Bats Fly at Dusk

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “I don’t give a damn what you’ve done,” Bertha said.

  “And,” Sellers went on, “in case you’re in a hurry to go back to Riverside and pick up your aged mother who’s had a stroke, Mrs. Cool, you save yourself the trouble, because your mother is here in my office at the present time. I’m having him make an affidavit as to what happened. After the district attorney sees that affidavit you may have another interval of incarceration. I think you’ll find in the long run it pays to be law-abiding and to co-operate with the police. And, by the way, we picked up your automobile and drove it back to the garage where you store it. After searching it, of course. The next time you want to go anywhere, I’d suggest you just go to the garage and drive out in your car. Not that it’s any of my business, but your juggling around with streetcars and automobiles w… a grand jury that you intended to commit some crime when you started for San Bernardino yesterday. That’s not. bad, you know. Good-bye.”

  Sergeant Sellers dropped the receiver into place at the other end of the line.

  Flabbergasted, Bertha Cool made two abortive attempts get the receiver in its cradle before she finally succeeded.

  “What is it?” Elsie Brand asked, looking at her face.

  Bertha’s rage was gone now. An emotional reaction left her white and shaken. “I’m in a jam,” she said, and walked over to the nearest chair and sat down.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I went out and got that blind man. I smuggled him out of the hotel. I was absolutely satisfied the police would never trace me. I stubbed my toe. Now, they’ve got him—and they’ve got me. That damn, overbearing, bullying, sneering police sergeant is right. They’ve got me over a barrel.”

  “That bad?” Elsie Brand asked.

  “It’s worse,” Bertha Cool said. “Well, there’s no use in stopping now. You’ve got to keep on moving. It’s like skating near the centre of a pond where the ice begins to buckle. The minute you stop, you’re finished. You’ve just got to keep moving.”

  “Where to?” Elsie asked.

  “Right now, to Redlands.”

  “Why Redlands?” Elsie Brand asked. “I don’t get it.”

  Bertha told her about the music box, the conversation Sergeant Sellers had had with the owner, and with a sudden unusual burst of confidence, the entire adventures of the night.

  “Well,” Bertha Cool said at length, heaving herself up out of the chair, “I didn’t sleep a damn wink last night. I was just too mad. I never regretted taking off weight as much in my life as I did last night.”

  “Why?” Elsie asked.

  “Why!” Bertha exclaimed. “I’ll tell you why. There was a damn snooty matron who kept calling me dearie. She was a husky, broad-shouldered biddy, but before I took off my weight, I could have thrown her down and sat on her. And that’s exactly what I’d have done. I’d have sat on her and stayed there the whole blessed night. I’m in a jam, Elsie. I’ve got to get out of the office and lay low until the thing blows over. They’ve got that blind man, and he’ll tell them the whole business. Sergeant Sellers was right. I should have kept on doing business in the routine way. But Donald is such a reckless little runt, and he did such daring damn things, he got me into bad habits. I got to thinking, Elsie, I’m going out of here and get a drink of whisky—and then I’m going to Redlands.”

  Chapter XXIX

  HOT, DRY SUNLIGHT beat down on Redlands. The dark green of orange groves laid out in neat checkerboards contrast, with the deep blue of the clear sky and the towering pea which rose more than ten thousand feet above sea level the background. There was a clean, washed freshness about the dry air which should have been invigorating, but Bertha worry and preoccupation made her entirely oblivious of the beauty of the scenery and the freshness of the air.

  Bertha dragged herself out of the automobile, plough across the sidewalk, head down, arms swinging, climbed the steps of the sanitarium, entered the lobby, and said in a fl. dejected voice to the girl at the information desk, “Do you by any chance, have a Josephine Dell here?”

  “Just a moment.” The girl thumbed through a card index said, “Yes. She has a private room, two-o-seven.”

  “A nurse there?” Bertha asked.

  “No. Apparently she’s just here for a complete rest.”

  Bertha said, “Thank you,” and went pounding her weary way down the long corridor. She found the elevator, went the second floor, found room 207, knocked gently on the swinging door, and pushed it open.

  A blonde girl about twenty-seven with deep-blue eyes, smiling lips, and a slightly upturned nose, sat in a chair the window. She was attired in a silk negligee. Her ankles were crossed on a pillow placed on another chair in front her. She was reading a book with every evidence of enjo -ment, but looked up with a start as Bertha entered the room, letting Bertha have the benefit of the large, deep-blue eyes.

  “You startled me.”

  “I knocked,” Bertha explained.

  “I was interested in this detective story. Do you ever read them?”

  “Once in a while,” Bertha said.

  “I never have until I came to the hospital. I didn’t think I’d ever have the time, but now I’m going to become an ardent fan. I think the detection of crime is the most absorbing, the most interesting thing in the world, don’t you?”

  Bertha said, “It’s all in the way you look at it, I guess.”

  “Well, do sit down. Tell me what I can do for you.”

  Bertha Cool dropped wearily into the cushioned chair over in the corner. “You’re Josephine Dell?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re the one who is friendly with the blind man?”

  “Oh, you mean that blind man on the corner by the bank building?” the girl asked eagerly.

  Bertha nodded dispiritedly.

  “I think he’s a dear. I think he’s one of the nicest men I’ve ever known. He has the most sane outlook on life. He isn’t soured at all. Lots of people who are blind would shut themselves off from the world, but he doesn’t. He seems to be more aware of the world now that he’s blind than he possibly could have been when he had his eyesight. And I think he’s really happy, although, of course, his existence is very much circumscribed. That is, I mean physically and so far as contacts are concerned.”

  “I suppose so,” Bertha admitted without enthusiasm.

  Josephine Dell warmed to her subject. “Of course, the man was relatively uneducated and poor to start with. If he had only learned to read. by touch, had started studying and given himself an education—but he couldn’t do it. He simply couldn’t afford to. He was absolutely penniless and destitute.”

  “I understand.”

  “Then he got lucky. He made a very fortunate investment in oil, and now he can live very much as he pleases; but he feels that it’s too late, that he’s too old.”

  “I suppose so,” Bertha agreed. “You’re the one who sent him the music box?”

  “Yes—but I didn’t want him to know that. I just wanted it to come to him from a friend. I was afraid he wouldn’t accept that expensive a gift from a working girl, although I can afford it now very well. At the time I started paying for it, I felt that I couldn’t.”

  “I see,” Bertha said wearily. “Well, I seem to have been whipsawed all the way around. I don’t suppose you happen to know anything about the Josephine Dell who had the accident, do you?”

  “What accident?” she asked curiously.

  Bertha said, “The accident that took place there on the corner by the bank building about quarter to six Friday night. The man hit this young woman with his automobile and knocked her down. She didn’t think she was hurt much, but —”

  “But I’m that person,” Josephine Dell said.

  The sag snapped out of Bertha Cool’s back as she jerked herself rigidly erect. “You’re what?” she asked.

  “I’m that girl.”

  “One of us,” Bertha announced, “is nuts.”

  Josephine Dell laughed, a
musical, tinkling bit of laughter. “Oh, but I am. It was the most peculiar experience. This man struck me and knocked me down, and he seemed like a very nice young man. I didn’t think I was hurt at the time, but the next morning when I got up, I began to be a little dizzy and had a headache. I called a doctor, and the doctor said it looked like concussion. He advised a complete rest and–”

  “Wait a minute,” Bertha said. “Did this man drive you home?”

  “He wanted to, and I decided to let him. At the time I didn’t think I was hurt at all. I just thought I’d been knocked over, and felt a little sheepish about it, because—well, after all, while I was in the right, so far as the signal was concerned. I really wasn’t watching where I was going. I had some things on my mind that day, and—well, anyway, he insisted that I must go to a hospital for a check-up; and when I refused that, he said he was going to drive me home anyway.”

  Bertha Cool looked as though she were seeing ghosts. “What happened?”

  “Well, the man seemed like very much of a gentleman, butI hadn’t been riding with him very long before I realized he had been drinking. Then I saw he was quite intoxicated, and then the , veneer of being a gentleman wore through. He started making offensive remarks, and finally started pawing. I slapped his face, got out of the car, and took a streetcar home.”

  “You hadn’t told him where you lived?”

  “No, just the direction to start driving.”

  “And he didn’t have your name?”

  “I gave it to him, but he was too drunk to remember it. I’m absolutely certain of that.”

  Bertha did everything but rub her eyes. “Now, ” she said, “all you need to do to make the thing completely cockeyed is to tell me that you were living in the Bluebonnet Apartments.”

  “But I was—I still am. The Bluebonnet Apartments out on Figueroa. How did you know?”

  Bertha Cool put her hand to her head.

  “What’s the matter?” Josephine Dell asked.

  “Fry me for an oyster,” Bertha said, “pickle me for a herring, and can me for a sardine. I’m a poor fish.”

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “Just go ahead. Tell me the rest of it.”

  “Well, that’s about all there is to it. I got up the next morning and felt dizzy. I called the doctor, and he suggested I should take, a complete rest. I didn’t have any money on hand, but I had a little money coming. I thought that perhaps I could arrange something so I could–”

  Well, I knew that Mrs. Cranning, the housekeeper, had a housekeeping fund from which she paid bills; and I thought perhaps I could get a little salary advance on that. I suppose I should tell you the man I was working for had died rather suddenly.”

  “I know all about that,” Bertha said. “Tell me about the money angle.”

  “Well, I went to Mrs. Cranning, and she didn’t have enough to spare to enable me to do just what I wanted to do, but she told me to go in and lie down and she’d see what she could do. Well, she certainly did a splendid job. The insurance company made a perfectly splendid adjustment.”

  “And what did it do?”

  “They agreed with my doctor that what I needed was a complete rest for a month or six weeks, and that I should go to some place where I wouldn’t have a thing in the world to worry about, where I wouldn’t have any of my old contacts or associations to bother me. My employer had died, and I was going to be out of a job, anyway. Well, the insurance company agreed to send me here, pay every cent of expenses, give me my salary for the two months I was here. When I left, they were to give me a cheque for five hundred dollars and guarantee to find me a job. Isn’t that generous?”

  “Did you sign anything?” Bertha asked.

  “Oh yes, a complete agreement—a release I guess it’s called.”

  Bertha said, “Good God!”

  “But I don’t understand. Can’t you tell me what’s the matter? What I’m telling you seems to distress you.”

  “The insurance company,” Bertha said, “was the Inter-mutual Indemnity Company, and the agent was P. L. Fosdick?”

  “Why, no.”

  “Who was it?” Bertha Cool asked.

  “It was an automobile club. I’ve forgotten the exact name of it, but I think it was the Auto Parity Club. I know the agent’s name was Milbran. He’s the one who made all the arrangements.”

  “How did you cash the cheque?” Bertha asked.

  “The settlement was made in the form of cash, because it was on Saturday afternoon. The banks were closed, and Mr. Milbran thought I should come right out here where it was quiet. He said that he was making a generous settlement with me because of the circumstances. Do you know what he told me —after the agreement had been signed, of course?”

  “No,” Bertha said. “What?”

  She laughed. “Said that his client was so drunk that he actually didn’t know he had hit anyone. He admitted that he’d been drinking heavily and was driving the car home; but he doesn’t even remember having been in that particular section of the city where he hit me, and certainly doesn’t remember the accident. It came as a shock to him when–”

  “Wait a minute,” Bertha Cool interrupted. “How did you get in touch with the insurance company then?”

  “That was through Mrs. Cranning.”

  “I know, but how did she get in touch with it? What—?”

  “Well, I remembered this man’s licence number.”

  “Did you write it down?” Bertha asked.

  “No, I didn’t write it down. I just remembered it, and I told Mrs. Cranning what it was. Of course, I wrote it down after I got home. When I say I didn’t write it down, I mean I didn’t stand right there in front of the automobile and write it down. I didn’t want to be disagreeable about the thing, but I just looked at his licence number so as to–”

  “Why, what’s the matter?”

  Bertha Cool said, “You’ve done the damnedest thing.”

  “I have?”

  “Yes.”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “You got the licence number wrong,” Bertha Cool said, “and just as a pure coincidence your wrong licence number happened to be that of a man who was also driving a car at that time and was also drunk.”

  “You mean that the man—that the Club—”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Bertha said. “You got hold of a man who happened to have been too drunk at the time to know what he was doing but who realized he might have hit someone. When Mrs. Cranning got in touch with him and told him about the accident, he rang up his insurance carrier and reported to them, and the insurance carrier came dashing out to make the best settlement he could.”

  “And you mean this man didn’t hit me at all?”

  “Not the one you made the claim against.”

  “But that’s impossible!”

  “I know it’s impossible,” Bertha observed doggedly, “but it’s exactly what happened.”

  “And where does that leave me?”

  Bertha said, “It leaves you sitting on top of the world.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  Bertha Cool opened her purse, pulled out one of her agency cards, and put on her best smile. “Here,” she said, “is one of my cards. Cool and Lam, Confidential Investigators. I’m Bertha Cool.”

  “You mean—that you’re a detective?”

  “Yes.”

  “How exciting!”

  “Not very.”

  “But don’t you— Oh, you must have unusual experiences. You must work at odd hours, have sleepless nights.”

  “Yes,” Bertha interrupted, “we have unusual experiences and sleepless nights. I had an unusual experience yesterday and a particularly sleepless night. And now I’ve found you.”

  “But why were you looking for me?”

  Bertha Cool said, “I am going to collect some money for you. Will you give me fifty per cent. of it if I collect it?”

  “Money for what?”


  “Money from the insurance company for being hit by a drunken driver.”

  “But I’ve already collected that, Mrs. Cool. I’ve already made a settlement.”

  “No, you haven’t, not from the man who was driving the car. How much were they going to pay in all?”

  “You mean this insurance company?”

  “Yes, the one you made the settlement with, this Auto Club outfit?”

  “Why, they were going to pay me my salary for two months. That would be two hundred and fifty dollars for the two months. Then they were going to pay all the expenses here. I don’t know what they amount to, but I think it’s ten dollars a day. That would be six hundred dollars for two months, and give me five hundred dollars when I left here. Good heavens, Mrs. Cool, do you realize how much that is? That’s thirteen hundred dollars.”

  “All right,” Bertha said, “you signed a release, releasing the client of that insurance company, and that insurance company from any claim. You didn’t sign any release, releasing the Intermutual Indemnity Company. Now, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. You’re going to put your claim in my hands, and I’m going to collect you a bunch of money from the Intermutual. You’re going to pay me one-half of what I collect, and I’m going to guarantee with you that your share will be at least two thousand dollars.”

  “You mean two thousand dollars in cash?”

  “Yes,” Bertha said. “That’ll be your share, and don’t let’s have any misunderstandings, dear. I’ll be making two thousand dollars myself. Understand, that’s a minimum. I feel certain I can get you more, perhaps three or four thousand dollars as your share.”

  “But, Mrs. Cool, that would be dishonest.”

  “Why would it be dishonest?”

  “Because I’ve already given a release to the insurance company.

  “But it was the wrong insurance company, the wrong driver.”

  “I know, but, nevertheless, I’ve accepted that money.”

  “They’ve paid it to you,” Bertha said. “It’s their hard luck.”

  “No, I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be ethical. It wouldn’t be honest.”