by The Bat
“I bet a cent the cook never had any sister—and the sister never had any twins,” she said impressively. “No, Miss Neily, they couldn’t put it over on me like that! They were scared away. They saw—It!”
She concluded her epic and stood nodding her head, an Irish Cassandra who had prophesied the evil to come.
“Fiddlesticks!” said Miss Cornelia briskly, more shaken by the recital than she would have admitted. She tried to think of another topic of conversation.
“What time is it?” she asked.
Lizzie glanced at the mantel clock. “Half-past ten, Miss Neily.”
Miss Cornelia yawned, a little dismally. She felt as if the last two hours had not been hours but years.
“Miss Dale won’t be home for half an hour,” she said reflectively. And if I have to spend another thirty minutes listening to Lizzie shiver, she thought, Dale will find me a nervous wreck when she does come home. She rolled up her knitting and put it back in her knitting-bag; it was no use going on, doing work that would have to be ripped out again and yet she must do something to occupy her thoughts. She raised her head and discovered Lizzie returning toward the alcove stairs with the stealthy tread of a panther. The sight exasperated her.
“Now, Lizzie Allen!” she said sharply, “you forget all that superstitious nonsense and stop looking for ghosts! There’s nothing in that sort of thing.” She smiled—she would punish Lizzie for her obdurate timorousness. “Where’s that ouija-board?” she questioned, rising, with determination in her eye.
Lizzie shuddered violently. “It’s up there—with a prayer book on it to keep it quiet!” she groaned, jerking her thumb in the direction of the farther bookcase.
“Bring it here!” said Miss Cornelia implacably; then as Lizzie still hesitated, “Lizzie!”
Shivering, every movement of her body a conscious protest, Lizzie slowly went over to the bookcase, lifted off the prayer book, and took down the ouija-board. Even then she would not carry it normally but bore it over to Miss Cornelia at arms’-length, as if any closer contact would blast her with lightning, her face a comic mask of loathing and repulsion.
She placed the lettered board in Miss Cornelia’s lap with a sigh of relief. “You can do it yourself! I’ll have none of it!” she said firmly.
“It takes two people and you know it, Lizzie Allen!” Miss Cornelia’s voice was stern but—it was also amused.
Lizzie groaned, but she knew her mistress. She obeyed. She carefully chose the farthest chair in the room and took a long time bringing it over to where her mistress sat waiting.
“I’ve been working for you for twenty years,” she muttered. “I’ve been your goat for twenty years and I’ve got a right to speak my mind—”
Miss Cornelia cut her off. “You haven’t got a mind. Sit down,” she commanded.
Lizzie sat—her hands at her sides. With a sigh of tried patience, Miss Cornelia put her unwilling fingers on the little moving table that is used to point to the letters on the board itself. Then she placed her own hands on it, too, the tips of the fingers just touching Lizzie’s.
“Now make your mind a blank!” she commanded her factotum.
“You just said I haven’t got any mind,” complained the latter.
“Well;” said Miss Cornelia magnificently, “make what you haven’t got a blank.”
The repartee silenced Lizzie for the moment, but only for the moment. As soon as Miss Cornelia had settled herself comfortably and tried to make her mind a suitable receiving station for ouija messages, Lizzie began to mumble the sorrows of her heart.
“I’ve stood by you through thick and thin,” she mourned in a low voice. “I stood by you when you were a vegetarian—I stood by you when you were a theosophist—and I seen you through socialism, Fletcherism and rheumatism—but when it comes to carrying on with ghosts—”
“Be still!” ordered Miss Cornelia. “Nothing will come if you keep chattering!”
“That’s why I’m chattering!” said Lizzie, driven to the wall. “My teeth are, too,” she added. “I can hardly keep my upper set in,” and a desolate clicking of artificial molars attested the truth of the remark. Then, to Miss Cornelia’s relief, she was silent for nearly two minutes, only to start so violently at the end of the time that she nearly upset the ouija-board on her mistress’s toes.
“I’ve got a queer feeling in my fingers—all the way up my arms,” she whispered in awed accents, wriggling the arms she spoke of violently.
“Hush!” said Miss Cornelia indignantly. Lizzie always exaggerated, of course—yet now her own fingers felt prickly, uncanny. There was a little pause while both sat tense, staring at the board.
“Now, Ouija,” said Miss Cornelia defiantly, “is Lizzie Allen right about this house or is it all stuff and nonsense?”
For one second—two—the ouija remained anchored to its resting place in the center of the board. Then—
“My Gawd! It’s moving!” said Lizzie in tones of pure horror as the little pointer began to wander among the letters.
“You shoved it!”
“I did not—cross my heart, Miss Neily—I—” Lizzie’s eyes were round, her fingers glued rigidly and awkwardly to the ouija. As the movements of the pointer grew more rapid her mouth dropped open—wider and wider—prepared for an ear-piercing scream.
“Keep quiet!” said Miss Cornelia tensely. There was a pause of a few seconds while the pointer darted from one letter to another wildly.
“B—M—C—X—P—R—S—K—Z—” murmured Miss Cornelia trying to follow the spelled letters.
“It’s Russian!” gasped Lizzie breathlessly and Miss Cornelia nearly disgraced herself in the eyes of any spirits that might be present by inappropriate laughter. The ouija continued to move—more letters—what was it spelling?—it couldn’t be—good heavens—”B—A—T—Bat!” said Miss Cornelia with a tiny catch in her voice.
The pointer stopped moving: She took her hands from the board.
“That’s queer,” she said with a forced laugh. She glanced at Lizzie to see how Lizzie was taking it. But the latter seemed too relieved to have her hands off the ouija-board to make the mental connection that her mistress had feared.
All she said was, “Bats indeed! That shows it’s spirits. There’s been a bat flying around this house all evening.”
She got up from her chair tentatively, obviously hoping that the seance was over.
“Oh, Miss Neily,” she burst out. “Please let me sleep in your room tonight! It’s only when my jaw drops that I snore—I can tie it up with a handkerchief!”
“I wish you’d tie it up with a handkerchief now,” said her mistress absent-mindedly, still pondering the message that the pointer had spelled. “B—A—T—Bat!” she murmured. Thought-transference—warning—accident? Whatever it was, it was—nerve-shaking. She put the ouija-board aside. Accident or not, she was done with it for the evening. But she could not so easily dispose of the Bat. Sending a protesting Lizzie off for her reading glasses, Miss Cornelia got the evening paper and settled down to what by now had become her obsession. She had not far to search for a long black streamer ran across the front page—”Bat Baffles Police Again.”
She skimmed through the article with eerie fascination, reading bits of it aloud for Lizzie’s benefit.
“‘Unique criminal—long baffled the police—record of his crimes shows him to be endowed with an almost diabolical ingenuity—so far there is no clue to his identity—’” Pleasant reading for an old woman who’s just received a threatening letter, she thought ironically—ah, here was something new in a black-bordered box on the front page—a statement by the paper.
She read it aloud. “‘We must cease combing the criminal world for the Bat and look higher. He may be a merchant—a lawyer—a Doctor—honored in his community by day and at night a bloodthirsty assassin—’” The print blurred before her eyes, she could read no more for the moment. She thought of the revolver in the drawer of the table close at hand and f
elt glad that it was there, loaded.
“I’m going to take the butcher knife to bed with me!” Lizzie was saying.
Miss Cornelia touched the ouija-board. “That thing certainly spelled Bat,” she remarked. “I wish I were a man. I’d like to see any lawyer, Doctor, or merchant of my acquaintance leading a double life without my suspecting it.”
“Every man leads a double life and some more than that,” Lizzie observed. “I guess it rests them, like it does me to take off my corset.”
Miss Cornelia opened her mouth to rebuke her but just at that moment there, was a clink of ice from the hall, and Billy, the Japanese, entered carrying a tray with a pitcher of water and some glasses on it. Miss Cornelia watched his impassive progress, wondering if the Oriental races ever felt terror—she could not imagine all Lizzie’s banshees and kelpies producing a single shiver from Billy. He set down the tray and was about to go as silently as he had come when Miss Cornelia spoke to him on impulse.
“Billy, what’s all this about the cook’s sister not having twins?” she said in an offhand voice. She had not really discussed the departure of the other servants with Billy before. “Did you happen to know that this interesting event was anticipated?”
Billy drew in his breath with a polite hiss. “Maybe she have twins,” he admitted. “It happen sometime. Mostly not expected.”
“Do you think there was any other reason for her leaving?”
“Maybe,” said Billy blandly.
“Well, what was the reason?”
“All say the same thing—house haunted.” Billy’s reply was prompt as it was calm.
Miss Cornelia gave a slight laugh. “You know better than that, though, don’t you?”
Billy’s Oriental placidity remained unruffled. He neither admitted nor denied. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Funny house,” he said laconically. “Find window open—nobody there. Door slam—nobody there!”
On the heels of his words came a single, startling bang from the kitchen quarters—the bang of a slammed door!
Chapter Five - Alopecia and Rubeola
*
Miss Cornelia dropped her newspaper. Lizzie, frankly frightened, gave a little squeal and moved closer to her mistress. Only Billy remained impassive but even he looked sharply in the direction whence the sound had come.
Miss Cornelia was the first of the others to recover her poise.
“Stop that! It was the wind!” she said, a little irritably—the “Stop that!” addressed to Lizzie who seemed on the point of squealing again.
“I think not wind,” said Billy. His very lack of perturbation added weight to the statement. It made Miss Cornelia uneasy. She took out her knitting again.
“How long have you lived in this house, Billy?”
“Since Mr. Fleming built.”
“H’m.” Miss Cornelia pondered. “And this is the first time you have been disturbed?”
“Last two days only.” Billy would have made an ideal witness in a courtroom. He restricted himself so precisely to answering what was asked of him in as few words as possible.
Miss Cornelia ripped out a row in her knitting. She took a deep breath.
“What about that face Lizzie said you saw last night at the window?” she asked in a steady voice.
Billy grinned, as if slightly embarrassed. “Just face—that’s all.”
“A—man’s face?”
He shrugged again.
“Don’t know—maybe. It there! It gone!”
Miss Cornelia did not want to believe him—but she did. “Did you go out after it?” she persisted.
Billy’s yellow grin grew wider. “No thanks,” he said cheerfully with ideal succinctness.
Lizzie, meanwhile, had stood first on one foot and then on the other during the interrogation, terror and morbid interest fighting in her for mastery. Now she could hold herself in no longer.
“Oh, Miss Neily!” she exploded in a graveyard moan, “last night when the lights went out I had a token! My oil lamp was full of oil but, do what I would, it kept going out, too—the minute I shut my eyes out that lamp would go. There ain’t a surer token of death! The Bible says, ‘Let your light shine’—and when a hand you can’t see puts your lights out—good night!”
She ended in a hushed whisper and even Billy looked a trifle uncomfortable after her climax.
“Well, now that you’ve cheered us up,” began Miss Cornelia undauntedly, but a long, ominous roll of thunder that rattled the panes in the French windows drowned out the end of her sentence. Nevertheless she welcomed the thunder as a diversion. At least its menace was a physical one—to be guarded against by physical means.
She rose and went over to the French windows. That flimsy bolt! She parted the curtains and looked out—a flicker of lightning stabbed the night—the storm must be almost upon them.
“Bring some candles, Billy,” she said. “The lights may be going out any moment—and Billy,” as he started to leave, “there’s a gentleman arriving on the last train. After he comes you may go to bed. I’ll wait up for Miss Dale—oh, and Billy,” arresting him at the door, “see that all the outer doors on this floor are locked and bring the keys here.”
Billy nodded and departed. Miss Cornelia took a long breath. Now that the moment for waiting had passed—the moment for action come—she felt suddenly indomitable, prepared to face a dozen Bats!
Her feelings were not shared by her maid. “I know what all this means,” moaned Lizzie. “I tell you there’s going to be a death, sure!”
“There certainly will be if you don’t keep quiet,” said her mistress acidly. “Lock the billiard-room windows and go to bed.”
But this was the last straw for Lizzie. A picture of the two long, dark flights of stairs up which she had to pass to reach her bedchamber rose before her—and she spoke her mind.
“I am not going to bed!” she said wildly. “I’m going to pack up tomorrow and leave this house.” That such a threat would never be carried out while she lived made little difference to her—she was beyond the need of Truth’s consolations. “I asked you on my bended knees not to take this place two miles from a railroad,” she went on heatedly. “For mercy’s sake, Miss Neily, let’s go back to the city before it’s too late!”
Miss Cornelia was inflexible.
“I’m not going. You can make up your mind to that. I’m going to find out what’s wrong with this place if it takes all summer. I came out to the country for a rest and I’m going to get it.”
“You’ll get your heavenly rest!” mourned Lizzie, giving it up. She looked pitifully at her mistress’s face for a sign that the latter might be weakening—but no such sign came. Instead, Miss Cornelia seemed to grow more determined.
“Besides,” she said, suddenly deciding to share the secret she had hugged to herself all day, “I might as well tell you, Lizzie. I’m having a detective sent down tonight from police headquarters in the city.”
“A detective?” Lizzie’s face was horrified. “Miss Neily, you’re keeping something from me! You know something I don’t know.”
“I hope so. I daresay he will be stupid enough. Most of them are. But at least we can have one proper night’s sleep.”
“Not I. I trust no man,” said Lizzie. But Miss Cornelia had picked up the paper again.
“‘The Bat’s last crime was a particularly atrocious one,’” she read. “‘The body of the murdered man…’”
But Lizzie could bear no more.
“Why don’t you read the funny page once in a while?” she wailed and hurried to close the windows in the billiard room. The door leading into the billiard room shut behind her.
Miss Cornelia remained reading for a moment. Then—was that a sound from the alcove? She dropped the paper, went into the alcove and stood for a moment at the foot of the stairs, listening. No—it must have been imagination. But, while she was here, she might as well put on the spring lock that bolted the door from the alcove to the terrace. She did so,
returned to the living-room and switched off the lights for a moment to look out at the coming storm. It was closer now—the lightning flashes more continuous. She turned on the lights again as Billy re-entered with three candles and a box of matches.
He put them down on a side table.
“New gardener come,” he said briefly to Miss Cornelia’s back.
Miss Cornelia turned. “Nice hour for him to get here. What’s his name?”
“Say his name Brook,” said Billy, a little doubtful. English names still bothered him—he was never quite sure of them at first.
Miss Cornelia thought. “Ask him to come in,” she said. “And Billy—where are the keys?”
Billy silently took two keys from his pocket and laid them on the table. Then he pointed to the terrace door which Miss Cornelia had just bolted.
“Door up there—spring lock,” he said.
“Yes.” She nodded. “And the new bolt you put on today makes it fairly secure. One thing is fairly sure, Billy. If anyone tries to get in tonight, he will have to break a window and make a certain amount of noise.”
But he only smiled his curious enigmatic smile and went out. And no sooner had Miss Cornelia seated herself when the door of the billiard room slammed open suddenly and Lizzie burst into the room as if she had been shot from a gun—her hair wild—her face stricken with fear.
“I heard somebody yell out in the grounds—away down by the gate!” she informed her mistress in a loud stage whisper which had a curious note of pride in it, as if she were not too displeased at seeing her doleful predictions so swiftly coming to pass.
Miss Cornelia took her by the shoulder—half-startled, half-dubious.
“What did they yell?”
“Just yelled a yell!”
“Lizzie!”
“I heard them!”
But she had cried “Wolf!” too often.
“You take a liver pill,” said her mistress disgustedly, “and go to bed.”
Lizzie was about to protest both the verdict on her story and the judgment on herself when the door in the hall was opened by Billy to admit the new gardener. A handsome young fellow, in his late twenties, he came two steps into the room and then stood there respectfully with his cap in his hand, waiting for Miss Cornelia to speak to him.
