Her gray eyes were clear and soft and steady as they looked at him, but they were frightened, too. “Was—did you find a bat wing by her body?” she responded.
“By blue, I did!” he answered. “Wait, I have it in my room.”
He hurried out, returning in a moment with the sheet of paper wrapped around the wing he had retrieved the night before.
She took the folded wing between her thumbs and forefingers, extending it against the light cast by the study lamp. “Can you read it?” she demanded, moving the membranes across the field of light.
Scratched upon the leathery skin was a five-word legend:
ASÍ SIEMPRE Á LOS TRAIDORES.
“Howly St. Patrick!” swore Costello.
“Précisément,” de Grandin nodded.
“What’s it mean?” I asked.
“‘Thus always to traitors,’ sor,” Costello answered. “I picked up enough o’ th’ lingo whilst I wuz servin’ in th’ Fillypines to read that much.”
De Grandin poured two glasses of Chartreuse and handed them to our visitors; then, as he refilled his own:
“Just what connection did this poor young woman have with these so naughty murderers, Mademoiselle?”
“Rita and I were members of the order—once,” replied the girl. “It was back in ’29, just before the bottom fell out of the show business; we were touring South America with a troupe of entertainers. Fan and bubble dancing hadn’t been invented then, but we did a rumba routine that was popular, and went over almost as big as the performing seals. We’d gotten up the coast as far as Tupulo when the crash came. Tupulo’s an oil town, you know, and all orders from the wells had been canceled; so the place was like a western mining-camp when the ore ran out. We didn’t draw a corporal’s guard at shows, and then one night our manager, Samuelson, got into a fight in a gambling-hall and they put him in jail and seized the animals and properties of the show. Rita and I were stranded with only about ten pesos between us. That didn’t last us long and presently they threatened to jail us, too, for non-payment of rent. We were desperate.”
“One understands,” de Grandin nodded. “And then?”
“We got an engagement dancing in one of the saloons. It was pretty dreadful, for the patrons of the place were the off-scum of the oil fields, and we had to do the danza de las dos tetas—dancing in unbuttoned blouses and shaking our shoulders till our breasts protruded through the opening, you know—but stranded actresses can’t very well afford to quarrel with their bread and butter.
“One night it was especially terrible. The drunken loafers in the place called insults at us and even pelted us with bits of bread and vegetables as we danced; we were both about to collapse when the evening’s work was done. Rita cried all the way to our lodgings. ‘I can’t stand this another night,’ she wept. ‘I’d sooner go lose myself in the jungle and die than do another shimmy in that dreadful place!’
“‘One may go into the jungle, yet not die, Señorita,’ someone told us from the darkness, and a man stepped out from the shadow of a building, raising his sombrero.
“We thought at first it was one of the barroom loafers who’d followed us, and I drew my hands back to write the Ten Commandments on his cheeks with my nails, but the street lamp showed us he was a stranger and a caballero.
“‘I have watched you for some time,’ he told us. ‘You were made for better things than twinkling your little, perfect feet before such swine as those you entertain. If you will let me, I can help you.’
“We sized him up. He was little, very neat and extremely ugly, but he didn’t look particularly dangerous. ‘All right,’ said Rita, ‘what’s your proposition?’
“‘One I serve has need of women with discretion—and beauty,’ he answered. ‘She can offer you a life of luxury, everything which you deserve—fine clothes, fine food, luxurious surroundings. But it will not be a life of ease or safety. There will be much work and more danger. Also, no one in this service ever makes a second mistake. However’—he shrugged his shoulders as only a Mexican can—‘it will be better than the life you’re leading now.’
“Our contract was concluded then and there. We didn’t even go back to our lodgings to collect and pack what clothes we had.
“He had a motor waiting at the outskirts of the town, and in this we rode till daylight, stopping at a little hacienda at the jungle edge to sleep all day. When darkness came he wakened us, and we rode on mule-back through the bush till it was nearly dawn again.
“Our destination was an old abandoned Mayan temple, one of those ruins that dot the jungle all through Yucatan, and it seemed deserted as a graveyard when we rode up to it, but we found the jungle had been cleared away and the debris of fallen stones removed till the place was made quite habitable.
“We rested all next day and were wakened in the evening by the sound of tom-toms. An Indian woman came and led us to a stone tank like a swimming pool, and when we finished bathing we found she’d taken our soiled clothes and left us gowns of beautifully woven cotton and huaraches, or native sandals. When we’d dressed in these she took us to another room, where she gave us stewed meat and beans and cool, tart wine, after which she signaled us to follow her.
“We walked out to the square before the pyramid, which was all ablaze with lighted torches, and I nearly fainted at the sight that met our eyes. All around the square was a solid rank of men and women, all in native costume—a simple, straight gown like a nightdress for the women, a shirt and pair of cotton trousers for the men—and all masked by having huge artificial bats’ heads drawn over their faces like hoods. Everywhere we looked they were, as much alike as grains of rice from the same bag, all with their eyes flashing in the torchlight at us through the peep-holes in their masks.
“Four of the bat-men took our arms and turned us toward the steps of the great pyramid. Then we saw La Murciélaga!”
“La Murciélaga?” echoed Jules de Grandin. “Was it then a bat that these strange people worshipped?”
“No, sir. It was a woman. She was tall and slender and beautifully made, as we could see at a glance; for every inch of her was encased in a skin-tight suit of sheer black webbing, like the finest of silk stockings, and her face was hidden by a bat-mask like the rest, only hers seemed made of shimmering black feathers while theirs were made of coarse black fur. Joining her arms to her body were folds of sheer black silk so that when she raised her hands it spread and stretched like a bat spreading its wings to fly.
“Some kind of trial seemed to be in progress, for two bat-men held another one between them, and the woman in the bat costume seemed questioning the prisoner, though we couldn’t hear what she said or he replied from where we stood.
“After a little while she seemed to have arrived at a decision, for she raised her hands, spreading out her bat-wings, and curved her fingers at him as though she were about to claw his face. The poor thing dropped upon his knees and held his hands extended, asking mercy, but La Murciélaga never changed her pose, just stood there with her claws stretched out and her eyes gleaming horribly through her mask.
“Before we realized what was happening some men had brought a blood-stained wooden cross and laid it down upon the pavement. Then they stripped the prisoner’s clothing off and nailed him to the cross while the tom-toms beat so loudly that we could not hear his shrieks, and all the masked bat-people screamed, ‘Así siempre á los traidores!’ over and over again.
“‘That’s what comes to those who disobey or fail La Murciélaga!’ someone whispered in my ear, and I recognized the voice of the man who had brought us out from Tupulo.
“But we don’t want to join any such terrible society as this!’ I cried. ‘We won’t—’
“‘There are other crosses waiting,’ he warned me. ‘Will you hang beside that traitor or will you take the oath of fealty to the Bat Mother and become her true and faithful servants?’
“The poor wretch on the cross kept shrieking, and though we couldn’t hear him for the tom
-toms’ noise, we could see his mouth gape open and the blood run down his chin where he gnashed his lips and tongue. He beat his head against the cross and arched his body forward till the spikes tore greater wounds in his pierced hands and feet, and all the time La Murciélaga stood there statue-still with her bat-wings spread out and her fingers curved like talons.
“Finally, when the crucified man’s screams had muted to a low, exhausted moan, they led us up to the ‘Bat Mother,’ and there in the shadow cast by the cross with its writhing, groaning burden, we knelt down on the stones and swore to do whatever we were bidden, promising to give ourselves up for crucifixion if we ever disobeyed an order or attempted to leave the bat society or divulge its secrets. They made us put our hands out straight before us on the ground, and La Murciélaga came and stood on them while we kissed her feet and vowed we were her slaves for ever. Then we were given bat-masks and told to take our places in the ranks which stood about the square before the pyramid.”
“And how did you escape that place of torment, Mademoiselle?”
“We didn’t have to, sir. In the morning we were wakened and taken to the coast, where they put us on a boat and sent us up to Vera Cruz.
“May I have a cigarette?” she asked; and, as de Grandin passed the box to her, then held his lighter while she set it glowing, “Do you remember how the Spanish freighter Gato apparently sailed off the earth?”
De Grandin and Costello nodded.
“We did that, Rita and I. They told us to make love to the master and chief engineer, and with the memory of that horrid scene out in the jungle to spur us on, we did just as they told us. We teased the engineer to let us go and see his engines, and Rita took a little box they’d given her aboard, and hid it in the bunkers. What was in it we don’t know, but when they threw the coal where it had rested in the furnace the whole side of the ship was ripped away, and everyone on board was lost.”
“But this is purest idiocy, Mademoiselle!” protested Jules de Grandin. “Why should anyone in wanton cruelty desire to destroy a ship?”
“The Gato carried half a million dollars’ worth of jewels,” the girl replied. “She sank in less than fifteen fathoms, and the hole blown in her side made it easy for the divers to go in and loot her strongroom.”
She took a final long draw at her cigarette, then crushed its fire out in the ash-tray. “You remember when MacPherson Briarly, the insurance magnate’s son, was held for ransom in Chihuahua?” she asked. “Rita was the lure—posed as an American girl stranded in El Centro and traded on his chivalry. He went out riding with her one afternoon and—it cost his father fifty thousand dollars to get him back alive.”
“But why didn’t you attempt escape?” I asked. “Surely, if you went as far north as Chihuahua you were out of reach of the jungle headquarters in Yucatan?”
A queer look passed across her face, wiping away her youth and leaving her features old and utterly exhausted-looking. “You don’t escape Los Niños de la Murciélaga, sir,” she answered simply. “They are everywhere. The loafer in the doorway, the policeman in the street, the conductor of the tram-car or the train, is as likely as not a member of the band, and if he fails to prevent your breaking your oath of obedience—there’s a cross waiting for him in the jungle. You may be dining in a fashionable hotel, sitting in a box at the opera in Mexico City or walking in the plaza when someone—a beggar, a stylish woman or an elegantly dressed man—will open his hand and display a bat wing. That is the signal, the summons not to be ignored on pain of crucifixion.”
“But you finally escaped,” I insisted somewhat fatuously.
Again that queer, senescent-seeming look spread on her face. “We ran away,” she corrected. “They sent us up to Tia Juana and when we found ourselves so near the American border we decided to make a dash for it. We were well supplied with funds—we always were—so we had no trouble getting up to San Diego, but we knew we’d not be safe in California, or anywhere within a thousand miles of Mexico, for that matter, so we hurried back East.
“The movies had killed vaudeville, and no new musical shows were outfitting that season, but we managed to get jobs in burlesque. Finally I heard about an opening at Mike Caldes’ place and sold him the idea of letting me go on as a bubble-dancer. I hadn’t been there long when the girl who did the waltz routine left the show to marry, and I got Rita her place. We thought we’d be safe out here in New Jersey,” she finished bitterly.
“And this so unpleasant female, this Murciélaga, you can tell us what she looks like?” asked de Grandin.
“You’re asking me?” she answered. “You saw her when she came into the club before they took revenge on Rita.”
“That lovely woman?” I exclaimed incredulously.
“That lovely woman,” she repeated in a flat and toneless voice. “Did you see the way she held her cloak before she took it off? That’s her sign. The others carry bat wings for identification. Only La Murciélaga is allowed to wear them.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” declared Costello.
“Assuredly, unless you mend your ways,” agreed de Grandin with a grin. Then, sobering abruptly:
“Tell me, ma petite,” he asked, “have you any idea the unfortunate Mike Caldes knew of your connection with these people of the bat?”
“No, sir,” she answered positively. “Mike had never been a member of the order, but he’d lived in Tupulo and knew its power. He’d no more have dared shelter us if he’d suspected we were wanted by La Murciélaga than he’d have given us jobs if he’d thought we had the smallpox. As far as any Mexican from Yucatan is concerned, any fugitive from the vengeance of the Bat is hotter than counterfeit money or stolen Government bonds.”
“And what of you, my friend?” de Grandin asked Costello. “Have you been able to locate this strange woman whose advent heralded these murders?”
“No, sor, we haven’t,” answered the detective. “We spread th’ dragnet for ‘er, like I told ye at th’ joint last night, but we can’t find hide nor hair o’ her. P’raps she’s stayin’ in New York—there’s lots o’ furriners—axin’ yer pardon, sor—always hangin’ out there, an’ we’ve asked th’ police to be on th’ lookout fer her, but you know how it is. Pretty much like lookin’ fer a needle in a haystack, as th’ felly says. So when Nancy—beg pardon, I mane Miss Meigs—come an’ told me she might be able for to shed some light on all this monkey-business, I thought I’d better bring her over.”
“Precisely,” nodded Jules de Grandin. “And in the meantime, while we seek the so elusive Lady of the Bat, how shall we make things safe for Mademoiselle Nancy?”
“H’m, I might lock ’er up as a material witness,” Costello offered with a grin, “but—”
“Oh, would you—please?” broke in the girl. “I never wanted to be anywhere in all my life as much as I want to be behind jail bars right now!”
“Sold,” Costello agreed. “We’ll go over to your place an’ get your clothes; then you can trot along to jail wid me.”
“One moment, Mademoiselle, before you go to the bastille,” de Grandin interrupted. “It is entirely unlikely that the search for this Bat Woman will produce results. They are clever, these ones. I do not doubt that they have covered up their trail so well that long before the gendarmes realize the search is useless she will have fled the country. Tell me, would you know your way—could you retrace your steps to that so odious temple where the Children of the Bat have made their lair?”
A little frown of concentration wrinkled her smooth forehead. “I think I could,” she answered finally.
“And will you lead us there? Remember, it is in the cause of justice, to avenge the ruthless murder of your friend and to save le bon Dieu knows how many others from a similar fate.”
She looked at him with widened eyes, eyes in which the pupils seemed to swell and spread till they almost hid the irises. Her eyes were blank, but not expressionless. Rather, they seemed to me like openings to hell, as though they mirrored all the night
mares she had seen within their depths.
“I suppose I might as well,” she answered with a little shudder. “If I go there they will nail me to a cross. If I stay here they’ll do it sooner or later, anyway.”
She was like a lovely, lifeless robot as she rose to go with Costello. The certain knowledge of foreshadowed death, cold and ominous as some great snake, had seized her in its paralyzing grip.
CAPTAIN HILARIO CÉSAR RAMIREZ de Quesada y Revilla, Commandant of Tupulo, courteously replenished our glasses from the straw-sheathed flask of habañero, then poured himself a drink out of all proportion to his own diminutive stature. “Señores, Señorita,” he bowed to us and Nancy Meigs in turn, “your visit is more welcome than I can express. Valgame Dios! For a year I have stormed and sweated here in impotence; now you come with explanations and in offer of assistance. Crime is rampant in this neighborhood, and the police are powerless. A man is murdered, a business house is robbed at night, no one knows who did it; there are no clues, there are no complainants. The very persons who are injured place their fingers on their lips and shrug their shoulders. ‘La Murciélaga,’ they say, as though they said it was inexorable fate. They tell us nothing; we are helpless. Nor is that all. People, women as well as men, disappear; they vanish as though swallowed by an earthquake. ‘Where is so and so?’ we ask, and ‘S-s-sh—La Murciélaga!’ is the only answer. I came here with a full company a year ago. Today I have but two platoons; the others are all dead, deserted or vanished—La Murciélaga!
“Por Dios, until you came here with this explanation I had thought she was a legend, like Tezcatlipoca or the Thunder-Bird!”
“Then we may count upon your help, Monsieur le Capitaine?” de Grandin asked.
“With all my heart. Carajo, I would give this head of mine to lay my eyes upon La Murciélaga—”
An orderly tapped at the door, and he looked up with a frown. “Que cosa?” he demanded.
A Rival from the Grave Page 45