Bats Fly at Dusk

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “That, of course is another statement of fact which is open to investigation, although I don’t know just how we’re going to prove it. But in any event, Mrs. Cool, I’m placing you under arrest, and I think as a student of law, you understand that if you now do anything to interfere, you will be resisting arrest, which, in itself, is a crime.”

  Bertha Cool thought that over, looked at Sergeant Sellers, recognized the inflexibility of purpose behind his smiling mask, and said, “Okay, you win.”

  “We’ll just leave your car parked right where it is,” Sellers said. “I wouldn’t want you to dispose of anything between here and headquarters—and since the tinkling melody of the Bluebells of Scotland shows me that you went to the music box and raised the lid, it is quite evident that the object you took from the music box was relatively small and, therefore, something that could be easily concealed. So, Mrs. Cool, if you wouldn’t mind going into the room again so I can keep my eye on you while I pick up that music box, we’ll take it right along to headquarters with us.”

  “All right, you’ve got me,” Bertha Cool said. “Go ahead. Rub it in! Go on and gloat!”

  “No gloating at all, Mrs. Cool, just a slight formality. Now, then, if you’ll walk just ahead of me, and if you wouldn’t mind keeping your hands up where I can see them. That spotlight of yours isn’t very efficient. I think you’ll find mine a lot better.”

  Sergeant Sellers’ five-cell flashlight blazed into brilliance, lighting the way into the front room of the little bungalow.

  Chapter XXVII

  THE MATRON ESCORTED Bertha Cool to the door of Sergeant Sellers’ private office and knocked.

  The tinkling strains of Bluebells of Scotland sounded faintly through the door.

  “Come in,” Sellers called.

  The matron opened the door. “In this way, dearie,” she said to Bertha Cool.

  Bertha paused on the threshold, turned, looked at the matron—two husky, bulldog-jawed women glaring at each other. “All right, dearie,” Bertha Cool said.

  “What did you find?” Sergeant Sellers inquired. “Nothing,” the matron announced.

  Sergeant Sellers raised his eyebrows. “Well, well. Don’t tell me that you went there just for the experience, Mrs. Cool?”

  “You forget Freddie,” Bertha said. “Got a cigarette? Your girl friend snitched my package.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot your cigarettes,” the matron said. “I put them up on that–”

  “It’s all right, dearie. Keep them with my compliments,” Bertha said.

  The matron caught Sergeant Sellers’ eye and seemed embarrassed. “You should have said something about them at the time, Mrs. Cool.”

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to,” Bertha announced. “I thought it was a privilege that went with the office, like the cops taking apples from the fruitstands.”

  “That’s all, Mrs. Bell,” Sergeant Sellers said.

  The matron glared at Bertha Cool, then quietly withdrew. “Sit down,” Sellers said to Bertha Cool. “Let’s see, you wanted a cigarette. Here’s one.”

  He opened a fresh package of cigarettes, and handed Bertha one. He fished a black, moist cigar from his waistcoat pocket, clipped off the end, shoved it in his mouth, and, for the moment, made no effort to light it.

  “Something about this music box,” he said.

  “Indeed?”

  “You went to it, opened it, then closed it and left. You didn’t take anything out. I wonder if you put something in.”

  Sellers took a magnifying glass from his drawer, went over the music box carefully, inspecting both the works and the case, looking for some place of concealment which might harbour some bit of planted evidence: When he could find none, he dosed the music box, studied the outside of it, and looked at the portrait of the young woman. “I wonder if this is it.”

  “What?”

  “The portrait. It isn’t a missing heiress, is it?”

  Bertha, feeling remarkably good after winning her verbal encounter with the matron settled back in her chair and laughed. “Why the laughter?”

  “Thinking of the nineteenth-century beauty,” Bertha said. “A chunky, mealy-mouthed nincompoop who wore corsets and fainted at the faintest suggestion of salty humour. And you think I’d come all the way from–”

  “Yes, yes,” Sergeant Sellers said as Bertha stopped. “You interest me now. All the way from where, Mrs. Cool?” Bertha clamped her lips tightly shut.

  “Almost told me something, didn’t you?” Sergeant Sellers said.

  Bertha, realizing how close she had come to saying, “All the way from Riverside,” contented herself with puffing placidly away at her cigarette, atoning for what was almost a verbal slip by maintaining a rigid silence.

  Sergeant Sellers looked at the big clock over the desk. “Ten minutes past two,” he mused. “It’s rather late, but then—this probably is an emergency.”

  He consulted the label on the inside of the music box, studied a telephone directory, then picked up the receiver, said, “Give me an outside line,” and dialled a number.

  After a few moments, he said suavely, “I’m very sorry about having to call you at this hour. This is Sergeant Sellers speaking from police headquarters, and the reason I’m calling is because I’m trying to trace an important clue in a murder case. Is this Britten G. Stellman? It is, eh? Well, I want you to tell me whether you can remember a music box, one of the old-fashioned kind with a metal comb and a cylinder—has a picture of a landscape on one side and the portrait of a girl on the other, plays Bluebells of Scotland, and—oh, I see—you do, eh? Yes. What was her name? Josephine Dell, eh?”

  Sergeant Sellers was silent for several seconds, listening to the voice which came over the telephone; then he said, “All right, now let me see if I’ve got this straight. This Josephine Dell came in about a month ago, saw this music box, and said she’d like to get it but didn’t have enough money to pay for it. She left a small . deposit to hold it for ninety days. Then she rang you up on Wednesday, told you she had the money available, and that she was sending it to you by telegram. She asked you to deliver the music box by messenger to this blind man without saying anything about who sent it; just to tell him that it was a present from a friend That right?”

  Again Sergeant Sellers was silent for several moments while he was listening; then he said, “Okay. One more question. Where was that telegram sent from? Redlands, eh? You don’t know whether she lives in Redlands? Oh, I see. Lives in Los Angeles and you think she just happened to be travelling through Redlands. You don’t think that she’s any relation t’ this blind man, didn’t say anything about that? Just saw the one time when she was in and paid the deposit, eh? Say where she was working? I see. All right, thanks a lot. I wouldn’t have called you at this hour if it hadn’t been a major emergency. I can assure you your co-operation is appreciated Yes, this is Sergeant Sellers of Homicide. I’ll drop in and see you next time I’m in the neighbourhood and thank you personally. In the meantime, if anything turns up, give me a ring. All right, thanks. Good-bye.”

  Sergeant Sellers hung up the telephone, turned to Bertha Cool, and looked her over as though he were seeing her for the first time.

  “Rather cute,” he said.

  “I don’t get it.”

  Sergeant Sellers said, “I am just wondering, Mrs. Cool, if that collect telephone call you received this afternoon didn’t come from Redlands.”

  “It certainly did not,” Bertha assured him. “You’ll pardon me if I make a little investigation of that.”

  “Go ahead. Investigate all you want to.”

  “I don’t think you understand me, Mrs. Cool. During the investigation I am going to make, it’s going to be necessary for me to have you where I can find you.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean exactly what I say.”

  “You mean you’re going to put me under surveillance?”

  “Oh,
that would be an unnecessary expense to the city, Mrs. Cool. I wouldn’t think of doing anything like that. And besides, it would inconvenience you so much.”

  “Well, what do you mean then?”

  “If you were travelling around, going here and there, wherever you wanted to go, it would cause us a lot of trouble to keep track of you; but if you stayed in one place, it wouldn’t be at all difficult.”

  “You mean my office?”

  “Or mine.”

  “Just what do you mean?”

  “Well, I thought that if you stayed here for a while it might simplify matters.”

  “You can’t hold me in custody that way.”

  “Certainly not,” Sellers said. “I would be the first one to admit that, Mrs. Cool.”

  “Well?” she said triumphantly.

  “Just a moment,” he cautioned as she started to get up out of the chair. “I can’t hold you on that, but I certainly can hold you on breaking into that house tonight. That’s a felony.”

  “But I didn’t take anything.”

  “We can’t be entirely certain of that as yet.”

  “I’ve been searched.”

  “But you might have managed to get rid of whatever you had taken, or you might have been intending to commit a felony. Do you know, Mrs. Cool, I think I’ll hold you a little while longer on that charge, and there are a couple of other things I’d like to look up.”

  “Such as what?” Bertha demanded indignantly.

  “Well, for instance, the way you left your office this afternoon. You went down and took a streetcar on Seventh Street.

  You got out just above Grand Avenue. My two plain-clothes men who were following you thought they had a cinch. You were on foot, apparently depending on streetcars. The man who was driving the car dropped the detective who was with him, and drove around the block so he could come back and slide in at a space opposite a fire plug which he’d spotted as he drove down the street just before you got off the streetcar. And then your automobile came along and picked you up and whisked you away just as neatly as though you’d been engineering a sleight-of-hand trick.”

  Sergeant Sellers pressed the bell which summoned the matron. When she arrived in the office, he said, “Mrs. Bell, Mrs. Cool is going to be with us, at least until morning. Will you try to make her comfortable?”

  The matron’s smile held the triumph of cold malice. “I will be a pleasure, Sergeant,” she said, and then, turning belligerently to Bertha, “Come with me, dearie.”

  Chapter XXVIII

  SLOW, METHODICAL STEPS echoed down the steel-lined corridor.

  Bertha Cool, sitting in seething indignation on the edge of an iron cot, heard the clank of keys, then the sound of a key the door outside. A moment later, the door came open and a rather drab-looking woman said, “Hello,” in a lifeless voice.

  “Who are you?” Bertha asked.

  “I’m a trusty.”

  “What do you want?”

  “They want you down in the office.”

  “What for?”

  “That’s all I know.”

  “Well, to hell with them. I’m staying here.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “Why not?”

  “It won’t get you any place.”

  “Let them come and take me,” Bertha said.

  “Don’t kid yourself. They can do that, too. But I’d go along if I was you. I think they’re going to turn you loose.”

  “Well, I’ll stay right here.”

  “For how long?”

  “From now on.”

  “That won’t do you no good. Lots of them feel that way, but you don’t hurt nobody by staying here. You’ve got to go sometime, and then they have the laugh on you.” The trusty spoke in the same dejected, flat monotone with a leisurely drawl, as though the effort of speaking wearied her and consumed too much vitality. “I remember one woman said she was going to stay here, and they told me just to leave the door unlocked and tell her she could go whenever she wanted to. She stayed there all morning. It was the middle of the afternoon when she finally went out, and everybody gave her the ha-ha.”

  Bertha, without a word, got up from the cot and followed the trusty down the echoing corridor, through a locked door into an elevator, down to an office where another matron who was a stranger to Bertha looked up from some papers and said, “Is this Bertha Cool?”

  “This is Bertha Cool, and you’d better take a good look at me because you’re going to see more of me. I’m going to–”

  The matron opened a drawer, pulled out a heavy, sealed Manila envelope and said, “These are your personal belongings which were taken from you when you were put in last night, Mrs. Cool. Will you please look them over and see if they’re all there?”

  “I’m going to take this damn place apart,” Bertha said. “You can’t do anything like that to me. I’m a respectable woman making a decent, honest living, and—”

  “But, in the meantime, will you please check your personal belongings?”

  “I’m going to sue the city, and I’m going to sue Sergeant Sellers.

  “I know, Mrs. Cool. Doubtless you are. But that’s outside of my department. If you’ll please check your personal property–”

  “Well, you may think it’s outside of your department, but, by the time I get done, you’ll find out it isn’t outside of any- body’s department. I’ll–”

  “When did you intend to start this suit, Mrs. Cool?”

  “Just as soon as I get to see a lawyer.”

  “And you can’t get a lawyer until you get out, and you can’t get out until you check your personal property, so please check your personal property.”

  Bertha Cool ripped open the envelope, pulled out her purse, opened it with rage-trembling hands, glanced through it, snapped it shut, and said, “So what?”

  The matron nodded to the trusty.

  “This way, ma’am.”

  Bertha Cool stood over the desk. “I’ve heard of lots of out- ages being perpetrated on citizens, but this is–”

  “You were held on suspicion of burglary last night, Mrs. Cool. I don’t think that any disposition has been made of the charge, but the order came through to release you pending a further investigation.”

  “Oh, I see,” Bertha said. “You’re threatening me now. If I start anything, you’re going to bring up that burglary charge, are you?”

  “I don’t know anything at all about it, Mrs. Cool. I’m simply telling you the state of the record. It’s our custom to do that with persons who are held on suspicion of crime. Good morning, Mrs. Cool.”

  Bertha still stood there. “I’m a business woman. I have important things to do in connection with running my business. Taking me away from my work, holding me all night on a trumped-up charge.”

  “Your time’s valuable?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I wouldn’t waste any more of it standing here then, Mrs. Cool.”

  Bertha said, “I’m not going to. I just want to leave you a message for Sergeant Sellers. Tell him that his threat didn’twork, will you? Tell him that I’m going to have his scalp, and now, GOOD MORNING!”

  Bertha Cool turned toward the door.

  “Just one more thing, Mrs. Cool.”

  “What is it?” Bertha demanded.

  “You can’t slam the door,” the matron said. “We’ve put an automatic check on it for that particular purpose. Good morning.”

  Bertha found herself ushered out of a steel-barred door into the morning sunlight, just as though she had been some ordinary criminal. She found also that the fresh air, the freedom of motion, the feeling that she was able to go as she pleased, when she pleased, and how she pleased, was a more welcome sensation than she had ever realized.

  It was eight-forty-five when she got to her office.

  Elsie Brand was opening the mail.

  Bertha, storming into the office, slammed her purse down on the table, and said in a voice quivering with indi
gnation, “You get me Sergeant Sellers on the line, Elsie. I don’t give a damn if you have to get him out of bed or what happens, you get Sergeant Sellers for me.”

  Elsie Brand, looking at Bertha’s quivering, white-raged indignation, dropped the mail, grabbed the telephone directory, and immediately started putting through the call.

  “Hello, police headquarters? I want to talk with Sergeant Sellers immediately, please. It’s important. Yes, Bertha Cool’s office. Just a moment, Sergeant. Here he is on the line, Mrs. Cool.”

  Bertha Cool grabbed up the telephone. “I’ve got something to say to you,” she said. “I’ve had a long time to think it over- a good long time, sitting in your damned jail. I just want to tell you that I’m going to–”

  “Don’t,” Sergeant Sellers interrupted, laughing.

  Bertha said, “I’m going to.”

  “You’re going to cool down,” Sellers interrupted again, the laughter suddenly gone from his voice. “You used to run a fairly average detective agency; then you got tied up with this streak of dynamite, Donald Lam, and you started cutting corners. You’ve cut corners in every case you’ve had. Because Lam is a whiz, you’ve been able to get away with it. But now you’re out on your own, and you’ve stubbed your toe. You’ve been caught breaking into a house. All the police have to do is to press that charge against you, and you’d lose your licence and—”

  “Don’t you think you can intimidate me, you great big fool,” Bertha Cool shouted. “I wish I were a man just long enough to come up there and pull you out of your office chair and pin your ears back. I know now how people can get mad enough to commit murder. I just wish I had you where I could get my hands on you. Why, you—”

  Bertha choked with sheer inarticulate rage.

  Sergeant Sellers said, “I’m sorry you feel that way about it, Mrs. Cool, but I thought it was necessary to keep you shut up overnight while I made a few investigations. It may interest you to know that as a result of those investigations we’ve made substantial progress toward clearing up the case.”