The Weak-Eyed Bat

Chapter Fifteen

Early on Thursday morning Sergeant Workman and Corporal Hollis of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were reconnoitering the shores of Lake Rosseau, searching for traces of a Harvard Bomber and four crewmen from Camp Borden. The plane had not returned to its base after it took off on Tuesday afternoon and it was considered lost in one of the Muskoka lakes.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Policemen did not find the plane but they did find something almost as interesting. It was lying face down in the shallow water by the shore, cold and bloated and blue.

Miss Alfonse spoiled Corporal Hollis’s dinner and his new brown boots. She had been dead for some time and the water had swollen her body so that her black bathing suit had split down the back, revealing several inches of dirty pink satin.

Sergeant Workman bent over the body and examined the pink strip of satin.

“A girdle,” he said to Corporal Hollis, snorting with disapproval. “Silly women wear tight girdles and tight bathing suits to stop their circulation and then they wonder why they drown. Go and get Jakes. This is his corpse.”

Corporal Hollis was glad to get away. Sergeant Workman, on the other hand, was glad of a rest, even in his present company. He sat down on a pile of pine needles and rested his head against a tree. But he couldn’t help thinking of the pink girdle. He wasn’t interested in girdles usually. They were scarcely fascinating to a man with a wife and three grown daughters, all of them forcibly compressed by Lastex.

“I’m getting senile,” Sergeant Workman growled, but he got up and went over to the corpse and turned it on its back. He noticed the wide strip of adhesive tape in the crook of the left arm.

It wasn’t the thing to do but Sergeant Workman did it. He unhooked Miss Alfonse’s pink girdle and found something which surprised him a great deal: in a rubber cosmetic bag next to Miss Alfonse’s skin there were fifty one-hundred-dollar bills. They were soaked with water.

At ten o’clock the residents of Clayton and the surrounding countryside were gathered in the small district courthouse for the inquest on the body of Joan Frost. The coroner’s jury had been chosen and were sitting in their places looking stern and dignified to conceal their nervousness.

Of the witnesses only Professor Frost and Susan had arrived. Susan’s eyes, almost hidden by a black lace handkerchief, were darting about the room. Her father made no pretense of grief. He was staring around him with obvious enjoyment, nodding to people he knew: the postal clerk and the florist and a little man who sold fish. They nodded back at him, but stiffly, as if they might lose caste. This delighted Professor Frost. He thought: “By Zeus, I’m like Thucydides watching the battle from the mountain.”

“It’s time to begin,” the court stenographer advised Dr. Prescott. Prescott wore his official frown. “Hardly anyone is here. Where’s Dr. Prye? Where’s White? Where’s Jakes?”

The room began to buzz with conversation. The audience wanted the curtain to go up. But where were all the actors?

Prescott pounded his gavel and cleared his throat.

“We are here today to decide the manner in which the deceased met her death.”

A policeman approached and said in a whisper: “You’re wanted on the telephone in the office.”

Prescott, flustered and red-faced, left the court.

The buzzing increased as if a swarm of bees were coming closer and closer. At ten-thirty the room was in an uproar. Not only were the actors missing, the coroner was missing!

Behind her black handkerchief Susan’s lips moved: “I think we’d better leave, Father. Something has gone wrong.”

He took her arm and they walked out, Thucydides descending the mountain with a gold-star widow.

Some time later the jury, after a whispered colloquy with the court stenographer, filed out of the room. The more frivolous members of the audience broke into boos and demanded their rain checks, but they tired of this, and soon they, too, walked out.

“Well, I,” said the court stenographer, “shall be damned.”

At two o’clock Dr. Prescott tossed Miss Alfonse’s left lung into a pail, took off his gown, washed his hands, and went out to his front office. Prye and Inspector White were sitting waiting for him. Neither of them looked cheerful.

“There’s not much doubt,” Prescott said. “She was drowned. Both lungs were filled with water.”

“Could she have been drowned some other place, say in a bathtub, and then thrown into the lake?” Prye asked.

“If the bathtub was filled with lake water,” Prescott replied wearily. “The water in her lungs was lake water.”

Inspector White leaned forward and said: “Any bruises or broken bones?”

“None at all. But the cut in her left arm is fairly deep, and she probably lost a lot of blood. I can’t understand how the cut could have been made without a struggle, and there was no struggle.”

“Dope?” the inspector said.

“I was looking especially for traces of a narcotic. There were none. I can only suggest that the wound was self-inflicted and that she cut deeper than she realized. The loss of blood weakened her and she drowned. The bathing suit, the cut, the absence of bruises or narcotics, the lake water in her lungs, all point to accidental death. Or suicide.”

“How long has she been dead?” Inspector White asked.

“According to the stomach content, digestive processes were well-advanced. Say three hours after she ate.”

“She had dinner in her room at six-thirty,” Prye said. “That would make it about nine-thirty. And you’re sure that her death was an accident or a suicide?”

“Unless more evidence turns up, I’ll say it’s accidental death.”

The inspector and Prye went out and climbed into White’s car.

“The bank,” White said tersely.

The bank manager identified the waterlogged bills as the bills he had sent out to Miss Emily Bonner by special messenger on Monday morning. There was no doubt whatever. No one in Clayton had ever withdrawn so much money under such peculiar circumstances, and the manager had listed the numbers of the bills.

Inspector White was quiet on the way back to Prye’s cottage. He drove with his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him as if he were driving very carefully. But he did not swerve to avoid bumps, and soon Prye’s head began to sing like a coloratura soprano in the act of going mad.

“Are you astigmatic or thinking?” Prye asked dryly.

White’s eyes unfroze. “Sorry. I’m a little of both. I was wondering what to do about the Bonners. It’s fairly certain that one or the other of them, perhaps both, helped Alfonse arrange the murder setting, gave her five thousand dollars to keep her mouth shut, probably with a promise to pay more later, and let her escape. Alfonse could not leave by road, since both ends of the lane were under guard, so she tried to swim to the opposite shore. Probably there was a car waiting to pick her up at a certain point. If you have enough money cars can be hired with no questions asked. But in arranging her own murder Miss Alfonse was too conscientious. She cut too deep and so she drowned. A pretty piece of irony, isn’t it?”

“If one could depend on irony,” Prye said, “one could build a philosophy around it. But irony is not dependable. Which of them are you going to arrest?”

“Neither,” White said simply. “I’ll keep them under guard until I can collect more evidence.”

“Where are you going to collect this evidence?”

“The Chinaman.”

Prye smiled thinly. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not? I’ve dealt with close-mouthed men before and they’ve talked.”

“No doubt,” Prye said, still smiling. “But Wang is not close-mouthed, he’s open-mouthed.”

Wang did his utmost to justify his reputation. At the sight of the inspector and Prye he bent double and launched instantly into effusions.

“Many persons speak highly of the majesty of the law. But with my own eyes I see their words paling when I am confronted with—”

“Wang!” Prye said sharply.

“Your tone misgives me,” Wang said, grinning. “I fear I have inserted my foot into the lion’s mouth.”

Inspector White had been prepared to use his old strategy of smiling tact and friendliness, but Wang had used it first. When two Dale Carnegie converts meet, Prye thought, one of them has to give in.

It was the inspector who did. He glared. “I have some questions to ask you, Wang, and I want answers to all of them.”

“I trust my inadequate knowledge of the English language will not prevent my supplying the answers you desire.”

“I trust not,” White said grimly. “Did you see Miss Bonner come downstairs on Monday night?”

Wang was shocked. “Miss Bonner is unsound of limb and never comes downstairs.”

“She says she did.”

“One is forced to conclude that Miss Bonner is a victim of the inconsistency which characterizes her sex,” Wang said regretfully. “With some reluctance I concede that Miss Bonner has a tendency to stop short of or go beyond the truth.”

Prye groaned. “You don’t share the tendency, of course. If you do I’m going to tie a rock around your neck and give you to the carp.”

“Gladly I proffer my neck,” Wang said sadly. “Life is hollow without the good opinion of the inestimable doctor.”

Prye and the inspector exchanged glances. Then Prye took Wang by the shoulder and rocked him back and forth twice.

“How much do you get for being blind and deaf?”

Wang smiled gently. “The words are blown from my lips by the winds of wisdom.”

“You’re afraid to talk?”

“I fear only Mr. Einstein and his vast concept of the fourth dimension. And I fear chaos. I am a thinker. All thinkers fear chaos.”

“Oh my God,” Prye said.

Inspector White thought of his adrenals just in time and managed to say calmly:

“Why don’t you talk, Wang?”

Wang’s face was mildly reproachful. “My tongue hesitates to be a rudder for a ship of destiny that is not my own.”

“That’s enough!” the inspector cried, waving his hands. “Go away. I’ll put you in jail when I have the time.”

Wang turned to leave, and as he passed Prye one yellow eyelid descended on one bright black eye.

Inspector White did not approve of swearing but Prye’s, “Damn that man!” was a kind of vicarious catharsis. He whirled up the steps with the delicacy of a hurricane and caught Miss Emily Bonner in the act of transferring herself from a frilly pink negligee to an equally frilly green negligee.

Emily was not discomfited. She fixed him with a cold eye and said to Prye: “I don’t like the company you keep, Prye. Remove it while I finish dressing.”

“I have some questions for you to answer, Miss Bonner,” Inspector White said ominously. “And Dr. Prye will take notes.”

Emily murmured, “Indeed?” and went on tying a green ribbon. Prye took refuge in a corner of the room and pulled out a notebook and pen.

“We’ll start with Monday morning,” the inspector said. “You telephoned your bank and made arrangements for the delivery of a large sum of money.”

“I did.”

“Blackmail money?”

“No. My life holds no secrets. The money was an insurance policy on Ralph’s happiness. Joan telephoned me on Monday morning and said that she would leave Muskoka if I gave her five thousand dollars. I made the arrangements immediately.” She smiled faintly. “I’ve always been good at spotting a bargain.”

“What was to be the method of transferring this money?”

“That was another stipulation of Joan’s: I was to bring it to her in person. I believe she meant it to be an added humiliation.”

“She specified the meeting place?”

“Yes. ‘Susan’s Sit-Out’ as she called it. I expect the allusion was to sitting out a dance. Anyway, I agreed. I told Miss Alfonse she could have the evening off to go to a movie, and I left the house about a quarter after eight. No one saw me leave. I’ve told Prye the rest of it. Must I repeat?”

“Yes,” the inspector said abruptly. “Why are you confined to a wheelchair if you can walk by yourself?”

Emily showed no trace of embarrassment. “Prye could probably explain it to you better than I can. But I expect it’s because I have no husband and no children and because I’m ugly and fat. But mostly I think it was because I was tired, much too tired to be anything but an onlooker.”

Prye looked up from his book. “ ‘And I’m the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt, Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.’ ”

“Yes. I felt like that,” Emily said. “I simply went back to my four walls, like the old bat that I am.” Her huge body shook with laughter.

The inspector waited for her to stop. “All right. You left the house and then what happened?”

“I didn’t want Ralph to see me, of course, for a number of reasons. When I got outside I saw the spotlight, and since the switch is in the kitchen I threw a stone at the thing and broke it. I am not used to walking or to keeping rendezvous in dark woods, so I’m afraid I lost my courage. I returned to the house.”

“You still saw no one?”

“No one. I went back to bed and Miss Alfonse found me there a few minutes later.”

“How many minutes?”

“Possibly five or ten.”

“Then what did you do?”

Emily smiled at him. “I trembled, Inspector White, I shook and trembled. Naturally I had to raise a row about the spotlight because I didn’t want anyone to know I had broken it myself. I was afraid of what Joan would do when I didn’t meet her to hand over the money, so I telephoned the police, ostensibly to find out who broke the spotlight, actually, of course, to protect Ralph and myself”

“Protect you?” White repeated. “You were afraid of the girl?”

“I think it’s wise to be afraid of someone who is capable of anything,” Emily said calmly. “Joan’s ego was inflated like a barrage balloon.”

Prye stopped writing. “Delusions of grandeur. A symptom common to many mental diseases but not necessarily indicative of one. A mild type of this delusion is exhibited by people who are compensating for a physical defect or social and financial inferiority.”

White put up his hand. “That’s enough. I merely want to know whether you considered Joan Frost capable of violence and of inspiring Miss Bonner with fear.”

“Yes, and yes,” Prye said.

White thanked him dryly and returned to Miss Bonner. “We come to Tuesday. Go on.”

“On Tuesday morning I saw Constable Jakes taking Joan out of the water. I have a pair of field glasses. Since I have more than once observed Prye staring suspiciously at my contours you may know about the glasses. They keep me amused. I saw the bag tied around Joan’s waist and knew she had been murdered, so I kept quiet about the money. Prye, however, is a congenital snoop. How did you guess about the five thousand dollars, Prye?”

Prye grinned. “Your contours again, Emily. You have improbable bulges which lend themselves to odd interpretations. Besides, Joan wouldn’t have departed without money and you seemed the most likely source.”

“You are quite impossible, Prye,” Emily said.

The inspector intervened. “What did you do on Tuesday night after dinner?”

“Nothing in particular. I read for a while, watched the storm when it came up, and the rest of the time I just sat. I realize that people who just sit are highly suspicious characters but that’s what I did. At ten o’clock Alfonse burst into the room with a case of hysterics. I treated her as I saw fit and packed her off to bed. Have you found her, by the way?”

“Yes. This morning.”

“Well?”

“She was drowned,” White said slowly. “Apparently it was an accidental death.”

“Apparently? Don’t you know?”

“It was an accident in that she drowned accidentally. But the circumstances of her going for a swim at that time of night—”

“For a swim?” Emily echoed. “That’s absurd. She was afraid of the water at night. She had always lived in the city. She certainly wouldn’t go swimming at night for pleasure.”

“Perhaps not for pleasure,” White replied. “But how about for five thousand dollars?”

Emily stared thoughtfully out of the window.

“My five thousand dollars, I suppose?”

“Yours,” Inspector White said grimly.

“In that case, I don’t think I’ll say anything more at present.”

“Miss Bonner, I am placing you under guard as a material witness for the time being.”

Emily was very meek. “Quite. May I talk to my nephew first?”

“You may not. Any conversations you have in future will be in the presence of the matron who is arriving shortly. Your nephew will be under similar restrictions.”

“You lout,” Emily said distinctly.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a time broken by Prye’s voice: “Emily, if you were prepared to pay over five thousand dollars to Joan why did you call me in on Monday afternoon to elaborate plans for putting her in jail?”

“The money. It didn’t seem a great deal until I saw it.” She shrugged her fat shoulders expressively. “I thought there might be some other way to get rid of her.”

“Murder,” the inspector said, “is the only permanent way.”

“I daresay you’re right, Inspector,” she replied. “But you’re very tiresome.” She put her head back and apparently went to sleep.

Ralph was equally apathetic about his technical arrest. He answered White’s questions in a monotone, and his story was substantially the same as the one he had told Prye. There was one difference: he made no mention of Miss Alfonse accompanying him on his walk.

“What did you do Tuesday night?” the inspector inquired. He spoke more mildly than he had to Emily, for Ralph was looking rather dazed.

“Nothing much,” Ralph said listlessly. “Just sat around.”

“Your aunt just sat around, too.”

“Oh. Well, she always does. Can’t walk, you know.”

“Did you know your aunt had a large amount of cash in her room?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you often go into her room?”

“Only when she sends for me.”

“I understand that you and your aunt had a quarrel on Tuesday morning in the presence of Miss Alfonse.”

“I guess we did if someone told you.”

“What was the quarrel about?”

Ralph looked hopelessly puzzled. “Couldn’t say, really. Couldn’t follow her. I mean, she gets ideas into her head.”

“What ideas?”

“Thinks women are after me, you know. Very embarrassing.”

“What women?” the inspector said impatiently.

“Oh. Well, that nurse. Thought the nurse was after my money — her money, that is — and raised a row. A very odd woman, my aunt. Can’t understand her.” He made a helpless gesture with his hands.

On the way downstairs Inspector White was looking almost as bewildered as Ralph himself.

“A peculiar boy,” he said to Prye. “He seems almost half-witted. Do you think he is?”

“Half-witted is not a psychological term,” Prye said severely. “Do you mean idiot, imbecile, moron, dull, or borderline? He isn’t any of those. He may lack a few points of the hundred but he’s not congenitally subnormal. I’m going to see the cook. Come along?”

“No, thanks,” White said. “Miss Bonner pays her servants too well.”

Miss Dorothy Jakes was pleased that she was finally going to get some attention.

“Miss Alfonse?” she repeated in reply to Prye’s question. “Yes, she did come down to the kitchen last night while I was getting Miss Bonner’s dinner. I thought it was funny at the time.”

“Why?”

“Well, because I knew her. A lot she cared what Miss Bonner had for dinner, her and her vitamins! She wouldn’t even take the tray up.”

“Who poured Miss Bonner’s coffee?”

“She did, I guess. It was on the tray when I took it up and I can’t remember pouring it myself.”

“Does Mr. Bonner ever come into the kitchen?”

“Oh no, sir! Whatever else they may say about Mr. Bonner, he is a gentleman.”

That places me, Prye thought. Aloud he said: “What else do they say about Mr. Bonner?”

Miss Jakes pointed eloquently to her head.