The Weak-Eyed Bat

Chapter Two

The disembodied voice was floating out of the windows of the cottage between the Littles’ and the Frosts’. The most that could be said for the voice was that it was full of enthusiasm.

Miss Nora Shane heard it and was disposed to be critical. She set her campstool and easel on the ground, put her hand to her mouth, and yelled: “Oh, dry up! Dry up!”

She regretted it almost instantly. The voice certainly dried up but a face appeared at one of the back windows of the cottage. The face was better than the voice. It was, in fact, quite ingratiating except for a quarter-inch stubble of beard.

“Hello,” the face said. “Dry up yourself.”

It was one of those remarks to which a reply was impossible without loss of dignity, so Nora picked up her campstool and prepared to retreat. The situation would have been saved if the face hadn’t added:

“This is my own property. There’s no law against singing on your own property.”

“Perhaps not,” Nora conceded coldly. “Sing on your own property by all means, but see that your singing doesn’t carry over on to my property.”

“Once these liquid notes leave my larynx I disclaim all responsibility for where they land,” the face replied with equal coldness. “Besides, your left foot is three inches over on my property and the rest of you is on the Frosts’ property. So far as I can see you have no say in the matter.”

The only retort Nora could think of was, “Nuts!” so she said that. It was very weak. Even the young man at the window thought it was very weak. He smiled and said:

“You sound hungry. I’m just frying some bacon and eggs. Would you like some?”

Nora’s voice was frigid. “No, indeed, thank you.”

“Newly laid eggs and sizzling hot bacon,” the young man continued, “from the chicken and the pig respectively. You’d better come in out of the sun. Your nose is sunburned.”

The face disappeared from the window and in a minute its owner had opened the back door of the cottage and was standing on the screened veranda. He was extremely tall and thin. He wore a pair of baggy grey flannels and a blue denim shirt. His black hair was lightly touched with grey.

“I never sunburn,” Nora said.

The man gazed at her in reproof. “The beaches are strewn yearly with the crisp corpses of those who never sunburn. I think you could use some breakfast.”

From the window issued a small puff of smoke followed by a larger puff. Pretty soon it was billowing out in vast clouds, filling the air with the odor of burned bacon.

“Fire!” Nora shouted.

In an instant she was leaping toward the kitchen. The stove was shrouded in smoke. She grabbed a towel from the rack, draped it over the handle of the iron frying pan containing what had been bacon, and carried it outside. She was coughing and spluttering and the tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“Don’t just stand there!” she yelled. “Do something!”

She dashed back into the kitchen, turned off the stove, and began sopping up the spilled grease with another towel.

The tall young man was staring at her admiringly. “Gosh,” he said.

The smoke gradually swept out of the window and disappeared into the thin clear air.

“Gosh,” he said again. “Typhoon O’Grady in person. You are Irish, aren’t you?”

Nora sank weakly into a chair. “Is that all you have to say to someone who saved you from being burned alive? I’d like another towel, please. I’m covered with grease.”

“Sorry,” he said with an apologetic smile. “I’m rather short of towels. Would my shirt do?” No, the shirt would not do. Nora did the best she could with her handkerchief.

“Glad you dropped in,” he said. “My name is Prye, Dr. Paul Prye.”

“Is it?” Nora said.

“What’s — I mean, haven’t you got a name?”

“Certainly. They call me little Mary Smith. You remember little Mary Smith—”

“The name is still Paul Prye.”

“Honestly?”

He was very sad. “Sorry, but there it is.”

Nora looked sympathetic. “You can’t help it, I guess. I’m Nora Shane.”

“That’s nice.”

“It’s all right.”

The conversation died temporarily.

“Sorry about the breakfast,” Prye said finally. “But how was I to know that the instant I turned my back there’d be spontaneous combustion? No one knows these things.”

“Have you any eggs left?” Nora asked. “I’m pretty good at scrambled eggs.”

Prye produced a carton of eggs from the icebox.

“And the butter please?”

“Butter,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Butter. I can’t definitely remember buying any butter but I feel sure I couldn’t have forgotten.”

Even without butter the breakfast was a success. The Muskoka air has a pronounced effect on the appetite, and since this was Prye’s first visit in two years, he ate largely.

Nora nibbled and watched. Although she spent her summers in ascetic solitude transferring nature to canvas, it was pleasant to know that the rest of the summer needn’t be completely ascetic. Prye was, she thought, about thirty-four. Given the attentions of a barber and a valet he might be quite distinguished-looking.

She lit a cigarette over her coffee and said: “Are you a real doctor? I mean, not divine or philosophic?”

“Neither divine nor philosophic,” Prye assured her solemnly. “I’m a kind of cosmopolitan quack. If a lady in San Francisco wants to know why her husband has taken to eating paper bags, she might call on me. Then I simply go to the lady’s house, ostensibly as a guest, and observe her husband in his natural environment. He might be a diet faddist who thinks paper bags are teeming with vitamins, but the probabilities are that he is suffering from hallucinations and eating paper bags at the dictates of some inner voice. Then I recommend a sanatorium and a course of treatment.”

“You’re a psychiatrist?”

“A consulting psychiatrist.”

Nora frowned and pressed out her cigarette in an ashtray. “Are you up here — on business?”

“Strictly on a holiday,” Prye said lightly.

“You weren’t called up here?” she persisted.

Prye laughed. “Why? Have we a maniac in our midst?”

“Not exactly. Just someone who shouldn’t be allowed to— Oh, forget it. You’ll know all there is to know in twenty-four hours. I like your cottage. Is it yours?”

“It is. You hint darkly, Miss Shane. What’s it all about?”

“Nothing. Nobody. I simply don’t like the feel of things around here. I expect you laugh at a woman’s intuition?”

“When it’s called that I chuckle mildly. But I recognize intuitive powers as facts in men as well as women. Intuition is simply the result of a highly sensitive subconscious which reacts to subtleties that are missed by the conscious mind. A shade of expression on the part of a guest, a slight gesture, a tone of voice, may make a hostess ‘intuitive’ about that guest’s likes and dislikes. Mind readers and their ilk have this quickness of perception. I believe, although you needn’t quote me in a scientific journal, that the subconscious can be trained just as any other part of the body can be trained.”

“How?” Nora asked.

Prye shrugged. “If I knew how, I’d build me a race of supermen. But I do think that the subconscious should have and was intended to have a live function, and by a live function I mean that it should be capable of being used at the will of the individual. Civilization has imposed countless restrictions and conventions on each of us, with the result that the subconscious in the majority of us has become a storage room without a key. We are forced to suppress or forget so many events and ideas and thoughts that those to which we should have access are lost in the welter. However, there are people who seem capable of unlocking this part of their minds and extracting relevant information. Their memories are phenomenal. Possibly — who knows? — this ability is what constitutes ‘intelligence.’ ”

Nora smiled across the table at him. “You sound like a prophet, Dr. Prye.”

“I was afraid of that,” Prye said, grinning. “But at least I’ve paraded my chief failing for you. Hey!”

Nora had gotten up so quickly that the ashtray at her elbow fell on the floor.

“I’m going,” she said hastily. “Haven’t time to explain.” She went to the door.

Prye said, “What’s all this?”

She pointed out the window and then slipped quietly out to the back veranda.

Prye looked out of the window. Advancing along the lane toward his cottage was a tall yellow-haired girl. She was dressed in a scant yellow bathing suit and her skin was tanned to a deep brown. She walked quickly and heavily, as if she were angry. A few seconds later there was a loud series of knocks on the front door.

Prye opened the door. For a moment Joan stared at him with eyes that seemed almost colorless against her brown skin.

“Hello, Prye,” she said. “I want to talk to you.” She came in without waiting for him to speak.

Prye raised an eyebrow. “Quite an entrance, Joan. Have you been going to dramatic school?”

He opened the door of his sitting room and she went in and sat down on a red leather couch.

“Sit down, Prye,” she said.

Prye sat down. “Anything to oblige,” he murmured. “Two years ago I was Dr. Prye to you, youngster. Now I’m Prye. What else has happened in two years?”

She did not smile. “This isn’t a social call. I don’t want to make small talk with you. I think you’re a heel.”

“Flatterer.”

“Why are you here? How much are you getting?”

Prye looked puzzled. “I’m holidaying, and unfortunately no one’s paying me for it.”

She kept staring at him with her pale eyes and Prye shifted uncomfortably. “So help me,” he said.

“Well, I’ve warned you. Remember that.”

“Now who’s out to get me?” Prye sighed.

“I am.”

“Any special reason?”

“My father’s coming to see you today. He’s going to ask you to do something, and if you agree to do it you’ll never get out of here alive.”

Her tone changed suddenly. She leaned forward on the couch, frowning. “See here, Prye. Suppose a person is insane or just considered insane, and suppose the person gets away before he can be locked up, what then?”

About to laugh, Prye checked himself at the expression on her face.

“It would depend,” he said, “on the laws of the country and the particular type of insanity involved.”

“I mean, would they send policemen after the person?”

“If he was dangerous. Most of them aren’t but some are.”

“By dangerous you mean capable of killing?”

“Roughly speaking, yes.”

“Would you consider me dangerous?”

Prye smiled at her. “I don’t know, Joan. Do you feel like killing anyone?”

She rose and began to stride up and down the room.

“You and your stupid traps!” she shouted. “You want me to say I’d like to kill someone. Well, I do say it. That doesn’t mean anything. Everyone feels like killing someone. Everyone. Most of all I’d like to get him!”

“Who, your father?” Prye said easily. “How is your father, by the way?”

“He’s a sarcastic old son of a bitch the same as he always was. Do you want to know what he’s doing now? He’s up in his study writing. And do you know what he’s writing? He’s writing about me. And do you know what for?”

“Nope,” Prye said cheerfully.

“To show you. He’s putting it all down, what I say and what I do and what I eat. Oh, he thinks he’s being very cute about it.”

“Sure of your facts, Joan? It doesn’t sound like your father.”

“I know.” She came over to his chair and stood above him. “You came two days too soon, Prye. Your best bet is to pretend you aren’t here, or to go away. I’m not in this alone. I have friends.”

“In what alone?”

“Be a good boy until Wednesday, Prye, and I’ll buy you an ice-cream cone. If you aren’t a good boy I’ll put you to bed on the bottom of the lake.”

She went out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Prye shook his head sadly.

“That from an eighteen-year-old,” he said aloud. “Could there be a new Youth Movement for the suppression of everyone over thirty? Is all this adolescent venom concentrated on me? Yes. Why? Couldn’t say. Is death with honor preferable to an ice-cream cone without?”

The door of the sitting room opened softly.

“Make mine strawberry without,” Nora said. “How do you like our Joan?”

Prye jumped to his feet. “I thought you were going home, Miss Shane.”

“You mustn’t be so trustful,” Nora said severely. “The trouble with you is, you’re an idealist.” She took a cigarette and lit it with exaggerated calm.

Prye watched her bitterly. “What in hell is going on up here? I come for a holiday and before I can even tuck in my first calorie a strange woman tells me to dry up, and after breakfast a girl who was playing with caterpillars two years ago threatens me with death. Could it be a case of mistaken identity?”

“No,” Nora said.

“All right, I give up. Explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain, yet.”

“You must have had some reason for eavesdropping. Or do you do it instinctively?”

“I wanted to hear what she said,” Nora replied coolly. “Joan is interesting, don’t you think?”

“No.”

“Are you a good friend of Professor Frost’s?”

“Not exactly.”

“But you know him quite well?”

“Well enough. If you’ve any more questions, Miss Shane, I hope you won’t be bashful about asking them.”

“I won’t,” Nora said. “Professor Frost sent for you, you know.”

“I don’t know!” Prye said violently. “I’ve never had a letter from him in my life!”

“He wrote one. I was in the Clayton post office one day when Joan came in with a pile of letters. She looked through them before putting them in the box and I saw her pick one out and tear it up when she went outside. And I — well, I picked up the pieces. It was addressed to you.”

Prye frowned. “When was this? What did it say?”

“About two weeks ago. I didn’t patch the whole thing together, but I know it came from Professor Frost. When I found out this morning that you were a psychiatrist I began to add things up.”

“What answer did you get?”

“That this particular section of Muskoka is unhealthy.”

“For me?”

“For all of us.”

“Do you ever hear voices, Miss Shane?”

Nora grinned. “Not a whisper. But I have eyes, and they’ve seen a number of queer things.”

“Such as?”

“Such as Joan getting engaged to Ralph, and Miss Bonner having a spotlight put up at the entrance to the lane, and Miss Bonner’s pearl ring turning up in the secondhand shop in Clayton, and Mr. Smith—”

“Where does Smith live?”

“In the last cottage. He’s been there for three months and hasn’t spoken to anyone except to order them away.”

“I detect a personal note in your voice, Miss Shane. So Mr. Smith ordered you away, the rat.”

Nora blushed and said stiffly: “I was merely walking along his lane. I wasn’t tearing it up by the roots.”

“Still, it’s his lane, isn’t it? All right, go on.”

“No. You’ve broken the spell. For a minute I was on the verge of telling you the story of my life. Thanks for stopping me.” She went over to the window. “Want to see something cute?”

She pointed out toward the beach where a man in bathing trunks was lying on a small strip of sand. He seemed to be asleep.

Prye glanced down at her quizzically. “Your love interest?”

“Joan’s, at the moment. And a badly soiled bargain he is.”

“Married, of course?”

“Of course. To a woman with a lot' of money and a weak heart and a passion for forgiving him his trespasses.”

“That sounds all right.”

Nora’s voice was rather distant. “Certainly it is. If Mary Little wants to try and house-train a pet louse, let her. But somebody should tell Ralph Bonner about it, somebody impersonal and calm, say a doctor, for instance.”

“Say what doctor, for instance?” Prye demanded coldly.

“You see Ralph is so innocent and idealistic, he might do anything. I’ll bet you could tell him almost painlessly.”

“I’ll bet,” Prye said gloomily, “that no one could painlessly inform a man that his fiancée is a little tramp.” Prye sighed heavily as a knock sounded on the front door. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. It’s a lynching party. Say I’m not at home.”

Nora tiptoed to the door and looked out cautiously from the shelter of chintz curtains. She turned back to him, frowning.

“It’s Miss Bonner’s nurse.”

“I didn’t know Miss Bonner had a nurse,” Prye said. “What’s she like, bloodthirsty?”

“Miss Alfonse is a perfect lady and she’ll cut the throat of the first guy that says she’s not.”

Prye grinned and went to the door, and Nora tiptoed back to the sitting room.

Miss Harriet Alfonse was on the point of knocking a third and last time when the door opened with a suddenness that made her jump. Miss Alfonse’s nerves were congenitally bad, and the strain of her profession, not entirely confined to nursing, had aggravated her condition. At thirty-one she passed as a well-preserved forty. The fact was that Alfonse was much too conscientious: when she chose a new name out of the telephone book she worked out a completely new personality to fit it.

She had long black hair neatly pinned into a roll at the back of her head, and only close observers suspected that Alfonse’s hair was too black to be true. She was tall, stout, and rigidly corseted. Her features were attractive in repose, but when she smiled she was not convincing as Miss Harriet Alfonse whose life of genteel poverty in Georgia had necessitated her going to work to save the old plantation. Miss Alfonse had never seen a plantation.

Her voice was prim. “Miss Bonner would like to see you before lunch,” she told Prye.

“You’re Miss Bonner’s nurse?”

“Nursing companion,” Miss Alfonse said loftily, in character.

Prye studied her. “Haven’t we met before some place?”

No Alfonse could be approached so blatantly. “No, indeed. Shall I tell Miss Bonner to expect you?”

“I’ll come over with you now,” Prye said suddenly. “I’d like to talk to you, Miss—?”

Miss Alfonse did not believe in mixing business and pleasure, but she permitted herself to smile. After all, one could never have too many irons in the fire and Dr. Prye was certainly distinguished-looking, perhaps even wealthy.

Her smile grew warmer and faded. “No, thank you,” she said with regret. “I am quite capable of finding my way back.”

Illustrating her point, she walked down the veranda steps unerringly. Prye watched her. In her white uniform with her neat hair and her sensible low-heeled white shoes she looked like a competent hospital supervisor. But there was something about her smile, a certain wariness, that Prye found familiar. He went back to the sitting room.

“Nice girl, Alfonse,” Nora said with a grimace.

“How long has she been here?” Prye asked.

“Two months. Miss Alfonse and I came up by the same train as a matter of fact. I was all set to let down my back hair and start a beautiful friendship with her but Alfonse was not in the market. Very aloof, and if I remember correctly she had a lovely Southern drawl which has since disappeared. Still, Miss Bonner likes her after two months, and that’s a character reference supreme.”

“I think I know this Alfonse,” Prye said thoughtfully.

“She doesn’t know you,” Nora said. “I was watching her from the window. Fumble around in your subconscious, Dr. Prye. Under what circumstances would you a remember her when she doesn’t remember you?”

Prye turned the question over in his mind all the time he was shaving, unpacking white flannels and a blue blazer, and walking up the lane to Miss Bonner’s white house.

The Bonner residence, since it was permanent, was the only one in the vicinity equipped with all the niceties of civilization: a doorbell, a houseman, a cook, two maids, fourteen gilt-framed oil paintings, a two-car garage, a motor launch, and a spotlight.

Miss Bonner had many vagaries and no one had been surprised when she announced her intention of erecting a powerful spotlight at the entrance to the lane. Sin, she propounded, flourished in the dark, and the spotlight would discourage prospective burglars. Since the surrounding countryside was a deep forest her explanation satisfied everyone but Nora.

Prye rang the bell and almost immediately the door opened and revealed a small rotund Chinaman in a white coat. His round face was creased with smiles.

“Dr. Prye. Most charming to see you again. I’m glad.”

“Hello, Wang. You’re looking well and a bit heavier.”

“Injudicious eating,” Wang said with a broad grin. “Miss Bonner is awaiting you in her room. Miss Bonner is a very, very old lady. She no longer comes downstairs.”

Prye made suitable noises of surprise. “How time flies.”

Wang looked wise. “Some persons say she is over a hundred and will never die.” The prospect seemed to depress him.

“Exaggeration,” Prye said cheerfully. “Don’t bother showing me up. I remember the room.”

He took the red-carpeted steps two at a time, stopped in front of a thick oak door, and rapped lightly.

“Come in!” a voice roared. “Come in!”

Miss Emily Bonner was sitting in her wheelchair by the window, and since she expected to shake hands with Prye, the field glasses were nestling in the folds of a feathery pink negligee. She was so massive that she overflowed her chair and seemed hidden by her own fat.

“Ha. Prye. You’re late.” From under piles of frizzy grey hair her shrewd little eyes glowered at him.

Prye took both her hands. “Hello, Emily. You’re looking younger every day.”

“Younger. Ha. You must be blind, Prye. I’ll be ninety soon.” She took her hands away crossly. “Sit down.”

Prye sat down in a chair facing her and watched her, half-smiling.

“Still an old fibber, eh? When did you take to your chair, Emily?”

Miss Bonner growled. “You’re like all the rest of these doctors — take everyone else’s symptoms altogether too lightly. Look at me, for instance. High blood pressure. Arthritis. Enlargement of the heart. And never a crumb of sympathy!”

“That couldn’t have been you cavorting around the beach two years ago, then,” Prye said solemnly. “Extraordinary likeness, though.”

“Oh, nonsense! Your memory’s going, Prye. Why, only yesterday I had a temperature of a hundred five degrees. Don’t believe me, eh?” She took a deep breath and let out a roar: “Alfonse! Alfonse!”

The nursing companion rustled starchily into the room and said: “Yes, modom?”

“Alfonse, what was my temperature yesterday afternoon at four o’clock?”

“One hundred and five, modom.”

“All right. Go away.”

Alfonse went away, leaving no doubt in Prye’s mind why Miss Bonner thought highly of her nurse.

“Look here, Prye,” Emily said suddenly. “I don’t want to talk about myself. Do you remember Joan Frost?”

“Vividly,” Prye said with feeling.

“She’s engaged to my nephew. What does that suggest to you?”

“That they’re going to get married.”

“They are not going to get married!” Emily cried. “She’s a vixen and I have no intention of allowing my money to be spent on the upkeep of vixens. I want the affair stopped, and you’re the man to stop it.”

“I rarely dabble in love affairs. The heart is too incalculable an organ.”

“Nonsense! You love dabbling in everything that doesn’t concern you. Now I’m fond of Ralph, at least as fond as one can be of someone living in the same house. But I know his weakness. He’s got to marry some big strapping girl who’ll keep him toeing the line.”

“And carry on your good work, I suppose?” Prye suggested.

Emily, surprisingly, did not take offense. “Precisely. Ralph has no head at all.”

“If you want the engagement broken why not do something about it yourself? Your staggering list of ailments doesn’t include laryngitis, I note.”

“Leave me out of this. What can you do?”

“Well,” Prye said pensively, “I suppose I could attempt to woo the young lady myself, but I’m afraid I’m off to a bad start. Our interview this morning was hardly amorous.”

“Your interview! What did she say to you?”

“A great deal,” Prye said easily. “None of it repeatable. But the general idea was that I’m of a low order, barely clinging, in fact, to the bottom rung of the social ladder.”

“Exactly what she would say. She hates everyone.”

“Including Tom Little?”

Emily regarded him grimly. “So you know. You must have had a busy time since your arrival.”

Prye smiled modestly. “Information thrusts itself upon me. Why not send your heir and nephew away for a time?”

“He won’t go.”

“I hope you’ve been too wise to threaten him with disinheritance. But I seem to recall that you threaten quite a number of people in that way whether they’re due to inherit or not.”

“Naturally I’ve told him he won’t get any of my money if he marries that creature. He said he didn’t want any of it, that he was going to join the Air Force.” Emily took out a pink lace handkerchief and dabbed at eyes that were completely tearless. “So you’ll just have to see that she gets put in jail, Prye.”

He started. “Good God. Is that all? Do you want to prefer charges against her?”

“No. I won’t have anything to do with it. I have my reasons. She’s been stealing consistently for years now. Her father manages to get her out of it.”

“She can’t be arrested unless she is charged specifically.”

Emily put down her handkerchief and snorted. “Do you mean to tell me that the law won’t protect me against thieves?”

“Not unless you cooperate. If Joan has taken anything from your house—”

“No, no,” Emily said quickly.

Prye rose from his chair and went over to the window. “Nice view you have here, Emily. Why don’t you give up scheming and enjoy it? Girls of eighteen are changeable creatures and even psychiatrists sometimes need a holiday.”

Emily thumped a fist on the arm of her wheelchair.

“Prye, I admire you. I rarely ask favors and I’m not asking one now. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to get rid of that girl permanently. Perhaps you’ll think of something even better than putting her in jail.”

“That shouldn’t be difficult,” Prye said dryly. “Why your sudden aversion to interfering yourself? I’ve always considered you an expert in that line.”

Emily twisted the huge diamond imbedded in her fat finger. “That’s none of your business, Prye.”

“Joan has something on you?” he asked casually.

“Nonsense. My life has been tediously virtuous.” She mused a moment, smiling. “Once I was very like Susan, you know. Always trying to do the right thing and getting in everyone’s hair.”

“I haven’t seen Susan for two years.”

“She’s getting rather horrible. Half worm and half mouse. She’ll be a silly old woman like me some day.”

Emily took a deep breath, and this time Prye knew what to expect.

“Alfonse! Alfonse!”

When Alfonse came into the room she was smiling, and her smile was the key that Prye was seeking. Eight years previously Miss Alfonse had had blonde curls, a slim figure, and a vacuously pretty face. Her name, too, had been changed in the interval. Except for her smile she bore no resemblance to the young girl in Chicago who had been in the dock on a charge of murdering a child under bizarre circumstances.

Prye followed her downstairs, and at the door he said, “You don’t remember me, Miss Alfonse?”

She was going to smile coyly at him but there was something forbidding in his voice, and the smile froze to her face.

“No,” she said uncertainly, “I don’t remember you.”