The Weak-Eyed Bat

Chapter Nine

It was, Jennie reported later, exactly a quarter past six that the Littles’ telephone rang two long and two short and Mr. Little crossed the sitting room and answered it.

“I want to speak to Mr. Little,” a woman’s voice said.

Ordinarily a mysterious female voice on the telephone would interest Tom but tonight he answered listlessly, “Tom Little speaking.”

“Are you alone, Mr. Little?”

“No. Who is this?”

“This is Harriet Alfonse, Mr. Little. I believe we have something to discuss. Would nine o’clock at Mr. Smith’s pier suit you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tom said shortly.

“I can’t explain over a telephone. I’ll see you at nine o’clock then.” Miss Alfonse hung up. Tom replaced the receiver and went slowly upstairs.

“Who was that, dear?” Mary called out from her bedroom.

“Just the doctor,” Tom said. “He wanted to know if you were feeling better and I told him you were.”

Mary was supported by several pillows. Her color was more natural and her hair was neatly plaited.

“I don’t feel much better, dear,” she said gently.

Tom sat down in a chair by the window and looked out over the lake.

“Tom dear, you don’t have to worry. Jennie has already told me.”

Tom’s head jerked toward her. “Told you what?”

“About the Frost girl. I know it’s a horrible thing to say, but I feel it’s all for the best.” Mary had a comfortable philosophy. Things were always for the best.

“Did you see her, Tom?”

Tom was staring out of the window again. He was not seeing the lake or the sun about to drown itself, but a tall yellow-haired girl in a yellow bathing suit. She was standing on the end of a diving board. Then she dived, and the water closed over her head and she didn’t come up.

Tom shut his eyes. “No, I didn’t see her. They took her away in an ambulance.”

“She must have looked terrible with part of her head missing. Did you know part of her head was gone, Tom?”

Tom gazed at her. There was no expression in his eyes.

“Sometimes I think you’re a bitch,” he said.

She began to cry, and the tears roiled down her cheeks aimlessly, like pebbles down two pale hills.

Miss Alfonse, on the other hand, was happier than she had been for twenty-four hours. She put down the telephone and sat back in her chair in the library. She was quite safe, after all. She, too, stared out over the lake. She saw a huge white house with a Cadillac waiting at the front door, and coming down the steps was Miss Alfonse herself swathed in mink from head to foot.

The door of the library opened and Ralph Bonner came in. He didn’t see her until he had picked up the telephone, and then he laid it down with a thud.

“Oh, sorry.” He turned to go out.

“Don’t be sorry,” Miss Alfonse said archly.

“No? All right. I was just going to — to call the cleaners. White flannels, you know.” He sat down on the edge of a chair, tugging at his collar.

“Mr. Bonner — Ralph,” Alfonse began, “I have something to confess to you.”

He looked startled. “No, please don’t. I mean, I’m not feeling so well today. Headache.”

Alfonse’s professional interest was aroused and she leaned toward him. “What a shame! Where is your poor head aching? Here?” She touched his forehead lightly.

Ralph drew away from her hand, flushing. “It’s nothing. Nerves, I guess. Joan and all that.”

“Oh, you poor boy,” Miss Alfonse said softly.

The unexpected sympathy struck Ralph above the heart. His face began to crumple and he put up his hand to hide it.

“It’s worse, too, Ralph, knowing that you were so near when it happened.”

“What do you mean I was near?” he asked in a muffled voice.

“I saw you.”

He rose so quickly that the chair overturned. “What are you getting at?”

“I won’t say anything, Ralph. Nothing could ever induce me to tell, unless” — she paused a moment, watching the blood flow from his face — “unless I lose my job. I don’t want to go away from here.”

“I don’t — I can’t understand you.”

Alfonse rose, too, and stood in front of him.

“Can’t you?” she said.

She moved briskly to the door and went out. He heard the soft, stealthy tap of her rubber-soled shoes and the swish and crackle of her uniform — queer, menacing sounds. He wanted to run out of the door away from them. He sat down again and buried his face in his hands.

Prye found him there half an hour later, sleeping.

“Ralph,” Prye said. “Hey. Wake up. Do you want a stiff neck?”

Ralph raised his head. “Oh. Hello, Dr. Prye.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Lousy.”

“Want to talk?”

“No.”

Prye smiled. “You have to some time. They have a new policeman on the job and he doesn’t care if your aunt owns all Muskoka. I think he’d like to know what you and Joan were talking about yesterday afternoon.”

“It’s got nothing to do with her death.”

“I saw you going home afterward. You looked upset.”

“I was,” Ralph said. “I wanted to kill myself. I went home to do it.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I didn’t have anything to do it with,” Ralph said.

“Did she give you back her ring?”

“No.”

Prye frowned. “Funny. She wasn’t wearing it when she was found.”

“She didn’t give it back.”

“Was it a good fit?”

“Of course. I had it made for her.”

“It couldn’t have slipped off?”

Ralph shook his head.

“Was it an expensive ring?” Prye asked.

“Not very. I paid about a thousand dollars for it. Why are you interested in her ring?”

“At two o’clock you were talking to Joan and she was wearing a thousand-dollar ring. She did not give it to you. She had no opportunity to pawn it. It wasn’t found in her room and she wasn’t wearing it. I’d like to know where it is.”

Ralph seemed uninterested. “Sorry. I can’t help you.”

“She kept the ring but she sent you away yesterday, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Was she angry at you or was it done in cold blood?”

Ralph looked sick. “She wasn’t angry.”

“She gave you a reason, though?”

“She said she was going away and not coming back.”

“Was she going with anyone?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did she ask you for any money?”

Ralph hesitated a moment and then shook his head.

“Hattie Brown says you were in the house for half an hour. It didn’t take Joan half an hour to say what you’ve told me. She embellished her remarks, I gather?”

Ralph tugged at his collar again and the button came off and rolled along the floor. He bent over to pick it up, mumbling, “Sorry.”

Prye lit a cigarette, inhaled, and began once more. “Last night after dinner you went out. Mind telling me where?”

“I went for a walk. Aunt Emily was getting on my nerves. She kept pounding on my door. She thought I was packing to go away with Joan. So I skipped out while she was having her dinner.”

“Where did you walk?”

“I don’t remember.”

“In what direction?”

Ralph looked up, bewildered. “Why, you suspect me!”

Prye sighed. “Cheer up. Everybody suspects me.”

“But... but in the summer we all go out after dinner. It’s the best time of day.”

“That’s the trouble. A lot of people were out last night presumably taking the air, but at least one of them was doing more. Perhaps it was you. Or Susan. Or Miss Alfonse.” He emphasized the last name and Ralph started to flush. “If by any chance you were taking a walk with Miss Alfonse it would make your future look brighter in one sense at least.”

“Well, I was taking a walk with Miss Alfonse,” Ralph said hurriedly. “We wanted to discuss my aunt’s condition. After all, I’m her nephew.”

“Very touching,” Prye said. “Wang tells me that you and Miss Alfonse had another discussion a little while ago. Was that about your aunt’s condition, too?”

Ralph collapsed in a chair. “Why is everybody picking on me? I didn’t murder Joan. She didn’t give me my ring back. I don’t know anything about anything.”

“I’m convinced,” Prye said. “But perhaps when your brain has had a little nourishment knowledge will descend on you. You’d better go and have your dinner.”

“Do you really think that would help?”

“No,” Prye said.

He walked to the door slowly, hoping Ralph would call him back and reveal all. As nothing of the kind happened, he slammed the door behind him and went in search of Wang.

“The next time two people go into that library for a private discussion sneak out and listen at the window,” he told Wang.

Wang nodded sadly. “The doors are unnecessarily thick. Only Miss Bonner’s voice is sufficient to penetrate.”

“But particularly watch the big black nurse.”

“I watch incessantly inasmuch as the demons whisper as she walks.”

“Starch.”

“Some persons say so. But my ears are attuned to demons and my eyes quick to see their fingers plucking at her dress. Persons who are not me miss these manifestations.”

“I don’t suppose these demons took it into their heads to murder Joan Frost?”

“They have no heads,” Wang said solemnly.

“All right, if you say so. Has Miss Bonner had her dinner?”

“Miss Bonner has eaten hugely. She will not be pleased to see you.”

Nor was she.

“Well?” she demanded when he opened the door. She was sitting in her wheelchair. Wrapped in a blue negligee which was covered improbably with pink feathers, she was like a huge and terrifying tropical bird.

“Well?” she said again.

“I was just passing,” Prye said glibly, “and I thought I’d drop in and see how you were.”

“Passing? Where to? I’m not at all well. I have an excruciating pain in my heart. Go away.”

“I’m not surprised. The pain is gas, and the cause is overeating.”

Emily snorted. “Overeating! I merely peck at my food. What do you want, Prye? Speak and go.”

Prye settled himself in a chair without haste. “Have you seen the new policeman in charge?”

“No.”

“His name is White, Inspector White. He’s had a lot of experience. After five minutes’ conversation you’ll consider him your best friend, and after ten minutes he’ll have the story of your life. Interested?”

Emily pressed her lips together tightly. “No, I’m not.”

“You should be. I don’t think he’s going to like Ralph’s story. I don’t myself. What’s more, when he finds out that you drew five thousand dollars from the bank yesterday and had it sent out to you by special messenger he’s going to be pretty curious about that, too.”

“Let him,” Emily said briskly.

“The bank, of course, didn’t want to give out this information, but they don’t like the word murder. I spoke to the manager myself. He was surprised at the amount of the withdrawal.”

“It costs a lot to run a house like this.”

“It does,” Prye agreed. “Still, the bank manager seemed fairly certain that this withdrawal was over and above your usual monthly one. Now I suggest that you intended to give Joan a going-away present. Probably it was her idea. Wasn’t it?”

“This is your story.”

“Well, I’d say it was her idea then. She knew that it was worth five thousand dollars to you to keep her out of the family. Where was the money to be handed over?”

“In the— Damn you, Prye.”

“That’s what I thought. You were to give her the money last night before she left. The meeting place was probably the grove of birches between my cottage and Miss Shane’s. You remember that little seat that Susan had built between two trees? Well, that’s the place. The trees are close together there and it’s quite private. It had to be private because you didn’t want Ralph to know you were buying Joan off. The funny part of it is that Joan had already decided to leave Muskoka for reasons of her own and not because you offered her five thousand dollars to leave.”

“The dirty little cheat,” Emily whispered.

“After dinner last night you told Miss Alfonse you were going to lie down. I suppose you did lie down for a while, but when it was dark and Miss Alfonse was out of the way, you got up again. How did you get out of the house without anyone seeing you?”

“Walked,” Emily said curtly.

“And when you arrived at the meeting place?”

“I didn’t arrive.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’d forgotten about the spotlight. It is turned off and on in the kitchen and Wang and the cook were in there. I was afraid someone would see me so I broke it. I threw a stone at it.”

Prye grinned at her. “You have many buried talents. All right, you threw your rock. Why didn’t you go on and meet Joan as you had planned?”

“The noise. I had no idea how much noise it would make. I was afraid someone would come along and see me, especially Ralph, so I went back into the house and lay down again. Alfonse found me there.”

“You didn’t see Joan at all?”

“No.”

“Nor anyone else?”

“I saw no one.”

Prye leaned back in his chair and studied the ceiling. “It’s a good story. I like it. I almost believe it.”

“Thanks,” Emily said grimly.

“But something entirely different may have happened. Suppose you did meet Joan Frost, and instead of handing over the money you killed her. Then you came back and threw a rock at the spotlight.”

“Why did I break the spotlight at all if that’s the case?”

“Because, in a manner of speaking, it would give you some sort of alibi. The spotlight breaks with a loud noise, the noise attracts people, and the people find you in bed. Whereas if the spotlight had not been shattered someone might not have turned up so soon after the murder.”

“Plausible,” Emily said. “It’s not true, however.”

Prye paid no attention. “It’s another case of misdirection. Attention is fixed at one point, the spotlight, while at another point Miss Emily Bonner is covering up the traces of her trip into the woods. Besides, who would suspect Miss Bonner of damaging her own property?”

“You, apparently. Have you any more theories, Prye?”

“At least one other that concerns you, Emily. You went out last night to meet Joan, but somebody had arrived there before you. Do you know who it was?”

“Certainly. It was you.”

“It was not me,” Prye said violently, “and you know it. It was Ralph.”

Emily affected great surprise. “Was it really? I guess my eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be.” She leaned back and closed her eyes.

“Now I suppose you’re going into a trance,” Prye said bitterly.

“No, I’m merely tinkering with an idea,” she said, stroking her pink feathers. “Suppose I hire you to protect Ralph’s interests. You have a very versatile mind. If you can build up as good a case against someone else as you have against Ralph and myself I’ll pay you the five thousand dollars that was to go to Joan.”

“That sounds like bribery.”

She let out a deep sigh. “Which is precisely what it is. Are you bribable, Prye?”

“Not at the moment. I just came by ten thousand dollars honestly and I like the feeling.”

“By honestly, you mean by sending some poor millionaire to an insane asylum so his relatives can spend his money? All right. I know how I stand. You are to be refused admittance to this house from now on. You have no official standing which gives you the right to spy on my household and entrap my nephew into making dangerous admissions.”

Prye got to his feet. “It wasn’t a millionaire. He isn’t in an asylum. Ralph made no dangerous admission that I didn’t already know. And I’ll have my official standing by tomorrow morning. But by that time you’ll have changed your mind again.”

“Very likely,” Emily said wearily. “Good night.”

It was eight o’clock and nearly dark when Prye left Miss Bonner’s house. The sky growled, and in the west an army of clouds was mobilizing, and suddenly they began to march across the sky. Their guns flashed, and soft little bullets of rain pelted the lake and the earth.

Nora was waiting for him at his cottage, huddled beside the window watching the storm.

“Hello,” she said. “I’ve come to sit out the storm with you.”

Prye took off his wet coat and she hung it up for him.

“Scared?” he said. “I thought it took a lot to scare the Irish.”

“It does. This is it. The storms up here are too primitive for my taste.” She curled up in a chair beside the fireplace and lit a cigarette. “In the city you simply draw the curtains and read a book. But in the country you review your past, ask humbly for pardon, and wait for the end.”

She paused.

“Well, do I continue this soliloquy or would you like to chime in?”

“I’m thinking,” Prye said.

Ten minutes later he was still thinking and ten minutes after that Nora announced that she might as well go home.

“No. Stay a while,” Prye said. “I like having you around. It helps me think.”

“That’s practically a proposal.” Nora sighed, and relapsed once more into a short silence.

“Damn it all,” she said in a shaky voice. “I don’t want you to think. I need cheering. I wish that lightning would either strike me or go away. It’s like walking in front of a gang of small boys with snowballs in their hands. I bet you’re not thinking anyway.”

“You’re a nasty little cynic,” Prye said. “Just to prove that I’m thinking I’ll do it out loud. There are two things I’d like to know: first, why did the murderer choose that particular time and place?”

“Because if he hadn’t chosen that particular time and place he would have had to choose some other particular time and place. What next?”

“What happened to Joan’s engagement ring?”

“She flung it at Ralph’s head. Anything else?”

“Have you ever seen the ring?”

“Certainly. So have you. She was wearing it when she was tossing herself around in here yesterday. It’s a square-cut emerald with four diamonds, and Miss Bonner told Mary who told Susan who told me that it cost two thousand dollars. Like the nasty little cynic I am, I deduct twenty-five percent for feminine inaccuracy and that leaves fifteen hundred dollars. Which is not enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“Reward for murder,” Nora said. “Unless some tramp killed her. But so many of us had motives that it seems redundant to consider outsiders.”

“Quite redundant,” Prye said gravely. “There are no tramps around here and tramps don’t often kill. Besides, no average-sized man would have stood a chance of overpowering Joan.”

“She was very strong,” Nora said, nodding.

“Most of them are.” He was quiet a moment and Nora looked up, puzzled.

“What do you mean?”

“An uninhibited person has much more strength and energy than a conventional and sane person of the same stature.”

“Are you really telling me that strength, ordinary physical strength, is partly mental?” she asked.

“I believe so,” Prye said, smiling. “You are holding to the layman’s rigid distinctions between mind and body. The distinction is fine for philosophers, but it’s anathema for psychologists. I consider the mind and the body so much of a unit that I believe the muscles themselves have the power to remember, to think, if you will. But to go back to the strength exhibited by a manic-depressive, for instance, in his manic phase.

“His activity is superhuman, and if you have never seen it, unbelievable. He moves constantly, tearing his clothes or his mattress, talking or swearing or singing at the top of his lungs, not taking time off even to eat, and sleeping almost not at all. It is violent and undirected activity. He performs the first thing that comes into his mind, heedless of the consequences to himself, to others, or to the objects he handles. In a word, he is thoroughly uninhibited.

“In a sane person much of the body’s energy is taken up by the inhibitory processes. The sane man hesitates, ponders, makes a decision, and perhaps changes it. His whole being is not behind the deeds he does. If a man goes swimming immediately after eating the conviction that he should have waited for half an hour will tug at him, will help to dissipate the energy that would ordinarily be going into his stroke. But to the manic tearing at his clothes, what he is doing is right, is the only thing to do, in fact. No inhibitions are dissipating his strength. He becomes, temporarily, a physical superman.”

The room suddenly lit up as if a sun had fallen through the roof. The thunder tore the air and left a hole of silence.

In the next cottage Mary Little raised her head from the pillow and cried: “Jennie! Wake up, Jennie! Something’s been hit!”

Jennie opened her eyes and mumbled a reply. Her head was sunk on her breast.

“Go downstairs and get Tom. I’m nervous. Wake up, Jennie!”

Jennie got up and tottered into the hall, yawning. She came back in a minute, fully awake now and frightened.

“Mr. Little isn’t here,” she cried.

“He must be here! He couldn’t be out in this storm.” Mary reached for her water glass. “He must be here.” Her fingers were shaking and the water dribbled down her chin and the glass fell from her hands.

The army of clouds scattered across the sky in retreat, their ammunition spent. At midnight a star appeared, impaled on a sliver of moon, and still Tom Little did not come home.