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diff --git a/old/2019.txt b/old/2019.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fd99856 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/2019.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9114 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Bat, by Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Bat + +Author: Avery Hopwood + Mary Roberts Rinehart + +Posting Date: November 19, 2008 [EBook #2019] +Release Date: January, 2000 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAT *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +The Bat + + +by + +Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + ONE THE SHADOW OF THE BAT + TWO THE INDOMITABLE MISS VAN GORDER + THREE PISTOL PRACTICE + FOUR THE STORM GATHERS + FIVE ALOPECIA AND RUBEOLA + SIX DETECTIVE ANDERSON TAKES CHARGE + SEVEN CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS + EIGHT THE GLEAMING EYE + NINE A SHOT IN THE DARK + TEN THE PHONE CALL FROM NOWHERE + ELEVEN BILLY PRACTICES JIU-JITSU + TWELVE "I DIDN'T KILL HIM." + THIRTEEN THE BLACKENED BAG + FOURTEEN HANDCUFFS + FIFTEEN THE SIGN OF THE BAT + SIXTEEN THE HIDDEN ROOM + SEVENTEEN ANDERSON MAKES AN ARREST + EIGHTEEN THE BAT STILL FLIES + NINETEEN MURDER ON MURDER + TWENTY "HE IS--THE BAT!" + TWENTY-ONE QUITE A COLLECTION + + + + +THE BAT + + + +CHAPTER ONE + +THE SHADOW OF THE BAT + +"You've got to get him, boys--get him or bust!" said a tired police +chief, pounding a heavy fist on a table. The detectives he bellowed +the words at looked at the floor. They had done their best and failed. +Failure meant "resignation" for the police chief, return to the hated +work of pounding the pavements for them--they knew it, and, knowing it, +could summon no gesture of bravado to answer their chief's. Gunmen, +thugs, hi-jackers, loft-robbers, murderers, they could get them all in +time--but they could not get the man he wanted. + +"Get him--to hell with expense--I'll give you carte blanche--but get +him!" said a haggard millionaire in the sedate inner offices of the +best private detective firm in the country. The man on the other side +of the desk, man hunter extraordinary, old servant of Government and +State, sleuthhound without a peer, threw up his hands in a gesture of +odd hopelessness. "It isn't the money, Mr. De Courcy--I'd give every +cent I've made to get the man you want--but I can't promise you +results--for the first time in my life." The conversation was ended. + +"Get him? Huh! I'll get him, watch my smoke!" It was young ambition +speaking in a certain set of rooms in Washington. Three days later +young ambition lay in a New York gutter with a bullet in his heart and +a look of such horror and surprise on his dead face that even the +ambulance-Doctor who found him felt shaken. "We've lost the most +promising man I've had in ten years," said his chief when the news came +in. He swore helplessly, "Damn the luck!" + +"Get him--get him--get him--get him!" From a thousand sources now the +clamor arose--press, police, and public alike crying out for the +capture of the master criminal of a century--lost voices hounding a +specter down the alleyways of the wind. And still the meshes broke and +the quarry slipped away before the hounds were well on the +scent--leaving behind a trail of shattered safes and rifled jewel +cases--while ever the clamor rose higher to "Get him--get him--get--" + +Get whom, in God's name--get what? Beast, man, or devil? A specter--a +flying shadow--the shadow of a Bat. + +From thieves' hangout to thieves' hangout the word passed along +stirring the underworld like the passage of an electric spark. "There's +a bigger guy than Pete Flynn shooting the works, a guy that could have +Jim Gunderson for breakfast and not notice he'd et." The underworld +heard and waited to be shown; after a little while the underworld began +to whisper to itself in tones of awed respect. There were bright stars +and flashing comets in the sky of the world of crime--but this new +planet rose with the portent of an evil moon. + +The Bat--they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours +for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, +noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day. +He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run +with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even +the fence couldn't swear he knew his face. Most lone wolves had a moll +at any rate--women were their ruin--but if the Bat had a moll, not even +the grapevine telegraph could locate her. + +Rat-faced gunmen in the dingy back rooms of saloons muttered over his +exploits with bated breath. In tawdrily gorgeous apartments, where +gathered the larger figures, the proconsuls of the world of crime, +cold, conscienceless brains dissected the work of a colder and swifter +brain than theirs, with suave and bitter envy. Evil's Four Hundred +chattered, discussed, debated--sent out a thousand invisible tentacles +to clutch at a shadow--to turn this shadow and its distorted genius to +their own ends. The tentacles recoiled, baffled--the Bat worked +alone--not even Evil's Four Hundred could bend him into a willing +instrument to execute another's plan. + +The men higher up waited. They had dealt with lone wolves before and +broken them. Some day the Bat would slip and falter; then they would +have him. But the weeks passed into months and still the Bat flew +free, solitary, untamed, and deadly. At last even his own kind turned +upon him; the underworld is like the upper in its fear and distrust of +genius that flies alone. But when they turned against him, they turned +against a spook--a shadow. A cold and bodiless laughter from a pit of +darkness answered and mocked at their bungling gestures of hate--and +went on, flouting Law and Lawless alike. + +Where official trailer and private sleuth had failed, the newspapers +might succeed--or so thought the disillusioned young men of the Fourth +Estate--the tireless foxes, nose-down on the trail of news--the +trackers, who never gave up until that news was run to earth. Star +reporter, leg-man, cub, veteran gray in the trade--one and all they +tried to pin the Bat like a caught butterfly to the front page of their +respective journals--soon or late each gave up, beaten. He was +news--bigger news each week--a thousand ticking typewriters clicked his +adventures--the brief, staccato recital of his career in the morgues of +the great dailies grew longer and more incredible each day. But the +big news--the scoop of the century--the yearned-for headline, "Bat +Nabbed Red-Handed", "Bat Slain in Gun Duel with Police"--still eluded +the ravenous maw of the Linotypes. And meanwhile, the red-scored list +of his felonies lengthened and the rewards offered from various sources +for any clue which might lead to his apprehension mounted and mounted +till they totaled a small fortune. + +Columnists took him up, played with the name and the terror, used the +name and the terror as a starting point from which to exhibit their own +particular opinions on everything and anything. Ministers mentioned +him in sermons; cranks wrote fanatic letters denouncing him as one of +the even-headed beasts of the Apocalypse and a forerunner of the end of +the world; a popular revue put on a special Bat number wherein eighteen +beautiful chorus girls appeared masked and black-winged in costumes of +Brazilian bat fur; there were Bat club sandwiches, Bat cigarettes, and +a new shade of hosiery called simply and succinctly Bat. He became a +fad--a catchword--a national figure. And yet--he was walking +Death--cold--remorseless. But Death itself had become a toy of +publicity in these days of limelight and jazz. + +A city editor, at lunch with a colleague, pulled at his cigarette and +talked. "See that Sunday story we had on the Bat?" he asked. "Pretty +tidy--huh--and yet we didn't have to play it up. It's an amazing +list--the Marshall jewels--the Allison murder--the mail truck +thing--two hundred thousand he got out of that, all negotiable, and two +men dead. I wonder how many people he's really killed. We made it six +murders and nearly a million in loot--didn't even have room for the +small stuff--but there must be more--" + +His companion whistled. + +"And when is the Universe's Finest Newspaper going to burst forth with +'Bat Captured by BLADE Reporter?'" he queried sardonically. + +"Oh, for--lay off it, will you?" said the city editor peevishly. "The +Old Man's been hopping around about it for two months till everybody's +plumb cuckoo. Even offered a bonus--a big one--and that shows how +crazy he is--he doesn't love a nickel any better than his right +eye--for any sort of exclusive story. Bonus--huh!" and he crushed out +his cigarette. "It won't be a Blade reporter that gets that bonus--or +any reporter. It'll be Sherlock Holmes from the spirit world!" + +"Well--can't you dig up a Sherlock?" + +The editor spread out his hands. "Now, look here," he said. "We've +got the best staff of any paper in the country, if I do say it. We've +got boys that could get a personal signed story from Delilah on how she +barbered Samson--and find out who struck Billy Patterson and who was +the Man in the Iron Mask. But the Bat's something else again. Oh, of +course, we've panned the police for not getting him; that's always the +game. But, personally, I won't pan them; they've done their damnedest. +They're up against something new. Scotland Yard wouldn't do any +better--or any other bunch of cops that I know about." + +"But look here, Bill, you don't mean to tell me he'll keep on getting +away with it indefinitely?" + +The editor frowned. "Confidentially--I don't know," he said with a +chuckle: "The situation's this: for the first time the super-crook--the +super-crook of fiction--the kind that never makes a mistake--has come +to life--real life. And it'll take a cleverer man than any Central +Office dick I've ever met to catch him!" + +"Then you don't think he's just an ordinary crook with a lot of luck?" + +"I do not." The editor was emphatic. "He's much brainier. Got a +ghastly sense of humor, too. Look at the way he leaves his calling +card after every job--a black paper bat inside the Marshall safe--a bat +drawn on the wall with a burnt match where he'd jimmied the Cedarburg +Bank--a real bat, dead, tacked to the mantelpiece over poor old +Allison's body. Oh, he's in a class by himself--and I very much doubt +if he was a crook at all for most of his life." + +"You mean?" + +"I mean this. The police have been combing the underworld for him; I +don't think he comes from there. I think they've got to look higher, +up in our world, for a brilliant man with a kink in the brain. He may +be a Doctor, a lawyer, a merchant, honored in his community by +day--good line that, I'll use it some time--and at night, a +bloodthirsty assassin. Deacon Brodie--ever hear of him--the Scotch +deacon that burgled his parishioners' houses on the quiet? +Well--that's our man." + +"But my Lord, Bill--" + +"I know. I've been going around the last month, looking at everybody I +knew and thinking--are you the Bat? Try it for a while. You'll want +to sleep with a light in your room after a few days of it. Look around +the University Club--that white-haired man over +there--dignified--respectable--is he the Bat? Your own lawyer--your +own Doctor--your own best friend. Can happen you know--look at those +Chicago boys--the thrill-killers. Just brilliant students--likeable +boys--to the people that taught them--and cold-blooded murderers all +the same." + +"Bill! You're giving me the shivers!" + +"Am I?" The editor laughed grimly. "Think it over. No, it isn't so +pleasant.--But that's my theory--and I swear I think I'm right." He +rose. + +His companion laughed uncertainly. + +"How about you, Bill--are you the Bat?" + +The editor smiled. "See," he said, "it's got you already. No, I can +prove an alibi. The Bat's been laying off the city recently--taking a +fling at some of the swell suburbs. Besides I haven't the brains--I'm +free to admit it." He struggled into his coat. "Well, let's talk about +something else. I'm sick of the Bat and his murders." + +His companion rose as well, but it was evident that the editor's theory +had taken firm hold on his mind. As they went out the door together he +recurred to the subject. + +"Honestly, though, Bill--were you serious, really serious--when you +said you didn't know of a single detective with brains enough to trap +this devil?" + +The editor paused in the doorway. "Serious enough," he said. "And yet +there's one man--I don't know him myself but from what I've heard of +him, he might be able--but what's the use of speculating?" + +"I'd like to know all the same," insisted the other, and laughed +nervously. "We're moving out to the country next week ourselves--right +in the Bat's new territory." + +"We-el," said the editor, "you won't let it go any further? Of course +it's just an idea of mine, but if the Bat ever came prowling around our +place, the detective I'd try to get in touch with would be--" He put +his lips close to his companion's ear and whispered a name. + +The man whose name he whispered, oddly enough, was at that moment +standing before his official superior in a quiet room not very far +away. Tall, reticently good-looking and well, if inconspicuously, +clothed and groomed, he by no means seemed the typical detective that +the editor had spoken of so scornfully. He looked something like a +college athlete who had kept up his training, something like a pillar +of one of the more sedate financial houses. He could assume and +discard a dozen manners in as many minutes, but, to the casual +observer, the one thing certain about him would probably seem his utter +lack of connection with the seamier side of existence. The key to his +real secret of life, however, lay in his eyes. When in repose, as now, +they were veiled and without unusual quality--but they were the eyes of +a man who can wait and a man who can strike. + +He stood perfectly easy before his chief for several moments before the +latter looked up from his papers. + +"Well, Anderson," he said at last, looking up, "I got your report on +the Wilhenry burglary this morning. I'll tell you this about it--if +you do a neater and quicker job in the next ten years, you can take +this desk away from me. I'll give it to you. As it is, your name's +gone up for promotion today; you deserved it long ago." + +"Thank you, sir," replied the tall man quietly, "but I had luck with +that case." + +"Of course you had luck," said the chief. "Sit down, won't you, and +have a cigar--if you can stand my brand. Of course you had luck, +Anderson, but that isn't the point. It takes a man with brains to use +a piece of luck as you used it. I've waited a long time here for a man +with your sort of brains and, by Judas, for a while I thought they were +all as dead as Pinkerton. But now I know there's one of them alive at +any rate--and it's a hell of a relief." + +"Thank you, sir," said the tall man, smiling and sitting down. He took +a cigar and lit it. "That makes it easier, sir--your telling me that. +Because--I've come to ask a favor." + +"All right," responded the chief promptly. "Whatever it is, it's +granted." + +Anderson smiled again. "You'd better hear what it is first, sir. I +don't want to put anything over on you." + +"Try it!" said the chief. "What is it--vacation? Take as long as you +like--within reason--you've earned it--I'll put it through today." + +Anderson shook his head, "No sir--I don't want a vacation." + +"Well," said the chief impatiently. "Promotion? I've told you about +that. Expense money for anything--fill out a voucher and I'll O.K. +it--be best man at your wedding--by Judas, I'll even do that!" + +Anderson laughed. "No, sir--I'm not getting married and--I'm pleased +about the promotion, of course--but it's not that. I want to be +assigned to a certain case--that's all." + +The chief's look grew searching. "H'm," he said. "Well, as I say, +anything within reason. What case do you want to be assigned to?" + +The muscles of Anderson's left hand tensed on the arm of his chair. He +looked squarely at the chief. "I want a chance at the Bat!" he replied +slowly. + +The chief's face became expressionless. "I said--anything within +reason," he responded softly, regarding Anderson keenly. + +"I want a chance at the Bat!" repeated Anderson stubbornly. "If I've +done good work so far--I want a chance at the Bat!" + +The chief drummed on the desk. Annoyance and surprise were in his +voice when he spoke. + +"But look here, Anderson," he burst out finally. "Anything else and +I'll--but what's the use? I said a minute ago, you had brains--but +now, by Judas, I doubt it! If anyone else wanted a chance at the Bat, +I'd give it to them and gladly--I'm hard-boiled. But you're too +valuable a man to be thrown away!" + +"I'm no more valuable than Wentworth would have been." + +"Maybe not--and look what happened to him! A bullet hole in his +heart--and thirty years of work that he might have done thrown away! +No, Anderson, I've found two first-class men since I've been at this +desk--Wentworth and you. He asked for his chance; I gave it to +him--turned him over to the Government--and lost him. Good detectives +aren't so plentiful that I can afford to lose you both." + +"Wentworth was a friend of mine," said Anderson softly. His knuckles +were white dints in the hand that gripped the chair. "Ever since the +Bat got him I've wanted my chance. Now my other work's cleaned up--and +I still want it." + +"But I tell you--" began the chief in tones of high exasperation. Then +he stopped and looked at his protege. There was a silence for a time. + +"Oh, well--" said the chief finally in a hopeless voice. "Go +ahead--commit suicide--I'll send you a 'Gates Ajar' and a card, 'Here +lies a damn fool who would have been a great detective if he hadn't +been so pig-headed.' Go ahead!" + +Anderson rose. "Thank you, sir," he said in a deep voice. His eyes +had light in them now. "I can't thank you enough, sir." + +"Don't try," grumbled the chief. "If I weren't as much of a damn fool +as you are I wouldn't let you do it. And if I weren't so damn old, I'd +go after the slippery devil myself and let you sit here and watch me +get brought in with an infernal paper bat pinned where my shield ought +to be. The Bat's supernatural, Anderson. You haven't a chance in the +world but it does me good all the same to shake hands with a man with +brains and nerve," and he solemnly wrung Anderson's hand in an iron +grip. + +Anderson smiled. "The cagiest bat flies once too often," he said. "I'm +not promising anything, chief, but--" + +"Maybe," said the chief. "Now wait a minute, keep your shirt on, +you're not going out bat hunting this minute, you know--" + +"Sir? I thought I--" + +"Well, you're not," said the chief decidedly. "I've still some little +respect for my own intelligence and it tells me to get all the work out +of you I can, before you start wild-goose chasing after this--this bat +out of hell. The first time he's heard of again--and it shouldn't be +long from the fast way he works--you're assigned to the case. That's +understood. Till then, you do what I tell you--and it'll be work, +believe me!" + +"All right, sir," Anderson laughed and turned to the door. "And--thank +you again." + +He went out. The door closed. The chief remained for some minutes +looking at the door and shaking his head. "The best man I've had in +years--except Wentworth," he murmured to himself. "And throwing +himself away--to be killed by a cold-blooded devil that nothing human +can catch--you're getting old, John Grogan--but, by Judas, you can't +blame him, can you? If you were a man in the prime like him, by Judas, +you'd be doing it yourself. And yet it'll go hard--losing him--" + +He turned back to his desk and his papers. But for some minutes he +could not pay attention to the papers. There was a shadow on them--a +shadow that blurred the typed letters--the shadow of bat's wings. + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +THE INDOMITABLE MISS VAN GORDER + +Miss Cornelis Van Gorder, indomitable spinster, last bearer of a name +which had been great in New York when New York was a red-roofed Nieuw +Amsterdam and Peter Stuyvesant a parvenu, sat propped up in bed in the +green room of her newly rented country house reading the morning +newspaper. Thus seen, with an old soft Paisley shawl tucked in about +her thin shoulders and without the stately gray transformation that +adorned her on less intimate occasions,--she looked much less +formidable and more innocently placid than those could ever have +imagined who had only felt the bite of her tart wit at such functions +as the state Van Gorder dinners. Patrician to her finger tips, +independent to the roots of her hair, she preserved, at sixty-five, a +humorous and quenchless curiosity in regard to every side of life, +which even the full and crowded years that already lay behind her had +not entirely satisfied. She was an Age and an Attitude, but she was +more than that; she had grown old without growing dull or losing touch +with youth--her face had the delicate strength of a fine cameo and her +mild and youthful heart preserved an innocent zest for adventure. + +Wide travel, social leadership, the world of art and books, a dozen +charities, an existence rich with diverse experience--all these she had +enjoyed energetically and to the full--but she felt, with ingenious +vanity, that there were still sides to her character which even these +had not brought to light. As a little girl she had hesitated between +wishing to be a locomotive engineer or a famous bandit--and when she +had found, at seven, that the accident of sex would probably debar her +from either occupation, she had resolved fiercely that some time before +she died she would show the world in general and the Van Gorder clan in +particular that a woman was quite as capable of dangerous exploits as a +man. So far her life, while exciting enough at moments, had never +actually been dangerous and time was slipping away without giving her +an opportunity to prove her hardiness of heart. Whenever she thought +of this the fact annoyed her extremely--and she thought of it now. + +She threw down the morning paper disgustedly. Here she was at +65--rich, safe, settled for the summer in a delightful country place +with a good cook, excellent servants, beautiful gardens and +grounds--everything as respectable and comfortable as--as a limousine! +And out in the world people were murdering and robbing each other, +floating over Niagara Falls in barrels, rescuing children from burning +houses, taming tigers, going to Africa to hunt gorillas, doing all +sorts of exciting things! She could not float over Niagara Falls in a +barrel; Lizzie Allen, her faithful old maid, would never let her! She +could not go to Africa to hunt gorillas; Sally Ogden, her sister, would +never let her hear the last of it. She could not even, as she +certainly would if she were a man, try and track down this terrible +creature, the Bat! + +She sniffed disgruntledly. Things came to her much too easily. Take +this very house she was living in. Ten days ago she had decided on the +spur of the moment--a decision suddenly crystallized by a weariness of +charitable committees and the noise and heat of New York--to take a +place in the country for the summer. It was late in the renting +season--even the ordinary difficulties of finding a suitable spot would +have added some spice to the quest--but this ideal place had +practically fallen into her lap, with no trouble or search at all. +Courtleigh Fleming, president of the Union Bank, who had built the +house on a scale of comfortable magnificence--Courtleigh Fleming had +died suddenly in the West when Miss Van Gorder was beginning her house +hunting. The day after his death her agent had called her up. Richard +Fleming, Courtleigh Fleming's nephew and heir, was anxious to rent the +Fleming house at once. If she made a quick decision it was hers for +the summer, at a bargain. Miss Van Gorder had decided at once; she +took an innocent pleasure in bargains. The next day the keys were +hers--the servants engaged to stay on--within a week she had moved. +All very pleasant and easy no doubt--adventure--pooh! + +And yet she could not really say that her move to the country had +brought her no adventures at all. There had been--things. Last night +the lights had gone off unexpectedly and Billy, the Japanese butler and +handy man, had said that he had seen a face at one of the kitchen +windows--a face that vanished when he went to the window. Servants' +nonsense, probably, but the servants seemed unusually nervous for +people who were used to the country. And Lizzie, of course, had sworn +that she had seen a man trying to get up the stairs but Lizzie could +grow hysterical over a creaking door. Still--it was queer! And what +had that affable Doctor Wells said to her--"I respect your courage, +Miss Van Gorder--moving out into the Bat's home country, you know!" +She picked up the paper again. There was a map of the scene of the +Bat's most recent exploits and, yes, three of his recent crimes had +been within a twenty-mile radius of this very spot. She thought it +over and gave a little shudder of pleasurable fear. Then she dismissed +the thought with a shrug. No chance! She might live in a lonely house, +two miles from the railroad station, all summer long--and the Bat would +never disturb her. Nothing ever did. + +She had skimmed through the paper hurriedly; now a headline caught her +eye. Failure of Union Bank--wasn't that the bank of which Courtleigh +Fleming had been president? She settled down to read the article but +it was disappointingly brief. The Union Bank had closed its doors; the +cashier, a young man named Bailey, was apparently under suspicion; the +article mentioned Courtleigh Fleming's recent and tragic death in the +best vein of newspaperese. She laid down the paper and +thought--Bailey--Bailey--she seemed to have a vague recollection of +hearing about a young man named Bailey who worked in a bank--but she +could not remember where or by whom his name had been mentioned. + +Well--it didn't matter. She had other things to think about. She must +ring for Lizzie--get up and dress. The bright morning sun, streaming +in through the long window, made lying in bed an old woman's luxury and +she refused to be an old woman. + +"Though the worst old woman I ever knew was a man!" she thought with a +satiric twinkle. She was glad Sally's daughter--young Dale Ogden--was +here in the house with her. The companionship of Dale's bright youth +would keep her from getting old-womanish if anything could. + +She smiled, thinking of Dale. Dale was a nice child--her favorite +niece. Sally didn't understand her, of course--but Sally wouldn't. +Sally read magazine articles on the younger generation and its wild +ways. "Sally doesn't remember when she was a younger generation +herself," thought Miss Cornelia. "But I do--and if we didn't have +automobiles, we had buggies--and youth doesn't change its ways just +because it has cut its hair. Before Mr. and Mrs. Ogden left for +Europe, Sally had talked to her sister Cornelia ... long and weightily, +on the problem of Dale." "Problem of Dale, indeed!" thought Miss +Cornelia scornfully. "Dale's the nicest thing I've seen in some time. +She'd be ten times happier if Sally wasn't always trying to marry her +off to some young snip with more of what fools call 'eligibility' than +brains! But there, Cornelia Van Gorder--Sally's given you your innings +by rampaging off to Europe and leaving Dale with you all summer and +you've a lot less sense than I flatter myself you have, if you can't +give your favorite niece a happy vacation from all her immediate +family--and maybe find her someone who'll make her happy for good and +all in the bargain." Miss Cornelia was an incorrigible matchmaker. + +Nevertheless, she was more concerned with "the problem of Dale" than +she would have admitted. Dale, at her age, with her charm and +beauty--why, she ought to behave as if she were walking on air, thought +her aunt worriedly. "And instead she acts more as if she were walking +on pins and needles. She seems to like being here--I know she likes +me--I'm pretty sure she's just as pleased to get a little holiday from +Sally and Harry--she amuses herself--she falls in with any plan I want +to make, and yet--" And yet Dale was not happy--Miss Cornelia felt +sure of it. "It isn't natural for a girl to seem so lackluster +and--and quiet--at her age and she's nervous, too--as if something were +preying on her mind--particularly these last few days. If she were in +love with somebody--somebody Sally didn't approve of +particularly--well, that would account for it, of course--but Sally +didn't say anything that would make me think that--or Dale +either--though I don't suppose Dale would, yet, even to me. I haven't +seen so much of her in these last two years--" + +Then Miss Cornelia's mind seized upon a sentence in a hurried flow of +her sister's last instructions--a sentence that had passed almost +unnoticed at the time--something about Dale and "an unfortunate +attachment--but of course, Cornelia, dear, she's so young--and I'm sure +it will come to nothing now her father and I have made our attitude +plain!" + +"Pshaw--I bet that's it," thought Miss Cornelia shrewdly. "Dale's +fallen in love, or thinks she has, with some decent young man without a +penny or an 'eligibility' to his name--and now she's unhappy because +her parents don't approve--or because she's trying to give him up and +finds she can't. Well--" and Miss Cornelia's tight little gray curls +trembled with the vehemence of her decision, "if the young thing ever +comes to me for advice I'll give her a piece of my mind that will +surprise her and scandalize Sally Van Gorder Ogden out of her seven +senses. Sally thinks nobody's worth looking at if they didn't come +over to America when our family did--she hasn't gumption enough to +realize that if some people hadn't come over later, we'd all still be +living on crullers and Dutch punch!" + +She was just stretching out her hand to ring for Lizzie when a knock +came at the door. She gathered her Paisley shawl more tightly about +her shoulders. "Who is it--oh, it's only you, Lizzie," as a pleasant +Irish face, crowned by an old-fashioned pompadour of graying hair, +peeped in at the door. "Good morning, Lizzie--I was just going to ring +for you. Has Miss Dale had breakfast--I know it's shamefully late." + +"Good morning, Miss Neily," said Lizzie, "and a lovely morning it is, +too--if that was all of it," she added somewhat tartly as she came into +the room with a little silver tray whereupon the morning mail reposed. + +We have not yet described Lizzie Allen--and she deserves description. +A fixture in the Van Gorder household since her sixteenth year, she had +long ere now attained the dignity of a Tradition. The slip of a +colleen fresh from Kerry had grown old with her mistress, until the +casual bond between mistress and servant had changed into something +deeper; more in keeping with a better-mannered age than ours. One +could not imagine Miss Cornelia without a Lizzie to grumble at and +cherish--or Lizzie without a Miss Cornelia to baby and scold with the +privileged frankness of such old family servitors. The two were at +once a contrast and a complement. Fifty years of American ways had not +shaken Lizzie's firm belief in banshees and leprechauns or tamed her +wild Irish tongue; fifty years of Lizzie had not altered Miss +Cornelia's attitude of fond exasperation with some of Lizzie's more +startling eccentricities. Together they may have been, as one of the +younger Van Gorder cousins had, irreverently put it, "a scream," but +apart each would have felt lost without the other. + +"Now what do you mean--if that were all of it, Lizzie?" queried Miss +Cornelia sharply as she took her letters from the tray. + +Lizzie's face assumed an expression of doleful reticence. + +"It's not my place to speak," she said with a grim shake of her head, +"but I saw my grandmother last night, God rest her--plain as life she +was, the way she looked when they waked her--and if it was my doing +we'd be leaving this house this hour!" + +"Cheese-pudding for supper--of course you saw your grandmother!" said +Miss Cornelia crisply, slitting open the first of her letters with a +paper knife. "Nonsense, Lizzie, I'm not going to be scared away from +an ideal country place because you happen to have a bad dream!" + +"Was it a bad dream I saw on the stairs last night when the lights went +out and I was looking for the candles?" said Lizzie heatedly. "Was it a +bad dream that ran away from me and out the back door, as fast as +Paddy's pig? No, Miss Neily, it was a man--Seven feet tall he was, and +eyes that shone in the dark and--" + +"Lizzie Allen!" + +"Well, it's true for all that," insisted Lizzie stubbornly. "And why +did the lights go out--tell me that, Miss Neily? They never go out in +the city." + +"Well, this isn't the city," said Miss Cornelia decisively. "It's the +country, and very nice it is, and we're staying here all summer. I +suppose I may be thankful," she went on ironically, "that it was only +your grandmother you saw last night. It might have been the Bat--and +then where would you be this morning?" + +"I'd be stiff and stark with candles at me head and feet," said Lizzie +gloomily. "Oh, Miss Neily, don't talk of that terrible creature, the +Bat!" She came nearer to her mistress. "There's bats in this house, +too--real bats," she whispered impressively. "I saw one yesterday in +the trunk room--the creature! It flew in the window and nearly had the +switch off me before I could get away!" + +Miss Cornelia chuckled. "Of course there are bats," she said. "There +are always bats in the country. They're perfectly harmless,--except to +switches." + +"And the Bat ye were talking of just then--he's harmless too, I +suppose?" said Lizzie with mournful satire. "Oh, Miss Neily, Miss +Neily--do let's go back to the city before he flies away with us all!" + +"Nonsense, Lizzie," said Miss Cornelia again, but this time less +firmly. Her face grew serious. "If I thought for an instant that +there was any real possibility of our being in danger here--" she said +slowly. "But--oh, look at the map, Lizzie! The Bat has been flying in +this district--that's true enough--but he hasn't come within ten miles +of us yet!" + +"What's ten miles to the Bat?" the obdurate Lizzie sighed. "And what +of the letter ye had when ye first moved in here? 'The Fleming house +is unhealthy for strangers,' it said. Leave it while ye can." + +"Some silly boy or some crank." Miss Cornelia's voice was firm. "I +never pay any attention to anonymous letters." + +"And there's a funny-lookin' letter this mornin', down at the bottom of +the pile--" persisted Lizzie. "It looked like the other one. I'd half +a mind to throw it away before you saw it!" + +"Now, Lizzie, that's quite enough!" Miss Cornelia had the Van Gorder +manner on now. "I don't care to discuss your ridiculous fears any +further. Where is Miss Dale?" + +Lizzie assumed an attitude of prim rebuff, "Miss Dale's gone into the +city, ma'am." + +"Gone into the city?" + +"Yes, ma'am. She got a telephone call this morning, early--long +distance it was. I don't know who it was called her." + +"Lizzie! You didn't listen?" + +"Of course not, Miss Neily." Lizzie's face was a study in injured +virtue. "Miss Dale took the call in her own room and shut the door." + +"And you were outside the door?" + +"Where else would I be dustin' that time in the mornin'?" said Lizzie +fiercely. "But it's yourself knows well enough the doors in this house +is thick and not a sound goes past them." + +"I should hope not," said Miss Cornelia rebukingly. "But--tell me, +Lizzie, did Miss Dale seem--well--this morning?" + +"That she did not," said Lizzie promptly. "When she came down to +breakfast, after the call, she looked like a ghost. I made her the +eggs she likes, too--but she wouldn't eat 'em." + +"H'm," Miss Cornelia pondered. "I'm sorry if--well, Lizzie, we mustn't +meddle in Miss Dale's affairs." + +"No, ma'am." + +"But--did she say when she would be back?" + +"Yes, Miss Neily. On the two o'clock train. Oh, and I was almost +forgettin'--she told me to tell you, particular--she said while she was +in the city she'd be after engagin' the gardener you spoke of." + +"The gardener? Oh, yes--I spoke to her about that the other night. The +place is beginning to look run down--so many flowers to attend to. +Well--that's very kind of Miss Dale." + +"Yes, Miss Neily." Lizzie hesitated, obviously with some weighty news +on her mind which she wished to impart. Finally she took the plunge. +"I might have told Miss Dale she could have been lookin' for a cook as +well--and a housemaid--" she muttered at last, "but they hadn't spoken +to me then." + +Miss Cornelia sat bolt upright in bed. "A cook--and a housemaid? But +we have a cook and a housemaid, Lizzie! You don't mean to tell me--" + +Lizzie nodded her head. "Yes'm. They're leaving. Both of 'em. Today." + +"But good heav-- Lizzie, why on earth didn't you tell me before?" + +Lizzie spoke soothingly, all the blarney of Kerry in her voice. "Now, +Miss Neily, as if I'd wake you first thing in the morning with bad news +like that! And thinks I, well, maybe 'tis all for the best after +all--for when Miss Neily hears they're leavin'--and her so +particular--maybe she'll go back to the city for just a little and +leave this house to its haunts and its bats and--" + +"Go back to the city? I shall do nothing of the sort. I rented this +house to live in and live in it I will, with servants or without them. +You should have told me at once, Lizzie. I'm really very much annoyed +with you because you didn't. I shall get up immediately--I want to +give those two a piece of my mind. Is Billy leaving too?" + +"Not that I know of--the heathern Japanese!" said Lizzie sorrowfully. +"And yet he'd be better riddance than cook or housemaid." + +"Now, Lizzie, how many times have I told you that you must conquer your +prejudices? Billy is an excellent butler--he'd been with Mr. Fleming +ten years and has the very highest recommendations. I am very glad +that he is staying, if he is. With you to help him, we shall do very +well until I can get other servants." Miss Cornelia had risen now and +Lizzie was helping her with the intricacies of her toilet. "But it's +too annoying," she went on, in the pauses of Lizzie's deft +ministrations. "What did they say to you, Lizzie--did they give any +reason? It isn't as if they were new to the country like you. They'd +been with Mr. Fleming for some time, though not as long as Billy." + +"Oh, yes, Miss Neily--they had reasons you could choke a goat with," +said Lizzie viciously as she arranged Miss Cornelia's transformation. +"Cook was the first of them--she was up late--I think they'd been +talking it over together. She comes into the kitchen with her hat on +and her bag in her hand. 'Good morning,' says I, pleasant enough, +'you've got your hat on,' says I. 'I'm leaving,' says she. 'Leaving, +are you?' says I. 'Leaving,' says she. 'My sister has twins,' says +she. 'I just got word--I must go to her right away.' 'What?' says I, +all struck in a heap. 'Twins,' says she, 'you've heard of such things +as twins.' 'That I have,' says I, 'and I know a lie on a face when I +see it, too.'" + +"Lizzie!" + +"Well, it made me sick at heart, Miss Neily. Her with her hat and her +bag and her talk about twins--and no consideration for you. Well, I'll +go on. 'You're a clever woman, aren't you?' says she--the impudence! +'I can see through a millstone as far as most,' says I--I wouldn't put +up with her sauce. 'Well!' says she, 'you can see that Annie the +housemaid's leaving, too.' 'Has her sister got twins as well?' says I +and looked at her. 'No,' says she as bold as brass, 'but Annie's got a +pain in her side and she's feared it's appendycitis--so she's leaving +to go back to her family.' 'Oh,' says I, 'and what about Miss Van +Gorder?' 'I'm sorry for Miss Van Gorder,' says she--the falseness of +her!--'But she'll have to do the best she can for twins and +appendycitis is acts of God and not to be put aside for even the best +of wages.' 'Is that so?' says I and with that I left her, for I knew if +I listened to her a minute longer I'd be giving her bonnet a shake and +that wouldn't be respectable. So there you are, Miss Neily, and that's +the gist of the matter." + +Miss Cornelia laughed. "Lizzie--you're unique," she said. "But I'm +glad you didn't give her bonnet a shake--though I've no doubt you +could." + +"Humph!" said Lizzie snorting, the fire of battle in her eye. "And is +it any Black Irish from Ulster would play impudence to a Kerrywoman +without getting the flat of a hand in--but that's neither here nor +there. The truth of it is, Miss Neily," her voice grew solemn, "it's +my belief they're scared--both of them--by the haunts and the banshees +here--and that's all." + +"If they are they're very silly," said Miss Cornelia practically. "No, +they may have heard of a better place, though it would seem as if when +one pays the present extortionate wages and asks as little as we do +here--but it doesn't matter. If they want to go, they may. Am I +ready, Lizzie?" + +"You look like an angel, ma'am," said Lizzie, clasping her hands. + +"Well, I feel very little like one," said Miss Cornelia, rising. "As +cook and housemaid may discover before I'm through with them. Send them +into the livingroom, Lizzie, when I've gone down. I'll talk to them +there." + +An hour or so later, Miss Cornelia sat in a deep chintz chair in the +comfortable living-room of the Fleming house going through the pile of +letters which Lizzie's news of domestic revolt had prevented her +reading earlier. Cook and housemaid had come and gone--civil enough, +but so obviously determined upon leaving the house at once that Miss +Cornelia had sighed and let them go, though not without caustic +comment. Since then, she had devoted herself to calling up various +employment agencies without entirely satisfactory results. A new cook +and housemaid were promised for the end of the week--but for the next +three days the Japanese butler, Billy, and Lizzie between them would +have to bear the brunt of the service. Oh, yes--and then there's +Dale's gardener, if she gets one, thought Miss, Cornelia. "I wish he +could cook--but I don't suppose gardeners can--and Billy's a treasure. +Still, its inconvenient--now, stop--Cornelia Van Gorder--you were +asking for an adventure only this morning and the moment the littlest +sort of one comes along, you want to crawl out of it." + +She had reached the bottom of her pile of letters--these to be thrown +away, these to be answered--ah, here was one she had overlooked +somehow. She took it up. It must be the one Lizzie had wanted to +throw away--she smiled at Lizzie's fears. The address was badly typed, +on cheap paper--she tore the envelope open and drew out a single +unsigned sheet. + +If you stay in this house any longer--DEATH. Go back to the city at +once and save your life. + +Her fingers trembled a little as she turned the missive over but her +face remained calm. She looked at the envelope--at the postmark--while +her heart thudded uncomfortably for a moment and then resumed its +normal beat. It had come at last--the adventure--and she was not +afraid! + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +PISTOL PRACTICE + +She knew who it was, of course. The Bat! No doubt of it. And +yet--did the Bat ever threaten before he struck? She could not +remember. But it didn't matter. The Bat was unprecedented--unique. At +any rate, Bat or no Bat, she must think out a course of action. The +defection of cook and housemaid left her alone in the house with Lizzie +and Billy--and Dale, of course, if Dale returned. Two old women, a +young girl, and a Japanese butler to face the most dangerous criminal +in America, she thought grimly. And yet--one couldn't be sure. The +threatening letter might be only a joke--a letter from a crank--after +all. Still, she must take precautions; look for aid somewhere. But +where could she look for aid? + +She ran over in her mind the new acquaintances she had made since she +moved to the country. There was Doctor Wells, the local physician, who +had joked with her about moving into the Bat's home territory--He +seemed an intelligent man--but she knew him only slightly--she couldn't +call a busy Doctor away from his patients to investigate something +which might only prove to be a mare's-nest. The boys Dale had met at +the country club--"Humph!" she sniffed, "I'd rather trust my gumption +than any of theirs." The logical person to call on, of course, was +Richard Fleming, Courtleigh Fleming's nephew and heir, who had rented +her the house. He lived at the country club--she could probably reach +him now. She was just on the point of doing so when she decided +against it--partly from delicacy, partly from an indefinable feeling +that he would not be of much help. Besides, she thought sturdily, it's +my house now, not his. He didn't guarantee burglar protection in the +lease. + +As for the local police--her independence revolted at summoning them. +They would bombard her with ponderous questions and undoubtedly think +she was merely a nervous old spinster. If it was just me, she thought, +I swear I wouldn't say a word to anybody--and if the Bat flew in he +mightn't find it so easy to fly out again, if I am sixty-five and never +shot a burglar in my life! But there's Dale--and Lizzie. I've got to +be fair to them. + +For a moment she felt very helpless, very much alone. Then her courage +returned. + +"Pshaw, Cornelia, if you have got to get help--get the help you want +and hang the consequences!" she adjured herself. "You've always +hankered to see a first-class detective do his detecting--well, get +one--or decide to do the job yourself. I'll bet you could at that." + +She tiptoed to the main door of the living-room and closed it +cautiously, smiling as she did so. Lizzie might be about and Lizzie +would promptly go into hysterics if she got an inkling of her +mistress's present intentions. Then she went to the city telephone and +asked for long distance. + +When she had finished her telephoning, she looked at once relieved and +a little naughty--like a demure child who has carried out some piece of +innocent mischief unobserved. "My stars!" she muttered to herself. +"You never can tell what you can do till you try." Then she sat down +again and tried to think of other measures of defense. + +Now if I were the Bat, or any criminal, she mused, how would I get into +this house? Well, that's it--I might get in 'most any way--it's so big +and rambling. All the grounds you want to lurk in, too; it'd take a +company of police to shut them off. Then there's the house itself. +Let's see--third floor--trunk room, servants' rooms--couldn't get in +there very well except with a pretty long ladder--that's all right. +Second floor--well, I suppose a man could get into my bedroom from the +porch if he were an acrobat, but he'd need to be a very good acrobat +and there's no use borrowing trouble. Downstairs is the problem, +Cornelia, downstairs is the problem. + +"Take this room now." She rose and examined it carefully. "There's +the door over there on the right that leads into the billiard room. +There's this door over here that leads into the hall. Then there's +that other door by the alcove, and all those French windows--whew!" She +shook her head. + +It was true. The room in which she stood, while comfortable and +charming, seemed unusually accessible to the night prowler. A row of +French windows at the rear gave upon a little terrace; below the +terrace, the drive curved about and beneath the billiard-room windows +in a hairpin loop, drawing up again at the main entrance on the other +side of the house. At the left of the French windows (if one faced the +terrace as Miss Cornelia was doing) was the alcove door of which she +spoke. When open, it disclosed a little alcove, almost entirely +devoted to the foot of a flight of stairs that gave direct access to +the upper regions of the house. The alcove itself opened on one side +upon the terrace and upon the other into a large butler's pantry. The +arrangement was obviously designed so that, if necessary, one could +pass directly from the terrace to the downstairs service quarters or +the second floor of the house without going through the living-room, +and so that trays could be carried up from the pantry by the side +stairs without using the main staircase. + +The middle pair of French windows were open, forming a double door. +Miss Cornelia went over to them--shut them--tried the locks. Humph! +Flimsy enough! she thought. Then she turned toward the billiard room. + +The billiard room, as has been said, was the last room to the right in +the main wing of the house. A single door led to it from the +living-room. Miss Cornelia passed through this door, glanced about the +billiard room, noting that most of its windows were too high from the +ground to greatly encourage a marauder. She locked the only one that +seemed to her particularly tempting--the billiard-room window on the +terrace side of the house. Then she returned to the living-room and +again considered her defenses. + +Three points of access from the terrace to the house--the door that led +into the alcove, the French windows of the living room--the +billiard-room window. On the other side of the house there was the +main entrance, the porch, the library and dining-room windows. The +main entrance led into a hall-living-room, and the main door of the +living-room was on the right as one entered, the dining-room and +library on the left, main staircase in front. "My mind is starting to +go round like a pinwheel, thinking of all those windows and doors," she +murmured to herself. She sat down once more, and taking a pencil and a +piece of paper drew a plan of the lower floor of the house. + +And now I've studied it, she thought after a while, I'm no further than +if I hadn't. As far as I can figure out, there are so many ways for a +clever man to get into this house that I'd have to be a couple of +Siamese twins to watch it properly. The next house I rent in the +country, she decided, just isn't going to have any windows and +doors--or I'll know the reason why. + +But of course she was not entirely shut off from the world, even if the +worst developed. She considered the telephone instruments on a table +near the wall, one the general phone, the other connecting a house line +which also connected with the garage and the greenhouses. The garage +would not be helpful, since Slocum, her chauffeur for many years, had +gone back to England for a visit. Dale had been driving the car. But +with an able-bodied man in the gardener's house-- + +She pulled herself together with a jerk. + +"Cornelia Van Gorder, you're going to go crazy before nightfall if you +don't take hold of yourself. What you need is lunch and a nap in the +afternoon if you can make yourself take it. You'd better look up that +revolver of yours, too, that you bought when you thought you were going +to take a trip to China. You've never fired it off yet, but you've got +to sometime today--there's no other way of telling if it will work. +You can shut your eyes when you do it--no, you can't either--that's +silly. + +"Call you a spirited old lady, do they? Well, you never had a better +time to show your spirit than now!" + +And Miss Van Gorder, sighing, left the living-room to reach the kitchen +just in time to calm a heated argument between Lizzie and Billy on the +relative merits of Japanese and Irish-American cooking. + +Dale Ogden, taxiing up from the two o'clock train some time later, to +her surprise discovered the front door locked and rang for some time +before she could get an answer. At last, Billy appeared, white-coated, +with an inscrutable expression on his face. + +"Will you take my bag, Billy--thanks. Where is Miss Van Gorder--taking +a nap?" + +"No," said Billy succinctly. "She take no nap. She out in srubbery +shotting." + +Dale stared at him incredulously. "Shooting, Billy?" + +"Yes, ma'am. At least--she not shoot yet but she say she going to +soon." + +"But, good heavens, Billy--shooting what?" + +"Shotting pistol," said Billy, his yellow mask of a face preserving its +impish repose. He waved his hand. "You go srubbery. You see." + +The scene that met Dale's eyes when she finally found the "srubbery" +was indeed a singular one. Miss Van Gorder, her back firmly planted +against the trunk of a large elm tree and an expression of ineffable +distaste on her features, was holding out a blunt, deadly looking +revolver at arm's length. Its muzzle wavered, now pointing at the +ground, now at the sky. Behind the tree Lizzie sat in a heap, moaning +quietly to herself, and now and then appealing to the saints to avert a +visioned calamity. + +As Dale approached, unseen, the climax came. The revolver steadied, +pointed ferociously at an inoffensive grass-blade some 10 yards from +Miss Van Gorder and went off. Lizzie promptly gave vent to a shrill +Irish scream. Miss Van Gorder dropped the revolver like a hot potato +and opened her mouth to tell Lizzie not to be such a fool. Then she +saw Dale--her mouth went into a round O of horror and her hand clutched +weakly at her heart. + +"Good heavens, child!" she gasped. "Didn't Billy tell you what I was +doing? I might have shot you like a rabbit!" and, overcome with +emotion, she sat down on the ground and started to fan herself +mechanically with a cartridge. + +Dale couldn't help laughing--and the longer she looked at her aunt the +more she laughed--until that dignified lady joined in the mirth herself. + +"Aunt Cornelia--Aunt Cornelia!" said Dale when she could get her +breath. "That I've lived to see the day--and they call US the wild +generation! Why on earth were you having pistol practice, darling--has +Billy turned into a Japanese spy or what?" + +Miss Van Gorder rose from the ground with as much stateliness as she +could muster under the circumstances. + +"No, my dear--but there's no fool like an old fool--that's all," she +stated. "I've wanted to fire that infernal revolver off ever since I +bought it two years ago, and now I have and I'm satisfied. Still," she +went on thoughtfully, picking up the weapon, "it seems a very good +revolver--and shooting people must be much easier than I supposed. All +you have to do is to point the--the front of it--like this and--" + +"Oh, Miss Dale, dear Miss Dale!" came in woebegone accents from the +other side of the tree. "For the love of heaven, Miss Dale, say no +more but take it away from her--she'll have herself all riddled through +with bullets like a kitchen sieve--and me too--if she's let to have it +again." + +"Lizzie, I'm ashamed of you!" said Lizzie's mistress. "Come out from +behind that tree and stop wailing like a siren. This weapon is +perfectly safe in competent hands and--" She seemed on the verge of +another demonstration of its powers. + +"MISS DALE, FOR THE DEAR LOVE O' GOD WILL YOU MAKE HER PUT IT AWAY?" + +Dale laughed again. "I really think you'd better, Aunt Cornelia. Or +both of us will have to put Lizzie to bed with a case of acute +hysteria." + +"Well," said Miss Van Gorder, "perhaps you're right, dear." Her eyes +gleamed. "I should have liked to try it just once more though," she +confided. "I feel certain that I could hit that tree over there if my +eye wouldn't wink so when the thing goes off." + +"Now, it's winking eyes," said Lizzie on a note of tragic chant, "but +next time it'll be bleeding corpses and--" + +Dale added her own protestations to Lizzie's. "Please, darling, if you +really want to practice, Billy can fix up some sort of target +range--but I don't want my favorite aunt assassinated by a ricocheted +bullet before my eyes!" + +"Well, perhaps it would be best to try again another time," admitted +Miss Van Gorder. But there was a wistful look in her eyes as she gave +the revolver to Dale and the three started back to the house. + +"I should never have allowed Lizzie to know what I was doing," she +confided in a whisper, on the way. "A woman is perfectly capable of +managing firearms--but Lizzie is really too nervous to live, sometimes." + +"I know just how you feel, darling," Dale agreed, suppressed mirth +shaking her as the little procession reached the terrace. "But--oh," +she could keep it no longer, "oh--you did look funny, darling--sitting +under that tree, with Lizzie on the other side of it making banshee +noises and--" + +Miss Van Gorder laughed too, a little shamefacedly. + +"I must have," she said. "But--oh, you needn't shake your head, Lizzie +Allen--I am going to practice with it. There's no reason I shouldn't +and you never can tell when things like that might be useful," she +ended rather vaguely. She did not wish to alarm Dale with her +suspicions yet. + +"There, Dale--yes, put it in the drawer of the table--that will +reassure Lizzie. Lizzie, you might make us some lemonade, I +think--Miss Dale must be thirsty after her long, hot ride." + +"Yes, Miss Cornelia," said Lizzie, recovering her normal calm as the +revolver was shut away in the drawer of the large table in the +living-room. But she could not resist one parting shot. "And thank +God it's lemonade I'll be making--and not bandages for bullet wounds!" +she muttered darkly as she went toward the service quarters. + +Miss Van Gorder glared after her departing back. "Lizzie is really +impossible sometimes!" she said with stately ire. Then her voice +softened. "Though of course I couldn't do without her," she added. + +Dale stretched out on the settee opposite her aunt's chair. "I know +you couldn't, darling. Thanks for thinking of the lemonade." She +passed her hand over her forehead in a gesture of fatigue. "I AM +hot--and tired." + +Miss Van Gorder looked at her keenly. The young face seemed curiously +worn and haggard in the clear afternoon light. + +"You--you don't really feel very well, do you, Dale?" + +"Oh--it's nothing. I feel all right--really." + +"I could send for Doctor Wells if--" + +"Oh, heavens, no, Aunt Cornelia." She managed a wan smile. "It isn't +as bad as all that. I'm just tired and the city was terribly hot and +noisy and--" She stole a glance at her aunt from between lowered lids. +"I got your gardener, by the way," she said casually. + +"Did you, dear? That's splendid, though--but I'll tell you about that +later. Where did you get him?" + +"That good agency, I can't remember its name." Dale's hand moved +restlessly over her eyes, as if remembering details were too great an +effort. "But I'm sure he'll be satisfactory. He'll be out here this +evening--he--he couldn't get away before, I believe. What have you +been doing all day, darling?" + +Miss Cornelia hesitated. Now that Dale had returned she suddenly +wanted very much to talk over the various odd happenings of the day +with her--get the support of her youth and her common sense. Then that +independence which was so firmly rooted a characteristic of hers +restrained her. No use worrying the child unnecessarily; they all +might have to worry enough before tomorrow morning. + +She compromised. "We have had a domestic upheaval," she said. "The +cook and the housemaid have left--if you'd only waited till the next +train you could have had the pleasure of their company into town." + +"Aunt Cornelia--how exciting! I'm so sorry! Why did they leave?" + +"Why do servants ever leave a good place?" asked Miss Cornelia grimly. +"Because if they had sense enough to know when they were well off, they +wouldn't be servants. Anyhow, they've gone--we'll have to depend on +Lizzie and Billy the rest of this week. I telephoned--but they +couldn't promise me any others before Monday." + +"And I was in town and could have seen people for you--if I'd only +known!" said Dale remorsefully. "Only," she hesitated, "I mightn't +have had time--at least I mean there were some other things I had to +do, besides getting the gardener and--" She rose. "I think I will go +and lie down for a little if you don't mind, darling." + +Miss Van Gorder was concerned. "Of course I don't mind but--won't you +even have your lemonade?" + +"Oh, I'll get some from Lizzie in the pantry before I go up," Dale +managed to laugh. "I think I must have a headache after all," she +said. "Maybe I'll take an aspirin. Don't worry, darling." + +"I shan't. I only wish there were something I could do for you, my +dear." + +Dale stopped in the alcove doorway. "There's nothing anybody can do +for me, really," she said soberly. "At least--oh, I don't know what +I'm saying! But don't worry. I'm quite all right. I may go over to +the country club after dinner--and dance. Won't you come with me, Aunt +Cornelia?" + +"Depends on your escort," said Miss Cornelia tartly. "If our landlord, +Mr. Richard Fleming, is taking you I certainly shall--I don't like his +looks and never did!" + +Dale laughed. "Oh, he's all right," she said. "Drinks a good deal and +wastes a lot of money, but harmless enough. No, this is a very sedate +party; I'll be home early." + +"Well, in that case," said her aunt, "I shall stay here with my Lizzie +and my ouija-board. Lizzie deserves some punishment for the very +cowardly way she behaved this afternoon--and the ouija-board will +furnish it. She's scared to death to touch the thing. I think she +believes it's alive." + +"Well, maybe I'll send you a message on it from the country club," said +Dale lightly. She had paused, half-way up the flight of side stairs in +the alcove, and her aunt noticed how her shoulders drooped, belying the +lightness of her voice. "Oh," she went on, "by the way--have the +afternoon papers come yet? I didn't have time to get one when I was +rushing for the train." + +"I don't think so, dear, but I'll ask Lizzie." Miss Cornelia moved +toward a bell push. + +"Oh, don't bother; it doesn't matter. Only if they have, would you ask +Lizzie to bring me one when she brings up the lemonade? I want to read +about--about the Bat--he fascinates me." + +"There was something else in the paper this morning," said Miss +Cornelia idly. "Oh, yes--the Union Bank--the bank Mr. Fleming, Senior, +was president of has failed. They seem to think the cashier robbed it. +Did you see that, Dale?" + +The shoulders of the girl on the staircase straightened suddenly. Then +they drooped again. "Yes--I saw it," she said in a queerly colorless +voice. "Too bad. It must be terrible to--to have everyone suspect +you--and hunt you--as I suppose they're hunting that poor cashier." + +"Well," said Miss Cornelia, "a man who wrecks a bank deserves very +little sympathy to my way of thinking. But then I'm old-fashioned. +Well, dear, I won't keep you. Run along--and if you want an aspirin, +there's a box in my top bureau-drawer." + +"Thanks, darling. Maybe I'll take one and maybe I won't--all I really +need is to lie down for a while." + +She moved on up the staircase and disappeared from the range of Miss +Cornelia's vision, leaving Miss Cornelia to ponder many things. Her +trip to the city had done Dale no good, of a certainty. If not +actually ill, she was obviously under some considerable mental strain. +And why this sudden interest, first in the Bat, then in the failure of +the Union Bank? Was it possible that Dale, too, had been receiving +threatening letters? + +I'll be glad when that gardener comes, she thought to herself. He'll +make a MAN in the house at any rate. + +When Lizzie at last came in with the lemonade she found her mistress +shaking her head. + +"Cornelia, Cornelia," she was murmuring to herself, "you should have +taken to pistol practice when you were younger; it just shows how +children waste their opportunities." + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +THE STORM GATHERS + +The long summer afternoon wore away, sunset came, red and angry, a +sunset presaging storm. A chill crept into the air with the twilight. +When night fell, it was not a night of silver patterns enskied, but a +dark and cloudy cloak where a few stars glittered fitfully. Miss +Cornelia, at dinner, saw a bat swoop past the window of the dining room +in its scurrying flight, and narrowly escaped oversetting her glass of +water with a nervous start. The tension of waiting--waiting--for some +vague menace which might not materialize after all--had begun to prey +on her nerves. She saw Dale off to the country club with relief--the +girl looked a little better after her nap but she was still not her +normal self. When Dale was gone, she wandered restlessly for some time +between living-room and library, now giving an unnecessary dusting to a +piece of bric-a-brac with her handkerchief, now taking a book from one +of the shelves in the library only to throw it down before she read a +page. + +This house was queer. She would not have admitted it to Lizzie, for +her soul's salvation--but, for the first time in her sensible life, she +listened for creakings of woodwork, rustling of leaves, stealthy steps +outside, beyond the safe, bright squares of the windows--for anything +that was actual, tangible, not merely formless fear. + +"There's too much ROOM in the country for things to happen to you!" she +confided to herself with a shiver. "Even the night--whenever I look +out, it seems to me as if the night were ten times bigger and blacker +than it ever is in New York!" + +To comfort herself she mentally rehearsed her telephone conversation of +the morning, the conversation she had not mentioned to her household. +At the time it had seemed to her most reassuring--the plans she had +based upon it adequate and sensible in the normal light of day. But +now the light of day had been blotted out and with it her security. +Her plans seemed weapons of paper against the sinister might of the +darkness beyond her windows. A little wind wailed somewhere in that +darkness like a beaten child--beyond the hills thunder rumbled, drawing +near, and with it lightning and the storm. + +She made herself sit down in the chair beside her favorite lamp on the +center table and take up her knitting with stiff fingers. Knit +two--purl two--Her hands fell into the accustomed rhythm +mechanically--a spy, peering in through the French windows, would have +deemed her the picture of calm. But she had never felt less calm in +all the long years of her life. + +She wouldn't ring for Lizzie to come and sit with her, she simply +wouldn't. But she was very glad, nevertheless, when Lizzie appeared at +the door. + +"Miss Neily." + +"Yes, Lizzie?" Miss Cornelia's voice was composed but her heart felt a +throb of relief. + +"Can I--can I sit in here with you, Miss Neily, just a minute?" +Lizzie's voice was plaintive. "I've been sitting out in the kitchen +watching that Jap read his funny newspaper the wrong way and listening +for ghosts till I'm nearly crazy!" + +"Why, certainly, Lizzie," said Miss Cornelia primly. "Though," she +added doubtfully, "I really shouldn't pamper your absurd fears, I +suppose, but--" + +"Oh, please, Miss Neily!" + +"Very well," said Miss Cornelia brightly. "You can sit here, +Lizzie--and help me work the ouija-board. That will take your mind off +listening for things!" + +Lizzie groaned. "You know I'd rather be shot than touch that uncanny +ouijie!" she said dolefully. "It gives me the creeps every time I put +my hands on it!" + +"Well, of course, if you'd rather sit in the kitchen, Lizzie--" + +"Oh, give me the ouijie!" said Lizzie in tones of heartbreak. "I'd +rather be shot and stabbed than stay in the kitchen any more." + +"Very well," said Miss Cornelia, "it's your own decision, +Lizzie--remember that." Her needles clicked on. "I'll just finish +this row before we start," she said. "You might call up the light +company in the meantime, Lizzie--there seems to be a storm coming up +and I want to find out if they intend to turn out the lights tonight as +they did last night. Tell them I find it most inconvenient to be left +without light that way." + +"It's worse than inconvenient," muttered Lizzie, "it's criminal--that's +what it is--turning off all the lights in a haunted house, like this +one. As if spooks wasn't bad enough with the lights on--" + +"Lizzie!" + +"Yes, Miss Neily--I wasn't going to say another word." She went to the +telephone. Miss Cornelia knitted on--knit two--purl two-- In spite of +her experiments with the ouija-board she didn't believe in ghosts--and +yet--there were things one couldn't explain by logic. Was there +something like that in this house--a shadow walking the corridors--a +vague shape of evil, drifting like mist from room to room, till its +cold breath whispered on one's back and--there! She had ruined her +knitting, the last two rows would have to be ripped out. That came of +mooning about ghosts like a ninny. + +She put down the knitting with an exasperated little gesture. Lizzie +had just finished her telephoning and was hanging up the receiver. + +"Well, Lizzie?" + +"Yes'm," said the latter, glaring at the phone. "That's what he +says--they turned off the lights last night because there was a storm +threatening. He says it burns out their fuses if they leave 'em on in +a storm." + +A louder roll of thunder punctuated her words. + +"There!" said Lizzie. "They'll be going off again to-night." She took +an uncertain step toward the French windows. + +"Humph!" said Miss Cornelia, "I hope it will be a dry summer." Her +hands tightened on each other. Darkness--darkness inside this house of +whispers to match with the darkness outside! She forced herself to +speak in a normal voice. + +"Ask Billy to bring some candles, Lizzie--and have them ready." + +Lizzie had been staring fixedly at the French windows. At Miss +Cornelia's command she gave a little jump of terror and moved closer to +her mistress. + +"You're not going to ask me to go out in that hall alone?" she said in +a hurt voice. + +It was too much. Miss Cornelia found vent for her feelings in crisp +exasperation. + +"What's the matter with you anyhow, Lizzie Allen?" + +The nervousness in her own tones infected Lizzie's. She shivered +frankly. + +"Oh, Miss Neily--Miss Neily!" she pleaded. "I don't like it! I want +to go back to the city!" + +Miss Cornelia braced herself. "I have rented this house for four +months and I am going to stay," she said firmly. Her eyes sought +Lizzie's, striving to pour some of her own inflexible courage into the +latter's quaking form. But Lizzie would not look at her. Suddenly she +started and gave a low scream; + +"There's somebody on the terrace!" she breathed in a ghastly whisper, +clutching at Miss Cornelia's arm. + +For a second Miss Cornelia sat frozen. Then, "Don't do that!" she said +sharply. "What nonsense!" but she, looked over her shoulder as she +said it and Lizzie saw the look. Both waited, in pulsing +stillness--one second--two. + +"I guess it was the wind," said Lizzie at last, relieved, her grip on +Miss Cornelia relaxing. She began to look a trifle ashamed of herself +and Miss Cornelia seized the opportunity. + +"You were born on a brick pavement," she said crushingly. "You get +nervous out here at night whenever a cricket begins to sing--or scrape +his legs--or whatever it is they do!" + +Lizzie bowed before the blast of her mistress's scorn and began to move +gingerly toward the alcove door. But obviously she was not entirely +convinced. + +"Oh, it's more than that, Miss Neily," she mumbled. "I--" + +Miss Cornelia turned to her fiercely. If Lizzie was going to behave +like this, they might as well have it out now between them--before Dale +came home. + +"What did you really see last night?" she said in a minatory voice. + +The instant relief on Lizzie's face was ludicrous; she so obviously +preferred discussing any subject at any length to braving the dangers +of the other part of the house unaccompanied. + +"I was standing right there at the top of that there staircase," she +began, gesticulating toward the alcove stairs in the manner of one who +embarks upon the narration of an epic. "Standing there with your +switch in my hand, Miss Neily--and then I looked down and," her voice +dropped, "I saw a gleaming eye! It looked at me and winked! I tell +you this house is haunted!" + +"A flirtatious ghost?" queried Miss Cornelia skeptically. She snorted. +"Humph! Why didn't you yell?" + +"I was too scared to yell! And I'm not the only one." She started to +back away from the alcove, her eyes still fixed upon its haunted +stairs. "Why do you think the servants left so sudden this morning?" +she went on. "Do you really believe the housemaid had appendicitis? Or +the cook's sister had twins?" + +She turned and gestured at her mistress with a long, pointed +forefinger. Her voice had a note of doom. + +"I bet a cent the cook never had any sister--and the sister never had +any twins," she said impressively. "No, Miss Neily, they couldn't put +it over on me like that! They were scared away. They saw--It!" + +She concluded her epic and stood nodding her head, an Irish Cassandra +who had prophesied the evil to come. + +"Fiddlesticks!" said Miss Cornelia briskly, more shaken by the recital +than she would have admitted. She tried to think of another topic of +conversation. + +"What time is it?" she asked. + +Lizzie glanced at the mantel clock. "Half-past ten, Miss Neily." + +Miss Cornelia yawned, a little dismally. She felt as if the last two +hours had not been hours but years. + +"Miss Dale won't be home for half an hour," she said reflectively. And +if I have to spend another thirty minutes listening to Lizzie shiver, +she thought, Dale will find me a nervous wreck when she does come home. +She rolled up her knitting and put it back in her knitting-bag; it was +no use going on, doing work that would have to be ripped out again and +yet she must do something to occupy her thoughts. She raised her head +and discovered Lizzie returning toward the alcove stairs with the +stealthy tread of a panther. The sight exasperated her. + +"Now, Lizzie Allen!" she said sharply, "you forget all that +superstitious nonsense and stop looking for ghosts! There's nothing in +that sort of thing." She smiled--she would punish Lizzie for her +obdurate timorousness. "Where's that ouija-board?" she questioned, +rising, with determination in her eye. + +Lizzie shuddered violently. "It's up there--with a prayer book on it +to keep it quiet!" she groaned, jerking her thumb in the direction of +the farther bookcase. + +"Bring it here!" said Miss Cornelia implacably; then as Lizzie still +hesitated, "Lizzie!" + +Shivering, every movement of her body a conscious protest, Lizzie +slowly went over to the bookcase, lifted off the prayer book, and took +down the ouija-board. Even then she would not carry it normally but +bore it over to Miss Cornelia at arms'-length, as if any closer contact +would blast her with lightning, her face a comic mask of loathing and +repulsion. + +She placed the lettered board in Miss Cornelia's lap with a sigh of +relief. "You can do it yourself! I'll have none of it!" she said +firmly. + +"It takes two people and you know it, Lizzie Allen!" Miss Cornelia's +voice was stern but--it was also amused. + +Lizzie groaned, but she knew her mistress. She obeyed. She carefully +chose the farthest chair in the room and took a long time bringing it +over to where her mistress sat waiting. + +"I've been working for you for twenty years," she muttered. "I've been +your goat for twenty years and I've got a right to speak my mind--" + +Miss Cornelia cut her off. "You haven't got a mind. Sit down," she +commanded. + +Lizzie sat--her hands at her sides. With a sigh of tried patience, +Miss Cornelia put her unwilling fingers on the little moving table that +is used to point to the letters on the board itself. Then she placed +her own hands on it, too, the tips of the fingers just touching +Lizzie's. + +"Now make your mind a blank!" she commanded her factotum. + +"You just said I haven't got any mind," complained the latter. + +"Well;" said Miss Cornelia magnificently, "make what you haven't got a +blank." + +The repartee silenced Lizzie for the moment, but only for the moment. +As soon as Miss Cornelia had settled herself comfortably and tried to +make her mind a suitable receiving station for ouija messages, Lizzie +began to mumble the sorrows of her heart. + +"I've stood by you through thick and thin," she mourned in a low voice. +"I stood by you when you were a vegetarian--I stood by you when you +were a theosophist--and I seen you through socialism, Fletcherism and +rheumatism--but when it comes to carrying on with ghosts--" + +"Be still!" ordered Miss Cornelia. "Nothing will come if you keep +chattering!" + +"That's why I'm chattering!" said Lizzie, driven to the wall. "My +teeth are, too," she added. "I can hardly keep my upper set in," and a +desolate clicking of artificial molars attested the truth of the +remark. Then, to Miss Cornelia's relief, she was silent for nearly two +minutes, only to start so violently at the end of the time that she +nearly upset the ouija-board on her mistress's toes. + +"I've got a queer feeling in my fingers--all the way up my arms," she +whispered in awed accents, wriggling the arms she spoke of violently. + +"Hush!" said Miss Cornelia indignantly. Lizzie always exaggerated, of +course--yet now her own fingers felt prickly, uncanny. There was a +little pause while both sat tense, staring at the board. + +"Now, Ouija," said Miss Cornelia defiantly, "is Lizzie Allen right +about this house or is it all stuff and nonsense?" + +For one second--two--the ouija remained anchored to its resting place +in the center of the board. Then-- + +"My Gawd! It's moving!" said Lizzie in tones of pure horror as the +little pointer began to wander among the letters. + +"You shoved it!" + +"I did not--cross my heart, Miss Neily--I--" Lizzie's eyes were round, +her fingers glued rigidly and awkwardly to the ouija. As the movements +of the pointer grew more rapid her mouth dropped open--wider and +wider--prepared for an ear-piercing scream. + +"Keep quiet!" said Miss Cornelia tensely. There was a pause of a few +seconds while the pointer darted from one letter to another wildly. + +"B--M--C--X--P--R--S--K--Z--" murmured Miss Cornelia trying to follow +the spelled letters. + +"It's Russian!" gasped Lizzie breathlessly and Miss Cornelia nearly +disgraced herself in the eyes of any spirits that might be present by +inappropriate laughter. The ouija continued to move--more +letters--what was it spelling?--it couldn't be--good +heavens--"B--A--T--Bat!" said Miss Cornelia with a tiny catch in her +voice. + +The pointer stopped moving: She took her hands from the board. + +"That's queer," she said with a forced laugh. She glanced at Lizzie to +see how Lizzie was taking it. But the latter seemed too relieved to +have her hands off the ouija-board to make the mental connection that +her mistress had feared. + +All she said was, "Bats indeed! That shows it's spirits. There's been +a bat flying around this house all evening." + +She got up from her chair tentatively, obviously hoping that the seance +was over. + +"Oh, Miss Neily," she burst out. "Please let me sleep in your room +tonight! It's only when my jaw drops that I snore--I can tie it up +with a handkerchief!" + +"I wish you'd tie it up with a handkerchief now," said her mistress +absent-mindedly, still pondering the message that the pointer had +spelled. "B--A--T--Bat!" she murmured. +Thought-transference--warning--accident? Whatever it was, it +was--nerve-shaking. She put the ouija-board aside. Accident or not, +she was done with it for the evening. But she could not so easily +dispose of the Bat. Sending a protesting Lizzie off for her reading +glasses, Miss Cornelia got the evening paper and settled down to what +by now had become her obsession. She had not far to search for a long +black streamer ran across the front page--"Bat Baffles Police Again." + +She skimmed through the article with eerie fascination, reading bits of +it aloud for Lizzie's benefit. + +"'Unique criminal--long baffled the police--record of his crimes shows +him to be endowed with an almost diabolical ingenuity--so far there is +no clue to his identity--'" Pleasant reading for an old woman who's +just received a threatening letter, she thought ironically--ah, here +was something new in a black-bordered box on the front page--a +statement by the paper. + +She read it aloud. "'We must cease combing the criminal world for the +Bat and look higher. He may be a merchant--a lawyer--a Doctor--honored +in his community by day and at night a bloodthirsty assassin--'" The +print blurred before her eyes, she could read no more for the moment. +She thought of the revolver in the drawer of the table close at hand +and felt glad that it was there, loaded. + +"I'm going to take the butcher knife to bed with me!" Lizzie was saying. + +Miss Cornelia touched the ouija-board. "That thing certainly spelled +Bat," she remarked. "I wish I were a man. I'd like to see any lawyer, +Doctor, or merchant of my acquaintance leading a double life without my +suspecting it." + +"Every man leads a double life and some more than that," Lizzie +observed. "I guess it rests them, like it does me to take off my +corset." + +Miss Cornelia opened her mouth to rebuke her but just at that moment +there, was a clink of ice from the hall, and Billy, the Japanese, +entered carrying a tray with a pitcher of water and some glasses on it. +Miss Cornelia watched his impassive progress, wondering if the Oriental +races ever felt terror--she could not imagine all Lizzie's banshees and +kelpies producing a single shiver from Billy. He set down the tray and +was about to go as silently as he had come when Miss Cornelia spoke to +him on impulse. + +"Billy, what's all this about the cook's sister not having twins?" she +said in an offhand voice. She had not really discussed the departure +of the other servants with Billy before. "Did you happen to know that +this interesting event was anticipated?" + +Billy drew in his breath with a polite hiss. "Maybe she have twins," +he admitted. "It happen sometime. Mostly not expected." + +"Do you think there was any other reason for her leaving?" + +"Maybe," said Billy blandly. + +"Well, what was the reason?" + +"All say the same thing--house haunted." Billy's reply was prompt as +it was calm. + +Miss Cornelia gave a slight laugh. "You know better than that, though, +don't you?" + +Billy's Oriental placidity remained unruffled. He neither admitted nor +denied. He shrugged his shoulders. + +"Funny house," he said laconically. "Find window open--nobody there. +Door slam--nobody there!" + +On the heels of his words came a single, startling bang from the +kitchen quarters--the bang of a slammed door! + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +ALOPECIA AND RUBEOLA + +Miss Cornelia dropped her newspaper. Lizzie, frankly frightened, gave +a little squeal and moved closer to her mistress. Only Billy remained +impassive but even he looked sharply in the direction whence the sound +had come. + +Miss Cornelia was the first of the others to recover her poise. + +"Stop that! It was the wind!" she said, a little irritably--the "Stop +that!" addressed to Lizzie who seemed on the point of squealing again. + +"I think not wind," said Billy. His very lack of perturbation added +weight to the statement. It made Miss Cornelia uneasy. She took out +her knitting again. + +"How long have you lived in this house, Billy?" + +"Since Mr. Fleming built." + +"H'm." Miss Cornelia pondered. "And this is the first time you have +been disturbed?" + +"Last two days only." Billy would have made an ideal witness in a +courtroom. He restricted himself so precisely to answering what was +asked of him in as few words as possible. + +Miss Cornelia ripped out a row in her knitting. She took a deep breath. + +"What about that face Lizzie said you saw last night at the window?" +she asked in a steady voice. + +Billy grinned, as if slightly embarrassed. "Just face--that's all." + +"A--man's face?" + +He shrugged again. + +"Don't know--maybe. It there! It gone!" + +Miss Cornelia did not want to believe him--but she did. "Did you go +out after it?" she persisted. + +Billy's yellow grin grew wider. "No thanks," he said cheerfully with +ideal succinctness. + +Lizzie, meanwhile, had stood first on one foot and then on the other +during the interrogation, terror and morbid interest fighting in her +for mastery. Now she could hold herself in no longer. + +"Oh, Miss Neily!" she exploded in a graveyard moan, "last night when +the lights went out I had a token! My oil lamp was full of oil but, do +what I would, it kept going out, too--the minute I shut my eyes out +that lamp would go. There ain't a surer token of death! The Bible +says, 'Let your light shine'--and when a hand you can't see puts your +lights out--good night!" + +She ended in a hushed whisper and even Billy looked a trifle +uncomfortable after her climax. + +"Well, now that you've cheered us up," began Miss Cornelia undauntedly, +but a long, ominous roll of thunder that rattled the panes in the +French windows drowned out the end of her sentence. Nevertheless she +welcomed the thunder as a diversion. At least its menace was a +physical one--to be guarded against by physical means. + +She rose and went over to the French windows. That flimsy bolt! She +parted the curtains and looked out--a flicker of lightning stabbed the +night--the storm must be almost upon them. + +"Bring some candles, Billy," she said. "The lights may be going out +any moment--and Billy," as he started to leave, "there's a gentleman +arriving on the last train. After he comes you may go to bed. I'll +wait up for Miss Dale--oh, and Billy," arresting him at the door, "see +that all the outer doors on this floor are locked and bring the keys +here." + +Billy nodded and departed. Miss Cornelia took a long breath. Now that +the moment for waiting had passed--the moment for action come--she felt +suddenly indomitable, prepared to face a dozen Bats! + +Her feelings were not shared by her maid. "I know what all this +means," moaned Lizzie. "I tell you there's going to be a death, sure!" + +"There certainly will be if you don't keep quiet," said her mistress +acidly. "Lock the billiard-room windows and go to bed." + +But this was the last straw for Lizzie. A picture of the two long, +dark flights of stairs up which she had to pass to reach her bedchamber +rose before her--and she spoke her mind. + +"I am not going to bed!" she said wildly. "I'm going to pack up +tomorrow and leave this house." That such a threat would never be +carried out while she lived made little difference to her--she was +beyond the need of Truth's consolations. "I asked you on my bended +knees not to take this place two miles from a railroad," she went on +heatedly. "For mercy's sake, Miss Neily, let's go back to the city +before it's too late!" + +Miss Cornelia was inflexible. + +"I'm not going. You can make up your mind to that. I'm going to find +out what's wrong with this place if it takes all summer. I came out to +the country for a rest and I'm going to get it." + +"You'll get your heavenly rest!" mourned Lizzie, giving it up. She +looked pitifully at her mistress's face for a sign that the latter +might be weakening--but no such sign came. Instead, Miss Cornelia +seemed to grow more determined. + +"Besides," she said, suddenly deciding to share the secret she had +hugged to herself all day, "I might as well tell you, Lizzie. I'm +having a detective sent down tonight from police headquarters in the +city." + +"A detective?" Lizzie's face was horrified. "Miss Neily, you're +keeping something from me! You know something I don't know." + +"I hope so. I daresay he will be stupid enough. Most of them are. But +at least we can have one proper night's sleep." + +"Not I. I trust no man," said Lizzie. But Miss Cornelia had picked up +the paper again. + +"'The Bat's last crime was a particularly atrocious one,'" she read. +"'The body of the murdered man...'" + +But Lizzie could bear no more. + +"Why don't you read the funny page once in a while?" she wailed and +hurried to close the windows in the billiard room. The door leading +into the billiard room shut behind her. + +Miss Cornelia remained reading for a moment. Then--was that a sound +from the alcove? She dropped the paper, went into the alcove and stood +for a moment at the foot of the stairs, listening. No--it must have +been imagination. But, while she was here, she might as well put on +the spring lock that bolted the door from the alcove to the terrace. +She did so, returned to the living-room and switched off the lights for +a moment to look out at the coming storm. It was closer now--the +lightning flashes more continuous. She turned on the lights again as +Billy re-entered with three candles and a box of matches. + +He put them down on a side table. + +"New gardener come," he said briefly to Miss Cornelia's back. + +Miss Cornelia turned. "Nice hour for him to get here. What's his +name?" + +"Say his name Brook," said Billy, a little doubtful. English names +still bothered him--he was never quite sure of them at first. + +Miss Cornelia thought. "Ask him to come in," she said. "And +Billy--where are the keys?" + +Billy silently took two keys from his pocket and laid them on the +table. Then he pointed to the terrace door which Miss Cornelia had +just bolted. + +"Door up there--spring lock," he said. + +"Yes." She nodded. "And the new bolt you put on today makes it fairly +secure. One thing is fairly sure, Billy. If anyone tries to get in +tonight, he will have to break a window and make a certain amount of +noise." + +But he only smiled his curious enigmatic smile and went out. And no +sooner had Miss Cornelia seated herself when the door of the billiard +room slammed open suddenly and Lizzie burst into the room as if she had +been shot from a gun--her hair wild--her face stricken with fear. + +"I heard somebody yell out in the grounds--away down by the gate!" she +informed her mistress in a loud stage whisper which had a curious note +of pride in it, as if she were not too displeased at seeing her doleful +predictions so swiftly coming to pass. + +Miss Cornelia took her by the shoulder--half-startled, half-dubious. + +"What did they yell?" + +"Just yelled a yell!" + +"Lizzie!" + +"I heard them!" + +But she had cried "Wolf!" too often. + +"You take a liver pill," said her mistress disgustedly, "and go to bed." + +Lizzie was about to protest both the verdict on her story and the +judgment on herself when the door in the hall was opened by Billy to +admit the new gardener. A handsome young fellow, in his late twenties, +he came two steps into the room and then stood there respectfully with +his cap in his hand, waiting for Miss Cornelia to speak to him. + +After a swift glance of observation that gave her food for thought she +did so. + +"You are Brooks, the new gardener?" + +The young man inclined his head. + +"Yes, madam. The butler said you wanted to speak to me." + +Miss Cornelia regarded him anew. His hands look soft--for a +gardener's, she thought. And his manners seem much too good for one-- +Still-- + +"Come in," she said briskly. The young man advanced another two steps. +"You're the man my niece engaged in the city this afternoon?" + +"Yes, madam." He seemed a little uneasy under her searching scrutiny. +She dropped her eyes. + +"I could not verify your references as the Brays are in Canada--" she +proceeded. + +The young man took an eager step forward. "I am sure if Mrs. Bray were +here--" he began, then flushed and stopped, twisting his cap. + +"Were here?" said Miss Cornelia in a curious voice. "Are you a +professional gardener?" + +"Yes." The young man's manner had grown a trifle defiant but Miss +Cornelia's next question followed remorselessly. + +"Know anything about hardy perennials?" she said in a soothing voice, +while Lizzie regarded the interview with wondering eyes. + +"Oh. yes," but the young man seemed curiously lacking in confidence. +"They--they're the ones that keep their leaves during the winter, +aren't they?" + +"Come over here--closer--" said Miss Cornelia imperiously. Once more +she scrutinized him and this time there was no doubt of his discomfort +under her stare. + +"Have you had any experience with rubeola?" she queried finally. + +"Oh, yes--yes--yes, indeed," the gardener stammered. "Yes." + +"And--alopecia?" pursued Miss Cornelia. + +The young man seemed to fumble in his mind for the characteristics of +such a flower or shrub. + +"The dry weather is very hard on alopecia," he asserted finally, and +was evidently relieved to see Miss Cornelia receive the statement with +a pleasant smile. + +"What do you think is the best treatment for urticaria?" she propounded +with a highly professional manner. + +It appeared to be a catch-question. The young man knotted his brows. +Finally a gleam of light seemed to come to him. + +"Urticaria frequently needs--er--thinning," he announced decisively. + +"Needs scratching you mean!" Miss Cornelia rose with a snort of disdain +and faced him. "Young man, urticaria is hives, rubeola is measles, and +alopecia is baldness!" she thundered. She waited a moment for his +defense. None came. + +"Why did you tell me you were a professional gardener?" she went on +accusingly. "Why have you come here at this hour of night pretending +to be something you're not?" + +By all standards of drama the young man should have wilted before her +wrath, Instead he suddenly smiled at her, boyishly, and threw up his +hands in a gesture of defeat. + +"I know I shouldn't have done it!" he confessed with appealing +frankness. "You'd have found me out anyhow! I don't know anything +about gardening. The truth is," his tone grew somber, "I was +desperate! I HAD to have work!" + +The candor of his smile would have disarmed a stonier-hearted person +than Miss Cornelia. But her suspicions were still awake. + +"'That's all, is it?" + +"That's enough when you're down and out." His words had an +unmistakable accent of finality. She couldn't help wanting to believe +him, and yet, he wasn't what he had pretended to be--and this night of +all nights was no time to take people on trust! + +"How do I know you won't steal the spoons?" she queried, her voice +still gruff. + +"Are they nice spoons?" he asked with absurd seriousness. + +She couldn't help smiling at his tone. "Beautiful spoons." + +Again that engaging, boyish manner of his touched something in her +heart. + +"Spoons are a great temptation to me, Miss Van Gorder--but if you'll +take me, I'll promise to leave them alone." + +"That's extremely kind of you," she answered with grim humor, knowing +herself beaten. She went over to ring for Billy. + +Lizzie took the opportunity to gain her ear. + +"I don't trust him, Miss Neily! He's too smooth!" she whispered +warningly. + +Miss Cornelia stiffened. "I haven't asked for your opinion, Lizzie," +she said. + +But Lizzie was not to be put off by the Van Gorder manner. + +"Oh," she whispered, "you're just as bad as all the rest of 'em. A +good-looking man comes in the door and your brains fly out the window!" + +Miss Cornelia quelled her with a gesture and turned back to the young +man. He was standing just where she had left him, his cap in his +hands--but, while her back had been turned, his eyes had made a +stealthy survey of the living-room--a survey that would have made it +plain to Miss Cornelia, if she had seen him, that his interest in the +Fleming establishment was not merely the casual interest of a servant +in his new place of abode. But she had not seen and she could have +told nothing from his present expression. + +"Have you had anything to eat lately?" she asked in a kindly voice. + +He looked down at his cap. "Not since this morning," he admitted as +Billy answered the bell. + +Miss Cornelia turned to the impassive Japanese. "Billy, give this man +something to eat and then show him where he is to sleep." + +She hesitated. The gardener's house was some distance from the main +building, and with the night and the approaching storm she felt her own +courage weakening. Into the bargain, whether this stranger had lied +about his gardening or not, she was curiously attracted to him. + +"I think," she said slowly, "that I'll have you sleep in the house +here, at least for tonight. Tomorrow we can--the housemaid's room, +Billy," she told the butler. And before their departure she held out a +candle and a box of matches. + +"Better take these with you, Brooks," she said. "The local light +company crawls under its bed every time there is a thunderstorm. Good +night, Brooks." + +"Good night, ma'am," said the young man smiling. Following Billy to +the door, he paused. "You're being mighty good to me," he said +diffidently, smiled again, and disappeared after Billy. + +As the door closed behind them, Miss Cornelia found herself smiling +too. "That's a pleasant young fellow--no matter what he is," she said +to herself decidedly, and not even Lizzie's feverish "Haven't you any +sense taking strange men into the house? How do you know he isn't the +Bat?" could draw a reply from her. + +Again the thunder rolled as she straightened the papers and magazines +on the table and Lizzie gingerly took up the ouija-board to replace it +on the bookcase with the prayer book firmly on top of it. And this +time, with the roll of the thunder, the lights in the living-room +blinked uncertainly for an instant before they recovered their normal +brilliance. + +"There go the lights!" grumbled Lizzie, her fingers still touching the +prayer book, as if for protection. Miss Cornelia did not answer her +directly. + +"We'll put the detective in the blue room when he comes," she said. +"You'd better go up and see if it's all ready." + +Lizzie started to obey, going toward the alcove to ascend to the second +floor by the alcove stairs. But Miss Cornelia stopped her. + +"Lizzie--you know that stair rail's just been varnished. Miss Dale got +a stain on her sleeve there this afternoon--and Lizzie--" + +"Yes'm?" + +"No one is to know that he is a detective. Not even Billy." Miss +Cornelia was very firm. + +"Well, what'll I say he is?" + +"It's nobody's business." + +"A detective," moaned Lizzie, opening the hall door to go by the main +staircase. "Tiptoeing around with his eye to all the keyholes. A body +won't be safe in the bathtub." She shut the door with a little slap +and disappeared. Miss Cornelia sat down--she had many things to think +over--"if I ever get time really to think of anything again," she +thought, because with gardeners coming who aren't gardeners--and Lizzie +hearing yells in the grounds and-- + +She started slightly. The front door bell was ringing--a long trill, +uncannily loud in the quiet house. She sat rigid in her chair, +waiting. Billy came in. + +"Front door key, please?" he asked urbanely. She gave him the key. + +"Find out who it is before you unlock the door," she said. He nodded. +She heard him at the door, then a murmur of voices--Dale's voice and +another's--"Won't you come in for a few minutes? Oh, thank you." She +relaxed. + +The door opened; it was Dale. "How lovely she looks in that evening +wrap!" thought Miss Cornelia. But how tired, too. I wish I knew what +was worrying her. + +She smiled. "Aren't you back early, Dale?" + +Dale threw off her wrap and stood for a moment patting back into its +smooth, smart bob, hair ruffled by the wind. + +"I was tired," she said, sinking into a chair. + +"Not worried about anything?" Miss Cornelia's eyes were sharp. + +"No," said Dale without conviction, "but I've come here to be company +for you and I don't want to run away all the time." She picked up the +evening paper and looked at it without apparently seeing it. Miss +Cornelia heard voices in the hall--a man's voice--affable--"How have +you been, Billy?"--Billy's voice in answer, "Very well, sir." + +"Who's out there, Dale?" she queried. + +Dale looked up from the paper. "Doctor Wells, darling," she said in a +listless voice. "He brought me over from the club; I asked him to come +in for a few minutes. Billy's just taking his coat." She rose, threw +the paper aside, came over and kissed Miss Cornelia suddenly and +passionately--then before Miss Cornelia, a little startled, could +return the kiss, went over and sat on the settee by the fireplace near +the door of the billiard room. + +Miss Cornelia turned to her with a thousand questions on her tongue, +but before she could ask any of them, Billy was ushering in Doctor +Wells. + +As she shook hands with the Doctor, Miss Cornelia observed him with +casual interest--wondering why such a good-looking man, in his early +forties, apparently built for success, should be content with the +comparative rustication of his local practice. That shrewd, rather +aquiline face, with its keen gray eyes, would have found itself more at +home in a wider sphere of action, she thought--there was just that +touch of ruthlessness about it which makes or mars a captain in the +world's affairs. She found herself murmuring the usual +conventionalities of greeting. + +"Oh, I'm very well, Doctor, thank you. Well, many people at the +country club?" + +"Not very many," he said, with a shake of his head. "This failure of +the Union Bank has knocked a good many of the club members sky high." + +"Just how did it happen?" Miss Cornelia was making conversation. + +"Oh, the usual thing." The Doctor took out his cigarette case. "The +cashier, a young chap named Bailey, looted the bank to the tune of over +a million." + +Dale turned sharply toward them from her seat by the fireplace. + +"How do you know the cashier did it?" she said in a low voice. + +The Doctor laughed. "Well--he's run away, for one thing. The bank +examiners found the deficit. Bailey, the cashier, went out on an +errand--and didn't come back. The method was simple enough--worthless +bonds substituted for good ones--with a good bond on the top and bottom +of each package, so the packages would pass a casual inspection. +Probably been going on for some time." + +The fingers of Dale's right hand drummed restlessly on the edge of her +settee. + +"Couldn't somebody else have done it?" she queried tensely. + +The Doctor smiled, a trifle patronizingly. + +"Of course the president of the bank had access to the vaults," he +said. "But, as you know, Mr. Courtleigh Fleming, the late president, +was buried last Monday." + +Miss Cornelia had seen her niece's face light up oddly at the beginning +of the Doctor's statement--to relapse into lassitude again at its +conclusion. Bailey--Bailey--she was sure she remembered that name--on +Dale's lips. + +"Dale, dear, did you know this young Bailey?" she asked point-blank. + +The girl had started to light a cigarette. The flame wavered in her +fingers, the match went out. + +"Yes--slightly," she said. She bent to strike another match, averting +her face. Miss Cornelia did not press her. + +"What with bank robberies and communism and the income tax," she said, +turning the subject, "the only way to keep your money these days is to +spend it." + +"Or not to have any--like myself!" the Doctor agreed. + +"It seems strange," Miss Cornelia went on, "living in Courtleigh +Fleming's house. A month ago I'd never even heard of Mr. +Fleming--though I suppose I should have--and now--why, I'm as +interested in the failure of his bank as if I were a depositor!" + +The Doctor regarded the end of his cigarette. + +"As a matter of fact," he said pleasantly, "Dick Fleming had no right +to rent you the property before the estate was settled. He must have +done it the moment he received my telegram announcing his uncle's +death." + +"Were you with him when he died?" + +"Yes--in Colorado. He had angina pectoris and took me with him for +that reason. But with care he might have lived a considerable time. +The trouble was that he wouldn't use ordinary care. He ate and drank +more than he should, and so--" + +"I suppose," pursued Miss Cornelia, watching Dale out of the corner of +her eye, "that there is no suspicion that Courtleigh Fleming robbed his +own bank?" + +"Well, if he did," said the Doctor amicably, "I can testify that he +didn't have the loot with him." His tone grew more serious. "No! He +had his faults--but not that." + +Miss Cornelia made up her mind. She had resolved before not to summon +the Doctor for aid in her difficulties, but now that chance had brought +him here the opportunity seemed too good a one to let slip. + +"Doctor," she said, "I think I ought to tell you something. Last night +and the night before, attempts were made to enter this house. Once an +intruder actually got in and was frightened away by Lizzie at the top +of that staircase." She indicated the alcove stairs. "And twice I have +received anonymous communications threatening my life if I did not +leave the house and go back to the city." + +Dale rose from her settee, startled. + +"I didn't know that, Auntie! How dreadful!" she gasped. + +Instantly Miss Cornelia regretted her impulse of confidence. She tried +to pass the matter off with tart humor. + +"Don't tell Lizzie," she said. "She'd yell like a siren. It's the +only thing she does like a siren, but she does it superbly!" + +For a moment it seemed as if Miss Cornelia had succeeded. The Doctor +smiled; Dale sat down again, her expression altering from one of +anxiety to one of amusement. Miss Cornelia opened her lips to dilate +further upon Lizzie's eccentricities. + +But just then there was a splintering crash of glass from one of the +French windows behind her! + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +DETECTIVE ANDERSON TAKES CHARGE + +"What's that?" + +"Somebody smashed a windowpane!" + +"And threw in a stone!" + +"Wait a minute, I'll--" The Doctor, all alert at once, ran into the +alcove and jerked at the terrace door. + +"It's bolted at the top, too," called Miss Cornelia. He nodded, +without wasting words on a reply, unbolted the door and dashed out into +the darkness of the terrace. Miss Cornelia saw him run past the French +windows and disappear into blackness. Meanwhile Dale, her listlessness +vanished before the shock of the strange occurrence, had gone to the +broken window and picked up the stone. It was wrapped in paper; there +seemed to be writing on the paper. She closed the terrace door and +brought the stone to her aunt. + +Miss Cornelia unwrapped the paper and smoothed out the sheet. + +Two lines of coarse, round handwriting sprawled across it: + + Take warning! Leave this house at once! It is threatened with + disaster which will involve you if you remain! + +There was no signature. + +"Who do you think wrote it?" asked Dale breathlessly. + +Miss Cornelia straightened up like a ramrod--indomitable. + +"A fool--that's who! If anything was calculated to make me stay here +forever, this sort of thing would do it!" + +She twitched the sheet of paper angrily. + +"But--something may happen, darling!" + +"I hope so! That's the reason I--" + +She stopped. The doorbell was ringing again--thrilling, insistent. Her +niece started at the sound. + +"Oh, don't let anybody in!" she besought Miss Cornelia as Billy came in +from the hall with his usual air of walking on velvet. + +"Key, front door please--bell ring," he explained tersely, taking the +key from the table. + +Miss Cornelia issued instructions. + +"See that the chain is on the door, Billy. Don't open it all the way. +And get the visitor's name before you let him in." + +She lowered her voice. + +"If he says he is Mr. Anderson, let him in and take him to the library." + +Billy nodded and disappeared. Dale turned to her aunt, the color out +of her cheeks. + +"Anderson? Who is Mr.--" + +Miss Cornelia did not answer. She thought for a moment. Then she put +her hand on Dale's shoulder in a gesture of protective affection. + +"Dale, dear--you know how I love having you here--but it might be +better if you went back to the city." + +"Tonight, darling?" Dale managed a wan smile. But Miss Cornelia seemed +serious. + +"There's something behind all this disturbance--something I don't +understand. But I mean to." + +She glanced about to see if the Doctor was returning. She lowered her +voice. She drew Dale closer to her. + +"The man in the library is a detective from police headquarters," she +said. + +She had expected Dale to show surprise--excitement--but the white mask +of horror which the girl turned toward her appalled her. The young +body trembled under her hand for a moment like a leaf in the storm. + +"Not--the police!" breathed Dale in tones of utter consternation. Miss +Cornelia could not understand why the news had stirred her niece so +deeply. But there was no time to puzzle it out, she heard crunching +steps on the terrace, the Doctor was returning. + +"Ssh!" she whispered. "It isn't necessary to tell the Doctor. I think +he's a sort of perambulating bedside gossip--and once it's known the +police are here we'll NEVER catch the criminals!" + +When the Doctor entered from the terrace, brushing drops of rain from +his no longer immaculate evening clothes, Dale was back on her favorite +settee and Miss Cornelia was poring over the mysterious missive that +had been wrapped about the stone. + +"He got away in the shrubbery," said the Doctor disgustedly, taking out +a handkerchief to fleck the spots of mud from his shoes. + +Miss Cornelia gave him the letter of warning. "Read this," she said. + +The Doctor adjusted a pair of pince-nez--read the two crude sentences +over--once--twice. Then he looked shrewdly at Miss Cornelia. + +"Were the others like this?" he queried. + +She nodded. "Practically." + +He hesitated for a moment like a man with an unpleasant social duty to +face. + +"Miss Van Gorder, may I speak frankly?" + +"Generally speaking, I detest frankness," said that lady grimly. +"But--go on!" + +The Doctor tapped the letter. His face was wholly serious. + +"I think you ought to leave this house," he said bluntly. + +"Because of that letter? Humph!" His very seriousness, perversely +enough, made her suddenly wish to treat the whole matter as lightly as +possible. + +The Doctor repressed the obvious annoyance of a man who sees a warning, +given in all sobriety, unexpectedly taken as a quip. + +"There is some deviltry afoot," he persisted. "You are not safe here, +Miss Van Gorder." + +But if he was persistent in his attitude, so was she in hers. + +"I've been safe in all kinds of houses for sixty-odd years," she said +lightly. "It's time I had a bit of a change. Besides," she gestured +toward her defenses, "this house is as nearly impregnable as I can make +it. The window locks are sound enough, the doors are locked, and the +keys are there," she pointed to the keys lying on the table. "As for +the terrace door you just used," she went on, "I had Billy put an extra +bolt on it today. By the way, did you bolt that door again?" She +moved toward the alcove. + +"Yes, I did," said the Doctor quickly, still seeming unconvinced of the +wisdom of her attitude. + +"Miss Van Gorder, I confess--I'm very anxious for you," he continued. +"This letter is--ominous. Have you any enemies?" + +"Don't insult me! Of course I have. Enemies are an indication of +character." + +The Doctor's smile held both masculine pity and equally masculine +exasperation. He went on more gently. + +"Why not accept my hospitality in the village to-night?" he proposed +reasonably. "It's a little house but I'll make you comfortable. Or," +he threw out his hands in the gesture of one who reasons with a willful +child, "if you won't come to me, let me stay here!" + +Miss Cornelia hesitated for an instant. The proposition seemed logical +enough--more than that--sensible, safe. And yet, some indefinable +feeling--hardly strong enough to be called a premonition--kept her from +accepting it. Besides, she knew what the Doctor did not, that help was +waiting across the hall in the library. + +"Thank you, no, Doctor," she said briskly, before she had time to +change her mind. "I'm not easily frightened. And tomorrow I intend to +equip this entire house with burglar alarms on doors and windows!" she +went on defiantly. The incident, as far as she was concerned, was +closed. She moved on into the alcove. The Doctor stared at her, +shaking his head. + +She tried the terrace door. "There, I knew it!" she said triumphantly. +"Doctor--you didn't fasten that bolt!" + +The Doctor seemed a little taken aback. "Oh--I'm sorry--" he said. + +"You only pushed it part of the way," she explained. She completed the +task and stepped back into the living-room. "The only thing that +worries me now is that broken French window," she said thoughtfully. +"Anyone can reach a hand through it and open the latch." She came down +toward the settee where Dale was sitting. "Please, Doctor!" + +"Oh--what are you going to do?" said the Doctor, coming out of a brown +study. + +"I'm going to barricade that window!" said Miss Cornelia firmly, +already struggling to lift one end of the settee. But now Dale came to +her rescue. + +"Oh, darling, you'll hurt yourself. Let me--" and between them, the +Doctor and Dale moved the heavy settee along until it stood in front of +the window in question. + +The Doctor stood up when the dusty task was finished, wiping his hands. + +"It would take a furniture mover to get in there now!" he said airily. + +Miss Cornelia smiled. + +"Well, Doctor--I'll say good night now--and thank you very much," she +said, extending her hand to the Doctor, who bowed over it silently. +"Don't keep this young lady up too late; she looks tired." She flashed +a look at Dale who stood staring out at the night. + +"I'll only smoke a cigarette," promised the Doctor. Once again his +voice had a note of plea in it. "You won't change your mind?" he asked +anew. + +Miss Van Gorder's smile was obdurate. "I have a great deal of mind," +she said. "It takes a long time to change it." + +Then, having exercised her feminine privilege of the last word, she +sailed out of the room, still smiling, and closed the door behind her. + +The Doctor seemed a little nettled by her abrupt departure. + +"It may be mind," he said, turning back toward Dale, "but forgive me if +I say I think it seems more like foolhardy stubbornness!" + +Dale turned away from the window. "Then you think there is really +danger?" + +The Doctor's eyes were grave. + +"Well--those letters--" he dropped the letter on the table. "They mean +something. Here you are--isolated the village two miles away--and +enough shrubbery round the place to hide a dozen assassins--" + +If his manner had been in the slightest degree melodramatic, Dale would +have found the ominous sentences more easy to discount. But this calm, +intent statement of fact was a chill touch at her heart. And yet-- + +"But what enemies can Aunt Cornelia have?" she asked helplessly. + +"Any man will tell you what I do," said the Doctor with increasing +seriousness. He took a cigarette from his case and tapped it on the +case to emphasize his words. "This is no place for two women, +practically alone." + +Dale moved away from him restlessly, to warm her hands at the fire. The +Doctor gave a quick glance around the room. Then, unseen by her, he +stepped noiselessly over to the table, took the matchbox there off its +holder and slipped it into his pocket. It seemed a curiously useless +and meaningless gesture, but his next words evinced that the action had +been deliberate. + +"I don't seem to be able to find any matches--" he said with assumed +carelessness, fiddling with the matchbox holder. + +Dale turned away from the fire. "Oh, aren't there any? I'll get you +some," she said with automatic politeness, and departed to search for +them. + +The Doctor watched her go--saw the door close behind her. Instantly +his face set into tense and wary lines. He glanced about--then ran +lightly into the alcove and noiselessly unfastened the bolt on the +terrace door which he had pretended to fasten after his search of the +shrubbery. When Dale returned with the matches, he was back where he +had been when she had left him, glancing at a magazine on the table. + +He thanked her urbanely as she offered him the box. "So sorry to +trouble you--but tobacco is the one drug every Doctor forbids his +patients and prescribes for himself." + +Dale smiled at the little joke. He lit his cigarette and drew in the +fragrant smoke with apparent gusto. But a moment later he had crushed +out the glowing end in an ash tray. + +"By the way, has Miss Van Gorder a revolver?" he queried casually, +glancing at his wrist watch. + +"Yes--she fired it off this afternoon to see if it would work." Dale +smiled at the memory. + +The Doctor, too, seemed amused. "If she tries to shoot anything--for +goodness' sake stand behind her!" he advised. He glanced at the wrist +watch again. "Well--I must be going--" + +"If anything happens," said Dale slowly, "I shall telephone you at +once." + +Her words seemed to disturb the Doctor slightly--but only for a second. +He grew even more urbane. + +"I'll be home shortly after midnight," he said. "I'm stopping at the +Johnsons' on my way--one of their children is ill--or supposed to be." +He took a step toward the door, then he turned toward Dale again. + +"Take a parting word of advice," he said. "The thing to do with a +midnight prowler is--let him alone. Lock your bedroom doors and don't +let anything bring you out till morning." He glanced at Dale to see +how she took the advice, his hand on the knob of the door. + +"Thank you," said Dale seriously. "Good night, Doctor--Billy will let +you out, he has the key." + +"By Jove!" laughed the Doctor, "you are careful, aren't you! The place +is like a fortress! Well--good night, Miss Dale--" + +"Good night." The door closed behind him--Dale was left alone. +Suddenly her composure left her, the fixed smile died. She stood +gazing ahead at nothing, her face a mask of terror and apprehension. +But it was like a curtain that had lifted for a moment on some secret +tragedy and then fallen again. When Billy returned with the front door +key she was as impassive as he was. + +"Has the new gardener come yet?" + +"He here," said Billy stolidly. "Name Brook." + +She was entirely herself once more when Billy, departing, held the door +open wide--to admit Miss Cornelia Van Gorder and a tall, +strong-featured man, quietly dressed, with reticent, piercing eyes--the +detective! + +Dale's first conscious emotion was one of complete surprise. She had +expected a heavy-set, blue-jowled vulgarian with a black cigar, a +battered derby, and stubby policeman's shoes. "Why this man's a +gentleman!" she thought. "At least he looks like one--and yet--you can +tell from his face he'd have as little mercy as a steel trap for anyone +he had to--catch--" She shuddered uncontrollably. + +"Dale, dear," said Miss Cornelia with triumph in her voice. "This is +Mr. Anderson." + +The newcomer bowed politely, glancing at her casually and then looking +away. Miss Cornelia, however, was obviously in fine feather and +relishing to the utmost the presence of a real detective in the house. + +"This is the room I spoke of," she said briskly. "All the disturbances +have taken place around that terrace door." + +The detective took three swift steps into the alcove, glanced about it +searchingly. He indicated the stairs. + +"That is not the main staircase?" + +"No, the main staircase is out there," Miss Cornelia waved her hand in +the direction of the hall. + +The detective came out of the alcove and paused by the French windows. + +"I think there must be a conspiracy between the Architects' Association +and the Housebreakers' Union these days," he said grimly. "Look at all +that glass. All a burglar needs is a piece of putty and a +diamond-cutter to break in." + +"But the curious thing is," continued Miss Cornelia, "that whoever got +into the house evidently had a key to that door." Again she indicated +the terrace door, but Anderson did not seem to be listening to her. + +"Hello--what's this?" he said sharply, his eye lighting on the broken +glass below the shattered French window. He picked up a piece of glass +and examined it. + +Dale cleared her throat. "It was broken from the outside a few minutes +ago," she said. + +"The outside?" Instantly the detective had pulled aside a blind and +was staring out into the darkness. + +"Yes. And then that letter was thrown in." She pointed to the +threatening missive on the center table. + +Anderson picked it up, glanced through it, laid it down. All his +movements were quick and sure--each executed with the minimum expense +of effort. + +"H'm," he said in a calm voice that held a glint of humor. "Curious, +the anonymous letter complex! Apparently someone considers you an +undesirable tenant!" + +Miss Cornelia took up the tale. + +"There are some things I haven't told you yet," she said. "This house +belonged to the late Courtleigh Fleming." He glanced at her sharply. + +"The Union Bank?" + +"Yes. I rented it for the summer and moved in last Monday. We have +not had a really quiet night since I came. The very first night I saw +a man with an electric flashlight making his way through the shrubbery!" + +"You poor dear!" from Dale sympathetically. "And you were here alone!" + +"Well, I had Lizzie. And," said Miss Cornelia with enormous +importance, opening the drawer of the center table, "I had my revolver. +I know so little about these things, Mr. Anderson, that if I didn't hit +a burglar, I knew I'd hit somebody or something!" and she gazed with +innocent awe directly down the muzzle of her beloved weapon, then waved +it with an airy gesture beneath the detective's nose. + +Anderson gave an involuntary start, then his eyes lit up with grim +mirth. + +"Would you mind putting that away?" he said suavely. "I like to get in +the papers as much as anybody, but I don't want to have them say--omit +flowers." + +Miss Cornelia gave him a glare of offended pride, but he endured it +with such quiet equanimity that she merely replaced the revolver in the +drawer, with a hurt expression, and waited for him to open the next +topic of conversation. + +He finished his preliminary survey of the room and returned to her. + +"Now you say you don't think anybody has got upstairs yet?" he queried. + +Miss Cornelia regarded the alcove stairs. + +"I think not. I'm a very light sleeper, especially since the papers +have been so full of the exploits of this criminal they call the Bat. +He's in them again tonight." She nodded toward the evening paper. + +The detective smiled faintly. + +"Yes, he's contrived to surround himself with such an air of mystery +that it verges on the supernatural--or seems that way to newspapermen." + +"I confess," admitted Miss Cornelia, "I've thought of him in this +connection." She looked at Anderson to see how he would take the +suggestion but the latter merely smiled again, this time more broadly. + +"That's going rather a long way for a theory," he said. "And the Bat +is not in the habit of giving warnings." + +"Nevertheless," she insisted, "somebody has been trying to get into +this house, night after night." + +Anderson seemed to be revolving a theory in his mind. + +"Any liquor stored here?" he asked. + +Miss Cornelia nodded. "Yes." + +"What?" + +Miss Cornelia beamed at him maliciously. "Eleven bottles of home-made +elderberry wine." + +"You're safe." The detective smiled ruefully. He picked up the +evening paper, glanced at it, shook his head. "I'd forget the Bat in +all this. You can always tell when the Bat has had anything to do with +a crime. When he's through, he signs his name to it." + +Miss Cornelia sat bolt upright. "His name? I thought nobody knew his +name?" + +The detective made a little gesture of apology. "That was a figure of +speech. The newspapers named him the Bat because he moved with +incredible rapidity, always at night, and by signing his name I mean he +leaves the symbol of his identity--the Bat, which can see in the dark." + +"I wish I could," said Miss Cornelia, striving to seem unimpressed. +"These country lights are always going out." + +Anderson's face grew stern. "Sometimes he draws the outline of a bat +at the scene of the crime. Once, in some way, he got hold of a real +bat, and nailed it to the wall." + +Dale, listening, could not repress a shudder at the gruesome +picture--and Miss Cornelia's hands gave an involuntary twitch as her +knitting needles clicked together. Anderson seemed by no means +unconscious of the effect he had created. + +"How many people in this house, Miss Van Gorder?" + +"My niece and myself." Miss Cornelia indicated Dale, who had picked up +her wrap and was starting to leave the room. "Lizzie Allen--who has +been my personal maid ever since I was a child--the Japanese butler, +and the gardener. The cook and the housemaid left this +morning--frightened away." + +She smiled as she finished her description. Dale reached the door and +passed slowly out into the hall. The detective gave her a single, +sharp glance as she made her exit. He seemed to think over the factors +Miss Cornelia had mentioned. + +"Well," he said, after a slight pause, "you can have a good night's +sleep tonight. I'll stay right here in the dark and watch." + +"Would you like some coffee to keep you awake?" + +Anderson nodded. "Thank you." His voice sank lower. "Do the servants +know who I am?" + +"Only Lizzie, my maid." + +His eyes fixed hers. "I wouldn't tell anyone I'm remaining up all +night," he said. + +A formless fear rose in Miss Cornelia's mind. "You don't suspect my +household?" she said in a low voice. + +He spoke with emphasis--all the more pronounced because of the quietude +of his tone. + +"I'm not taking any chances," he said determinedly. + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS + +All unconscious of the slur just cast upon her forty years of +single-minded devotion to the Van Gorder family, Lizzie chose that +particular moment to open the door and make a little bob at her +mistress and the detective. + +"The gentleman's room is ready," she said meekly. In her mind she was +already beseeching her patron saint that she would not have to show the +gentleman to his room. Her ideas of detectives were entirely drawn +from sensational magazines and her private opinion was that Anderson +might have anything in his pocket from a set of terrifying false +whiskers to a bomb! + +Miss Cornelia, obedient to the detective's instructions, promptly told +the whitest of fibs for Lizzie's benefit. + +"The maid will show you to your room now and you can make yourself +comfortable for the night." There--that would mislead Lizzie, without +being quite a lie. + +"My toilet is made for an occasion like this when I've got my gun +loaded," answered Anderson carelessly. The allusion to the gun made +Lizzie start nervously, unhappily for her, for it drew his attention to +her and he now transfixed her with a stare. + +"This is the maid you referred to?" he inquired. Miss Cornelia +assented. He drew nearer to the unhappy Lizzie. + +"What's your name?" he asked, turning to her. + +"E-Elizabeth Allen," stammered Lizzie, feeling like a small and +distrustful sparrow in the toils of an officious python. + +Anderson seemed to run through a mental rogues gallery of other +criminals named Elizabeth Allen that he had known. + +"How old are you?" he proceeded. + +Lizzie looked at her mistress despairingly. "Have I got to answer +that?" she wailed. Miss Cornelia nodded--inexorably. + +Lizzie braced herself. "Thirty-two," she said, with an arch toss of +her head. + +The detective looked surprised and slightly amused. + +"She's fifty if she's a day," said Miss Cornelia treacherously in spite +of a look from Lizzie that would have melted a stone. + +The trace of a smile appeared and vanished on the detective's face. + +"Now, Lizzie," he said sternly, "do you ever walk in your sleep?" + +"I do not," said Lizzie indignantly. + +"Don't care for the country, I suppose?" + +"I do not!" + +"Or detectives?" Anderson deigned to be facetious. + +"I DO NOT!" There could be no doubt as to the sincerity of Lizzie's +answer. + +"All right, Lizzie. Be calm. I can stand it," said the detective with +treacherous suavity. But he favored her with a long and careful +scrutiny before he moved to the table and picked up the note that had +been thrown through the window. Quietly he extended it beneath +Lizzie's nose. + +"Ever see this before?" he said crisply, watching her face. + +Lizzie read the note with bulging eyes, her face horror-stricken. When +she had finished, she made a gesture of wild disclaimer that nearly +removed a portion of Anderson's left ear. + +"Mercy on us!" she moaned, mentally invoking not only her patron saint +but all the rosary of heaven to protect herself and her mistress. + +But the detective still kept his eye on her. + +"Didn't write it yourself, did you?" he queried curtly. + +"I did not!" said Lizzie angrily. "I did not!" + +"And--you're sure you don't walk in your sleep?" The bare idea +strained Lizzie's nerves to the breaking point. + +"When I get into bed in this house I wouldn't put my feet out for a +million dollars!" she said with heartfelt candor. Even Anderson was +compelled to grin at this. + +"Then I won't ask you to," he said, relaxing considerably; "That's more +money than I'm worth, Lizzie." + +"Well, I'll say it is!" quoth Lizzie, now thoroughly aroused, and +flounced out of the room in high dudgeon, her pompadour bristling, +before he had time to interrogate her further. + +He replaced the note on the table and turned back to Miss Cornelia. If +he had found any clue to the mystery in Lizzie's demeanor, she could +not read it in his manner. + +"Now, what about the butler?" he said. + +"Nothing about him--except that he was Courtleigh Fleming's servant." + +Anderson paused. "Do you consider that significant?" + +A shadow appeared behind him deep in the alcove--a vague, listening +figure--Dale--on tiptoe, conspiratorial, taking pains not to draw the +attention of the others to her presence. But both Miss Cornelia and +Anderson were too engrossed in their conversation to notice her. + +Miss Cornelia hesitated. + +"Isn't it possible that there is a connection between the colossal +theft at the Union Bank and these disturbances?" she said. + +Anderson seemed to think over the question. + +"What do you mean?" he asked as Dale slowly moved into the room from +the alcove, silently closing the alcove doors behind her, and still +unobserved. + +"Suppose," said Miss Cornelia slowly, "that Courtleigh Fleming took +that money from his own bank and concealed it in this house?" The +eavesdropper grew rigid. + +"That's the theory you gave headquarters, isn't it?" said Anderson. +"But I'll tell you how headquarters figures it out. In the first +place, the cashier is missing. In the second place, if Courtleigh +Fleming did it and got as far as Colorado, he had it with him when he +died, and the facts apparently don't bear that out. In the third +place, suppose he had hidden the money in or around this house. Why did +he rent it to you?" + +"But he didn't," said Miss Cornelia obstinately, "I leased this house +from his nephew, his heir." + +The detective smiled tolerantly. + +"Well, I wouldn't struggle like that for a theory," he said, the +professional note coming back to his voice. "The cashier's +missing--that's the answer." + +Miss Cornelia resented his offhand demolition of the mental card-castle +she had erected with such pride. + +"I have read a great deal on the detection of crime," she said hotly, +"and--" + +"Well, we all have our little hobbies," he said tolerantly. "A good +many people rather fancy themselves as detectives and run around +looking for clues under the impression that a clue is a big and vital +factor that sticks up like--well, like a sore thumb. The fact is that +the criminal takes care of the big and important factors. It's only +the little ones he may overlook. To go back to your friend the Bat, +it's because of his skill in little things that he's still at large." + +"Then you don't think there's a chance that the money from the Union +Bank is in this house?" persisted Miss Cornelia. + +"I think it very unlikely." + +Miss Cornelia put her knitting away and rose. She still clung +tenaciously to her own theories but her belief in them had been badly +shaken. + +"If you'll come with me, I'll show you to your room," she said a little +stiffly. The detective stepped back to let her pass. + +"Sorry to spoil your little theory," he said, and followed her to the +door. If either had noticed the unobtrusive listener to their +conversation, neither made a sign. + +The moment the door had closed on them Dale sprang into action. She +seemed a different girl from the one who had left the room so +inconspicuously such a short time before. There were two bright spots +of color in her cheeks and she was obviously laboring under great +excitement. She went quickly to the alcove doors--they opened +softly--disclosing the young man who had said that he was Brooks the +new gardener--and yet not the same young man--for his assumed air of +servitude had dropped from him like a cloak, revealing him as a young +fellow at least of the same general social class as Dale's if not a +fellow-inhabitant of the select circle where Van Gorders revolved about +Van Gorders, and a man's great-grandfather was more important than the +man himself. + +Dale cautioned him with a warning finger as he advanced into the room. + +"Sh! Sh!" she whispered. "Be careful! That man's a detective!" + +Brooks gave a hunted glance at the door into the hall. + +"Then they've traced me here," he said in a dejected voice. + +"I don't think so." + +He made a gesture of helplessness. + +"I couldn't get back to my rooms," he said in a whisper. "If they've +searched them," he paused, "as they're sure to--they'll find your +letters to me." He paused again. "Your aunt doesn't suspect anything?" + +"No, I told her I'd engaged a gardener--and that's all there was about +it." + +He came nearer to her. "Dale!" he murmured in a tense voice. "You +know I didn't take that money!" he said with boyish simplicity. + +All the loyalty of first-love was in her answer. + +"Of course! I believe in you absolutely!" she said. He caught her in +his arms and kissed her--gratefully, passionately. Then the galling +memory of the predicament in which he stood, the hunt already on his +trail, came back to him. He released her gently, still holding one of +her hands. + +"But--the police here!" he stammered, turning away. "What does that +mean?" + +Dale swiftly informed him of the situation. + +"Aunt Cornelia says people have been trying to break into this house +for days--at night." + +Brooks ran his hand through his hair in a gesture of bewilderment. Then +he seemed to catch at a hope. + +"What sort of people?" he queried sharply. + +Dale was puzzled. "She doesn't know." + +The excitement in her lover's manner came to a head. "That proves +exactly what I've contended right along," he said, thudding one fist +softly in the palm of the other. "Through some underneath channel old +Fleming has been selling those securities for months, turning them into +cash. And somebody knows about it, and knows that that money is hidden +here. Don't you see? Your Aunt Cornelia has crabbed the game by +coming here." + +"Why didn't you tell the police that? Now they think, because you ran +away--" + +"Ran away! The only chance I had was a few hours to myself to try to +prove what actually happened." + +"Why don't you tell the detective what you think?" said Dale at her +wits' end. "That Courtleigh Fleming took the money and that it is +still here?" + +Her lover's face grew somber. + +"He'd take me into custody at once and I'd have no chance to search." + +He was searching now--his eyes roved about the +living-room--walls--ceiling--hopefully--desperately--looking for a +clue--the tiniest clue to support his theory. + +"Why are you so sure it is here?" queried Dale. + +Brooks explained. "You must remember Fleming was no ordinary defaulter +and he had no intention of being exiled to a foreign country. He +wanted to come back here and take his place in the community while I +was in the pen." + +"But even then--" + +He interrupted her. "Listen, dear--" He crossed to the billiard-room +door, closed it firmly, returned. + +"The architect that built this house was an old friend of mine," he +said in hushed accents. "We were together in France and you know the +way fellows get to talking when they're far away and cut off--" He +paused, seeing the cruel gleam of the flame throwers--two figures +huddled in a foxhole, whiling away the terrible hours of waiting by +muttered talk. + +"Just an hour or two before--a shell got this friend of mine," he +resumed, "he told me he had built a hidden room in this house." + +"Where?" gasped Dale. + +Brooks shook his head. "I don't know. We never got to finish that +conversation. But I remember what he said. He said, 'You watch old +Fleming. If I get mine over here it won't break his heart. He didn't +want any living being to know about that room.'" + +Now Dale was as excited as he. + +"Then you think the money is in this hidden room?" + +"I do," said Brooks decidedly. "I don't think Fleming took it away +with him. He was too shrewd for that. No, he meant to come back all +right, the minute he got the word the bank had been looted. And he'd +fixed things so I'd be railroaded to prison--you wouldn't understand, +but it was pretty neat. And then the fool nephew rents this house the +minute he's dead, and whoever knows about the money--" + +"Jack! Why isn't it the nephew who is trying to break in?" + +"He wouldn't have to break in. He could make an excuse and come in any +time." + +He clenched his hands despairingly. + +"If I could only get hold of a blue-print of this place!" he muttered. + +Dale's face fell. It was sickening to be so close to the secret--and +yet not find it. "Oh, Jack, I'm so confused and worried!" she +confessed, with a little sob. + +Brooks put his hands on her shoulders in an effort to cheer her spirits. + +"Now listen, dear," he said firmly, "this isn't as hard as it sounds. +I've got a clear night to work in--and as true as I'm standing here, +that money's in this house. Listen, honey--it's like this." He +pantomimed the old nursery rhyme of The House that Jack Built, "Here's +the house that Courtleigh Fleming built--here, somewhere, is the Hidden +Room in the house that Courtleigh Fleming built--and +here--somewhere--pray Heaven--is the money--in the Hidden Room--in the +house that Courtleigh Fleming built. When you're low in your mind, +just say that over!" + +She managed a faint smile. "I've forgotten it already," she said, +drooping. + +He still strove for an offhand gaiety that he did not feel. + +"Why, look here!" and she followed the play of his hands obediently, +like a tired child, "it's a sort of game, dearest. 'Money, +money--who's got the money?' You know!" For the dozenth time he +stared at the unrevealing walls of the room. "For that matter," he +added, "the Hidden Room may be behind these very walls." + +He looked about for a tool, a poker, anything that would sound the +walls and test them for hollow spaces. Ah, he had it--that driver in +the bag of golf clubs over in the corner. He got the driver and stood +wondering where he had best begin. That blank wall above the fireplace +looked as promising as any. He tapped it gently with the golf +club--afraid to make too much noise and yet anxious to test the wall as +thoroughly as possible. A dull, heavy reverberation answered his +stroke--nothing hollow there apparently. + +As he tried another spot, again thunder beat the long roll on its iron +drum outside, in the night. The lights blinked--wavered--recovered. + +"The lights are going out again," said Dale dully, her excitement sunk +into a stupefied calm. + +"Let them go! The less light the better for me. The only thing to do +is to go over this house room by room." He pointed to the billiard +room door. "What's in there?" + +"The billiard room." She was thinking hard. "Jack! Perhaps Courtleigh +Fleming's nephew would know where the blue-prints are!" + +He looked dubious. "It's a chance, but not a very good one," he said. +"Well--" He led the way into the billiard room and began to rap at +random upon its walls while Dale listened intently for any echo that +might betray the presence of a hidden chamber or sliding panel. + +Thus it happened that Lizzie received the first real thrill of what was +to prove to her--and to others--a sensational and hideous night. For, +coming into the living-room to lay a cloth for Mr. Anderson's night +suppers not only did the lights blink threateningly and the thunder +roll, but a series of spirit raps was certainly to be heard coming from +the region of the billiard room. + +"Oh, my God!" she wailed, and the next instant the lights went out, +leaving her in inky darkness. With a loud shriek she bolted out of the +room. + +Thunder--lightning--dashing of rain on the streaming glass of the +windows--the storm hallooing its hounds. Dale huddled close to her +lover as they groped their way back to the living-room, cautiously, +doing their best to keep from stumbling against some heavy piece of +furniture whose fall would arouse the house. + +"There's a candle on the table, Jack, if I can find the table." Her +outstretched hands touched a familiar object. "Here it is." She +fumbled for a moment. "Have you any matches?" + +"Yes." He struck one--another--lit the candle--set it down on the +table. In the weak glow of the little taper, whose tiny flame +illuminated but a portion of the living-room, his face looked tense and +strained. + +"It's pretty nearly hopeless," he said, "if all the walls are paneled +like that." + +As if in mockery of his words and his quest, a muffled knocking that +seemed to come from the ceiling of the very room he stood in answered +his despair. + +"What's that?" gasped Dale. + +They listened. The knocking was repeated--knock--knock--knock--knock. + +"Someone else is looking for the Hidden Room!" muttered Brooks, gazing +up at the ceiling intently, as if he could tear from it the secret of +this new mystery by sheer strength of will. + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +THE GLEAMING EYE + +"It's upstairs!" Dale took a step toward the alcove stairs. Brooks +halted her. + +"Who's in this house besides ourselves?" he queried. + +"Only the detective, Aunt Cornelia, Lizzie, and Billy." + +"Billy's the Jap?" + +"Yes." + +Brooks paused an instant. "Does he belong to your aunt?" + +"No. He was Courtleigh Fleming's butler." + +Knock--knock--knock--knock the dull, methodical rapping on the ceiling +of the living-room began again. + +"Courtleigh Fleming's butler, eh?" muttered Brooks. He put down his +candle and stole noiselessly into the alcove. "It may be the Jap!" he +whispered. + +Knock--knock--knock--knock! This time the mysterious rapping seemed to +come from the upper hall. + +"If it is the Jap, I'll get him!" Brooks's voice was tense with +resolution. He hesitated--made for the hall door--tiptoed out into the +darkness around the main staircase, leaving Dale alone in the +living-room beset by shadowy terrors. + +Utter silence succeeded his noiseless departure. Even the storm lulled +for a moment. Dale stood thinking, wondering, searching desperately +for some way to help her lover. + +At last a resolution formed in her mind. She went to the city +telephone. + +"Hello," she said in a low voice, glancing over her shoulder now and +then to make sure she was not overheard. "1-2-4--please--yes, that's +right. Hello--is that the country club? Is Mr. Richard Fleming there? +Yes, I'll hold the wire." + +She looked about nervously. Had something moved in that corner of +blackness where her candle did not pierce? No! How silly of her! + +Buzz-buzz on the telephone. She picked up the receiver again. + +"Hello--is this Mr. Fleming? This is Miss Ogden--Dale Ogden. I know +it must seem odd my calling you this late, but--I wonder if you could +come over here for a few minutes. Yes--tonight." Her voice grew +stronger. "I wouldn't trouble you but--it's awfully important. Hold +the wire a moment." She put down the phone and made another swift +survey of the room, listened furtively at the door--all clear! She +returned to the phone. + +"Hello--Mr. Fleming--I'll wait outside the house on the drive. It--it's +a confidential matter. Thank you so much." + +She hung up the phone, relieved--not an instant too soon, for, as she +crossed toward the fireplace to add a new log to the dying glow of the +fire, the hall door opened and Anderson, the detective, came softly in +with an unlighted candle in his hand. + +Her composure almost deserted her. How much had he heard? What +deduction would he draw if he had heard? An assignation, perhaps! +Well, she could stand that; she could stand anything to secure the next +few hours of liberty for Jack. For that length of time she and the law +were at war; she and this man were at war. + +But his first words relieved her fears. + +"Spooky sort of place in the dark, isn't it?" he said casually. + +"Yes--rather." If he would only go away before Brooks came back or +Richard Fleming arrived! But he seemed in a distressingly chatty frame +of mind. + +"Left me upstairs without a match," continued Anderson. "I found my +way down by walking part of the way and falling the rest. Don't +suppose I'll ever find the room I left my toothbrush in!" He laughed, +lighting the candle in his hand from the candle on the table. + +"You're not going to stay up all night, are you?" said Dale nervously, +hoping he would take the hint. But he seemed entirely oblivious of +such minor considerations as sleep. He took out a cigar. + +"Oh, I may doze a bit," he said. He eyed her with a certain approval. +She was a darned pretty girl and she looked intelligent. "I suppose you +have a theory of your own about these intrusions you've been having +here? Or apparently having." + +"I knew nothing about them until tonight." + +"Still," he persisted conversationally, "you know about them now." But +when she remained silent, "Is Miss Van Gorder usually--of a nervous +temperament? Imagines she sees things, and all that?" + +"I don't think so." Dale's voice was strained. Where was Brooks? What +had happened to him? + +Anderson puffed on his cigar, pondering. "Know the Flemings?" he asked. + +"I've met Mr. Richard Fleming once or twice." + +Something in her tone caused him to glance at her. "Nice fellow?" + +"I don't know him at all well." + +"Know the cashier of the Union Bank?" he shot at her suddenly. + +"No!" She strove desperately to make the denial convincing but she +could not hide the little tremor in her voice. + +The detective mused. + +"Fellow of good family, I understand," he said, eyeing her. "Very +popular. That's what's behind most of these bank embezzlements--men +getting into society and spending more than they make." + +Dale hailed the tinkle of the city telephone with an inward sigh of +relief. The detective moved to answer the house phone on the wall by +the alcove, mistaking the direction of the ring. Dale corrected him +quickly. + +"No, the other one. That's the house phone." Anderson looked the +apparatus over. + +"No connection with the outside, eh?" + +"No," said Dale absent-mindedly. "Just from room to room in the house." + +He accepted her explanation and answered the other telephone. + +"Hello--hello--what the--" He moved the receiver hook up and down, +without result, and gave it up. "This line sounds dead," he said. + +"It was all right a few minutes ago," said Dale without thinking. + +"You were using it a few minutes ago?" + +She hesitated--what use to deny what she had already admitted, for all +practical purposes. + +"Yes." + +The city telephone rang again. The detective pounced upon it. + +"Hello--yes--yes--this is Anderson--go ahead." He paused, while the +tiny voice in the receiver buzzed for some seconds. Then he +interrupted it impatiently. + +"You're sure of that, are you? I see. All right. 'By." + +He hung up the receiver and turned swiftly on Dale. "Did I understand +you to say that you were not acquainted with the cashier of the Union +Bank?" he said to her with a new note in his voice. + +Dale stared ahead of her blankly. It had come! She did not reply. + +Anderson went on ruthlessly. + +"That was headquarters, Miss Ogden. They have found some letters in +Bailey's room which seem to indicate that you were not telling the +entire truth just now." + +He paused, waiting for her answer. "What letters?" she said wearily. + +"From you to Jack Bailey--showing that you had recently become engaged +to him." + +Dale decided to make a clean breast of it, or as clean a one as she +dared. + +"Very well," she said in an even voice, "that's true." + +"Why didn't you say so before?" There was menace beneath his suavity. + +She thought swiftly. Apparent frankness seemed to be the only resource +left her. She gave him a candid smile. + +"It's been a secret. I haven't even told my aunt yet." Now she let +indignation color her tones. "How can the police be so stupid as to +accuse Jack Bailey, a young man and about to be married? Do you think +he would wreck his future like that?" + +"Some people wouldn't call it wrecking a future to lay away a million +dollars," said Anderson ominously. He came closer to Dale, fixing her +with his eyes. "Do you know where Bailey is now?" He spoke slowly and +menacingly. + +She did not flinch. + +"No." + +The detective paused. + +"Miss Ogden," he said, still with that hidden threat in his voice, "in +the last minute or so the Union Bank case and certain things in this +house have begun to tie up pretty close together. Bailey disappeared +this morning. Have you heard from him since?" + +Her eyes met his without weakening, her voice was cool and composed. + +"No." + +The detective did not comment on her answer. She could not tell from +his face whether he thought she had told the truth or lied. He turned +away from her brusquely. + +"I'll ask you to bring Miss Van Gorder here," he said in his +professional voice. + +"Why do you want her?" Dale blazed at him rebelliously. + +He was quiet. "Because this case is taking on a new phase." + +"You don't think I know anything about that money?" she said, a little +wildly, hoping that a display of sham anger might throw him off the +trail he seemed to be following. + +He seemed to accept her words, cynically, at their face value. + +"No," he said, "but you know somebody who does." Dale hesitated, +sought for a biting retort, found none. It did not matter; any +respite, no matter how momentary, from these probing questions, would +be a relief. She silently took one of the lighted candles and left the +living-room to search for her aunt. + +Left alone, the detective reflected for a moment, then picking up the +one lighted candle that remained, commenced a systematic examination of +the living-room. His methods were thorough, but if, when he came to +the end of his quest, he had made any new discoveries, the reticent +composure of his face did not betray the fact. When he had finished he +turned patiently toward the billiard room--the little flame of his +candle was swallowed up in its dark recesses--he closed the door of the +living-room behind him. The storm was dying away now, but a few +flashes of lightning still flickered, lighting up the darkness of the +deserted living-room now and then with a harsh, brief glare. + +A lightning flash--a shadow cast abruptly on the shade of one of the +French windows, to disappear as abruptly as the flash was blotted +out--the shadow of a man--a prowler--feeling his way through the +lightning-slashed darkness to the terrace door. The detective? +Brooks? The Bat? The lightning flash was too brief for any observer +to have recognized the stealing shape--if any observer had been there. + +But the lack of an observer was promptly remedied. Just as the shadowy +shape reached the terrace door and its shadow-fingers closed over the +knob, Lizzie entered the deserted living-room on stumbling feet. She +was carrying a tray of dishes and food--some cold meat on a platter, a +cup and saucer, a roll, a butter pat--and she walked slowly, with +terror only one leap behind her and blank darkness ahead. + +She had only reached the table and was preparing to deposit her tray +and beat a shameful retreat, when a sound behind her made her turn. +The key in the door from the terrace to the alcove had clicked. +Paralyzed with fright she stared and waited, and the next moment a +formless thing, a blacker shadow in a world of shadows, passed swiftly +in and up the small staircase. + +But not only a shadow. To Lizzie's terrified eyes it bore an eye, a +single gleaming eye, just above the level of the stair rail, and this +eye was turned on her. + +It was too much. She dropped the tray on the table with a crash and +gave vent to a piercing shriek that would have shamed the siren of a +fire engine. + +Miss Cornelia and Anderson, rushing in from the hall and the billiard +room respectively, each with a lighted candle, found her gasping and +clutching at the table for support. + +"For the love of heaven, what's wrong?" cried Miss Cornelia +irritatedly. The coffeepot she was carrying in her other hand spilled +a portion of its boiling contents on Lizzie's shoe and Lizzie screamed +anew and began to dance up and down on the uninjured foot. + +"Oh, my foot--my foot!" she squealed hysterically. "My foot!" + +Miss Cornelia tried to shake her back to her senses. + +"My patience! Did you yell like that because you stubbed your toe?" + +"You scalded it!" cried Lizzie wildly. "It went up the staircase!" + +"Your toe went up the staircase?" + +"No, no! An eye--an eye as big as a saucer! It ran right up that +staircase--" She indicated the alcove with a trembling forefinger. Miss +Cornelia put her coffeepot and her candle down on the table and opened +her mouth to express her frank opinion of her factotum's sanity. But +here the detective took charge. + +"Now see here," he said with some sternness to the quaking Lizzie, +"stop this racket and tell me what you saw!" + +"A ghost!" persisted Lizzie, still hopping around on one leg. "It came +right through that door and ran up the stairs--oh--" and she seemed +prepared to scream again as Dale, white-faced, came in from the hall, +followed by Billy and Brooks, the latter holding still another candle. + +"Who screamed?" said Dale tensely. + +"I did!" Lizzie wailed, "I saw a ghost!" She turned to Miss Cornelia. +"I begged you not to come here," she vociferated. "I begged you on my +bended knees. There's a graveyard not a quarter of a mile away." + +"Yes, and one more scare like that, Lizzie Allen, and you'll have me +lying in it," said her mistress unsympathetically. She moved up to +examine the scene of Lizzie's ghostly misadventure, while Anderson +began to interrogate its heroine. + +"Now, Lizzie," he said, forcing himself to urbanity, "what did you +really see?" + +"I told you what I saw." + +His manner grew somewhat threatening. + +"You're not trying to frighten Miss Van Gorder into leaving this house +and going back to the city?" + +"Well, if I am," said Lizzie with grim, unconscious humor, "I'm giving +myself an awful good scare, too, ain't I?" + +The two glared at each other as Miss Cornelia returned from her survey +of the alcove. + +"Somebody who had a key could have got in here, Mr. Anderson," she said +annoyedly. "That terrace door's been unbolted from the inside." + +Lizzie groaned. "I told you so," she wailed. "I knew something was +going to happen tonight. I heard rappings all over the house today, +and the ouija-board spelled Bat!" + +The detective recovered his poise. "I think I see the answer to your +puzzle, Miss Van Gorder," he said, with a scornful glance at Lizzie. +"A hysterical and not very reliable woman, anxious to go back to the +city and terrified over and over by the shutting off of the electric +lights." + +If looks could slay, his characterization of Lizzie would have laid him +dead at her feet at that instant. Miss Van Gorder considered his +theory. + +"I wonder," she said. + +The detective rubbed his hands together more cheerfully. + +"A good night's sleep and--" he began, but the irrepressible Lizzie +interrupted him. + +"My God, we're not going to bed, are we?" she said, with her eyes as +big as saucers. + +He gave her a kindly pat on the shoulder, which she obviously resented. + +"You'll feel better in the morning," he said. "Lock your door and say +your prayers, and leave the rest to me." + +Lizzie muttered something inaudible and rebellious, but now Miss +Cornelia added her protestations to his. + +"That's very good advice," she said decisively. "You take her, Dale." + +Reluctantly, with a dragging of feet and scared glances cast back over +her shoulder, Lizzie allowed herself to be drawn toward the door and +the main staircase by Dale. But she did not depart without one +Parthian shot. + +"I'm not going to bed!" she wailed as Dale's strong young arm helped +her out into the hall. "Do you think I want to wake up in the morning +with my throat cut?" Then the creaking of the stairs, and Dale's +soothing voice reassuring her as she painfully clambered toward the +third floor, announced that Lizzie, for some time at least, had been +removed as an active factor from the puzzling equation of Cedarcrest. + +Anderson confronted Miss Cornelia with certain relief. + +"There are certain things I want to discuss with you, Miss Van Gorder," +he said. "But they can wait until tomorrow morning." + +Miss Cornelia glanced about the room. His manner was reassuring. + +"Do you think all this--pure imagination?" she said. + +"Don't you?" + +She hesitated. "I'm not sure." + +He laughed. "I'll tell you what I'll do. You go upstairs and go to +bed comfortably. I'll make a careful search of the house before I +settle down, and if I find anything at all suspicious, I'll promise to +let you know." + +She agreed to that, and after sending the Jap out for more coffee +prepared to go upstairs. + +Never had the thought of her own comfortable bed appealed to her so +much. But, in spite of her weariness, she could not quite resign +herself to take Lizzie's story as lightly as the detective seemed to. + +"If what Lizzie says is true," she said, taking her candle, "the upper +floors of the house are even less safe than this one." + +"I imagine Lizzie's account just now is about as reliable as her +previous one as to her age," Anderson assured her. "I'm certain you +need not worry. Just go on up and get your beauty sleep; I'm sure you +need it." + +On which ambiguous remark Miss Van Gorder took her leave, rather grimly +smiling. + +It was after she had gone that Anderson's glance fell on Brooks, +standing warily in the doorway. + +"What are you? The gardener?" + +But Brooks was prepared for him. + +"Ordinarily I drive a car," he said. "Just now I'm working on the +place here." + +Anderson was observing him closely, with the eyes of a man ransacking +his memory for a name--a picture. "I've seen you somewhere--" he went +on slowly. "And I'll--place you before long." There was a little +threat in his shrewd scrutiny. He took a step toward Brooks. + +"Not in the portrait gallery at headquarters, are you?" + +"Not yet." Brooks's voice was resentful. Then he remembered his pose +and his back grew supple, his whole attitude that of the respectful +servant. + +"Well, we slip up now and then," said the detective slowly. Then, +apparently, he gave up his search for the name--the pictured face. But +his manner was still suspicious. + +"All right, Brooks," he said tersely, "if you're needed in the night, +you'll be called!" + +Brooks bowed. "Very well, sir." He closed the door softly behind him, +glad to have escaped as well as he had. + +But that he had not entirely lulled the detective's watchfulness to +rest was evident as soon as he had gone. Anderson waited a few +seconds, then moved noiselessly over to the hall door--listened--opened +it suddenly--closed it again. Then he proceeded to examine the +alcove--the stairs, where the gleaming eye had wavered like a +corpse-candle before Lizzie's affrighted vision. He tested the terrace +door and bolted it. How much truth had there been in her story? He +could not decide, but he drew out his revolver nevertheless and gave it +a quick inspection to see if it was in working order. A smile crept +over his face--the smile of a man who has dangerous work to do and does +not shrink from the prospect. He put the revolver back in his pocket +and, taking the one lighted candle remaining, went out by the hall +door, as the storm burst forth in fresh fury and the window-panes of +the living-room rattled before a new reverberation of thunder. + +For a moment, in the living-room, except for the thunder, all was +silence. Then the creak of surreptitious footsteps broke the +stillness--light footsteps descending the alcove stairs where the +gleaming eye had passed. + +It was Dale slipping out of the house to keep her appointment with +Richard Fleming. She carried a raincoat over her arm and a pair of +rubbers in one hand. Her other hand held a candle. By the terrace +door she paused, unbolted it, glanced out into the streaming night with +a shiver. Then she came into the living-room and sat down to put on +her rubbers. + +Hardly had she begun to do so when she started up again. A muffled +knocking sounded at the terrace door. It was ominous and determined, +and in a panic of terror she rose to her feet. If it was the law, come +after Jack, what should she do? Or again, suppose it was the Unknown +who had threatened them with death? Not coherent thoughts these, but +chaotic, bringing panic with them. Almost unconscious of what she was +doing, she reached into the drawer beside her, secured the revolver +there and leveled it at the door. + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +A SHOT IN THE DARK + +A key clicked in the terrace door--a voice swore muffledly at the rain. +Dale lowered her revolver slowly. It was Richard Fleming--come to meet +her here, instead of down by the drive. + +She had telephoned him on an impulse. But now, as she looked at him in +the light of her single candle, she wondered if this rather dissipated, +rather foppish young man about town, in his early thirties, could +possibly understand and appreciate the motives that had driven her to +seek his aid. Still, it was for Jack! She clenched her teeth and +resolved to go through with the plan mapped out in her mind. It might +be a desperate expedient but she had nowhere else to turn! + +Fleming shut the terrace door behind him and moved down from the +alcove, trying to shake the rain from his coat. + +"Did I frighten you?" + +"Oh, Mr. Fleming--yes!" Dale laid her aunt's revolver down on the +table. Fleming perceived her nervousness and made a gesture of apology. + +"I'm sorry," he said, "I rapped but nobody seemed to hear me, so I used +my key." + +"You're wet through--I'm sorry," said Dale with mechanical politeness. + +He smiled. "Oh, no." He stripped off his cap and raincoat and placed +them on a chair, brushing himself off as he did so with finicky little +movements of his hands. + +"Reggie Beresford brought me over in his car," he said. "He's waiting +down the drive." + +Dale decided not to waste words in the usual commonplaces of social +greeting. + +"Mr. Fleming, I'm in dreadful trouble!" she said, facing him squarely, +with a courageous appeal in her eyes. + +He made a polite movement. "Oh, I say! That's too bad." + +She plunged on. "You know the Union Bank closed today." + +He laughed lightly. + +"Yes, I know it! I didn't have anything in it--or any other bank for +that matter," he admitted ruefully, "but I hate to see the old thing go +to smash." + +Dale wondered which angle was best from which to present her appeal. + +"Well, even if you haven't lost anything in this bank failure, a lot of +your friends have--surely?" she went on. + +"I'll say so!" said Fleming, debonairly. "Beresford is sitting down +the road in his Packard now writhing with pain!" + +Dale hesitated; Fleming's lightness seemed so incorrigible that, for a +moment, she was on the verge of giving her project up entirely. Then, +"Waster or not--he's the only man who can help us!" she told herself +and continued. + +"Lots of awfully poor people are going to suffer, too," she said +wistfully. + +Fleming chuckled, dismissing the poor with a wave of his hand. + +"Oh, well, the poor are always in trouble," he said with airy +heartlessness. "They specialize in suffering." + +He extracted a monogrammed cigarette from a thin gold case. + +"But look here," he went on, moving closer to Dale, "you didn't send +for me to discuss this hypothetical poor depositor, did you? Mind if I +smoke?" + +"No." He lit his cigarette and puffed at it with enjoyment while Dale +paused, summoning up her courage. Finally the words came in a rush. + +"Mr. Fleming, I'm going to say something rather brutal. Please don't +mind. I'm merely--desperate! You see, I happen to be engaged to the +cashier, Jack Bailey--" + +Fleming whistled. "I see! And he's beat it!" + +Dale blazed with indignation. + +"He has not! I'm going to tell you something. He's here, now, in this +house--" she continued fierily, all her defenses thrown aside. "My aunt +thinks he's a new gardener. He is here, Mr. Fleming, because he knows +he didn't take the money, and the only person who could have done it +was--your uncle!" + +Dick Fleming dropped his cigarette in a convenient ash tray and crushed +it out there, absently, not seeming to notice whether it scorched his +fingers or not. He rose and took a turn about the room. Then he came +back to Dale. + +"That's a pretty strong indictment to bring against a dead man," he +said slowly, seriously. + +"It's true!" Dale insisted stubbornly, giving him glance for glance. + +Fleming nodded. "All right." + +He smiled--a smile that Dale didn't like. + +"Suppose it's true--where do I come in?" he said. "You don't think I +know where the money is?" + +"No," admitted Dale, "but I think you might help to find it." + +She went swiftly over to the hall door and listened tensely for an +instant. Then she came back to Fleming. + +"If anybody comes in--you've just come to get something of yours," she +said in a low voice. He nodded understandingly. She dropped her voice +still lower. + +"Do you know anything about a Hidden Room in this house?" she asked. + +Dick Fleming stared at her for a moment. Then he burst into laughter. + +"A Hidden Room--that's rich!" he said, still laughing. "Never heard of +it! Now, let me get this straight. The idea is--a Hidden Room--and +the money is in it--is that it?" + +Dale nodded a "Yes." + +"The architect who built this house told Jack Bailey that he had built +a Hidden Room in it," she persisted. + +For a moment Dick Fleming stared at her as if he could not believe his +ears. Then, slowly, his expression changed. Beneath the well-fed, +debonair mask of the clubman about town, other lines appeared--lines of +avarice and calculation--wolf-marks, betokening the craft and petty +ruthlessness of the small soul within the gentlemanly shell. His eyes +took on a shifty, uncertain stare--they no longer looked at Dale--their +gaze seemed turned inward, beholding a visioned treasure, a glittering +pile of gold. And yet, the change in his look was not so pronounced as +to give Dale pause--she felt a vague uneasiness steal over her, +true--but it would have taken a shrewd and long-experienced woman of +the world to read the secret behind Fleming's eyes at first glance--and +Dale, for all her courage and common sense, was a young and headstrong +girl. + +She watched him, puzzled, wondering why he made no comment on her last +statement. + +"Do you know where there are any blue-prints of the house?" she asked +at last. + +An odd light glittered in Fleming's eyes for a moment. Then it +vanished--he held himself in check--the casual idler again. + +"Blue-prints?" He seemed to think it over. "Why--there may be some. +Have you looked in the old secretary in the library? My uncle used to +keep all sorts of papers there," he said with apparent helpfulness. + +"Why, don't you remember--you locked it when we took the house." + +"So I did." Fleming took out his key ring, selected a key. "Suppose +you go and look," he said. "Don't you think I'd better stay here?" + +"Oh, yes--" said Dale, blinded to everything else by the rising hope in +her heart. "Oh, I can hardly thank you enough!" and before he could +even reply, she had taken the key and was hurrying toward the hall door. + +He watched her leave the room, a bleak smile on his face. As soon as +she had closed the door behind her, his languor dropped from him. He +became a hound--a ferret--questing for its prey. He ran lightly over +to the bookcase by the hall door--a moment's inspection--he shook his +head. Perhaps the other bookcase near the French windows--no--it +wasn't there. Ah, the bookcase over the fireplace! He remembered now! +He made for it, hastily swept the books from the top shelf, reached +groping fingers into the space behind the second row of books. There! +A dusty roll of three blue-prints! He unrolled them hurriedly and +tried to make out the white tracings by the light of the +fire--no--better take them over to the candle on the table. + +He peered at them hungrily in the little spot of light thrown by the +candle. The first one--no--nor the second--but the third--the bottom +one--good heavens! He took in the significance of the blurred white +lines with greedy eyes, his lips opening in a silent exclamation of +triumph. Then he pondered for an instant, the blue-print itself--was +an awkward size--bulky--good, he had it! He carefully tore a small +portion from the third blue-print and was about to stuff it in the +inside pocket of his dinner jacket when Dale, returning, caught him +before he had time to conceal his find. She took in the situation at +once. + +"Oh, you found it!" she said in tones of rejoicing, giving him back the +key to the secretary. Then, as he still made no move to transfer the +scrap of blue paper to her, "Please let me have it, Mr. Fleming. I +know that's it." + +Dick Fleming's lips set in a thin line. "Just a moment," he said, +putting the table between them with a swift movement. Once more he +stole a glance at the scrap of paper in his hand by the flickering +light of the candle. Then he faced Dale boldly. + +"Do you suppose, if that money is actually here, that I can simply turn +this over to you and let you give it to Bailey?" he said. "Every man +has his price. How do I know that Bailey's isn't a million dollars?" + +Dale felt as if he had dashed cold water in her face. "What do you +mean to do with it then?" she said. + +Fleming turned the blue-print over in his hand. + +"I don't know," he said. "What is it you want me to do?" + +But by now Dale's vague distrust in him had grown very definite. + +"Aren't you going to give it to me?" + +He put her off. "I'll have to think about that." He looked at the +blue-print again. "So the missing cashier is in this house posing as a +gardener?" he said with a sneer in his tones. + +Dale's temper was rising. + +"If you won't give it to me--there's a detective in this house," she +said, with a stamp of her foot. She made a movement as if to call +Anderson--then, remembering Jack, turned back to Fleming. + +"Give it to the detective and let him search," she pleaded. + +"A detective?" said Fleming startled. "What's a detective doing here?" + +"People have been trying to break in." + +"What people?" + +"I don't know." + +Fleming stared out beyond Dale, into the night. + +"Then it is here," he muttered to himself. + +Behind his back--was it a gust of air that moved them?--the double +doors of the alcove swung open just a crack. Was a listener crouched +behind those doors--or was it only a trick of carpentry--a gesture of +chance? + +The mask of the clubman dropped from Fleming completely. His lips drew +back from his teeth in the snarl of a predatory animal that clings to +its prey at the cost of life or death. + +Before Dale could stop him, he picked up the discarded blue-prints and +threw them on the fire, retaining only the precious scrap in his hand. +The roll blackened and burst into flame. He watched it, smiling. + +"I'm not going to give this to any detective," he said quietly, tapping +the piece of paper in his hand. + +Dale's heart pounded sickeningly but she kept her courage up. + +"What do you mean?" she said fiercely. "What are you going to do?" + +He faced her across the fireplace, his airy manner coming back to him +just enough to add an additional touch of the sinister to the cold +self-revelation of his words. + +"Let us suppose a few things, Miss Ogden," he said. "Suppose my price +is a million dollars. Suppose I need money very badly and my uncle has +left me a house containing that amount in cash. Suppose I choose to +consider that that money is mine--then it wouldn't be hard to suppose, +would it, that I'd make a pretty sincere attempt to get away with it?" + +Dale summoned all her fortitude. + +"If you go out of this room with that paper I'll scream for help!" she +said defiantly. + +Fleming made a little mock-bow of courtesy. He smiled. + +"To carry on our little game of supposing," he said easily, "suppose +there is a detective in this house--and that, if I were cornered, I +should tell him where to lay his hands on Jack Bailey. Do you suppose +you would scream?" + +Dale's hands dropped, powerless, at her sides. If only she hadn't told +him--too late!--she was helpless. She could not call the detective +without ruining Jack--and yet, if Fleming escaped with the money--how +could Jack ever prove his innocence? + +Fleming watched her for an instant, smiling. Then, seeing she made no +move, he darted hastily toward the double doors of the alcove, flung +them open, seemed about to dash up the alcove stairs. The sight of him +escaping with the only existing clue to the hidden room galvanized Dale +into action. She followed him, hurriedly snatching up Miss Cornelia's +revolver from the table as she did so, in a last gesture of desperation. + +"No! No! Give it to me! Give it to me!" and she sprang after him, +clutching the revolver. He waited for her on the bottom step of the +stairs, the slight smile still on his face. + +Panting breaths in the darkness of the alcove--a short, furious +scuffle--he had wrested the revolver away from her, but in doing so had +unguarded the precious blue-print--she snatched at it desperately, +tearing most of it away, leaving only a corner in his hand. He +swore--tried to get it back--she jerked away. + +Then suddenly a bright shaft of light split the darkness of the alcove +stairs like a sword, a spot of brilliance centered on Fleming's face +like the glare of a flashlight focused from above by an invisible hand. +For an instant it revealed him--his features distorted with fury--about +to rush down the stairs again and attack the trembling girl at their +foot. + +A single shot rang out. For a second, the fury on Fleming's face +seemed to change to a strange look of bewilderment and surprise. + +Then the shaft of light was extinguished as suddenly as the snuffing of +a candle, and he crumpled forward to the foot of the +stairs--struck--lay on his face in the darkness, just inside the double +doors. + +Dale gave a little whimpering cry of horror. + +"Oh, no, no, no," she whispered from a dry throat, automatically +stuffing her portion of the precious scrap of blue-print into the bosom +of her dress. She stood frozen, not daring to move, not daring even to +reach down with her hand and touch the body of Fleming to see if he was +dead or alive. + +A murmur of excited voices sounded from the hall. The door flew open, +feet stumbled through the darkness--"The noise came from this room!" +that was Anderson's voice--"Holy Virgin!" that must be Lizzie-- + +Even as Dale turned to face the assembled household, the house lights, +extinguished since the storm, came on in full brilliance--revealing her +to them, standing beside Fleming's body with Miss Cornelia's revolver +between them. + +She shuddered, seeing Fleming's arm flung out awkwardly by his side. +No living man could lie in such a posture. + +"I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" she stammered, after a tense silence +that followed the sudden reillumining of the lights. Her eyes wandered +from figure to figure idly, noting unimportant details. Billy was still +in his white coat and his face, impassive as ever, showed not the +slightest surprise. Brooks and Anderson were likewise completely +dressed--but Miss Cornelia had evidently begun to retire for the night +when she had heard the shot--her transformation was askew and she wore +a dressing-gown. As for Lizzie, that worthy shivered in a gaudy +wrapper adorned with incredible orange flowers, with her hair done up +in curlers. Dale saw it all and was never after to forget one single +detail of it. + +The detective was beside her now, examining Fleming's body with +professional thoroughness. At last he rose. + +"He's dead," he said quietly. A shiver ran through the watching group. +Dale felt a stifling hand constrict about her heart. + +There was a pause. Anderson picked up the revolver beside Fleming's +body and examined it swiftly, careful not to confuse his own +fingerprints with any that might already be on the polished steel. Then +he looked at Dale. "Who is he?" he said bluntly. + +Dale fought hysteria for some seconds before she could speak. + +"Richard Fleming--somebody shot him!" she managed to whisper at last. + +Anderson took a step toward her. + +"What do you mean by somebody?" he said. + +The world to Dale turned into a crowd of threatening, accusing eyes--a +multitude of shadowy voices, shouting, Guilty! Guilty! Prove that +you're innocent--you can't! + +"I don't know," she said wildly. "Somebody on the staircase." + +"Did you see anybody?" Anderson's voice was as passionless and cold as +a bar of steel. + +"No--but there was a light from somewhere--like a pocket-flash--" She +could not go on. She saw Fleming's face before her--furious at +first--then changing to that strange look of bewildered surprise--she +put her hands over her eyes to shut the vision out. + +Lizzie made a welcome interruption. + +"I told you I saw a man go up that staircase!" she wailed, jabbing her +forefinger in the direction of the alcove stairs. + +Miss Cornelia, now recovered from the first shock of the discovery, +supported her gallantly. + +"That's the only explanation, Mr. Anderson," she said decidedly. + +The detective looked at the stairs--at the terrace door. His eyes made +a circuit of the room and came back to Fleming's body. "I've been all +over the house," he said. "There's nobody there." + +A pause followed. Dale found herself helplessly looking toward her +lover for comfort--comfort he could not give without revealing his own +secret. + +Eerily, through the tense silence, a sudden tinkling sounded--the +sharp, persistent ringing of a telephone bell. + +Miss Cornelia rose to answer it automatically. "The house phone!" she +said. Then she stopped. "But we're all here." + +They looked attach other aghast. It was true. And +yet--somehow--somewhere--one of the other phones on the circuit was +calling the living-room. + +Miss Cornelia summoned every ounce of inherited Van Gorder pride she +possessed and went to the phone. She took off the receiver. The +ringing stopped. + +"Hello--hello--" she said, while the others stood rigid, listening. +Then she gasped. An expression of wondering horror came over her face. + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +THE PHONE CALL FROM NOWHERE + +"Somebody groaning!" gasped Miss Cornelia. "It's horrible!" + +The detective stepped up and took the receiver from her. He listened +anxiously for a moment. + +"I don't hear anything," he said. + +"I heard it! I couldn't imagine such a dreadful sound! I tell +you--somebody in this house is in terrible distress." + +"Where does this phone connect?" queried Anderson practically. + +Miss Cornelia made a hopeless little gesture. "Practically every room +in this house!" + +The detective put the receiver to his ear again. + +"Just what did you hear?" he said stolidly. + +Miss Cornelia's voice shook. + +"Dreadful groans--and what seemed to be an inarticulate effort to +speak!" + +Lizzie drew her gaudy wrapper closer about her shuddering form. + +"I'd go somewhere," she wailed in the voice of a lost soul, "if I only +had somewhere to go!" + +Miss Cornelia quelled her with a glare and turned back to the detective. + +"Won't you send these men to investigate--or go yourself?" she said, +indicating Brooks and Billy. The detective thought swiftly. + +"My place is here," he said. "You two men," Brooks and Billy moved +forward to take his orders, "take another look through the house--don't +leave the building--I'll want you pretty soon." + +Brooks--or Jack Bailey, as we may as well call him through the +remainder of this narrative--started to obey. Then his eye fell on +Miss Cornelia's revolver which Anderson had taken from beside Fleming's +body and still held clasped in his hand. + +"If you'll give me that revolver--" he began in an offhand tone, hoping +Anderson would not see through his little ruse. Once wiped clean of +fingerprints, the revolver would not be such telling evidence against +Dale Ogden. + +But Anderson was not to be caught napping. "That revolver will stay +where it is," he said with a grim smile. + +Jack Bailey knew better than to try and argue the point, he followed +Billy reluctantly out of the door, giving Dale a surreptitious glance +of encouragement and faith as he did so. The Japanese and he mounted +to the second floor as stealthily as possible, prying into dark corners +and searching unused rooms for any clue that might betray the source of +the startling phone call from nowhere. But Bailey's heart was not in +the search. His mind kept going back to the figure of Dale--nervous, +shaken, undergoing the terrors of the third degree at Anderson's hands. +She couldn't have shot Fleming of course, and yet, unless he and Billy +found something to substantiate her story of how the killing had +happened, it was her own, unsupported word against a damning mass of +circumstantial evidence. He plunged with renewed vigor into his quest. + +Back in the living-room, as he had feared, Anderson was subjecting Dale +to a merciless interrogation. + +"Now I want the real story!" he began with calculated brutality. "You +lied before!" + +"That's no tone to use! You'll only terrify her," cried Miss Cornelia +indignantly. The detective paid no attention, his face had hardened, +he seemed every inch the remorseless sleuthhound of the law. He turned +on Miss Cornelia for a moment. + +"Where were you when this happened?" he said. + +"Upstairs in my room." Miss Cornelia's tones were icy. + +"And you?" badgeringly, to Lizzie. + +"In my room," said the latter pertly, "brushing Miss Cornelia's hair." + +Anderson broke open the revolver and gave a swift glance at the bullet +chambers. + +"One shot has been fired from this revolver!" + +Miss Cornelia sprang to her niece's defense. + +"I fired it myself this afternoon," she said. + +The detective regarded her with grudging admiration. + +"You're a quick thinker," he said with obvious unbelief in his voice. +He put the revolver down on the table. + +Miss Cornelia followed up her advantage. + +"I demand that you get the coroner here," she said. + +"Doctor Wells is the coroner," offered Lizzie eagerly. Anderson +brushed their suggestions aside. + +"I'm going to ask you some questions!" he said menacingly to Dale. + +But Miss Cornelia stuck to her guns. Dale was not going to be bullied +into any sort of confession, true or false, if she could help it--and +from the way that the girl's eyes returned with fascinated horror to +the ghastly heap on the floor that had been Fleming, she knew that Dale +was on the edge of violent hysteria. + +"Do you mind covering that body first?" she asked crisply. The +detective eyed her for a moment in a rather ugly fashion--then grunted +ungraciously and, taking Fleming's raincoat from the chair, threw it +over the body. Dale's eyes telegraphed her aunt a silent message of +gratitude. + +"Now--shall I telephone for the coroner?" persisted Miss Cornelia. The +detective obviously resented her interference with his methods but he +could not well refuse such a customary request. + +"I'll do it," he said with a snort, going over to the city telephone. +"What's his number?" + +"He's not at his office; he's at the Johnsons'," murmured Dale. + +Miss Cornelia took the telephone from Anderson's hands. + +"I'll get the Johnsons', Mr. Anderson," she said firmly. The detective +seemed about to rebuke her. Then his manner recovered some of its +former suavity. He relinquished the telephone and turned back toward +his prey. + +"Now, what was Fleming doing here?" he asked Dale in a gentler voice. + +Should she tell him the truth? No--Jack Bailey's safety was too +inextricably bound up with the whole sinister business. She must lie, +and lie again, while there was any chance of a lie's being believed. + +"I don't know," she said weakly, trying to avoid the detective's eyes. + +Anderson took thought. + +"Well, I'll ask that question another way," he said. "How did he get +into the house?" + +Dale brightened--no need for a lie here. + +"He had a key." + +"Key to what door?" + +"That door over there." Dale indicated the terrace door of the alcove. + +The detective was about to ask another question--then he paused. Miss +Cornelia was talking on the phone. + +"Hello--is that Mr. Johnson's residence? Is Doctor Wells there? No?" +Her expression was puzzled. "Oh--all right--thank you--good night--" + +Meanwhile Anderson had been listening--but thinking as well. Dale saw +his sharp glance travel over to the fireplace--rest for a moment, with +an air of discovery, on the fragments of the roll of blue-prints that +remained unburned among ashes--return. She shut her eyes for a moment, +trying tensely to summon every atom of shrewdness she possessed to aid +her. + +He was hammering at her with questions again. "When did you take that +revolver out of the table drawer?" + +"When I heard him outside on the terrace," said Dale promptly and +truthfully. "I was frightened." + +Lizzie tiptoed over to Miss Cornelia. + +"You wanted a detective!" she said in an ironic whisper. "I hope +you're happy now you've got one!" + +Miss Cornelia gave her a look that sent her scuttling back to her +former post by the door. But nevertheless, internally, she felt +thoroughly in accord with Lizzie. + +Again Anderson's questions pounded at the rigid Dale, striving to +pierce her armor of mingled truth and falsehood. + +"When Fleming came in, what did he say to you?" + +"Just--something about the weather," said Dale weakly. The whole scene +was, still too horribly vivid before her eyes for her to furnish a more +convincing alibi. + +"You didn't have any quarrel with him?" + +Dale hesitated. + +"No." + +"He just came in that door--said something about the weather--and was +shot from that staircase. Is that it?" said the detective in tones of +utter incredulity. + +Dale hesitated again. Thus baldly put, her story seemed too flimsy for +words; she could not even blame Anderson for disbelieving it. And +yet--what other story could she tell that would not bring ruin on Jack? + +Her face whitened. She put her hand on the back of a chair for support. + +"Yes--that's it," she said at last, and swayed where she stood. + +Again Miss Cornelia tried to come to the rescue. "Are all these +questions necessary?" she queried sharply. "You can't for a moment +believe that Miss Ogden shot that man!" But by now, though she did not +show it, she too began to realize the strength of the appalling net of +circumstances that drew with each minute tighter around the unhappy +girl. Dale gratefully seized the momentary respite and sank into a +chair. The detective looked at her. + +"I think she knows more than she's telling. She's concealing +something!" he said with deadly intentness. "The nephew of the +president of the Union Bank--shot in his own house the day the bank has +failed--that's queer enough--" Now he turned back to Miss Cornelia. +"But when the only person present at his murder is the girl who's +engaged to the guilty cashier," he continued, watching Miss Cornelia's +face as the full force of his words sank into her mind, "I want to know +more about it!" + +He stopped. His right hand moved idly over the edge of the +table--halted beside an ash tray--closed upon something. + +Miss Cornelia rose. + +"Is that true, Dale?" she said sorrowfully. + +Dale nodded. "Yes." She could not trust herself to explain at greater +length. + +Then Miss Cornelia made one of the most magnificent gestures of her +life. + +"Well, even if it is--what has that got to do with it?" she said, +turning upon Anderson fiercely, all her protective instinct for those +whom she loved aroused. + +Anderson seemed somewhat impressed by the fierceness of her query. When +he went on it was with less harshness in his manner. + +"I'm not accusing this girl," he said more gently. "But behind every +crime there is a motive. When we've found the motive for this crime, +we'll have found the criminal." + +Unobserved, Dale's hand instinctively went to her bosom. There it +lay--the motive--the precious fragment of blue-print which she had torn +from Fleming's grasp but an instant before he was shot down. Once +Anderson found it in her possession the case was closed, the evidence +against her overwhelming. She could not destroy it--it was the only +clue to the Hidden Room and the truth that might clear Jack Bailey. +But, somehow, she must hide it--get it out of her hands--before +Anderson's third-degree methods broke her down or he insisted on a +search of her person. Her eyes roved wildly about the room, looking +for a hiding place. + +The rain of Anderson's questions began anew. + +"What papers did Fleming burn in that grate?" he asked abruptly, +turning back to Dale. + +"Papers!" she faltered. + +"Papers! The ashes are still there." + +Miss Cornelia made an unavailing interruption. + +"Miss Ogden has said he didn't come into this room." + +The detective smiled. + +"I hold in my hand proof that he was in this room for some time," he +said coldly, displaying the half-burned cigarette he had taken from the +ash tray a moment before. + +"His cigarette--with his monogram on it." He put the fragment of +tobacco and paper carefully away in an envelope and marched over to the +fireplace. There he rummaged among the ashes for a moment, like a dog +uncovering a bone. He returned to the center of the room with a +fragment of blackened blue paper fluttering between his fingers. + +"A fragment of what is technically known as a blue-print," he +announced. "What were you and Richard Fleming doing with a +blue-print?" His eyes bored into Dale's. + +Dale hesitated--shut her lips. + +"Now think it over!" he warned. "The truth will come out, sooner or +later! Better be frank NOW!" + +If he only knew how I wanted to be--he wouldn't be so cruel, thought +Dale wearily. But I can't--I can't! Then her heart gave a throb of +relief. Jack had come back into the room--Jack and Billy--Jack would +protect her! But even as she thought of this her heart sank again. +Protect her, indeed! Poor Jack! He would find it hard enough to +protect himself if once this terrible man with the cold smile and +steely eyes started questioning him. She looked up anxiously. + +Bailey made his report breathlessly. + +"Nothing in the house, sir." + +Billy's impassive lips confirmed him. + +"We go all over house--nobody!" + +Nobody--nobody in the house! And yet--the mysterious ringing of the +phone--the groans Miss Cornelia had heard! Were old wives' tales and +witches' fables true after all? Did a power--merciless--evil--exists +outside the barriers of the flesh--blasting that trembling flesh with a +cold breath from beyond the portals of the grave? There seemed to be +no other explanation. + +"You men stay here!" said the detective. "I want to ask you some +questions." He doggedly returned to his third-degreeing of Dale. + +"Now what about this blue-print?" he queried sharply. + +Dale stiffened in her chair. Her lies had failed. Now she would tell +a portion of the truth, as much of it as she could without menacing +Jack. + +"I'll tell you just what happened," she began. "I sent for Richard +Fleming--and when he came, I asked him if he knew where there were any +blue-prints of the house." + +The detective pounced eagerly upon her admission. + +"Why did you want blue-prints?" he thundered. + +"Because," Dale took a long breath, "I believe old Mr. Fleming took the +money himself from the Union Bank and hid it here." + +"Where did you get that idea?" + +Dale's jaw set. "I won't tell you." + +"What had the blue-prints to do with it?" + +She could think of no plausible explanation but the true one. + +"Because I'd heard there was a Hidden Room in this house." + +The detective leaned forward intently. "Did you locate that room?" + +Dale hesitated. "No." + +"Then why did you burn the blue-prints?" + +Dale's nerve was crumbling--breaking--under the repeated, monotonous +impact of his questions. + +"He burned them!" she cried wildly. "I don't know why!" + +The detective paused an instant, then returned to a previous query. + +"Then you didn't locate this Hidden Room?" + +Dale's lips formed a pale "No." + +"Did he?" went on Anderson inexorably. + +Dale stared at him, dully--the breaking point had come. Another +question--another--and she would no longer be able to control herself. +She would sob out the truth hysterically--that Brooks, the gardener, +was Jack Bailey, the missing cashier--that the scrap of blue-print +hidden in the bosom of her dress might unravel the secret of the Hidden +Room--that-- + +But just as she felt herself, sucked of strength, beginning to slide +toward a black, tingling pit of merciful oblivion, Miss Cornelia +provided a diversion. + +"What's that?" she said in a startled voice. + +The detective turned away from his quarry for an instant. + +"What's what?" + +"I heard something," averred Miss Cornelia, staring toward the French +windows. + +All eyes followed the direction of her stare. There was an instant of +silence. + +Then, suddenly, traveling swiftly from right to left across the shades +of the French windows, there appeared a glowing circle of brilliant +white light. Inside the circle was a black, distorted shadow--a shadow +like the shadow of a gigantic black Bat! It was there--then a second +later, it was gone! + +"Oh, my God!" wailed Lizzie from her corner. "It's the Bat--that's his +sign!" + +Jack Bailey made a dash for the terrace door. But Miss Cornelia halted +him peremptorily. + +"Wait, Brooks!" She turned to the detective. "Mr. Anderson, you are +familiar with the sign of the Bat. Did that look like it?" + +The detective seemed both puzzled and disturbed. "Well, it looked like +the shadow of a bat. I'll say that for it," he said finally. + +On the heels of his words the front door bell began to ring. All +turned in the direction of the hall. + +"I'll answer that!" said Jack Bailey eagerly. + +Miss Cornelia gave him the key to the front door. + +"Don't admit anyone till you know who it is," she said. Bailey nodded +and disappeared into the hall. The others waited tensely. Miss +Cornelia's hand crept toward the revolver lying on the table where +Anderson had put it down. + +There was the click of an opening door, the noise of a little +scuffle--then men's voices raised in an angry dispute. "What do I know +about a flashlight?" cried an irritated voice. "I haven't got a +pocket-flash--take your hands off me!" Bailey's voice answered the +other voice, grim, threatening. The scuffle resumed. + +Then Doctor Wells burst suddenly into the room, closely followed by +Bailey. The Doctor's tie was askew--he looked ruffled and enraged. +Bailey followed him vigilantly, seeming not quite sure whether to allow +him to enter or not. + +"My dear Miss Van Gorder," began the Doctor in tones of high dudgeon, +"won't you instruct your servants that even if I do make a late call, I +am not to be received with violence?" + +"I asked you if you had a pocket-flash about you!" answered Bailey +indignantly. "If you call a question like that violence--" He seemed +about to restrain the Doctor by physical force. + +Miss Cornelia quelled the teapot-tempest. + +"It's all right, Brooks," she said, taking the front door key from his +hand and putting it back on the table. She turned to Doctor Wells. + +"You see, Doctor Wells," she explained, "just a moment before you rang +the doorbell a circle of white light was thrown on those window shades." + +The Doctor laughed with a certain relief. + +"Why, that was probably the searchlight from my car!" he said. "I +noticed as I drove up that it fell directly on that window." + +His explanation seemed to satisfy all present but Lizzie. She regarded +him with a deep suspicion. "'He may be a lawyer, a merchant, a +Doctor...'" she chanted ominously to herself. + +Miss Cornelia, too, was not entirely at ease. + +"In the center of this ring of light," she proceeded, her eyes on the +Doctor's calm countenance, "was an almost perfect silhouette of a bat." + +"A bat!" The Doctor seemed at sea. "Ah, I see--the symbol of the +criminal of that name." He laughed again. + +"I think I can explain what you saw. Quite often my headlights collect +insects at night and a large moth, spread on the glass, would give +precisely the effect you speak of. Just to satisfy you, I'll go out +and take a look." + +He turned to do so. Then he caught sight of the raincoat-covered +huddle on the floor. + +"Why--" he said in a voice that mingled astonishment with horror. He +paused. His glance slowly traversed the circle of silent faces. + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +BILLY PRACTICES JIU-JITSU + +"We have had a very sad occurrence here, Doctor," said Miss Cornelia +gently. + +The Doctor braced himself. + +"Who?" + +"Richard Fleming." + +"Richard Fleming?" gasped the Doctor in tones of incredulous horror. + +"Shot and killed from that staircase," said Miss Cornelia tonelessly. + +The detective demurred. + +"Shot and killed, anyhow," he said in accents of significant omission. + +The Doctor knelt beside the huddle on the floor. He removed the fold +of the raincoat that covered the face of the corpse and stared at the +dead, blank mask. Till a moment ago, even at the height of his +irritation with Bailey, he had been blithe and offhand--a man who +seemed comparatively young for his years. Now Age seemed to fall upon +him, suddenly, like a gray, clinging dust--he looked stricken and +feeble under the impact of this unexpected shock. + +"Shot and killed from that stairway," he repeated dully. He rose from +his knees and glanced at the fatal stairs. + +"What was Richard Fleming doing in this house at this hour?" he said. + +He spoke to Miss Cornelia but Anderson answered the question. + +"That's what I'm trying to find out," he said with a saturnine smile. + +The Doctor gave him a look of astonished inquiry. Miss Cornelia +remembered her manners. + +"Doctor, this is Mr. Anderson." + +"Headquarters," said Anderson tersely, shaking hands. + +It was Lizzie's turn to play her part in the tangled game of mutual +suspicion that by now made each member of the party at Cedarcrest watch +every other member with nervous distrust. She crossed to her mistress +on tiptoe. + +"Don't you let him fool you with any of that moth business!" she said +in a thrilling whisper, jerking her thumb in the direction of the +Doctor. "He's the Bat." + +Ordinarily Miss Cornelia would have dismissed her words with a smile. +But by now her brain felt as if it had begun to revolve like a pinwheel +in her efforts to fathom the uncanny mystery of the various events of +the night. + +She addressed Doctor Wells. + +"I didn't tell you, Doctor--I sent for a detective this afternoon." +Then, with mounting suspicion, "You happened in very opportunely!" + +"After I left the Johnsons' I felt very uneasy," he explained. "I +determined to make one more effort to get you away from this house. As +this shows--my fears were justified!" + +He shook his head sadly. Miss Cornelia sat down. His last words had +given her food for thought. She wanted to mull them over for a moment. + +The Doctor removed muffler and topcoat--stuffed the former in his +topcoat pocket and threw the latter on the settee. He took out his +handkerchief and began to mop his face, as if to wipe away some strain +of mental excitement under which he was laboring. His breath came +quickly--the muscles of his jaw stood out. + +"Died instantly, I suppose?" he said, looking over at the body. "Didn't +have time to say anything?" + +"Ask the young lady," said Anderson, with a jerk of his head. "She was +here when it happened." + +The Doctor gave Dale a feverish glance of inquiry. + +"He just fell over," said the latter pitifully. Her answer seemed to +relieve the Doctor of some unseen weight on his mind. He drew a long +breath and turned back toward Fleming's body with comparative calm. + +"Poor Dick has proved my case for me better than I expected," he said, +regarding the still, unbreathing heap beneath the raincoat. He swerved +toward the detective. + +"Mr. Anderson," he said with dignified pleading, "I ask you to use your +influence, to see that these two ladies find some safer spot than this +for the night." + +Lizzie bounced up from her chair, instanter. + +"Two?" she wailed. "If you know any safe spot, lead me to it!" + +The Doctor overlooked her sudden eruption into the scene. He wandered +back again toward the huddle under the raincoat, as if still unable to +believe that it was--or rather had been--Richard Fleming. + +Miss Cornelia spoke suddenly in a low voice, without moving a muscle of +her body. + +"I have a strange feeling that I'm being watched by unfriendly eyes," +she said. + +Lizzie clutched at her across the table. + +"I wish the lights would go out again!" she pattered. "No, I don't +neither!" as Miss Cornelia gave the clutching hand a nervous little +slap. + +During the little interlude of comedy, Billy, the Japanese, unwatched +by the others, had stolen to the French windows, pulled aside a blind, +looked out. When he turned back to the room his face had lost a +portion of its Oriental calm--there was suspicion in his eyes. Softly, +under cover of pretending to arrange the tray of food that lay +untouched on the table, he possessed himself of the key to the front +door, unperceived by the rest, and slipped out of the room like a ghost. + +Meanwhile the detective confronted Doctor Wells. + +"You say, Doctor, that you came back to take these women away from the +house. Why?" + +The Doctor gave him a dignified stare. + +"Miss Van Gorder has already explained." + +Miss Cornelia elucidated. "Mr. Anderson has already formed a theory of +the crime," she said with a trace of sarcasm in her tones. + +The detective turned on her quickly. "I haven't said that." He +started. + +It had come again--tinkling--persistent.--the phone call from +nowhere--the ringing of the bell of the house telephone! + +"The house telephone--again!" breathed Dale. Miss Cornelia made a +movement to answer the tinkling, inexplicable bell. But Anderson was +before her. + +"I'll answer that!" he barked. He sprang to the phone. + +"Hello--hello--" + +All eyes were bent on him nervously--the Doctor's face, in particular, +seemed a very study in fear and amazement. He clutched the back of a +chair to support himself, his hand was the trembling hand of a sick, +old man. + +"Hello--hello--" Anderson swore impatiently. He hung up the phone. + +"There's nobody there!" + +Again, a chill breath from another world than ours seemed to brush +across the faces of the little group in the living-room. Dale, +sensitive, impressionable, felt a cold, uncanny prickling at the roots +of her hair. + +A light came into Anderson's eyes. "Where's that Jap?" he almost +shouted. + +"He just went out," said Miss Cornelia. The cold fear, the fear of the +unearthly, subsided from around Dale's heart, leaving her shaken but +more at peace. + +The detective turned swiftly to the Doctor, as if to put his case +before the eyes of an unprejudiced witness. + +"That Jap rang the phone," he said decisively. "Miss Van Gorder +believes that this murder is the culmination of the series of +mysterious happenings that caused her to send for me. I do not." + +"Then what is the significance of the anonymous letters?" broke in Miss +Cornelia heatedly. "Of the man Lizzie saw going up the stairs, of the +attempt to break into this house--of the ringing of that telephone +bell?" + +Anderson replied with one deliberate word. + +"Terrorization," he said. + +The Doctor moistened his dry lips in an effort to speak. + +"By whom?" he asked. + +Anderson's voice was an icicle. + +"I imagine by Miss Van Gorder's servants. By that woman there--" he +pointed at Lizzie, who rose indignantly to deny the charge. But he +gave her no time for denial. He rushed on, "--who probably writes the +letters," he continued. "By the gardener--" his pointing finger found +Bailey "--who may have been the man Lizzie saw slipping up the stairs. +By the Jap, who goes out and rings the telephone," he concluded +triumphantly. + +Miss Cornelia seemed unimpressed by his fervor. + +"With what object?" she queried smoothly. + +"That's what I'm going to find out!" There was determination in +Anderson's reply. + +Miss Cornelia sniffed. "Absurd! The butler was in this room when the +telephone rang for the first time." + +The thrust pierced Anderson's armor. For once he seemed at a loss. +Here was something he had omitted from his calculations. But he did +not give up. He was about to retort when--crash! thud!--the noise of +a violent struggle in the hall outside drew all eyes to the hall door. + +An instant later the door slammed open and a disheveled young man in +evening clothes was catapulted into the living-room as if slung there +by a giant's arm. He tripped and fell to the floor in the center of +the room. Billy stood in the doorway behind him, inscrutable, arms +folded, on his face an expression of mild satisfaction as if he were +demurely pleased with a neat piece of housework, neatly carried out. + +The young man picked himself up, brushed off his clothes, sought for +his hat, which had rolled under the table. Then he turned on Billy +furiously. + +"Damn you--what do you mean by this?" + +"Jiu-jitsu," said Billy, his yellow face quite untroubled. "Pretty +good stuff. Found on terrace with searchlight," he added. + +"With searchlight?" barked Anderson. + +The young man turned to face this new enemy. + +"Well, why shouldn't I be on the terrace with a searchlight?" he +demanded. + +The detective moved toward him menacingly. + +"Who are you?" + +"Who are you?" said the young man with cool impertinence, giving him +stare for stare. + +Anderson did not deign to reply, in so many words. Instead he +displayed the police badge which glittered on the inside of the right +lapel of his coat. The young man examined it coolly. + +"H'm," he said. "Very pretty--nice neat design--very chaste!" He took +out a cigarette case and opened it, seemingly entirely unimpressed by +both the badge and Anderson. The detective chafed. + +"If you've finished admiring my badge," he said with heavy sarcasm, +"I'd like to know what you were doing on the terrace." + +The young man hesitated--shot an odd, swift glance at Dale who ever +since his abrupt entrance into the room, had been sitting rigid in her +chair with her hands clenched tightly together. + +"I've had some trouble with my car down the road," he said finally. He +glanced at Dale again. "I came to ask if I might telephone." + +"Did it require a flashlight to find the house?" Miss Cornelia asked +suspiciously. + +"Look here," the young man blustered, "why are you asking me all these +questions?" He tapped his cigarette case with an irritated air. + +Miss Cornelia stepped closer to him. + +"Do you mind letting me see that flashlight?" she said. + +The young man gave it to her with a little, mocking bow. She turned it +over, examined it, passed it to Anderson, who examined it also, seeming +to devote particular attention to the lens. The young man stood +puffing his cigarette a little nervously while the examination was in +progress. He did not look at Dale again. + +Anderson handed back the flashlight to its owner. + +"Now--what's your name?" he said sternly. + +"Beresford--Reginald Beresford," said the young man sulkily. "If you +doubt it I've probably got a card somewhere--" He began to search +through his pockets. + +"What's your business?" went on the detective. + +"What's my business here?" queried the young man, obviously fencing +with his interrogator. + +"No--how do you earn your living?" said Anderson sharply. + +"I don't," said the young man flippantly. "I may have to begin now, if +that is of any interest to you. As a matter of fact, I've studied law +but--" + +The one word was enough to start Lizzie off on another trail of +distrust. "He may be a LAWYER--" she quoted to herself sepulchrally +from the evening newspaper article that had dealt with the mysterious +identity of the Bat. + +"And you came here to telephone about your car?" persisted the +detective. + +Dale rose from her chair with a hopeless little sigh. "Oh, don't you +see--he's trying to protect me," she said wearily. She turned to the +young man. "It's no use, Mr. Beresford." + +Beresford's air of flippancy vanished. + +"I see," he said. He turned to the other, frankly. "Well, the plain +truth is--I didn't know the situation and I thought I'd play safe for +Miss Ogden's sake." + +Miss Cornelia moved over to her niece protectingly. She put a hand on +Dale's shoulder to reassure her. But Dale was quite composed now--she +had gone through so many shocks already that one more or less seemed to +make very little difference to her overwearied nerves. She turned to +Anderson calmly. + +"He doesn't know anything about--this," she said, indicating Beresford. +"He brought Mr. Fleming here in his car--that's all." + +Anderson looked to Beresford for confirmation. + +"Is that true?" + +"Yes," said Beresford. He started to explain. "I got tired of waiting +and so I--" + +The detective broke in curtly. + +"All right." + +He took a step toward the alcove. + +"Now, Doctor." He nodded at the huddle beneath the raincoat. Beresford +followed his glance--and saw the ominous heap for the first time. + +"What's that?" he said tensely. No one answered him. The Doctor was +already on his knees beside the body, drawing the raincoat gently +aside. Beresford stared at the shape thus revealed with frightened +eyes. The color left his face. + +"That's not--Dick Fleming--is it?" he said thickly. Anderson slowly +nodded his head. Beresford seemed unable to believe his eyes. + +"If you've looked over the ground," said the Doctor in a low voice to +Anderson, "I'll move the body where we can have a better light." His +right hand fluttered swiftly over Fleming's still, clenched +fist--extracted from it a torn corner of paper.... + +Still Beresford did not seem to be able to take in what had happened. +He took another step toward the body. + +"Do you mean to say that Dick Fleming--" he began. Anderson silenced +him with an uplifted hand. + +"What have you got there, Doctor?" he said in a still voice. + +The Doctor, still on his knees beside the corpse, lifted his head. + +"What do you mean?" + +"You took something, just then, out of Fleming's hand," said the +detective. + +"I took nothing out of his hand," said the Doctor firmly. + +Anderson's manner grew peremptory. + +"I warn you not to obstruct the course of justice!" he said forcibly. +"Give it here!" + +The Doctor rose slowly, dusting off his knees. His eyes tried to meet +Anderson's and failed. He produced a torn corner of blue-print. + +"Why, it's only a scrap of paper, nothing at all," he said evasively. + +Anderson looked at him meaningly. + +"Scraps of paper are sometimes very important," said with a side glance +at Dale. + +Beresford approached the two angrily. + +"Look here!" he burst out, "I've got a right to know about this thing. +I brought Fleming over here--and I want to know what happened to him!" + +"You don't have to be a mind reader to know that!" moaned Lizzie, +overcome. + +As usual, her comment went unanswered. Beresford persisted in his +questions. + +"Who killed him? That's what I want to know!" he continued, nervously +puffing his cigarette. + +"Well, you're not alone in that," said Anderson in his grimly humorous +vein. + +The Doctor motioned nervously to them both. + +"As the coroner--if Mr. Anderson is satisfied--I suggest that the body +be taken where I can make a thorough examination," he said haltingly. + +Once more Anderson bent over the shell that had been Richard Fleming. +He turned the body half-over--let it sink back on its face. For a +moment he glanced at the corner of the blue-print in his hand, then at +the Doctor. Then he stood aside. + +"All right," he said laconically. + +So Richard Fleming left the room where he had been struck down so +suddenly and strangely--borne out by Beresford, the Doctor, and Jack +Bailey. The little procession moved as swiftly and softly as +circumstances would permit--Anderson followed its passage with watchful +eyes. Billy went mechanically to pick up the stained rug which the +detective had kicked aside and carried it off after the body. When the +burden and its bearers, with Anderson in the rear, reached the doorway +into the hall, Lizzie shrank before the sight, affrighted, and turned +toward the alcove while Miss Cornelia stared unseeingly out toward the +front windows. So, for perhaps a dozen ticks of time Dale was left +unwatched--and she made the most of her opportunity. + +Her fingers fumbled at the bosom of her dress--she took out the +precious, dangerous fragment of blue-print that Anderson must not find +in her possession--but where to hide it, before her chance had passed? +Her eyes fell on the bread roll that had fallen from the detective's +supper tray to the floor when Lizzie had seen the gleaming eye on the +stairs and had lain there unnoticed ever since. She bent over swiftly +and secreted the tantalizing scrap of blue paper in the body of the +roll, smoothing the crust back above it with trembling fingers. Then +she replaced the roll where it had fallen originally and straightened +up just as Billy and the detective returned. + +Billy went immediately to the tray, picked it up, and started to go out +again. Then he noticed the roll on the floor, stooped for it, and +replaced it upon the tray. He looked at Miss Cornelia for instructions. + +"Take that tray out to the dining-room," she said mechanically. But +Anderson's attention had already been drawn to the tiny incident. + +"Wait--I'll look at that tray," he said briskly. Dale, her heart in +her mouth, watched him examine the knives, the plates, even shake out +the napkin to see that nothing was hidden in its folds. At last he +seemed satisfied. + +"All right--take it away," he commanded. Billy nodded and vanished +toward the dining-room with tray and roll. Dale breathed again. + +The sight of the tray had made Miss Cornelia's thoughts return to +practical affairs. + +"Lizzie," she commanded now, "go out in the kitchen and make some +coffee. I'm sure we all need it," she sighed. + +Lizzie bristled at once. + +"Go out in that kitchen alone?" + +"Billy's there," said Miss Cornelia wearily. + +The thought of Billy seemed to bring little solace to Lizzie's heart. + +"That Jap and his jooy-jitsu," she muttered viciously. "One twist and +I'd be folded up like a pretzel." + +But Miss Cornelia's manner was imperative, and Lizzie slowly dragged +herself kitchenward, yawning and promising the saints repentance of +every sin she had or had not committed if she were allowed to get there +without something grabbing at her ankles in the dark corner of the hall. + +When the door had shut behind her, Anderson turned to Dale, the corner +of blue-print which he had taken from the Doctor in his hand. + +"Now, Miss Ogden," he said tensely, "I have here a scrap of blue-print +which was in Dick Fleming's hand when he was killed. I'll trouble you +for the rest of it, if you please!" + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +"I DIDN'T KILL HIM." + +"The rest of it?" queried Dale with a show of bewilderment, silently +thanking her stars that, for the moment at least, the incriminating +fragment had passed out of her possession. + +Her reply seemed only to infuriate the detective. + +"Don't tell me Fleming started to go out of this house with a blank +scrap of paper in his hand," he threatened. "He didn't start to go out +at all!" + +Dale rose. Was Anderson trying a chance shot in the dark--or had he +stumbled upon some fresh evidence against her? She could not tell from +his manner. + +"Why do you say that?" she feinted. + +"His cap's there on that table," said the detective with crushing +terseness. Dale started. She had not remembered the cap--why hadn't +she burned it, concealed it--as she had concealed the blue-print? She +passed a hand over her forehead wearily. + +Miss Cornelia watched her niece. + +"It you're keeping anything back, Dale--tell him," she said. + +"She's keeping something back all right," he said. "She's told part of +the truth, but not all." He hammered at Dale again. "You and Fleming +located that room by means of a blue-print of the house. He +started--not to go out--but, probably, to go up that staircase. And he +had in his hand the rest of this!" Again he displayed the blank corner +of blue paper. + +Dale knew herself cornered at last. The detective's deductions were +too shrewd; do what she would, she could keep him away from the truth +no longer. + +"He was going to take the money and go away with it!" she said rather +pitifully, feeling a certain relief of despair steal over her, now that +she no longer needed to go on lying--lying--involving herself in an +inextricable web of falsehood. + +"Dale!" gasped Miss Cornelia, alarmed. But Dale went on, reckless of +consequences to herself, though still warily shielding Jack. + +"He changed the minute he heard about it. He was all kindness before +that--but afterward--" She shuddered, closing her eyes. Fleming's +face rose before her again, furious, distorted with passion and +greed--then, suddenly, quenched of life. + +Anderson turned to Miss Cornelia triumphantly. + +"She started to find the money--and save Bailey," he explained, +building up his theory of the crime. "But to do it she had to take +Fleming into her confidence--and he turned yellow. Rather than let him +get away with it, she--" He made an expressive gesture toward his hip +pocket. + +Dale trembled, feeling herself already in the toils. She had not quite +realized, until now, how damningly plausible such an explanation of +Fleming's death could sound. It fitted the evidence perfectly--it took +account of every factor but one--the factor left unaccounted for was +one which even she herself could not explain. + +"Isn't that true?" demanded Anderson. Dale already felt the cold clasp +of handcuffs on her slim wrists. What use of denial when every tiny +circumstance was so leagued against her? And yet she must deny. + +"I didn't kill him," she repeated perplexedly, weakly. + +"Why didn't you call for help? You--you knew I was here." + +Dale hesitated. "I--I couldn't." The moment the words were out of her +mouth she knew from his expression that they had only cemented his +growing certainty of her guilt. + +"Dale! Be careful what you say!" warned Miss Cornelia agitatedly. Dale +looked dumbly at her aunt. Her answers must seem the height of +reckless folly to Miss Cornelia--oh, if there were only someone who +understood! + +Anderson resumed his grilling. + +"Now I mean to find out two things," he said, advancing upon Dale. "Why +you did not call for help--and what you have done with that blue-print." + +"Suppose I could find that piece of blue-print for you?" said Dale +desperately. "Would that establish Jack Bailey's innocence?" + +The detective stared at her keenly for a moment. + +"If the money's there--yes." + +Dale opened her lips to reveal the secret, reckless of what might +follow. As long as Jack was cleared--what matter what happened to +herself? But Miss Cornelia nipped the heroic attempt at self-sacrifice +in the bud. + +She put herself between her niece and the detective, shielding Dale +from his eager gaze. + +"But her own guilt!" she said in tones of great dignity. "No, Mr. +Anderson, granting that she knows where that paper is--and she has not +said that she does--I shall want more time and much legal advice before +I allow her to turn it over to you." + +All the unconscious note of command that long-inherited wealth and the +pride of a great name can give was in her voice, and the detective, for +the moment, bowed before it, defeated. Perhaps he thought of men who +had been broken from the Force for injudicious arrests, perhaps he +merely bided his time. At any rate, he gave up his grilling of Dale +for the present and turned to question the Doctor and Beresford who had +just returned, with Jack Bailey, from their grim task of placing +Fleming's body in a temporary resting place in the library. + +"Well, Doctor?" he grunted. + +The Doctor shook his head + +"Poor fellow--straight through the heart." + +"Were there any powder marks?" queried Miss Cornelia. + +"No--and the clothing was not burned. He was apparently shot from some +little distance--and I should say from above." + +The detective received this information without the change of a muscle +in his face. He turned to Beresford--resuming his attack on Dale from +another angle. + +"Beresford, did Fleming tell you why he came here tonight?" + +Beresford considered the question. + +"No. He seemed in a great hurry, said Miss Ogden had telephoned him, +and asked me to drive him over." + +"Why did you come up to the house?" + +"We-el," said Beresford with seeming candor, "I thought it was putting +rather a premium on friendship to keep me sitting out in the rain all +night, so I came up the drive--and, by the way!" He snapped his +fingers irritatedly, as if recalling some significant incident that had +slipped his memory, and drew a battered object from his pocket. "I +picked this up, about a hundred feet from the house," he explained. "A +man's watch. It was partly crushed into the ground, and, as you see, +it's stopped running." + +The detective took the object and examined it carefully. A man's +open-face gold watch, crushed and battered in as if it had been +trampled upon by a heavy heel. + +"Yes," he said thoughtfully. "Stopped running at ten-thirty." + +Beresford went on, with mounting excitement. + +"I was using my pocket-flash to find my way and what first attracted my +attention was the ground--torn up, you know, all around it. Then I saw +the watch itself. Anybody here recognize it?" + +The detective silently held up the watch so that all present could +examine it. He waited. But if anyone in the party recognized the +watch--no one moved forward to claim it. + +"You didn't hear any evidence of a struggle, did you?" went on +Beresford. "The ground looked as if a fight had taken place. Of +course it might have been a dozen other things." + +Miss Cornelia started. + +"Just about ten-thirty Lizzie heard somebody cry out, in the grounds," +she said. + +The detective looked Beresford over till the latter grew a little +uncomfortable. + +"I don't suppose it has any bearing on the case," admitted the latter +uneasily. "But it's interesting." + +The detective seemed to agree. At least he slipped the watch in his +pocket. + +"Do you always carry a flashlight, Mr. Beresford?" asked Miss Cornelia +a trifle suspiciously. + +"Always at night, in the car." His reply was prompt and certain. + +"This is all you found?" queried the detective, a curious note in his +voice. + +"Yes." Beresford sat down, relieved. Miss Cornelia followed his +example. Another clue had led into a blind alley, leaving the mystery +of the night's affairs as impenetrable as ever. + +"Some day I hope to meet the real estate agent who promised me that I +would sleep here as I never slept before!" she murmured acridly. "He's +right! I've slept with my clothes on every night since I came!" + +As she ended, Billy darted in from the hall, his beady little black +eyes gleaming with excitement, a long, wicked-looking butcher knife in +his hand. + +"Key, kitchen door, please!" he said, addressing his mistress. + +"Key?" said Miss Cornelia, startled. "What for?" + +For once Billy's polite little grin was absent from his countenance. + +"Somebody outside trying to get in," he chattered. "I see knob turn, +so," he illustrated with the butcher knife, "and so--three times." + +The detective's hand went at once to his revolver. + +"You're sure of that, are you?" he said roughly to Billy. + +"Sure, I sure!" + +"Where's that hysterical woman Lizzie?" queried Anderson. "She may get +a bullet in her if she's not careful." + +"She see too. She shut in closet--say prayers, maybe," said Billy, +without a smile. + +The picture was a ludicrous one but not one of the little group laughed. + +"Doctor, have you a revolver?" Anderson seemed to be going over the +possible means of defense against this new peril. + +"No." + +"How about you, Beresford?" + +Beresford hesitated. + +"Yes," he admitted finally. "Always carry one at night in the +country." The statement seemed reasonable enough but Miss Cornelia +gave him a sharp glance of mistrust, nevertheless. + +The detective seemed to have more confidence in the young idler. + +"Beresford, will you go with this Jap to the kitchen?" as Billy, grimly +clutching his butcher knife, retraced his steps toward the hall. "If +anyone's working at the knob--shoot through the door. I'm going round +to take a look outside." + +Beresford started to obey. Then he paused. + +"I advise you not to turn the doorknob yourself, then," he said +flippantly. + +The detective nodded. "Much obliged," he said, with a grin. He ran +lightly into the alcove and tiptoed out of the terrace door, closing +the door behind him. Beresford and Billy departed to take up their +posts in the kitchen. "I'll go with you, if you don't mind--" and Jack +Bailey had followed them, leaving Miss Cornelia and Dale alone with the +Doctor. Miss Cornelia, glad of the opportunity to get the Doctor's +theories on the mystery without Anderson's interference, started to +question him at once. + +"Doctor." + +"Yes." The Doctor turned, politely. + +"Have you any theory about this occurrence to-night?" She watched him +eagerly as she asked the question. + +He made a gesture of bafflement. + +"None whatever--it's beyond me," he confessed. + +"And yet you warned me to leave this house," said Miss Cornelia +cannily. "You didn't have any reason to believe that the situation was +even as serious as it has proved to be?" + +"I did the perfectly obvious thing when I warned you," said the Doctor +easily. "Those letters made a distinct threat." + +Miss Cornelia could not deny the truth in his words. And yet she felt +decidedly unsatisfied with the way things were progressing. + +"You said Fleming had probably been shot from above?" she queried, +thinking hard. + +The Doctor nodded. "Yes." + +"Have you a pocket-flash, Doctor?" she asked him suddenly. + +"Why--yes--" The Doctor did not seem to perceive the significance of +the query. "A flashlight is more important to a country Doctor +than--castor oil," he added, with a little smile. + +Miss Cornelia decided upon an experiment. She turned to Dale. + +"Dale, you said you saw a white light shining down from above?" + +"Yes," said Dale in a minor voice. + +Miss Cornelia rose. + +"May I borrow your flashlight, Doctor? Now that fool detective is out +of the way," she continued some what acidly, "I want to do something." + +The Doctor gave her his flashlight with a stare of bewilderment. She +took it and moved into the alcove. + +"Doctor, I shall ask you to stand at the foot of the small staircase, +facing up." + +"Now?" queried the Doctor with some reluctance. + +"Now, please." + +The Doctor slowly followed her into the alcove and took up the position +she assigned him at the foot of the stairs. + +"Now, Dale," said Miss Cornelia briskly, "when I give the word, you put +out the lights here--and then tell me when I have reached the point on +the staircase from which the flashlight seemed to come. All ready?" + +Two silent nods gave assent. Miss Cornelia left the room to seek the +second floor by the main staircase and then slowly return by the alcove +stairs, her flashlight poised, in her reconstruction of the events of +the crime. At the foot of the alcove stairs the Doctor waited uneasily +for her arrival. He glanced up the stairs--were those her footsteps +now? He peered more closely into the darkness. + +An expression of surprise and apprehension came over his face. + +He glanced swiftly at Dale--was she watching him? No--she sat in her +chair, musing. He turned back toward the stairs and made a frantic, +insistent gesture--"Go back, go back!" it said, plainer than words, +to--Something--in the darkness by the head of the stairs. Then his +face relaxed, he gave a noiseless sigh of relief. + +Dale, rousing from her brown study, turned out the floor lamp by the +table and went over to the main light switch, awaiting Miss Cornelia's +signal to plunge the room in darkness. The Doctor stole, another +glance at her--had his gestures been observed?--apparently not. + +Unobserved by either, as both waited tensely for Miss Cornelia's +signal, a Hand stole through the broken pane of the shattered French +window behind their backs and fumbled for the knob which unlocked the +window-door. It found the catch--unlocked it--the window-door swung +open, noiselessly--just enough to admit a crouching figure that cramped +itself uncomfortably behind the settee which Dale and the Doctor had +placed to barricade those very doors. When it had settled itself, +unperceived, in its lurking place--the Hand stole out again--closed the +window-door, relocked it. + +Hand or claw? Hand of man or woman or paw of beast? In the name of +God--WHOSE HAND? + +Miss Cornelia's voice from the head of the stairs broke the silence. + +"All right! Put out the lights!" + +Dale pressed the switch. Heavy darkness. The sound of her own +breathing. A mutter from the Doctor. Then, abruptly, a white, +piercing shaft of light cut the darkness of the stairs--horribly +reminiscent of that other light-shaft that had signaled Fleming's doom. + +"Was it here?" Miss Cornelia's voice came muffledly from the head of +the stairs. + +Dale considered. "Come down a little," she said. The white spot of +light wavered, settled on the Doctor's face. + +"I hope you haven't a weapon," the Doctor called up the stairs with an +unsuccessful attempt at jocularity. + +Miss Cornelia descended another step. + +"How's this?" + +"That's about right," said Dale uncertainly. Miss Cornelia was +satisfied. + +"Lights, please." She went up the stairs again to see if she could +puzzle out what course of escape the man who had shot Fleming had taken +after his crime--if it had been a man. + +Dale switched on the living-room lights with a sense of relief. The +reconstruction of the crime had tried her sorely. She sat down to +recover her poise. + +"Doctor! I'm so frightened!" she confessed. + +The Doctor at once assumed his best manner of professional reassurance. + +"Why, my dear child?" he asked lightly. "Because you happened to be in +the room when a crime was committed?" + +"But he has a perfect case against me," sighed Dale. + +"That's absurd!" + +"No." + +"YOU DON'T MEAN?" said the Doctor aghast. + +Dale looked at him with horror in her face. + +"I didn't kill him!" she insisted anew. "But, you know the piece of +blue-print you found in his hand?" + +"Yes," from the Doctor tensely. + +Dale's nerves, too bitterly tested, gave way at last under the strain +of keeping her secret. She felt that she must confide in someone or +perish. The Doctor was kind and thoughtful--more than that, he was an +experienced man of the world--if he could not advise her, who could? +Besides, a Doctor was in many ways like a priest--both sworn to keep +inviolate the secrets of their respective confessionals. + +"There was another piece of blue-print, a larger piece--" said Dale +slowly, "I tore it from him just before--" + +The Doctor seemed greatly excited by her words. But he controlled +himself swiftly. + +"Why did you do such a thing?" + +"Oh, I'll explain that later," said Dale tiredly, only too glad to be +talking the matter out at last, to pay attention to the logic of her +sentences. "It's not safe where it is," she went on, as if the Doctor +already knew the whole story. "Billy may throw it out or burn it +without knowing--" + +"Let me understand this," said the Doctor. "The butler has the paper +now?" + +"He doesn't know he has it. It was in one of the rolls that went out +on the tray." + +The Doctor's eyes gleamed. He gave Dale's shoulder a sympathetic pat. + +"Now don't you worry about it--I'll get it," he said. Then, on the +point of going toward the dining-room, he turned. + +"But--you oughtn't to have it in your possession," he said +thoughtfully. "Why not let it be burned?" + +Dale was on the defensive at once. + +"Oh, no! It's important, it's vital!" she said decidedly. + +The Doctor seemed to consider ways and means of getting the paper. + +"The tray is in the dining-room?" he asked. + +"Yes," said Dale. + +He thought a moment, then left the room by the hall door. Dale sank +back in her chair and felt a sense of overpowering relief steal over +her whole body, as if new life had been poured into her veins. The +Doctor had been so helpful--why had she not confided in him before? He +would know what to do with the paper--she would have the benefit of his +counsel through the rest of this troubled time. For a moment she saw +herself and Jack, exonerated, their worries at an end, wandering hand +in hand over the green lawns of Cedarcrest in the cheerful sunlight of +morning. + +Behind her, mockingly, the head of the Unknown concealed behind the +settee lifted cautiously until, if she had turned, she would have just +been able to perceive the top of its skull. + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + +THE BLACKENED BAG + +As it chanced, she did not turn. The hall door opened--the head behind +the settee sank down again. Jack Bailey entered, carrying a couple of +logs of firewood. + +Dale moved toward him as soon as he had shut the door. + +"Oh, things have gone awfully wrong, haven't they?" she said with a +little break in her voice. + +He put his finger to his lips. + +"Be careful!" he whispered. He glanced about the room cautiously. + +"I don't trust even the furniture in this house to-night!" he said. He +took Dale hungrily in his arms and kissed her once, swiftly, on the +lips. Then they parted--his voice changed to the formal voice of a +servant. + +"Miss Van Gorder wishes the fire kept burning," he announced, with a +whispered "Play up!" to Dale. + +Dale caught his meaning at once. + +"Put some logs on the fire, please," she said loudly, for the benefit +of any listening ears. Then in an undertone to Bailey, "Jack--I'm +nearly distracted!" + +Bailey threw his wood on the fire, which received it with appreciative +crackles and sputterings. Then again, for a moment, he clasped his +sweetheart closely to him. + +"Dale, pull yourself together!" he whispered warningly. "We've got a +fight ahead of us!" + +He released her and turned back toward the fire. + +"These old-fashioned fireplaces eat up a lot of wood," he said in +casual tones, pretending to arrange the logs with the poker so the fire +would draw more cleanly. + +But Dale felt that she must settle one point between them before they +took up their game of pretense again. + +"You know why I sent for Richard Fleming, don't you?" she said, her +eyes fixed beseechingly on her lover. The rest of the world might +interpret her action as it pleased--she couldn't bear to have Jack +misunderstand. + +But there was no danger of that. His faith in her was too complete. + +"Yes--of course--" he said, with a look of gratitude. Then his mind +reverted to the ever-present problem before them. "But who in God's +name killed him?" he muttered, kneeling before the fire. + +"You don't think it was--Billy?" Dale saw Billy's face before her for +a moment, calm, impassive. But he was an Oriental--an alien--his face +might be just as calm, just as impassive while his hands were still red +with blood. She shuddered at the thought. + +Bailey considered the matter. + +"More likely the man Lizzie saw going upstairs," he said finally. +"But--I've been all over the upper floors." + +"And--nothing?" breathed Dale. + +"Nothing." Bailey's voice had an accent of dour finality. "Dale, do +you think that--" he began. + +Some instinct warned the girl that they were not to continue their +conversation uninterrupted. "Be careful!" she breathed, as footsteps +sounded in the hall. Bailey nodded and turned back to his pretense of +mending the fire. Dale moved away from him slowly. + +The door opened and Miss Cornelia entered, her black knitting-bag in +her hand, on her face a demure little smile of triumph. She closed the +door carefully behind her and began to speak at once. + +"Well, Mr. Alopecia--Urticaria--Rubeola--otherwise BAILEY!" she said in +tones of the greatest satisfaction, addressing herself to Bailey's +rigid back. Bailey jumped to his feet mechanically at her mention of +his name. He and Dale exchanged one swift and hopeless glance of utter +defeat. + +"I wish," proceeded Miss Cornelia, obviously enjoying the situation to +the full, "I wish you young people would remember that even if hair and +teeth have fallen out at sixty the mind still functions." + +She pulled out a cabinet photograph from the depths of her knitting-bag. + +"His photograph--sitting on your dresser!" she chided Dale. "Burn it +and be quick about it!" + +Dale took the photograph but continued to stare at her aunt with +incredulous eyes. + +"Then--you knew?" she stammered. + +Miss Cornelia, the effective little tableau she had planned now +accomplished to her most humorous satisfaction, relapsed into a chair. + +"My dear child," said the indomitable lady, with a sharp glance at +Bailey's bewildered face, "I have employed many gardeners in my time +and never before had one who manicured his fingernails, wore silk +socks, and regarded baldness as a plant instead of a calamity." + +An unwilling smile began to break on the faces of both Dale and her +lover. The former crossed to the fireplace and threw the damning +photograph of Bailey on the flames. She watched it shrivel--curl +up--be reduced to ash. She stirred the ashes with a poker till they +were well scattered. + +Bailey, recovering from the shock of finding that Miss Cornelia's sharp +eyes had pierced his disguise without his even suspecting it, now threw +himself on her mercy. + +"Then you know why I'm here?" he stammered. + +"I still have a certain amount of imagination! I may think you are a +fool for taking the risk, but I can see what that idiot of a detective +might not--that if you had looted the Union Bank you wouldn't be trying +to discover if the money is in this house. You would at least +presumably know where it is." + +The knowledge that he had an ally in this brisk and indomitable +spinster lady cheered him greatly. But she did not wait for any +comment from him. She turned abruptly to Dale. + +"Now I want to ask you something," she said more gravely. "Was there a +blue-print, and did you get it from Richard Fleming?" + +It was Dale's turn now to bow her head. + +"Yes," she confessed. + +Bailey felt a thrill of horror run through him. She hadn't told him +this! + +"Dale!" he said uncomprehendingly, "don't you see where this places +you? If you had it, why didn't you give it to Anderson when he asked +for it?" + +"Because," said Miss Cornelia uncompromisingly, "she had sense enough +to see that Mr. Anderson considered that piece of paper the final link +in the evidence against her!" + +"But she could have no motive!" stammered Bailey, distraught, still +failing to grasp the significance of Dale's refusal. + +"Couldn't she?" queried Miss Cornelia pityingly. "The detective thinks +she could--to save you!" + +Now the full light of revelation broke upon Bailey. He took a step +back. + +"Good God!" he said. + +Miss Cornelia would have liked to comment tartly upon the singular lack +of intelligence displayed by even the nicest young men in trying +circumstances. But there was no time. They might be interrupted at +any moment and before they were, there were things she must find out. + +"Where is that paper, now?" she asked Dale sharply; + +"Why--the Doctor is getting it for me." Dale seemed puzzled by the +intensity of her aunt's manner. + +"What?" almost shouted Miss Cornelia. Dale explained. + +"It was on the tray Billy took out," she said, still wondering why so +simple an answer should disturb Miss Cornelia so greatly. + +"Then I'm afraid everything's over," Miss Cornelia said despairingly, +and made her first gesture of defeat. She turned away. Dale followed +her, still unable to fathom her course of reasoning. + +"I didn't know what else to do," she said rather plaintively, wondering +if again, as with Fleming, she had misplaced her confidence at a moment +critical for them all. + +But Miss Cornelia seemed to have no great patience with her dejection. + +"One of two things will happen now," she said, with acrid, logic. +"Either the Doctor's an honest man--in which case, as coroner, he will +hand that paper to the detective--" Dale gasped. "Or he is not an +honest man," went on Miss Cornelia, "and he will keep it for himself. +I don't think he's an honest man." + +The frank expression of her distrust seemed to calm her a little. She +resumed her interrogation of Dale more gently. + +"Now, let's be clear about this. Had Richard Fleming ascertained that +there was a concealed room in this house?" + +"He was starting up to it!" said Dale in the voice of a ghost, +remembering. + +"Just what did you tell him?" + +"That I believed there was a Hidden Room in the house--and that the +money from the Union Bank might be in it." + +Again, for the millionth time, indeed it seemed to her, she reviewed +the circumstances of the crime. + +"Could anyone have overheard?" asked Miss Cornelia. + +The question had rung in Dale's ears ever since she had come to her +senses after the firing of the shot and seen Fleming's body stark on +the floor of the alcove. + +"I don't know," she said. "We were very cautious." + +"You don't know where this room is?" + +"No, I never saw the print. Upstairs somewhere, for he--" + +"Upstairs! Then the thing to do, if we can get that paper from the +Doctor, is to locate the room at once." + +Jack Bailey did not recognize the direction where her thoughts were +tending. It seemed terrible to him that anyone should devote a thought +to the money while Dale was still in danger. + +"What does the money matter now?" he broke in somewhat irritably. +"We've got to save her!" and his eyes went to Dale. + +Miss Cornelia gave him an ineffable look of weary patience. + +"The money matters a great deal," she said, sensibly. "Someone was in +this house on the same errand as Richard Fleming. After all," she went +on with a tinge of irony, "the course of reasoning that you followed, +Mr. Bailey, is not necessarily unique." + +She rose. + +"Somebody else may have suspected that Courtleigh Fleming robbed his +own bank," she said thoughtfully. Her eye fell on the Doctor's +professional bag--she seemed to consider it as if it were a strange +sort of animal. + +"Find the man who followed your course of reasoning," she ended, with a +stare at Bailey, "and you have found the murderer." + +"With that reasoning you might suspect me!" said the latter a trifle +touchily. + +Miss Cornelia did not give an inch. + +"I have," she said. Dale shot a swift, sympathetic glance at her +lover, another less sympathetic and more indignant at her aunt. Miss +Cornelia smiled. + +"However, I now suspect somebody else," she said. They waited for her +to reveal the name of the suspect but she kept her own counsel. By now +she had entirely given up confidence if not in the probity at least in +the intelligence of all persons, male or female, under the age of +sixty-five. + +She rang the bell for Billy. But Dale was still worrying over the +possible effects of the confidence she had given Doctor Wells. + +"Then you think the Doctor may give this paper to Mr. Anderson?" she +asked. + +"He may or he may not. It is entirely possible that he may elect to +search for this room himself! He may even already have gone upstairs!" + +She moved quickly to the door and glanced across toward the +dining-room, but so far apparently all was safe. The Doctor was at the +table making a pretense of drinking a cup of coffee and Billy was in +close attendance. That the Doctor already had the paper she was +certain; it was the use he intended to make of it that was her concern. + +She signaled to the Jap and he came out into the hall. Beresford, she +learned, was still in the kitchen with his revolver, waiting for +another attempt on the door and the detective was still outside in his +search. To Billy she gave her order in a low voice. + +"If the Doctor attempts to go upstairs," she said, "let me know at +once. Don't seem to be watching. You can be in the pantry. But let +me know instantly." + +Once back in the living-room the vague outlines of a plan--a +test--formed slowly in Miss Cornelia's mind, grew more definite. + +"Dale, watch that door and warn me if anyone is coming!" she commanded, +indicating the door into the hall. Dale obeyed, marveling silently at +her aunt's extraordinary force of character. Most of Miss Cornelia's +contemporaries would have called for a quiet ambulance to take them to +a sanatorium some hours ere this--but Miss Cornelia was not merely, +comparatively speaking, as fresh as a daisy; her manner bore every +evidence of a firm intention to play Sherlock Holmes to the mysteries +that surrounded her, in spite of Doctors, detectives, dubious noises, +or even the Bat himself. + +The last of the Van Gorder spinsters turned to Bailey now. + +"Get some soot from that fireplace," she ordered. "Be quick. Scrape it +off with a knife or a piece of paper. Anything." + +Bailey wondered and obeyed. As he was engaged in his grimy task, Miss +Cornelia got out a piece of writing paper from a drawer and placed it +on the center table, with a lead pencil beside it. + +Bailey emerged from the fireplace with a handful of sooty flakes. + +"Is this all right?" + +"Yes. Now rub it on the handle of that bag." She indicated the little +black bag in which Doctor Wells carried the usual paraphernalia of a +country Doctor. + +A private suspicion grew in Bailey's mind as to whether Miss Cornelia's +fine but eccentric brain had not suffered too sorely under the shocks +of the night. But he did not dare disobey. He blackened the handle of +the Doctor's bag with painstaking thoroughness and awaited further +instructions. + +"Somebody's coming!" Dale whispered, warning from her post by the door. + +Bailey quickly went to the fireplace and resumed his pretended labors +with the fire. Miss Cornelia moved away from the Doctor's bag and +spoke for the benefit of whoever might be coming. + +"We all need sleep," she began, as if ending a conversation with Dale, +"and I think--" + +The door opened, admitting Billy. + +"Doctor just go upstairs," he said, and went out again leaving the door +open. + +A flash passed across Miss Cornelia's face. She stepped to the door. +She called. + +"Doctor! Oh, Doctor!" + +"Yes?" answered the Doctor's voice from the main staircase. His steps +clattered down the stairs--he entered the room. Perhaps he read +something in Miss Cornelia's manner that demanded an explanation of his +action. At any rate, he forestalled her, just as she was about to +question him. + +"I was about to look around above," he said. "I don't like to leave if +there is the possibility of some assassin still hidden in the house." + +"That is very considerate of you. But we are well protected now. And +besides, why should this person remain in the house? The murder is +done, the police are here." + +"True," he said. "I only thought--" + +But a knocking at the terrace door interrupted him. While the +attention of the others was turned in that direction Dale, less cynical +than her aunt, made a small plea to him and realized before she had +finished with it that the Doctor too had his price. + +"Doctor--did you get it?" she repeated, drawing the Doctor aside. + +The Doctor gave her a look of apparent bewilderment. + +"My dear child," he said softly, "are you sure that you put it there?" + +Dale felt as if she had received a blow in the face. + +"Why, yes--I--" she began in tones of utter dismay. Then she stopped. +The Doctor's seeming bewilderment was too pat--too plausible. Of +course she was sure--and, though possible, it seemed extremely unlikely +that anyone else could have discovered the hiding-place of the +blue-print in the few moments that had elapsed between the time when +Billy took the tray from the room and the time when the Doctor +ostensibly went to find it. A cold wave of distrust swept over +her--she turned away from the Doctor silently. + +Meanwhile Anderson had entered, slamming the terrace-door behind him. + +"I couldn't find anybody!" he said in an irritated voice. "I think +that Jap's crazy." + +The Doctor began to struggle into his topcoat, avoiding any look at +Dale. + +"Well," he said, "I believe I've fulfilled all the legal +requirements--I think I must be going." He turned toward the door but +the detective halted him. + +"Doctor," he said, "did you ever hear Courtleigh Fleming mention a +Hidden Room in this house?" + +If the Doctor started, the movement passed apparently unnoted by +Anderson. And his reply was coolly made. + +"No--and I knew him rather well." + +"You don't think then," persisted the detective, "that such a room and +the money in it could be the motive for this crime?" + +The Doctor's voice grew a little curt. + +"I don't believe Courtleigh Fleming robbed his own bank, if that's what +you mean," he said with nicely calculated emphasis, real or feigned. +He crossed over to get his bag and spoke to Miss Cornelia. + +"Well, Miss Van Gorder," he said, picking up the bag by its blackened +handle, "I can't wish you a comfortable night but I can wish you a +quiet one." + +Miss Cornelia watched him silently. As he turned to go, she spoke. + +"We're all of us a little upset, naturally," she confessed. "Perhaps +you could write a prescription--a sleeping-powder or a bromide of some +sort." + +"Why, certainly," agreed the Doctor at once. He turned back. Miss +Cornelia seemed pleased. + +"I hoped you would," she said with a little tremble in her voice such +as might easily occur in the voice of a nervous old lady. "Oh, yes, +here's paper and a pencil," as the Doctor fumbled in a pocket. + +The Doctor took the sheet of paper she proffered and, using the side of +his bag as a pad, began to write out the prescription. + +"I don't generally advise these drugs," he said, looking up for a +moment. "Still--" + +He paused. "What time is it?" + +Miss Cornelia glanced at the clock. "Half-past eleven." + +"Then I'd better bring you the powders myself," decided the Doctor. +"The pharmacy closes at eleven. I shall have to make them up myself." + +"That seems a lot of trouble." + +"Nothing is any trouble if I can be helpful," he assured her, +smilingly. And Miss Cornelia also smiled, took the piece of paper from +his hand, glanced at it once, as if out of idle curiosity about the +unfinished prescription, and then laid it down on the table with a +careless little gesture. Dale gave her aunt a glance of dumb entreaty. +Miss Cornelia read her wish for another moment alone with the Doctor. + +"Dale will let you out, Doctor," said she, giving the girl the key to +the front door. + +The Doctor approved her watchfulness. + +"That's right," he said smilingly. "Keep things locked up. Discretion +is the better part of valor!" + +But Miss Cornelia failed to agree with him. + +"I've been discreet for sixty-five years," she said with a sniff, "and +sometimes I think it was a mistake!" + +The Doctor laughed easily and followed Dale out of the room, with a nod +of farewell to the others in passing. The detective, seeking for some +object upon whom to vent the growing irritation which seemed to possess +him, made Bailey the scapegoat of his wrath. + +"I guess we can do without you for the present!" he said, with an angry +frown at the latter. Bailey flushed, then remembered himself, and left +the room submissively, with the air of a well-trained servant accepting +an unmerited rebuke. The detective turned at once to Miss Cornelia. + +"Now I want a few words with you!" + +"Which means that you mean to do all the talking!" said Miss Cornelia +acidly. "Very well! But first I want to show you something. Will you +come here, please, Mr. Anderson?" + +She started for the alcove. + +"I've examined that staircase," said the detective. + +"Not with me!" insisted Miss Cornelia. "I have something to show you." + +He followed her unwillingly up the stairs, his whole manner seeming to +betray a complete lack of confidence in the theories of all amateur +sleuths in general and spinster detectives of sixty-five in particular. +Their footsteps died away up the alcove stairs. The living-room was +left vacant for an instant. + +Vacant? Only in seeming. The moment that Miss Cornelia and the +detective had passed up the stairs, the crouching, mysterious Unknown, +behind the settee, began to move. The French window-door opened--a +stealthy figure passed through it silently to be swallowed up in the +darkness of the terrace. + +And poor Lizzie, entering the room at that moment, saw a hand covered +with blood reach back and gropingly, horribly, through the broken pane, +refasten the lock. + +She shrieked madly. + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + +HANDCUFFS + +Dale had failed with the Doctor. When Lizzie's screams once more had +called the startled household to the living-room, she knew she had +failed. She followed in mechanically, watched an irritated Anderson +send the Pride of Kerry to bed and threaten to lock her up, and +listened vaguely to the conversation between her aunt and the detective +that followed it, without more than casual interest. + +Nevertheless, that conversation was to have vital results later on. + +"Your point about that thumbprint on the stair rail is very +interesting," Anderson said with a certain respect. "But just what +does it prove?" + +"It points down," said Miss Cornelia, still glowing with the memory of +the whistle of surprise the detective had given when she had shown him +the strange thumbprint on the rail of the alcove stairs. + +"It does," he admitted. "But what then?" + +Miss Cornelia tried to put her case as clearly and tersely as possible. + +"It shows that somebody stood there for some time, listening to my +niece and Richard Fleming in this room below," she said. + +"All right--I'll grant that to save argument," retorted the detective. +"But the moment that shot was fired the lights came on. If somebody on +that staircase shot him, and then came down and took the blue-print, +Miss Ogden would have seen him." + + He turned upon Dale. + +"Did you?" + +She hesitated. Why hadn't she thought of such an explanation before? +But now--it would sound too flimsy! + +"No, nobody came down," she admitted candidly. The detective's face +altered, grew menacing. Miss Cornelia once more had put herself +between him and Dale. + +"Now, Mr. Anderson--" she warned. + +The detective was obviously trying to keep his temper. + +"I'm not hounding this girl!" he said doggedly. "I haven't said yet +that she committed the murder--but she took that blue-print and I want +it!" + +"You want it to connect her with the murder," parried Miss Cornelia. + +The detective threw up his hands. + +"It's rather reasonable to suppose that I might want to return the +funds to the Union Bank, isn't it?" he queried in tones of heavy +sarcasm. "Provided they're here," he added doubtfully. + +Miss Cornelia resolved upon comparative frankness. + +"I see," she said. "Well, I'll tell you this much, Mr. Anderson, and +I'll ask you to believe me as a lady. Granting that at one time my +niece knew something of that blue-print--at this moment we do not know +where it is or who has it." + +Her words had the unmistakable ring of truth. The very oath from the +detective that succeeded them showed his recognition of the fact. + +"Damnation," he muttered. "That's true, is it?" + +"That's true," said Miss Cornelia firmly. A silence of troubled +thoughts fell upon the three. Miss Cornelia took out her knitting. + +"Did you ever try knitting when you wanted to think?" she queried +sweetly, after a pause in which the detective tramped from one side of +the room to the other, brows knotted, eyes bent on the floor. + +"No," grunted the detective. He took out a cigar--bit off the end with +a savage snap of teeth--lit it--resumed his pacing. + +"You should, sometimes," continued Miss Cornelia, watching his troubled +movements with a faint light of mockery in her eyes. "I find it very +helpful." + +"I don't need knitting to think straight," rasped Anderson indignantly. +Miss Cornelia's eyes danced. + +"I wonder!" she said with caustic affability. "You seem to have so +much evidence left over." + +The detective paused and glared at her helplessly. + +"Did you ever hear of the man who took a clock apart--and when he put +it together again, he had enough left over to make another clock?" she +twitted. + +The detective, ignoring the taunt, crossed quickly to Dale. + +"What do you mean by saying that paper isn't where you put it?" he +demanded in tones of extreme severity. Miss Cornelia replied for her +niece. + +"She hasn't said that." + +The detective made an impatient movement of his hand and walked +away--as if to get out of the reach of the indefatigable spinster's +tongue. But Miss Cornelia had not finished with him yet, by any means. + +"Do you believe in circumstantial evidence?" she asked him with seeming +ingenuousness. + +"It's my business," said the detective stolidly. Miss Cornelia smiled. + +"While you have been investigating," she announced, "I, too, have not +been idle." + +The detective gave a barking laugh. She let it pass. "To me," she +continued, "it is perfectly obvious that one intelligence has been at +work behind many of the things that have occurred in this house." + +Now Anderson observed her with a new respect. + +"Who?" he grunted tersely. + +Her eyes flashed. + +"I'll ask you that! Some one person who, knowing Courtleigh Fleming +well, probably knows of the existence of a Hidden Room in this house +and who, finding us in occupation of the house, has tried to get rid of +me in two ways. First, by frightening me with anonymous threats--and, +second, by urging me to leave. Someone, who very possibly entered this +house tonight shortly before the murder and slipped up that staircase!" + +The detective had listened to her outburst with unusual thoughtfulness. +A certain wonder--perhaps at her shrewdness, perhaps at an unexpected +confirmation of certain ideas of his own--grew upon his face. Now he +jerked out two words. + +"The Doctor?" + +Miss Cornelia knitted on as if every movement of her needles added one +more link to the strong chain of probabilities she was piecing together. + +"When Doctor Wells said he was leaving here earlier in the evening for +the Johnsons' he did not go there," she observed. "He was not expected +to go there. I found that out when I telephoned." + +"The Doctor!" repeated the detective, his eyes narrowing, his head +beginning to sway from side to side like the head of some great cat +just before a spring. + +"As you know," Miss Cornelia went on, "I had a supplementary bolt +placed on that terrace door today." She nodded toward the door that +gave access into the alcove from the terrace. "Earlier this evening +Doctor Wells said that he had bolted it, when he had left it +open--purposely, as I now realize, in order that he might return later. +You may also recall that Doctor Wells took a scrap of paper from +Richard Fleming's hand and tried to conceal it--why did he do that?" + +She paused for a second. Then she changed her tone a little. + +"May I ask you to look at this?" + +She displayed the piece of paper on which Doctor Wells had started to +write the prescription for her sleeping-powders--and now her strategy +with the doctor's bag and the soot Jack Bailey had got from the +fireplace stood revealed. A sharp, black imprint of a man's right +thumb--the Doctor's--stood out on the paper below the broken line of +writing. The Doctor had not noticed the staining of his hand by the +blackened bag handle, or, noticing, had thought nothing of it--but the +blackened bag handle had been a trap, and he had left an indelible +piece of evidence behind him. It now remained to test the value of +this evidence. + +Miss Cornelia handed the paper to Anderson silently. But her eyes were +bright with pardonable vanity at the success of her little piece of +strategy. + +"A thumb-print," muttered Anderson. "Whose is it?" + +"Doctor Wells," said Miss Cornelia with what might have been a little +crow of triumph in anyone not a Van Gorder. + +Anderson looked thoughtful. Then he felt in his pocket for a +magnifying glass, failed to find it, muttered, and took the reading +glass Miss Cornelia offered him. + +"Try this," she said. "My whole case hangs on my conviction that that +print and the one out there on the stair rail are the same." + +He put down the paper and smiled at her ironically. "Your case!" he +said. "You don't really believe you need a detective at all, do you?" + +"I will only say that so far your views and mine have failed to +coincide. If I am right about that fingerprint, then you may be right +about my private opinion." + +And on that he went out, rather grimly, paper and reading glass in +hand, to make his comparison. + +It was then that Beresford came in, a new and slightly rigid Beresford, +and crossed to her at once. + +"Miss Van Gorder," he said, all the flippancy gone from his voice, "may +I ask you to make an excuse and call your gardener here?" + +Dale started uncontrollably at the ominous words, but Miss Cornelia +betrayed no emotion except in the increased rapidity of her knitting. + +"The gardener? Certainly, if you'll touch that bell," she said +pleasantly. + +Beresford stalked to the bell and rang it. The three waited--Dale in +an agony of suspense. + +The detective re-entered the room by the alcove stairs, his mien +unfathomable by any of the anxious glances that sought him out at once. + +"It's no good, Miss Van Gorder," he said quietly. "The prints are not +the same." + +"Not the same!" gasped Miss Cornelia, unwilling to believe her ears. + +Anderson laid down the paper and the reading glass with a little +gesture of dismissal. + +"If you think I'm mistaken, I'll leave it to any unprejudiced person or +your own eyesight. Thumbprints never lie," he said in a flat, +convincing voice. Miss Cornelia stared at him--disappointment written +large on her features. He allowed himself a little ironic smile. + +"Did you ever try a good cigar when you wanted to think?" he queried +suavely, puffing upon his own. + +But Miss Cornelia's spirit was too broken by the collapse of her dearly +loved and adroitly managed scheme for her to take up the gauge of +battle he offered. + +"I still believe it was the Doctor," she said stubbornly. But her +tones were not the tones of utter conviction which she had used before. + +"And yet," said the detective, ruthlessly demolishing another link in +her broken chain of evidence, "the Doctor was in this room tonight, +according to your own statement, when the anonymous letter came through +the window." + +Miss Cornelia gazed at him blankly, for the first time in her life at a +loss for an appropriately sharp retort. It was true--the Doctor had +been here in the room beside her when the stone bearing the last +anonymous warning had crashed through the windowpane. And yet-- + +Billy's entrance in answer to Beresford's ring made her mind turn to +other matters for the moment. Why had Beresford's manner changed so, +and what was he saying to Billy now? + +"Tell the gardener Miss Van Gorder wants him and don't say we're all +here," the young lawyer commanded the butler sharply. Billy nodded and +disappeared. Miss Cornelia's back began to stiffen--she didn't like +other people ordering her servants around like that. + +The detective, apparently, had somewhat of the same feeling. + +"I seem to have plenty of help in this case!" he said with obvious +sarcasm, turning to Beresford. + +The latter made no reply. Dale rose anxiously from her chair, her lips +quivering. + +"Why have you sent for the gardener?" she inquired haltingly. + +Beresford deigned to answer at last. + +"I'll tell you that in a moment," he said with a grim tightening of his +lips. + +There was a fateful pause, for an instant, while Dale roved nervously +from one side of the room to the other. Then Jack Bailey came into the +room--alone. + +He seemed to sense danger in the air. His hands clenched at his sides, +but except for that tiny betrayal of emotion, he still kept his +servant's pose. + +"You sent for me?" he queried of Miss Cornelia submissively, ignoring +the glowering Beresford. + +But Beresford would be ignored no longer. He came between them before +Miss Cornelia had time to answer. + +"How long has this man been in your employ?" he asked brusquely, manner +tense. + +Miss Cornelia made one final attempt at evasion. "Why should that +interest you?" she parried, answering his question with an icy question +of her own. + +It was too late. Already Bailey had read the truth in Beresford's eyes. + +"I came this evening," he admitted, still hoping against hope that his +cringing posture of the servitor might give Beresford pause for the +moment. + +But the promptness of his answer only crystallized Beresford's +suspicions. + +"Exactly," he said with terse finality. He turned to the detective. + +"I've been trying to recall this man's face ever since I came in +tonight--" he said with grim triumph. "Now, I know who he is." + +"Who is he?" + +Bailey straightened up. He had lost his game with Chance--and the +loss, coming when it did, seemed bitterer than even he had thought it +could be, but before they took him away he would speak his mind. + +"It's all right, Beresford," he said with a fatigue so deep that it +colored his voice like flakes of iron-rust. "I know you think you're +doing your duty--but I wish to God you could have restrained your sense +of duty for about three hours more!" + +"To let you get away?" the young lawyer sneered, unconvinced. + +"No," said Bailey with quiet defiance. "To let me finish what I came +here to do." + +"Don't you think you have done enough?" Beresford's voice flicked him +with righteous scorn, no less telling because of its youthfulness. He +turned back to the detective soberly enough. + +"This man has imposed upon the credulity of these women, I am quite +sure without their knowledge," he said with a trace of his former +gallantry. "He is Bailey of the Union Bank, the missing cashier." + +The detective slowly put down his cigar on an ash tray. + +"That's the truth, is it?" he demanded. + +Dale's hand flew to her breast. If Jack would only deny it--even now! +But even as she thought this, she realized the uselessness of any such +denial. + +Bailey realized it, too. + +"It's true, all right," he admitted hopelessly. He closed his eyes for +a moment. Let them come with the handcuffs now and get it over--every +moment the scene dragged out was a moment of unnecessary torture for +Dale. + +But Beresford had not finished with his indictment. "I accuse him not +only of the thing he is wanted for, but of the murder of Richard +Fleming!" he said fiercely, glaring at Bailey as if only a youthful +horror of making a scene before Dale and Miss Cornelia held him back +from striking the latter down where he stood. + +Bailey's eyes snapped open. He took a threatening step toward his +accuser. "You lie!" he said in a hoarse, violent voice. + +Anderson crossed between them, just as conflict seemed inevitable. + +"You knew this?" he queried sharply in Dale's direction. + +Dale set her lips in a line. She did not answer. + +He turned to Miss Cornelia. + +"Did you?" + +"Yes," admitted the latter quietly, her knitting needles at last at +rest. "I knew he was Mr. Bailey if that is all you mean." + +The quietness of her answer seemed to infuriate the detective. + +"Quite a pretty little conspiracy," he said. "How in the name of God +do you expect me to do anything with the entire household united +against me? Tell me that." + +"Exactly," said Miss Cornelia. "And if we are united against you, why +should I have sent for you? You might tell me that, too." + +He turned on Bailey savagely. + +"What did you mean by that 'three hours more'?" he demanded. + +"I could have cleared myself in three hours," said Bailey with calm +despair. + +Beresford laughed mockingly--a laugh that seemed to sear into Bailey's +consciousness like the touch of a hot iron. Again he turned frenziedly +upon the young lawyer--and Anderson was just preparing to hold them +away from each other, by force if necessary, when the doorbell rang. + +For an instant the ringing of the bell held the various figures of the +little scene in the rigid postures of a waxworks tableau--Bailey, one +foot advanced toward Beresford, his hands balled up into +fists--Beresford already in an attitude of defense--the detective about +to step in between them--Miss Cornelia stiff in her chair--Dale over by +the fireplace, her hand at her heart. Then they relaxed, but not, at +least on the part of Bailey and Beresford, to resume their interrupted +conflict. Too many nerve-shaking things had already happened that +night for either of the young men not to drop their mutual squabble in +the face of a common danger. + +"Probably the Doctor," murmured Miss Cornelia uncertainly as the +doorbell rang again. "He was to come back with some sleeping-powders." + +Billy appeared for the key of the front door. + +"If that's Doctor Wells," warned the detective, "admit him. If it's +anybody else, call me." + +Billy grinned acquiescently and departed. The detective moved nearer +to Bailey. + +"Have you got a gun on you?" + +"No." Bailey bowed his head. + +"Well, I'll just make sure of that." The detective's hands ran swiftly +and expertly over Bailey's form, through his pockets, probing for +concealed weapons. Then, slowly drawing a pair of handcuffs from his +pocket, he prepared to put them on Bailey's wrists. + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + +THE SIGN OF THE BAT + +But Dale could bear it no longer. The sight of her lover, beaten, +submissive, his head bowed, waiting obediently like a common criminal +for the detective to lock his wrists in steel broke down her last +defenses. She rushed into the center of the room, between Bailey and +the detective, her eyes wild with terror, her words stumbling over each +other in her eagerness to get them out. + +"Oh, no! I can't stand it! I'll tell you everything!" she cried +frenziedly. "He got to the foot of the stair-case--Richard Fleming, I +mean," she was facing the detective now, "and he had the blue-print +you've been talking about. I had told him Jack Bailey was here as the +gardener and he said if I screamed he would tell that. I was +desperate. I threatened him with the revolver but he took it from me. +Then when I tore the blue-print from him--he was shot--from the +stairs--" + +"By Bailey!" interjected Beresford angrily. + +"I didn't even know he was in the house!" Bailey's answer was as +instant as it was hot. Meanwhile, the Doctor had entered the room, +hardly noticed, in the middle of Dale's confession, and now stood +watching the scene intently from a post by the door. + +"What did you do with the blue-print?" The detective's voice beat at +Dale like a whip. + +"I put it first in the neck of my dress--" she faltered. "Then, when I +found you were watching me, I hid it somewhere else." + +Her eyes fell on the Doctor. She saw his hand steal out toward the +knob of the door. Was he going to run away on some pretext before she +could finish her story? She gave a sigh of relief when Billy, +re-entering with the key to the front door, blocked any such attempt at +escape. + +Mechanically she watched Billy cross to the table, lay the key upon it, +and return to the hall without so much as a glance at the tense, +suspicious circle of faces focused upon herself and her lover. + +"I put it--somewhere else," she repeated, her eyes going back to the +Doctor. + +"Did you give it to Bailey?" + +"No--I hid it--and then I told where it was--to the Doctor--" Dale +swayed on her feet. All turned surprisedly toward the Doctor. Miss +Cornelia rose from her chair. + +The Doctor bore the battery of eyes unflinchingly. "That's rather +inaccurate," he said, with a tight little smile. "You told me where +you had placed it, but when I went to look for it, it was gone." + +"Are you quite sure of that?" queried Miss Cornelia acidly. + +"Absolutely," he said. He ignored the rest of the party, addressing +himself directly to Anderson. + +"She said she had hidden it inside one of the rolls that were on the +tray on that table," he continued in tones of easy explanation, +approaching the table as he did so, and tapping it with the box of +sleeping-powders he had brought for Miss Cornelia. + +"She was in such distress that I finally went to look for it. It +wasn't there." + +"Do you realize the significance of this paper?" Anderson boomed at +once. + +"Nothing, beyond the fact that Miss Ogden was afraid it linked her with +the crime." The Doctor's voice was very clear and firm. + +Anderson pondered an instant. Then-- + +"I'd like to have a few minutes with the Doctor alone," he said +somberly. + +The group about him dissolved at once. Miss Cornelia, her arm around +her niece's waist, led the latter gently to the door. As the two +lovers passed each other a glance flashed between them--a glance, +pathetically brief, of longing and love. Dale's finger tips brushed +Bailey's hand gently in passing. + +"Beresford," commanded the detective, "take Bailey to the library and +see that he stays there." + +Beresford tapped his pocket with a significant gesture and motioned +Bailey to the door. Then they, too, left the room. The door closed. +The Doctor and the detective were alone. + +The detective spoke at once--and surprisingly. + +"Doctor, I'll have that blue-print!" he said sternly, his eyes the +color of steel. + +The Doctor gave him a wary little glance. + +"But I've just made the statement that I didn't find the blue-print," +he affirmed flatly. + +"I heard you!" Anderson's voice was very dry. "Now this situation is +between you and me, Doctor Wells." His forefinger sought the Doctor's +chest. "It has nothing to do with that poor fool of a cashier. He +hasn't got either those securities or the money from them and you know +it. It's in this house and you know that, too!" + +"In this house?" repeated the Doctor as if stalling for time. + +"In this house! Tonight, when you claimed to be making a professional +call, you were in this house--and I think you were on that staircase +when Richard Fleming was killed!" + +"No, Anderson, I'll swear I was not!" The Doctor might be acting, but +if he was, it was incomparable acting. The terror in his voice seemed +too real to be feigned. + +But Anderson was remorseless. + +"I'll tell you this," he continued. "Miss Van Gorder very cleverly got +a thumbprint of yours tonight. Does that mean anything to you?" + +His eyes bored into the Doctor--the eyes of a poker player bluffing on +a hidden card. But the Doctor did not flinch. + +"Nothing," he said firmly. "I have not been upstairs in this house in +three months." + +The accent of truth in his voice seemed so unmistakable that even +Anderson's shrewd brain was puzzled by it. But he persisted in his +attempt to wring a confession from this latest suspect. + +"Before Courtleigh Fleming died--did he tell you anything about a +Hidden Room in this house?" he queried cannily. + +The Doctor's confident air of honesty lessened, a furtive look appeared +in his eyes. + +"No," he insisted, but not as convincingly as he had made his previous +denial. + +The detective hammered at the point again. + +"You haven't been trying to frighten these women out of here with +anonymous letters so you could get in?" + +"No. Certainly not." But again the Doctor's air had that odd mixture +of truth and falsehood in it. + +The detective paused for an instant. + +"Let me see your key ring!" he ordered. The Doctor passed it over +silently. The detective glanced at the keys--then, suddenly, his +revolver glittered in his other hand. + +The Doctor watched him anxiously. A puff of wind rattled the panes of +the French windows. The storm, quieted for a while, was gathering its +strength for a fresh unleashing of its dogs of thunder. + +The detective stepped to the terrace door, opened it, and then quietly +proceeded to try the Doctor's keys in the lock. Thus located he was +out of visual range, and Wells took advantage of it at once. He moved +swiftly toward the fireplace, extracting the missing piece of +blue-print from an inside pocket as he did so. The secret the +blue-print guarded was already graven on his mind in indelible +characters--now he would destroy all evidence that it had ever been in +his possession and bluff through the rest of the situation as best he +might. + +He threw the paper toward the flames with a nervous gesture of relief. +But for once his cunning failed--the throw was too hurried to be sure +and the light scrap of paper wavered and settled to the floor just +outside the fireplace. The Doctor swore noiselessly and stooped to +pick it up and make sure of its destruction. But he was not quick +enough. Through the window the detective had seen the incident, and +the next moment the Doctor heard his voice bark behind him. He turned, +and stared at the leveled muzzle of Anderson's revolver. + +"Hands up and stand back!" he commanded. + +As he did so Anderson picked up the paper and a sardonic smile crossed +his face as his eyes took in the significance of the print. He laid his +revolver down on the table where he could snatch it up again at a +moment's notice. + +"Behind a fireplace, eh?" he muttered. "What fireplace? In what room?" + +"I won't tell you!" The Doctor's voice was sullen. He inched, +gingerly, cautiously, toward the other side of the table. + +"All right--I'll find it, you know." The detective's eyes turned +swiftly back to the blue-print. Experience should have taught him +never to underrate an adversary, even of the Doctor's caliber, but long +familiarity with danger can make the shrewdest careless. For a moment, +as he bent over the paper again, he was off guard. + +The Doctor seized the moment with a savage promptitude and sprang. +There followed a silent, furious struggle between the two. Under +normal circumstances Anderson would have been the stronger and quicker, +but the Doctor fought with an added strength of despair and his initial +leap had pinioned the detective's arms behind him. Now the detective +shook one hand free and snatched at the revolver--in vain--for the +Doctor, with a groan of desperation, struck at his hand as its fingers +were about to close on the smooth butt and the revolver skidded from +the table to the floor. With a sudden terrible movement he pinioned +both the detective's arms behind him again and reached for the +telephone. Its heavy base descended on the back of the detective's +head with stunning force. The next moment the battle was ended and the +Doctor, panting with exhaustion, held the limp form of an unconscious +man in his arms. + +He lowered the detective to the floor and straightened up again, +listening tensely. So brief and intense had been the struggle that +even now he could hardly believe in its reality. It seemed impossible, +too, that the struggle had not been heard. Then he realized dully, as +a louder roll of thunder smote on his ears, that the elements +themselves had played into his hand. The storm, with its wind and +fury, had returned just in time to save him and drown out all sounds of +conflict from the rest of the house with its giant clamor. + +He bent swiftly over Anderson, listening to his heart. Good--the man +still breathed; he had enough on his conscience without adding the +murder of a detective to the black weight. Now he pocketed the +revolver and the blue-print--gagged Anderson rapidly with a knotted +handkerchief and proceeded to wrap his own muffler around the +detective's head as an additional silencer. Anderson gave a faint sigh. + +The Doctor thought rapidly. Soon or late the detective would return to +consciousness--with his hands free he could easily tear out the gag. +He looked wildly about the room for a rope, a curtain--ah, he had +it--the detective's own handcuffs! He snapped the cuffs on Anderson's +wrists, then realized that, in his hurry, he had bound the detective's +hands in front of him instead of behind him. Well--it would do for the +moment--he did not need much time to carry out his plans. He dragged +the limp body, its head lolling, into the billiard room where he +deposited it on the floor in the corner farthest from the door. + +So far, so good--now to lock the door of the billiard room. +Fortunately, the key was there on the inside of the door. He quickly +transferred it, locked the billiard room door from the outside, and +pocketed the key. For a second he stood by the center table in the +living-room, recovering his breath and trying to straighten his rumpled +clothing. Then he crossed cautiously into the alcove and started to +pad up the alcove stairs, his face white and strained with excitement +and hope. + +And it was then that there happened one of the most dramatic events of +the night. One which was to remain, for the next hour or so, as +bewildering as the murder and which, had it come a few moments sooner +or a few moments later, would have entirely changed the course of +events. + +It was preceded by a desperate hammering on the door of the terrace. It +halted the Doctor on his way upstairs, drew Beresford on a run into the +living-room, and even reached the bedrooms of the women up above. + +"My God! What's that?" Beresford panted. + +The Doctor indicated the door. It was too late now. Already he could +hear Miss Cornelia's voice above; it was only a question of a short +time until Anderson in the billiard room revived and would try to make +his plight known. And in the brief moment of that resumee of his +position the knocking came again. But feebler, as though the suppliant +outside had exhausted his strength. + +As Beresford drew his revolver and moved to the door, Miss Cornelia +came in, followed by Lizzie. + +"It's the Bat," Lizzie announced mournfully. "Good-by, Miss Neily. +Good-by, everybody. I saw his hand, all covered with blood. He's had +a good night for sure!" + +But they ignored her. And Beresford flung open the door. + +Just what they had expected, what figure of horror or of fear they +waited for, no one can say. But there was no horror and no fear; only +unutterable amazement as an unknown man, in torn and muddied garments, +with a streak of dried blood seaming his forehead like a scar, fell +through the open doorway into Beresford's arms. + +"Good God!" muttered Beresford, dropping his revolver to catch the +strange burden. For a moment the Unknown lay in his arms like a +corpse. Then he straightened dizzily, staggered into the room, took a +few steps toward the table, and fell prostrate upon his face--at the +end of his strength. + +"Doctor!" gasped Miss Cornelia dazedly and the Doctor, whatever guilt +lay on his conscience, responded at once to the call of his profession. + +He bent over the Unknown Man--the physician once more--and made a brief +examination. + +"He's fainted!" he said, rising. "Struck on the head, too." + +"But who is he?" faltered Miss Cornelia. + +"I never saw him before," said the Doctor. It was obvious that he +spoke the truth. "Does anyone recognize him?" + +All crowded about the Unknown, trying to read the riddle of his +identity. Miss Cornelia rapidly revised her first impressions of the +stranger. When he had first fallen through the doorway into +Beresford's arms she had not known what to think. Now, in the brighter +light of the living-room she saw that the still face, beneath its mask +of dirt and dried blood, was strong and fairly youthful; if the man +were a criminal, he belonged, like the Bat, to the upper fringes of the +world of crime. She noted mechanically that his hands and feet had +been tied, ends of frayed rope still dangled from his wrists and +ankles. And that terrible injury on his head! She shuddered and +closed her eyes. + +"Does anyone recognize him?" repeated the Doctor but one by one the +others shook their heads. Crook, casual tramp, or honest laborer +unexpectedly caught in the sinister toils of the Cedarcrest affair--his +identity seemed a mystery to one and all. + +"Is he badly hurt?" asked Miss Cornelia, shuddering again. + +"It's hard to say," answered the Doctor. "I think not." The Unknown +stirred feebly--made an effort to sit up. Beresford and the Doctor +caught him under the arms and helped him to his feet. He stood there +swaying, a blank expression on his face. + +"A chair!" said the Doctor quickly. "Ah--" He helped the strange +figure to sit down and bent over him again. + +"You're all right now, my friend," he said in his best tones of +professional cheeriness. "Dizzy a bit, aren't you?" + +The Unknown rubbed his wrists where his bonds had cut them. He made an +effort to speak. + +"Water!" he said in a low voice. + +The Doctor gestured to Billy. "Get some water--or whisky--if there is +any--that'd be better." + +"There's a flask of whisky in my room, Billy," added Miss Cornelia +helpfully. + +"Now, my man," continued the Doctor to the Unknown. "You're in the +hands of friends. Brace up and tell us what happened!" + +Beresford had been looking about for the detective, puzzled not to find +him, as usual, in charge of affairs. Now, "Where's Anderson? This is a +police matter!" he said, making a movement as if to go in search of him. + +The Doctor stopped him quickly. + +"He was here a minute ago--he'll be back presently," he said, praying +to whatever gods he served that Anderson, bound and gagged in the +billiard room, had not yet returned to consciousness. + +Unobserved by all except Miss Cornelia, the mention of the detective's +name had caused a strange reaction in the Unknown. His eyes had +opened--he had started--the haze in his mind had seemed to clear away +for a moment. Then, for some reason, his shoulders had slumped again +and the look of apathy come back to his face. But, stunned or not, it +now seemed possible that he was not quite as dazed as he appeared. + +The Doctor gave the slumped shoulders a little shake. + +"Rouse yourself, man!" he said. "What has happened to you?" + +"I'm dazed!" said the Unknown thickly and slowly. "I can't remember." +He passed a hand weakly over his forehead. + +"What a night!" sighed Miss Cornelia, sinking into a chair. "Richard +Fleming murdered in this house--and now--this!" + +The Unknown shot her a stealthy glance from beneath lowered eyelids. +But when she looked at him, his face was blank again. + +"Why doesn't somebody ask his name?" queried Dale, and, "Where the +devil is that detective?" muttered Beresford, almost in the same +instant. + +Neither question was answered, and Beresford, increasingly uneasy at +the continued absence of Anderson, turned toward the hall. + +The Doctor took Dale's suggestion. + +"What's your name?" + +Silence from the Unknown--and that blank stare of stupefaction. + +"Look at his papers." It was Miss Cornelia's voice. The Doctor and +Bailey searched the torn trouser pockets, the pockets of the muddied +shirt, while the Unknown submitted passively, not seeming to care what +happened to him. But search him as they would--it was in vain. + +"Not a paper on him," said Jack Bailey at last, straightening up. + +A crash of breaking glass from the head of the alcove stairs put a +period to his sentence. All turned toward the stairs--or all except +the Unknown, who, for a moment, half-rose in his chair, his eyes +gleaming, his face alert, the mask of bewildered apathy gone from his +face. + +As they watched, a rigid little figure of horror backed slowly down the +alcove stairs and into the room--Billy, the Japanese, his Oriental +placidity disturbed at last, incomprehensible terror written in every +line of his face. + +"Billy!" + +"Billy--what is it?" + +The diminutive butler made a pitiful attempt at his usual grin. + +"It--nothing," he gasped. The Unknown relapsed in his chair--again the +dazed stranger from nowhere. + +Beresford took the Japanese by the shoulders. + +"Now see here!" he said sharply. "You've seen something! What was it!" + +Billy trembled like a leaf. + +"Ghost! Ghost!" he muttered frantically, his face working. + +"He's concealing something. Look at him!" Miss Cornelia stared at her +servant. + +"No, no!" insisted Billy in an ague of fright. "No, no!" + +But Miss Cornelia was sure of it. + +"Brooks, close that door!" she said, pointing at the terrace door in +the alcove which still stood ajar after the entrance of the Unknown. + +Bailey moved to obey. But just as he reached the alcove the terrace +door slammed shut in his face. At the same moment every light in +Cedarcrest blinked and went out again. + +Bailey fumbled for the doorknob in the sudden darkness. + +"The door's locked!" he said incredulously. "The key's gone too. +Where's your revolver, Beresford?" + +"I dropped it in the alcove when I caught that man," called Beresford, +cursing himself for his carelessness. + +The illuminated dial of Bailey's wrist watch flickered in the darkness +as he searched for the revolver--as round, glowing spot of +phosphorescence. + +Lizzie screamed. "The eye! The gleaming eye I saw on the stairs!" she +shrieked, pointing at it frenziedly. + +"Quick--there's a candle on the table--light it somebody. Never mind +the revolver, I have one!" called Miss Cornelia. + +"Righto!" called Beresford cheerily in reply. He found the candle, lit +it-- + +The party blinked at each other for a moment, still unable quite to +co-ordinate their thoughts. + +Bailey rattled the knob of the door into the hall. + +"This door's locked, too!" he said with increasing puzzlement. A gasp +went over the group. They were locked in the room while some devilment +was going on in the rest of the house. That they knew. But what it +might be, what form it might take, they had not the remotest idea. +They were too distracted to notice the injured man, now alert in his +chair, or the Doctor's odd attitude of listening, above the rattle and +banging of the storm. + +But it was not until Miss Cornelia took the candle and proceeded toward +the hall door to examine it that the full horror of the situation burst +upon them. + +Neatly fastened to the white panel of the door, chest high and hardly +more than just dead, was the body of a bat. + +Of what happened thereafter no one afterward remembered the details. To +be shut in there at the mercy of one who knew no mercy was intolerable. +It was left for Miss Cornelia to remember her own revolver, lying +unnoticed on the table since the crime earlier in the evening, and to +suggest its use in shattering the lock. Just what they had expected +when the door was finally opened they did not know. But the house was +quiet and in order; no new horror faced them in the hall; their candle +revealed no bloody figure, their ears heard no unearthly sound. + +Slowly they began to breathe normally once more. After that they began +to search the house. Since no room was apparently immune from danger, +the men made no protest when the women insisted on accompanying them. +And as time went on and chamber after chamber was discovered empty and +undisturbed, gradually the courage of the party began to rise. Lizzie, +still whimpering, stuck closely to Miss Cornelia's heels, but that +spirited lady began to make small side excursions of her own. + +Of the men, only Bailey, Beresford, and the Doctor could really be said +to search at all. Billy had remained below, impassive of face but +rolling of eye; the Unknown, after an attempt to depart with them, had +sunk back weakly into his chair again, and the detective, Anderson, was +still unaccountably missing. + +While no one could be said to be grieving over this, still the belief +that somehow, somewhere, he had met the Bat and suffered at his hands +was strong in all of them except the Doctor. As each door was opened +they expected to find him, probably foully murdered; as each door was +closed again they breathed with relief. + +And as time went on and the silence and peace remained unbroken, the +conviction grew on them that the Bat had in this manner achieved his +object and departed; had done his work, signed it after his usual +fashion, and gone. + +And thus were matters when Miss Cornelia, happening on the attic +staircase with Lizzie at her heels, decided to look about her up there. +And went up. + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + +THE HIDDEN ROOM + +A few moments later Jack Bailey, seeing a thin glow of candlelight from +the attic above and hearing Lizzie's protesting voice, made his way up +there. He found them in the trunk room, a dusty, dingy apartment lined +with high closets along the walls--the floor littered with an +incongruous assortment of attic objects--two battered trunks, a clothes +hamper, an old sewing machine, a broken-backed kitchen chair, two +dilapidated suitcases and a shabby satchel that might once have been a +woman's dressing case--in one corner a grimy fireplace in which, +obviously, no fire had been lighted for years. + +But he also found Miss Cornelia holding her candle to the floor and +staring at something there. + +"Candle grease!" she said sharply, staring at a line of white spots by +the window. She stooped and touched the spots with an exploratory +finger. + +"Fresh candle grease! Now who do you suppose did that? Do you +remember how Mr. Gillette, in Sherlock Holmes, when he--" + +Her voice trailed off. She stooped and followed the trail of the +candle grease away from the window, ingeniously trying to copy the +shrewd, piercing gaze of Mr. Gillette as she remembered him in his most +famous role. + +"It leads straight to the fireplace!" she murmured in tones of +Sherlockian gravity. Bailey repressed an involuntary smile. But her +next words gave him genuine food for thought. + +She stared at the mantel of the fireplace accusingly. "It's been going +through my mind for the last few minutes that no chimney flue runs up +this side of the house!" she said. + +Bailey stared. "Then why the fireplace?" + +"That's what I'm going to find out!" said the spinster grimly. She +started to rap the mantel, testing it for secret springs. + +"Jack! Jack!" It was Dale's voice, low and cautious, coming from the +landing of the stairs. + +Bailey stepped to the door of the trunk room. + +"Come in," he called in reply. "And shut the door behind you." + +Dale entered, turning the key in the lock behind her. + +"Where are the others?" + +"They're still searching the house. There's no sign of anybody." + +"They haven't found--Mr. Anderson?" + +Dale shook her head. "Not yet." + +She turned toward her aunt. Miss Cornelia had begun to enjoy herself +once more. + +Rapping on the mantelpiece, poking and pressing various corners and +sections of the mantel itself, she remembered all the detective stories +she had ever read and thought, with a sniff of scorn, that she could +better them. There were always sliding panels and hidden drawers in +detective stories and the detective discovered them by rapping just as +she was doing, and listening for a hollow sound in answer. She rapped +on the wall above the mantel--exactly--there was the hollow echo she +wanted. + +"Hollow as Lizzie's head!" she said triumphantly. The fireplace was +obviously not what it seemed, there must be a space behind it +unaccounted for in the building plans. Now what was the next step +detectives always took? Oh, yes--they looked for panels; panels that +moved. And when one shoved them away there was a button or something. +She pushed and pressed and finally something did move. It was the +mantelpiece itself, false grate and all, which began to swing out into +the room, revealing behind a dark, hollow cubbyhole, some six feet by +six--the Hidden Room at last! + +"Oh, Jack, be careful!" breathed Dale as her lover took Miss Cornelia's +candle and moved toward the dark hiding-place. But her eyes had +already caught the outlines of a tall iron safe in the gloom and in +spite of her fears, her lips formed a wordless cry of victory. + +But Jack Bailey said nothing at all. One glance had shown him that the +safe was empty. + +The tragic collapse of all their hopes was almost more than they could +bear. Coming on top of the nerve-racking events of the night, it left +them dazed and directionless. It was, of course, Miss Cornelia who +recovered first. + +"Even without the money," she said; "the mere presence of this safe +here, hidden away, tells the story. The fact that someone else knew +and got here first cannot alter that." + +But she could not cheer them. It was Lizzie who created a diversion. +Lizzie who had bolted into the hall at the first motion of the +mantelpiece outward and who now, with equal precipitation, came bolting +back. She rushed into the room, slamming the door behind her, and +collapsed into a heap of moaning terror at her mistress's feet. At +first she was completely inarticulate, but after a time she muttered +that she had seen "him" and then fell to groaning again. + +The same thought was in all their minds, that in some corner of the +upper floor she had come across the body of Anderson. But when Miss +Cornelia finally quieted her and asked this, she shook her head. + +"It was the Bat I saw," was her astounding statement. "He dropped +through the skylight out there and ran along the hall. I saw him I +tell you. He went right by me!" + +"Nonsense," said Miss Cornelia briskly. "How can you say such a thing?" + +But Bailey pushed forward and took Lizzie by the shoulder. + +"What did he look like?" + +"He hadn't any face. He was all black where his face ought to be." + +"Do you mean he wore a mask?" + +"Maybe. I don't know." + +She collapsed again but when Bailey, followed by Miss Cornelia, made a +move toward the door she broke into frantic wailing. + +"Don't go out there!" she shrieked. "He's there I tell you. I'm not +crazy. If you open that door, he'll shoot." + +But the door was already open and no shot came. With the departure of +Bailey and Miss Cornelia, and the resulting darkness due to their +taking the candle, Lizzie and Dale were left alone. The girl was faint +with disappointment and strain; she sat huddled on a trunk, saying +nothing, and after a moment or so Lizzie roused to her condition. + +"Not feeling sick, are you?" she asked. + +"I feel a little queer." + +"Who wouldn't in the dark here with that monster loose somewhere near +by?" But she stirred herself and got up. "I'd better get the smelling +salts," she said heavily. "God knows I hate to move, but if there's +one place safer in this house than another, I've yet to find it." + +She went out, leaving Dale alone. The trunk room was dark, save that +now and then as the candle appeared and reappeared the doorway was +faintly outlined. On this outline she kept her eyes fixed, by way of +comfort, and thus passed the next few moments. She felt weak and dizzy +and entirely despairing. + +Then--the outline was not so clear. She had heard nothing but there +was something in the doorway. It stood there, formless, diabolical, +and then she saw what was happening. It was closing the door. +Afterward she was mercifully not to remember what came next; the figure +was perhaps intent on what was going on outside, or her own movements +may have been as silent as its own. That she got into the mantel-room +and even partially closed it behind her is certain, and that her +description of what followed is fairly accurate is borne out by the +facts as known. + +The Bat was working rapidly. She heard his quick, nervous movements; +apparently he had come back for something and secured it, for now he +moved again toward the door. But he was too late; they were returning +that way. She heard him mutter something and quickly turn the key in +the lock. Then he seemed to run toward the window, and for some reason +to recoil from it. + +The next instant she realized that he was coming toward the +mantel-room, that he intended to hide in it. There was no doubt in her +mind as to his identity. It was the Bat, and in a moment more he would +be shut in there with her. + +She tried to scream and could not, and the next instant, when the Bat +leaped into concealment beside her, she was in a dead faint on the +floor. + +Bailey meanwhile had crawled out on the roof and was carefully +searching it. But other things were happening also. A disinterested +observer could have seen very soon why the Bat had abandoned the window +as a means of egress. + +Almost before the mantel had swung to behind the archcriminal, the top +of a tall pruning ladder had appeared at the window and by its +quivering showed that someone was climbing up, rung by rung. +Unsuspiciously enough he came on, pausing at the top to flash a light +into the room, and then cautiously swinging a leg over the sill. It +was the Doctor. He gave a low whistle but there was no reply, save +that, had he seen it, the mantel swung out an inch or two. Perhaps he +was never so near death as at that moment but that instant of +irresolution on his part saved him, for by coming into the room he had +taken himself out of range. + +Even then he was very close to destruction, for after a brief pause and +a second rather puzzled survey of the room, he started toward the +mantel itself. Only the rattle of the doorknob stopped him, and a call +from outside. + +"Dale!" called Bailey's voice from the corridor. "Dale!" + +"Dale! Dale! The door's locked!" cried Miss Cornelia. + +The Doctor hesitated. The call came again. "Dale! Dale!" and Bailey +pounded on the door as if he meant to break it down. + +The Doctor made up his mind. + +"Wait a moment!" he called. He stepped to the door and unlocked it. +Bailey hurled himself into the room, followed by Miss Cornelia with her +candle. Lizzie stood in the doorway, timidly, ready to leap for safety +at a moment's notice. + +"Why did you lock that door?" said Bailey angrily, threatening the +Doctor. + +"But I didn't," said the latter, truthfully enough. Bailey made a +movement of irritation. Then a glance about the room informed him of +the amazing, the incredible fact. Dale was not there! She had +disappeared! + +"You--you," he stammered at the Doctor. "Where's Miss Ogden? What +have you done with her?" + +The Doctor was equally baffled. + +"Done with her?" he said indignantly. "I don't know what you're +talking about, I haven't seen her!" + +"Then you didn't lock that door?" Bailey menaced him. + +The Doctor's denial was firm. + +"Absolutely not. I was coming through the window when I heard your +voice at the door!" + +Bailey's eyes leaped to the window--yes--a ladder was there--the Doctor +might be speaking the truth after all. But if so, how and why had Dale +disappeared? + +The Doctor's admission of his manner of entrance did not make Lizzie +any the happier. + +"In at the window--just like a bat!" she muttered in shaking tones. +She would not have stayed in the doorway if she had not been afraid to +move anywhere else. + +"I saw lights up here from outside," continued the Doctor easily. "And +I thought--" + +Miss Cornelia interrupted him. She had set down her candle and laid +the revolver on the top of the clothes hamper and now stood gazing at +the mantel-fireplace. + +"The mantel's--closed!" she said. + +The Doctor stared. So the secret of the Hidden Room was a secret no +longer. He saw ruin gaping before him--a bottomless abyss. +"Damnation!" he cursed impotently under his breath. + +Bailey turned on him savagely. + +"Did you shut that mantel?" + +"No!" + +"I'll see whether you shut it or not!" Bailey leaped toward the +fireplace. "Dale! Dale!" he called desperately, leaning against the +mantel. His fingers groped for the knob that worked the mechanism of +the hidden entrance. + +The Doctor picked up the single lighted candle from the hamper, as if +to throw more light on Bailey's task. Bailey's fingers found the knob. +He turned it. The mantel began to swing out into the room. + +As it did so the Doctor deliberately snuffed out the light of the +candle he held, leaving the room in abrupt and obliterating darkness. + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + +ANDERSON MAKES AN ARREST + +"Doctor, why did you put out that candle?" Miss Cornelia's voice cut +the blackness like a knife. + +"I didn't--I--" + +"You did--I saw you do it." + +The brief exchange of accusation and denial took but an instant of +time, as the mantel swung wide open. The next instant there was a rush +of feet across the floor, from the fireplace--the shock of a collision +between two bodies--the sound of a heavy fall. + +"What was that?" queried Bailey dazedly, with a feeling as if some +great winged creature had brushed at him and passed. + +Lizzie answered from the doorway. + +"Oh, oh!" she groaned in stricken accents. "Somebody knocked me down +and tramped on me!" + +"Matches, quick!" commanded Miss Cornelia. "Where's the candle?" + +The Doctor was still trying to explain his curious action of a moment +before. + +"Awfully sorry, I assure you--it dropped out of the holder--ah, here it +is!" + +He held it up triumphantly. Bailey struck a match and lighted it. The +wavering little flame showed Lizzie prostrate but vocal, in the +doorway--and Dale lying on the floor of the Hidden Room, her eyes shut, +and her face as drained of color as the face of a marble statue. For +one horrible instant Bailey thought she must be dead. + +He rushed to her wildly and picked her up in his arms. No--still +breathing--thank God! He carried her tenderly to the only chair in the +room. + +"Doctor!" + +The Doctor, once more the physician, knelt at her side and felt for her +pulse. And Lizzie, picking herself up from where the collision with +some violent body had thrown her, retrieved the smelling salts from the +floor. It was onto this picture, the candlelight shining on strained +faces, the dramatic figure of Dale, now semi-conscious, the desperate +rage of Bailey, that a new actor appeared on the scene. + +Anderson, the detective, stood in the doorway, holding a candle--as +grim and menacing a figure as a man just arisen from the dead. + +"That's right!" said Lizzie, unappalled for once. "Come in when +everything's over!" + +The Doctor glanced up and met the detective's eyes, cold and menacing. + +"You took my revolver from me downstairs," he said. "I'll trouble you +for it." + +The Doctor got heavily to his feet. The others, their suspicions +confirmed at last, looked at him with startled eyes. The detective +seemed to enjoy the universal confusion his words had brought. + +Slowly, with sullen reluctance, the Doctor yielded up the stolen +weapon. The detective examined it casually and replaced it in his hip +pocket. + +"I've something to settle with you pretty soon," he said through +clenched teeth, addressing the Doctor. "And I'll settle it properly. +Now--what's this?" + +He indicated Dale--her face still and waxen--her breath coming so +faintly she seemed hardly to breathe at all as Miss Cornelia and Bailey +tried to revive her. + +"She's coming to--" said Miss Cornelia triumphantly, as a first faint +flush of color reappeared in the girl's cheeks. "We found her shut in +there, Mr. Anderson," the spinster added, pointing toward the gaping +entrance of the Hidden Room. + +A gleam crossed the detective's face. He went up to examine the secret +chamber. As he did so, Doctor Wells, who had been inching +surreptitiously toward the door, sought the opportunity of slipping out +unobserved. + +But Anderson was not to be caught napping again. "Wells!" he barked. +The Doctor stopped and turned. + +"Where were you when she was locked in this room?" + +The Doctor's eyes sought the floor--the walls--wildly--for any possible +loophole of escape. + +"I didn't shut her in if that's what you mean!" he said defiantly. +"There was someone shut in there with her!" He gestured at the Hidden +Room. "Ask these people here." + +Miss Cornelia caught him up at once. + +"The fact remains, Doctor," she said, her voice cold with anger, "that +we left her here alone. When we came back you were here. The corridor +door was locked, and she was in that room--unconscious!" + +She moved forward to throw the light of her candle on the Hidden Room +as the detective passed into it, gave it a swift professional glance, +and stepped out again. But she had not finished her story by any means. + +"As we opened that door," she continued to the detective, tapping the +false mantel, "the Doctor deliberately extinguished our only candle!" + +"Do you know who was in that room?" queried the detective fiercely, +wheeling on the Doctor. + +But the latter had evidently made up his mind to cling stubbornly to a +policy of complete denial. + +"No," he said sullenly. "I didn't put out the candle. It fell. And I +didn't lock that door into the hall. I found it locked!" + +A sigh of relief from Bailey now centered everyone's attention on +himself and Dale. At last the girl was recovering from the shock of +her terrible experience and regaining consciousness. Her eyelids +fluttered, closed again, opened once more. She tried to sit up, +weakly, clinging to Bailey's shoulder. The color returned to her +cheeks, the stupor left her eyes. + +She gave the Hidden Room a hunted little glance and then shuddered +violently. + +"Please close that awful door," she said in a tremulous voice. "I +don't want to see it again." + +The detective went silently to close the iron doors. "What happened to +you? Can't you remember?" faltered Bailey, on his knees at her side. + +The shadow of an old terror lay on the girl's face, "I was in here +alone in the dark," she began slowly--"Then, as I looked at the doorway +there, I saw there was somebody there. He came in and closed the door. +I didn't know what to do, so I slipped in--there, and after a while I +knew he was coming in too, for he couldn't get out. Then I must have +fainted." + +"There was nothing about the figure that you recognized?" + +"No. Nothing." + +"But we know it was the Bat," put in Miss Cornelia. The detective +laughed sardonically. The old duel of opposing theories between the +two seemed about to recommence. + +"Still harping on the Bat!" he said, with a little sneer, Miss Cornelia +stuck to her guns. + +"I have every reason to believe that the Bat is in this house," she +said. + +The detective gave another jarring, mirthless laugh. "And that he took +the Union Bank money out of the safe, I suppose?" he jeered. "No, Miss +Van Gorder." + +He wheeled on the Doctor now. + +"Ask the Doctor who took the Union Bank money out of that safe!" he +thundered. "Ask the Doctor who attacked me downstairs in the +living-room, knocked me senseless, and locked me in the billiard room!" + +There was an astounded silence. The detective added a parting shot to +his indictment of the Doctor. + +"The next time you put handcuffs on a man be sure to take the key out +of his vest pocket," he said, biting off the words. + +Rage and consternation mingled on the Doctor's countenance--on the +faces of the others astonishment was followed by a growing certainty. +Only Miss Cornelia clung stubbornly to her original theory. + +"Perhaps I'm an obstinate old woman," she said in tones which obviously +showed that if so she was rather proud of it, "but the Doctor and all +the rest of us were locked in the living-room not ten minutes ago!" + +"By the Bat, I suppose!" mocked Anderson. + +"By the Bat!" insisted Miss Cornelia inflexibly. "Who else would have +fastened a dead bat to the door downstairs? Who else would have the +bravado to do that? Or what you call the imagination?" + +In spite of himself Anderson seemed to be impressed. + +"The Bat, eh?" he muttered, then, changing his tone, "You knew about +this hidden room, Wells?" he shot at the Doctor. + +"Yes." The Doctor bowed his head. + +"And you knew the money was in the room?" + +"Well, I was wrong, wasn't I?" parried the Doctor. "You can look for +yourself. That safe is empty." + +The detective brushed his evasive answer aside. + +"You were up in this room earlier tonight," he said in tones of +apparent certainty. + +"No, I couldn't get up!" the Doctor still insisted, with strange +violence for a man who had already admitted such damning knowledge. + +The detective's face was a study in disbelief. + +"You know where that money is, Wells, and I'm going to find it!" + +This last taunt seemed to goad the Doctor beyond endurance. + +"Good God!" he shouted recklessly. "Do you suppose if I knew where it +is, I'd be here? I've had plenty of chances to get away! No, you can't +pin anything on me, Anderson! It isn't criminal to have known that +room is here." + +He paused, trembling with anger and, curiously enough, with an anger +that seemed at least half sincere. + +"Oh, don't be so damned virtuous!" said the detective brutally. "Maybe +you haven't been upstairs but--unless I miss my guess, you know who +was!" + +The Doctor's face changed a little. + +"What about Richard Fleming?" persisted the detective scornfully. + +The Doctor drew himself up. + +"I never killed him!" he said so impressively that even Bailey's faith +in his guilt was shaken. "I don't even own a revolver!" + +The detective alone maintained his attitude unchanged. + +"You come with me, Wells," he ordered, with a jerk of his thumb toward +the door. "This time I'll do the locking up." + +The Doctor, head bowed, prepared to obey. The detective took up a +candle to light their path. Then he turned to the others for a moment. + +"Better get the young lady to bed," he said with a gruff kindliness of +manner. "I think that I can promise you a quiet night from now on." + +"I'm glad you think so, Mr. Anderson!" Miss Cornelia insisted on the +last word. The detective ignored the satiric twist of her speech, +motioned the Doctor out ahead of him, and followed. The faint glow of +his candle flickered a moment and vanished toward the stairs. + +It was Bailey who broke the silence. + +"I can believe a good bit about Wells," he said, "but not that he stood +on that staircase and killed Dick Fleming." + +Miss Cornelia roused from deep thought. + +"Of course not," she said briskly. "Go down and fix Miss Dale's bed, +Lizzie. And then bring up some wine." + +"Down there, where the Bat is?" Lizzie demanded. + +"The Bat has gone." + +"Don't you believe it. He's just got his hand in!" + +But at last Lizzie went, and, closing the door behind her, Miss +Cornelia proceeded more or less to think, out loud. + +"Suppose," she said, "that the Bat, or whoever it was shut in there +with you, killed Richard Fleming. Say that he is the one Lizzie saw +coming in by the terrace door. Then he knew where the money was for he +went directly up the stairs. But that is two hours ago or more. Why +didn't he get the money, if it was here, and get away?" + +"He may have had trouble with the combination." + +"Perhaps. Anyhow, he was on the small staircase when Dick Fleming +started up, and of course he shot him. That's clear enough. Then he +finally got the safe open, after locking us in below, and my coming up +interrupted him. How on earth did he get out on the roof?" + +Bailey glanced out the window. + +"It would be possible from here. Possible, but not easy." + +"But, if he could do that," she persisted, "he could have got away, +too. There are trellises and porches. Instead of that he came back +here to this room." She stared at the window. "Could a man have done +that with one hand?" + +"Never in the world." + +Saying nothing, but deeply thoughtful, Miss Cornelia made a fresh +progress around the room. + +"I know very little about bank-currency," she said finally. "Could +such a sum as was looted from the Union Bank be carried away in a man's +pocket?" + +Bailey considered the question. + +"Even in bills of large denomination it would make a pretty sizeable +bundle," he said. + +But that Miss Cornelia's deductions were correct, whatever they were, +was in question when Lizzie returned with the elderberry wine. +Apparently Miss Cornelia was to be like the man who repaired the clock: +she still had certain things left over. + +For Lizzie announced that the Unknown was ranging the second floor +hall. From the time they had escaped from the living-room this man had +not been seen or thought of, but that he was a part of the mystery +there could be no doubt. It flashed over Miss Cornelia that, although +he could not possibly have locked them in, in the darkness that +followed he could easily have fastened the bat to the door. For the +first time it occurred to her that the archcriminal might not be +working alone, and that the entrance of the Unknown might have been a +carefully devised ruse to draw them all together and hold them there. + +Nor was Beresford's arrival with the statement that the Unknown was +moving through the house below particularly comforting. + +"He may be dazed, or he may not," he said. "Personally, this is not a +time to trust anybody." + +Beresford knew nothing of what had just occurred, and now seeing Bailey +he favored him with an ugly glance. + +"In the absence of Anderson, Bailey," he added, "I don't propose to +trust you too far. I'm making it my business from now on to see that +you don't try to get away. Get that?" + +But Bailey heard him without particular resentment. + +"All right," he said. "But I'll tell you this. Anderson is here and +has arrested the Doctor. Keep your eye on me, if you think it's your +duty, but don't talk to me as if I were a criminal. You don't know +that yet." + +"The Doctor!" Beresford gasped. + +But Miss Cornelia's keen ears had heard a sound outside and her eyes +were focused on the door. + +"That doorknob is moving," she said in a hushed voice. + +Beresford moved to the door and jerked it violently open. + +The butler, Billy, almost pitched into the room. + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + +THE BAT STILL FLIES + +He stepped back in the doorway, looked out, then turned to them again. + +"I come in, please?" he said pathetically, his hands quivering. "I not +like to stay in dark." + +Miss Cornelia took pity on him. + +"Come in, Billy, of course. What is it? Anything the matter?" + +Billy glanced about nervously. + +"Man with sore head." + +"What about him?" + +"Act very strange." Again Billy's slim hands trembled. + +Beresford broke in. "The man who fell into the room downstairs?" + +Billy nodded. + +"Yes. On second floor, walking around." + +Beresford smiled, a bit smugly. + +"I told you!" he said to Miss Cornelia. "I didn't think he was as +dazed as he pretended to be." + +Miss Cornelia, too, had been pondering the problem of the Unknown. She +reached a swift decision. If he were what he pretended to be--a dazed +wanderer, he could do them no harm. If he were not--a little strategy +properly employed might unravel the whole mystery. + +"Bring him up here, Billy," she said, turning to the butler. + +Billy started to obey. But the darkness of the corridor seemed to +appall him anew the moment he took a step toward it. + +"You give candle, please?" he asked with a pleading expression. "Don't +like dark." + +Miss Cornelia handed him one of the two precious candles. Then his +present terror reminded her of that one other occasion when she had +seen him lose completely his stoic Oriental calm. + +"Billy," she queried, "what did you see when you came running down the +stairs before we were locked in, down below?" + +The candle shook like a reed in Billy's grasp. + +"Nothing!" he gasped with obvious untruth, though it did not seem so +much as if he wished to conceal what he had seen as that he was trying +to convince himself he had seen nothing. + +"Nothing!" said Lizzie scornfully. "It was some nothing that would +make him drop a bottle of whisky!" + +But Billy only backed toward the door, smiling apologetically. + +"Thought I saw ghost," he said, and went out and down the stairs, the +candlelight flickering, growing fainter, and finally disappearing. +Silence and eerie darkness enveloped them all as they waited. And +suddenly out of the blackness came a sound. + +Something was flapping and thumping around the room. + +"That's damned odd." muttered Beresford uneasily. "There is something +moving around the room." + +"It's up near the ceiling!" cried Bailey as the sound began again. + +Lizzie began a slow wail of doom and disaster. + +"Oh--h--h--h--" + +"Good God!" cried Beresford abruptly. "It hit me in the face!" He +slapped his hands together in a vain attempt to capture the flying +intruder. + +Lizzie rose. + +"I'm going!" she announced. "I don't know where, but I'm going!" + +She took a wild step in the direction of the door. Then the flapping +noise was all about her, her nose was bumped by an invisible object and +she gave a horrified shriek. + +"It's in my hair!" she screamed madly. "It's in my hair!" + +The next instant Bailey gave a triumphant cry. + +"I've got it! It's a bat!" + +Lizzie sank to her knees, still moaning, and Bailey carried the cause +of the trouble over to the window and threw it out. + +But the result of the absurd incident was a further destruction of +their morale. Even Beresford, so far calm with the quiet of the +virtuous onlooker, was now pallid in the light of the matches they +successively lighted. And onto this strained situation came at last +Billy and the Unknown. + +The Unknown still wore his air of dazed bewilderment, true or feigned, +but at least he was now able to walk without support. They stared at +him, at his tattered, muddy garments, at the threads of rope still +clinging to his ankles--and wondered. He returned their stares +vacantly. + +"Come in," began Miss Cornelia. "Sit down." He obeyed both commands +docilely enough. + +"Are you better now?" + +"Somewhat." His words still came very slowly. + +"Billy--you can go." + +"I stay, please!" said Billy wistfully, making no movement to leave. +His gesture toward the darkness of the corridor spoke louder than words. + +Bailey watched him, suspicion dawning in his eyes. He could not +account for the butler's inexplicable terror of being left alone. + +"Anderson intimated that the Doctor had an accomplice in this house," +he said, crossing to Billy and taking him by the arm. "Why isn't this +the man?" Billy cringed away. "Please, no," he begged pitifully. + +Bailey turned him around so that he faced the Hidden Room. + +"Did you know that room was there?" he questioned, his doubts still +unquieted. + +Billy shook his head. + +"No." + +"He couldn't have locked us in," said Miss Cornelia. "He was with us." + +Bailey demurred, not to her remark itself, but to its implication of +Billy's entire innocence. + +"He may know who did it. Do you?" + +Billy still shook his head. + +Bailey remained unconvinced. + +"Who did you see at the head of the small staircase?" he queried +imperatively. "Now we're through with nonsense; I want the truth!" + +Billy shivered. + +"See face--that's all," he brought out at last. + +"Whose face?" + +Again it was evident that Billy knew or thought he knew more than he +was willing to tell. + +"Don't know," he said with obvious untruth, looking down at the floor. + +"Never mind, Billy," cut in Miss Cornelia. To her mind questioning +Billy was wasting time. She looked at the Unknown. + +"Solve the mystery of this man and we may get at the facts," she said +in accents of conviction. + +As Bailey turned toward her questioningly, Billy attempted to steal +silently out of the door, apparently preferring any fears that might +lurk in the darkness of the corridor to a further grilling on the +subject of whom or what he had seen on the alcove stairs. But Bailey +caught the movement out of the tail of his eye. + +"You stay here," he commanded. Billy stood frozen. Beresford raised +the candle so that it cast its light full in the Unknown's face. + +"This chap claims to have lost his memory," he said dubiously. "I +suppose a blow on the head might do that, I don't know." + +"I wish somebody would knock me on the head! I'd like to forget a few +things!" moaned Lizzie, but the interruption went unregarded. + +"Don't you even know your name?" queried Miss Cornelia of the Unknown. + +The Unknown shook his head with a slow, laborious gesture. + +"Not--yet." + +"Or where you came from?" + +Once more the battered head made its movement of negation. + +"Do you remember how you got in this house?" The Unknown made an +effort. + +"Yes--I--remember--that--all--right" he said, apparently undergoing an +enormous strain in order to make himself speak at all. He put his hand +to his head. + +"My--head--aches--to--beat--the--band," he continued slowly. + +Miss Cornelia was at a loss. If this were acting, it was at least fine +acting. + +"How did you happen to come to this house?" she persisted, her voice +unconsciously tuning itself to the slow, laborious speech of the +Unknown. + +"Saw--the--lights." + +Bailey broke in with a question. + +"Where were you when you saw the lights?" + +The Unknown wet his lips with his tongue, painfully. + +"I--broke--out--of--the--garage," he said at length. This was +unexpected. A general movement of interest ran over the group. + +"How did you get there?" Beresford took his turn as questioner. + +The Unknown shook his head, so slowly and deliberately that Miss +Cornelia's fingers itched to shake him in spite of his injuries. + +"I--don't--know." + +"Have you been robbed?" queried Bailey with keen suspicion. + +The Unknown mumbled something unintelligible. Then he seemed to get +command of his tongue again. + +"Everything gone--out of--my pockets," he said. + +"Including your watch?" pursued Bailey, remembering the watch that +Beresford had found in the grounds. + +The Unknown would neither affirm nor deny. + +"If--I--had--a--watch--it's gone," he said with maddening deliberation. +"All my--papers--are gone." + +Miss Cornelia pounced upon this last statement like a cat upon a mouse. + +"How do you know you had papers?" she asked sharply. + +For the first time the faintest flicker of a smile seemed to appear for +a moment on the Unknown's features. Then it vanished as abruptly as it +had come. + +"Most men--carry papers--don't they?" he asked, staring blindly in +front of him. "I'm dazed--but--my mind's--all--right. If you--ask +me--I--think--I'm--d-damned funny!" + +He gave the ghost of a chuckle. Bailey and Beresford exchanged glances. + +"Did you ring the house phone?" insisted Miss Cornelia. + +The Unknown nodded. + +"Yes." + +Miss Cornelia and Bailey gave each other a look of wonderment. + +"I--leaned against--the button--in the garage--" he went on. "Then--I +think--maybe I--fainted. That's--not clear." + +His eyelids drooped. He seemed about to faint again. + +Dale rose, and came over to him, with a sympathetic movement of her +hand. + +"You don't remember how you were hurt?" she asked gently. + +The Unknown stared ahead of him, his eyes filming, as if he were trying +to puzzle it out. + +"No," he said at last. "The first thing I remember--I was in the +garage--tied." He moved his lips. "I was--gagged--too--that's--what's +the matter--with my tongue--now--Then--I got myself--free--and--got +out--of a window--" + +Miss Cornelia made a movement to question him further. Beresford +stopped her with his hand uplifted. + +"Just a moment, Miss Van Gorder. Anderson ought to know of this." + +He started for the door without perceiving the flash of keen +intelligence and alertness that had lit the Unknown's countenance for +an instant, as once before, at the mention of the detective's name. +But just as he reached the door the detective entered. + +He halted for a moment, staring at the strange figure of the Unknown. + +"A new element in our mystery, Mr. Anderson," said Miss Cornelia, +remembering that the detective might not have heard of the mysterious +stranger before--as he had been locked in the billiard room when the +latter had made his queer entrance. + +The detective and the Unknown gazed at each other for a moment--the +Unknown with his old expression of vacant stupidity. + +"Quite dazed, poor fellow," Miss Cornelia went on. Beresford added +other words of explanation. + +"He doesn't remember what happened to him. Curious, isn't it?" + +The detective still seemed puzzled. + +"How did he get into the house?" + +"He came through the terrace door some time ago," answered Miss +Cornelia. "Just before we were locked in." + +Her answer seemed to solve the problem to Anderson's satisfaction. + +"Doesn't remember anything, eh?" he said dryly. He crossed over to the +mysterious stranger and put his hand under the Unknown's chin, jerking +his head up roughly. + +"Look up here!" he commanded. + +The Unknown stared at him for an instant with blank, vacuous eyes. Then +his head dropped back upon his breast again. + +"Look up, you--" muttered the detective, jerking his head again. "This +losing your memory stuff doesn't go down with me!" His eyes bored into +the Unknown's. + +"It doesn't--go down--very well--with me--either," said the Unknown +weakly, making no movement of protest against Anderson's rough handling. + +"Did you ever see me before?" demanded the latter. Beresford held the +candle closer so that he might watch the Unknown's face for any +involuntary movement of betrayal. + +But the Unknown made no such movement. He gazed at Anderson, +apparently with the greatest bewilderment, then his eyes cleared, he +seemed to be about to remember who the detective was. + +"You're--the--Doctor--I--saw--downstairs--aren't you?" he said +innocently. The detective set his jaw. He started off on a new tack. + +"Does this belong to you?" he said suddenly, plucking from his pocket +the battered gold watch that Beresford had found and waving it before +the Unknown's blank face. + +The Unknown stared at it a moment, as a child might stare at a new toy, +with no gleam of recognition. Then-- + +"Maybe," he admitted. "I--don't--know." His voice trailed off. He +fell back against Bailey's arm. + +Miss Cornelia gave a little shiver. The third degree in reality was +less pleasant to watch than it had been to read about in the pages of +her favorite detective stories. + +"He's evidently been attacked," she said, turning to Anderson. "He +claims to have recovered consciousness in the garage, where he was tied +hand and foot!" + +"He does, eh?" said the detective heavily. He glared at the Unknown. +"If you'll give me five minutes alone with him, I'll get the truth out +of him!" he promised. + +A look of swift alarm swept over the Unknown's face at the words, +unperceived by any except Miss Cornelia. The others started obediently +to yield to the detective's behest and leave him alone with his +prisoner. Miss Cornelia was the first to move toward the door. On her +way, she turned. + +"Do you believe that money is irrevocably gone?" she asked of Anderson. + +The detective smiled. + +"There's no such word as 'irrevocable' in my vocabulary," he answered. +"But I believe it's out of the house, if that's what you mean." + +Miss Cornelia still hesitated, on the verge of departure. + +"Suppose I tell you that there are certain facts that you have +overlooked?" she said slowly. + +"Still on the trail!" muttered the detective sardonically. He did not +even glance at her. He seemed only anxious that the other members of +the group would get out of his way for once and leave him a clear field +for his work. + +"I was right about the Doctor, wasn't I?" she insisted. + +"Just fifty per cent right," said Anderson crushingly. "And the Doctor +didn't turn that trick alone. Now--" he went on with weary patience, +"if you'll all go out and close that door--" + +Miss Cornelia, defeated, took a candle from Bailey and stepped into the +corridor. Her figure stiffened. She gave an audible gasp of dismayed +surprise. + +"Quick!" she cried, turning back to the others and gesturing toward the +corridor. "A man just went through that skylight and out onto the +roof!" + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN + +MURDER ON MURDER + +"Out on the roof!" + +"Come on, Beresford!" + +"Hustle--you men! He may be armed!" + +"Righto--coming!" + +And following Miss Cornelia's lead, Jack Bailey, Anderson, Beresford, +and Billy dashed out into the corridor, leaving Dale and the frightened +Lizzie alone with the Unknown. + +"And I'd run if my legs would!" Lizzie despaired. + +"Hush!" said Dale, her ears strained for sounds of conflict. Lizzie, +creeping closer to her for comfort, stumbled over one of the Unknown's +feet and promptly set up a new wail. + +"How do we know this fellow right here isn't the Bat?" she asked in a +blood-chilling whisper, nearly stabbing the unfortunate Unknown in the +eye with her thumb as she pointed at him. The Unknown was either too +dazed or too crafty to make any answer. His silence confirmed Lizzie's +worst suspicions. She fairly hugged the floor and began to pray in a +whisper. + +Miss Cornelia re-entered cautiously with her candle, closing the door +gently behind her as she came. + +"What did you see?" gasped Dale. + +Miss Cornelia smiled broadly. + +"I didn't see anything," she admitted with the greatest calm. "I had +to get that dratted detective out of the room before I assassinated +him." + +"Nobody went through the skylight?" said Dale incredulously. + +"They have now," answered Miss Cornelia with obvious satisfaction. "The +whole outfit of them." + +She stole a glance at the veiled eyes of the Unknown. He was lying +limply back in his chair, as if the excitement had been too much for +him--and yet she could have sworn she had seen him leap to his feet, +like a man in full possession of his faculties, when she had given her +false cry of alarm. + +"Then why did you--" began Dale dazedly, unable to fathom her aunt's +reasons for her trick. + +"Because," interrupted Miss Cornelia decidedly, "that money's in this +room. If the man who took it out of the safe got away with it, why did +he come back and hide there?" + +Her forefinger jabbed at the hidden chamber wherein the masked intruder +had terrified Dale with threats of instant death. + +"He got it out of the safe--and that's as far as he did get with it," +she persisted inexorably. "There's a HAT behind that safe, a man's +felt hat!" + +So this was the discovery she had hinted of to Anderson before he +rebuffed her proffer of assistance! + +"Oh, I wish he'd take his hat and go home!" groaned Lizzie inattentive +to all but her own fears. + +Miss Cornelia did not even bother to rebuke her. She crossed behind +the wicker clothes hamper and picked up something from the floor. + +"A half-burned candle," she mused. "Another thing the detective +overlooked." + +She stepped back to the center of the room, looking knowingly from the +candle to the Hidden Room and back again. + +"Oh, my God--another one!" shrieked Lizzie as the dark shape of a man +appeared suddenly outside the window, as if materialized from the air. + +Miss Cornelia snatched up her revolver from the top of the hamper. + +"Don't shoot--it's Jack!" came a warning cry from Dale as she +recognized the figure of her lover. + +Miss Cornelia laid her revolver down on the hamper again. The vacant +eyes of the Unknown caught the movement. + +Bailey swung in through the window, panting a little from his exertions. + +"The man Lizzie saw drop from the skylight undoubtedly got to the roof +from this window," he said. "It's quite easy." + +"But not with one hand," said Miss Cornelia, with her gaze now directed +at the row of tall closets around the walls of the room. "When that +detective comes back I may have a surprise party for him," she +muttered, with a gleam of hope in her eye. + +Dale explained the situation to Jack. + +"Aunt Cornelia thinks the money's still here." + +Miss Cornelia snorted. + +"I know it's here." She started to open the closets, one after the +other, beginning at the left. Bailey saw what she was doing and began +to help her. + +Not so Lizzie. She sat on the floor in a heap, her eyes riveted on the +Unknown, who in his turn was gazing at Miss Cornelia's revolver on the +hamper with the intent stare of a baby or an idiot fascinated by a +glittering piece of glass. + +Dale noticed the curious tableau. + +"Lizzie--what are you looking at?" she said with a nervous shake in her +voice. + +"What's he looking at?" asked Lizzie sepulchrally, pointing at the +Unknown. Her pointed forefinger drew his eyes away from the revolver; +he sank back into his former apathy, listless, drooping. + +Miss Cornelia rattled the knob of a high closet by the other wall. + +"This one is locked--and the key's gone," she announced. A new flicker +of interest grew in the eyes of the Unknown. Lizzie glanced away from +him, terrified. + +"If there's anything locked up in that closet," she whimpered, "you'd +better let it stay! There's enough running loose in this house as it +is!" + +Unfortunately for her, her whimper drew Miss Cornelia's attention upon +her. + +"Lizzie, did you ever take that key?" the latter queried sternly. + +"No'm," said Lizzie, too scared to dissimulate if she had wished. She +wagged her head violently a dozen times, like a china figure on a +mantelpiece. + +Miss Cornelia pondered. + +"It may be locked from the inside; I'll soon find out." She took a +wire hairpin from her hair and pushed it through the keyhole. But there +was no key on the other side; the hairpin went through without +obstruction. Repeated efforts to jerk the door open failed. And +finally Miss Cornelia bethought herself of a key from the other closet +doors. + +Dale and Lizzie on one side--Bailey on the other--collected the keys of +the other closets from their locks while Miss Cornelia stared at the +one whose doors were closed as if she would force its secret from it +with her eyes. The Unknown had been so quiet during the last few +minutes, that, unconsciously, the others had ceased to pay much +attention to him, except the casual attention one devotes to a piece of +furniture. Even Lizzie's eyes were now fixed on the locked closet. +And the Unknown himself was the first to notice this. + +At once his expression altered to one of cunning--cautiously, with +infinite patience, he began to inch his chair over toward the wicker +clothes hamper. The noise of the others, moving about the room, +drowned out what little he made in moving his chair. + +At last he was within reach of the revolver. His hand shot out in one +swift sinuous thrust--clutched the weapon--withdrew. He then concealed +the revolver among his tattered garments as best he could and, +cautiously as before, inched his chair back again to its original +position. When the others noticed him again, the mask of lifelessness +was back on his face and one could have sworn he had not changed his +position by the breadth of an inch. + +"There--that unlocked it!" cried Miss Cornelia triumphantly at last, as +the key to one of the other closet doors slid smoothly into the lock +and she heard the click that meant victory. + +She was about to throw open the closet door. But Bailey motioned her +back. + +"I'd keep back a little," he cautioned. "You don't know what may be +inside." + +"Mercy sakes, who wants to know?" shivered Lizzie. Dale and Miss +Cornelia, too, stepped aside involuntarily as Bailey took the candle +and prepared, with a good deal of caution, to open the closet door. + +The door swung open at last. He could look in. He did so--and stared +appalled at what he saw, while goose flesh crawled on his spine and the +hairs of his head stood up. + +After a moment he closed the door of the closet and turned back, +white-faced, to the others. + +"What is it?" said Dale aghast. "What did you see?" + +Bailey found himself unable to answer for a moment. Then he pulled +himself together. He turned to Miss Van Gorder. + +"Miss Cornelia, I think we have found the ghost the Jap butler saw," he +said slowly. "How are your nerves?" + +Miss Cornelia extended a hand that did not tremble. + +"Give me the candle." + +He did so. She went to the closet and opened the door. + +Whatever faults Miss Cornelia may have had, lack of courage was not one +of them--or the ability to withstand a stunning mental shock. Had it +been otherwise she might well have crumpled to the floor, as if struck +down by an invisible hammer, the moment the closet door swung open +before her. + +Huddled on the floor of the closet was the body of a man. So crudely +had he been crammed into this hiding-place that he lay twisted and +bent. And as if to add to the horror of the moment one arm, released +from its confinement, now slipped and slid out into the floor of the +room. + +Miss Cornelia's voice sounded strange to her own ears when finally she +spoke. + +"But who is it?" + +"It is--or was--Courtleigh Fleming," said Bailey dully. + +"But how can it be? Mr. Fleming died two weeks ago. I--" + +"He died in this house sometime tonight. The body is still warm." + +"But who killed him? The Bat?" + +"Isn't it likely that the Doctor did it? The man who has been his +accomplice all along? Who probably bought a cadaver out West and +buried it with honors here not long ago?" + +He spoke without bitterness. Whatever resentment he might have felt +died in that awful presence. + +"He got into the house early tonight," he said, "probably with the +Doctor's connivance. That wrist watch there is probably the luminous +eye Lizzie thought she saw." + +But Miss Cornelia's face was still thoughtful, and he went on: + +"Isn't it clear, Miss Van Gorder?" he queried, with a smile. "The +Doctor and old Mr. Fleming formed a conspiracy--both needed money--lots +of it. Fleming was to rob the bank and hide the money here. Wells's +part was to issue a false death certificate in the West, and bury a +substitute body, secured God knows how. It was easy; it kept the name +of the president of the Union Bank free from suspicion--and it put the +blame on me." + +He paused, thinking it out. + +"Only they slipped up in one place. Dick Fleming leased the house to +you and they couldn't get it back." + +"Then you are sure," said Miss Cornelia quickly, "that tonight +Courtleigh Fleming broke in, with the Doctor's assistance--and that he +killed Dick, his own nephew, from the staircase?" + +"Aren't you?" asked Bailey surprised. The more he thought of it the +less clearly could he visualize it any other way. + +Miss Cornelia shook her head decidedly. + +"No." + +Bailey thought her merely obstinate--unwilling to give up, for pride's +sake, her own pet theory of the activities of the Bat. + +"Wells tried to get out of the house tonight with that blue-print. Why? +Because he knew the moment we got it, we'd come up here--and Fleming +was here." + +"Perfectly true," nodded Miss Cornelia. "And then?" + +"Old Fleming killed Dick and Wells killed Fleming," said Bailey +succinctly. "You can't get away from it!" + +But Miss Cornelia still shook her head. The explanation was too +mechanical. It laid too little emphasis on the characters of those +most concerned. + +"No," she said. "No. The Doctor isn't a murderer. He's as puzzled as +we are about some things. He and Courtleigh Fleming were working +together--but remember this--Doctor Wells was locked in the living-room +with us. He'd been trying to get up the stairs all evening and failed +every time." + +But Bailey was as convinced of the truth of his theory as she of hers. + +"He was here ten minutes ago--locked in this room," he said with a +glance at the ladder up which the doctor had ascended. + +"I'll grant you that," said Miss Cornelia. "But--" She thought back +swiftly. "But at the same time an Unknown Masked Man was locked in +that mantel-room with Dale. The Doctor put out the candle when you +opened that Hidden Room. Why? Because he thought Courtleigh Fleming +was hiding there!" Now the missing pieces of her puzzle were falling +into their places with a vengeance. "But at this moment," she +continued, "the Doctor believes that Fleming has made his escape! +No--we haven't solved the mystery yet. There's another element--an +unknown element," her eyes rested for a moment upon the Unknown, "and +that element is--the Bat!" + +She paused, impressively. The others stared at her--no longer able to +deny the sinister plausibility of her theory. But this new tangling of +the mystery, just when the black threads seemed raveled out at last, +was almost too much for Dale. + +"Oh, call the detective!" she stammered, on the verge of hysterical +tears. "Let's get through with this thing! I can't bear any more!" + +But Miss Cornelia did not even hear her. Her mind, strung now to +concert pitch, had harked back to the point it had reached some time +ago, and which all the recent distractions had momentarily obliterated. + +Had the money been taken out of the house or had it not? In that mad +rush for escape had the man hidden with Dale in the recess back of the +mantel carried his booty with him, or left it behind? It was not in +the Hidden Room, that was certain. + +Yet she was so hopeless by that time that her first search was purely +perfunctory. + +During her progress about the room the Unknown's eyes followed her, but +so still had he sat, so amazing had been the discovery of the body, +that no one any longer observed him. Now and then his head drooped +forward as if actual weakness was almost overpowering him, but his eyes +were keen and observant, and he was no longer taking the trouble to +act--if he had been acting. + +It was when Bailey finally opened the lid of a clothes hamper that they +stumbled on their first clue. + +"Nothing here but some clothes and books," he said, glancing inside. + +"Books?" said Miss Cornelia dubiously. "I left no books in that +hamper." + +Bailey picked up one of the cheap paper novels and read its title +aloud, with a wry smile. + +"'Little Rosebud's Lover, Or The Cruel Revenge,' by Laura Jean--" + +"That's mine!" said Lizzie promptly. "Oh, Miss Neily, I tell you this +house is haunted. I left that book in my satchel along with 'Wedded +But No Wife' and now--" + +"Where's your satchel?" snapped Miss Cornelia, her eyes gleaming. + +"Where's my satchel?" mumbled Lizzie, staring about as best she could. +"I don't see it. If that wretch has stolen my satchel--!" + +"Where did you leave it?" + +"Up here. Right in this room. It was a new satchel too. I'll have +the law on him, that's what I'll do." + +"Isn't that your satchel, Lizzie?" asked Miss Cornelia, indicating a +battered bag in a dark corner of shadows above the window. + +"Yes'm," she admitted. But she did not dare approach very close to the +recovered bag. It might bite her! + +"Put it there on the hamper," ordered Miss Cornelia. + +"I'm scared to touch it!" moaned Lizzie. "It may have a bomb in it!" + +She took up the bag between finger and thumb and, holding it with the +care she would have bestowed upon a bottle of nitroglycerin, carried it +over to the hamper and set it down. Then she backed away from it, +ready to leap for the door at a moment's warning. + +Miss Cornelia started for the satchel. Then she remembered. She +turned to Bailey. + +"You open it," she said graciously. "If the money's there--you're the +one who ought to find it." + +Bailey gave her a look of gratitude. Then, smiling at Dale +encouragingly, he crossed over to the satchel, Dale at his heels. Miss +Cornelia watched him fumble at the catch of the bag--even Lizzie drew +closer. For a moment even the Unknown was forgotten. + +Bailey gave a triumphant cry. + +"The money's here!" + +"Oh, thank God!" sobbed Dale. + +It was an emotional moment. It seemed to have penetrated even through +the haze enveloping the injured man in his chair. Slowly he got up, +like a man who has been waiting for his moment, and now that it had +come was in no hurry about it. With equal deliberation he drew the +revolver and took a step forward. And at that instant a red glare +appeared outside the open window and overhead could be heard the feet +of the searchers, running. + +"Fire!" screamed Lizzie, pointing to the window, even as Beresford's +voice from the roof rang out in a shout. "The garage is burning!" + +They turned toward the door to escape, but a strange and menacing +figure blocked their way. + +It was the Unknown--no longer the bewildered stranger who had stumbled +in through the living-room door--but a man with every faculty of mind +and body alert and the light of a deadly purpose in his eyes. He +covered the group with Miss Cornelia's revolver. + +"This door is locked and the key is in my pocket!" he said in a savage +voice as the red light at the window grew yet more vivid and muffled +cries and tramplings from overhead betokened universal confusion and +alarm. + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY + +"HE IS--THE BAT!" + +Lizzie opened her mouth to scream. But for once she did not carry out +her purpose. + +"Not a sound out of you!" warned the Unknown brutally, almost jabbing +the revolver into her ribs. He wheeled on Bailey. + +"Close that satchel," he commanded, "and put it back where you found +it!" + +Bailey's fist closed. He took a step toward his captor. + +"You--" he began in a furious voice. But the steely glint in the eyes +of the Unknown was enough to give any man pause. + +"Jack!" pleaded Dale. Bailey halted. + +"Do what he tells you!" Miss Cornelia insisted, her voice shaking. + +A brave man may be willing to fight with odds a hundred to one--but +only a fool will rush on certain death. Reluctantly, dejectedly, +Bailey obeyed--stuffed the money back in the satchel and replaced the +latter in its corner of shadows near the window. + +"It's the Bat--it's the Bat!" whispered Lizzie eerily, and, for once +her gloomy prophecies seemed to be in a fair way of justification, for +"Blow out that candle!" commanded the Unknown sternly, and, after a +moment of hesitation on Miss Cornelia's part, the room was again +plunged in darkness except for the red glow at the window. + +This finished Lizzie for the evening. She spoke from a dry throat. + +"I'm going to scream!" she sobbed hysterically. "I can't keep it back!" + +But at last she had encountered someone who had no patience with her +vagaries. + +"Put that woman in the mantel-room and shut her up!" ordered the +Unknown, the muzzle of his revolver emphasizing his words with a savage +little movement. + +Bailey took Lizzie under the arms and started to execute the order. But +the sometime colleen from Kerry did not depart without one Parthian +arrow. + +"Don't shove," she said in tones of the greatest dignity as she +stumbled into the Hidden Room. "I'm damn glad to go!" + +The iron doors shut behind her. Bailey watched the Unknown intently. +One moment of relaxed vigilance and-- + +But though the Unknown was unlocking the door with his left hand the +revolver in his right hand was as steady as a rock. He seemed to +listen for a moment at the crack of the door. + +"Not a sound if you value your lives!" he warned again, he shepherded +them away from the direction of the window with his revolver. + +"In a moment or two," he said in a hushed, taut voice, "a man will come +into this room, either through the door or by that window--the man who +started the fire to draw you out of this house." + +Bailey threw aside all pride in his concern for Dale's safety. + +"For God's sake, don't keep these women here!" he pleaded in low, tense +tones. + +The Unknown seemed to tower above him like a destroying angel. + +"Keep them here where we can watch them!" he whispered with fierce +impatience. "Don't you understand? There's a KILLER loose!" + +And so for a moment they stood there, waiting for they knew not what. +So swift had been the transition from joy to deadly terror, and now to +suspense, that only Miss Cornelia's agile brain seemed able to respond. +And at first it did even that very slowly. + +"I begin to understand," she said in a low tone. "The man who struck +you down and tied you in the garage--the man who killed Dick Fleming +and stabbed that poor wretch in the closet--the man who locked us in +downstairs and removed the money from that safe--the man who started +that fire outside--is--" + +"Sssh!" warned the Unknown imperatively as a sound from the direction +of the window seemed to reach his ears. He ran quickly back to the +corridor door and locked it. + +"Stand back out of that light! The ladder!" + +Miss Cornelia and Dale shrank back against the mantel. Bailey took up +a post beside the window, the Unknown flattening himself against the +wall beside him. There was a breathless pause. + +The top of the extension ladder began to tremble. A black bulk stood +clearly outlined against the diminishing red glow--the Bat, masked and +sinister, on his last foray! + +There was no sound as the killer stepped into the room. He waited for +a second that seemed a year--still no sound. Then he turned cautiously +toward the place where he had left the satchel--the beam of his +flashlight picked it out. + +In an instant the Unknown and Bailey were upon him. There was a short, +ferocious struggle in the darkness--a gasp of laboring lungs--the thud +of fighting bodies clenched in a death grapple. + +"Get his gun!" muttered the Unknown hoarsely to Bailey as he tore the +Bat's lean hands away from his throat. "Got it?" + +"Yes," gasped Bailey. He jabbed the muzzle against a straining back. +The Bat ceased to struggle. Bailey stepped a little away. + +"I've still got you covered!" he said fiercely. The Bat made no sound. + +"Hold out your hands, Bat, while I put on the bracelets," commanded the +Unknown in tones of terse triumph. He snapped the steel cuffs on the +wrists of the murderous prowler. "Sometimes even the cleverest Bat +comes through a window at night and is caught. Double +murder--burglary--and arson! That's a good night's work even for you, +Bat!" + +He switched his flashlight on the Bat's masked face. As he did so the +house lights came on; the electric light company had at last remembered +its duties. All blinked for an instant in the sudden illumination. + +"Take off that handkerchief!" barked the Unknown, motioning at the +black silk handkerchief that still hid the face of the Bat from +recognition. Bailey stripped it from the haggard, desperate features +with a quick movement--and stood appalled. + +A simultaneous gasp went up from Dale and Miss Cornelia. + +It was Anderson, the detective! And he was--the Bat! + +"It's Mr. Anderson!" stuttered Dale, aghast at the discovery. + +The Unknown gloated over his captive. + +"I'm Anderson," he said. "This man has been impersonating me. You're a +good actor, Bat, for a fellow that's such a bad actor!" he taunted. +"How did you get the dope on this case? Did you tap the wires to +headquarters?" + +The Bat allowed himself a little sardonic smile. + +"I'll tell you that when I--" he began, then, suddenly, made his last +bid for freedom. With one swift, desperate movement, in spite of his +handcuffs, he jerked the real Anderson's revolver from him by the +barrel, then wheeling with lightning rapidity on Bailey, brought the +butt of Anderson's revolver down on his wrist. Bailey's revolver fell +to the floor with a clatter. The Bat swung toward the door. Again the +tables were turned! + +"Hands up, everybody!" he ordered, menacing the group with the stolen +pistol. "Hands up--you!" as Miss Cornelia kept her hands at her sides. + +It was the greatest moment of Miss Cornelia's life. She smiled sweetly +and came toward the Bat as if the pistol aimed at her heart were as +innocuous as a toothbrush. + +"Why?" she queried mildly. "I took the bullets out of that revolver +two hours ago." + +The Bat flung the revolver toward her with a curse. The real Anderson +instantly snatched up the gun that Bailey had dropped and covered the +Bat. + +"Don't move!" he warned, "or I'll fill you full of lead!" He smiled +out of the corner of his mouth at Miss Cornelia who was primly picking +up the revolver that the Bat had flung at her--her own revolver. + +"You see--you never know what a woman will do," he continued. + +Miss Cornelia smiled. She broke open the revolver, five loaded shells +fell from it to the floor. The Bat stared at her--then stared +incredulously at the bullets. + +"You see," she said, "I, too, have a little imagination!" + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE + +QUITE A COLLECTION + +An hour or so later in a living-room whose terrors had departed, Miss +Cornelia, her niece, and Jack Bailey were gathered before a roaring +fire. The local police had come and gone; the bodies of Courtleigh +Fleming and his nephew had been removed to the mortuary; Beresford had +returned to his home, though under summons as a material witness; the +Bat, under heavy guard, had gone off under charge of the detective. As +for Doctor Wells, he too was under arrest, and a broken man, though, +considering the fact that Courtleigh Fleming had been throughout the +prime mover in the conspiracy, he might escape with a comparatively +light sentence. In a little while the newspapermen of all the great +journals would be at the door--but for a moment the sorely tried group +at Cedarcrest enjoyed a temporary respite and they made the best of it +while they could. + +The fire burned brightly and the lovers, hand in hand, sat before it. +But Miss Cornelia, birdlike and brisk, sat upright on a chair near by +and relived the greatest triumph of her life while she knitted with +automatic precision. + +"Knit two, purl two," she would say, and then would wander once more +back to the subject in hand. Out behind the flower garden the ruins of +the garage and her beloved car were still smoldering; a cool night wind +came through the broken windowpane where not so long before the bloody +hand of the injured detective had intruded itself. On the door to the +hall, still fastened as the Bat had left it, was the pathetic little +creature with which the Bat had signed a job--for once, before he had +completed it. + +But calmly and dispassionately Miss Cornelia worked out the crossword +puzzle of the evening and announced her results. + +"It is all clear," she said. "Of course the Doctor had the blue-print. +And the Bat tried to get it from him. Then when the Doctor had stunned +him and locked him in the billiard room, the Bat still had the key and +unlocked his own handcuffs. After that he had only to get out of a +window and shut us in here." + +And again: + +"He had probably trailed the real detective all the way from town and +attacked him where Mr. Beresford found the watch." + +Once, too, she harkened back to the anonymous letters-- + +"It must have been a blow to the Doctor and Courtleigh Fleming when +they found me settled in the house!" She smiled grimly. "And when +their letters failed to dislodge me." + +But it was the Bat who held her interest; his daring assumption of the +detective's identity, his searching of the house ostensibly for their +safety but in reality for the treasure, and that one moment of +irresolution when he did not shoot the Doctor at the top of the ladder. +And thereafter lost his chance-- + +It somehow weakened her terrified admiration for him, but she had +nothing but acclaim for the escape he had made from the Hidden Room +itself. + +"That took brains," she said. "Cold, hard brains. To dash out of that +room and down the stairs, pull off his mask and pick up a candle, and +then to come calmly back to the trunk room again and accuse the +Doctor--that took real ability. But I dread to think what would have +happened when he asked us all to go out and leave him alone with the +real Anderson!" + +It was after two o'clock when she finally sent the young people off to +get some needed sleep but she herself was still bright-eyed and +wide-awake. + +When Lizzie came at last to coax and scold her into bed, she was +sitting happily at the table surrounded by divers small articles which +she was handling with an almost childlike zest. A clipping about the +Bat from the evening newspaper; a piece of paper on which was a +well-defined fingerprint; a revolver and a heap of five shells; a small +very dead bat; the anonymous warnings, including the stone in which the +last one had been wrapped; a battered and broken watch, somehow left +behind; a dried and broken dinner roll; and the box of sedative powders +brought by Doctor Wells. + +Lizzie came over to the table and surveyed her grimly. + +"You see, Lizzie, it's quite a collection. I'm going to take them +and--" + +But Lizzie bent over the table and picked up the box of powders. + +"No, ma'am," she said with extreme finality. "You are not. You are +going to take these and go to bed." + +And Miss Cornelia did. + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Bat, by Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAT *** + +***** This file should be named 2019.txt or 2019.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/1/2019/ + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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. 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