Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood

by The Bat

  “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 seco
nd—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.