The Weak-Eyed Bat

Chapter Eight

At four o’clock Dr. Prye was lying on the red leather couch in his sitting room. His head was throbbing like a T-model Ford, and every beat of his heart backfired at the back of his skull. He was thinking of a bag of stones and a pair of hands, fat red hands like Emily Bonner’s, and strong thin hands like Professor Frost’s, and the pale blue hands of Mary Little...

He started to get up, but his head fell off and rolled across the floor, and by the time it came rolling back he was asleep. He did not hear the knock on the front door. It was a soft, furtive sound followed by the gentle opening and closing of the door and light footsteps in the hall. Then the door of the sitting room opened noiselessly and a woman slipped through it and stood looking down at Prye.

Her gaze was so intense, so malignant that he moved in his sleep, and she retreated. A minute later she was knocking again, loudly this time, venting her anger until her knuckles stung.

“Great Scott,” Prye said, lifting his head from the pillow. “Must you do that? Come in!”

She went in, closing the door behind her.

“So you’ve remembered,” Prye said.

“Yes, a few minutes ago,” she said. “I came right over.”

It wasn’t Miss Alfonse any longer. The clothes were the same, but the accent, the leer, the gentility had been swept away by a hurricane of fury.

“You’ve ratted, I suppose? It’s smug hypocrites like you who keep a woman from going straight. Some little slut gets herself murdered as she deserves and you try to pin it on me. Sure I made a mistake once. But it was a mistake. The law said I wasn’t responsible.” Her voice was rising like a police siren. “I wasn’t responsible, see? I was crazy!”

“I think,” Prye said, “I can stand almost anything better than a noisy female. If you’ll sit down calmly, Miss Alfonse, I’ll get you a drink. What will you have?”

“Brandy,” Miss Alfonse said shortly. “A lot of it.”

She had a lot of brandy.

“What are you,” she said, “a detective?”

“No. Just a doctor.”

“I see. It’s money you want, is it?”

“No. I want information.”

“What for, if you’re not a detective?”

Prye shrugged. “When a young girl is murdered the day after my arrival and some of my oldest friends are suspected of murdering her, I feel obliged to help the police.”

“Very noble, I’m sure. What’s it got to do with me? They’re not my oldest friends.” Her sharp brown eyes pecked at him. “And they’re not yours either, I bet.”

Prye beamed at her benevolently. “You’re very shrewd, Miss Alfonse. They’re not.”

“I’m smart enough,” Alfonse said abruptly. “The thing is, are you?”

“You mean, am I smart enough to mind my own business?”

“That’s it.”

“Frankly, no. I thought you and I could make a deal. You probably know more about this community than I could discover in a year.”

“I don’t want to spoil anybody’s fun. Just go on detecting for a year. By that time...” Her jaws clamped on the words. “You might get another tap on the head, Prye.”

“From you?”

She gazed at him steadily. “When I hit you, you’ll stay hit.”

“Don’t be foolish, Miss Alfonse. You’re not in a position to make threats. Policemen are easily convinced that history repeats itself and with your history—”

She turned and walked to the door.

“Stool pigeon,” she said over her shoulder.

“Wait.”

She stopped, her hand on the doorknob.

“If you know anything about this murder,” Prye said, “I’ll insure your life for fifty thousand dollars and retire. Those are your prospects. But as a matter of fact I don’t think you do know anything about it.”

“No?” She smiled.

“Unless you did it yourself. My guess is that you’re stalling. You wanted me to keep quiet about you until you had a good story fixed up. I advise you to polish up your alibi.”

She was still smiling. “It’s got a shine like a silver dollar and you’re going to feel very, very silly.”

Miss Alfonse was herself again. She was humming as she walked up the lane, and there was a new jauntiness in her step and the set of her shoulders.

Prye, watching her from the window, raised a puzzled eyebrow. Miss Alfonse had come in like a lion and gone out like a lamb, and he did not trust lambs.

“What is she feeling so good about?” Prye said bitterly. “Was it something I said, or something she thought, or—? To hell, Miss Alfonse, with you. You’re a liar and probably a murderer, and my mother won’t allow me to speak to the likes of you.”

“Are you,” inquired a bewildered voice from the doorway, “crazy?”

Prye turned his head. “Hello, Jakes. Come in. In a sense, yes, I am crazy. But not because I’m talking to myself.”

“Maybe not,” Jakes said darkly.

“As a matter of fact, have you never noticed that most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness?”

“No,” Jakes said.

“Well, listen next time you hear a couple of women talking. They’ll each have a list of likes and dislikes that they intend to reel off. Now wouldn’t it be much simpler for Mrs. Smith to sit in front of a mirror and read her list without competition: ‘I like broiled mushrooms, horses, daffodils, Faith Baldwin, and Havana cigars.’ See what I mean?”

Jakes scratched the side of his nose.

“Never heard of a woman smoking cigars,” he said at last.

Prye sighed. “Oh well. Any new developments?”

“That’s why I came. The police are here.”

“Aren’t you the police?”

“Not anymore. Inspector White of the Provincial Police is in charge from now on. Just as well, too. I don’t know anything about murder. I wouldn’t know even what to look for.”

“How about looking for sugar bags?” Prye suggested.

“No use. Professor Frost says all the cottagers buy sugar in that quantity.”

“Do you always believe what people tell you? Don’t answer that — I’ll use it against you. Has Joan Frost’s room been sealed?”

“Locked, you mean? Certainly. The windows are locked, too,” he added proudly. “A mouse couldn’t get in there.”

“I don’t care if three mice get in as long as one of them isn’t Susan Frost.”

“Susan’s a very nice girl,” Jakes said severely. “There’s only one person I really suspect and that’s Tom Little. He had a motive and he’s a thoroughly bad man. What’s more, he’s probably poisoning his wife.”

“With what?”

“With what?” Jakes thought a moment. “With a foreign poison. That’s it. Some foreign poison!”

Prye sighed again. “Oh well. This maid of the Littles’ — Jennie Harris — do you know her well?”

“For thirty years. She’s a silly woman but as honest as they come.”

“In that case you’ll be looking around for a new suspect because Jennie had Tom Little within sight and hearing from seven-fifteen until ten o’clock last night.”

“Well,” Jakes said slowly, “I never caught her doing anything dishonest.”

Prye shook his head solemnly. “Constable Jakes, you have a Neanderthal simplicity that strikes at my heart.”

Jakes flushed. “It’s all very well for you to go around believing people are liars and murderers, but I’m a policeman. I have to prove they are.”

“All I ask is an open mind. According to you, Professor Frost is a gentleman and Susan is a very nice girl, and you’ve known Miss Bonner and Jennie for years, and Ralph is a nice boy, and Mary Little is being poisoned by her cad of a husband. That lets them out. Now who’s left? Tom Little, who has an alibi, the servants, Nora Shane, and myself. Nora had no connection with Joan at all. As for me, I admit I wouldn’t have minded paddling her hinterland, but further I would not and did not go. So now where are you?”

“I don’t know and it’s not worrying me. It’s Inspector White’s case. With you helping him I bet he’ll crack it right away.”

“With me helping?” Prye repeated. “You mean I’m requested to help? There’s a catch in it.”

“Oh no,” Jakes said virtuously. “White is a very shrewd man, very smooth.”

Prye smiled thinly. “Yes, but I don’t care much for very shrewd, very smooth—”

“You will. Everybody likes Inspector White.”

Constable Jakes was wrong. There was at least one man who did not appreciate Inspector White. He was a small, chubby-cheeked man with the face of an aging cherub. He had a mustache, a pair of spectacles, and a dog, and his name was Smith. Mr. Smith had been on his way to Flint, Michigan, but between Mr. Smith and the entrance to the Detroit-Windsor tunnel there had loomed up several yards of Royal Canadian Mounted policemen. So Mr. Smith was back in Muskoka.

“Well, here we are again, Mr. Smith,” Inspector White boomed. “Wonderful place, Muskoka. Can’t understand why you ever wanted to leave.”

“Can’t you?” Mr. Smith said glumly.

“The breeze.” Inspector White took a deep breath. “Wonderful, eh?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Smith.

“And the view. A magnificent view, eh?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Smith.

They were walking toward Mr. Smith’s cottage. Inspector White was a huge, broad-shouldered, jovial-looking man in a grey-blue uniform with a black Sam Browne belt. Beside him Mr. Smith looked very small and unhappy, like an erring angel who has been deprived of his harp as a disciplinary measure.

Inspector White had been an insurance salesman and a minister before his curiosity had led him into police work, and both professions had left their mark on him. His voice was still as convincing, his smile still as warm, as when he had topped all selling records for the Behemoth Life Insurance Company. Inspector White’s tactics remained essentially the same from job to job, and he was never more friendly and informal than when he was interviewing a possible murderer.

Mr. Smith dolefully unlocked the front door of his cottage and they went inside, followed closely by Horace.

“Very cozy,” Inspector White said. “Very cozy. Wish I had the time to spend a summer in one of these cottages.”

“I wish you had, too,” Mr. Smith said truthfully.

“Shall we eat first and then talk?”

“Sit down please. I prefer to talk. The whole business is a mystery to me. I was simply stopped at the border and told I’d have to return here.”

The inspector settled himself in an armchair. “Well, well. It isn’t so easy to get across the border as it used to be, is it? How long have you been in Canada, Mr. Smith?”

“Six months.”

“Six months? You’re a lucky man to be able to take a holiday for six months. I hope you get down on your knees and thank the Almighty for the blessings which—” Inspector White suddenly recalled that he was no longer in the ministry. “Well, well,” said Inspector White, giving himself time to make this mental adjustment. “Now, Mr. Smith, what made you decide to leave here last night?”

Mr. Smith blinked behind his glasses and coughed in a deprecating manner. “I’m a sort of nomad, as it were. I like to wander here and there, more or less.”

Inspector White smiled warmly. “I know exactly how you feel, Mr. Smith. You wanted to get away from it all.”

“That’s it. That’s it exactly.”

“These nomadic impulses. We all get them. We all try to escape from ourselves. Still, it was very bad luck that you picked last night. Other people might not understand. I like to believe the best of my fellow men. It may have been only coincidence that you left shortly after the murder.”

“Murder,” Mr. Smith repeated slowly. “So there was a murder, after all.”

“After all? What do you mean by that? Come, come, Mr. Smith, tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Who was killed?”

“A young lady, Miss Frost.”

“And you think I killed her?”

Inspector White shook his head vigorously. “I do not. It looks bad for you, but until things are completely black I can always see a ray of light. Mr. Smith, you do not look like a murderer. You look like a kindly man who has been buffeted by fate.”

“Are you trying to kid me?” Mr. Smith said coldly. “I only spoke to the Frost girl once in my life. She pushed Horace into the lake and Horace bit her on the leg, and I warned her to leave my dog alone.”

“She must have been a peculiar, unfeeling girl to do that,” Inspector White suggested.

“Other than that I know nothing about her.”

“But you’ve heard things, perhaps?”

“No.”

“Or seen things?”

“No. I mind my own business, Inspector White. I know nobody in this community.”

“Why did you come here in the first place?”

Mr. Smith smiled sourly. “For peace and solitude. According to the tourist folders Muskoka is crammed with peace and solitude, but I haven’t seen any of it.”

“I sympathize with you, Mr. Smith. I’m not a man to underrate peace. What has disturbed you?”

“Noises. Singing. Radios blaring. The confounded telephone ringing all the time. People sneaking around my cottage.”

“What people?”

“A Chinaman, for one. And a black-haired girl carrying a lot of boards and things.”

“That would be Miss Shane. I understand she’s an artist.”

“Then what was she doing with a Chinaman trying to break into my cottage?” Mr. Smith demanded.

“They were trying to break in? When was this?”

“About two or three weeks ago. I had gone into Clayton to get some provisions. The supply boat wasn’t due for two days and I was out of kibble.”

“Oh yes, kibble.”

“Dog food,” Mr. Smith explained. “When I came back it was about seven o’clock and just starting to get dark. I found the Chinaman standing on Miss Shane’s shoulders trying my kitchen window.”

Inspector White looked incredulous. “The Chinaman standing on her shoulders? Now I wonder why she didn’t stand on his—”

“I don’t know,” Mr. Smith said, sighing.

“And that’s why you decided to leave Muskoka last night?”

“No, it’s not. I left last night because I was afraid something had happened.”

“How right you were,” the inspector murmured solemnly. “Still, I wonder what made you think that.”

“Well” — Mr. Smith paused uncomfortably — “the truth sounds pretty silly. After dinner last night I read for some time. Around nine o’clock, or perhaps it was earlier, Horace began to howl. He had never done that before” — here Horace wagged his tail proudly — “and I thought he was sick so I took him out on the leash. He was acting funny, violent, you know, pulling me all over the place. Finally he stopped at one place in the woods and I couldn’t budge him. So I turned on my flashlight. The ground was covered with blood.”

“Is Horace a bloodhound?”

Mr. Smith seemed embarrassed. “I... well, I bought him for a setter.”

“These things happen,” Inspector White said philosophically. “So you were afraid that something unpleasant had occurred?”

“I was. I didn’t want to become involved in a scandal of any sort, so I just packed up and left.”

There was a long silence during which Inspector White kept nodding his head with grave sympathy. “Are you married?” he said at last.

Mr. Smith clutched the arms of his chair. “No, I’m not married,” he said violently. “I’m not married at all! I—” He leaned back and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “The fact is, I don’t like women.”

“That’s very interesting,” Inspector White said warmly. “To a certain extent I share your prejudice, though don’t repeat me, Mr. Smith. Now I wonder what caused your dislike in the first place.”

Mr. Smith lifted his eyes wildly to heaven, and as if in answer to his plea a knock sounded on the front door.

Mr. Smith started to get up but the inspector waved him back. “I’ll go, Mr. Smith. Might be the murderer, you know, ha ha.”

Mr. Smith smiled feebly and the inspector went out. A minute later he came back, followed by the tallest man Mr. Smith had ever seen.

“Mr. Smith, I’d like you to meet Dr. Prye. Dr. Prye is practically a neighbor of yours back home. He comes from Detroit. I feel his assistance in this case will be invaluable.”

Prye grinned and held out his hand. Smith, after staring at it glumly for a moment, shook hands and told him to sit down.

The inspector regarded them fondly. “Mr. Smith was just about to tell me why he never married. Go right on, Mr. Smith.”

“I think,” Smith said, “that I’ve done all the talking I want to do right now.”

“What Mr. Smith needs,” Prye said, “is a drink.”

The inspector frowned. “I don’t approve of alcoholic beverages. Still, if they’re to be used medicinally— Yes, I think that if you took Mr. Smith over to your cottage, Dr. Prye, and gave him a drink, he would feel much better. You do look a bit peaked, Mr. Smith.”

“Quite peaked,” Prye added.

Smith took off his glasses and went over to the mirror. “I think you’re both a little crazy. I look the same as I always do.”

Prye took him gently by the arm and led him to the door. “It pays to be on the safe side.”

While Dr. Prye’s brandy was exploring the interior of Mr. Smith, Inspector White was exploring the interior of Mr. Smith’s cottage.

Only two interesting things came to light. The first was the large heap of charred paper in the fireplace; the second was a book. It had been wedged behind a writing desk against the wall and had obviously been overlooked in Smith’s hasty departure. The inspector turned it over in his hand thoughtfully and wondered why Mr. Smith should be interested in the civil statutes of the State of Michigan.

“I’m being a cad,” Prye told Smith. “I’m plying you with liquor to make you talk.”

Mr. Smith laughed boisterously at this. “Make me talk. That’s a good one. Brandy never affects me at all. Some people get awfully talkative on a couple of drinks of brandy, but it takes more than a couple of drinks of brandy to make me talkative.”

“I can see that,” Prye said. “It takes three.”

“The funny part is that even if I did get talkative, I wouldn’t have anything to talk about. Anything worth talking about, I mean. Anyone can talk, but talk and say something, that’s a different thing.” He leaned forward with an elaborately confidential air. “I don’t trust him, my good doctor.”

“You don’t trust whom?”

“Sure,” Mr. Smith said.

Prye nodded sadly. “Perhaps you’d like me to put you to bed, Mr. Smith?”

“My good doctor, I couldn’t think of it. Let me put you to bed.”

“All right. Just lie down on the chesterfield while I put out the cat. On it, Mr. Smith, not under it.”

Mr. Smith stretched out happily on the chesterfield. He murmured something about brandy and closed his eyes. Prye removed his spectacles from his nose and put them on the mantel. Then he pulled down the blinds and went to find Inspector White.

“Nice guest you gave me,” Prye said. “He passed out.”

“Good, good,” the inspector said heartily. “That is, I don’t like the idea of his being intoxicated but I think it’s better all-round that he is. I’ve been searching.”

He pointed out the burned paper in the fireplace and handed Prye the book he had found. “Funny book to have, eh?” he said.

Prye opened it. “Not if he’s a lawyer practicing in Michigan. Smith’s his right name apparently, John Wayne Smith.” Prye laid the book back on the table. “It should be easy to find out if he’s a lawyer. I’d like to look over that charred paper. Any objections?”

The inspector shook his head, and Prye knelt down and poked in the fireplace.

“Too far gone. Even a lab man couldn’t make anything of it. Find any letters?”

There was a slight movement from the hall and both men turned their heads toward the door.

“So,” said the dry voice of Mr. John Wayne Smith. “I believe this constitutes illegal entry. I shall take the greatest of pleasure in laying a charge against both of you.”