The Bat Part 24

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 sc.r.a.p 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 G.o.d!" 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 gla.s.s, 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.