The Weak-Eyed Bat

Chapter Sixteen

Late Thursday afternoon the residents had their first experience of the thoroughness of police routine. Inspector White with his eight subordinates and Constable Jakes with his two regular men ransacked each cottage in turn from attic to cellar.

Skeletons rattled in closets: Tom Little’s empty whisky bottles; a package of old love letters tied with blue ribbon and addressed to Emily Bonner; the receipt for Mr. Smith’s first and last alimony payment. But no bloody gloves or axes. Even Inspector White’s pencil collection had yielded no results. An ordinary microscope which was all the apparatus available proved merely that five of the pencils made markings similar to the ones on the note from the murderer.

In spite of the dearth of evidence Inspector White had regained his optimism: eventually the Chinaman would talk, and perhaps Miss Bonner herself would break down and confess under the strain of being closely guarded. In any case the investigation was nearly closed — Miss Bonner’s money had been found on Miss Alfonse’s body, and Miss Alfonse had probably witnessed the murder of Tom Little, and perhaps had assisted in it.

Prye did not share the inspector’s optimism. After dinner he sprawled in a chair in his sitting room while Nora sat hugging her knees in front of the fireplace, watching him.

“You look funny when you frown,” she said.

“You’re not laughing,” he said.

“No.”

There was a pause, the scrape of a match, a drawn out sigh as Prye inhaled.

“What are you thinking about?” Nora said finally.

“Lambs.”

“Counting them?”

“No. Wondering about them. Cute iddy-biddy lambs, all of them telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. While two people are being murdered, the lambs who had motives for murdering them were crocheting or walking or sleeping or writing books or reading. Not a damn one of them was murdering.”

“If anyone is lying, I’ll bet on Emily,” Nora said.

“I won’t. Emily is certainly a liar, but her lies are the Munchausen type, ambitious and without subtlety. She tells them with the air of a Cassandra, never expecting to be believed.”

“But the money—”

“Alfonse was found with Miss Bonner’s money on her but that doesn’t prove that Emily gave it to her. Remember Alfonse was a nurse and she poured Emily’s coffee on Wednesday night and Emily says she went to sleep after drinking that coffee. There are two possibilities if Emily is telling the truth: that Ralph arranged for Alfonse to dope Emily so that he could steal the money and give it to Alfonse in return for her silence; or that Alfonse discovered the money herself and arranged to steal it and run away. The five thousand was enough for a quick escape and later on when the murder investigation was closed Alfonse could return and demand a much larger sum from the real murderer. Inspector White is closing his ears to this explanation because it will leave him without his murderer. Policemen like to make arrests just as bakers like to make bread — it’s expected of them, it’s their job.”

Nora shivered and drew closer to the fire. “So it’s not settled yet?”

“No.”

“And it’s one of us?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know which one?”

He didn’t answer for a minute. He was watching the light flicker over the thick black braids wound around her head.

“I think I know which one.”

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t think — you can’t think — I did it?” she cried hysterically.

In cottage number four Professor Frost was gazing profoundly at his blancmange. Susan watched him with increasing wrath. He had said nothing throughout the meal. He had stared at each article of food as he stared at her, looking through it, seeing it as the pitiful thing it really was.

“Why don’t you talk to me?” she asked desperately. “Can’t you say anything?”

He started and raised his head. “Eh? Sorry. I was thinking.”

“You think all the time!” she cried.

He put his table napkin away without haste. “That’s quite true, my dear. What do you want to talk about? If you have a specific subject in mind I shall be delighted to help you cope with it.”

“Cope with it!”

She got up and struck her fist on the table. Her coffee spilled out on the tablecloth. “Shall we go into the other room, my dear?” her father said mildly. “There are too many — ah, spillables and breakables in here.”

She glared at him, speechless. Then she snatched her cup from the table and hurled it against the wall.

“There!” she said triumphantly. “There!”

“Excellent,” said Professor Frost, picking up his own cup. “Mind if I have a shot at it, too?”

The stolid, middle-aged police matron looked strangely out of place in Miss Bonner’s frilly bedroom. Miss Bonner certainly thought so.

“Can you play solitaire?” she asked coldly.

“I can,” the matron replied, “but I’m not supposed to.”

“Why not?”

“I have to watch you.”

Emily grunted. “You’ve been watching me for four hours. You must have an incredible capacity for boredom.”

“It’s my job.”

“I’ll give you another job. I’ll pay you two dollars an hour to look out of the window. You have suspicious eyes. They annoy me.”

“I can’t help my eyes,” the matron said calmly.

“No, but you still have control over your eyelids. Close them. Or look at something else. I’m abnormally sensitive. For a murderer, that is. Or perhaps murderers are abnormally sensitive. Are they?”

“I don’t know. I never saw one until you.”

In his room further along the hall Ralph was eating his dinner under the watchful eyes of a uniformed policeman. He fought down his resentment for some time, and then he threw down his fork with a clatter and said loudly:

“Like my table manners?”

“Sure,” the policeman said. “They’re all right.”

“I don’t like your tone. You don’t have to humor me.”

“Sure. I know that.”

“I’m tired of being patronized!” Ralph shouted.

“Sure you are.”

“You can go to hell!”

“Sure,” the policeman said affably.

“We all got to eat,” Jennie said. “Try some of this jelly, that’s a dear. Miss Susan made it for you specially.”

“I’m not hungry,” Mary Little said, shaking her head. “I don’t want anything.”

Jennie was alarmed.

“You’re not thinking of starving yourself to death, surely?”

Mary sighed and reached out for the jelly and began to eat it listlessly.

“That’s a dear,” Jennie said. “Mustn’t grieve over a man like Mr. Little. He isn’t worth it. He sinned against—”

“Stop it! Go down and get your dinner.”

“Just the same I’m right.” Jennie went to the door and said over her shoulder: “You’re better off this way. The murderer’s done you a favor, that’s what!”

Mr. Smith picked up his telephone.

“Hello. Certainly I’d like to come. I’ll be there at nine. All right.”

Mr. Smith replaced the receiver and looked thoughtfully at Horace.

“I’m sorry in a way,” he told Horace. “After all, she did push you in the lake.”

It was Jennie who opposed the meeting most violently. She insisted it would not be fair to Mrs. Little to have all those people traipsing into her house. Mary herself was completely apathetic.

At nine o’clock the residents had all arrived.

Emily had made the trip in her wheelchair (“Might as well give that damned matron something to do!”) and was installed beside the front windows which looked out on the veranda and over the lake. Mary, in a dowdy black dress, was sitting on the chesterfield near the doorway, with Jennie hovering around her.

The rest were seated in chairs placed along the opposite wall: Mr. Smith, Professor Frost and Susan, Nora, and Ralph Bonner with his uniformed attendant. The police matron, Dr. Prye, and Professor Frost were the only occupants of the room who did not appear harassed and guilty.

“We look like a Rogues’ Gallery pygmalionized,” Nora said to Ralph. He stared at her blankly and she said: “It’s all right. Don’t laugh. I don’t want to put anyone out.”

“Miss Shane,” Inspector White said, “we are about to begin.”

His eyes moved about the room, stabbing them each in turn.

“This meeting has been called at the instigation of Dr. Prye. He has some questions to ask each of you and I want you to answer these questions as if they came from me. Go ahead, Prye.”

Prye went over to the doorway.

“Miss Bonner,” he said loudly.

Emily jumped, and the large capable hand of the police matron descended instantly on her shoulder.

“Get your hands off me!” Emily shouted. “Really, Prye. My nerves. Having that creature’s unlovely pan in front of my face for five hours—”

“Emily,” Prye interrupted, “on Wednesday night after you had dinner in your room, what did you do?”

“I’ve told you at least fifty times, I went to sleep.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Certainly it’s unusual. It’s unheard of. I’m a nervous wreck. I was doped. My head felt funny. I floated.”

“You were woozy,” Mr. Smith encouraged her.

“That’s just it. Woozy,” Emily cried. “Who is that man? He has a feeling for words. Sympathetic. Why, it must be Mr. Smith—”

“Thank you, Emily,” Prye said in a tone of finality. “Ralph Bonner.”

Ralph started, got to his feet, and sat down again, flushing.

“Ralph, on Monday night you went out for a walk by yourself. I suggest that you went to see Joan Frost. Did you?”

“No.”

“I suggest it again.”

“All right,” Ralph said. “Yes.”

“Did you see her?”

“Yes. Through the window. She was packing to go away with — with him.”

“With whom?”

“Tom Little,” Ralph said.

Mary clutched Jennie’s hand. “No! It’s a lie! He’d never have left me. Ask Jennie. He’d never really have left me.”

She sank back, panting, and Jennie patted her hand. “There. You mustn’t get excited. It’s all for the best.”

Prye turned to Susan.

“Susan, will you come over here, please?”

Susan, after an anguished look at her father, advanced timidly toward the doorway.

“Give me your hand, please,” Prye said.

“You don’t have to, Susan!” Ralph shouted. “You don’t have to listen to him!”

“You may challenge me to a duel later,” Prye said cheerfully. “Your hand, Susan.”

She held out a trembling hand. He took it, bent over it for an instant, and straightened up again. Susan gasped.

“I’ve read somewhere,” Professor Frost said conversationally, “that modern psychiatrists are reforming our mental institutions because they have such excellent prospects of becoming future occupants.”

“You’re misinformed,” Prye said. “The profession with one of the highest incidences of mental disease is teaching. Probably the teaching of classics.”

“I can believe it,” Frost said. “It’s the strain of trying to communicate the subtleties of the lyrical meter of Euripides to students who cannot scan Shakespeare.”

Prye held up his hand. “Granted without argument. Jennie, you’re next.”

“I won’t budge,” Jennie said. “I know my rights as well as the next one. I won’t budge.”

Inspector White rose to glare at her. “I have invested Dr. Prye with the authority to conduct these interviews. You will do as he says.”

Jennie did.

Prye spoke to her mildly. “Jennie, I’d like you to put your one hand tightly over your right ear and close your eyes until I tell you to open them. Tell me when you hear a noise.”

“I won’t,” Jennie said. “What kind of noise?”

“That’s what I want you to tell me.”

She closed her eyes intensely. Prye took out his pocket watch and held it about five feet away from her left ear, then four feet, then three, then two.

“There!” Jennie cried. “I hear a watch.”

The trial was repeated with her right ear with approximately the same result.

“Hocus pocus,” Nora said. “You should have been in vaudeville.”

“I am,” Prye said. “Professor Frost.”

Frost got up, smiling. “I offer myself in the interests of more virile vaudeville. Name your experiment, Dr. Prye.”

“A purely verbal experiment,” Prye said. “Right in your line. You keep a diary. I’ve seen it but I haven’t read it.”

“It wouldn’t interest you,” Frost said blandly.

“Was there anything in your diary which would have led your daughter Joan to believe that you intended to have her committed to an institution?”

“There was. I was.”

“You believed she was insane?”

“Certainly.”

There was a sudden shocked silence in the room, but Frost continued to smile.

“Father!” Susan said angrily.

He looked down at her, genuinely amused. “My dear, I was literally tom between Horace and Socrates: speak no ill of the dead, and the truth shall make us free. One discards Horace on general principles.”

“You are a cad, sir!” Ralph said hotly.

“I am, indeed,” Frost murmured. “Interesting point there. If I am a self-confessed cad, am I to be despised as the cad I am or to be honored as an honest man? Impossible to be both, you see. But in these marvelously complex times I fancy I should be honored as an honest man. One has only to admit a fault, not rectify it.”

Every eye in the room was on him, his theatrically handsome face, the gestures of his fine long hands, the play of the light on his white hair...

There was a little click, and he was no longer there but lost in the darkness that swallowed the room.

A figure leaped past Prye through the doorway. Chairs scraped. Voices began to shout. Someone yelled: “Turn on the light!”

The lights clicked on.

Prye was standing with his arms spread across the doorway. A gun appeared in Inspector White’s hand.

“Don’t shoot,” Prye said in an urgent voice. “Don’t shoot at her, you fool!”

Nora started to shriek, “Jennie! It was Jennie!” and without any fuss the police matron walked over and slapped her smartly across the face.

Inspector White came toward Prye, pointing his revolver, menace glowing on his face. “You let her get away,” he hissed. “You — let — her — get — away!”

“Use your head,” Prye said, grinning not very successfully into the barrel of the revolver. “The person you want is still in this room.”

The revolver wavered and sagged in White’s hand.