Bats Fly at Dusk

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “You telephoned me?”

  “Not until a couple of hours had elapsed. I didn’t know just what to do. I was completely at a loss.”

  “You haven’t been out of the room?”

  “No, and, what’s more, I haven’t even dared to have then bring me anything to eat. I put a ‘don’t disturb’ sign on the door and sat tight. If, as the radio says, the police are looking for me—well –”

  “Now we’re getting to it,” Bertha said. “Why don’t you want the police to find you?”

  “I don’t mind,” Kosling said, “after I’ve found out exactly what happened; but from what I heard over the radio, that trap was set for me. Boliman simply happened to walk into it. That’s what I must clear up. I want to find out about who could want to kill me.”

  “We’re coming to that,” Bertha said. “It’s a blind man.”

  “How do you know?”

  “From the way the trap was rigged up. Sergeant Sellers has given me everything the police have on it. It’s almost certain that it was a blind man who did it.”

  “I can’t believe it’s possible. I can’t believe that one of my associates would do a thing like that.”

  “How about someone else?”

  “No. My associates knew my house, the people who are in my little club. They’re not all blind. One of them has both legs and an arm off. There’s seven of us who are blind.”

  “That leaves six others besides yourself. Are they familiar with your house?”

  “Yes. They’ve all been there. They’ve all seen Freddie.”

  “Who’s Freddie?”

  “My pet bat.”

  “I see. Had him long?”

  “Quite a while. I leave my door open because of him.”

  “Well, Sellers thinks the trap was baited for you by another blind man. That leaves six suspects. Is that right?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Why did Bollman go to your house?”

  “I can’t understand. He must have left for the house just as soon as he went out of my room here in the hotel.”

  “Exactly,” Bertha said. “That means he’d planned to do it quite a bit earlier.”

  “How much earlier?”

  “I don’t know. Sometime on the trip out here. Sometime after leaving Los Angeles.”

  “why?”

  “There’s only one reason. It was something you said to him, something that made it important for him to get into your house. There are only two things I can think of.”

  “What?”

  “The flowers and the music box.”

  “Oh, I hope nothing’s happened to my music box.”

  “I think it’s all right. Did you tell Bollman about your pet bat?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “This bat lives there in the house all the time?”

  “Yes. He’s very affectionate. When I come in, he always flutters up against my face and snuggles there for a while. I want pets. I like them. I can’t keep a dog or a cat.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they can’t be self-supporting and I can’t wait on them. While I’m away, I’d have to leave them locked up in the house, and then the problem of feeding them, of giving a dog exercise, of letting a cat in and out – No, I have to have a pet that’s self-supporting. There was an old woodshed out in the back of the house, and this bat lived there. I finally got him tame, and now he stays in the house. I leave the door open, and he can fly in and out. It makes no difference whether I’m there or not. He can come and go and live hi, own life—support himself.”

  Bertha switched the subject abruptly. “You told Bollman that I’d located Josephine Dell for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell him you had her address?”

  “I think so.”

  “And you’re certain you told him about getting the bouquet and the music box?”

  “Yes.”

  “That seem to excite him?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell. His voice didn’t show it. I couldn’t see his expressions, you know.”

  “But something excited him. It must have. He went back to your house to get something or to do something, and walked into the trap that had been set for you.”

  “That’s the thing I can’t understand.”

  Bertha looked up and said, “It’s the most exasperating damn situation.”

  “What is?”

  “This whole business. You’ve got some information that I want.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Bertha said, “and the hell of it is, you don’t either. It’s something that doesn’t occur to you as being at all important, something that you must have mentioned in driving out here with Bollman.”

  “But what could it possibly be?”

  “It had something to do with that automobile accident,” Bertha Cool said.

  “I think I’ve told you everything.”

  “That’s it. You think you’ve told me everything you told Bollman. You haven’t. There’s something that’s terribly significant, something that means a lot of money to a lot of people.”

  “Well, what are we going to do? Get in touch with the police and tell them the story?”

  Bertha said grimly, “And have the police spill the whole thing to the papers? Not by a hell of a sight!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m on the trail of something that’s going to give me a fifty per cent. cut of at least five thousand dollars, and if you think I’m going to toss twenty-five hundred bucks out of the window, you’re crazy.”

  “But I don’t see where that has any connection with me.”

  “I know you don’t. That’s the hard part of it. You’re going to have to sit down with °me and talk. Just keep on talking. Try and talk over the things you discussed with Bollman, but, no matter what it is, keep talking.”

  “But I’ve got to eat. I can’t get out of here, and I can’t –”

  “Yes, you can ” Bertha said. “Come on down to my room. I’ve got some woman’s clothes that will fit you. You’re going out with me as my mother. You’ve just had a slight stroke, and you’re walking very slowly, leaning on my arm. You aren’t using a cane.”

  “Think we can do it all right?”

  “We can try.”

  “I would like to have it appear that—well you know the time I was here.”

  “Why?”

  “So that in case—well, in case the police should accuse me of killing Bollman, I could show them that I’d been right here in the hotel all the time.”

  Bertha Cool pursed her lips, gave a low whistle, and then said, “Fry me for an oyster!”

  “What’s the matter?” Kosling asked.

  Bertha said, “You haven’t an alibi that’s worth a damn.”

  “Why not? I couldn’t drive out to Los Angeles, kill Boll-man, and then drive all the way back here by myself.”

  “No, but you could have done all that, then had someone else drive you out here, and cook up this nice-sounding story.”

  “If Bollman didn’t bring me out here, who did?” Kosling demanded.

  Bertha Cool frowned at “That,” she said, “is what I’ve been trying to think of for the last minute. But I know who Sergeant Sellers will say did it—now.”

  “Who?” Kosling asked.

  “Me! And I’ve put my fist on the hotel register downstairs.”

  Chapter XXV

  BERTHA COOL STOOD Kosling up on the chair and said, “Now keep your balance. Here, put up your hand. No, the other hand. Now you can reach the chandelier.—Now, stay perfectly still because I’m going to let go of you.”

  Bertha gently withdrew her hands.

  “It’s all right,” the blind man said. “I’m all right now.” Bertha, surveying the effect, said, “But I can’t have you holding your arm up that way. Wait a minute. I’ll give you something else to hang on to.”

  She moved a high-backed chair over beside him and said, “Her
e, put your hand on this. Let me guide it. There it is. Now, just hold still and let me get this hem.”

  She pulled pins from a folded paper, thrust the heads into her mouth, and went around the skirt, taking up the hem. When she had gone completely around the base of the garment, she stood back to survey the results and said, “I think that’ll be all right. Now, let’s get down.”

  She helped him to the floor, slipped the dress off over his head, and, sitting on the edge of the bed, did a hasty job of basting the hem into place.”

  “Don’t you think that it might be advisable for me to get in touch with the police?” Kosling asked. “I didn’t know what to do when I first heard that announcement over the radio, but the more I think of it, the more I feel—”

  Bertha said with exasperation in her voice, “Now, listen, let’s get this straight. Let’s get it straight once and for all. You’ve got some information that’s worth exactly five thousand dollars. Out of that five thousand dollars, I’m going to get two thousand five hundred. Something you said to Boll-man gave him the tip. He went out to your house and walked into a trap someone had set for you. The police are interested in who set that trap and why. I’m interested in finding out what Bollman was after. Once the police get hold of you, they’ll sew you up in a sack. To me, twenty-five hundred smacks is twenty-five hundred smacks. Now, do you understand?”

  “But I can’t imagine what that information was.”

  “The hell of it is that I can’t either,” Bertha admitted, “but right now you’re a walking gold mine as far as I’m concerned, so I’m going to stick closer than a brother until we get everything all cleaned up. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I understand that.”

  “All right, that’s all you need to know. Now, come on. We’re going to get out of here while the getting is good. You’re my mother. You’ve had a slight stroke. We’re going out for a walk. You aren’t going to say anything to anyone, and in case anyone does any talking, your contribution to the conversation will be a sweet smile. All right now, here we go.”

  Bertha gave a few last touches to the ensemble, took Kosling’s arm, and said, “Now, I want you to lean on me. Don’t act as though I was giving you guidance. Let it look as though I was giving you support. A blind person gets guidance. A person who is weak on his legs gets support. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “I think so. Like this?”

  “No,” Bertha said, “you’re just bearing down. Lean over a 1 little bit to one side. That’s it. All right now, here we go.” Bertha guided Kosling through the door, locked it, and said, “Because my room’s on the third floor, we’ve got to make the stairs. Think you can do it all right?”

  “Why, of course.”

  “The thing you’ve got to watch,” Bertha said, “is that skirt. I’ve got the hem fixed so it’s just about dragging the ground. I don’t want people to see your shoes and the bottom of your pants.”

  “I thought you rolled my pants up.”

  “I did, but I left the skirt plenty long. Come on now, watch the stairs.”

  They negotiated the stairs safely. Bertha walked down the corridor to the elevator, rang the bell, and when the hotel’s single elevator eventually came rattling up, said, “Now be careful, Mother. Watch your step getting in the elevator.”

  They got in without mishap except that Kosling, forgetting the wide brim on the woman’s hat he was wearing, all but crushed it against the back of the elevator.

  “Take it easy going down,” Bertha Cool said to the elevator operator.

  He laughed. “Ma’am, this cage has got only one speed—and that’s easy.”

  They reached the lobby. The clerk looked solicitously at Bertha’s “mother.” The elevator operator who doubled as bellboy held the outer door open for Bertha, and Bertha Cool, standing so that her own skirt shielded any glimpse of Kos- ling’s leg from the bellboy, helped Kosling into the automobile and closed the door. She gave the bellboy the benefit of a smile, walked around to the car, climbed in, and drove away.

  “Where to?” Kosling asked.

  “Riverside,” Bertha said. “We go to a hotel there, and get connecting rooms.”

  It was beginning to get dark. Bertha switched on the headlights and drove slowly. Reaching Riverside, she went into one of the older hotels, registered as Mrs. L. M. Cushing and daughter, secured two rooms with a connecting bath, and made some ceremony of getting Kosling up to the rooms and safely ensconced.

  “Now,” Bertha announced, ‘you’re going to stay right here, and we’re going to talk,”

  At the end of an hour when Kosling felt he was completely talked out, Bertha ordered some dinner sent up from a nearby restaurant. An hour later she went to a public telephone, called the hotel in San Bernardino, and said, “This is Mrs. Cool. The thing that I was afraid was going to happen has happened. My mother’s had another stroke. I won’t be able to get back to pick up my things. Please store my suitcase. You’ll find that my bill is paid, and there are no telephone calls or other extras.”

  The clerk assured her that he regretted the nature of the occasion which prevented Bertha Cool from returning, that he trusted her mother would make a complete and prompt recovery, and assured Bertha she had nothing whatever to worry about in connection with her belongings.

  Bertha thanked him, returned to the hotel, and for two more hours pumped the blind man, trying to get some bit of information out of him, going over the events of the last week with monotonous repetition, a probing search for detail.

  Kosling at length became tired and irritated. “I’ve given you everything I have to give; told you all that I know,” he said petulantly. “I’m going to sleep. I wish I’d never seen you and never interested myself in that girl at all. As a matter of fact she –” His voice faltered as he choked off what he was going to say.

  “What’s that?” Bertha asked pouncing on his unfinished sentence.

  “Nothing.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  “Oh, nothing, except that—I’ve been disappointed in that girl.”

  “What girl?”

  “Josephine Dell.” .why?”

  “Well, for one thing, she never stopped by to see me. If she was able to return to work, she could certainly have stopped by long enough to say hello.”

  “She was working at a different place,” Bertha explained. “When Harlow Milbers was alive, she was working down at that loft building where they had an office, but after his death, she had no occasion to go there. What work she did do was at his residence.”

  “But I still don’t understand why she didn’t come to see me.”

  “She sent you a very nice present, didn’t she? Two of them, in fact.”

  “Yes. That music box meant a lot to me. She must have known how much I wanted to thank her personally for that.”

  “Can’t you write her?”

  “My writing isn’t very good. I don’t use a typewriter, and I have to grope around with a pencil. I dislike writing intensely.”

  “Well, why not call her up?” Bertha asked.

  “That’s just the point. I did. She wouldn’t waste her time with me.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bertha said. “This is something new. You say she wouldn’t waste her time with you?”

  “I called her up, but she wasn’t in. I talked with some woman and I told her who I was. She said Miss Dell was busy right at the moment, but she would give any message. I told her I wanted to thank Miss Dell for her gifts and that I’d wait at that number until Miss Dell called.”

  “Well?” Bertha asked.

  “I waited and waited—for over an hour. She never called.”

  “Where,” Bertha asked, “did you call her—at her apartment?”

  “No, at the place she was working—the residence of the man she worked for. You know, Milbers.”

  “Just how well did you know her?” Bertha asked.

  “Oh, quite well—in a way—just by talking with her, though.”
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  “Just when she’d stop on the street?

  “That’s right.”

  “Not much chance to establish an intimate friendship,” Bertha said musingly.

  “Oh, we really talked quite a bit, but just a few words at a time. She was one of the brightest spots in my day, and she knew it. Well, when she didn’t call me, I called again and asked for Miss Dell and the person who answered the phone wanted to know if I was a friend of hers and said she was busy. I remember I tried to be funny. I said I was a man who had never seen her in his life and never expected to. Well, they called her to the telephone, and I said, ‘Hello, Miss Dell, this is your blind friend. I wanted to thank you for the music box.’ She said, ‘What music box?’ and I told her the music box she had sent to her friend, the blind beggar. She told me then that she had sent me flowers and was too busy to talk, and hung up. I’ve been wondering if that accident hadn’t affected her memory so she couldn’t remember things, but for some reason she didn’t want people to know about it because there was something she had to say she remembered. Maybe she was a witness to some contract, or perhaps she may have known –”

  “Wait a minute,” Bertha interrupted. “Are you certain she sent you the music box?”

  “Oh yes. She’s the only one I had ever talked with and told about how much I liked them. I thought perhaps she was injured more seriously than she realized, so I determined to go to her –”