The Bat that Flits

by Norman Collins

  I was still admiring her poise and integrity, when something considerably less pleasant passed through my mind. For, with none but the noblest of intentions, she had destroyed a perfectly good alibi. And I might find myself needing one almost any moment now.

  It called for imagination, lying, perjury and a supreme display of honest, manly indignation before I was able to get Dr. Mann out of the nasty jam that he had got himself into.

  And it wasn’t easy. The Inspector was still in the first flush of his triumph. I learnt afterwards that Dr. Mann’s was the first decent footprint that the Inspector hadn’t accidentally tramped on while he was still looking for it. There had, too, been some rather cunning undercover business going on at the Institute. Apparently he had bribed the Phœnician to procure one of Dr. Mann’s ordinary walking shoes for purposes of comparison. And he was all ready, when the moment came, to produce it in court as a proof of size. That decided me. I told him that Dr. Mann had spent the key-hours, midnight until 2 a.m., sitting in my bedroom telling me all about life in the Third Reich. Even when I swore to it he still disbelieved me. He had something there. But I was so sure that the little German was too jumpy to steal anything that it still seemed worth trying.

  So I turned to Wilton instead. He was much more reasonable. And when I added by way of a brilliant afterthought that I remembered all about that evening because Dr. Mann had cut his hand opening the metal cap on a soda-water bottle, that seemed to clinch matters. The clue of the cut hand had been our ace card that the Inspector had been keeping up his sleeve ready to slam down at the last moment.

  I don’t know how M.I.5 works in relation to a County Police Force. It may be that if there is trouble at a board meeting, M.I.5 has the casting vote. At any rate, we heard no more about the arrest of Dr. Mann. And his gratitude in consequence became downright embarrassing. It was like having a pet poodle jumping all over me.

  “Can I ever thank you enough, no?” he asked me, his pale round eyes protruding so far that they seemed to be pushing against the back of his spectacle lenses.

  “Not another word. You’ve done it,” I told him.

  “But somehow I must repay,” he went on. “I am considering ways.” He paused and seemed to be trying to make up his mind between a year’s subscription to Punch or introducing me to his sister. Then he rounded on me suddenly. “And why did you do it, plees?” he asked. “It was too wonderful. Saying that I was with you that night.”

  “Why, good gracious,” I answered. “It’s the truth, isn’t it? My memory’s getting simply terrible these days.”

  Dr. Mann understood that one.

  “You are right,” he said. “It is important to be discreet. “Not even to you should I speak of it. I am discreet again. No one shall ever know about me.”

  I was still thinking about Dr. Mann’s last remark when I came on the third of those typed messages. By now, I had grown so thoroughly familiar with this means of communication that I used to make a kind of regular scraping movement along the pillow before getting into bed. And this time my fingers encountered one of the familiar little slips.

  But this time the wording was easily the most disturbing of the lot. There in capitals I read the words: THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, COMRADE.

  I didn’t like the look of that at all. Someone—and I still had no idea who—was rather too intimately familiar with the facts. Also, he seemed to have an uncanny reading of my character.

  At least, he knew enough to figure out that if he had merely referred to the Commandment by the code number, I probably wouldn’t even have known what he was talking about.

  Chapter XV

  1

  It was Hilda who kept me from getting neurotic about the screwy messages. She had a distinctly one-track mind. And she kept on at me about getting Una away from the Institute. She was so earnest about it indeed that I didn’t like to tell her that I still hadn’t quite made up my mind.

  And then on the evening of the third day, I did manage to touch lightly on the subject. I happened to be in the bar alone when Gillett himself came in. And it couldn’t have been easier or more natural. He was wearing a slightly drawn expression that I think he must have known suited him rather, or I am sure that he wouldn’t have worn it at all. And I had taken just enough drink not to mind what I said. So I went right in at my very heartiest.

  “Have a drink, old chap,” I said. “You look as though you could do with one.”

  We weren’t really on old chap terms, or anything like it. And telling Gillett that he looked as though he needed a drink was about as risky as telling him that his profile had slipped.

  “Just a small one,” he said. “I’ve still got some work to do.”

  That gave me just the kind of lead I’d been playing for.

  “Pack it up, chum,” I advised him. “It isn’t worth it. And it isn’t fair to Una either.”

  I saw his eyebrows go up a shade when I called the demure one “Una.” As a matter of fact, I was a bit surprised myself.

  “And there’s another thing,” I said. “Why don’t you get her away from here? She ought to go right off somewhere just to get over it. She must have swallowed an awful lot of glass when that jar went off.”

  Gillett passed his hand across his forehead. It was perfect the way he did it. He knew all the right gestures, and could easily have got himself a gold medal at the R.A.D.A. any time. There was even the surprise pay-off. It certainly caught me unprepared.

  “I wish to God she would,” he answered. “Perhaps you’d speak to her. She won’t listen to me.”

  “Two more pink gins,” I told the barman hurriedly. “And make them large ones.”

  I was getting really interested by now. The only trouble was that the pattern seemed about as subtle as an expanse of black-and-white squared tiling. Hilda wanted me to get Una out of the way so that she could have Gillett to herself again. And Gillett was evidently hankering after pretty much the same arrangement. I wanted to see what else I could learn, so I began shifting my ground a bit.

  “Well, after all, she probably knows best,” I said. “I just thought that it would be good for her.”

  “So it would,” Gillett answered. “Damn good.” He dropped his voice a little even though Charley, our barman, was the only other person in the bar. “I don’t like some of the things that have been going on here. Have you ever known an anaerobic jar explode like that?”

  “No,” I answered truthfully.

  He paused.

  “Nor have I. And I still have a feeling that there’s something pretty queer still going on around here. As a matter of fact, it’s rather more than a feeling. I think I’ve stumbled on to something.”

  “That goes for me, too,” I said, again truthfully,

  “And that’s why I’d like to get Una quite out of it,” he went on. “This Institute isn’t the place for a woman. At least not just at present, it isn’t.”

  If he had said that it wasn’t the place for two women I should have been perfectly ready to agree with him. But, as it was, I didn’t want to give the impression of being one of the nervous kind. I was calm and casual in the way that six gins can make anyone calm and casual.

  “Aren’t you dramatising things a bit, old man?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  Then he brought out the same gesture again. Hand drawn slowly across the forehead and eyes half-closed while he was doing it.

  The only trouble was that he had become so good at it that he was in danger of convincing even himself.

  2

  All that took place on a Wednesday. And by the following Friday, the Inspector had something more than size five plimsolls to worry about. He very nearly had a murder— Gillett’s murder—to investigate. Someone up on the moor had been practising with a firearm and had apparently happened to let it off when Gillett had been passing right in front of the sights.

  It was only bad marksmanship, or possibly the blinding effect of Gillett’s pro
file when viewed through the little aperture that had saved him. But it certainly left him shaken. For once he forgot to look his best when he told us about it. “Too damn near for my liking,” was what he said. And having said it, he kept repeating it.

  What he didn’t know was that it had been too damn near for my liking, too. The report had seemed to come from just over the other side of a small hillock where I happened to be resting. I was assistant-on-duty in the lab. at the time, and had just slipped out for a breather. But I couldn’t very well say anything. It would only have worried the Director if he had thought that the discipline on the routine side of the Institute was getting shaky.

  There were, however, two other witnesses to the shot. Dr. Mann was one of them. But he, poor fellow, hardly counted because he was always hearing Vi’s and distant explosions and things that didn’t reach anybody else’s ears, and he wouldn’t have been credited even if he’d been the one who was fired at. The other witness, however, was Bansted, our Bisley man. And he insisted that it was a Luger or something of the kind that he had heard. The report, he said, had come from somewhere not more than half a mile from where he had been himself, and must have been a close-range job. That sounded reasonable enough because the afternoon had been distinctly misty, with visibility of not much more than about a hundred yards. But that in turn showed that the shot couldn’t have been all that casual. Someone must have been just sitting there waiting for it.

  That was Gillett’s view of the situation. And it was Hilda’s view too. But what didn’t make sense was that it was still apparently Una that she was most worried about. Or was she? I couldn’t get rid of the uncomfortable feeling that she didn’t care two hoots for Una, whereas she would have died cheerfully for Gillett whenever he asked her. But if that was so, she was certainly a pretty convincing kind of actress. And she would insist that somehow or other the shooting had increased the danger that Una was already in.

  “Increased the danger?” I asked quite innocently. “You didn’t say anything about danger before.”

  “Oh, but it’s so obvious. It’s so obvious,” Hilda went on. “If you can’t see it, there’s nothing I can do about it. I only want you to get her away from here. That’s all that you’ve got to do. And you’ve got to do it quickly.”

  She was becoming about as near to hysterical as she was ever likely to be. Her colour was higher by now. And she was indulging in the short, sharp kind of breathing which is one of the first really tell-tale signs in a woman. Then very abruptly she came right up to me.

  “You can kiss me now if you like,” she said. “Only you’ve got to do what I ask you.”

  That kiss gave me back just nothing at all. It was her cheek that she offered me, and not her lips. And, in any case, I don’t like being offered a kiss as a reward for good conduct. This particular one reminded me of a jujube handed out by an exasperated mother as a last desperate attempt to get poppet to do something.

  In any case, there was far too much going on for there to be any possibility of my having a tête-à-tête with the demure one. Gillett was guarding her like a mother-lynx with kittens. And it was suddenly Bansted who had become the centre of everything.

  I must say that it certainly did look a bit fishy. Because it had suddenly come to light that when he had left the Institute on the afternoon of the shooting he had taken his rifle with him.

  As soon as he heard, the Inspector was ready to whip out his book of blank arrest-warrants, or whatever the exact procedure is. The only trouble was that it was Dr. Mann who was the sole source of the information. And, on principle, the Inspector didn’t believe a single word that Dr. Mann said. Also, Bansted wasn’t exactly the staring, glassy-eyed kind of assassin. And the other sort don’t normally march off to the chopping-up with the axe slung over their shoulder.

  What, on the other hand, was rather bad was that Bansted should have forgotten to mention that he had ever had a little thing like a rifle in his raincoat pocket. An umbrella is the sort of thing that anyone could overlook. But to forget about a rifle spells carelessness. And Bansted wasn’t in the least naturally careless.

  Chapter XVI

  I had already arrived at some preliminary conclusions about Wilton. But for the sake of our friendship, I was careful to keep all conclusions of that kind entirely private. For the plain fact was that Wilton was past it. No doubt in his youth he had been a wizard at unravelling things. The mere name of Wilton Pasha may once have hung like a three-generation curse over every dope-peddler in the Nile delta. But in this, his Bodmin period, the wizardry had all too obviously departed. What deductions he did make were mostly pretty fumble-fingered and unsubtle.

  Like the one about Hilda and me, for instance. Simply because he knew that I had once given her a lift in my car, Wilton seemed to assume that I would be buying a ring as soon as my first pool combination came out right.

  “She’s the religious type, isn’t she?” he asked.

  “That certainly is what first brought us together,” I replied.

  “Ever say much about it?”

  I shook my head.

  “There are some things you can’t put into words,” I explained. “Perhaps music comes nearest to it.”

  Wilton filled up my glass for me.

  “More tonic?”

  I shook my head.

  “Gets on well with the Vicar, doesn’t she?” Wilton asked. I locked my two forefingers together.

  “Like that,” I told him. “Been a second father to her.”

  “Know why she left the Vicarage?”

  This was where it was beginning to get difficult. Because I didn’t know that she had left. I’d only had one real conversation with Hilda so far. And neither of us had thought to bring either the Vicar or the Vicarage into ft. But if Wilton wanted to talk about parish politics it was all right with me.

  “It was the sermons,” I said. “Always used to go through them out loud in the room next to hers. Took all the freshness out of it on Sundays.”

  “Keen churchgoer, isn’t she?” he asked.

  “Morning, afternoon and evening,” I replied. “That’s more than you can say for some people.”

  I’d got him on the raw there. And he knew it. But he tried to pass it off.

  “Must be a good sort the Vicar,” he said vaguely.

  “Fine type,” I agreed. “Grand men, these old country parsons. Son of the manse myself, you know.”

  “I thought you’d get on well together,” Wilton replied. “That’s why I asked him over.”

  “You haven’t,” I exclaimed. “How delightful.” I paused long enough to light a cigarette. “I wonder if he’ll recognise me, though,” I added. “I always make a point of sitting right at the back. Less conspicuous, you know.”

  “Much,” said Wilton, and left it at that.

  It was the tinkle of a bicycle bell that announced that the village padre had at last toiled up here. And as I sat back waiting for him to come in, I could picture the machine— green, probably, with a wicker basket in front and a great felt cushion strapped on to the top of the saddle.

  Then the door opened and the breathless old thing tottered in. He must have been somewhere in the early thirties. At first glance he was all flashing teeth and horn-rim spectacles. Teeth particularly. His two front ones came down on to his lower lip as though a small white butterfly were resting there. And it was obvious that he was the keyed-up sort. He spoke in short, staccato sentences like a telegram, and added a little laugh in place of the full stops.

  “Evening,” he began. “Got your message, ha-ha. Came straight away. Something absolutely red-hot, ha-ha. . . . ”

  He saw me standing there. Then, realising that he had just been indiscreet in the presence of a total stranger, he blushed deep red like a schoolgirl. If he’d had long plaits he would probably have begun chewing at them in sheer embarrassment.

  “Sorry,” he started up again. “No idea anybody here, ha-ha.”

  Wilton sat him down, and made him
take his goloshes off. Apparently he’d seen quite a bit of him before. Because he knew all about his habits.

  “Cider?” he asked.

  “Oh, rather.”

  “Smoke?”

  “Never use them.”

  Except for indicating the gin bottle with his thumb, Wilton seemed to have forgotten all about me. His back was turned full in my direction by now, and he was concentrating on the parson.

  “What’s the position?” he asked.

  There was a little wriggle of excitement as though the parson had been saving himself up for this bit, then the reply came.

  “Worse,” he said. “Much worse, ha-ha. Last three Sundays not a sign. Not even Communion. Resigned from Sunday School, too. Said the work was too much. All very mysterious, ha-ha.”

  “Spoken to her?” Wilton asked.

  I could tell from the tone of his voice that his eyes were probably closed. Wilton always did most of his questioning in a state that was only just this side of sleep.

  “Tried to yesterday,” the Vicar answered. “Not satisfactory. Both on bicycles. Wouldn’t wait for me.”

  Wilton stretched himself. It was the creaking sound that made me look at him. And those creaks were always telltale. Whenever Wilton stretched himself it meant that he was getting bored and wanted to change the subject.

  “Oh, well,” he said, “thanks for telling me. They all get a bit run down, you know. She’ll probably be all right again when she’s had a holiday.”

  But the Vicar wasn’t going to be brushed off like that.

  “More to it than that, ha-ha,” he replied, going faster than ever now, as though he were delivering the telegram as well as sending it. “Real evidence this time. Only came this morning. On my way up here when you rang. Look at this.”