feet out for a
+million dollars!” she said with heartfelt candor. Even Anderson was
+compelled to grin at this.
+
+“Then I won’t ask you to,” he said, relaxing considerably; “That’s more
+money than I’m worth, Lizzie.”
+
+“Well, _I’ll say it is!_” quoth Lizzie, now thoroughly aroused, and
+flounced out of the room in high dudgeon, her pompadour bristling,
+before he had time to interrogate her further.
+
+He replaced the note on the table and turned back to Miss Cornelia. If
+he had found any clue to the mystery in Lizzie’s demeanor, she could
+not read it in his manner.
+
+“Now, what about the butler?” he said.
+
+“Nothing about him—except that he was Courtleigh Fleming’s servant.”
+
+Anderson paused. “Do you consider that significant?”
+
+A shadow appeared behind him deep in the alcove—a vague, listening
+figure—Dale—on tiptoe, conspiratorial, taking pains not to draw the
+attention of the others to her presence. But both Miss Cornelia and
+Anderson were too engrossed in their conversation to notice her.
+
+Miss Cornelia hesitated.
+
+“Isn’t it possible that there is a connection between the colossal
+theft at the Union Bank and _these_ disturbances?” she said.
+
+Anderson seemed to think over the question.
+
+“What do you mean?” he asked as Dale slowly moved into the room from
+the alcove, silently closing the alcove doors behind her, and still
+unobserved.
+
+“Suppose,” said Miss Cornelia slowly, “that Courtleigh 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 tolerantly. “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 factors. 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 money from the Union
+Bank is in this house?” persisted 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 belief 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 followed her to the
+door. If either had noticed the unobtrusive 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 under 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, revealing 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 advanced 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.
+
+“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 whisper. “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, passionately. 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
+Fleming has been selling those securities for months, turning them into
+cash. And somebody knows about it, and knows that that money is hidden
+here. Don’t you see? Your Aunt Cornelia has crabbed the game by coming
+here.”
+
+“Why didn’t you tell the police that? Now they think, because you ran
+away—”
+
+“Ran away! The only chance I had was a few hours to myself to try to
+prove what actually happened.”
+
+“Why don’t you tell the detective what you think?” said Dale at her
+wits’ end. “That Courtleigh Fleming took the money and that it is still
+here?”
+
+Her lover’s face grew somber.
+
+“He’d take me into custody at once and I’d have no chance to search.”
+
+He was searching now—his eyes roved about the
+living-room—walls—ceiling—hopefully—desperately—looking for a clue—the
+tiniest clue to support his theory.
+
+“Why are you so sure it is here?” queried Dale.
+
+Brooks explained. “You must remember Fleming was no ordinary defaulter
+and _he_ had no intention of being exiled to a foreign country. He
+wanted to come back here and take his place in the community while I
+was in the pen.”
+
+“But even then—”
+
+He interrupted her. “Listen, dear—” He crossed to the billiard-room
+door, closed it firmly, returned.
+
+“The architect that built this house was an old friend of mine,” he
+said in hushed accents. “We were together in France and you know the
+way fellows get to talking when they’re far away and cut off—” He
+paused, seeing the cruel gleam of the flame throwers—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 Fleming 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?”
+
+“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 blue-print 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.
+
+“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, somewhere, is the
+Hidden Room in the house that Courtleigh 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 already,” she said,
+drooping.
+
+He still strove for an offhand gaiety 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
+unrevealing 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 gently with the golf
+club—afraid to make too much noise and yet anxious to test the wall as
+thoroughly as possible. 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 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 blue-prints 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 sliding 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
+suppers not only did the lights blink threateningly and the thunder
+roll, but a series of spirit raps was certainly to be heard coming from
+the region of the billiard room.
+
+“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 streaming 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.
+
+“There’s a candle on the table, Jack, if I can find the table.” Her
+outstretched hands touched a familiar object. “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.”
+
+Knock—knock—knock—knock the dull, methodical 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 mysterious 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 overheard. “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 receiver 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 stronger. “I
+wouldn’t trouble you but—it’s awfully important. Hold the wire a
+moment.” She put down the phone and made another swift survey of the
+room, listened furtively at the door—all clear! She returned to the
+phone.
+
+“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 Anderson. “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, lighting
+the candle in his hand from the candle on the table.
+
+“You’re not going to stay up all night, are you?” said Dale nervously,
+hoping he would take the hint. But he seemed entirely oblivious of such
+minor considerations as sleep. He took out a cigar.
+
+“Oh, I may doze a bit,” he said. He eyed her with a certain approval.
+She was a darned pretty girl and she looked intelligent. “I suppose you
+have a theory of your own about these intrusions you’ve been having
+here? Or apparently having.”
+
+“I knew nothing about them until tonight.”
+
+“Still,” he persisted conversationally, “you know about them now.” But
+when she remained silent, “Is Miss Van Gorder usually—of a nervous
+temperament? Imagines she sees things, and all that?”
+
+“I don’t think so.” Dale’s voice was strained. Where was Brooks? What
+had happened to him?
+
+Anderson puffed on his cigar, pondering. “Know the Flemings?” he asked.
+
+“I’ve met Mr. Richard Fleming once or twice.”
+
+Something in her tone caused him to glance at her. “Nice fellow?”
+
+“I don’t know him at all well.”
+
+“Know the cashier of the Union Bank?” he shot at her suddenly.
+
+“No!” She strove desperately to make the denial convincing but she
+could not hide the little tremor in her voice.
+
+The detective mused.
+
+“Fellow of good family, I understand,” he said, eyeing her. “Very
+popular. That’s what’s behind most of these bank embezzlements—men
+getting into society and spending more than they make.”
+
+Dale hailed the tinkle of the city telephone with an inward sigh of
+relief. The detective moved to answer 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 without thinking.
+
+“You were using it a few minutes ago?”
+
+She hesitated—what use to deny what she had already 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 acquainted 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 found some letters in
+Bailey’s room which seem to indicate that you were not telling the
+entire truth just now.”
+
+He paused, waiting for her answer. “What letters?” she said wearily.
+
+“From you to Jack Bailey—showing that you had recently become engaged
+to him.”
+
+Dale decided to make a clean breast of it, or as clean a one as she
+dared.
+
+“Very well,” she said in an even voice, “that’s true.”
+
+“Why didn’t you say so before?” There was menace beneath his suavity.
+
+She thought swiftly. Apparent frankness seemed to be the only resource
+left her. She gave him a candid smile.
+
+“It’s been a secret. I haven’t even told my aunt yet.” Now she let
+indignation color her tones. “How can the police be so stupid as to
+accuse Jack Bailey, a young man and about to be married? Do you think
+he would wreck his future like that?”
+
+“Some people wouldn’t call it wrecking a future to lay away a million
+dollars,” said Anderson ominously. He came closer to Dale, fixing her
+with his eyes. “Do you know _where_ Bailey is now?” He spoke slowly and
+menacingly.
+
+She did not flinch.
+
+“No.”
+
+The detective paused.
+
+“Miss Ogden,” he said, still with that hidden threat in his voice, “in
+the last minute or so the Union Bank case and certain things in this
+house have begun to tie up pretty close together. Bailey disappeared
+this morning. Have you heard from him since?”
+
+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 rebelliously.
+
+He was quiet. “Because this case is taking on a new phase.”
+
+“You don’t think I know anything about that money?” 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 momentary, 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, commenced 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 swallowed up in its dark recesses—he closed the door of the
+living-room behind him. The storm was dying away now, but a few flashes
+of lightning still flickered, lighting up the darkness of the deserted
+living-room now and then with a harsh, brief glare.
+
+A lightning flash—a shadow cast abruptly on the shade of one of the
+French windows, to disappear as abruptly as the flash was blotted
+out—the shadow of a man—a prowler—feeling his way through the
+lightning-slashed darkness to the terrace door. The detective? Brooks?
+The Bat? The lightning flash was too brief for any observer to have
+recognized the stealing shape—if any observer had been there.
+
+But the lack of an observer was promptly remedied. Just as the shadowy
+shape reached the terrace door and its shadow-fingers closed over the
+knob, Lizzie entered the deserted living-room on stumbling feet. She
+was carrying a tray of dishes and food—some cold meat on a platter, a
+cup and saucer, a roll, a butter pat—and she walked slowly, with terror
+only one leap behind her and blank darkness ahead.
+
+She had only reached the table and was preparing to deposit her tray
+and beat a shameful retreat, when a sound behind her made her turn. The
+key in the door from the terrace to the alcove had clicked. Paralyzed
+with fright she stared and waited, and the next moment a formless
+thing, a blacker shadow in a world of shadows, passed swiftly in and up
+the small staircase.
+
+But not only a shadow. To Lizzie’s terrified eyes it bore an eye, a
+single gleaming eye, just above the level of the stair rail, and this
+eye was turned on her.
+
+It was too much. She dropped the tray on the table with a crash and
+gave vent to a piercing shriek that would have shamed the siren of a
+fire engine.
+
+Miss Cornelia and Anderson, rushing in from the hall and the billiard
+room respectively, each with a lighted candle, found her gasping and
+clutching at the table for support.
+
+“For the love of heaven, what’s wrong?” cried Miss Cornelia
+irritatedly. The coffeepot she was carrying in her other hand spilled a
+portion of its boiling contents on Lizzie’s shoe and Lizzie screamed
+anew and began to dance up and down on the uninjured foot.
+
+“Oh, my foot—my foot!” she squealed hysterically. “My foot!”
+
+Miss Cornelia tried to shake her back to her senses.
+
+“My patience! Did you yell like that because you stubbed your toe?”
+
+“You scalded it!” cried Lizzie wildly. “It went up the staircase!”
+
+“Your _toe_ went up the staircase?”
+
+“No, no! An eye—an eye as big as a saucer! It ran right up that
+staircase—” She indicated the alcove with a trembling forefinger. Miss
+Cornelia put her coffeepot and her candle down on the table and opened
+her mouth to express her frank opinion of her factotum’s sanity. But
+here the detective took charge.
+
+“Now see here,” he said with some sternness to the quaking Lizzie,
+“stop this racket and tell me what you saw!”
+
+“A ghost!” persisted Lizzie, still hopping around on one leg. “It came
+right through that door and ran up the stairs—oh—” and she seemed
+prepared to scream again as Dale, white-faced, came in from the hall,
+followed by Billy and Brooks, the latter holding still another 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 unsympathetically. She moved up to
+examine the scene of Lizzie’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 returned 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 rappings 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
+and terrified over and over by the shutting off of the electric
+lights.”
+
+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 cheerfully.
+
+“A good night’s sleep and—” he began, but the irrepressible 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 herself to be drawn toward the door and
+the main staircase 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 clambered toward the
+third floor, announced that Lizzie, for some time at least, had been
+removed as an active 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 upstairs 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, in spite of her weariness, 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 candle, “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?”
+
+But Brooks was prepared for him.
+
+“Ordinarily I drive a car,” he said. “Just now I’m working on the place
+here.”
+
+Anderson was observing him closely, with the eyes of a man ransacking
+his memory for a name—a picture. “I’ve seen you somewhere—” he went on
+slowly. “And I’ll—place you before long.” There was a little threat in
+his shrewd scrutiny. He took a step toward Brooks.
+
+“Not in the portrait gallery at headquarters, are you?”
+
+“Not yet.” Brooks’s voice was resentful. Then he remembered his pose
+and his back grew supple, his whole attitude that of the respectful
+servant.
+
+“Well, we slip up now and then,” said the detective slowly. Then,
+apparently, he gave up his search for the name—the pictured face. But
+his manner was still suspicious.
+
+“All right, Brooks,” he said tersely, “if you’re needed in the night,
+you’ll be _called!_”
+
+Brooks bowed. “Very well, sir.” He closed the door softly behind him,
+glad to have escaped as well as he had.
+
+But that he had not entirely lulled the detective’s watchfulness to
+rest was evident as soon as he had gone. Anderson waited a few seconds,
+then moved noiselessly over to the hall door—listened—opened it
+suddenly—closed it again. Then he proceeded to examine the alcove—the
+stairs, where the gleaming eye had wavered like a corpse-candle before
+Lizzie’s affrighted vision. He tested the terrace door and bolted it.
+How much truth had there been in her story? He could not decide, but he
+drew out his revolver nevertheless and gave it a quick inspection to
+see if it was in working order. A smile crept over his face—the smile
+of a man who has dangerous work to do and does not shrink from the
+prospect. He put the revolver back in his pocket and, taking the one
+lighted candle remaining, went out by the hall door, as the storm burst
+forth in fresh fury and the window-panes of the living-room rattled
+before a new reverberation of thunder.
+
+For a moment, in the living-room, except for the thunder, all was
+silence. Then the creak of surreptitious footsteps broke the
+stillness—light footsteps descending the alcove stairs where the
+gleaming eye had passed.
+
+It was Dale slipping out of the house to keep her appointment with
+Richard Fleming. She carried a raincoat over her arm and a pair of
+rubbers in one hand. Her other hand held a candle. By the terrace door
+she paused, unbolted it, glanced out into the streaming night with a
+shiver. Then she came into the living-room and sat down to put on her
+rubbers.
+
+Hardly had she begun to do so when she started up again. A muffled
+knocking sounded at the terrace door. It was ominous and determined,
+and in a panic of terror she rose to her feet. If it was the law, come
+after Jack, what should she do? Or again, suppose it was the Unknown
+who had threatened them with death? Not coherent thoughts these, but
+chaotic, bringing panic with them. Almost unconscious of what she was
+doing, she reached into the drawer beside her, secured the revolver
+there and leveled it at the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+A SHOT IN THE DARK
+
+
+A key clicked in the terrace door—a voice swore muffledly at the rain.
+Dale lowered her revolver slowly. It was Richard Fleming—come to meet
+her here, instead 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 expedient 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 revolver down on the table.
+Fleming perceived her nervousness 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 commonplaces 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 bad.”
+
+She plunged on. “You know the Union Bank closed today.”
+
+He laughed lightly.
+
+“Yes, I know it! I didn’t have anything in it—or any other bank for
+that matter,” he admitted ruefully, “but I hate to see the old thing go
+to smash.”
+
+Dale wondered which angle was best from which to present her appeal.
+
+“Well, even if you haven’t lost anything in this bank failure, a lot of
+your friends have—surely?” she went on.
+
+“I’ll say so!” said Fleming, debonairly. “Beresford is sitting down the
+road in his Packard now writhing with pain!”
+
+Dale hesitated; Fleming’s lightness seemed so incorrigible that, for a
+moment, she was on the verge of giving her project up entirely. Then,
+_Waster or not—he’s the only man who can help us!_ she told herself and
+continued.
+
+“Lots of awfully poor people are going to suffer, too,” she said
+wistfully.
+
+Fleming chuckled, dismissing the poor with a wave of his hand.
+
+“Oh, well, the poor are always in trouble,” he said with airy
+heartlessness. “They specialize in suffering.”
+
+He extracted a monogrammed cigarette from a thin gold case.
+
+“But look here,” he went on, moving closer to Dale, “you didn’t send
+for me to discuss this hypothetical poor depositor, did you? Mind if I
+smoke?”
+
+“No.” He lit his cigarette and puffed at it with enjoyment while Dale
+paused, summoning up her courage. Finally the words came in a rush.
+
+“Mr. Fleming, I’m going to say something rather brutal. Please don’t
+mind. I’m merely—desperate! You see, I happen to be engaged to the
+cashier, Jack Bailey—”
+
+Fleming whistled. “I _see!_ And he’s beat it!”
+
+Dale blazed with indignation.
+
+“He has not! I’m going to tell you something. He’s here, now, in this
+house—” she continued fierily, all her defenses thrown aside. “My aunt
+thinks he’s a new gardener. He is here, Mr. Fleming, because he knows
+he didn’t take the money, and the only person who could have done it
+was—your uncle!”
+
+Dick Fleming dropped his cigarette in a convenient ash tray and crushed
+it out there, absently, not seeming to notice whether it scorched his
+fingers or not. He rose and took a turn about the room. Then he came
+back to Dale.
+
+“That’s a pretty strong indictment to bring against a dead man,” he
+said slowly, seriously.
+
+“It’s true!” Dale insisted stubbornly, giving him glance for glance.
+
+Fleming nodded. “All right.”
+
+He smiled—a smile that Dale didn’t like.
+
+“Suppose it’s true—where do I come in?” he said. “You don’t think I
+know where the money is?”
+
+“No,” admitted Dale, “but I think you might help to find it.”
+
+She went swiftly over to the hall door and listened tensely for an
+instant. Then she came back to Fleming.
+
+“If anybody comes in—you’ve just come to get something of yours,” she
+said in a low voice. He nodded understandingly. She dropped her voice
+still lower.
+
+“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 laughing. “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, uncertain 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-experienced 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 headstrong girl.
+
+She watched him, puzzled, wondering why he made no comment on her last
+statement.
+
+“Do you know where there are any blue-prints of the house?” she asked
+at last.
+
+An odd light glittered in Fleming’s eyes for a moment. Then it
+vanished—he held himself in check—the casual idler again.
+
+“Blue-prints?” He seemed to think it over. “Why—there may be some. Have
+you looked in the old secretary in the library? 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 languor 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 second 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 second—but the third—the bottom
+one—good heavens! He took in the significance of the blurred white
+lines with greedy eyes, his lips opening in a silent exclamation of
+triumph. Then he pondered for an instant, the blue-print itself—was an
+awkward size—bulky—good, he had it! He carefully tore a small portion
+from the third blue-print and was about to stuff it in the inside
+pocket of his dinner jacket when Dale, returning, caught him before he
+had time to conceal his find. She took in the situation at once.
+
+“Oh, you found it!” she said in tones of rejoicing, giving him back the
+key to the secretary. Then, as he still made no move to transfer the
+scrap of blue paper to her, “Please let me have it, Mr. Fleming. I
+_know_ that’s it.”
+
+Dick Fleming’s lips set in a thin line. “Just a moment,” he said,
+putting the table between them with a swift movement. Once more he
+stole a glance at the scrap of paper in his hand by the flickering
+light of the candle. Then he faced Dale boldly.
+
+“Do you suppose, if that money is actually here, that I can simply turn
+this over to you and let you give it to Bailey?” he said. “Every man
+has his price. How do I know that Bailey’s isn’t a million dollars?”
+
+Dale felt as if he had dashed cold water in her face. “What do you mean
+to do with it then?” she said.
+
+Fleming turned the blue-print over in his hand.
+
+“I don’t know,” he said. “What is it you want me to do?”
+
+But by now Dale’s vague distrust in him had grown very definite.
+
+“Aren’t you going to give it to me?”
+
+He put her off. “I’ll have to think about that.” He looked at the
+blue-print again. “So the missing cashier is in this house posing as a
+gardener?” he said with a 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, remembering Jack, turned back to Fleming.
+
+“Give it to the detective and let him search,” she pleaded.
+
+“A detective?” said Fleming startled. “What’s a detective 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 discarded blue-prints and
+threw them on the fire, retaining only the precious scrap in his hand.
+The roll blackened 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 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.
+
+“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 sincere attempt to get away with it?”
+
+Dale summoned all her fortitude.
+
+“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, hurriedly snatching up Miss Cornelia’s
+revolver from the table as she did so, in a last gesture of
+desperation.
+
+“No! No! Give it to me! Give it to me!” and she sprang after him,
+clutching the revolver. He waited for her on the bottom step of the
+stairs, the slight smile still on his face.
+
+Panting breaths in the darkness of the alcove—a short, furious
+scuffle—he had wrested the revolver away from her, but in doing so had
+unguarded the precious blue-print—she snatched at it desperately,
+tearing most of it away, leaving only a corner in his hand. He
+swore—tried to get it back—she jerked away.
+
+Then suddenly a bright shaft of light split the darkness of the alcove
+stairs like a sword, a spot of brilliance centered on Fleming’s face
+like the glare of a flashlight focused from above by an invisible hand.
+For an instant it revealed him—his features distorted with fury—about
+to rush down the stairs again and attack the trembling girl at their
+foot.
+
+A single shot rang out. For a second, the fury on Fleming’s face seemed
+to change to a strange look of bewilderment and surprise.
+
+Then the shaft of light was extinguished as suddenly as the snuffing of
+a candle, and he crumpled forward to the foot of the stairs—struck—lay
+on his face in the darkness, just inside the double doors.
+
+Dale gave a little whimpering cry of horror.
+
+“Oh, no, no, no,” she whispered from a dry throat, automatically
+stuffing her portion of the precious scrap of blue-print into the bosom
+of her dress. She stood frozen, not daring to move, not daring even to
+reach down with her hand and touch the body of Fleming to see if he was
+dead or alive.
+
+A murmur of excited voices sounded from the hall. The door flew open,
+feet stumbled through the darkness—“The noise came from this room!”
+that was Anderson’s voice—“Holy Virgin!” that must be Lizzie—
+
+Even as Dale turned to face the assembled household, 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 likewise completely
+dressed—but Miss Cornelia had evidently 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 Fleming’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 not to confuse his own
+fingerprints with any that might already be on the polished steel. Then
+he looked at Dale. “Who is he?” he said bluntly.
+
+Dale fought hysteria for some seconds before she could speak.
+
+“Richard Fleming—somebody shot him!” she managed to whisper at last.
+
+Anderson took a step toward her.
+
+“What do you mean by somebody?” he said.
+
+The world to Dale turned into a crowd of threatening, accusing eyes—a
+multitude of shadowy voices, shouting, _Guilty! Guilty! Prove that
+you’re innocent—you can’t!_
+
+“I don’t know,” she said wildly. “Somebody on the staircase.”
+
+“Did you see anybody?” Anderson’s voice was as passionless and cold as
+a bar of steel.
+
+“No—but there was a light from somewhere—like a pocket-flash—” She
+could not go on. She saw Fleming’s face before her—furious at
+first—then changing to that strange look of bewildered surprise—she put
+her hands over her eyes to shut the vision out.
+
+Lizzie made a welcome interruption.
+
+“I _told_ you I saw a man go up that staircase!” she wailed, jabbing
+her forefinger in the direction of the alcove stairs.
+
+Miss Cornelia, now recovered from the first shock of the discovery,
+supported her gallantly.
+
+“That’s the only explanation, Mr. Anderson,” she said decidedly.
+
+The detective looked at the stairs—at the terrace door. His eyes made a
+circuit of the room and came back to Fleming’s body. “I’ve been all
+over the house,” he said. “There’s nobody 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 attach 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 practically.
+
+Miss Cornelia made a hopeless little gesture. “Practically every room
+in this house!”
+
+The detective put the receiver to his ear again.
+
+“Just what did you hear?” he said stolidly.
+
+Miss Cornelia’s voice shook.
+
+“Dreadful groans—and what seemed to be an inarticulate effort to
+speak!”
+
+Lizzie drew her gaudy wrapper closer about her shuddering form.
+
+“I’d go somewhere,” she wailed in the voice of a lost soul, “if I only
+had somewhere to go!”
+
+Miss Cornelia quelled her with a glare and turned back to the
+detective.
+
+“Won’t you send these men to investigate—or go yourself?” she said,
+indicating Brooks and Billy. The detective thought swiftly.
+
+“My place is here,” he said. “You two men,” Brooks and Billy moved
+forward to take his orders, “take another look through the house—don’t
+leave the building—I’ll want you pretty soon.”
+
+Brooks—or Jack Bailey, as we may as well call him through the remainder
+of this narrative—started to obey. Then his eye fell on Miss Cornelia’s
+revolver which Anderson had taken from beside Fleming’s body and still
+held clasped in his hand.
+
+“If you’ll give me that revolver—” he began in an offhand tone, hoping
+Anderson would not see through his little ruse. Once wiped clean of
+fingerprints, the revolver would not be such telling evidence against
+Dale Ogden.
+
+But Anderson was not to be caught napping. “That revolver will stay
+where it is,” he said with a grim smile.
+
+Jack Bailey knew better than to try and argue the point, he followed
+Billy reluctantly out of the door, giving Dale a surreptitious glance
+of encouragement and faith as he did so. The Japanese and he mounted to
+the second floor as stealthily as possible, prying into dark corners
+and searching unused rooms for any clue that might betray the source of
+the startling phone call from nowhere. But Bailey’s heart was not in
+the search. His mind kept going back to the figure of Dale—nervous,
+shaken, undergoing the terrors of the third degree at Anderson’s hands.
+She _couldn’t_ have shot Fleming of course, and yet, unless he and
+Billy found something to substantiate her story of how the killing had
+happened, it was her own, unsupported word against a damning mass of
+circumstantial evidence. He plunged with renewed vigor into his quest.
+
+Back in the living-room, as he had feared, Anderson was subjecting Dale
+to a merciless interrogation.
+
+“Now I want the _real_ story!” he began with calculated brutality. “You
+lied before!”
+
+“That’s no tone to use! You’ll only terrify her,” cried Miss Cornelia
+indignantly. The detective paid no attention, his face had hardened, he
+seemed every inch the remorseless sleuthhound of the law. He turned on
+Miss Cornelia for a moment.
+
+“Where were you when this happened?” he said.
+
+“Upstairs in my room.” Miss Cornelia’s tones were icy.
+
+“And you?” badgeringly, to Lizzie.
+
+“In _my_ room,” said the latter pertly, “brushing Miss Cornelia’s
+hair.”
+
+Anderson broke open the revolver and gave a swift 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 admiration.
+
+“You’re a quick thinker,” he said with obvious unbelief 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 menacingly 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 ghastly 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?”
+
+“He’s not at his office; he’s at the Johnsons’,” murmured Dale.
+
+Miss Cornelia took the telephone from Anderson’s hands.
+
+“I’ll get the Johnsons’, Mr. Anderson,” she said firmly. The detective
+seemed about to rebuke her. Then his manner recovered some of its
+former suavity. He relinquished the telephone and turned back toward
+his prey.
+
+“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 Doctor Wells there? No?” Her
+expression was puzzled. “Oh—all right—thank you—good night—”
+
+Meanwhile Anderson had been listening—but thinking as well. Dale saw
+his sharp glance travel over to the fireplace—rest for a moment, with
+an air of discovery, on the fragments of the roll of blue-prints that
+remained unburned among ashes—return. She shut her eyes for a moment,
+trying tensely to summon every atom of shrewdness she possessed to aid
+her.
+
+He was hammering at her with questions again. “When did you take that
+revolver out of the table drawer?”
+
+“When I heard him outside on the terrace,” said Dale promptly and
+truthfully. “I was frightened.”
+
+Lizzie tiptoed over to Miss Cornelia.
+
+“You wanted a detective!” she said in an ironic whisper. “I hope you’re
+happy now you’ve got one!”
+
+Miss Cornelia gave her a look that sent her scuttling back to her
+former post by the door. But nevertheless, internally, she felt
+thoroughly in accord with Lizzie.
+
+Again Anderson’s questions pounded at the rigid Dale, striving to
+pierce her armor of mingled truth and falsehood.
+
+“When Fleming came in, what did he say to you?”
+
+“Just—something about the weather,” said Dale weakly. The whole scene
+was, still too horribly vivid before her eyes for her to furnish a more
+convincing alibi.
+
+“You didn’t have any quarrel with him?”
+
+Dale hesitated.
+
+“No.”
+
+“He just came in that door—said something about the weather—and was
+shot from that staircase. Is that it?” said the detective in tones of
+utter incredulity.
+
+Dale hesitated again. Thus baldly put, her story seemed too flimsy for
+words; she could not even blame Anderson for disbelieving it. And
+yet—what other 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 gratefully 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 magnificent gestures of her
+life.
+
+“Well, even if it is—what has _that_ got to do with it?” she said,
+turning upon Anderson fiercely, all her protective instinct for those
+whom she loved aroused.
+
+Anderson seemed somewhat impressed by the fierceness 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 fragment of blue-print 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 for some time,” he
+said coldly, displaying the half-burned cigarette he had taken from the
+ash tray a moment 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 blue-print?”
+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 _now!_”
+
+_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 mysterious ringing of the
+phone—the groans Miss Cornelia had heard! Were old wives’ tales and
+witches’ fables true after all? Did a power—merciless—evil—exists
+outside 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 blue-print?” 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
+blue-prints of the house.”
+
+The detective pounced eagerly upon her admission.
+
+“_Why_ did you want blue-prints?” 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 blue-prints to do with it?”
+
+She could think of no plausible explanation but the true one.
+
+“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 blue-prints?”
+
+Dale’s nerve was crumbling—breaking—under the repeated, monotonous
+impact of his questions.
+
+“_He_ burned them!” she cried wildly. “I don’t _know_ why!”
+
+The detective paused an instant, then returned to a previous query.
+
+“Then you _didn’t_ locate this Hidden Room?”
+
+Dale’s lips formed a pale “No.”
+
+“Did he?” went on Anderson inexorably.
+
+Dale stared at him, dully—the breaking point had come. Another
+question—another—and she would no longer be able to control herself.
+She would sob out the truth hysterically—that Brooks, the gardener, was
+Jack Bailey, the missing cashier—that the scrap of blue-print hidden in
+the bosom of her dress might unravel the secret of the Hidden
+Room—that—
+
+But just as she felt herself, sucked of strength, beginning to slide
+toward a black, tingling pit of merciful oblivion, Miss Cornelia
+provided a diversion.
+
+“What’s that?” she said in a startled voice.
+
+The detective turned away from his quarry for an instant.
+
+“What’s what?”
+
+“I heard something,” averred Miss Cornelia, staring toward the French
+windows.
+
+All eyes followed the direction of her stare. There was an instant of
+silence.
+
+Then, suddenly, traveling swiftly from right to left across the shades
+of the French windows, there appeared a glowing circle of brilliant
+white light. Inside the circle was a black, distorted shadow—a shadow
+like the shadow of a gigantic black Bat! It was there—then a second
+later, it was gone!
+
+“Oh, my God!” wailed Lizzie from her corner. “It’s the Bat—that’s his
+sign!”
+
+Jack Bailey made a dash for the terrace door. But Miss Cornelia halted
+him peremptorily.
+
+“Wait, Brooks!” She turned to the detective. “Mr. Anderson, you are
+familiar with the sign of the Bat. Did that look like it?”
+
+The detective seemed both puzzled and disturbed. “Well, it looked like
+the shadow of a bat. I’ll say that for it,” he said finally.
+
+On the heels of his words the front door bell began to ring. All turned
+in the direction of the hall.
+
+“I’ll answer that!” said Jack Bailey eagerly.
+
+Miss Cornelia gave him the key to the front door.
+
+“Don’t admit anyone till you know who it is,” she said. Bailey nodded
+and disappeared into the hall. The others waited tensely. Miss
+Cornelia’s hand crept toward the revolver lying on the table where
+Anderson had put it down.
+
+There was the click of an opening door, the noise of a little
+scuffle—then men’s voices raised in an angry dispute. “What do I know
+about a flashlight?” cried an irritated voice. “I haven’t got a
+pocket-flash—take your hands off me!” Bailey’s voice answered the other
+voice, grim, threatening. The scuffle resumed.
+
+Then Doctor Wells burst suddenly into the room, closely followed by
+Bailey. The Doctor’s tie was askew—he looked ruffled and enraged.
+Bailey followed him vigilantly, seeming not quite sure whether to allow
+him to enter or not.
+
+“My dear Miss Van Gorder,” began the Doctor in tones of high dudgeon,
+“won’t you instruct your servants that even if I do make a late call, I
+am not to be received with violence?”
+
+“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 moment 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 directly 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.
+
+“Why—” he said in a voice that mingled astonishment with horror. He
+paused. His glance slowly traversed the circle of silent faces.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+BILLY PRACTICES JIU-JITSU
+
+
+“We have had a very sad occurrence here, Doctor,” said Miss Cornelia
+gently.
+
+The Doctor braced himself.
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Richard Fleming.”
+
+“Richard _Fleming?_” gasped the Doctor in tones of incredulous horror.
+
+“Shot and killed from that staircase,” said Miss Cornelia tonelessly.
+
+The detective demurred.
+
+“Shot and killed, anyhow,” he said in accents of significant omission.
+
+The Doctor knelt beside the huddle on the floor. He removed the fold of
+the raincoat that covered the face of the corpse and stared at the
+dead, blank mask. Till a moment ago, even at the height of his
+irritation with Bailey, he had been blithe and offhand—a man who seemed
+comparatively young for his years. Now Age seemed to fall upon him,
+suddenly, like a gray, clinging dust—he looked stricken and feeble
+under the impact of this unexpected shock.
+
+“Shot and killed from that stairway,” he repeated dully. He rose from
+his knees and glanced at the fatal stairs.
+
+“What was Richard Fleming doing in this house at this hour?” he said.
+
+He spoke to Miss Cornelia but Anderson answered 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 mistress
+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 Doctor Wells.
+
+“I didn’t tell you, Doctor—I sent for a detective this afternoon.”
+Then, with mounting suspicion, “You happened in very opportunely!”
+
+“After I left the Johnsons’ I felt very uneasy,” he explained. “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 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 answer 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, without 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.
+
+“I wish the lights would go out again!” she pattered. “No, I don’t
+neither!” as Miss Cornelia gave the clutching hand a nervous little
+slap.
+
+During the little interlude of comedy, Billy, the Japanese, unwatched
+by the others, had stolen to the French windows, pulled aside a blind,
+looked out. When he turned back to the room his face had lost a portion
+of its Oriental calm—there was suspicion in his eyes. Softly, under
+cover of pretending to arrange the tray of food that lay untouched on
+the table, he possessed himself of the key to the front door,
+unperceived by the rest, and slipped out of the room like a ghost.
+
+Meanwhile the detective confronted Doctor Wells.
+
+“You say, Doctor, that you came back to take these women away from the
+house. Why?”
+
+The Doctor gave him a dignified stare.
+
+“Miss Van Gorder has already explained.”
+
+Miss Cornelia elucidated. “Mr. Anderson has already formed a theory of
+the crime,” she said with a trace of sarcasm in her tones.
+
+The detective turned on her quickly. “I haven’t said that.” He started.
+
+It had come again—tinkling—persistent.—the phone call from nowhere—the
+ringing of the bell of the house telephone!
+
+“The house telephone—again!” breathed Dale. Miss Cornelia made a
+movement to answer the tinkling, inexplicable bell. But Anderson was
+before her.
+
+“I’ll answer that!” he barked. He sprang to the phone.
+
+“Hello—hello—”
+
+All eyes were bent on him nervously—the Doctor’s face, in particular,
+seemed a very study in fear and amazement. He clutched the back of a
+chair to support himself, his hand was the trembling hand of a sick,
+old man.
+
+“Hello—hello—” Anderson swore impatiently. He hung up the phone.
+
+“There’s nobody there!”
+
+Again, a chill breath from another world than ours seemed to brush
+across the faces of the little group in the living-room. Dale,
+sensitive, impressionable, felt a cold, uncanny prickling at the roots
+of her hair.
+
+A light came into Anderson’s eyes. “Where’s that Jap?” he almost
+shouted.
+
+“He just went out,” said Miss Cornelia. The cold fear, the fear of the
+unearthly, subsided from around Dale’s heart, leaving her shaken but
+more at peace.
+
+The detective turned swiftly to the Doctor, as if to put his case
+before the eyes of an unprejudiced witness.
+
+“That Jap rang the phone,” he said decisively. “Miss Van Gorder
+believes that this murder is the culmination of the series of
+mysterious happenings that caused her to send for me. I do not.”
+
+“Then what is the significance of the anonymous letters?” broke in Miss
+Cornelia heatedly. “Of the man Lizzie saw going up the stairs, of the
+attempt to break into this house—of the ringing of that telephone
+bell?”
+
+Anderson replied with one deliberate word.
+
+“Terrorization,” he said.
+
+The Doctor moistened his dry lips in an effort to speak.
+
+“By whom?” he asked.
+
+Anderson’s voice was an icicle.
+
+“I imagine by Miss Van Gorder’s servants. By that woman there—” he
+pointed at Lizzie, who rose indignantly to deny the charge. But he gave
+her no time for denial. He rushed on, “—who probably writes the
+letters,” he continued. “By the gardener—” his pointing finger found
+Bailey “—who may have been the man Lizzie saw slipping up the stairs.
+By the Jap, who goes out and rings the telephone,” he concluded
+triumphantly.
+
+Miss Cornelia seemed unimpressed by his fervor.
+
+“With what object?” she queried smoothly.
+
+“That’s what I’m going to find out!” There was determination in
+Anderson’s reply.
+
+Miss Cornelia sniffed. “Absurd! The butler was in this room when the
+telephone rang for the first time.”
+
+The thrust pierced Anderson’s armor. For once he seemed at a loss. Here
+was something he had omitted from his calculations. But he did not give
+up. He was about to retort when—crash! thud!—the noise of a violent
+struggle in the hall outside drew all eyes to the hall door.
+
+An instant later the door slammed open and a disheveled young man in
+evening clothes was catapulted into the living-room as if slung there
+by a giant’s arm. He tripped and fell to the floor in the center of the
+room. Billy stood in the doorway behind him, inscrutable, arms folded,
+on his face an expression of mild satisfaction as if he were demurely
+pleased with a neat piece of housework, neatly carried out.
+
+The young man picked himself up, brushed off his clothes, sought for
+his hat, which had rolled under the table. Then he turned on Billy
+furiously.
+
+“Damn you—what do you mean by this?”
+
+“Jiu-jitsu,” said Billy, his yellow face quite untroubled. “Pretty good
+stuff. Found on terrace with searchlight,” he added.
+
+“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 impertinence, 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 said.
+
+The young man gave it to her with a little, mocking bow. She turned it
+over, examined it, passed it to Anderson, who examined it also, seeming
+to devote particular attention to the lens. The young man stood puffing
+his cigarette a little nervously while the examination 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 another trail of
+distrust. _He may be a_ LAWYER— she quoted 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 other, frankly. “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.
+
+“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 from it a torn corner of paper....
+
+Still Beresford did not seem to be able to take in what had happened.
+He took another step toward the body.
+
+“Do you mean to say that Dick Fleming—” he began. Anderson silenced him
+with an uplifted hand.
+
+“What have you got there, Doctor?” he said in a still voice.
+
+The Doctor, still on his knees beside the corpse, lifted his head.
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“You took something, just then, out of Fleming’s hand,” said the
+detective.
+
+“I took nothing out of his hand,” said the Doctor firmly.
+
+Anderson’s manner grew peremptory.
+
+“I warn you not to obstruct the course of justice!” he said forcibly.
+“Give it here!”
+
+The Doctor rose slowly, dusting off his knees. His eyes tried to meet
+Anderson’s and failed. He produced a torn corner of blue-print.
+
+“Why, it’s only a scrap of paper, nothing at all,” he said evasively.
+
+Anderson looked at him meaningly.
+
+“Scraps of paper are sometimes very important,” said with a side glance
+at Dale.
+
+Beresford approached the two angrily.
+
+“Look here!” he burst out, “I’ve got a right to know about this thing.
+I brought Fleming over here—and I want to know what happened to him!”
+
+“You don’t have to be a mind reader to know that!” moaned Lizzie,
+overcome.
+
+As usual, her comment went unanswered. Beresford persisted in his
+questions.
+
+“Who killed him? That’s what _I_ want to know!” he continued, nervously
+puffing his cigarette.
+
+“Well, you’re not alone in that,” said Anderson in his grimly humorous
+vein.
+
+The Doctor motioned nervously to them both.
+
+“As the coroner—if Mr. Anderson is satisfied—I suggest that the body be
+taken where I can make a thorough examination,” he said haltingly.
+
+Once more Anderson bent over the shell that had been Richard Fleming.
+He turned the body half-over—let it sink back on its face. For a moment
+he glanced at the corner of the blue-print in his hand, then at the
+Doctor. Then he stood aside.
+
+“All right,” he said laconically.
+
+So Richard Fleming left the room where he had been struck down so
+suddenly and strangely—borne out by Beresford, the Doctor, and Jack
+Bailey. The little procession moved as swiftly and softly as
+circumstances would permit—Anderson followed its passage with watchful
+eyes. Billy went mechanically to pick up the stained rug which the
+detective had kicked aside and carried it off after the body. When the
+burden and its bearers, with Anderson in the rear, reached the doorway
+into the hall, Lizzie shrank before the sight, affrighted, and turned
+toward the alcove while Miss Cornelia stared unseeingly out toward the
+front windows. So, for perhaps a dozen ticks of time Dale was left
+unwatched—and she made the most of her opportunity.
+
+Her fingers fumbled at the bosom of her dress—she took out the
+precious, dangerous fragment of blue-print that Anderson must not find
+in her possession—but where to hide it, before her chance had passed?
+Her eyes fell on the bread roll that had fallen from the detective’s
+supper tray to the floor when Lizzie had seen the gleaming eye on the
+stairs and had lain there unnoticed 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 nodded 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 kitchen 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.
+
+The thought of Billy seemed to bring little solace to Lizzie’s heart.
+
+“That Jap and his jooy-jitsu,” she muttered viciously. “One twist and
+I’d be folded up like a pretzel.”
+
+But Miss Cornelia’s manner was imperative, and Lizzie slowly dragged
+herself kitchenward, yawning and promising the saints repentance of
+every sin she had or had not committed if she were allowed to get there
+without something grabbing at her ankles in the dark corner of the
+hall.
+
+When the door had shut behind her, Anderson turned to Dale, the corner
+of blue-print which he had taken from the Doctor in his hand.
+
+“Now, Miss Ogden,” he said tensely, “I have here a scrap of blue-print
+which was in Dick Fleming’s hand when he was killed. I’ll trouble you
+for the rest of it, if you please!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+“I DIDN’T KILL HIM.”
+
+
+“The rest of it?” queried Dale with a show of bewilderment, silently
+thanking her stars that, for the moment at least, the incriminating
+fragment had passed out of her possession.
+
+Her reply seemed only to infuriate the detective.
+
+“Don’t tell me Fleming started to go out of this house with a blank
+scrap of paper in his hand,” he threatened. “He didn’t start to go out
+at all!”
+
+Dale rose. Was Anderson trying a chance shot in the dark—or had he
+stumbled upon some fresh evidence against her? She could not tell from
+his manner.
+
+“Why do you say that?” she feinted.
+
+“His cap’s there on that table,” said the detective with crushing
+terseness. Dale started. She had not remembered the cap—why hadn’t she
+burned it, concealed it—as she had concealed the blue-print? She passed
+a hand over her forehead wearily.
+
+Miss Cornelia watched her niece.
+
+“It 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 hammered at Dale again. “You and Fleming
+located that room by means of a blue-print 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 displayed 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
+inextricable 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 shuddered, 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 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 expression that they had only cemented his
+growing certainty of her guilt.
+
+“Dale! Be careful what you say!” warned Miss Cornelia 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 understood!
+
+Anderson resumed his grilling.
+
+“Now I mean to find out two things,” he said, advancing upon Dale.
+“_Why_ you did not call for help—and _what_ you have done with that
+blue-print.”
+
+“Suppose I could find that piece of blue-print for you?” said Dale
+desperately. “Would that establish Jack Bailey’s innocence?”
+
+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 dignity. “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 apparently shot from some
+little distance—and I should say from above.”
+
+The detective received this information without the change of a muscle
+in his face. He turned to Beresford—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 friendship 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 incident that had slipped
+his memory, and drew a battered object from his pocket. “I picked this
+up, about a hundred 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 carefully. A man’s
+open-face gold watch, crushed and battered 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 itself. 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 forward to claim it.
+
+“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,” admitted 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 mistress.
+
+“Key?” said Miss Cornelia, startled. “What for?”
+
+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 reasonable 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.”
+
+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. Beresford 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 mystery without Anderson’s interference, started to
+question 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 distinct 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.”
+
+“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 important to a country Doctor than—castor
+oil,” he added, with a little smile.
+
+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 bewilderment. 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 stairs.
+
+“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 uneasily
+for her arrival. He glanced up the stairs—were those her footsteps now?
+He peered more closely into the darkness.
+
+An expression of surprise and apprehension came over his face.
+
+He glanced swiftly at Dale—was she watching him? No—she sat in her
+chair, musing. He turned back toward the stairs and made a frantic,
+insistent gesture—“Go back, go back!” it said, plainer than words,
+to—Something—in the darkness by the head of the stairs. Then his face
+relaxed, he gave a noiseless sigh of relief.
+
+Dale, rousing from her brown study, turned out the floor lamp by the
+table and went over to the main light switch, awaiting Miss Cornelia’s
+signal to plunge the room in darkness. The Doctor stole, another glance
+at her—had his gestures been observed?—apparently not.
+
+Unobserved by either, as both waited tensely for Miss Cornelia’s
+signal, a Hand stole through the broken pane of the shattered French
+window behind their backs and fumbled for the knob which unlocked the
+window-door. It found the catch—unlocked it—the window-door swung open,
+noiselessly—just enough to admit a crouching figure that cramped itself
+uncomfortably behind the settee which Dale and the Doctor had placed to
+barricade those very doors. When it had settled itself, unperceived, in
+its lurking place—the Hand stole out again—closed the window-door,
+relocked it.
+
+Hand or claw? Hand of man or woman or paw of beast? In the name of
+God—_whose hand?_
+
+Miss Cornelia’s voice from the head of the stairs broke the silence.
+
+“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 darkness 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?”
+
+“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 professional 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.
+
+Dale looked at him with horror in her face.
+
+“I didn’t kill him!” she insisted anew. “But, you know the piece of
+blue-print 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
+experienced 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 blue-print, a larger piece—” said Dale
+slowly, “I tore it from him just before—”
+
+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 butler 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.
+
+“But—you oughtn’t to have it in your possession,” he said thoughtfully.
+“Why not let it be burned?”
+
+Dale was on the defensive at once.
+
+“Oh, no! It’s important, it’s vital!” she said decidedly.
+
+The Doctor seemed to consider ways and means of getting the paper.
+
+“The tray is in the dining-room?” he asked.
+
+“Yes,” said Dale.
+
+He thought a moment, then left the room by the hall door. Dale sank
+back in her chair and felt a sense of overpowering relief steal over
+her whole body, as if new life had been poured into her veins. The
+Doctor had been so helpful—why had she not confided in him before? He
+would know what to do with the paper—she would have the benefit of his
+counsel through the rest of this troubled time. For a moment she saw
+herself and Jack, exonerated, their worries at an end, wandering hand
+in hand over the green lawns of Cedarcrest in the cheerful sunlight of
+morning.
+
+Behind her, mockingly, the head of the Unknown concealed behind the
+settee lifted cautiously until, if she had turned, she would have just
+been able to perceive the top of its skull.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+THE BLACKENED BAG
+
+
+As it chanced, she did not turn. The hall door opened—the head behind
+the settee sank down again. Jack Bailey entered, carrying a couple of
+logs of firewood.
+
+Dale moved toward him as soon as he had shut the door.
+
+“Oh, things have gone awfully wrong, haven’t they?” she said with a
+little break in her voice.
+
+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 undertone 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 warningly. “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—she couldn’t bear to have Jack
+misunderstand.
+
+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 before them. “But who in God’s
+name killed him?” he muttered, kneeling before the fire.
+
+“You don’t think it was—Billy?” Dale saw Billy’s face before her for a
+moment, calm, impassive. But he was an Oriental—an alien—his face might
+be just as calm, just as impassive while his hands were still red with
+blood. She shuddered at the thought.
+
+Bailey considered the matter.
+
+“More likely the man Lizzie saw going upstairs,” he said finally.
+“But—I’ve been all over the upper floors.”
+
+“And—nothing?” breathed Dale.
+
+“Nothing.” Bailey’s voice had an accent of dour finality. “Dale, do you
+think that—” he began.
+
+Some instinct warned the girl that they were not to continue their
+conversation uninterrupted. “Be careful!” she breathed, as footsteps
+sounded in the hall. Bailey nodded and turned back to his pretense of
+mending the fire. Dale moved away from him slowly.
+
+The door opened and Miss Cornelia entered, her black knitting-bag in
+her hand, on her face a demure little smile of triumph. She closed the
+door carefully behind her and began to speak at once.
+
+“Well, Mr. Alopecia—Urticaria—Rubeola—otherwise _Bailey!_” she said in
+tones of the greatest satisfaction, addressing herself to Bailey’s
+rigid back. Bailey jumped to his feet mechanically at her mention of
+his name. He and Dale exchanged one swift and hopeless glance of utter
+defeat.
+
+“I wish,” proceeded Miss Cornelia, obviously enjoying the situation to
+the full, “I wish you young people would remember that even if hair and
+teeth have fallen out at sixty the mind still functions.”
+
+She pulled out a cabinet photograph from the depths of her
+knitting-bag.
+
+“His photograph—sitting on your dresser!” she chided 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 satisfaction, relapsed into a chair.
+
+“My dear child,” said the indomitable lady, with a sharp glance at
+Bailey’s bewildered face, “I have employed 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
+reduced 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 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 blue-print, 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 considered that piece of paper the final link
+in the evidence against _her!_”
+
+“But she could have no _motive!_” stammered Bailey, distraught, still
+failing to grasp the significance of Dale’s refusal.
+
+“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.
+
+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 puzzled by the
+intensity of her aunt’s manner.
+
+“_What?_” almost shouted Miss Cornelia. Dale explained.
+
+“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 rather 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 Fleming 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 be in it.”
+
+Again, for the millionth time, indeed it seemed to her, she reviewed
+the circumstances of the crime.
+
+“Could anyone have overheard?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+
+The question had rung in Dale’s ears ever since she had come to her
+senses after the firing of the shot and seen Fleming’s body stark on
+the floor of the alcove.
+
+“I don’t know,” she said. “We were very cautious.”
+
+“You don’t know where this room is?”
+
+“No, I never saw the print. Upstairs somewhere, for he—”
+
+“Upstairs! Then the thing to do, if we can get that paper from the
+Doctor, is to locate the room at once.”
+
+Jack Bailey did not recognize the direction where her thoughts were
+tending. It seemed terrible to him that anyone should devote a thought
+to the money while Dale was still in danger.
+
+“What does the money matter now?” he broke in somewhat irritably.
+“We’ve got to save _her!_” and his eyes went to Dale.
+
+Miss Cornelia gave him an ineffable look of weary patience.
+
+“The money matters a great deal,” she said, sensibly. “Someone was in
+this house on the same errand as Richard Fleming. After all,” she went
+on with a tinge of irony, “the course of reasoning that you followed,
+Mr. Bailey, is not necessarily unique.”
+
+She rose.
+
+“Somebody else may have suspected that Courtleigh Fleming robbed his
+own bank,” she said thoughtfully. Her eye fell on the Doctor’s
+professional bag—she seemed to consider it as if it were a strange sort
+of animal.
+
+“Find the man who followed _your_ course of reasoning,” she ended, with
+a stare at Bailey, “and you have found the murderer.”
+
+“With that reasoning you might suspect _me!_” said the latter a trifle
+touchily.
+
+Miss Cornelia did not give an inch.
+
+“I have,” she said. Dale shot a swift, sympathetic glance at her lover,
+another less sympathetic and more indignant at her aunt. Miss Cornelia
+smiled.
+
+“However, I now suspect somebody else,” she said. They waited for her
+to reveal the name of the suspect but she kept her own counsel. By now
+she had entirely given up confidence if not in the probity at least in
+the intelligence of all persons, male or female, under the age of
+sixty-five.
+
+She rang the bell for Billy. But Dale was still worrying over the
+possible effects of the confidence she had given Doctor Wells.
+
+“Then you think the Doctor may give this paper to Mr. Anderson?” she
+asked.
+
+“He may or he may not. It is entirely possible that he may elect to
+search for this room himself! He may even already have gone upstairs!”
+
+She moved quickly to the door and glanced across toward the
+dining-room, but so far apparently all was safe. The Doctor was at the
+table making a pretense of drinking a cup of coffee and Billy was in
+close attendance. That the Doctor already had the paper she was
+certain; it was the use he intended to make of it that was her concern.
+
+She signaled to the Jap and he came out into the hall. Beresford, she
+learned, was still in the kitchen 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 extraordinary force of character. Most of Miss Cornelia’s
+contemporaries would have called for a quiet ambulance 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 Doctors, detectives, dubious noises,
+or even the Bat himself.
+
+The last of the Van Gorder spinsters turned to Bailey now.
+
+“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 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 conversation 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 entered 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 protected now. And
+besides, why should this person remain in the house? The murder is
+done, the police are here.”
+
+“True,” he said. “I only thought—”
+
+But a knocking at the terrace door interrupted him. While the attention
+of the others was turned in that direction Dale, less cynical than her
+aunt, made a small plea to him and realized before she had finished
+with it that the Doctor too had his price.
+
+“Doctor—_did you get it?_” she repeated, drawing the Doctor aside.
+
+The Doctor gave her a look of apparent bewilderment.
+
+“My dear child,” he said softly, “are you _sure_ that you put it
+there?”
+
+Dale felt as if she had received a blow in the face.
+
+“Why, yes—I—” she began in tones of utter dismay. Then she stopped. The
+Doctor’s seeming bewilderment was too pat—too plausible. Of course she
+was sure—and, though possible, it seemed extremely unlikely that anyone
+else could have discovered the hiding-place of the blue-print in the
+few moments that had elapsed between the time when Billy took the tray
+from the room and the time when the Doctor ostensibly went to find it.
+A cold wave of distrust swept over her—she turned away from the Doctor
+silently.
+
+Meanwhile Anderson had entered, slamming the terrace-door behind him.
+
+“I couldn’t find anybody!” he said in an irritated voice. “I think that
+Jap’s crazy.”
+
+The Doctor began to struggle into his topcoat, avoiding any look at
+Dale.
+
+“Well,” he said, “I believe I’ve fulfilled all the legal requirements—I
+think I must be going.” He turned toward the door but the detective
+halted him.
+
+“Doctor,” he said, “did you ever hear Courtleigh Fleming mention a
+Hidden Room in this house?”
+
+If the Doctor started, the movement passed apparently unnoted by
+Anderson. And his reply was coolly made.
+
+“No—and I knew him rather well.”
+
+“You don’t think then,” persisted the detective, “that such a room and
+the money in it could be the motive for this crime?”
+
+The Doctor’s voice grew a little curt.
+
+“I don’t believe Courtleigh Fleming robbed his own bank, if that’s what
+you mean,” he said with nicely calculated emphasis, real or feigned. He
+crossed over to get his bag and spoke to Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Well, Miss Van Gorder,” he said, picking up the bag by its blackened
+handle, “I can’t wish you a comfortable night but I can wish you a
+quiet one.”
+
+Miss Cornelia watched him silently. As he turned to go, she spoke.
+
+“We’re all of us a little upset, naturally,” she confessed. “Perhaps
+you could write a prescription—a sleeping-powder or a bromide of some
+sort.”
+
+“Why, certainly,” agreed the Doctor at once. He turned back. Miss
+Cornelia seemed pleased.
+
+“I hoped you would,” she said with a little tremble in her voice such
+as might easily occur in the voice of a nervous old lady. “Oh, yes,
+here’s paper and a pencil,” as the Doctor fumbled in a pocket.
+
+The Doctor took the sheet of paper she proffered and, using the side of
+his bag as a pad, began to write out the prescription.
+
+“I don’t generally advise these drugs,” he said, looking 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,” decided 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 assured 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 another 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 passing. 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 submissively, with the air of a well-trained servant accepting
+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, Mr. Anderson?”
+
+She started for the alcove.
+
+“I’ve examined that staircase,” said the detective.
+
+“Not with me!” insisted Miss Cornelia. “I have something to show you.”
+
+He followed her unwillingly up the stairs, his whole manner seeming to
+betray a complete lack of confidence 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, began to move. The French window-door opened—a
+stealthy figure passed through it silently to be swallowed 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 gropingly, horribly, through the broken pane,
+refasten the lock.
+
+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 living-room, she knew she had
+failed. She followed 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 respect. “But just what does
+it prove?”
+
+“It points down,” said Miss Cornelia, still glowing with the memory of
+the whistle of surprise the detective 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.
+
+“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 blue-print,
+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 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 blue-print and I want
+it!”
+
+“You want it to connect her with the murder,” parried 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 blue-print—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 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 Anderson 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 announced, “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.”
+
+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 existence 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 anonymous threats—and,
+second, by urging me to leave. Someone, who very possibly entered this
+house tonight shortly before the murder and slipped up that staircase!”
+
+The detective had listened to her outburst with unusual 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?”
+
+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 narrowing, 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
+_open_—purposely, as I now realize, in order that he might return
+later. You may also recall that Doctor Wells took a scrap of paper from
+Richard Fleming’s hand and tried to conceal it—why did he do _that?_”
+
+She paused for a second. Then she changed her tone a little.
+
+“May I ask you to look at this?”
+
+She displayed the piece of paper on which Doctor Wells had started to
+write the prescription for her sleeping-powders—and now her strategy
+with the doctor’s bag and the soot Jack Bailey had got from the
+fireplace stood revealed. A sharp, black imprint of a man’s right
+thumb—the Doctor’s—stood out on the paper below the broken line of
+writing. The Doctor had not noticed the staining of his hand by the
+blackened bag handle, or, noticing, had thought nothing of it—but the
+blackened bag handle had been a trap, and he had left an indelible
+piece of evidence behind him. It now remained to test the value of this
+evidence.
+
+Miss Cornelia handed the paper to Anderson silently. But her eyes were
+bright with pardonable vanity at the success of her little piece of
+strategy.
+
+“A thumb-print,” muttered Anderson. “Whose is it?”
+
+“Doctor Wells,” said Miss Cornelia with what might have been a little
+crow of triumph in anyone not a Van Gorder.
+
+Anderson looked thoughtful. Then he felt in his pocket for a magnifying
+glass, failed to find it, muttered, and took the reading glass Miss
+Cornelia offered him.
+
+“Try this,” she said. “My whole case hangs on my conviction that that
+print and the one out there on the stair rail are the same.”
+
+He put down the paper and smiled at her ironically. “Your case!” he
+said. “You don’t really believe you need a detective at all, do you?”
+
+“I will only say that so far your views and mine have failed to
+coincide. If I am right about that fingerprint, then you may be right
+about my private opinion.”
+
+And on that he went out, rather grimly, paper and reading glass in
+hand, to make his comparison.
+
+It was then that Beresford came in, a new and slightly rigid Beresford,
+and crossed to her at once.
+
+“Miss Van Gorder,” he said, all the flippancy gone from his voice, “may
+I ask you to make an excuse and call your gardener here?”
+
+Dale started uncontrollably at the ominous words, but Miss Cornelia
+betrayed no emotion except in the increased rapidity of her knitting.
+
+“The gardener? Certainly, if you’ll touch that bell,” she said
+pleasantly.
+
+Beresford stalked to the bell and rang it. The three waited—Dale in an
+agony of suspense.
+
+The detective re-entered the room by the alcove stairs, his mien
+unfathomable by any of the anxious glances that sought him out at once.
+
+“It’s no good, Miss Van Gorder,” he said quietly. “The prints are not
+the same.”
+
+“Not the same!” gasped Miss Cornelia, unwilling to believe her ears.
+
+Anderson laid down the paper and the reading glass with a little
+gesture of dismissal.
+
+“If you think I’m mistaken, I’ll leave it to any unprejudiced person or
+your own eyesight. Thumbprints never lie,” he said in a flat,
+convincing voice. Miss Cornelia stared at him—disappointment written
+large on 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 collapse 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 Doctor 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 retort. 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.
+
+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 submissively, 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?” he asked brusquely, manner
+tense.
+
+Miss Cornelia made one final attempt at evasion. “Why should that
+interest you?” she parried, answering 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. “Now, I know who he is.”
+
+“Who is he?”
+
+Bailey straightened up. He had lost his game with Chance—and the loss,
+coming when it did, seemed bitterer than even he had thought it could
+be, but before they took him away he would speak his mind.
+
+“It’s all right, Beresford,” he said with a fatigue so deep that it
+colored his voice like flakes of iron-rust. “I know you think you’re
+doing your duty—but I wish to God you could have _restrained_ your
+sense of duty for about three hours more!”
+
+“To let you get away?” the young lawyer sneered, unconvinced.
+
+“No,” said Bailey with quiet defiance. “To let me finish what I came
+here to do.”
+
+“Don’t you think you have done enough?” Beresford’s voice flicked him
+with righteous scorn, no less telling because of its youthfulness. He
+turned back to the detective soberly enough.
+
+“This man has imposed upon the credulity of these women, I am quite
+sure without their knowledge,” he said with a trace of his former
+gallantry. “He is Bailey of the Union Bank, the missing cashier.”
+
+The detective slowly put down his cigar on an ash tray.
+
+“That’s the truth, is it?” he demanded.
+
+Dale’s hand flew to her breast. If Jack would only deny it—even now!
+But even as she thought this, she realized the uselessness of any such
+denial.
+
+Bailey realized it, too.
+
+“It’s true, all right,” he admitted hopelessly. He closed his eyes for
+a moment. Let them come with the handcuffs now and get it over—every
+moment the scene dragged out was a moment of unnecessary torture for
+Dale.
+
+But Beresford had not finished with his indictment. “I accuse him not
+only of the thing he is wanted for, but of the murder of Richard
+Fleming!” he said fiercely, glaring at Bailey as if only a youthful
+horror of making a scene before Dale and Miss Cornelia held him back
+from striking the latter down where he stood.
+
+Bailey’s eyes snapped open. He took a threatening step toward his
+accuser. “You lie!” he said in a hoarse, violent voice.
+
+Anderson crossed between them, just as conflict seemed inevitable.
+
+“_You_ knew this?” he queried sharply in Dale’s direction.
+
+Dale set her lips in a line. She did not answer.
+
+He turned to Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Did you?”
+
+“Yes,” admitted the latter quietly, her knitting needles at last at
+rest. “I knew he was Mr. Bailey if that is all you mean.”
+
+The quietness of her answer seemed to infuriate the detective.
+
+“Quite a pretty little conspiracy,” he said. “How in the name of God do
+you expect me to do anything with the entire household united against
+me? Tell me that.”
+
+“Exactly,” said Miss Cornelia. “And if we are united against you, why
+should I have sent for you? You might tell me that, too.”
+
+He turned on Bailey savagely.
+
+“What did you mean by that ‘three hours more’?” he demanded.
+
+“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 various 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 already 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
+conflict. Too many nerve-shaking things had already happened 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 uncertainly 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, “admit him. If it’s
+anybody else, call me.”
+
+Billy grinned acquiescently and departed. The detective 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, through his pockets, probing for
+concealed weapons. Then, slowly drawing a pair of handcuffs from his
+pocket, he prepared to put them on Bailey’s wrists.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+THE SIGN OF THE BAT
+
+
+But Dale could bear it no longer. The sight of her lover, beaten,
+submissive, his head bowed, waiting obediently like a common criminal
+for the detective to lock his wrists in steel broke down her last
+defenses. She rushed into the center of the room, between Bailey and
+the detective, her eyes wild with terror, her words stumbling over each
+other in her eagerness to get them out.
+
+“Oh, no! I can’t stand it! I’ll tell you everything!” she cried
+frenziedly. “He got to the foot of the stair-case—Richard Fleming, I
+mean,” she was facing the detective now, “and he had the blue-print
+you’ve been talking about. I had told him Jack Bailey was here as the
+gardener and he said if I screamed he would tell that. I was desperate.
+I threatened him with the revolver but he took it from me. Then when I
+tore the blue-print from him—he was shot—from the stairs—”
+
+“By Bailey!” interjected Beresford angrily.
+
+“I didn’t even know he was in the house!” Bailey’s answer was as
+instant as it was hot. Meanwhile, the Doctor had entered the room,
+hardly noticed, in the middle of Dale’s confession, and now stood
+watching the scene intently from a post by the door.
+
+“What did you do with the blue-print?” The detective’s voice beat at
+Dale like a whip.
+
+“I put it first in the neck of my dress—” she faltered. “Then, when I
+found you were watching me, I hid it somewhere else.”
+
+Her eyes fell on the Doctor. She saw his hand steal out toward the knob
+of the door. Was he going to run away on some pretext before she could
+finish her story? She gave a sigh of relief when Billy, re-entering
+with the key to the front door, blocked any such attempt at escape.
+
+Mechanically she watched Billy cross to the table, lay the key upon it,
+and return to the hall without so much as a glance at the tense,
+suspicious circle of faces focused upon herself and her lover.
+
+“I put it—somewhere else,” she repeated, her eyes going back to the
+Doctor.
+
+“Did you give it to Bailey?”
+
+“No—I hid it—and then I told where it was—to the Doctor—” Dale swayed
+on her feet. All turned surprisedly toward the Doctor. Miss Cornelia
+rose from her chair.
+
+The Doctor bore the battery of eyes unflinchingly. “That’s rather
+inaccurate,” he said, with a tight little smile. “You told me where you
+had placed it, but when I went to look for it, it was gone.”
+
+“Are you quite sure of that?” queried Miss Cornelia acidly.
+
+“Absolutely,” he said. He ignored the rest of the party, addressing
+himself directly to Anderson.
+
+“She said she had hidden it inside one of the rolls that were on the
+tray on that table,” he continued in tones of easy explanation,
+approaching the table as he did so, and tapping it with the box of
+sleeping-powders he had brought for Miss Cornelia.
+
+“She was in such distress that I finally went to look for it. It wasn’t
+there.”
+
+“Do you realize the significance of this paper?” Anderson 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 Cornelia, 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 gesture 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 blue-print!” 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 blue-print,”
+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 nothing 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 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 Fleming was killed!”
+
+“No, Anderson, I’ll swear I was not!” The Doctor might be acting, but
+if he was, it was incomparable acting. 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 unmistakable that even
+Anderson’s shrewd brain was puzzled by it. But he persisted in his
+attempt to wring a confession 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 furtive 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?”
+
+“No. Certainly not.” But again the Doctor’s air had that odd mixture of
+truth and falsehood in it.
+
+The detective paused for an instant.
+
+“Let me see your key ring!” he ordered. The Doctor passed it over
+silently. The detective glanced at the keys—then, suddenly, his
+revolver glittered in his other hand.
+
+The Doctor watched him anxiously. A puff of wind rattled the panes of
+the French windows. The storm, quieted for a while, was gathering its
+strength for a fresh unleashing of its dogs of thunder.
+
+The detective stepped to the terrace door, opened it, and then quietly
+proceeded to try the Doctor’s keys in the lock. Thus located he was out
+of visual range, and Wells took advantage of it at once. He moved
+swiftly toward the fireplace, extracting the missing piece of
+blue-print from an inside pocket as he did so. The secret the
+blue-print guarded was already graven on his mind in indelible
+characters—now he would destroy all evidence that it had ever been in
+his possession and bluff through the rest of the situation as best he
+might.
+
+He threw the paper toward the flames with a nervous gesture of relief.
+But for once his cunning failed—the throw was too hurried to be sure
+and the light scrap of paper wavered and settled to the floor just
+outside the fireplace. The Doctor swore noiselessly and stooped to pick
+it up and make sure of its destruction. But he was not quick enough.
+Through the window the detective had seen the incident, and the next
+moment the Doctor heard his voice bark behind him. He turned, and
+stared at the leveled muzzle of Anderson’s revolver.
+
+“Hands up and stand back!” he commanded.
+
+As he did so Anderson picked up the paper and a 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
+moment’s notice.
+
+“Behind a fireplace, eh?” he muttered. “What fireplace? 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 blue-print. Experience should have taught him never to
+underrate an adversary, 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 promptitude 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 despair 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 exhaustion, held the limp form of an unconscious
+man in his arms.
+
+He lowered the detective to the floor and straightened 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 elements 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 blue-print—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 detective 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 billiard 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 the door. He quickly transferred it,
+locked the billiard room door from the outside, and pocketed the key.
+For a second he stood by the center table in the living-room,
+recovering his breath and trying to straighten his rumpled clothing.
+Then he crossed cautiously into the alcove and started to pad up the
+alcove stairs, his face white and strained with excitement and hope.
+
+And it was then that there happened one of the most dramatic events of
+the night. One which was to remain, for the next hour or so, as
+bewildering as the murder and which, had it come a few moments sooner
+or a few moments later, would have entirely changed the course of
+events.
+
+It was preceded by a desperate hammering on the door of the terrace. It
+halted the Doctor on his way upstairs, drew Beresford on a run into the
+living-room, and even reached the bedrooms of the women up above.
+
+“My God! What’s that?” Beresford panted.
+
+The Doctor indicated the door. It was too late now. Already he could
+hear Miss Cornelia’s voice above; it was only a question of a short
+time until Anderson in the billiard room revived and would try to make
+his plight known. And in the brief moment of that résumé of his
+position the knocking came again. But feebler, as though the suppliant
+outside had exhausted his strength.
+
+As Beresford drew his revolver and moved to the door, Miss Cornelia
+came in, followed by Lizzie.
+
+“It’s the Bat,” Lizzie announced mournfully. “Good-by, Miss Neily.
+Good-by, everybody. I saw his hand, all covered with blood. He’s had a
+good night for sure!”
+
+But they ignored her. And Beresford flung open the door.
+
+Just what they had expected, what figure of horror or of fear they
+waited for, no one can say. But there was no horror and no fear; only
+unutterable amazement as an unknown man, in torn and muddied garments,
+with a streak of dried blood seaming his forehead like a scar, fell
+through the open doorway into Beresford’s arms.
+
+“Good God!” muttered Beresford, dropping his revolver to catch the
+strange burden. For a moment the Unknown lay in his arms like a corpse.
+Then he straightened dizzily, staggered into the room, took a few steps
+toward the table, and fell prostrate upon his face—at the end of his
+strength.
+
+“Doctor!” gasped Miss Cornelia dazedly and the Doctor, whatever guilt
+lay on his conscience, responded at once to the call of his profession.
+
+He bent over the Unknown Man—the physician once more—and made a brief
+examination.
+
+“He’s fainted!” he said, rising. “Struck on the head, too.”
+
+“But _who is he?_” faltered Miss Cornelia.
+
+“I never saw him before,” said the Doctor. It was obvious that he spoke
+the truth. “Does anyone recognize him?”
+
+All crowded about the Unknown, trying to read the riddle of his
+identity. Miss Cornelia rapidly revised her first impressions of the
+stranger. When he had first fallen through the doorway into Beresford’s
+arms she had not known what to think. Now, in the brighter light of the
+living-room she saw that the still face, beneath its mask of dirt and
+dried blood, was strong and fairly youthful; if the man were a
+criminal, he belonged, like the Bat, to the upper fringes of the world
+of crime. She noted mechanically that his hands and feet had been tied,
+ends of frayed rope still dangled from his wrists and ankles. And that
+terrible injury on his head! She shuddered and closed her eyes.
+
+“Does anyone recognize him?” repeated the Doctor but one by one the
+others shook their heads. Crook, casual tramp, or honest laborer
+unexpectedly caught in the sinister toils of the Cedarcrest affair—his
+identity seemed a mystery to one and all.
+
+“Is he badly hurt?” asked Miss Cornelia, shuddering again.
+
+“It’s hard to say,” answered the Doctor. “I think not.” The Unknown
+stirred feebly—made an effort to sit up. Beresford and the Doctor
+caught him under the arms and helped him to his feet. He stood there
+swaying, a blank expression on his face.
+
+“A chair!” said the Doctor quickly. “Ah—” He helped the strange figure
+to sit down and bent over him again.
+
+“You’re all right now, my friend,” he said in his best tones of
+professional cheeriness. “Dizzy a bit, aren’t you?”
+
+The Unknown rubbed his wrists where his bonds had cut them. He made an
+effort to speak.
+
+“Water!” he said in a low voice.
+
+The Doctor gestured to Billy. “Get some water—or whisky—if there is
+any—that’d be better.”
+
+“There’s a flask of whisky in my room, Billy,” added Miss Cornelia
+helpfully.
+
+“Now, my man,” continued the Doctor to the Unknown. “You’re in the
+hands of friends. Brace up and tell us what happened!”
+
+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 Anderson, bound and gagged in the billiard
+room, had not yet returned to consciousness.
+
+Unobserved by all except Miss Cornelia, the mention of the detective’s
+name had caused a strange reaction 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 shoulders 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.
+
+“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 beneath lowered eyelids.
+But when she looked at him, his face was blank again.
+
+“Why doesn’t somebody ask his name?” queried Dale, and, “Where the
+devil is that detective?” muttered Beresford, almost in the same
+instant.
+
+Neither question was answered, and Beresford, increasingly uneasy at
+the continued absence of Anderson, 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—it was in vain.
+
+“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 moment, 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, incomprehensible 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.
+
+“Now see here!” he said sharply. “You’ve seen something! 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.
+
+“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.
+
+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—as 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 somebody. Never mind the
+revolver, I have one!” called Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Righto!” called Beresford cheerily in reply. He found the candle, lit
+it—
+
+The party blinked at each other for a moment, still unable quite to
+co-ordinate their thoughts.
+
+Bailey rattled the knob of the door into the hall.
+
+“This door’s locked, too!” he said with increasing puzzlement. A gasp
+went over the group. They were locked in the room while some devilment
+was going on in the rest of the house. That they knew. But what it
+might be, what form it might take, they had not the remotest idea. They
+were too distracted to notice the injured man, now alert in his chair,
+or the Doctor’s odd attitude of listening, above the rattle and banging
+of the storm.
+
+But it was not until Miss Cornelia took the candle and proceeded toward
+the hall door to examine it that the full horror of the situation burst
+upon them.
+
+Neatly fastened to the white panel of the door, chest high and hardly
+more than just dead, was the body of a bat.
+
+Of what happened thereafter no one afterward remembered the details. To
+be shut in there at the mercy of one who knew no mercy was intolerable.
+It was left for Miss Cornelia to remember her own revolver, lying
+unnoticed on the table since the crime earlier in the evening, and to
+suggest its use in shattering the lock. Just what they had expected
+when the door was finally opened they did not know. But the house was
+quiet and in order; no new horror faced them in the hall; their candle
+revealed no bloody figure, their ears heard no unearthly sound.
+
+Slowly they began to breathe normally once more. After that they began
+to search the house. Since no room was apparently immune from danger,
+the men made no protest when the women insisted on accompanying them.
+And as time went on and chamber after chamber was discovered empty and
+undisturbed, gradually 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 Unknown, 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 remained unbroken, the
+conviction grew on them that the Bat had in this manner achieved his
+object and departed; had done his work, signed it after his usual
+fashion, and gone.
+
+And thus were matters when Miss Cornelia, happening on the attic
+staircase with Lizzie at her heels, decided 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 them in the trunk room, a dusty, dingy apartment lined
+with high closets along the walls—the floor littered with an
+incongruous assortment of attic objects—two battered trunks, a clothes
+hamper, an old sewing machine, a broken-backed kitchen chair, two
+dilapidated suitcases and a shabby satchel that might once have been a
+woman’s dressing case—in one corner a grimy fireplace in which,
+obviously, no fire had been lighted for years.
+
+But he also found Miss Cornelia holding her candle to the floor and
+staring at something there.
+
+“Candle grease!” she said sharply, staring at a line of white spots by
+the window. She stooped and touched the spots with an exploratory
+finger.
+
+“Fresh candle grease! Now who do you suppose did that? Do you remember
+how Mr. Gillette, in _Sherlock Holmes_, when he—”
+
+Her voice trailed off. She stooped and followed the trail of the candle
+grease away from the window, ingeniously trying to copy the shrewd,
+piercing gaze of Mr. Gillette as she remembered him in his most famous
+role.
+
+“It leads straight to the fireplace!” she murmured in tones of
+Sherlockian gravity. Bailey repressed an involuntary smile. But her
+next words gave him genuine food for thought.
+
+She stared at the mantel of the fireplace accusingly. “It’s been going
+through my mind for the last few minutes that no chimney flue runs up
+this side of the house!” she said.
+
+Bailey stared. “Then why the fireplace?”
+
+“That’s what I’m going to find out!” said the spinster grimly. She
+started to rap the mantel, testing it for 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 shut the door behind you.”
+
+Dale entered, turning 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 begun 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 into
+the room, revealing behind a dark, hollow cubbyhole, 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 presence 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 inarticulate, 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 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 heavily. “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 appeared and reappeared the doorway was
+faintly outlined. On this outline she kept her eyes fixed, by way of
+comfort, and thus passed the next few moments. She felt weak and dizzy
+and entirely despairing.
+
+Then—the outline was not so clear. She had heard nothing but there was
+something in the doorway. It stood there, formless, diabolical, and
+then she saw what was happening. It was closing the door. Afterward she
+was mercifully not to remember what came next; the figure was perhaps
+intent on what was going on outside, or her own movements may have been
+as silent as its own. That she got into the mantel-room and even
+partially closed it behind her is certain, and that her description of
+what followed is fairly accurate is borne out by the facts as known.
+
+The Bat was working rapidly. She heard his quick, nervous movements;
+apparently he had come back for something and secured it, for now he
+moved again toward the door. But he was too late; they were returning
+that way. She heard him mutter something and quickly turn the key in
+the lock. Then he seemed to run toward the window, and for some reason
+to recoil from it.
+
+The next instant she realized that he was coming toward the
+mantel-room, that he intended to hide in it. There was no doubt in her
+mind as to his identity. It was the Bat, and in a moment more he would
+be shut in there with her.
+
+She tried to scream and could not, and the next instant, when the Bat
+leaped into concealment beside her, she was in a dead faint on the
+floor.
+
+Bailey meanwhile had crawled out on the roof and was carefully
+searching it. But other things were happening also. A disinterested
+observer could have seen very soon why the Bat had abandoned the window
+as a means of egress.
+
+Almost before the mantel had swung to behind the archcriminal, the top
+of a tall pruning ladder had appeared at the window and by its
+quivering showed that someone was climbing up, rung by rung.
+Unsuspiciously enough he came on, pausing at the top to flash a light
+into the room, and then cautiously swinging a leg over the sill. It was
+the Doctor. He gave a low whistle but there was no reply, save that,
+had he seen it, the mantel swung out an inch or two. Perhaps he was
+never so near death as at that moment but that instant of irresolution
+on his part saved him, for by coming into the room he had taken himself
+out of range.
+
+Even then he was very close to destruction, for after a brief pause and
+a second rather puzzled survey of the room, he started toward the
+mantel itself. Only the rattle of the doorknob stopped him, and a call
+from outside.
+
+“Dale!” called Bailey’s voice from the corridor. “Dale!”
+
+“Dale! Dale! The door’s locked!” cried Miss Cornelia.
+
+The Doctor hesitated. The call came again. “Dale! Dale!” and Bailey
+pounded on the door as if he meant to break it down.
+
+The Doctor made up his mind.
+
+“Wait a moment!” he called. He stepped to the door and unlocked it.
+Bailey hurled himself into the room, followed by Miss Cornelia with her
+candle. Lizzie stood in the doorway, timidly, ready to leap for safety
+at a moment’s notice.
+
+“Why did you lock that door?” said Bailey angrily, threatening the
+Doctor.
+
+“But I didn’t,” said the latter, truthfully enough. Bailey made a
+movement of irritation. Then a glance about the room informed him of
+the amazing, the incredible fact. Dale was not there! She had
+disappeared!
+
+“You—you,” he stammered at the Doctor. “Where’s Miss Ogden? What have
+you done with her?”
+
+The Doctor was equally baffled.
+
+“Done with her?” he said indignantly. “I don’t know what you’re talking
+about, I haven’t seen her!”
+
+“Then you didn’t lock that door?” Bailey menaced him.
+
+The Doctor’s denial was firm.
+
+“Absolutely not. I was coming through the window when I heard your
+voice at the door!”
+
+Bailey’s eyes leaped to the window—yes—a ladder was there—the Doctor
+might be speaking the truth after all. But if so, how and why had Dale
+disappeared?
+
+The Doctor’s admission of his manner of entrance did not make Lizzie
+any the happier.
+
+“In at the window—just like a bat!” she muttered in shaking tones. She
+would not have stayed in the doorway if she had not been afraid to move
+anywhere else.
+
+“I saw lights up here from outside,” continued the Doctor easily. “And
+I thought—”
+
+Miss Cornelia interrupted him. She had set down her candle and laid the
+revolver on the top of the clothes hamper and now stood gazing at the
+mantel-fireplace.
+
+“The mantel’s—closed!” she said.
+
+The Doctor stared. So the secret of the Hidden Room was a secret no
+longer. He saw ruin gaping before him—a bottomless abyss. “Damnation!”
+he cursed impotently under his breath.
+
+Bailey turned on him savagely.
+
+“Did you shut that mantel?”
+
+“No!”
+
+“I’ll see whether you shut it or not!” Bailey leaped toward the
+fireplace. “Dale! Dale!” he called desperately, leaning against the
+mantel. His fingers groped for the knob that worked the mechanism of
+the hidden entrance.
+
+The Doctor picked up the single lighted candle from the hamper, as if
+to throw more light on Bailey’s task. Bailey’s fingers found the knob.
+He turned it. The mantel began to swing out into the room.
+
+As it did so the Doctor deliberately snuffed out the light of the
+candle he held, leaving the room in abrupt and obliterating darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+ANDERSON MAKES AN ARREST
+
+
+“Doctor, why did you put out that candle?” Miss Cornelia’s voice cut
+the blackness like a knife.
+
+“I didn’t—I—”
+
+“You did—I saw you do it.”
+
+The brief exchange of accusation and denial took but an instant of
+time, as the mantel swung wide open. The next instant there was a rush
+of feet across the floor, from the fireplace—the shock of a collision
+between two bodies—the sound of a heavy fall.
+
+“What was that?” queried Bailey dazedly, with a feeling as if some
+great winged creature had brushed at him and passed.
+
+Lizzie answered from the doorway.
+
+“Oh, oh!” she groaned in stricken accents. “Somebody 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, holding 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!”
+
+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 startled 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 triumphantly, 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
+entrance 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
+unobserved.
+
+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.
+
+“I didn’t shut her in if that’s what you mean!” he said defiantly.
+“There was _someone_ shut in there with her!” He gestured at the Hidden
+Room. “Ask these people here.”
+
+Miss Cornelia caught him up at once.
+
+“The fact remains, Doctor,” she said, her voice cold with anger, “that
+we left her here alone. When we came back you were here. The corridor
+door was locked, and she was in that room—unconscious!”
+
+She moved forward to throw the light of her candle on the Hidden Room
+as the detective passed into it, gave it a swift professional glance,
+and stepped out again. But she had not finished her story by any means.
+
+“As we opened that door,” she continued to the detective, tapping the
+false mantel, “the Doctor deliberately extinguished our only candle!”
+
+“Do you know who was in that room?” queried the detective fiercely,
+wheeling on the Doctor.
+
+But the latter had evidently made up his mind to cling stubbornly to a
+policy of complete denial.
+
+“No,” he said sullenly. “I didn’t put out the candle. It fell. And I
+didn’t lock that door into the hall. I found it locked!”
+
+A sigh of relief from Bailey now centered everyone’s attention on
+himself and Dale. At last the girl was recovering from the shock of her
+terrible experience and regaining consciousness. Her eyelids fluttered,
+closed again, opened once more. She tried to sit up, weakly, clinging
+to Bailey’s shoulder. The color returned to her cheeks, the stupor left
+her eyes.
+
+She gave the Hidden Room a hunted little glance and then shuddered
+violently.
+
+“Please close that awful door,” she said in a tremulous voice. “I don’t
+want to see it again.”
+
+The detective went silently to close the iron doors. “What happened to
+you? Can’t you remember?” faltered Bailey, on his knees at her side.
+
+The shadow of an old terror lay on the girl’s face, “I was in here
+alone in the dark,” she began slowly—“Then, as I looked at the doorway
+there, I saw there was somebody there. He came in and closed the door.
+I didn’t know what to do, so I slipped in—there, and after a while I
+knew he was coming in too, for he couldn’t get out. Then I must have
+fainted.”
+
+“There was nothing about the figure that you recognized?”
+
+“No. Nothing.”
+
+“But we know it was the Bat,” put in Miss Cornelia. The detective
+laughed sardonically. The old duel of opposing theories between the two
+seemed about to recommence.
+
+“Still harping on the Bat!” he said, with a little sneer, Miss Cornelia
+stuck to her guns.
+
+“I have every reason to believe that the Bat is in this house,” she
+said.
+
+The detective gave another jarring, mirthless laugh. “And that he took
+the Union Bank money out of the safe, I suppose?” he jeered. “No, Miss
+Van Gorder.”
+
+He wheeled on the Doctor now.
+
+“Ask the Doctor who took the Union Bank money out of that safe!” he
+thundered. “Ask the Doctor who attacked me downstairs in the
+living-room, knocked me senseless, and locked me in the billiard room!”
+
+There was an astounded silence. The detective added a parting shot to
+his indictment of the Doctor.
+
+“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 Cornelia 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 downstairs? 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 going to find it!”
+
+This last taunt seemed to goad the Doctor beyond endurance.
+
+“Good God!” he shouted recklessly. “Do you suppose if I knew where it
+is, I’d be here? I’ve had plenty of chances to get away! No, you can’t
+pin anything on me, Anderson! It isn’t criminal to have known that room
+is here.”
+
+He paused, trembling with anger and, curiously enough, with an anger
+that seemed at least half sincere.
+
+“Oh, don’t be so damned virtuous!” said the detective brutally. “Maybe
+you haven’t been upstairs but—unless I miss my guess, you know who
+was!”
+
+The Doctor’s face changed a little.
+
+“What about Richard Fleming?” persisted the detective scornfully.
+
+The Doctor drew himself up.
+
+“I never killed him!” he said so impressively that even Bailey’s faith
+in his guilt was shaken. “I don’t even own a revolver!”
+
+The detective alone maintained his attitude unchanged.
+
+“You come with me, Wells,” he ordered, with a jerk of his thumb toward
+the door. “This time I’ll do the locking up.”
+
+The Doctor, head bowed, prepared to obey. The detective took up a
+candle to light their path. Then he turned to the others for a moment.
+
+“Better get the young lady to bed,” he said with a gruff kindliness of
+manner. “I think that I can promise you a quiet night from now on.”
+
+“I’m glad you think so, Mr. Anderson!” Miss Cornelia insisted on the
+last word. The detective ignored the satiric twist of her speech,
+motioned the Doctor out ahead of him, and followed. The faint glow of
+his candle flickered a moment and vanished toward the stairs.
+
+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
+interrupted 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.”
+
+“But, if he could do that,” she persisted, “he could have got away,
+too. There are trellises and porches. Instead 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 returned with the elderberry wine.
+Apparently Miss Cornelia was to be like the man who repaired the clock:
+she still had certain things left over.
+
+For Lizzie announced that the Unknown was ranging the second floor
+hall. From the time they had escaped from the living-room this man had
+not been seen or thought of, but that he was a part of the mystery
+there could be no doubt. It flashed over Miss Cornelia 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 Unknown was
+moving through the house below particularly comforting.
+
+“He may be dazed, or he may not,” he said. “Personally, this is not a
+time to trust anybody.”
+
+Beresford knew nothing of what had just occurred, and now seeing Bailey
+he favored him with an ugly glance.
+
+“In the absence of Anderson, Bailey,” he added, “I don’t propose to
+trust you too far. I’m making it my business from now on to see that
+you don’t try to get away. Get that?”
+
+But Bailey heard him without particular resentment.
+
+“All right,” he said. “But I’ll tell you this. Anderson is here and has
+arrested the Doctor. Keep your eye on me, if you think it’s your duty,
+but don’t talk to me as if I were a criminal. You don’t know that yet.”
+
+“The Doctor!” Beresford gasped.
+
+But Miss Cornelia’s keen ears had heard a sound outside and her eyes
+were focused on the door.
+
+“That doorknob is moving,” she said in a hushed voice.
+
+Beresford moved to the door and jerked it violently open.
+
+The butler, Billy, almost pitched into the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+THE BAT STILL FLIES
+
+
+He stepped back in the doorway, looked out, then turned to them again.
+
+“I come in, please?” he said pathetically, his hands quivering. “I not
+like to stay in dark.”
+
+Miss Cornelia took pity on him.
+
+“Come in, Billy, of course. What is it? Anything the matter?”
+
+Billy glanced about nervously.
+
+“Man with sore head.”
+
+“What about him?”
+
+“Act very strange.” Again Billy’s slim hands trembled.
+
+Beresford broke in. “The man who fell into the room downstairs?”
+
+Billy nodded.
+
+“Yes. On second floor, walking around.”
+
+Beresford smiled, a bit smugly.
+
+“I told you!” he said to Miss Cornelia. “I didn’t think he was as dazed
+as he pretended to be.”
+
+Miss Cornelia, too, had been pondering the problem of the Unknown. She
+reached a swift decision. If he were what he pretended to be—a dazed
+wanderer, he could do them no harm. If he were not—a little strategy
+properly employed might unravel the whole mystery.
+
+“Bring him up here, Billy,” she said, turning to the butler.
+
+Billy started to obey. But the darkness of the corridor seemed to
+appall him anew the moment he took a step toward it.
+
+“You give candle, please?” he asked with a pleading expression. “Don’t
+like dark.”
+
+Miss Cornelia handed him one of the two precious candles. Then his
+present terror reminded her of that one other occasion when she had
+seen him lose completely his stoic Oriental calm.
+
+“Billy,” she queried, “what did you see when you came running down the
+stairs before we were locked in, down below?”
+
+The candle shook like a reed in Billy’s grasp.
+
+“Nothing!” he gasped with obvious untruth, though 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 nothing 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
+suddenly out of the blackness came a sound.
+
+Something was flapping and thumping around the room.
+
+“That’s damned odd!” 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 horrified shriek.
+
+“It’s in my hair!” she screamed madly. “It’s in my hair!”
+
+The next instant Bailey gave a triumphant cry.
+
+“I’ve got it! It’s a bat!”
+
+Lizzie sank to her knees, still moaning, and Bailey carried the cause
+of the trouble over to the window and threw it out.
+
+But the result of the absurd incident was a further destruction of
+their morale. Even Beresford, so far calm with the quiet of the
+virtuous onlooker, was now pallid in the light of the matches they
+successively lighted. And onto this strained situation came at last
+Billy and the Unknown.
+
+The Unknown still wore his air of dazed bewilderment, true or feigned,
+but at least he was now able to walk without support. They stared at
+him, at his tattered, muddy garments, at the threads of rope still
+clinging to his ankles—and wondered. He returned their stares vacantly.
+
+“Come in,” began Miss Cornelia. “Sit down.” He obeyed both commands
+docilely enough.
+
+“Are you better now?”
+
+“Somewhat.” His words still came very slowly.
+
+“Billy—you can go.”
+
+“I stay, please!” said Billy wistfully, making no movement to leave.
+His gesture toward the darkness of the corridor spoke louder than
+words.
+
+Bailey watched him, suspicion dawning in his eyes. He could not account
+for the butler’s inexplicable terror of being left alone.
+
+“Anderson intimated that the Doctor had an accomplice in this house,”
+he said, crossing to Billy and taking him by the arm. “Why isn’t this
+the man?” Billy cringed away. “Please, no,” he begged pitifully.
+
+Bailey turned him around so that he faced the Hidden Room.
+
+“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, looking 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 attempted 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. 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, apparently 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 continued 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?”
+
+The Unknown wet his lips with his tongue, painfully.
+
+“I—broke—out—of—the—garage,” he said at length. This was unexpected. A
+general movement of interest ran over the group.
+
+“How did you get there?” Beresford took his turn as questioner.
+
+The Unknown shook his head, so slowly and deliberately that Miss
+Cornelia’s fingers itched to shake him in spite of his injuries.
+
+“I—don’t—know.”
+
+“Have you been robbed?” queried Bailey with keen suspicion.
+
+The Unknown mumbled something unintelligible. Then he seemed to get
+command of his tongue again.
+
+“Everything gone—out of—my pockets,” he said.
+
+“Including your watch?” pursued Bailey, remembering the watch that
+Beresford had found in the grounds.
+
+The Unknown would neither affirm nor deny.
+
+“If—I—had—a—watch—it’s gone,” he said with maddening deliberation. “All
+my—papers—are gone.”
+
+Miss Cornelia pounced upon this last statement like a cat upon a mouse.
+
+“How do you know you _had_ papers?” she asked sharply.
+
+For the first time the faintest flicker of a smile seemed to appear for
+a moment on the Unknown’s features. Then it vanished as abruptly as it
+had come.
+
+“Most men—carry papers—don’t they?” he asked, staring blindly in front
+of him. “I’m dazed—but—my mind’s—all—right. If you—ask
+me—I—think—I’m—d-damned funny!”
+
+He gave the ghost of a chuckle. Bailey and Beresford exchanged glances.
+
+“Did you ring the house phone?” insisted Miss 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 Unknown’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 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. Curious, 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 Anderson’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 Unknown’s face for any
+involuntary movement of betrayal.
+
+But the Unknown made no such movement. He gazed at Anderson, apparently
+with the greatest bewilderment, then his eyes cleared, he seemed to be
+about to remember who the detective was.
+
+“You’re—the—Doctor—I—saw—downstairs—aren’t you?” he said innocently.
+The detective set his jaw. He started off on a new tack.
+
+“Does this belong to you?” he said suddenly, plucking from his pocket
+the battered gold watch that Beresford had found and waving it before
+the Unknown’s blank face.
+
+The Unknown stared at it a moment, as a child might stare at a new toy,
+with no gleam of recognition. Then—
+
+“Maybe,” he admitted. “I—don’t—know.” His voice trailed off. He fell
+back against Bailey’s arm.
+
+Miss Cornelia gave a little shiver. The third degree in reality was
+less pleasant to watch than it had been to read about in the pages of
+her favorite detective stories.
+
+“He’s evidently been attacked,” she said, turning to Anderson. “He
+claims to have recovered consciousness in the garage, where he was tied
+hand and foot!”
+
+“He does, eh?” said the detective heavily. He glared at the Unknown.
+“If you’ll give me five minutes alone with him, I’ll get the _truth_
+out of him!” he promised.
+
+A look of swift alarm swept over the Unknown’s face at the words,
+unperceived by any except Miss Cornelia. The others started obediently
+to yield to the detective’s behest and leave him alone with his
+prisoner. 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 vocabulary,” 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 departure.
+
+“Suppose I tell you that there are certain facts that you have
+overlooked?” she said slowly.
+
+“Still on the trail!” muttered the detective sardonically. 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!”
+
+“Hustle—you men! He may be armed!”
+
+“Righto—coming!”
+
+And following Miss Cornelia’s lead, Jack Bailey, Anderson, Beresford,
+and Billy dashed out into the corridor, leaving Dale and the frightened
+Lizzie alone with the Unknown.
+
+“And _I’d_ run if my legs would!” Lizzie despaired.
+
+“Hush!” said Dale, her ears strained for sounds of conflict. Lizzie,
+creeping closer to her for comfort, stumbled over one of the Unknown’s
+feet and promptly set up a new wail.
+
+“How do we know this fellow right here isn’t _the Bat?_” she asked in a
+blood-chilling whisper, nearly stabbing the unfortunate Unknown in the
+eye with her thumb as she pointed at him. The Unknown was either too
+dazed or too crafty to make any answer. His silence confirmed Lizzie’s
+worst suspicions. She fairly hugged the floor and began to pray in a
+whisper.
+
+Miss Cornelia re-entered cautiously with her candle, closing the door
+gently behind her as she came.
+
+“What did you see?” gasped Dale.
+
+Miss Cornelia smiled broadly.
+
+“I didn’t see anything,” she admitted with the greatest calm. “I had to
+get that dratted detective out of the room before I assassinated him.”
+
+“Nobody went through the skylight?” said Dale incredulously.
+
+“They have now,” answered Miss Cornelia with obvious satisfaction. “The
+whole outfit of them.”
+
+She stole a glance at the veiled eyes of the Unknown. He was lying
+limply back in his chair, as if the excitement had been too much for
+him—and yet she could have sworn she had seen him leap to his feet,
+like a 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 wherein 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_ behind that safe, a man’s
+felt hat!”
+
+So this was the discovery she had hinted of to Anderson 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.
+
+Miss Cornelia laid her revolver down on the hamper again. The vacant
+eyes of the Unknown caught the movement.
+
+Bailey swung in through the window, panting a little from his
+exertions.
+
+“The man Lizzie saw drop from the skylight undoubtedly 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
+muttered, 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 intent stare of a baby or an idiot fascinated by a
+glittering 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.
+
+“This one is locked—and the key’s gone,” she announced. 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 Cornelia’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 finally Miss
+Cornelia bethought herself of a key from the other closet doors.
+
+Dale and Lizzie on one side—Bailey on the other—collected 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 attention one devotes to a piece of
+furniture. Even Lizzie’s eyes were now fixed on the locked closet. And
+the Unknown 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 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,
+cautiously 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 triumphantly 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 moment. Then he pulled
+himself together. He turned to Miss Van Gorder.
+
+“Miss Cornelia, I think we have found the ghost the Jap butler saw,” he
+said slowly. “How are your nerves?”
+
+Miss Cornelia extended a hand that did not tremble.
+
+“Give me the candle.”
+
+He did so. She went to the closet and opened the door.
+
+Whatever faults Miss Cornelia may have had, lack of courage was not one
+of them—or the ability to withstand a stunning mental shock. Had it
+been otherwise she might well have crumpled to the floor, as if struck
+down by an invisible hammer, the moment the closet door swung open
+before her.
+
+Huddled on the floor of the closet was the body of a man. So crudely
+had he been crammed into this hiding-place that he lay twisted and
+bent. And as if to add to the horror of the moment one arm, released
+from its confinement, now slipped and slid out into the floor of the
+room.
+
+Miss Cornelia’s voice sounded strange to her own ears when finally she
+spoke.
+
+“But who is it?”
+
+“It is—or was—Courtleigh Fleming,” said Bailey dully.
+
+“But how can it be? Mr. Fleming died two weeks ago. I—”
+
+“He died in this house sometime tonight. The body is still warm.”
+
+“But who killed him? The Bat?”
+
+“Isn’t it likely that the Doctor did it? The man who has been his
+accomplice all along? Who probably bought a cadaver out West and buried
+it with honors 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, “probably 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.
+
+“Wells tried to get out of the house tonight with that blue-print.
+_Why?_ Because he knew the moment we got it, we’d come up here—and
+Fleming was here.”
+
+“Perfectly true,” nodded Miss Cornelia. “And then?”
+
+“Old Fleming killed Dick and Wells killed Fleming,” said Bailey
+succinctly. “You can’t get away from it!”
+
+But Miss Cornelia still shook her head. The explanation was too
+mechanical. It laid too little emphasis on the characters of those most
+concerned.
+
+“No,” she said. “No. The Doctor isn’t a murderer. He’s as puzzled as we
+are about some things. He and Courtleigh Fleming were working
+together—but remember this—Doctor Wells was locked in the living-room
+with us. He’d been trying to get up the stairs all evening and failed
+every time.”
+
+But Bailey was as convinced of the truth of his theory as she of hers.
+
+“He was here ten minutes ago—locked in this room,” he said with a
+glance at the ladder up which the doctor had ascended.
+
+“I’ll grant you that,” said Miss Cornelia. “But—” She thought back
+swiftly. “But at the same time an Unknown Masked Man was locked in that
+mantel-room with Dale. The Doctor put out the candle when you opened
+that Hidden Room. _Why? Because he thought Courtleigh Fleming was
+hiding there!_” Now the missing pieces of her puzzle were falling into
+their places with a vengeance. “But at this moment,” she continued,
+“the Doctor believes that Fleming has made his escape! No—we haven’t
+solved the mystery yet. There’s another element—an _unknown_ element,”
+her eyes rested for a moment upon the Unknown, “and that element 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 detective!” 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 books in that
+hamper.”
+
+Bailey picked up one of the cheap paper novels and read its title
+aloud, with a wry smile.
+
+“_Little Rosebud’s Lover, Or The Cruel Revenge_, by Laura Jean—”
+
+“That’s mine!” said Lizzie promptly. “Oh, Miss Neily, I tell you this
+house is haunted. I left that book in my satchel along with _Wedded But
+No Wife_ and now—”
+
+“Where’s your satchel?” snapped Miss Cornelia, her eyes gleaming.
+
+“Where’s my satchel?” mumbled Lizzie, staring about as best she could.
+“I don’t see it. If that wretch has stolen my satchel—!”
+
+“Where did you leave it?”
+
+“Up here. Right in this room. It was a new satchel too. I’ll have the
+law on him, that’s what I’ll do.”
+
+“Isn’t that your satchel, Lizzie?” asked Miss Cornelia, indicating a
+battered bag in a dark corner of shadows above the window.
+
+“Yes’m,” she admitted. But she did not dare approach very close to the
+recovered bag. It might bite her!
+
+“Put it there on the hamper,” ordered Miss Cornelia.
+
+“I’m scared to touch it!” moaned Lizzie. “It may have a bomb in it!”
+
+She took up the bag between finger and thumb and, holding it with the
+care she would have bestowed upon a bottle of nitroglycerin, carried it
+over to the hamper and set it down. Then she backed away from it, ready
+to leap for the door at a moment’s warning.
+
+Miss Cornelia started for the satchel. Then she remembered. She turned
+to Bailey.
+
+“You open it,” she said graciously. “If the money’s there—you’re the
+one who ought to find it.”
+
+Bailey gave her a look of gratitude. Then, smiling at Dale
+encouragingly, he crossed over to the satchel, Dale at his heels. Miss
+Cornelia watched him fumble at the catch of the bag—even Lizzie drew
+closer. For a moment even the Unknown was forgotten.
+
+Bailey gave a triumphant cry.
+
+“The money’s here!”
+
+“Oh, thank God!” sobbed Dale.
+
+It was an emotional moment. It seemed to have penetrated even through
+the haze enveloping the injured man in his chair. Slowly he got up,
+like a man who has been waiting for his moment, and now that it had
+come was in no hurry about it. With equal deliberation he drew the
+revolver and took a step forward. And at that instant a red glare
+appeared outside the open window and overhead could be heard the feet
+of the searchers, running.
+
+“Fire!” screamed Lizzie, pointing to the window, even as Beresford’s
+voice from the roof rang out in a shout. “The garage is burning!”
+
+They turned toward the door to escape, but a strange and menacing
+figure blocked their way.
+
+It was the Unknown—no longer the bewildered stranger who had stumbled
+in through the living-room door—but a man with every faculty of mind
+and body alert and the light of a deadly purpose in his eyes. He
+covered the group with Miss Cornelia’s revolver.
+
+“This door is locked and the key is in my pocket!” he said in a savage
+voice as the red light at the window grew yet more vivid and muffled
+cries and tramplings from overhead betokened universal confusion and
+alarm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+“HE IS—THE BAT!”
+
+
+Lizzie opened her mouth to scream. But for once she did not carry out
+her purpose.
+
+“Not a sound out of _you!_” warned the Unknown brutally, almost jabbing
+the revolver into her ribs. He wheeled on Bailey.
+
+“Close that satchel,” he commanded, “and put it back where you found
+it!”
+
+Bailey’s fist closed. He took a step toward his captor.
+
+“_You_—” he began in a furious voice. But the steely glint in the eyes
+of the Unknown was enough to give any man pause.
+
+“Jack!” pleaded Dale. Bailey halted.
+
+“Do what he tells you!” Miss Cornelia insisted, her voice shaking.
+
+A brave man may be willing to fight with odds a hundred to one—but only
+a fool will rush on certain death. Reluctantly, dejectedly, Bailey
+obeyed—stuffed the money back in the satchel and replaced the latter in
+its corner of shadows near the window.
+
+“It’s the Bat—it’s the Bat!” whispered Lizzie eerily, and, for once her
+gloomy prophecies seemed to be in a fair way of justification, for
+“Blow out that candle!” commanded the Unknown sternly, and, after a
+moment of hesitation on Miss Cornelia’s part, the room was again
+plunged in darkness except for the red glow at the window.
+
+This finished Lizzie for the evening. She spoke from a dry throat.
+
+“I’m going to scream!” she sobbed hysterically. “I can’t keep it back!”
+
+But at last she had encountered someone who had no patience with her
+vagaries.
+
+“Put that woman in the mantel-room and shut her up!” ordered the
+Unknown, the muzzle of his revolver emphasizing his words with a savage
+little movement.
+
+Bailey took Lizzie under the arms and started to execute the order. But
+the sometime colleen from Kerry did not depart without one Parthian
+arrow.
+
+“Don’t shove,” she said in tones of the greatest dignity as she
+stumbled into the Hidden Room. “I’m damn glad to go!”
+
+The iron doors shut behind her. Bailey watched the Unknown intently.
+One moment of relaxed vigilance and—
+
+But though the Unknown was unlocking the door with his left hand the
+revolver in his right hand was as steady as a rock. He seemed to listen
+for a moment at the crack of the door.
+
+“Not a sound if you value your lives!” he warned again, he shepherded
+them away from the direction of the window with his revolver.
+
+“In a moment or two,” he said in a hushed, taut voice, “a man will come
+into this room, either through the door or by that window—the man who
+started the fire to draw you out of this house.”
+
+Bailey threw aside all pride in his concern for Dale’s safety.
+
+“For God’s sake, don’t keep these women here!” he pleaded in low, tense
+tones.
+
+The Unknown seemed to tower above him like a destroying angel.
+
+“Keep them here where we can watch them!” he whispered with fierce
+impatience. “Don’t you understand? 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.
+And at first it did even that very slowly.
+
+“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 diminishing 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
+flashlight picked it out.
+
+In an instant the Unknown and Bailey were upon him. There was a short,
+ferocious struggle in the darkness—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 bracelets,” commanded the
+Unknown in tones of terse triumph. 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. Double
+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.
+
+“_I’m_ Anderson,” he said. “This man has been impersonating 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
+headquarters?”
+
+The Bat allowed himself a little sardonic smile.
+
+“I’ll tell you that when I—” he began, then, suddenly, made his last
+bid for freedom. With one swift, desperate 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.
+
+Miss Cornelia smiled. She broke open the revolver, five loaded shells
+fell from it to the floor. The Bat stared at her—then stared
+incredulously at the bullets.
+
+“You see,” she said, “I, too, have a little imagination!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+QUITE A COLLECTION
+
+
+An hour or so later in a living-room whose terrors had departed, Miss
+Cornelia, her niece, and Jack Bailey were gathered before a roaring
+fire. The local police had come and gone; the bodies of Courtleigh
+Fleming and his nephew had been removed to the mortuary; Beresford had
+returned to his home, though under summons as a material witness; the
+Bat, under heavy guard, had gone off under charge of the detective. As
+for Doctor Wells, he too was under arrest, and a broken man, though,
+considering the fact that Courtleigh Fleming had been throughout the
+prime mover in the conspiracy, he might escape with a comparatively
+light sentence. In a little while the newspapermen of all the great
+journals would be at the door—but for a moment the sorely tried group
+at Cedarcrest enjoyed a temporary respite and they made the best of it
+while they could.
+
+The fire burned brightly and the lovers, hand in hand, sat before it.
+But Miss Cornelia, birdlike and brisk, sat upright on a chair near by
+and relived the greatest triumph of her life while she knitted with
+automatic precision.
+
+“Knit two, purl two,” she would say, and then would wander once more
+back to the subject in hand. Out behind the flower garden the ruins of
+the garage and her beloved car were still smoldering; a cool night wind
+came through the broken windowpane where not so long before the bloody
+hand of the injured detective had intruded itself. On the door to the
+hall, still fastened as the Bat had left it, was the pathetic little
+creature with which the Bat had signed a job—for once, before he had
+completed it.
+
+But calmly and dispassionately Miss Cornelia worked out the crossword
+puzzle of the evening and announced her results.
+
+“It is all clear,” she said. “Of course the Doctor had the blue-print.
+And the Bat tried to get it from him. Then when the Doctor had stunned
+him and locked him in the billiard room, the Bat still had the key and
+unlocked his own handcuffs. After that he had only to get out of a
+window and shut us in here.”
+
+And again:
+
+“He had probably trailed the real detective all the way from town and
+attacked him where Mr. Beresford found the watch.”
+
+Once, too, she harkened back to the anonymous letters—
+
+“It must have been a blow to the Doctor and Courtleigh Fleming when
+they found me settled in the house!” She smiled grimly. “And when their
+letters failed to dislodge me.”
+
+But it was the Bat who held her interest; his daring assumption of the
+detective’s identity, his searching of the house ostensibly for their
+safety but in reality for the treasure, and that one moment of
+irresolution when he did not shoot the Doctor at the top of the ladder.
+And thereafter lost his chance—
+
+It somehow weakened her terrified admiration for him, but she had
+nothing but acclaim for the escape he had made from the Hidden Room
+itself.
+
+“That took brains,” she said. “Cold, hard brains. To dash out of that
+room and down the stairs, pull off his mask and pick up a candle, and
+then to come calmly back to the trunk room again and accuse the
+Doctor—that took real ability. But I dread to think what would have
+happened when he asked us all to go out and leave him alone with the
+real Anderson!”
+
+It was after two o’clock when she finally sent the young people off to
+get some needed sleep but she herself was still bright-eyed and
+wide-awake.
+
+When Lizzie came at last to coax and scold her into bed, she was
+sitting happily at the table surrounded by divers small articles which
+she was handling with an almost childlike zest. A clipping about the
+Bat from the evening newspaper; a piece of paper on which was a
+well-defined fingerprint; a revolver and a heap of five shells; a small
+very dead bat; the anonymous warnings, including the stone in which the
+last one had been wrapped; a battered and broken watch, somehow left
+behind; a dried and broken dinner roll; and the box of sedative powders
+brought by Doctor Wells.
+
+Lizzie came over to the table and surveyed her grimly.
+
+“You see, Lizzie, it’s quite a collection. I’m going to take them and—”
+
+But Lizzie bent over the table and picked up the box of powders.
+
+“No, ma’am,” she said with extreme finality. “You are not. You are
+going to take these and go to bed.”
+
+And Miss Cornelia did.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAT ***
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