Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood (2 page)

"Bill! You're giving me the shivers!"

"Am I?" The editor laughed grimly. "Think it over. No, it isn't so
pleasant.—But that's my theory—and I swear I think I'm right." He
rose.

His companion laughed uncertainly.

"How about you, Bill—are you the Bat?"

The editor smiled. "See," he said, "it's got you already. No, I can
prove an alibi. The Bat's been laying off the city recently—taking a
fling at some of the swell suburbs. Besides I haven't the brains—I'm
free to admit it." He struggled into his coat. "Well, let's talk about
something else. I'm sick of the Bat and his murders."

His companion rose as well, but it was evident that the editor's theory
had taken firm hold on his mind. As they went out the door together he
recurred to the subject.

"Honestly, though, Bill—were you serious, really serious—when you
said you didn't know of a single detective with brains enough to trap
this devil?"

The editor paused in the doorway. "Serious enough," he said. "And yet
there's one man—I don't know him myself but from what I've heard of
him, he might be able—but what's the use of speculating?"

"I'd like to know all the same," insisted the other, and laughed
nervously. "We're moving out to the country next week ourselves—right
in the Bat's new territory."

"We-el," said the editor, "you won't let it go any further? Of course
it's just an idea of mine, but if the Bat ever came prowling around our
place, the detective I'd try to get in touch with would be—" He put
his lips close to his companion's ear and whispered a name.

The man whose name he whispered, oddly enough, was at that moment
standing before his official superior in a quiet room not very far
away. Tall, reticently good-looking and well, if inconspicuously,
clothed and groomed, he by no means seemed the typical detective that
the editor had spoken of so scornfully. He looked something like a
college athlete who had kept up his training, something like a pillar
of one of the more sedate financial houses. He could assume and
discard a dozen manners in as many minutes, but, to the casual
observer, the one thing certain about him would probably seem his utter
lack of connection with the seamier side of existence. The key to his
real secret of life, however, lay in his eyes. When in repose, as now,
they were veiled and without unusual quality—but they were the eyes of
a man who can wait and a man who can strike.

He stood perfectly easy before his chief for several moments before the
latter looked up from his papers.

"Well, Anderson," he said at last, looking up, "I got your report on
the Wilhenry burglary this morning. I'll tell you this about it—if
you do a neater and quicker job in the next ten years, you can take
this desk away from me. I'll give it to you. As it is, your name's
gone up for promotion today; you deserved it long ago."

"Thank you, sir," replied the tall man quietly, "but I had luck with
that case."

"Of course you had luck," said the chief. "Sit down, won't you, and
have a cigar—if you can stand my brand. Of course you had luck,
Anderson, but that isn't the point. It takes a man with brains to use
a piece of luck as you used it. I've waited a long time here for a man
with your sort of brains and, by Judas, for a while I thought they were
all as dead as Pinkerton. But now I know there's one of them alive at
any rate—and it's a hell of a relief."

"Thank you, sir," said the tall man, smiling and sitting down. He took
a cigar and lit it. "That makes it easier, sir—your telling me that.
Because—I've come to ask a favor."

"All right," responded the chief promptly. "Whatever it is, it's
granted."

Anderson smiled again. "You'd better hear what it is first, sir. I
don't want to put anything over on you."

"Try it!" said the chief. "What is it—vacation? Take as long as you
like—within reason—you've earned it—I'll put it through today."

Anderson shook his head, "No sir—I don't want a vacation."

"Well," said the chief impatiently. "Promotion? I've told you about
that. Expense money for anything—fill out a voucher and I'll O.K.
it—be best man at your wedding—by Judas, I'll even do that!"

Anderson laughed. "No, sir—I'm not getting married and—I'm pleased
about the promotion, of course—but it's not that. I want to be
assigned to a certain case—that's all."

The chief's look grew searching. "H'm," he said. "Well, as I say,
anything within reason. What case do you want to be assigned to?"

The muscles of Anderson's left hand tensed on the arm of his chair. He
looked squarely at the chief. "I want a chance at the Bat!" he replied
slowly.

The chief's face became expressionless. "I said—anything within
reason," he responded softly, regarding Anderson keenly.

"I want a chance at the Bat!" repeated Anderson stubbornly. "If I've
done good work so far—I want a chance at the Bat!"

The chief drummed on the desk. Annoyance and surprise were in his
voice when he spoke.

"But look here, Anderson," he burst out finally. "Anything else and
I'll—but what's the use? I said a minute ago, you had brains—but
now, by Judas, I doubt it! If anyone else wanted a chance at the Bat,
I'd give it to them and gladly—I'm hard-boiled. But you're too
valuable a man to be thrown away!"

"I'm no more valuable than Wentworth would have been."

"Maybe not—and look what happened to him! A bullet hole in his
heart—and thirty years of work that he might have done thrown away!
No, Anderson, I've found two first-class men since I've been at this
desk—Wentworth and you. He asked for his chance; I gave it to
him—turned him over to the Government—and lost him. Good detectives
aren't so plentiful that I can afford to lose you both."

"Wentworth was a friend of mine," said Anderson softly. His knuckles
were white dints in the hand that gripped the chair. "Ever since the
Bat got him I've wanted my chance. Now my other work's cleaned up—and
I still want it."

"But I tell you—" began the chief in tones of high exasperation. Then
he stopped and looked at his protege. There was a silence for a time.

"Oh, well—" said the chief finally in a hopeless voice. "Go
ahead—commit suicide—I'll send you a 'Gates Ajar' and a card, 'Here
lies a damn fool who would have been a great detective if he hadn't
been so pig-headed.' Go ahead!"

Anderson rose. "Thank you, sir," he said in a deep voice. His eyes
had light in them now. "I can't thank you enough, sir."

"Don't try," grumbled the chief. "If I weren't as much of a damn fool
as you are I wouldn't let you do it. And if I weren't so damn old, I'd
go after the slippery devil myself and let you sit here and watch me
get brought in with an infernal paper bat pinned where my shield ought
to be. The Bat's supernatural, Anderson. You haven't a chance in the
world but it does me good all the same to shake hands with a man with
brains and nerve," and he solemnly wrung Anderson's hand in an iron
grip.

Anderson smiled. "The cagiest bat flies once too often," he said. "I'm
not promising anything, chief, but—"

"Maybe," said the chief. "Now wait a minute, keep your shirt on,
you're not going out bat hunting this minute, you know—"

"Sir? I thought I—"

"Well, you're not," said the chief decidedly. "I've still some little
respect for my own intelligence and it tells me to get all the work out
of you I can, before you start wild-goose chasing after this—this bat
out of hell. The first time he's heard of again—and it shouldn't be
long from the fast way he works—you're assigned to the case. That's
understood. Till then, you do what I tell you—and it'll be work,
believe me!"

"All right, sir," Anderson laughed and turned to the door. "And—thank
you again."

He went out. The door closed. The chief remained for some minutes
looking at the door and shaking his head. "The best man I've had in
years—except Wentworth," he murmured to himself. "And throwing
himself away—to be killed by a cold-blooded devil that nothing human
can catch—you're getting old, John Grogan—but, by Judas, you can't
blame him, can you? If you were a man in the prime like him, by Judas,
you'd be doing it yourself. And yet it'll go hard—losing him—"

He turned back to his desk and his papers. But for some minutes he
could not pay attention to the papers. There was a shadow on them—a
shadow that blurred the typed letters—the shadow of bat's wings.

Miss Cornelis Van Gorder, indomitable spinster, last bearer of a name
which had been great in New York when New York was a red-roofed Nieuw
Amsterdam and Peter Stuyvesant a parvenu, sat propped up in bed in the
green room of her newly rented country house reading the morning
newspaper. Thus seen, with an old soft Paisley shawl tucked in about
her thin shoulders and without the stately gray transformation that
adorned her on less intimate occasions,—she looked much less
formidable and more innocently placid than those could ever have
imagined who had only felt the bite of her tart wit at such functions
as the state Van Gorder dinners. Patrician to her finger tips,
independent to the roots of her hair, she preserved, at sixty-five, a
humorous and quenchless curiosity in regard to every side of life,
which even the full and crowded years that already lay behind her had
not entirely satisfied. She was an Age and an Attitude, but she was
more than that; she had grown old without growing dull or losing touch
with youth—her face had the delicate strength of a fine cameo and her
mild and youthful heart preserved an innocent zest for adventure.

Wide travel, social leadership, the world of art and books, a dozen
charities, an existence rich with diverse experience—all these she had
enjoyed energetically and to the full—but she felt, with ingenious
vanity, that there were still sides to her character which even these
had not brought to light. As a little girl she had hesitated between
wishing to be a locomotive engineer or a famous bandit—and when she
had found, at seven, that the accident of sex would probably debar her
from either occupation, she had resolved fiercely that some time before
she died she would show the world in general and the Van Gorder clan in
particular that a woman was quite as capable of dangerous exploits as a
man. So far her life, while exciting enough at moments, had never
actually been dangerous and time was slipping away without giving her
an opportunity to prove her hardiness of heart. Whenever she thought
of this the fact annoyed her extremely—and she thought of it now.

She threw down the morning paper disgustedly. Here she was at
65—rich, safe, settled for the summer in a delightful country place
with a good cook, excellent servants, beautiful gardens and
grounds—everything as respectable and comfortable as—as a limousine!
And out in the world people were murdering and robbing each other,
floating over Niagara Falls in barrels, rescuing children from burning
houses, taming tigers, going to Africa to hunt gorillas, doing all
sorts of exciting things! She could not float over Niagara Falls in a
barrel; Lizzie Allen, her faithful old maid, would never let her! She
could not go to Africa to hunt gorillas; Sally Ogden, her sister, would
never let her hear the last of it. She could not even, as she
certainly would if the were a man, try and track down this terrible
creature, the Bat!

She sniffed disgruntledly. Things came to her much too easily. Take
this very house she was living in. Ten days ago she had decided on the
spur of the moment—a decision suddenly crystallized by a weariness of
charitable committees and the noise and heat of New York—to take a
place in the country for the summer. It was late in the renting
season—even the ordinary difficulties of finding a suitable spot would
have added some spice to the quest—but this ideal place had
practically fallen into her lap, with no trouble or search at all.
Courtleigh Fleming, president of the Union Bank, who had built the
house on a scale of comfortable magnificence—Courtleigh Fleming had
died suddenly in the West when Miss Van Gorder was beginning her house
hunting. The day after his death her agent had called her up. Richard
Fleming, Courtleigh Fleming's nephew and heir, was anxious to rent the
Fleming house at once. If she made a quick decision it was hers for
the summer, at a bargain. Miss Van Gorder had decided at once; she
took an innocent pleasure in bargains. The next day the keys were
hers—the servants engaged to stay on—within a week she had moved.
All very pleasant and easy no doubt—adventure—pooh!

And yet she could not really say that her move to the country had
brought her no adventures at all. There had been—things. Last night
the lights had gone off unexpectedly and Billy, the Japanese butler and
handy man, had said that he had seen a face at one of the kitchen
windows—a face that vanished when he went to the window. Servants'
nonsense, probably, but the servants seemed unusually nervous for
people who were used to the country. And Lizzie, of course, had sworn
that she had seen a man trying to get up the stairs but Lizzie could
grow hysterical over a creaking door. Still—it was queer! And what
had that affable Doctor Wells said to her—"I respect your courage,
Miss Van Gorder—moving out into the Bat's home country, you know!"
She picked up the paper again. There was a map of the scene of the
Bat's most recent exploits and, yes, three of his recent crimes had
been within a twenty-mile radius of this very spot. She thought it
over and gave a little shudder of pleasurable fear. Then she dismissed
the thought with a shrug. No chance! She might live in a lonely house,
two miles from the railroad station, all summer long—and the Bat would
never disturb her. Nothing ever did.

She had skimmed through the paper hurriedly; now a headline caught her
eye. Failure of Union Bank—wasn't that the bank of which Courtleigh
Fleming had been president? She settled down to read the article but
it was disappointingly brief. The Union Bank had closed its doors; the
cashier, a young man named Bailey, was apparently under suspicion; the
article mentioned Courtleigh Fleming's recent and tragic death in the
best vein of newspaperese. She laid down the paper and
thought—Bailey—Bailey—she seemed to have a vague recollection of
hearing about a young man named Bailey who worked in a bank—but she
could not remember where or by whom his name had been mentioned.