diff options
Diffstat (limited to '2019-h/2019-h.htm')
| -rw-r--r-- | 2019-h/2019-h.htm | 13519 |
1 files changed, 13519 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/2019-h/2019-h.htm b/2019-h/2019-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d919ff0 --- /dev/null +++ b/2019-h/2019-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,13519 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Bat, by Stephen Vincent Benét, Avery Hopwood, and Mary Roberts Rinehart</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Bat, by Stephen Vincent Benét, Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Bat</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart<br /> + Ghostwritten by Stephen Vincent Benét</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January, 1999 [eBook #2019]<br /> +[Most recently updated: April 2, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAT ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>The Bat</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER ONE. THE SHADOW OF THE BAT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER TWO. THE INDOMITABLE MISS VAN GORDER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER THREE. PISTOL PRACTICE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER FOUR. THE STORM GATHERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER FIVE. ALOPECIA AND RUBEOLA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER SIX. DETECTIVE ANDERSON TAKES CHARGE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER SEVEN. CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER EIGHT. THE GLEAMING EYE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER NINE. A SHOT IN THE DARK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER TEN. THE PHONE CALL FROM NOWHERE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER ELEVEN. BILLY PRACTICES JIU-JITSU</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER TWELVE. “I DIDN’T KILL HIM.”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE BLACKENED BAG</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER FOURTEEN. HANDCUFFS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER FIFTEEN. THE SIGN OF THE BAT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER SIXTEEN. THE HIDDEN ROOM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. ANDERSON MAKES AN ARREST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. THE BAT STILL FLIES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER NINETEEN. MURDER ON MURDER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER TWENTY. “HE IS—THE BAT!”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. QUITE A COLLECTION</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>THE BAT</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER ONE<br/> +THE SHADOW OF THE BAT</h2> + +<p> +“You’ve <i>got</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Get him—get him—get him—<i>get</i> 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—” +</p> + +<p> +Get whom, in God’s name—get what? Beast, man, or devil? A specter—a flying +shadow—the shadow of a Bat. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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, <i>Bat Nabbed Red-Handed, Bat +Slain in Gun Duel with Police</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>Bat</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +His companion whistled. +</p> + +<p> +“And when is the Universe’s Finest Newspaper going to burst forth with <i>Bat +Captured by</i> <small>BLADE</small> <i>Reporter?</i>” he queried sardonically. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>Blade</i> +reporter that gets that bonus—or any reporter. It’ll be Sherlock Holmes from +the spirit world!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—can’t you dig up a Sherlock?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But look here, Bill, you don’t mean to tell me he’ll keep on getting away with +it indefinitely?” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you don’t think he’s just an ordinary crook with a lot of luck?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But my Lord, Bill—” +</p> + +<p> +“I know. I’ve been going around the last month, looking at everybody I knew and +thinking—<i>are you the Bat?</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bill! You’re giving me the shivers!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +His companion laughed uncertainly. +</p> + +<p> +“How about you, Bill—are you the Bat?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +He stood perfectly easy before his chief for several moments before the latter +looked up from his papers. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir,” replied the tall man quietly, “but I had luck with that +case.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” responded the chief promptly. “Whatever it is, it’s granted.” +</p> + +<p> +Anderson smiled again. “You’d better hear what it is first, sir. I don’t want +to put anything over on you.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Anderson shook his head, “No sir—I don’t want a vacation.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The chief’s face became expressionless. “I said—anything within reason,” he +responded softly, regarding Anderson keenly. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +The chief drummed on the desk. Annoyance and surprise were in his voice when he +spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m no more valuable than Wentworth would have been.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.’ <i>Go</i> +ahead!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>me</i> 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 <i>and</i> nerve,” and he +solemnly wrung Anderson’s hand in an iron grip. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson smiled. “The cagiest bat flies once too often,” he said. “I’m not +promising anything, chief, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe,” said the chief. “Now wait a minute, keep your shirt on, you’re not +going out bat hunting this minute, you know—” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir? I thought I—” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>work</i>, believe me!” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, sir,” Anderson laughed and turned to the door. “And—thank you +again.” +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER TWO<br/> +THE INDOMITABLE MISS VAN GORDER</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She had skimmed through the paper hurriedly; now a headline caught her eye. +<i>Failure of Union Bank</i>—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—<i>Bailey—Bailey</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Though the worst old woman I ever knew was a man!</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. <i>Sally doesn’t remember +when she was a younger generation herself</i>, thought Miss Cornelia. <i>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.</i> Before Mr. and Mrs. Ogden left +for Europe, Sally had talked to her sister Cornelia ... long and weightily, on +the problem of Dale. <i>Problem of Dale, indeed!</i> thought Miss Cornelia +scornfully. <i>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.</i> Miss Cornelia was an incorrigible matchmaker. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, she was more concerned with “the problem of Dale” than she would +have admitted. Dale, at her age, with her charm and beauty—<i>why, she ought to +behave as if she were walking on air</i>, thought her aunt worriedly. <i>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</i>— And yet Dale was not happy—Miss Cornelia +felt sure of it. <i>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—</i> +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>plain!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +<i>Pshaw—I bet that’s it</i>, thought Miss Cornelia shrewdly. <i>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—</i> +and Miss Cornelia’s tight little gray curls trembled with the vehemence of her +decision, <i>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!</i> +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now what do you mean—if that were all of it, Lizzie?” queried Miss Cornelia +sharply as she took her letters from the tray. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie’s face assumed an expression of doleful reticence. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>my</i> doing we’d be leaving this +house this hour!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Lizzie Allen!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. <i>There’s bats in this house, too—real bats</i>, +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!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia chuckled. “Of course there are bats,” she said. “There are always +bats in the country. They’re perfectly harmless,—except to switches.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s ten miles to the Bat?” the obdurate Lizzie sighed. “And what of the +letter ye had when ye first moved in here? <i>The Fleming house is unhealthy +for strangers</i>, it said. <i>Leave it while ye can</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Some silly boy or some crank.” Miss Cornelia’s voice was firm. “I never pay +any attention to anonymous letters.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie assumed an attitude of prim rebuff, “Miss Dale’s gone into the city, +ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gone into the city?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am. She got a telephone call this morning, early—long distance it was. +I don’t know who it was called her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lizzie! You didn’t listen?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you were outside the door?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should hope not,” said Miss Cornelia rebukingly. “But—tell me, Lizzie, did +Miss Dale seem—well—this morning?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“H’m,” Miss Cornelia pondered. “I’m sorry if—well, Lizzie, we mustn’t meddle in +Miss Dale’s affairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—did she say when she would be back?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie nodded her head. “Yes’m. They’re leaving. Both of ’em. Today.” +</p> + +<p> +“But good heav— Lizzie, why on earth didn’t you tell me before?” +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not that I know of—the heathern Japanese!” said Lizzie sorrowfully. “And yet +he’d be better riddance than cook or housemaid.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Lizzie!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“You look like an angel, ma’am,” said Lizzie, clasping her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. <i>Oh, yes—and then there’s Dale’s gardener, if she gets +one</i>, thought Miss, Cornelia. <i>I wish he could cook—but I don’t suppose +gardeners can—and Billy’s a treasure</i>. 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>If you stay in this house any longer</i>—DEATH. <i>Go back to the city at +once and save your life.</i> +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER THREE<br/> +PISTOL PRACTICE</h2> + +<p> +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. <i>Two +old women, a young girl, and a Japanese butler to face the most dangerous +criminal in America</i>, 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? +</p> + +<p> +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. <i>Besides</i>, she thought sturdily, <i>it’s my house now, not his. He +didn’t guarantee burglar protection in the lease.</i> +</p> + +<p> +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. <i>If it was just me</i>, she thought, <i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +For a moment she felt very helpless, very much alone. Then her courage +returned. +</p> + +<p> +“Pshaw, Cornelia, if you have got to get help—get the help <i>you</i> want and +hang the consequences!” she adjured herself. “You’ve always hankered to see a +first-class detective do his detecting—well, <i>get</i> one—or decide to do the +job yourself. I’ll bet you could at that.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Now if I were the Bat, or any criminal</i>, she mused, <i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The middle pair of French windows were open, forming a double door. Miss +Cornelia went over to them—shut them—tried the locks. <i>Humph! Flimsy +enough!</i> she thought. Then she turned toward the billiard room. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<i>And now I’ve studied it</i>, she thought after a while, <i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +She pulled herself together with a jerk. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Call you a spirited old lady, do they? Well, you never had a better time to +show your spirit than now!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you take my bag, Billy—thanks. Where is Miss Van Gorder—taking a nap?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Billy succinctly. “She take no nap. She out in srubbery shotting.” +</p> + +<p> +Dale stared at him incredulously. “Shooting, Billy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am. At least—she not shoot yet but she say she going to soon.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, good heavens, Billy—shooting what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shotting pistol,” said Billy, his yellow mask of a face preserving its impish +repose. He waved his hand. “You go srubbery. You see.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Van Gorder rose from the ground with as much stateliness as she could +muster under the circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Miss Dale, for the dear love o’ God will yuo make her put it away?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Miss Van Gorder, “perhaps you’re right, dear.” Her eyes gleamed. +“I <i>should</i> 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 +<i>wink</i> so when the thing goes off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, it’s winking eyes,” said Lizzie on a note of tragic chant, “but next time +it’ll be bleeding corpses and—” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“I should <i>never</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Van Gorder laughed too, a little shamefacedly. +</p> + +<p> +“I must have,” she said. “But—oh, you needn’t shake your head, Lizzie Allen—I +<i>am</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>am</i> hot—and tired.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Van Gorder looked at her keenly. The young face seemed curiously worn and +haggard in the clear afternoon light. +</p> + +<p> +“You—you don’t really feel very well, do you, Dale?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—it’s nothing. I feel all right—really.” +</p> + +<p> +“I could send for Doctor Wells if—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you, dear? That’s splendid, though—but I’ll tell you about that later. +Where did you get him?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aunt Cornelia—how exciting! I’m so sorry! Why did they leave?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Van Gorder was concerned. “Of course I don’t mind but—won’t you even have +your lemonade?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t. I only wish there were something I could do for you, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, in that case,” said her aunt, “I shall stay here with my Lizzie and my +ouija-board. Lizzie deserves <i>some</i> punishment for the <i>very</i> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think so, dear, but I’ll ask Lizzie.” Miss Cornelia moved toward a +bell push. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks, darling. Maybe I’ll take one and maybe I won’t—all I really need is to +lie down for a while.” +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +<i>I’ll be glad when that gardener comes</i>, she thought to herself. <i>He’ll +make a man in the house at any rate.</i> +</p> + +<p> +When Lizzie at last came in with the lemonade she found her mistress shaking +her head. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER FOUR<br/> +THE STORM GATHERS</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s too much <i>room</i> 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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Neily.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Lizzie?” Miss Cornelia’s voice was composed but her heart felt a throb of +relief. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, certainly, Lizzie,” said Miss Cornelia primly. “Though,” she added +doubtfully, “I really shouldn’t pamper your absurd fears, I suppose, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, please, Miss Neily!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, of course, if you’d rather sit in the kitchen, Lizzie—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, give me the ouijie!” said Lizzie in tones of heartbreak. “I’d rather be +shot <i>and</i> stabbed than stay in the kitchen any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>on</i>—” +</p> + +<p> +“Lizzie!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +She put down the knitting with an exasperated little gesture. Lizzie had just +finished her telephoning and was hanging up the receiver. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Lizzie?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +A louder roll of thunder punctuated her words. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” said Lizzie. “They’ll be going off again to-night.” She took an +uncertain step toward the French windows. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask Billy to bring some candles, Lizzie—and have them ready.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not going to ask me to go out in that hall alone?” she said in a hurt +voice. +</p> + +<p> +It was too much. Miss Cornelia found vent for her feelings in crisp +exasperation. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with you anyhow, Lizzie Allen?” +</p> + +<p> +The nervousness in her own tones infected Lizzie’s. She shivered frankly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Miss Neily—Miss Neily!” she pleaded. “I don’t like it! I want to go back +to the city!” +</p> + +<p> +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; +</p> + +<p> +“There’s somebody on the terrace!” she breathed in a ghastly whisper, clutching +at Miss Cornelia’s arm. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s more than that, Miss Neily,” she mumbled. “I—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you <i>really</i> see last night?” she said in a minatory voice. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>gleaming +eye!</i> It looked at me and <i>winked!</i> I tell you this house is haunted!” +</p> + +<p> +“A flirtatious ghost?” queried Miss Cornelia skeptically. She snorted. “Humph! +Why didn’t you yell?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +She turned and gestured at her mistress with a long, pointed forefinger. Her +voice had a note of doom. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +She concluded her epic and stood nodding her head, an Irish Cassandra who had +prophesied the evil to come. +</p> + +<p> +“Fiddlesticks!” said Miss Cornelia briskly, more shaken by the recital than she +would have admitted. She tried to think of another topic of conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“What time is it?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie glanced at the mantel clock. “Half-past ten, Miss Neily.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia yawned, a little dismally. She felt as if the last two hours had +not been hours but years. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Dale won’t be home for half an hour,” she said reflectively. <i>And if I +have to spend another thirty minutes listening to Lizzie shiver</i>, she +thought, <i>Dale will find me a nervous wreck when she does come home</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring it here!” said Miss Cornelia implacably; then as Lizzie still hesitated, +“Lizzie!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“It takes two people and you know it, Lizzie Allen!” Miss Cornelia’s voice was +stern but—it was also amused. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia cut her off. “You haven’t got a mind. Sit down,” she commanded. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now make your mind a blank!” she commanded her factotum. +</p> + +<p> +“You just said I haven’t got any mind,” complained the latter. +</p> + +<p> +“Well;” said Miss Cornelia magnificently, “make what you haven’t got a blank.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Be still!” ordered Miss Cornelia. “Nothing will come if you keep chattering!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s <i>why</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Ouija,” said Miss Cornelia defiantly, “is Lizzie Allen right about this +house or is it all stuff and nonsense?” +</p> + +<p> +For one second—two—the ouija remained anchored to its resting place in the +center of the board. Then— +</p> + +<p> +“My Gawd! It’s moving!” said Lizzie in tones of pure horror as the little +pointer began to wander among the letters. +</p> + +<p> +“You shoved it!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep quiet!” said Miss Cornelia tensely. There was a pause of a few seconds +while the pointer darted from one letter to another wildly. +</p> + +<p> +“B—M—C—X—P—R—S—K—Z—” murmured Miss Cornelia trying to follow the spelled +letters. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The pointer stopped moving: She took her hands from the board. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +All she said was, “Bats indeed! That shows it’s spirits. There’s been a bat +flying around this house all evening.” +</p> + +<p> +She got up from her chair tentatively, obviously hoping that the séance was +over. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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—<i>Bat Baffles Police Again</i>. +</p> + +<p> +She skimmed through the article with eerie fascination, reading bits of it +aloud for Lizzie’s benefit. +</p> + +<p> +“‘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—’” <i>Pleasant reading for an old woman who’s just received a +threatening letter</i>, she thought ironically—ah, here was something new in a +black-bordered box on the front page—a statement by the paper. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to take the butcher knife to bed with me!” Lizzie was saying. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Billy drew in his breath with a polite hiss. “Maybe she have twins,” he +admitted. “It happen sometime. Mostly not expected.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think there was any other reason for her leaving?” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe,” said Billy blandly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what was the reason?” +</p> + +<p> +“All say the same thing—house haunted.” Billy’s reply was prompt as it was +calm. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia gave a slight laugh. “You know better than that, though, don’t +you?” +</p> + +<p> +Billy’s Oriental placidity remained unruffled. He neither admitted nor denied. +He shrugged his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Funny house,” he said laconically. “Find window open—nobody there. Door +slam—nobody there!” +</p> + +<p> +On the heels of his words came a single, startling bang from the kitchen +quarters—the bang of a slammed door! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER FIVE<br/> +ALOPECIA AND RUBEOLA</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia was the first of the others to recover her poise. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“How long have you lived in this house, Billy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Since Mr. Fleming built.” +</p> + +<p> +“H’m.” Miss Cornelia pondered. “And this is the first time you have been +disturbed?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia ripped out a row in her knitting. She took a deep breath. +</p> + +<p> +“What about that face Lizzie said you saw last night at the window?” she asked +in a steady voice. +</p> + +<p> +Billy grinned, as if slightly embarrassed. “Just face—that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“A—man’s face?” +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged again. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t know—maybe. It there! It gone!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia did not want to believe him—but she did. “Did you go out after +it?” she persisted. +</p> + +<p> +Billy’s yellow grin grew wider. “No thanks,” he said cheerfully with ideal +succinctness. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +She ended in a hushed whisper and even Billy looked a trifle uncomfortable +after her climax. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“There certainly will be if you don’t keep quiet,” said her mistress acidly. +“Lock the billiard-room windows and go to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia was inflexible. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>get</i> it.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“A detective?” Lizzie’s face was horrified. “Miss Neily, you’re keeping +something from me! You know something I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not I. I trust no man,” said Lizzie. But Miss Cornelia had picked up the paper +again. +</p> + +<p> +“‘The Bat’s last crime was a particularly atrocious one,’” she read. “‘The body +of the murdered man...’” +</p> + +<p> +But Lizzie could bear no more. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +He put them down on a side table. +</p> + +<p> +“New gardener come,” he said briefly to Miss Cornelia’s back. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia turned. “Nice hour for him to get here. What’s his name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Say his name Brook,” said Billy, a little doubtful. English names still +bothered him—he was never quite sure of them at first. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia thought. “Ask him to come in,” she said. “And Billy—where are the +keys?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Door up there—spring lock,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia took her by the shoulder—half-startled, half-dubious. +</p> + +<p> +“What did they yell?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just yelled a yell!” +</p> + +<p> +“Lizzie!” +</p> + +<p> +“I heard them!” +</p> + +<p> +But she had cried “Wolf!” too often. +</p> + +<p> +“You take a liver pill,” said her mistress disgustedly, “and go to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +After a swift glance of observation that gave her food for thought she did so. +</p> + +<p> +“You are Brooks, the new gardener?” +</p> + +<p> +The young man inclined his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, madam. The butler said you wanted to speak to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia regarded him anew. <i>His hands look soft—for a gardener’s</i>, +she thought. <i>And his manners seem much too good for one—still—</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Come in,” she said briskly. The young man advanced another two steps. “You’re +the man my niece engaged in the city this afternoon?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, madam.” He seemed a little uneasy under her searching scrutiny. She +dropped her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I could not verify your references as the Brays are in Canada—” she proceeded. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Were</i> here?” said Miss Cornelia in a curious voice. “Are you a +<i>professional</i> gardener?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” The young man’s manner had grown a trifle defiant but Miss Cornelia’s +next question followed remorselessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Know anything about hardy perennials?” she said in a soothing voice, while +Lizzie regarded the interview with wondering eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you had any experience with rubeola?” she queried finally. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes—yes—yes, indeed,” the gardener stammered. “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And—alopecia?” pursued Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +The young man seemed to fumble in his mind for the characteristics of such a +flower or shrub. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think is the best treatment for urticaria?” she propounded with a +highly professional manner. +</p> + +<p> +It appeared to be a catch-question. The young man knotted his brows. Finally a +gleam of light seemed to come to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Urticaria frequently needs—er—thinning,” he announced decisively. +</p> + +<p> +“Needs scratching you mean!” Miss Cornelia rose with a snort of disdain and +faced him. “Young man, urticaria is <i>hives</i>, rubeola is <i>measles</i>, +and alopecia is <i>baldness!</i>” she thundered. She waited a moment for his +defense. None came. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>had</i> to have work!” +</p> + +<p> +The candor of his smile would have disarmed a stonier-hearted person than Miss +Cornelia. But her suspicions were still awake. +</p> + +<p> +“‘That’s all, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p> +“How do I know you won’t steal the spoons?” she queried, her voice still gruff. +</p> + +<p> +“Are they nice spoons?” he asked with absurd seriousness. +</p> + +<p> +She couldn’t help smiling at his tone. “Beautiful spoons.” +</p> + +<p> +Again that engaging, boyish manner of his touched something in her heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Spoons are a great temptation to me, Miss Van Gorder—but if you’ll take me, +I’ll promise to leave them alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s extremely kind of you,” she answered with grim humor, knowing herself +beaten. She went over to ring for Billy. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie took the opportunity to gain her ear. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t trust him, Miss Neily! He’s too smooth!” she whispered warningly. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia stiffened. “I haven’t asked for your opinion, Lizzie,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +But Lizzie was not to be put off by the Van Gorder manner. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you had anything to eat lately?” she asked in a kindly voice. +</p> + +<p> +He looked down at his cap. “Not since this morning,” he admitted as Billy +answered the bell. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia turned to the impassive Japanese. “Billy, give this man something +to eat and then show him where he is to sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“There go the lights!” grumbled Lizzie, her fingers still touching the prayer +book, as if for protection. Miss Cornelia did not answer her directly. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie started to obey, going toward the alcove to ascend to the second floor +by the alcove stairs. But Miss Cornelia stopped her. +</p> + +<p> +“Lizzie—you know that stair rail’s just been varnished. Miss Dale got a stain +on her sleeve there this afternoon—and Lizzie—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes’m?” +</p> + +<p> +“No one is to know that he is a detective. Not even Billy.” Miss Cornelia was +very firm. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what’ll I say he is?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nobody’s business.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. <i>If I ever get time +really to think of anything again</i>, she thought, <i>because with gardeners +coming who aren’t gardeners—and Lizzie hearing yells in the grounds and—</i> +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Front door key, please?” he asked urbanely. She gave him the key. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The door opened; it was Dale. <i>How lovely she looks in that evening wrap!</i> +thought Miss Cornelia. <i>But how tired, too. I wish I knew what was worrying +her.</i> +</p> + +<p> +She smiled. “Aren’t you back early, Dale?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale threw off her wrap and stood for a moment patting back into its smooth, +smart bob, hair ruffled by the wind. +</p> + +<p> +“I was tired,” she said, sinking into a chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Not worried about anything?” Miss Cornelia’s eyes were sharp. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s out there, Dale?” she queried. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m very well, Doctor, thank you. Well, many people at the country club?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just how did it happen?” Miss Cornelia was making conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Dale turned sharply toward them from her seat by the fireplace. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you <i>know</i> the cashier did it?” she said in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +The fingers of Dale’s right hand drummed restlessly on the edge of her settee. +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t somebody else have done it?” she queried tensely. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor smiled, a trifle patronizingly. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Dale, dear, did you know this young Bailey?” she asked point-blank. +</p> + +<p> +The girl had started to light a cigarette. The flame wavered in her fingers, +the match went out. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—slightly,” she said. She bent to strike another match, averting her face. +Miss Cornelia did not press her. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or not to have any—like myself!” the Doctor agreed. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor regarded the end of his cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were you with him when he died?” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Dale rose from her settee, startled. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know that, Auntie! How dreadful!” she gasped. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly Miss Cornelia regretted her impulse of confidence. She tried to pass +the matter off with tart humor. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But just then there was a splintering crash of glass from one of the French +windows behind her! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER SIX<br/> +DETECTIVE ANDERSON TAKES CHARGE</h2> + +<p> +“What’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody smashed a windowpane!” +</p> + +<p> +“And threw in a stone!” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a minute, I’ll—” The Doctor, all alert at once, ran into the alcove and +jerked at the terrace door. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia unwrapped the paper and smoothed out the sheet. +</p> + +<p> +Two lines of coarse, round handwriting sprawled across it: <i>Take warning! +Leave this house at once! It is threatened with disaster which will involve you +if you remain!</i> +</p> + +<p> +There was no signature. +</p> + +<p> +“Who do you think wrote it?” asked Dale breathlessly. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia straightened up like a ramrod—indomitable. +</p> + +<p> +“A fool—that’s who! If anything was calculated to make me stay here forever, +this sort of thing would do it!” +</p> + +<p> +She twitched the sheet of paper angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“But—something may happen, darling!” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope so! That’s the reason I—” +</p> + +<p> +She stopped. The doorbell was ringing again—thrilling, insistent. Her niece +started at the sound. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Key, front door please—bell ring,” he explained tersely, taking the key from +the table. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia issued instructions. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +She lowered her voice. +</p> + +<p> +“If he says he is Mr. Anderson, let him in and take him to the library.” +</p> + +<p> +Billy nodded and disappeared. Dale turned to her aunt, the color out of her +cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“Anderson? Who is Mr.—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Dale, dear—you know how I love having you here—but it might be better if you +went back to the city.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tonight, darling?” Dale managed a wan smile. But Miss Cornelia seemed serious. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s something <i>behind</i> all this disturbance—something I don’t +understand. But I mean to.” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced about to see if the Doctor was returning. She lowered her voice. +She drew Dale closer to her. +</p> + +<p> +“The man in the library is a detective from police headquarters,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>never</i> catch the criminals!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“He got away in the shrubbery,” said the Doctor disgustedly, taking out a +handkerchief to fleck the spots of mud from his shoes. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia gave him the letter of warning. “Read this,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor adjusted a pair of pince-nez—read the two crude sentences +over—once—twice. Then he looked shrewdly at Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +“Were the others like this?” he queried. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. “Practically.” +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated for a moment like a man with an unpleasant social duty to face. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Van Gorder, may I speak frankly?” +</p> + +<p> +“Generally speaking, I detest frankness,” said that lady grimly. “But—go on!” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor tapped the letter. His face was wholly serious. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you <i>ought</i> to leave this house,” he said bluntly. +</p> + +<p> +“Because of that letter? Humph!” His very seriousness, perversely enough, made +her suddenly wish to treat the whole matter as lightly as possible. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor repressed the obvious annoyance of a man who sees a warning, given +in all sobriety, unexpectedly taken as a quip. +</p> + +<p> +“There is some deviltry afoot,” he persisted. “You are not safe here, Miss Van +Gorder.” +</p> + +<p> +But if he was persistent in his attitude, so was she in hers. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I did,” said the Doctor quickly, still seeming unconvinced of the wisdom +of her attitude. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Van Gorder, I confess—I’m very anxious for you,” he continued. “This +letter is—ominous. Have you any enemies?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t insult me! Of course I have. Enemies are an indication of character.” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor’s smile held both masculine pity and equally masculine exasperation. +He went on more gently. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +She tried the terrace door. “There, I knew it!” she said triumphantly. +“Doctor—you <i>didn’t</i> fasten that bolt!” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor seemed a little taken aback. “Oh—I’m sorry—” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—what are you going to do?” said the Doctor, coming out of a brown study. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor stood up when the dusty task was finished, wiping his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“It would take a furniture mover to get in there now!” he said airily. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Van Gorder’s smile was obdurate. “I have a great deal of mind,” she said. +“It takes a long time to change it.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, having exercised her feminine privilege of the last word, she sailed out +of the room, still smiling, and closed the door behind her. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor seemed a little nettled by her abrupt departure. +</p> + +<p> +“It may be mind,” he said, turning back toward Dale, “but forgive me if I say I +think it seems more like foolhardy stubbornness!” +</p> + +<p> +Dale turned away from the window. “Then you think there is really danger?” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor’s eyes were grave. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—those letters—” he dropped the letter on the table. “They mean +<i>something</i>. Here you are—isolated the village two miles away—and enough +shrubbery round the place to hide a dozen assassins—” +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +“But what enemies can Aunt Cornelia have?” she asked helplessly. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t seem to be able to find any matches—” he said with assumed +carelessness, fiddling with the matchbox holder. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, has Miss Van Gorder a revolver?” he queried casually, glancing at +his wrist watch. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—she fired it off this afternoon to see if it would work.” Dale smiled at +the memory. +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +“If anything happens,” said Dale slowly, “I shall telephone you at once.” +</p> + +<p> +Her words seemed to disturb the Doctor slightly—but only for a second. He grew +even more urbane. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Dale seriously. “Good night, Doctor—Billy will let you out, +he has the key.” +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove!” laughed the Doctor, “you <i>are</i> careful, aren’t you! The place +is like a fortress! Well—good night, Miss Dale—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Has the new gardener come yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“He here,” said Billy stolidly. “Name Brook.” +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +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. <i>Why this man’s a gentleman!</i> she thought. <i>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—</i> She shuddered +uncontrollably. +</p> + +<p> +“Dale, dear,” said Miss Cornelia with triumph in her voice. “This is Mr. +Anderson.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“This is the room I spoke of,” she said briskly. “All the disturbances have +taken place around that terrace door.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective took three swift steps into the alcove, glanced about it +searchingly. He indicated the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“That is not the main staircase?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, the main staircase is out there,” Miss Cornelia waved her hand in the +direction of the hall. +</p> + +<p> +The detective came out of the alcove and paused by the French windows. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Dale cleared her throat. “It was broken from the outside a few minutes ago,” +she said. +</p> + +<p> +“The outside?” Instantly the detective had pulled aside a blind and was staring +out into the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. And then that letter was thrown in.” She pointed to the threatening +missive on the center table. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia took up the tale. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“The Union Bank?” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“You poor dear!” from Dale sympathetically. “And you were here alone!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson gave an involuntary start, then his eyes lit up with grim mirth. +</p> + +<p> +“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—<i>omit +flowers</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +He finished his preliminary survey of the room and returned to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you say you don’t think anybody has got upstairs yet?” he queried. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia regarded the alcove stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The detective smiled faintly. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s going rather a long way for a theory,” he said. “And the Bat is not in +the habit of giving warnings.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nevertheless,” she insisted, “somebody has been trying to get into this house, +night after night.” +</p> + +<p> +Anderson seemed to be revolving a theory in his mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Any liquor stored here?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia nodded. “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia beamed at him maliciously. “Eleven bottles of home-made +elderberry wine.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia sat bolt upright. “His name? I thought nobody knew his name?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I could,” said Miss Cornelia, striving to seem unimpressed. “These +country lights are always going out.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“How many people in this house, Miss Van Gorder?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like some coffee to keep you awake?” +</p> + +<p> +Anderson nodded. “Thank you.” His voice sank lower. “Do the servants know who I +am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only Lizzie, my maid.” +</p> + +<p> +His eyes fixed hers. “I wouldn’t tell anyone I’m remaining up all night,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +A formless fear rose in Miss Cornelia’s mind. “You don’t suspect my household?” +she said in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +He spoke with emphasis—all the more pronounced because of the quietude of his +tone. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not taking any chances,” he said determinedly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER SEVEN<br/> +CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia, obedient to the detective’s instructions, promptly told the +whitest of fibs for Lizzie’s benefit. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“This is the maid you referred to?” he inquired. Miss Cornelia assented. He +drew nearer to the unhappy Lizzie. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s your name?” he asked, turning to her. +</p> + +<p> +“E-Elizabeth Allen,” stammered Lizzie, feeling like a small and distrustful +sparrow in the toils of an officious python. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson seemed to run through a mental rogues gallery of other criminals named +Elizabeth Allen that he had known. +</p> + +<p> +“How old are you?” he proceeded. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie looked at her mistress despairingly. “Have I got to answer that?” she +wailed. Miss Cornelia nodded—inexorably. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie braced herself. “Thirty-two,” she said, with an arch toss of her head. +</p> + +<p> +The detective looked surprised and slightly amused. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The trace of a smile appeared and vanished on the detective’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Lizzie,” he said sternly, “do you ever walk in your sleep?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not,” said Lizzie indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t care for the country, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not!” +</p> + +<p> +“Or detectives?” Anderson deigned to be facetious. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>do not!</i>” There could be no doubt as to the sincerity of Lizzie’s +answer. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Ever see this before?” he said crisply, watching her face. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Mercy on us!” she moaned, mentally invoking not only her patron saint but all +the rosary of heaven to protect herself and her mistress. +</p> + +<p> +But the detective still kept his eye on her. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t write it yourself, did you?” he queried curtly. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not!” said Lizzie angrily. “I did <i>not!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“And—you’re sure you don’t walk in your sleep?” The bare idea strained Lizzie’s +nerves to the breaking point. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I won’t ask you to,” he said, relaxing considerably; “That’s more money +than I’m worth, Lizzie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, <i>I’ll say it is!</i>” 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, what about the butler?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing about him—except that he was Courtleigh Fleming’s servant.” +</p> + +<p> +Anderson paused. “Do you consider that significant?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it possible that there is a connection between the colossal theft at the +Union Bank and <i>these</i> disturbances?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson seemed to think over the question. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“But he didn’t,” said Miss Cornelia obstinately, “I leased this house from his +nephew, his heir.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective smiled tolerantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I wouldn’t struggle like that for a theory,” he said, the professional +note coming back to his voice. “The cashier’s <i>missing</i>—that’s the +answer.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia resented his offhand demolition of the mental card-castle she had +erected with such pride. +</p> + +<p> +“I have read a great deal on the detection of crime,” she said hotly, “and—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then <i>you</i> don’t think there’s a chance that the money from the Union +Bank is in this house?” persisted Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +“I think it very unlikely.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Dale cautioned him with a warning finger as he advanced into the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Sh! Sh!” she whispered. “Be careful! That man’s a detective!” +</p> + +<p> +Brooks gave a hunted glance at the door into the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Then they’ve traced me here,” he said in a dejected voice. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think so.” +</p> + +<p> +He made a gesture of helplessness. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I told her I’d engaged a gardener—and that’s all there was about it.” +</p> + +<p> +He came nearer to her. “Dale!” he murmured in a tense voice. “You <i>know</i> I +didn’t take that money!” he said with boyish simplicity. +</p> + +<p> +All the loyalty of first-love was in her answer. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“But—the police here!” he stammered, turning away. “What does that mean?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale swiftly informed him of the situation. +</p> + +<p> +“Aunt Cornelia says people have been trying to break into this house for +days—at night.” +</p> + +<p> +Brooks ran his hand through his hair in a gesture of bewilderment. Then he +seemed to catch at a hope. +</p> + +<p> +“What sort of people?” he queried sharply. +</p> + +<p> +Dale was puzzled. “She doesn’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you tell the police that? Now they think, because you ran away—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ran away! The only chance I had was a few hours to myself to try to prove what +actually happened.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Her lover’s face grew somber. +</p> + +<p> +“He’d take me into custody at once and I’d have no chance to search.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why are you so sure it is here?” queried Dale. +</p> + +<p> +Brooks explained. “You must remember Fleming was no ordinary defaulter and +<i>he</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But even then—” +</p> + +<p> +He interrupted her. “Listen, dear—” He crossed to the billiard-room door, +closed it firmly, returned. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” gasped Dale. +</p> + +<p> +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.’” +</p> + +<p> +Now Dale was as excited as he. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you think the money is in this hidden room?” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Jack! Why isn’t it the nephew who is trying to break in?” +</p> + +<p> +“He wouldn’t <i>have</i> to break in. He could make an excuse and come in any +time.” +</p> + +<p> +He clenched his hands despairingly. +</p> + +<p> +“If I could only get hold of a blue-print of this place!” he muttered. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Brooks put his hands on her shoulders in an effort to cheer her spirits. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<i>The House that Jack Built</i>, “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!” +</p> + +<p> +She managed a faint smile. “I’ve forgotten it already,” she said, drooping. +</p> + +<p> +He still strove for an offhand gaiety that he did not feel. +</p> + +<p> +“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?’ +<i>You</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +As he tried another spot, again thunder beat the long roll on its iron drum +outside, in the night. The lights blinked—wavered—recovered. +</p> + +<p> +“The lights are going out again,” said Dale dully, her excitement sunk into a +stupefied calm. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“The billiard room.” She was thinking hard. “Jack! Perhaps Courtleigh Fleming’s +nephew would know where the blue-prints are!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s pretty nearly hopeless,” he said, “if all the walls are paneled like +that.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” gasped Dale. +</p> + +<p> +They listened. The knocking was repeated—knock—knock—knock—knock. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER EIGHT<br/> +THE GLEAMING EYE</h2> + +<p> +“It’s upstairs!” Dale took a step toward the alcove stairs. Brooks halted her. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s in this house besides ourselves?” he queried. +</p> + +<p> +“Only the detective, Aunt Cornelia, Lizzie, and Billy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Billy’s the Jap?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Brooks paused an instant. “Does he belong to your aunt?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. He was Courtleigh Fleming’s butler.” +</p> + +<p> +Knock—knock—knock—knock the dull, methodical rapping on the ceiling of the +living-room began again. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Knock—knock—knock—knock! This time the mysterious rapping seemed to come from +the upper hall. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +At last a resolution formed in her mind. She went to the city telephone. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked about nervously. Had something moved in that corner of blackness +where her candle did not pierce? No! How silly of her! +</p> + +<p> +Buzz-buzz on the telephone. She picked up the receiver again. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello—Mr. Fleming—I’ll wait outside the house on the drive. It—it’s a +confidential matter. Thank you so much.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But his first words relieved her fears. +</p> + +<p> +“Spooky sort of place in the dark, isn’t it?” he said casually. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew nothing about them until tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think so.” Dale’s voice was strained. Where was Brooks? What had +happened to him? +</p> + +<p> +Anderson puffed on his cigar, pondering. “Know the Flemings?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve met Mr. Richard Fleming once or twice.” +</p> + +<p> +Something in her tone caused him to glance at her. “Nice fellow?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know him at all well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Know the cashier of the Union Bank?” he shot at her suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“No!” She strove desperately to make the denial convincing but she could not +hide the little tremor in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +The detective mused. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“No, the other one. That’s the house phone.” Anderson looked the apparatus +over. +</p> + +<p> +“No connection with the outside, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Dale absent-mindedly. “Just from room to room in the house.” +</p> + +<p> +He accepted her explanation and answered the other telephone. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello—hello—what the—” He moved the receiver hook up and down, without result, +and gave it up. “This line sounds dead,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“It was all right a few minutes ago,” said Dale without thinking. +</p> + +<p> +“You were using it a few minutes ago?” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated—what use to deny what she had already admitted, for all practical +purposes. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +The city telephone rang again. The detective pounced upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re sure of that, are you? I see. All right. ‘By.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Dale stared ahead of her blankly. It had come! She did not reply. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson went on ruthlessly. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused, waiting for her answer. “What letters?” she said wearily. +</p> + +<p> +“From you to Jack Bailey—showing that you had recently become engaged to him.” +</p> + +<p> +Dale decided to make a clean breast of it, or as clean a one as she dared. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” she said in an even voice, “that’s true.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you say so before?” There was menace beneath his suavity. +</p> + +<p> +She thought swiftly. Apparent frankness seemed to be the only resource left +her. She gave him a candid smile. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>where</i> Bailey is now?” He spoke slowly and menacingly. +</p> + +<p> +She did not flinch. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective paused. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes met his without weakening, her voice was cool and composed. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll ask you to bring Miss Van Gorder here,” he said in his professional +voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you want her?” Dale blazed at him rebelliously. +</p> + +<p> +He was quiet. “Because this case is taking on a new phase.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed to accept her words, cynically, at their face value. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my foot—my foot!” she squealed hysterically. “My foot!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia tried to shake her back to her senses. +</p> + +<p> +“My patience! Did you yell like that because you stubbed your toe?” +</p> + +<p> +“You scalded it!” cried Lizzie wildly. “It went up the staircase!” +</p> + +<p> +“Your <i>toe</i> went up the staircase?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now see here,” he said with some sternness to the quaking Lizzie, “stop this +racket and tell me what you saw!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Who screamed?” said Dale tensely. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Lizzie,” he said, forcing himself to urbanity, “what did you really see?” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you what I saw.” +</p> + +<p> +His manner grew somewhat threatening. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not trying to frighten Miss Van Gorder into leaving this house and +going back to the city?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if I am,” said Lizzie with grim, unconscious humor, “I’m giving myself +an awful good scare, too, ain’t I?” +</p> + +<p> +The two glared at each other as Miss Cornelia returned from her survey of the +alcove. +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody who had a key could have got in here, Mr. Anderson,” she said +annoyedly. “That terrace door’s been unbolted from the inside.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +The detective rubbed his hands together more cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +“A good night’s sleep and—” he began, but the irrepressible Lizzie interrupted +him. +</p> + +<p> +“My God, we’re not going to bed, are we?” she said, with her eyes as big as +saucers. +</p> + +<p> +He gave her a kindly pat on the shoulder, which she obviously resented. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll feel better in the morning,” he said. “Lock your door and say your +prayers, and leave the rest to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie muttered something inaudible and rebellious, but now Miss Cornelia added +her protestations to his. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s very good advice,” she said decisively. “You take her, Dale.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson confronted Miss Cornelia with certain relief. +</p> + +<p> +“There are certain things I want to discuss with you, Miss Van Gorder,” he +said. “But they can wait until tomorrow morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia glanced about the room. His manner was reassuring. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think all this—pure imagination?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated. “I’m not sure.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +She agreed to that, and after sending the Jap out for more coffee prepared to +go upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“If what Lizzie says is true,” she said, taking her candle, “the upper floors +of the house are even less safe than this one.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +On which ambiguous remark Miss Van Gorder took her leave, rather grimly +smiling. +</p> + +<p> +It was after she had gone that Anderson’s glance fell on Brooks, standing +warily in the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you? The gardener?” +</p> + +<p> +But Brooks was prepared for him. +</p> + +<p> +“Ordinarily I drive a car,” he said. “Just now I’m working on the place here.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Not in the portrait gallery at headquarters, are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“All right, Brooks,” he said tersely, “if you’re needed in the night, you’ll be +<i>called!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +Brooks bowed. “Very well, sir.” He closed the door softly behind him, glad to +have escaped as well as he had. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER NINE<br/> +A SHOT IN THE DARK</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +Fleming shut the terrace door behind him and moved down from the alcove, trying +to shake the rain from his coat. +</p> + +<p> +“Did I frighten you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mr. Fleming—yes!” Dale laid her aunt’s revolver down on the table. Fleming +perceived her nervousness and made a gesture of apology. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry,” he said, “I rapped but nobody seemed to hear me, so I used my +key.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re wet through—I’m sorry,” said Dale with mechanical politeness. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Reggie Beresford brought me over in his car,” he said. “He’s waiting down the +drive.” +</p> + +<p> +Dale decided not to waste words in the usual commonplaces of social greeting. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Fleming, I’m in dreadful trouble!” she said, facing him squarely, with a +courageous appeal in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +He made a polite movement. “Oh, I say! That’s too bad.” +</p> + +<p> +She plunged on. “You know the Union Bank closed today.” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed lightly. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Dale wondered which angle was best from which to present her appeal. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, even if you haven’t lost anything in this bank failure, a lot of your +friends have—surely?” she went on. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll say so!” said Fleming, debonairly. “Beresford is sitting down the road in +his Packard now writhing with pain!” +</p> + +<p> +Dale hesitated; Fleming’s lightness seemed so incorrigible that, for a moment, +she was on the verge of giving her project up entirely. Then, <i>Waster or +not—he’s the only man who can help us!</i> she told herself and continued. +</p> + +<p> +“Lots of awfully poor people are going to suffer, too,” she said wistfully. +</p> + +<p> +Fleming chuckled, dismissing the poor with a wave of his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, the poor are always in trouble,” he said with airy heartlessness. +“They specialize in suffering.” +</p> + +<p> +He extracted a monogrammed cigarette from a thin gold case. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +Fleming whistled. “I <i>see!</i> And he’s beat it!” +</p> + +<p> +Dale blazed with indignation. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a pretty strong indictment to bring against a dead man,” he said +slowly, seriously. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s true!” Dale insisted stubbornly, giving him glance for glance. +</p> + +<p> +Fleming nodded. “All right.” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled—a smile that Dale didn’t like. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose it’s true—where do I come in?” he said. “You don’t think I know where +the money is?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” admitted Dale, “but I think you might help to find it.” +</p> + +<p> +She went swiftly over to the hall door and listened tensely for an instant. +Then she came back to Fleming. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know anything about a Hidden Room in this house?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +Dick Fleming stared at her for a moment. Then he burst into laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale nodded a “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“The architect who built this house told Jack Bailey that he had built a Hidden +Room in it,” she persisted. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She watched him, puzzled, wondering why he made no comment on her last +statement. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know where there are any blue-prints of the house?” she asked at last. +</p> + +<p> +An odd light glittered in Fleming’s eyes for a moment. Then it vanished—he held +himself in check—the casual idler again. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, don’t you remember—you locked it when we took the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>yes</i>—” 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>know</i> that’s it.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale felt as if he had dashed cold water in her face. “What do you mean to do +with it then?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Fleming turned the blue-print over in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” he said. “What is it you want me to do?” +</p> + +<p> +But by now Dale’s vague distrust in him had grown very definite. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you going to give it to me?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Dale’s temper was rising. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Give it to the detective and let him search,” she pleaded. +</p> + +<p> +“A detective?” said Fleming startled. “What’s a detective doing here?” +</p> + +<p> +“People have been trying to break in.” +</p> + +<p> +“What people?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +Fleming stared out beyond Dale, into the night. +</p> + +<p> +“Then it <i>is</i> here,” he muttered to himself. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to give this to any detective,” he said quietly, tapping the +piece of paper in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +Dale’s heart pounded sickeningly but she kept her courage up. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” she said fiercely. “What are you going to do?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us suppose a few things, Miss Ogden,” he said. “Suppose <i>my</i> 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?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale summoned all her fortitude. +</p> + +<p> +“If you go out of this room with that paper I’ll scream for help!” she said +defiantly. +</p> + +<p> +Fleming made a little mock-bow of courtesy. He smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>Jack Bailey</i>. Do you suppose you would scream?” +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Dale gave a little whimpering cry of horror. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She shuddered, seeing Fleming’s arm flung out awkwardly by his side. No living +man could lie in such a posture. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The detective was beside her now, examining Fleming’s body with professional +thoroughness. At last he rose. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s dead,” he said quietly. A shiver ran through the watching group. Dale +felt a stifling hand constrict about her heart. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Dale fought hysteria for some seconds before she could speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard Fleming—somebody shot him!” she managed to whisper at last. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson took a step toward her. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean by somebody?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +The world to Dale turned into a crowd of threatening, accusing eyes—a multitude +of shadowy voices, shouting, <i>Guilty! Guilty! Prove that you’re innocent—you +can’t!</i> +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” she said wildly. “Somebody on the staircase.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you see anybody?” Anderson’s voice was as passionless and cold as a bar of +steel. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie made a welcome interruption. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>told</i> you I saw a man go up that staircase!” she wailed, jabbing her +forefinger in the direction of the alcove stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia, now recovered from the first shock of the discovery, supported +her gallantly. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the only explanation, Mr. Anderson,” she said decidedly. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +A pause followed. Dale found herself helplessly looking toward her lover for +comfort—comfort he could not give without revealing his own secret. +</p> + +<p> +Eerily, through the tense silence, a sudden tinkling sounded—the sharp, +persistent ringing of a telephone bell. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia rose to answer it automatically. “The house phone!” she said. +Then she stopped. “But we’re all <i>here</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello—hello—” she said, while the others stood rigid, listening. Then she +gasped. An expression of wondering horror came over her face. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER TEN<br/> +THE PHONE CALL FROM NOWHERE</h2> + +<p> +“Somebody groaning!” gasped Miss Cornelia. “It’s horrible!” +</p> + +<p> +The detective stepped up and took the receiver from her. He listened anxiously +for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t hear anything,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> heard it! I couldn’t <i>imagine</i> such a dreadful sound! I tell +you—somebody in this house is in terrible distress.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where does this phone connect?” queried Anderson practically. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia made a hopeless little gesture. “Practically every room in this +house!” +</p> + +<p> +The detective put the receiver to his ear again. +</p> + +<p> +“Just what did you hear?” he said stolidly. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia’s voice shook. +</p> + +<p> +“Dreadful groans—and what seemed to be an inarticulate effort to speak!” +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie drew her gaudy wrapper closer about her shuddering form. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d go somewhere,” she wailed in the voice of a lost soul, “if I only had +somewhere to go!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia quelled her with a glare and turned back to the detective. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you send these men to investigate—or go yourself?” she said, indicating +Brooks and Billy. The detective thought swiftly. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +But Anderson was not to be caught napping. “That revolver will stay where it +is,” he said with a grim smile. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>couldn’t</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +Back in the living-room, as he had feared, Anderson was subjecting Dale to a +merciless interrogation. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I want the <i>real</i> story!” he began with calculated brutality. “You +lied before!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Where were you when this happened?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Upstairs in my room.” Miss Cornelia’s tones were icy. +</p> + +<p> +“And you?” badgeringly, to Lizzie. +</p> + +<p> +“In <i>my</i> room,” said the latter pertly, “brushing Miss Cornelia’s hair.” +</p> + +<p> +Anderson broke open the revolver and gave a swift glance at the bullet +chambers. +</p> + +<p> +“One shot has been fired from this revolver!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia sprang to her niece’s defense. +</p> + +<p> +“I fired it myself this afternoon,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +The detective regarded her with grudging admiration. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a quick thinker,” he said with obvious unbelief in his voice. He put +the revolver down on the table. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia followed up her advantage. +</p> + +<p> +“I demand that you get the coroner here,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor Wells is the coroner,” offered Lizzie eagerly. Anderson brushed their +suggestions aside. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to ask you some questions!” he said menacingly to Dale. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now—shall <i>I</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. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll do it,” he said with a snort, going over to the city telephone. “What’s +his number?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s not at his office; he’s at the Johnsons’,” murmured Dale. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia took the telephone from Anderson’s hands. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, what was Fleming doing here?” he asked Dale in a gentler voice. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” she said weakly, trying to avoid the detective’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson took thought. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll ask that question another way,” he said. “How did he get into the +house?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale brightened—no need for a lie here. +</p> + +<p> +“He had a key.” +</p> + +<p> +“Key to what door?” +</p> + +<p> +“That door over there.” Dale indicated the terrace door of the alcove. +</p> + +<p> +The detective was about to ask another question—then he paused. Miss Cornelia +was talking on the phone. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello—is that Mr. Johnson’s residence? Is Doctor Wells there? No?” Her +expression was puzzled. “Oh—all right—thank you—good night—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +He was hammering at her with questions again. “When did you take that revolver +out of the table drawer?” +</p> + +<p> +“When I heard him outside on the terrace,” said Dale promptly and truthfully. +“I was frightened.” +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie tiptoed over to Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +“You wanted a detective!” she said in an ironic whisper. “I hope you’re happy +now you’ve got one!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Again Anderson’s questions pounded at the rigid Dale, striving to pierce her +armor of mingled truth and falsehood. +</p> + +<p> +“When Fleming came in, what did he say to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t have any quarrel with him?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +Her face whitened. She put her hand on the back of a chair for support. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—that’s it,” she said at last, and swayed where she stood. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped. His right hand moved idly over the edge of the table—halted beside +an ash tray—closed upon something. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia rose. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that true, Dale?” she said sorrowfully. +</p> + +<p> +Dale nodded. “Yes.” She could not trust herself to explain at greater length. +</p> + +<p> +Then Miss Cornelia made one of the most magnificent gestures of her life. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, even if it is—what has <i>that</i> got to do with it?” she said, turning +upon Anderson fiercely, all her protective instinct for those whom she loved +aroused. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson seemed somewhat impressed by the fierceness of her query. When he went +on it was with less harshness in his manner. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>this</i> crime, we’ll +have found the criminal.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The rain of Anderson’s questions began anew. +</p> + +<p> +“What papers did Fleming burn in that grate?” he asked abruptly, turning back +to Dale. +</p> + +<p> +“Papers!” she faltered. +</p> + +<p> +“Papers! The ashes are still there.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia made an unavailing interruption. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Ogden has said he didn’t come into this room.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Dale hesitated—shut her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Now think it over!” he warned. “The truth will come out, sooner or later! +Better be frank <i>now!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +<i>If he only knew how I</i> wanted <i>to be—he wouldn’t be so cruel</i>, +thought Dale wearily. <i>But I can’t—I can’t!</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey made his report breathlessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing in the house, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Billy’s impassive lips confirmed him. +</p> + +<p> +“We go all over house—nobody!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You men stay here!” said the detective. “I want to ask you some questions.” He +doggedly returned to his third-degreeing of Dale. +</p> + +<p> +“Now what about this blue-print?” he queried sharply. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective pounced eagerly upon her admission. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Why</i> did you want blue-prints?” he thundered. +</p> + +<p> +“Because,” Dale took a long breath, “I believe old Mr. Fleming took the money +himself from the Union Bank and hid it here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you get that idea?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale’s jaw set. “I won’t tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What had the blue-prints to do with it?” +</p> + +<p> +She could think of no plausible explanation but the true one. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I’d heard there was a Hidden Room in this house.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective leaned forward intently. “Did you locate that room?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale hesitated. “No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why did you burn the blue-prints?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale’s nerve was crumbling—breaking—under the repeated, monotonous impact of +his questions. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>He</i> burned them!” she cried wildly. “I don’t <i>know</i> why!” +</p> + +<p> +The detective paused an instant, then returned to a previous query. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you <i>didn’t</i> locate this Hidden Room?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale’s lips formed a pale “No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he?” went on Anderson inexorably. +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” she said in a startled voice. +</p> + +<p> +The detective turned away from his quarry for an instant. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s what?” +</p> + +<p> +“I heard something,” averred Miss Cornelia, staring toward the French windows. +</p> + +<p> +All eyes followed the direction of her stare. There was an instant of silence. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my God!” wailed Lizzie from her corner. “It’s the Bat—that’s his sign!” +</p> + +<p> +Jack Bailey made a dash for the terrace door. But Miss Cornelia halted him +peremptorily. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait, Brooks!” She turned to the detective. “Mr. Anderson, you are familiar +with the sign of the Bat. Did that look like it?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +On the heels of his words the front door bell began to ring. All turned in the +direction of the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll answer that!” said Jack Bailey eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia gave him the key to the front door. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia quelled the teapot-tempest. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor laughed with a certain relief. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that was probably the searchlight from my car!” he said. “I noticed as I +drove up that it fell directly on that window.” +</p> + +<p> +His explanation seemed to satisfy all present but Lizzie. She regarded him with +a deep suspicion. <i>He may be a lawyer, a merchant, a</i> +<small>DOCTOR</small>, she chanted ominously to herself. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia, too, was not entirely at ease. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“A bat!” The Doctor seemed at sea. “Ah, I see—the symbol of the criminal of +that name.” He laughed again. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned to do so. Then he caught sight of the raincoat-covered huddle on the +floor. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—” he said in a voice that mingled astonishment with horror. He paused. His +glance slowly traversed the circle of silent faces. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER ELEVEN<br/> +BILLY PRACTICES JIU-JITSU</h2> + +<p> +“We have had a very sad occurrence here, Doctor,” said Miss Cornelia gently. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor braced himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” +</p> + +<p> +“Richard Fleming.” +</p> + +<p> +“Richard <i>Fleming?</i>” gasped the Doctor in tones of incredulous horror. +</p> + +<p> +“Shot and killed from that staircase,” said Miss Cornelia tonelessly. +</p> + +<p> +The detective demurred. +</p> + +<p> +“Shot and killed, anyhow,” he said in accents of significant omission. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Shot and killed from that stairway,” he repeated dully. He rose from his knees +and glanced at the fatal stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“What was Richard Fleming doing in this house at this hour?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He spoke to Miss Cornelia but Anderson answered the question. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what <i>I’m</i> trying to find out,” he said with a saturnine smile. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor gave him a look of astonished inquiry. Miss Cornelia remembered her +manners. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor, this is Mr. Anderson.” +</p> + +<p> +“Headquarters,” said Anderson tersely, shaking hands. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She addressed Doctor Wells. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t tell you, Doctor—I sent for a detective this afternoon.” Then, with +mounting suspicion, “You happened in very opportunely!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Died instantly, I suppose?” he said, looking over at the body. “Didn’t have +time to say anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ask the young lady,” said Anderson, with a jerk of his head. “She was here +when it happened.” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor gave Dale a feverish glance of inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie bounced up from her chair, instanter. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Two?</i>” she wailed. “If you know any safe spot, lead me to it!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia spoke suddenly in a low voice, without moving a muscle of her +body. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a strange feeling that I’m being watched by unfriendly eyes,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie clutched at her across the table. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile the detective confronted Doctor Wells. +</p> + +<p> +“You say, Doctor, that you came back to take these women away from the house. +Why?” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor gave him a dignified stare. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Van Gorder has already explained.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia elucidated. “Mr. Anderson has already formed a theory of the +crime,” she said with a trace of sarcasm in her tones. +</p> + +<p> +The detective turned on her quickly. “I haven’t said that.” He started. +</p> + +<p> +It had come again—tinkling—persistent.—the phone call from nowhere—the ringing +of the bell of the house telephone! +</p> + +<p> +“The house telephone—again!” breathed Dale. Miss Cornelia made a movement to +answer the tinkling, inexplicable bell. But Anderson was before her. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll answer that!” he barked. He sprang to the phone. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello—hello—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello—hello—” Anderson swore impatiently. He hung up the phone. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nobody there!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +A light came into Anderson’s eyes. “Where’s that Jap?” he almost shouted. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The detective turned swiftly to the Doctor, as if to put his case before the +eyes of an unprejudiced witness. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Anderson replied with one deliberate word. +</p> + +<p> +“Terrorization,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor moistened his dry lips in an effort to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“By whom?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson’s voice was an icicle. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia seemed unimpressed by his fervor. +</p> + +<p> +“With what object?” she queried smoothly. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I’m going to find out!” There was determination in Anderson’s +reply. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia sniffed. “Absurd! The butler was in this room when the telephone +rang for the first time.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Damn you—what do you mean by this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Jiu-jitsu,” said Billy, his yellow face quite untroubled. “Pretty good stuff. +Found on terrace with searchlight,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +“With searchlight?” barked Anderson. +</p> + +<p> +The young man turned to face this new enemy. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, why shouldn’t I be on the terrace with a searchlight?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +The detective moved toward him menacingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Who <i>are</i> you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you?” said the young man with cool impertinence, giving him stare for +stare. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“If you’ve finished admiring my badge,” he said with heavy sarcasm, “I’d like +to know what you were doing on the terrace.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did it require a flashlight to find the house?” Miss Cornelia asked +suspiciously. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” the young man blustered, “why are you asking me all these +questions?” He tapped his cigarette case with an irritated air. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia stepped closer to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mind letting me see that flashlight?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson handed back the flashlight to its owner. +</p> + +<p> +“Now—what’s your name?” he said sternly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s your business?” went on the detective. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s my business here?” queried the young man, obviously fencing with his +interrogator. +</p> + +<p> +“No—how do you earn your living?” said Anderson sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +The one word was enough to start Lizzie off on another trail of distrust. <i>He +may be a</i> <small>LAWYER</small>— she quoted to herself sepulchrally from the +evening newspaper article that had dealt with the mysterious identity of the +Bat. +</p> + +<p> +“And you came here to telephone about your car?” persisted the detective. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +Beresford’s air of flippancy vanished. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“He doesn’t know anything about—this,” she said, indicating Beresford. “He +brought Mr. Fleming here in his car—that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +Anderson looked to Beresford for confirmation. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that true?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Beresford. He started to explain. “I got tired of waiting and so +I—” +</p> + +<p> +The detective broke in curtly. +</p> + +<p> +“All right.” +</p> + +<p> +He took a step toward the alcove. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Doctor.” He nodded at the huddle beneath the raincoat. Beresford followed +his glance—and saw the ominous heap for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not—Dick Fleming—is it?” he said thickly. Anderson slowly nodded his +head. Beresford seemed unable to believe his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“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.... +</p> + +<p> +Still Beresford did not seem to be able to take in what had happened. He took +another step toward the body. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean to say that Dick Fleming—” he began. Anderson silenced him with an +uplifted hand. +</p> + +<p> +“What have you got there, Doctor?” he said in a still voice. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor, still on his knees beside the corpse, lifted his head. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“You took something, just then, out of Fleming’s hand,” said the detective. +</p> + +<p> +“I took nothing out of his hand,” said the Doctor firmly. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson’s manner grew peremptory. +</p> + +<p> +“I warn you not to obstruct the course of justice!” he said forcibly. “Give it +here!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it’s only a scrap of paper, nothing at all,” he said evasively. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson looked at him meaningly. +</p> + +<p> +“Scraps of paper are sometimes very important,” said with a side glance at +Dale. +</p> + +<p> +Beresford approached the two angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t have to be a mind reader to know that!” moaned Lizzie, overcome. +</p> + +<p> +As usual, her comment went unanswered. Beresford persisted in his questions. +</p> + +<p> +“Who killed him? That’s what <i>I</i> want to know!” he continued, nervously +puffing his cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you’re not alone in that,” said Anderson in his grimly humorous vein. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor motioned nervously to them both. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” he said laconically. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Take that tray out to the dining-room,” she said mechanically. But Anderson’s +attention had already been drawn to the tiny incident. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“All right—take it away,” he commanded. Billy nodded and vanished toward the +dining-room with tray and roll. Dale breathed again. +</p> + +<p> +The sight of the tray had made Miss Cornelia’s thoughts return to practical +affairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Lizzie,” she commanded now, “go out in the kitchen and make some coffee. I’m +sure we all need it,” she sighed. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie bristled at once. +</p> + +<p> +“Go out in that kitchen alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Billy’s there,” said Miss Cornelia wearily. +</p> + +<p> +The thought of Billy seemed to bring little solace to Lizzie’s heart. +</p> + +<p> +“That Jap and his jooy-jitsu,” she muttered viciously. “One twist and I’d be +folded up like a pretzel.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER TWELVE<br/> +“I DIDN’T KILL HIM.”</h2> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Her reply seemed only to infuriate the detective. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you say that?” she feinted. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia watched her niece. +</p> + +<p> +“It you’re keeping anything back, Dale—tell him,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“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—<i>not</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Dale!” gasped Miss Cornelia, alarmed. But Dale went on, reckless of +consequences to herself, though still warily shielding Jack. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson turned to Miss Cornelia triumphantly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t kill him,” she repeated perplexedly, weakly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you call for help? You—you knew I was here.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p> +Anderson resumed his grilling. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I mean to find out two things,” he said, advancing upon Dale. “<i>Why</i> +you did not call for help—and <i>what</i> you have done with that blue-print.” +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose I could find that piece of blue-print for you?” said Dale desperately. +“Would that establish Jack Bailey’s innocence?” +</p> + +<p> +The detective stared at her keenly for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“If the money’s there—yes.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She put herself between her niece and the detective, shielding Dale from his +eager gaze. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Doctor?” he grunted. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor shook his head +</p> + +<p> +“Poor fellow—straight through the heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were there any powder marks?” queried Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +“No—and the clothing was not burned. He was apparently shot from some little +distance—and I should say from above.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Beresford, did Fleming tell you why he came here tonight?” +</p> + +<p> +Beresford considered the question. +</p> + +<p> +“No. He seemed in a great hurry, said Miss Ogden had telephoned him, and asked +me to drive him over.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you come up to the house?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “Stopped running at ten-thirty.” +</p> + +<p> +Beresford went on, with mounting excitement. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia started. +</p> + +<p> +“Just about ten-thirty Lizzie heard somebody cry out, in the grounds,” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +The detective looked Beresford over till the latter grew a little +uncomfortable. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t suppose it has any bearing on the case,” admitted the latter uneasily. +“But it’s interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective seemed to agree. At least he slipped the watch in his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you always carry a flashlight, Mr. Beresford?” asked Miss Cornelia a trifle +suspiciously. +</p> + +<p> +“Always at night, in the car.” His reply was prompt and certain. +</p> + +<p> +“This is all you found?” queried the detective, a curious note in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Key, kitchen door, please!” he said, addressing his mistress. +</p> + +<p> +“Key?” said Miss Cornelia, startled. “What for?” +</p> + +<p> +For once Billy’s polite little grin was absent from his countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody outside trying to get in,” he chattered. “I see knob turn, so,” he +illustrated with the butcher knife, “and so—three times.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective’s hand went at once to his revolver. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re sure of that, are you?” he said roughly to Billy. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure, I sure!” +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s that hysterical woman Lizzie?” queried Anderson. “She may get a bullet +in her if she’s not careful.” +</p> + +<p> +“She see too. She shut in closet—say prayers, maybe,” said Billy, without a +smile. +</p> + +<p> +The picture was a ludicrous one but not one of the little group laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor, have you a revolver?” Anderson seemed to be going over the possible +means of defense against this new peril. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“How about you, Beresford?” +</p> + +<p> +Beresford hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The detective seemed to have more confidence in the young idler. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Beresford started to obey. Then he paused. +</p> + +<p> +“I advise you not to turn the doorknob yourself, then,” he said flippantly. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” The Doctor turned, politely. +</p> + +<p> +“Have <i>you</i> any theory about this occurrence to-night?” She watched him +eagerly as she asked the question. +</p> + +<p> +He made a gesture of bafflement. +</p> + +<p> +“None whatever—it’s beyond me,” he confessed. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did the perfectly obvious thing when I warned you,” said the Doctor easily. +“Those letters made a distinct threat.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia could not deny the truth in his words. And yet she felt decidedly +unsatisfied with the way things were progressing. +</p> + +<p> +“You said Fleming had probably been shot from above?” she queried, thinking +hard. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor nodded. “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you a pocket-flash, Doctor?” she asked him suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia decided upon an experiment. She turned to Dale. +</p> + +<p> +“Dale, you said you saw a white light shining down from above?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Dale in a minor voice. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia rose. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor gave her his flashlight with a stare of bewilderment. She took it +and moved into the alcove. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor, I shall ask you to stand at the foot of the small staircase, facing +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now?” queried the Doctor with some reluctance. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, please.” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor slowly followed her into the alcove and took up the position she +assigned him at the foot of the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +An expression of surprise and apprehension came over his face. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Hand or claw? Hand of man or woman or paw of beast? In the name of God—<i>whose +hand?</i> +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia’s voice from the head of the stairs broke the silence. +</p> + +<p> +“All right! Put out the lights!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Was it here?” Miss Cornelia’s voice came muffledly from the head of the +stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Dale considered. “Come down a little,” she said. The white spot of light +wavered, settled on the Doctor’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you haven’t a weapon,” the Doctor called up the stairs with an +unsuccessful attempt at jocularity. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia descended another step. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s this?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s about right,” said Dale uncertainly. Miss Cornelia was satisfied. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor! I’m so frightened!” she confessed. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor at once assumed his best manner of professional reassurance. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, my dear child?” he asked lightly. “Because you happened to be in the room +when a crime was committed?” +</p> + +<p> +“But he has a perfect case against me,” sighed Dale. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s absurd!” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You don’t ,mean?</i>” said the Doctor aghast. +</p> + +<p> +Dale looked at him with horror in her face. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t kill him!” she insisted anew. “But, you know the piece of blue-print +you found in his hand?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” from the Doctor tensely. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“There was another piece of blue-print, a larger piece—” said Dale slowly, “I +tore it from him just before—” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor seemed greatly excited by her words. But he controlled himself +swiftly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you do such a thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me understand this,” said the Doctor. “The butler has the paper now?” +</p> + +<p> +“He doesn’t know he has it. It was in one of the rolls that went out on the +tray.” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor’s eyes gleamed. He gave Dale’s shoulder a sympathetic pat. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“But—you oughtn’t to have it in your possession,” he said thoughtfully. “Why +not let it be burned?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale was on the defensive at once. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no! It’s important, it’s vital!” she said decidedly. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor seemed to consider ways and means of getting the paper. +</p> + +<p> +“The tray is in the dining-room?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Dale. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER THIRTEEN<br/> +THE BLACKENED BAG</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Dale moved toward him as soon as he had shut the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, things have gone awfully wrong, haven’t they?” she said with a little +break in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +He put his finger to his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Be careful!” he whispered. He glanced about the room cautiously. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Van Gorder wishes the fire kept burning,” he announced, with a whispered +“<i>Play up!</i>” to Dale. +</p> + +<p> +Dale caught his meaning at once. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Dale, pull yourself together!” he whispered warningly. “We’ve got a fight +ahead of us!” +</p> + +<p> +He released her and turned back toward the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +But Dale felt that she must settle one point between them before they took up +their game of pretense again. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +But there was no danger of that. His faith in her was too complete. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey considered the matter. +</p> + +<p> +“More likely the man Lizzie saw going upstairs,” he said finally. “But—I’ve +been all over the upper floors.” +</p> + +<p> +“And—nothing?” breathed Dale. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” Bailey’s voice had an accent of dour finality. “Dale, do you think +that—” he began. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mr. Alopecia—Urticaria—Rubeola—otherwise <i>Bailey!</i>” 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +She pulled out a cabinet photograph from the depths of her knitting-bag. +</p> + +<p> +“His photograph—sitting on your dresser!” she chided Dale. “Burn it and be +quick about it!” +</p> + +<p> +Dale took the photograph but continued to stare at her aunt with incredulous +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Then—you knew?” she stammered. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia, the effective little tableau she had planned now accomplished to +her most humorous satisfaction, relapsed into a chair. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you know why I’m here?” he stammered. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I want to ask <i>you</i> something,” she said more gravely. “Was there a +blue-print, and did you get it from Richard Fleming?” +</p> + +<p> +It was Dale’s turn now to bow her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she confessed. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey felt a thrill of horror run through him. She hadn’t told him this! +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>her!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“But she could have no <i>motive!</i>” stammered Bailey, distraught, still +failing to grasp the significance of Dale’s refusal. +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t she?” queried Miss Cornelia pityingly. “The detective thinks she +could—to save you!” +</p> + +<p> +Now the full light of revelation broke upon Bailey. He took a step back. +</p> + +<p> +“Good God!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is that paper, now?” she asked Dale sharply; +</p> + +<p> +“Why—the Doctor is getting it for me.” Dale seemed puzzled by the intensity of +her aunt’s manner. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>What?</i>” almost shouted Miss Cornelia. Dale explained. +</p> + +<p> +“It was on the tray Billy took out,” she said, still wondering why so simple an +answer should disturb Miss Cornelia so greatly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +But Miss Cornelia seemed to have no great patience with her dejection. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>not</i> an honest man,” went on Miss +Cornelia, “and he will keep it for himself. <i>I</i> don’t think he’s an honest +man.” +</p> + +<p> +The frank expression of her distrust seemed to calm her a little. She resumed +her interrogation of Dale more gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, let’s be clear about this. Had Richard Fleming ascertained that there was +a concealed room in this house?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was starting up to it!” said Dale in the voice of a ghost, remembering. +</p> + +<p> +“Just what did you tell him?” +</p> + +<p> +“That I believed there was a Hidden Room in the house—and that the money from +the Union Bank might be in it.” +</p> + +<p> +Again, for the millionth time, indeed it seemed to her, she reviewed the +circumstances of the crime. +</p> + +<p> +“Could anyone have overheard?” asked Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” she said. “We were very cautious.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know where this room is?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I never saw the print. Upstairs somewhere, for he—” +</p> + +<p> +“Upstairs! Then the thing to do, if we can get that paper from the Doctor, is +to locate the room at once.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What does the money matter now?” he broke in somewhat irritably. “We’ve got to +save <i>her!</i>” and his eyes went to Dale. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia gave him an ineffable look of weary patience. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +She rose. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Find the man who followed <i>your</i> course of reasoning,” she ended, with a +stare at Bailey, “and you have found the murderer.” +</p> + +<p> +“With that reasoning you might suspect <i>me!</i>” said the latter a trifle +touchily. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia did not give an inch. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +She rang the bell for Billy. But Dale was still worrying over the possible +effects of the confidence she had given Doctor Wells. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you think the Doctor may give this paper to Mr. Anderson?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Once back in the living-room the vague outlines of a plan—a test—formed slowly +in Miss Cornelia’s mind, grew more definite. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The last of the Van Gorder spinsters turned to Bailey now. +</p> + +<p> +“Get some soot from that fireplace,” she ordered. “Be quick. Scrape it off with +a knife or a piece of paper. Anything.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey emerged from the fireplace with a handful of sooty flakes. +</p> + +<p> +“Is this all right?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody’s coming!” Dale whispered, warning from her post by the door. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“We all need sleep,” she began, as if ending a conversation with Dale, “and I +think—” +</p> + +<p> +The door opened, admitting Billy. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor just go upstairs,” he said, and went out again leaving the door open. +</p> + +<p> +A flash passed across Miss Cornelia’s face. She stepped to the door. She +called. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor! Oh, Doctor!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” he said. “I only thought—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor—<i>did you get it?</i>” she repeated, drawing the Doctor aside. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor gave her a look of apparent bewilderment. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear child,” he said softly, “are you <i>sure</i> that you put it there?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale felt as if she had received a blow in the face. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Anderson had entered, slamming the terrace-door behind him. +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t find anybody!” he said in an irritated voice. “I think that Jap’s +crazy.” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor began to struggle into his topcoat, avoiding any look at Dale. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor,” he said, “did you ever hear Courtleigh Fleming mention a Hidden Room +in this house?” +</p> + +<p> +If the Doctor started, the movement passed apparently unnoted by Anderson. And +his reply was coolly made. +</p> + +<p> +“No—and I knew him rather well.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t think then,” persisted the detective, “that such a room and the +money in it could be the motive for this crime?” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor’s voice grew a little curt. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia watched him silently. As he turned to go, she spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, certainly,” agreed the Doctor at once. He turned back. Miss Cornelia +seemed pleased. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t generally advise these drugs,” he said, looking up for a moment. +“Still—” +</p> + +<p> +He paused. “What time is it?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia glanced at the clock. “Half-past eleven.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“That seems a lot of trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Dale will let you out, Doctor,” said she, giving the girl the key to the front +door. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor approved her watchfulness. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right,” he said smilingly. “Keep things locked up. Discretion is the +better part of valor!” +</p> + +<p> +But Miss Cornelia failed to agree with him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been discreet for sixty-five years,” she said with a sniff, “and +sometimes I think it was a mistake!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I want a few words with you!” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +She started for the alcove. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve examined that staircase,” said the detective. +</p> + +<p> +“Not with me!” insisted Miss Cornelia. “I have something to show you.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She shrieked madly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER FOURTEEN<br/> +HANDCUFFS</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, that conversation was to have vital results later on. +</p> + +<p> +“Your point about that thumbprint on the stair rail is very interesting,” +Anderson said with a certain respect. “But just what does it prove?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“It does,” he admitted. “But what then?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia tried to put her case as clearly and tersely as possible. +</p> + +<p> +“It shows that somebody stood there for some time, listening to my niece and +Richard Fleming in this room below,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> + He turned upon Dale. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you?” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated. Why hadn’t she thought of such an explanation before? But now—it +would sound too flimsy! +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Mr. Anderson—” she warned. +</p> + +<p> +The detective was obviously trying to keep his temper. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“You want it to connect her with the murder,” parried Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +The detective threw up his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia resolved upon comparative frankness. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Her words had the unmistakable ring of truth. The very oath from the detective +that succeeded them showed his recognition of the fact. +</p> + +<p> +“Damnation,” he muttered. “That’s true, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s true,” said Miss Cornelia firmly. A silence of troubled thoughts fell +upon the three. Miss Cornelia took out her knitting. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” grunted the detective. He took out a cigar—bit off the end with a savage +snap of teeth—lit it—resumed his pacing. +</p> + +<p> +“You should, sometimes,” continued Miss Cornelia, watching his troubled +movements with a faint light of mockery in her eyes. “I find it very helpful.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t need knitting to think straight,” rasped Anderson indignantly. Miss +Cornelia’s eyes danced. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder!” she said with caustic affability. “You seem to have so much +evidence left over.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective paused and glared at her helplessly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The detective, ignoring the taunt, crossed quickly to Dale. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“She hasn’t said that.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you believe in circumstantial evidence?” she asked him with seeming +ingenuousness. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my business,” said the detective stolidly. Miss Cornelia smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“While you have been investigating,” she announced, “I, too, have not been +idle.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective gave a barking laugh. She let it pass. +</p> + +<p> +“To me,” she continued, “it is perfectly obvious that <i>one</i> intelligence +has been at work behind many of the things that have occurred in this house.” +</p> + +<p> +Now Anderson observed her with a new respect. +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” he grunted tersely. +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes flashed. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“The Doctor?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia knitted on as if every movement of her needles added one more +link to the strong chain of probabilities she was piecing together. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<i>bolted</i> it, when he had left it <i>open</i>—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 <i>that?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +She paused for a second. Then she changed her tone a little. +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask you to look at this?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“A thumb-print,” muttered Anderson. “Whose is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor Wells,” said Miss Cornelia with what might have been a little crow of +triumph in anyone not a Van Gorder. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +And on that he went out, rather grimly, paper and reading glass in hand, to +make his comparison. +</p> + +<p> +It was then that Beresford came in, a new and slightly rigid Beresford, and +crossed to her at once. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale started uncontrollably at the ominous words, but Miss Cornelia betrayed no +emotion except in the increased rapidity of her knitting. +</p> + +<p> +“The gardener? Certainly, if you’ll touch that bell,” she said pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +Beresford stalked to the bell and rang it. The three waited—Dale in an agony of +suspense. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no good, Miss Van Gorder,” he said quietly. “The prints are not the +same.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not the same!” gasped Miss Cornelia, unwilling to believe her ears. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson laid down the paper and the reading glass with a little gesture of +dismissal. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever try a good cigar when you wanted to think?” he queried suavely, +puffing upon his own. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The detective, apparently, had somewhat of the same feeling. +</p> + +<p> +“I seem to have plenty of <i>help</i> in this case!” he said with obvious +sarcasm, turning to Beresford. +</p> + +<p> +The latter made no reply. Dale rose anxiously from her chair, her lips +quivering. +</p> + +<p> +“Why have you sent for the gardener?” she inquired haltingly. +</p> + +<p> +Beresford deigned to answer at last. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you that in a moment,” he said with a grim tightening of his lips. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You sent for me?” he queried of Miss Cornelia submissively, ignoring the +glowering Beresford. +</p> + +<p> +But Beresford would be ignored no longer. He came between them before Miss +Cornelia had time to answer. +</p> + +<p> +“How long has this man been in your employ?” he asked brusquely, manner tense. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +It was too late. Already Bailey had read the truth in Beresford’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I came this evening,” he admitted, still hoping against hope that his cringing +posture of the servitor might give Beresford pause for the moment. +</p> + +<p> +But the promptness of his answer only crystallized Beresford’s suspicions. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly,” he said with terse finality. He turned to the detective. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is he?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>restrained</i> your sense of duty for about three +hours more!” +</p> + +<p> +“To let you get away?” the young lawyer sneered, unconvinced. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Bailey with quiet defiance. “To let me finish what I came here to +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective slowly put down his cigar on an ash tray. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the truth, is it?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey realized it, too. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey’s eyes snapped open. He took a threatening step toward his accuser. “You +lie!” he said in a hoarse, violent voice. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson crossed between them, just as conflict seemed inevitable. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You</i> knew this?” he queried sharply in Dale’s direction. +</p> + +<p> +Dale set her lips in a line. She did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +He turned to Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” admitted the latter quietly, her knitting needles at last at rest. “I +knew he was Mr. Bailey if that is all you mean.” +</p> + +<p> +The quietness of her answer seemed to infuriate the detective. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly,” said Miss Cornelia. “And if we are united against you, why should I +have sent for you? You might tell me that, too.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned on Bailey savagely. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you mean by that ‘three hours more’?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“I could have cleared myself in three hours,” said Bailey with calm despair. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Probably the Doctor,” murmured Miss Cornelia uncertainly as the doorbell rang +again. “He was to come back with some sleeping-powders.” +</p> + +<p> +Billy appeared for the key of the front door. +</p> + +<p> +“If that’s Doctor Wells,” warned the detective, “admit him. If it’s anybody +else, call me.” +</p> + +<p> +Billy grinned acquiescently and departed. The detective moved nearer to Bailey. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got a gun on you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” Bailey bowed his head. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER FIFTEEN<br/> +THE SIGN OF THE BAT</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“By Bailey!” interjected Beresford angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you do with the blue-print?” The detective’s voice beat at Dale like +a whip. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I put it—somewhere else,” she repeated, her eyes going back to the Doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you give it to Bailey?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you quite sure of that?” queried Miss Cornelia acidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Absolutely,” he said. He ignored the rest of the party, addressing himself +directly to Anderson. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“She was in such distress that I finally went to look for it. It wasn’t there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you realize the significance of this paper?” Anderson boomed at once. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, beyond the fact that Miss Ogden was afraid it linked her with the +crime.” The Doctor’s voice was very clear and firm. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson pondered an instant. Then— +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like to have a few minutes with the Doctor alone,” he said somberly. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Beresford,” commanded the detective, “take Bailey to the library and see that +he stays there.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The detective spoke at once—and surprisingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor, I’ll have that blue-print!” he said sternly, his eyes the color of +steel. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor gave him a wary little glance. +</p> + +<p> +“But I’ve just made the statement that I didn’t find the blue-print,” he +affirmed flatly. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“In this house?” repeated the Doctor as if stalling for time. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +But Anderson was remorseless. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you this,” he continued. “Miss Van Gorder very cleverly got a +thumbprint of yours tonight. Does that mean anything to you?” +</p> + +<p> +His eyes bored into the Doctor—the eyes of a poker player bluffing on a hidden +card. But the Doctor did not flinch. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” he said firmly. “I have not been upstairs in this house in three +months.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Before Courtleigh Fleming died—did he tell you anything about a Hidden Room in +this house?” he queried cannily. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor’s confident air of honesty lessened, a furtive look appeared in his +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he insisted, but not as convincingly as he had made his previous denial. +</p> + +<p> +The detective hammered at the point again. +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t been trying to frighten these women out of here with anonymous +letters so you could get in?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Certainly not.” But again the Doctor’s air had that odd mixture of truth +and falsehood in it. +</p> + +<p> +The detective paused for an instant. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Hands up and stand back!” he commanded. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Behind a fireplace, eh?” he muttered. “What fireplace? In what room?” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t tell you!” The Doctor’s voice was sullen. He inched, gingerly, +cautiously, toward the other side of the table. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“My God! What’s that?” Beresford panted. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +As Beresford drew his revolver and moved to the door, Miss Cornelia came in, +followed by Lizzie. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +But they ignored her. And Beresford flung open the door. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor!” gasped Miss Cornelia dazedly and the Doctor, whatever guilt lay on +his conscience, responded at once to the call of his profession. +</p> + +<p> +He bent over the Unknown Man—the physician once more—and made a brief +examination. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s fainted!” he said, rising. “Struck on the head, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>who is he?</i>” faltered Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +“I never saw him before,” said the Doctor. It was obvious that he spoke the +truth. “Does anyone recognize him?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he badly hurt?” asked Miss Cornelia, shuddering again. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“A chair!” said the Doctor quickly. “Ah—” He helped the strange figure to sit +down and bent over him again. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re all right now, my friend,” he said in his best tones of professional +cheeriness. “Dizzy a bit, aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown rubbed his wrists where his bonds had cut them. He made an effort +to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Water!” he said in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor gestured to Billy. “Get some water—or whisky—if there is any—that’d +be better.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a flask of whisky in my room, Billy,” added Miss Cornelia helpfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, my man,” continued the Doctor to the Unknown. “You’re in the hands of +friends. Brace up and tell us what happened!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor stopped him quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor gave the slumped shoulders a little shake. +</p> + +<p> +“Rouse yourself, man!” he said. “What has happened to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m dazed!” said the Unknown thickly and slowly. “I can’t remember.” He passed +a hand weakly over his forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“What a night!” sighed Miss Cornelia, sinking into a chair. “Richard Fleming +murdered in this house—and now—this!” +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown shot her a stealthy glance from beneath lowered eyelids. But when +she looked at him, his face was blank again. +</p> + +<p> +“Why doesn’t somebody ask his name?” queried Dale, and, “Where the devil is +that detective?” muttered Beresford, almost in the same instant. +</p> + +<p> +Neither question was answered, and Beresford, increasingly uneasy at the +continued absence of Anderson, turned toward the hall. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor took Dale’s suggestion. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s your name?” +</p> + +<p> +Silence from the Unknown—and that blank stare of stupefaction. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a paper on him,” said Jack Bailey at last, straightening up. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Billy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Billy—what is it?” +</p> + +<p> +The diminutive butler made a pitiful attempt at his usual grin. +</p> + +<p> +“It—nothing,” he gasped. The Unknown relapsed in his chair—again the dazed +stranger from nowhere. +</p> + +<p> +Beresford took the Japanese by the shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Now see here!” he said sharply. “You’ve seen something! What was it!” +</p> + +<p> +Billy trembled like a leaf. +</p> + +<p> +“Ghost! Ghost!” he muttered frantically, his face working. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s concealing something. Look at him!” Miss Cornelia stared at her servant. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” insisted Billy in an ague of fright. “No, no!” +</p> + +<p> +But Miss Cornelia was sure of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Brooks, close that door!” she said, pointing at the terrace door in the alcove +which still stood ajar after the entrance of the Unknown. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey fumbled for the doorknob in the sudden darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“The door’s <i>locked!</i>” he said incredulously. “The key’s gone too. Where’s +your revolver, Beresford?” +</p> + +<p> +“I dropped it in the alcove when I caught that man,” called Beresford, cursing +himself for his carelessness. +</p> + +<p> +The illuminated dial of Bailey’s wrist watch flickered in the darkness as he +searched for the revolver—as round, glowing spot of phosphorescence. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie screamed. “The eye! The gleaming eye I saw on the stairs!” she shrieked, +pointing at it frenziedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Quick—there’s a candle on the table—light it somebody. Never mind the +revolver, I have one!” called Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +“Righto!” called Beresford cheerily in reply. He found the candle, lit it— +</p> + +<p> +The party blinked at each other for a moment, still unable quite to co-ordinate +their thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey rattled the knob of the door into the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Neatly fastened to the white panel of the door, chest high and hardly more than +just dead, was the body of a bat. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER SIXTEEN<br/> +THE HIDDEN ROOM</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But he also found Miss Cornelia holding her candle to the floor and staring at +something there. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Fresh candle grease! Now who do you suppose did that? Do you remember how Mr. +Gillette, in <i>Sherlock Holmes</i>, when he—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey stared. “Then why the fireplace?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I’m going to find out!” said the spinster grimly. She started to +rap the mantel, testing it for secret springs. +</p> + +<p> +“Jack! Jack!” It was Dale’s voice, low and cautious, coming from the landing of +the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey stepped to the door of the trunk room. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in,” he called in reply. “And shut the door behind you.” +</p> + +<p> +Dale entered, turning the key in the lock behind her. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are the others?” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re still searching the house. There’s no sign of anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“They haven’t found—Mr. Anderson?” +</p> + +<p> +Dale shook her head. “Not yet.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned toward her aunt. Miss Cornelia had begun to enjoy herself once more. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +But Jack Bailey said nothing at all. One glance had shown him that the safe was +empty. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“It was the Bat I saw,” was her astounding statement. “He dropped through the +skylight out there and ran along the hall. I <i>saw</i> him I tell you. He went +right by me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense,” said Miss Cornelia briskly. “How can you say such a thing?” +</p> + +<p> +But Bailey pushed forward and took Lizzie by the shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“What did he look like?” +</p> + +<p> +“He hadn’t any face. He was all black where his face ought to be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean he wore a mask?” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe. I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +She collapsed again but when Bailey, followed by Miss Cornelia, made a move +toward the door she broke into frantic wailing. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Not feeling sick, are you?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel a little queer.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Dale!” called Bailey’s voice from the corridor. “Dale!” +</p> + +<p> +“Dale! Dale! The door’s locked!” cried Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor hesitated. The call came again. “Dale! Dale!” and Bailey pounded on +the door as if he meant to break it down. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor made up his mind. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you lock that door?” said Bailey angrily, threatening the Doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p> +“You—you,” he stammered at the Doctor. “Where’s Miss Ogden? What have you done +with her?” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor was equally baffled. +</p> + +<p> +“Done with her?” he said indignantly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, +I haven’t seen her!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you didn’t lock that door?” Bailey menaced him. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor’s denial was firm. +</p> + +<p> +“Absolutely not. I was coming through the window when I heard your voice at the +door!” +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor’s admission of his manner of entrance did not make Lizzie any the +happier. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw lights up here from outside,” continued the Doctor easily. “And I +thought—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“The mantel’s—closed!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey turned on him savagely. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you shut that mantel?” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +As it did so the Doctor deliberately snuffed out the light of the candle he +held, leaving the room in abrupt and obliterating darkness. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER SEVENTEEN<br/> +ANDERSON MAKES AN ARREST</h2> + +<p> +“Doctor, why did you put out that candle?” Miss Cornelia’s voice cut the +blackness like a knife. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t—I—” +</p> + +<p> +“You did—I saw you do it.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What was that?” queried Bailey dazedly, with a feeling as if some great winged +creature had brushed at him and passed. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie answered from the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, oh!” she groaned in stricken accents. “Somebody knocked me down and +tramped on me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Matches, quick!” commanded Miss Cornelia. “Where’s the candle?” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor was still trying to explain his curious action of a moment before. +</p> + +<p> +“Awfully sorry, I assure you—it dropped out of the holder—ah, here it is!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Anderson, the detective, stood in the doorway, holding a candle—as grim and +menacing a figure as a man just arisen from the dead. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right!” said Lizzie, unappalled for once. “Come in when everything’s +over!” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor glanced up and met the detective’s eyes, cold and menacing. +</p> + +<p> +“You took my revolver from me downstairs,” he said. “I’ll trouble you for it.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly, with sullen reluctance, the Doctor yielded up the stolen weapon. The +detective examined it casually and replaced it in his hip pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But Anderson was not to be caught napping again. “Wells!” he barked. The Doctor +stopped and turned. +</p> + +<p> +“Where were you when she was locked in this room?” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor’s eyes sought the floor—the walls—wildly—for any possible loophole +of escape. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t shut her in if that’s what you mean!” he said defiantly. “There was +<i>someone</i> shut in there with her!” He gestured at the Hidden Room. “Ask +these people here.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia caught him up at once. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“As we opened that door,” she continued to the detective, tapping the false +mantel, “the Doctor deliberately extinguished our only candle!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know who was in that room?” queried the detective fiercely, wheeling on +the Doctor. +</p> + +<p> +But the latter had evidently made up his mind to cling stubbornly to a policy +of complete denial. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She gave the Hidden Room a hunted little glance and then shuddered violently. +</p> + +<p> +“Please close that awful door,” she said in a tremulous voice. “I don’t want to +see it again.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“There was nothing about the figure that you recognized?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Still harping on the Bat!” he said, with a little sneer, Miss Cornelia stuck +to her guns. +</p> + +<p> +“I have every reason to believe that the Bat is in this house,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +He wheeled on the Doctor now. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +There was an astounded silence. The detective added a parting shot to his +indictment of the Doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“By the Bat, I suppose!” mocked Anderson. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +In spite of himself Anderson seemed to be impressed. +</p> + +<p> +“The Bat, eh?” he muttered, then, changing his tone, “You knew about this +hidden room, Wells?” he shot at the Doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” The Doctor bowed his head. +</p> + +<p> +“And you knew the money was in the room?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I was wrong, wasn’t I?” parried the Doctor. “You can look for yourself. +That safe is empty.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective brushed his evasive answer aside. +</p> + +<p> +“You were up in this room earlier tonight,” he said in tones of apparent +certainty. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I couldn’t <i>get</i> up!” the doctor still insisted, with strange +violence for a man who had already admitted such damning knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +The detective’s face was a study in disbelief. +</p> + +<p> +“You know where that money is, Wells, and I’m going to find it!” +</p> + +<p> +This last taunt seemed to goad the Doctor beyond endurance. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused, trembling with anger and, curiously enough, with an anger that +seemed at least half sincere. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor’s face changed a little. +</p> + +<p> +“What about Richard Fleming?” persisted the detective scornfully. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor drew himself up. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +The detective alone maintained his attitude unchanged. +</p> + +<p> +“You come with me, Wells,” he ordered, with a jerk of his thumb toward the +door. “This time I’ll do the locking up.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +It was Bailey who broke the silence. +</p> + +<p> +“I can believe a good bit about Wells,” he said, “but not that he stood on that +staircase and killed Dick Fleming.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia roused from deep thought. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not,” she said briskly. “Go down and fix Miss Dale’s bed, Lizzie. +And then bring up some wine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Down there, where the Bat is?” Lizzie demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“The Bat has gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you believe it. He’s just got his hand in!” +</p> + +<p> +But at last Lizzie went, and, closing the door behind her, Miss Cornelia +proceeded more or less to think, out loud. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“He may have had trouble with the combination.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Bailey glanced out the window. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be possible from here. Possible, but not easy.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +Saying nothing, but deeply thoughtful, Miss Cornelia made a fresh progress +around the room. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Bailey considered the question. +</p> + +<p> +“Even in bills of large denomination it would make a pretty sizeable bundle,” +he said. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Nor was Beresford’s arrival with the statement that the Unknown was moving +through the house below particularly comforting. +</p> + +<p> +“He may be dazed, or he may not,” he said. “Personally, this is not a time to +trust anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +Beresford knew nothing of what had just occurred, and now seeing Bailey he +favored him with an ugly glance. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +But Bailey heard him without particular resentment. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Doctor!” Beresford gasped. +</p> + +<p> +But Miss Cornelia’s keen ears had heard a sound outside and her eyes were +focused on the door. +</p> + +<p> +“That doorknob is moving,” she said in a hushed voice. +</p> + +<p> +Beresford moved to the door and jerked it violently open. +</p> + +<p> +The butler, Billy, almost pitched into the room. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER EIGHTEEN<br/> +THE BAT STILL FLIES</h2> + +<p> +He stepped back in the doorway, looked out, then turned to them again. +</p> + +<p> +“I come in, please?” he said pathetically, his hands quivering. “I not like to +stay in dark.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia took pity on him. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in, Billy, of course. What is it? Anything the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +Billy glanced about nervously. +</p> + +<p> +“Man with sore head.” +</p> + +<p> +“What about him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Act very strange.” Again Billy’s slim hands trembled. +</p> + +<p> +Beresford broke in. “The man who fell into the room downstairs?” +</p> + +<p> +Billy nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. On second floor, walking around.” +</p> + +<p> +Beresford smiled, a bit smugly. +</p> + +<p> +“I told you!” he said to Miss Cornelia. “I didn’t think he was as dazed as he +pretended to be.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring him up here, Billy,” she said, turning to the butler. +</p> + +<p> +Billy started to obey. But the darkness of the corridor seemed to appall him +anew the moment he took a step toward it. +</p> + +<p> +“You give candle, please?” he asked with a pleading expression. “Don’t like +dark.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Billy,” she queried, “what did you see when you came running down the stairs +before we were locked in, down below?” +</p> + +<p> +The candle shook like a reed in Billy’s grasp. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing!” said Lizzie scornfully. “It was some nothing that would make him +drop a bottle of whisky!” +</p> + +<p> +But Billy only backed toward the door, smiling apologetically. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Something was flapping and thumping around the room. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s damned odd!” muttered Beresford uneasily. “There <i>is</i> something +moving around the room.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s up near the ceiling!” cried Bailey as the sound began again. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie began a slow wail of doom and disaster. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—h—h—h—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie rose. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going!” she announced. “I don’t know where, but I’m going!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s in my hair!” she screamed madly. “It’s in my hair!” +</p> + +<p> +The next instant Bailey gave a triumphant cry. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got it! It’s a bat!” +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie sank to her knees, still moaning, and Bailey carried the cause of the +trouble over to the window and threw it out. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in,” began Miss Cornelia. “Sit down.” He obeyed both commands docilely +enough. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you better now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Somewhat.” His words still came very slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“Billy—you can go.” +</p> + +<p> +“I stay, please!” said Billy wistfully, making no movement to leave. His +gesture toward the darkness of the corridor spoke louder than words. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey watched him, suspicion dawning in his eyes. He could not account for the +butler’s inexplicable terror of being left alone. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey turned him around so that he faced the Hidden Room. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you know that room was there?” he questioned, his doubts still unquieted. +</p> + +<p> +Billy shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“He couldn’t have locked us in,” said Miss Cornelia. “He was <i>with</i> us.” +</p> + +<p> +Bailey demurred, not to her remark itself, but to its implication of Billy’s +entire innocence. +</p> + +<p> +“He may <i>know</i> who did it. Do you?” +</p> + +<p> +Billy still shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey remained unconvinced. +</p> + +<p> +“Who did you see at the head of the small staircase?” he queried imperatively. +“Now we’re through with nonsense; I want the truth!” +</p> + +<p> +Billy shivered. +</p> + +<p> +“See face—that’s all,” he brought out at last. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Whose</i> face?” +</p> + +<p> +Again it was evident that Billy knew or thought he knew more than he was +willing to tell. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t know,” he said with obvious untruth, looking down at the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, Billy,” cut in Miss Cornelia. To her mind questioning Billy was +wasting time. She looked at the Unknown. +</p> + +<p> +“Solve the mystery of <i>this</i> man and we may get at the facts,” she said in +accents of conviction. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You stay here,” he commanded. Billy stood frozen. Beresford raised the candle +so that it cast its light full in the Unknown’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish somebody would knock <i>me</i> on the head! <i>I’d</i> like to forget a +few things!” moaned Lizzie, but the interruption went unregarded. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you even know your name?” queried Miss Cornelia of the Unknown. +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown shook his head with a slow, laborious gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“Not—yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or where you came from?” +</p> + +<p> +Once more the battered head made its movement of negation. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember how you got in this house?” The Unknown made an effort. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“My—head—aches—to—beat—the—band,” he continued slowly. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia was at a loss. If this were acting, it was at least fine acting. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you happen to come to this house?” she persisted, her voice +unconsciously tuning itself to the slow, laborious speech of the Unknown. +</p> + +<p> +“Saw—the—lights.” +</p> + +<p> +Bailey broke in with a question. +</p> + +<p> +“Where were you when you saw the lights?” +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown wet his lips with his tongue, painfully. +</p> + +<p> +“I—broke—out—of—the—garage,” he said at length. This was unexpected. A general +movement of interest ran over the group. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you get there?” Beresford took his turn as questioner. +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown shook his head, so slowly and deliberately that Miss Cornelia’s +fingers itched to shake him in spite of his injuries. +</p> + +<p> +“I—don’t—know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you been robbed?” queried Bailey with keen suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown mumbled something unintelligible. Then he seemed to get command of +his tongue again. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything gone—out of—my pockets,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Including your watch?” pursued Bailey, remembering the watch that Beresford +had found in the grounds. +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown would neither affirm nor deny. +</p> + +<p> +“If—I—had—a—watch—it’s gone,” he said with maddening deliberation. “All +my—papers—are gone.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia pounced upon this last statement like a cat upon a mouse. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know you <i>had</i> papers?” she asked sharply. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +He gave the ghost of a chuckle. Bailey and Beresford exchanged glances. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ring the house phone?” insisted Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia and Bailey gave each other a look of wonderment. +</p> + +<p> +“I—leaned against—the button—in the garage—” he went on. “Then—I think—maybe +I—fainted. That’s—not clear.” +</p> + +<p> +His eyelids drooped. He seemed about to faint again. +</p> + +<p> +Dale rose, and came over to him, with a sympathetic movement of her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t remember how you were hurt?” she asked gently. +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown stared ahead of him, his eyes filming, as if he were trying to +puzzle it out. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia made a movement to question him further. Beresford stopped her +with his hand uplifted. +</p> + +<p> +“Just a moment, Miss Van Gorder. Anderson ought to know of this.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +He halted for a moment, staring at the strange figure of the Unknown. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The detective and the Unknown gazed at each other for a moment—the Unknown with +his old expression of vacant stupidity. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite dazed, poor fellow,” Miss Cornelia went on. Beresford added other words +of explanation. +</p> + +<p> +“He doesn’t remember what happened to him. Curious, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +The detective still seemed puzzled. +</p> + +<p> +“How did he get into the house?” +</p> + +<p> +“He came through the terrace door some time ago,” answered Miss Cornelia. “Just +before we were locked in.” +</p> + +<p> +Her answer seemed to solve the problem to Anderson’s satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Look up here!” he commanded. +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown stared at him for an instant with blank, vacuous eyes. Then his +head dropped back upon his breast again. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t—go down—very well—with me—either,” said the Unknown weakly, making +no movement of protest against Anderson’s rough handling. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown stared at it a moment, as a child might stare at a new toy, with no +gleam of recognition. Then— +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe,” he admitted. “I—don’t—know.” His voice trailed off. He fell back +against Bailey’s arm. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>truth</i> out of him!” he +promised. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you believe that money is irrevocably gone?” she asked of Anderson. +</p> + +<p> +The detective smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia still hesitated, on the verge of departure. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose I tell you that there are certain facts that you have overlooked?” she +said slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“I was right about the Doctor, wasn’t I?” she insisted. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<i>all</i> go out and close that door—” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia, defeated, took a candle from Bailey and stepped into the +corridor. Her figure stiffened. She gave an audible gasp of dismayed surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER NINETEEN<br/> +MURDER ON MURDER</h2> + +<p> +“Out on the roof!” +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, Beresford!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hustle—you men! He may be armed!” +</p> + +<p> +“Righto—coming!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“And <i>I’d</i> run if my legs would!” Lizzie despaired. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“How do we know this fellow right here isn’t <i>the Bat?</i>” 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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia re-entered cautiously with her candle, closing the door gently +behind her as she came. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you see?” gasped Dale. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia smiled broadly. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody went through the skylight?” said Dale incredulously. +</p> + +<p> +“They have now,” answered Miss Cornelia with obvious satisfaction. “The whole +outfit of them.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Then why did you—” began Dale dazedly, unable to fathom her aunt’s reasons for +her trick. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Her forefinger jabbed at the hidden chamber wherein the masked intruder had +terrified Dale with threats of instant death. +</p> + +<p> +“He got it out of the safe—and that’s as far as he <i>did</i> get with it,” she +persisted inexorably. “There’s a <i>hat</i> behind that safe, a man’s felt +hat!” +</p> + +<p> +So this was the discovery she had hinted of to Anderson before he rebuffed her +proffer of assistance! +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I wish he’d take his hat and go home!” groaned Lizzie inattentive to all +but her own fears. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia did not even bother to rebuke her. She crossed behind the wicker +clothes hamper and picked up something from the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“A half-burned candle,” she mused. “Another thing the detective overlooked.” +</p> + +<p> +She stepped back to the center of the room, looking knowingly from the candle +to the Hidden Room and back again. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia snatched up her revolver from the top of the hamper. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t shoot—it’s Jack!” came a warning cry from Dale as she recognized the +figure of her lover. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia laid her revolver down on the hamper again. The vacant eyes of +the Unknown caught the movement. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey swung in through the window, panting a little from his exertions. +</p> + +<p> +“The man Lizzie saw drop from the skylight undoubtedly got to the roof from +this window,” he said. “It’s quite easy.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Dale explained the situation to Jack. +</p> + +<p> +“Aunt Cornelia thinks the money’s still here.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia snorted. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>know</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Dale noticed the curious tableau. +</p> + +<p> +“Lizzie—what are you looking at?” she said with a nervous shake in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s <i>he</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia rattled the knob of a high closet by the other wall. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Unfortunately for her, her whimper drew Miss Cornelia’s attention upon her. +</p> + +<p> +“Lizzie, did you ever take that key?” the latter queried sternly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia pondered. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +She was about to throw open the closet door. But Bailey motioned her back. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d keep <i>back</i> a little,” he cautioned. “You don’t know what may be +inside.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +After a moment he closed the door of the closet and turned back, white-faced, +to the others. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” said Dale aghast. “What did you see?” +</p> + +<p> +Bailey found himself unable to answer for a moment. Then he pulled himself +together. He turned to Miss Van Gorder. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Cornelia, I think we have found the ghost the Jap butler saw,” he said +slowly. “How are your nerves?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia extended a hand that did not tremble. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me the candle.” +</p> + +<p> +He did so. She went to the closet and opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia’s voice sounded strange to her own ears when finally she spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“But who is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is—or was—Courtleigh Fleming,” said Bailey dully. +</p> + +<p> +“But how can it be? Mr. Fleming died two weeks ago. I—” +</p> + +<p> +“He died in this house sometime tonight. The body is still warm.” +</p> + +<p> +“But who killed him? The Bat?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke without bitterness. Whatever resentment he might have felt died in +that awful presence. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +But Miss Cornelia’s face was still thoughtful, and he went on: +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused, thinking it out. +</p> + +<p> +“Only they slipped up in one place. Dick Fleming leased the house to you and +they couldn’t get it back.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you?” asked Bailey surprised. The more he thought of it the less +clearly could he visualize it any other way. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia shook her head decidedly. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +Bailey thought her merely obstinate—unwilling to give up, for pride’s sake, her +own pet theory of the activities of the Bat. +</p> + +<p> +“Wells tried to get out of the house tonight with that blue-print. <i>Why?</i> +Because he knew the moment we got it, we’d come up here—and Fleming was here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perfectly true,” nodded Miss Cornelia. “And then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Old Fleming killed Dick and Wells killed Fleming,” said Bailey succinctly. +“You can’t get away from it!” +</p> + +<p> +But Miss Cornelia still shook her head. The explanation was too mechanical. It +laid too little emphasis on the characters of those most concerned. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +But Bailey was as convinced of the truth of his theory as she of hers. +</p> + +<p> +“He was here ten minutes ago—locked in this room,” he said with a glance at the +ladder up which the doctor had ascended. +</p> + +<p> +“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. <i>Why? +Because he thought Courtleigh Fleming was hiding there!</i>” 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 +<i>unknown</i> element,” her eyes rested for a moment upon the Unknown, “and +that element is—the Bat!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Yet she was so hopeless by that time that her first search was purely +perfunctory. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +It was when Bailey finally opened the lid of a clothes hamper that they +stumbled on their first clue. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing here but some clothes and books,” he said, glancing inside. +</p> + +<p> +“Books?” said Miss Cornelia dubiously. “I left no books in that hamper.” +</p> + +<p> +Bailey picked up one of the cheap paper novels and read its title aloud, with a +wry smile. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Little Rosebud’s Lover, Or The Cruel Revenge</i>, by Laura Jean—” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>Wedded But No Wife</i> +and now—” +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s your satchel?” snapped Miss Cornelia, her eyes gleaming. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s my satchel?” mumbled Lizzie, staring about as best she could. “I don’t +see it. If that wretch has stolen my satchel—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you leave it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t that your satchel, Lizzie?” asked Miss Cornelia, indicating a battered +bag in a dark corner of shadows above the window. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes’m,” she admitted. But she did not dare approach very close to the +recovered bag. It might bite her! +</p> + +<p> +“Put it there on the hamper,” ordered Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m scared to touch it!” moaned Lizzie. “It may have a bomb in it!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Cornelia started for the satchel. Then she remembered. She turned to +Bailey. +</p> + +<p> +“You open it,” she said graciously. “If the money’s there—you’re the one who +ought to find it.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Bailey gave a triumphant cry. +</p> + +<p> +“The money’s here!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, thank God!” sobbed Dale. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Fire!” screamed Lizzie, pointing to the window, even as Beresford’s voice from +the roof rang out in a shout. “The garage is burning!” +</p> + +<p> +They turned toward the door to escape, but a strange and menacing figure +blocked their way. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY<br/> +“HE IS—THE BAT!”</h2> + +<p> +Lizzie opened her mouth to scream. But for once she did not carry out her +purpose. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a sound out of <i>you!</i>” warned the Unknown brutally, almost jabbing +the revolver into her ribs. He wheeled on Bailey. +</p> + +<p> +“Close that satchel,” he commanded, “and put it back where you found it!” +</p> + +<p> +Bailey’s fist closed. He took a step toward his captor. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You</i>—” he began in a furious voice. But the steely glint in the eyes of +the Unknown was enough to give any man pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Jack!” pleaded Dale. Bailey halted. +</p> + +<p> +“Do what he tells you!” Miss Cornelia insisted, her voice shaking. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +This finished Lizzie for the evening. She spoke from a dry throat. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to scream!” she sobbed hysterically. “I can’t keep it back!” +</p> + +<p> +But at last she had encountered someone who had no patience with her vagaries. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t shove,” she said in tones of the greatest dignity as she stumbled into +the Hidden Room. “I’m damn glad to go!” +</p> + +<p> +The iron doors shut behind her. Bailey watched the Unknown intently. One moment +of relaxed vigilance and— +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a sound if you value your lives!” he warned again, he shepherded them away +from the direction of the window with his revolver. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Bailey threw aside all pride in his concern for Dale’s safety. +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake, don’t keep these women here!” he pleaded in low, tense tones. +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown seemed to tower above him like a destroying angel. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep them here where we can watch them!” he whispered with fierce impatience. +“Don’t you understand? There’s a <i>killer</i> loose!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand back out of that light! The ladder!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Get his gun!” muttered the Unknown hoarsely to Bailey as he tore the Bat’s +lean hands away from his throat. “Got it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” gasped Bailey. He jabbed the muzzle against a straining back. The Bat +ceased to struggle. Bailey stepped a little away. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve still got you covered!” he said fiercely. The Bat made no sound. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +A simultaneous gasp went up from Dale and Miss Cornelia. +</p> + +<p> +It was Anderson, the detective! And he was—the Bat! +</p> + +<p> +“It’s Mr. Anderson!” stuttered Dale, aghast at the discovery. +</p> + +<p> +The Unknown gloated over his captive. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I’m</i> Anderson,” he said. “This man has been impersonating me. You’re a +good actor, Bat, for a fellow that’s such a <i>bad</i> actor!” he taunted. “How +did you get the dope on this case? Did you tap the wires to headquarters?” +</p> + +<p> +The Bat allowed himself a little sardonic smile. +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p> +“Hands up, everybody!” he ordered, menacing the group with the stolen pistol. +“Hands up—you!” as Miss Cornelia kept her hands at her sides. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” she queried mildly. “I took the bullets out of that revolver two hours +ago.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“You see—you never know what a woman will do,” he continued. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” she said, “I, too, have a little imagination!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE<br/> +QUITE A COLLECTION</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +But calmly and dispassionately Miss Cornelia worked out the crossword puzzle of +the evening and announced her results. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +And again: +</p> + +<p> +“He had probably trailed the real detective all the way from town and attacked +him where Mr. Beresford found the watch.” +</p> + +<p> +Once, too, she harkened back to the anonymous letters— +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie came over to the table and surveyed her grimly. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, Lizzie, it’s quite a collection. I’m going to take them and—” +</p> + +<p> +But Lizzie bent over the table and picked up the box of powders. +</p> + +<p> +“No, ma’am,” she said with extreme finality. “You are not. You are going to +take these and go to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +And Miss Cornelia did. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAT ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. +</div> + +<div style='margin-top:1em; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE</div> +<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE</div> +<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person +or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the +Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when +you share it without charge with others. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work +on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: +</div> + +<blockquote> + <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> + 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. + </div> +</blockquote> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg™ License. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format +other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain +Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +provided that: +</div> + +<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation.” + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ + works. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. + </div> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread +public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state +visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. +</div> + +</div> + +</body> + +</html>
\ No newline at end of file |