Bats Fly at Dusk

by Erle Stanley Gardner

Elsie Brand said, “He got up right after the insurance adjuster went out and followed him down the hall.”

  Bertha’s face darkened as the full significance of this move dawned upon her. “Why, damn his dehydrated soul,” she said with fervour. “The two-time, chiselling, double-crossing crook – Well, I’ll just fix him. I’ll beat it down to Josephine Dell and get her lined up before that buttinsky can chisel in on the job.”

  Bertha grabbed up her hat, clapped it firmly on her silver-grey hair, and was just starting for the door when it opened. A uniformed messenger stood in the doorway with a fat envelope. “Telegram for Bertha Cool,” he said, “sent collect.”

  “Who’s it from?” Bertha Cool-asked.

  The messenger looked at a memorandum “From Donald Lam, and it was sent from San Francisco,” he said.

  Bertha snatched at the envelope, jerked her head toward Elsie Brand, and said to the messenger boy, “Collect from her. Give him the money out of the petty cash drawer, Elsie.”

  Bertha Cool flounced back to her inside office and ripped open the still moist seal of the envelope. She took out a folded message which read:

  LEFTER RECEIVED ALSO PHOTOSTAT OF WILL. CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO MARKED CHANGE IN LITERARY STYLE BETWEEN CERTAIN PORTIONS OF WILL. FIRST PAGE INDICATES DISTINCTIVE EXPRESSION OF POSITIVE INDIVIDUALITY. SECOND PAGE CONTAINS SOME MATTER DOUBTLESS COPIED FROM SOME OTHER

  DOCUMENT, BUT LANGUAGE USED IN CONNECTION WITH BEQUESTS TO DELL, CRANNING AND HANBERRY IS FORM OF EXPRESSION SOMEWHAT ILLITERATE PERSON WOULD USE IN ATTEMPTING DISPOSE PROPERTY. ALSO ENTIRE CLAUSE ATTEMPTING NOMINATE EXECUTRIX. THESE PORTIONS INCONSISTENT WITH ARTICULATE SMOOTHNESS CHARACTERIZING EXPRESSIONS IN BALANCE OF DOCUMENT. INVESTIGATE POSSIBILITY INK ERADICATOR TO REMOVE PORTION OF WILL AND OTHER MATTER INSERTED. REGARDS AND BEST WISHES.

  DONALD LAM.

  Bertha sat staring at the telegram, muttering under her breath, “Fry me for an oyster—the brainy little bastard!”

  The door opened. Elsie Brand asked, “Is there any reply?”

  “Yes,” Bertha said indignantly. “Send a letter to Donald Lam at that San Francisco address. Ask him what the hell he means by putting in all those extra words about regards and best wishes when he’s sending a telegram collect.”

  Chapter XI

  BERTHA COOL PRESSED her thumb against the bell marked Josephine Dell, picked up the earpiece, and placed her lips near the mouthpiece of the telephone so as to be in a position to answer as soon as she heard a voice. After seconds had elapsed, Bertha pressed her thumb against the button once more. A worried look appeared on her face.

  When the third pressure against the bell brought no response, Bertha rang the bell marked MANAGER.

  After a few moments, a heavy-set woman whose flesh seemed to have no more consistency than jelly on a plate opened the door and smiled at Bertha. “We have some very nice vacancies,” she said in a high-pitched voice as though reciting a piece she had learned by heart. “There’s one very nice southern exposure, another apartment on the east. Both of these get plenty of sunlight and –”

  “I don’t want an apartment,” Bertha Cool said. “I’m looking for Josephine Dell.”

  The cordiality left the manager’s face as though she had reached up and lifted off a mask. “Well, there’s her bell,” she said irritably. “Ring it.”

  “I have. She isn’t home.”

  “All right, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  She turned away.

  Bertha Cool said, “Wait a minute. I’m trying to get some information about her.”

  “What do you want?”

  “It’s very important that I get in touch with her, very important indeed.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Can’t you tell me where she is, where I could locate her, or how I could get a message to her? Hasn’t she left any instructions with you at all?”

  “None whatever. She has a young woman in the apartment with her, Myrna Jackson. If anyone will know where she is, it’ll be Miss Jackson.”

  “How can I reach Miss Jackson, then?”

  “She isn’t in?”

  “No. No one answers the bell.”

  “Then she isn’t in. There’s nothing I can do. Good day. The door slammed.

  Bertha scribbled a note on the back of one of her cards. “Miss Dell, call me immediately. It’s very important. There’s money in it for you.”

  She dropped this note into the box and was turning away when a taxicab slewed around the corner and came to a stop. The nameless young man who had answered Bertha’s ad calling for witnesses to the accident alighted from the cab, poked at the meter, and stood with his back to the sidewalk, raking change for the cab driver.

  Bertha marched purposefully toward him.

  The cab driver, seeing her approach and thinking he had another fare, jumped out from behind the wheel to run around and hold the door open.

  Bertha was within three feet of the passenger when he turned around and recognized her.

  Bertha Cool said, with every evidence of satisfaction, “Well, that’s about what I thought you’d do. It isn’t going to do you any good; I got here first.”

  There was consternation on the man’s face.

  “Where to?” the cabby asked.

  Bertha gave him the address of her office, turned to grin triumphantly at the droopy man.

  “So you beat me to it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much did they offer?”

  “None of your business,” Bertha told him.

  “You got her address from me on the distinct understanding that you weren’t going to represent her.”

  Bertha Cool said, “I can’t help it if an insurance company comes in and drops things into my life…”

  “That isn’t fair to me.”

  “Baloney,” Bertha Cool said. “You tried to play both ends against the middle.”

  “I’m entitled to be in on this.”

  The cab driver said to Bertha, “Are you ready to start or do I charge waiting time?”

  “I’m ready to start,” Bertha said.

  “Wait a minute. This is my cab.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Bertha told him. “You’ve paid it off.”

  “Did you see her and actually get her signed up?” the man asked.

  Bertha grinned at him, a grin of complete satisfaction. Then the man suddenly hopped into the cab beside Bertha and said, “All right. I’ll ride back. I want to talk with her. We’ll both take the cab. Go ahead.”

  The cab driver slammed the door, walked around, and got in beside the wheel.

  Bertha said, “I’ve got nothing to talk over with you.”

  “I think I have.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You’d never have got in on this at all if it hadn’t been for me.

  “Baloney. I put an ad in the paper. You thought you could make something out of it. You’ve chiselled in all the way along the line, trying to cash in on something.”

  “They offered a thousand, didn’t they?”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “From what the adjuster said.”

  “Oh, you followed him from my office and pumped him. then?”

  “I rode down in the elevator with him.”

  “I thought you would.”

  “Now, look, you can’t do this to me.”

  “Why not?”

  “You can get more than a thousand if you play it right. I’ll bet you could get twenty-five hundred inside of ten days.”

  “A thousand suits me,” Bertha said, “and suits my client. After all, a thousand berries for a headache isn’t to be sneezed at.”

  “But she could get a lot more. I saw the whole thing.”

  “Whose fault was it?”

  “You can’t pump me on that. She’s entitled to a lot more She had concussion.”

  “Who told you so?”

  “Her room-mate.”

  “Well, it’s all settled
now,” Bertha told him, “so there’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “I ought to have something out of this anyway. It wouldn’t hurt you any to cut me in for a hundred dollars.”

  “Cut yourself in,” Bertha told him.

  “I may, at that.”

  Bertha said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make you exactly the same proposition I made in the first place. Twenty-five dollars and you forget the whole business and fade out of the picture.”

  He settled back against the cushions with a sigh. “Okay,’ he said. “It’s highway robbery, but you’ve made a deal.”

  Bertha Cool entered the office and said to Elsie Brand, “Elsie, make out a receipt for this man to sign. Twenty-five dollars in full for account of any and all claims of any sort, nature, or description covering present claims and any contingencies that may arise from future developments. Follow the form of that receipt Donald Lam made out for the man to sign in that case a couple of months back.”

  Elsie Brand whipped a letter out of her typewriter, jerked a sheet of paper out of the drawer in her desk, fed it into the roller and said, “What’s his name?”

  “Damned if I know,” Bertha said, turning to the man. “What’s your name?”

  “Jerry Bollman.”

  Bertha Cool said, “Sit down. I’ll get you the twenty-five.”

  Bertha went into her private office, unlocked the desk, took out the cash box, unlocked it, took out twenty-five dollars, but waited to take it back to the outer office until her ears told her that Elsie Brand’s typewriter had quit clacking. Then she came marching out, took the receipt Elsie handed her, read it, pushed it in front of Jerry Bollman and said, “All right. sign here.”

  He read the receipt and said, “My God, this signs away my soul.”

  “More than that,” Bertha told him facetiously. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth the twenty-five bucks.”

  He grinned at her maliciously, saying, “You’re damn smart, aren’t you?” and took the fountain pen Bertha Cool extended him. He signed the receipt with a flourish, gave it to her with his left hand, and held out his right for the two tens and the five which Bertha gave him.

  Bertha handed the receipt to Elsie Brand. “File this.” Bollman said, “I could go broke working for you.”

  Bertha said, “Most witnesses tell what they know just by way of being decent.”

  “I know,” Bollman said wearily. “I got cured of that a long time ago. Well, I’ll go down and buy a package of cigarettes. That and the expenses will just use up the twenty-five. Perhaps we can do business again some day.”

  “Perhaps,” Bertha said, and watched him walk out.

  “Thank God, he didn’t want to shake hands,” she told Elsie Brand. “Now ring up the residence of Harlow Milbers. Ask for Mrs. Nettie Cranning. Tell her Bertha Cool wants to speak with her on the telephone. Buzz my office when you get her.”

  Bertha went into her private office and settled down to% a cigarette in her long, carved ivory holder. When the buzzer sounded, she picked up the receiver, said, “Hello,” and heard Mrs. Cranning’s voice saying “Hello, Mrs. Cool.”

  Bertha instantly radiated cordiality. “How do you do, Mrs. Cranning? I’m very sorry I bothered you, but I wanted to get in touch with Josephine Dell right away. I thought she might be out there. I hope I haven’t bothered you.”

  “Not at all,” Mrs. Cranning said with equal cordiality. “She was here until about half an hour ago, then a man rang up and asked her to meet him. I didn’t get all that it was, but it was something very important about an automobile accident.”

  “A man?” Bertha Cool asked.

  “Yes.”

  Bertha Cool was frowning. “You didn’t catch the name, did you?”

  “Yes, I did, but I’ve forgotten it. I remember she wrote it down. Wait a minute—Eva, what was that name, the one who called Josephine Dell? How is that? Okay, thanks. Mrs. Cool wanted to know.”

  Mrs. Cranning said into the telephone, “I have that name for you, Mrs. Cool. It was Mr. Jerry Bollman. She went somewhere to meet him.”

  Bertha said, “Thank you,” hung up the telephone, and was halfway through the outer office before she realized the futility of her errand.

  “What’s the matter?” Elsie Brand asked.

  “The dirty, damn, double-crossing, two-timing pretzel. That guy’s so crooked he could use a corkscrew, for a straight edge.”

  “What did he do?” Elsie Brand asked.

  “Do!” Bertha said, her eyes glittering cold fire. “He invested fifty cents in taxicab fare to hook me for twenty-five smackers. He knew where I’d be. Probably followed me. Just because I saw him getting out of the taxicab and fumbling around for the fare, I thought he was one step behind me. In place of that, he was two paragraphs ahead.”

  “‘But I don’t get it,” Elsie Brand said.

  “Right now,” Bertha Cool said, “that guy is getting Josephine Dell’s signature on a dotted line that cuts himself a piece of cake to the tune of five hundred dollars. I thought I’d fooled him by pretending to be coming out of Josephine Dell’s apartment. I pretended I had her all signed up. He knew all along she wasn’t home. It was damn sharp practice —a dirty crook.”

  “Who’s a crook?” Elsie asked.

  “He is, Jerry Bollman. The son of a bitch deceived me.”

  Chapter XII

  THE BLIND MAN’S sensitive ears picked Bertha Cool’s steps out of a medley of other noises. He didn’t turn his head toward her, but a smile softened the man’s features. He said, “Hello, I was hoping you’d stop by here. Look what I have to show you.”

  He opened a bag and brought out a wooden music box which he wound with a little crank. He opened the cover, and, with remarkable clarity and sweetness of tone, the music box began to play Bluebells of Scotland.

  The face of the blind man was enraptured. “I told her once,” he said, “that I liked these old-fashioned music boxes. and that we used to have one that played Bluebells of Scotland. I’ll bet this cost her something. They’re not so easy to find now, not those that are in good condition. There isn’t a single note missing, and I can feel how smooth the finish on the wood is. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Bertha Cool agreed that it was. “Josephine Dell sent it to you?”

  “Of course. A messenger brought it and said that he’d been instructed to deliver it to me from a friend. But I know who the friend is all right. That isn’t all,” he said. “She sent me some flowers.”

  “Flowers!”

  “Yes.”

  Bertha started to say something, then caught herself.

  “I know,” the blind man went on. “It’s rather peculiar to send flowers to a blind man, but I can enjoy the fragrance anyway. I think she mainly wanted me to have the note that went with them, and she thought she could send it with flowers. The music-box is expensive, and she didn’t want me to know she’d done that for me.”

  “What’s the note?” Bertha asked.

  “I have it here,” he said, and took a folded note from his pocket. It read:

  DEAR FRIEND,

  Thanks so much for thinking of me, and even going to the expense of getting Mrs. Cool to find me. I’m sending you these flowers as a little token of appreciation and of my friendship.

  The note was signed “Josephine Dell.”

  Abruptly Bertha Cool reached a decision. She said to the blind man, “There’s one thing I want you to do for me.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to let me have this note.”

  “It’s rather a keepsake. I can’t read it, of course, but I –”

  “You can have it back,” Bertha said, “within a day or two, but I want to take it.”

  “Oh, all right, just so you bring it back—as soon as you can, please. You could drive by the little place where I live– 1672 Fairmead Avenue—if you wouldn’t mind?”

  “Sure thing,” Bertha promised affably. “I’ll get it back to you.”

&nb
sp; Bertha tucked the note into her purse and went to a handwriting expert whom she knew.

  “Look,” she said. “I don’t want to be played for a sucker. I don’t want you to take a lot of photographs and wrap your opinion up in a lot of hooey, but here’s a photostat of a will. One of the subscribing witnesses is a Josephine Dell. Here’s a note actually signed by Josephine Dell. I know that’s her signature. Now this signature on the will may be a forgery. I want to find out. And you’ll notice the first part of the second page. The language seems different in some way from the rest of the will.”

  The handwriting expert took the photostat and studied it. closely, apparently thinking out loud as he looked at it. “H’mmmm, all in typewriting—seems to have all been done on the same typewriter, all right. Signature on the note, peculiar spacing, unusual method of making a ‘D’. Same thing in the signature of the witness on the will. If it’s a forgery, it’s a good one. Looks okay—would much prefer to have the original will rather than this photostat.”

  “I can’t get the original,” Bertha told him. “You’ll have to work it out from this.”

  “All right, I’ll call you up at your office and let you know. It’ll be just an opinion. If I were going to have to swear to it, I–”

  “I know,” Bertha said. “This is just an opinion between you and me.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Call me at my office within an hour.”

  “That’s too soon.”

  “Call me, anyway,” Bertha said.

  She went back to her office, and within an hour had the telephone call.

  “The signatures were both written by the same person,” the expert said.

  Bertha Cool thought that over.

  “Are you still there?” the expert asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t hear you and thought you might have hung up.”

  “I’m thinking,” Bertha said, getting an idea. “If that will is okay, I’m out on a limb.”

  “It’s okay,” the expert said.

  Bertha Cool hung up.

  Bertha pressed the buzzer which summoned Elsie Brand.

  “Take a letter, Elsie,” Bertha said. “It’s going to be to Donald. I’m going to tell him every single thing that’s happened. There’s something completely cockeyed about this whole business. It’s raining dollar bills, and, in place of being out there with a bushel basket, I’ve got a net deficit of twenty-five bucks.”