Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood

by The Bat

“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 he 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.”