by The Bat
At once his expression altered to one of cunning—cautiously, with infinite patience, he began to inch his chair over toward the wicker clothes hamper. The noise of the others, moving about the room, drowned out what little he made in moving his chair.
At last he was within reach of the revolver. His hand shot out in one swift sinuous thrust—clutched the weapon—withdrew. He then concealed the revolver among his tattered garments as best he could and, cautiously as before, inched his chair back again to its original position. When the others noticed him again, the mask of lifelessness was back on his face and one could have sworn he had not changed his position by the breadth of an inch.
“There—that unlocked it!” cried Miss Cornelia triumphantly at last, as the key to one of the other closet doors slid smoothly into the lock and she heard the click that meant victory.
She was about to throw open the closet door. But Bailey motioned her back.
“I’d keep back a little,” he cautioned. “You don’t know what may be inside.”
“Mercy sakes, who wants to know?” shivered Lizzie. Dale and Miss Cornelia, too, stepped aside involuntarily as Bailey took the candle and prepared, with a good deal of caution, to open the closet door.
The door swung open at last. He could look in. He did so—and stared appalled at what he saw, while goose flesh crawled on his spine and the hairs of his head stood up.
After a moment he closed the door of the closet and turned back, white-faced, to the others.
“What is it?” said Dale aghast. “What did you see?”
Bailey found himself unable to answer for a moment. Then he pulled himself together. He turned to Miss Van Gorder.
“Miss Cornelia, I think we have found the ghost the Jap butler saw,” he said slowly. “How are your nerves?”
Miss Cornelia extended a hand that did not tremble.
“Give me the candle.”
He did so. She went to the closet and opened the door.
Whatever faults Miss Cornelia may have had, lack of courage was not one of them—or the ability to withstand a stunning mental shock. Had it been otherwise she might well have crumpled to the floor, as if struck down by an invisible hammer, the moment the closet door swung open before her.
Huddled on the floor of the closet was the body of a man. So crudely had he been crammed into this hiding-place that he lay twisted and bent. And as if to add to the horror of the moment one arm, released from its confinement, now slipped and slid out into the floor of the room.
Miss Cornelia’s voice sounded strange to her own ears when finally she spoke.
“But who is it?”
“It is—or was—Courtleigh Fleming,” said Bailey dully.
“But how can it be? Mr. Fleming died two weeks ago. I—”
“He died in this house sometime tonight. The body is still warm.”
“But who killed him? The Bat?”
“Isn’t it likely that the Doctor did it? The man who has been his accomplice all along? Who probably bought a cadaver out West and buried it with honors here not long ago?”
He spoke without bitterness. Whatever resentment he might have felt died in that awful presence.
“He got into the house early tonight,” he said, “probably with the Doctor’s connivance. That wrist watch there is probably the luminous eye Lizzie thought she saw.”
But Miss Cornelia’s face was still thoughtful, and he went on:
“Isn’t it clear, Miss Van Gorder?” he queried, with a smile. “The Doctor and old Mr. Fleming formed a conspiracy—both needed money—lots of it. Fleming was to rob the bank and hide the money here. Wells’s part was to issue a false death certificate in the West, and bury a substitute body, secured God knows how. It was easy; it kept the name of the president of the Union Bank free from suspicion—and it put the blame on me.”
He paused, thinking it out.
“Only they slipped up in one place. Dick Fleming leased the house to you and they couldn’t get it back.”
“Then you are sure,” said Miss Cornelia quickly, “that tonight Courtleigh Fleming broke in, with the Doctor’s assistance—and that he killed Dick, his own nephew, from the staircase?”
“Aren’t you?” asked Bailey surprised. The more he thought of it the less clearly could he visualize it any other way.
Miss Cornelia shook her head decidedly.
“No.”
Bailey thought her merely obstinate—unwilling to give up, for pride’s sake, her own pet theory of the activities of the Bat.
“Wells tried to get out of the house tonight with that blue-print. Why? Because he knew the moment we got it, we’d come up here—and Fleming was here.”
“Perfectly true,” nodded Miss Cornelia. “And then?”
“Old Fleming killed Dick and Wells killed Fleming,” said Bailey succinctly. “You can’t get away from it!”
But Miss Cornelia still shook her head. The explanation was too mechanical. It laid too little emphasis on the characters of those most concerned.
“No,” she said. “No. The Doctor isn’t a murderer. He’s as puzzled as we are about some things. He and Courtleigh Fleming were working together—but remember this—Doctor Wells was locked in the living-room with us. He’d been trying to get up the stairs all evening and failed every time.”
But Bailey was as convinced of the truth of his theory as she of hers.
“He was here ten minutes ago—locked in this room,” he said with a glance at the ladder up which the doctor had ascended.
“I’ll grant you that,” said Miss Cornelia. “But—” She thought back swiftly. “But at the same time an Unknown Masked Man was locked in that mantel-room with Dale. The Doctor put out the candle when you opened that Hidden Room. Why? Because he thought Courtleigh Fleming was hiding there!” Now the missing pieces of her puzzle were falling into their places with a vengeance. “But at this moment,” she continued, “the Doctor believes that Fleming has made his escape! No—we haven’t solved the mystery yet. There’s another element—an unknown element,” her eyes rested for a moment upon the Unknown, “and that element is—the Bat!”
She paused, impressively. The others stared at her—no longer able to deny the sinister plausibility of her theory. But this new tangling of the mystery, just when the black threads seemed raveled out at last, was almost too much for Dale.
“Oh, call the detective!” she stammered, on the verge of hysterical tears. “Let’s get through with this thing! I can’t bear any more!”
But Miss Cornelia did not even hear her. Her mind, strung now to concert pitch, had harked back to the point it had reached some time ago, and which all the recent distractions had momentarily obliterated.
Had the money been taken out of the house or had it not? In that mad rush for escape had the man hidden with Dale in the recess back of the mantel carried his booty with him, or left it behind? It was not in the Hidden Room, that was certain.
Yet she was so hopeless by that time that her first search was purely perfunctory.
During her progress about the room the Unknown’s eyes followed her, but so still had he sat, so amazing had been the discovery of the body, that no one any longer observed him. Now and then his head drooped forward as if actual weakness was almost overpowering him, but his eyes were keen and observant, and he was no longer taking the trouble to act—if he had been acting.
It was when Bailey finally opened the lid of a clothes hamper that they stumbled on their first clue.
“Nothing here but some clothes and books,” he said, glancing inside.
“Books?” said Miss Cornelia dubiously. “I left no books in that hamper.”
Bailey picked up one of the cheap paper novels and read its title aloud, with a wry smile.
“‘Little Rosebud’s Lover, Or The Cruel Revenge,’ by Laura Jean—”
“That’s mine!” said Lizzie promptly. “Oh, Miss Neily, I tell you this house is haunted. I left that book in my satchel along with ‘Wedded But No
Wife’ and now—”
“Where’s your satchel?” snapped Miss Cornelia, her eyes gleaming.
“Where’s my satchel?” mumbled Lizzie, staring about as best she could. “I don’t see it. If that wretch has stolen my satchel—!”
“Where did you leave it?”
“Up here. Right in this room. It was a new satchel too. I’ll have the law on him, that’s what I’ll do.”
“Isn’t that your satchel, Lizzie?” asked Miss Cornelia, indicating a battered bag in a dark corner of shadows above the window.
“Yes’m,” she admitted. But she did not dare approach very close to the recovered bag. It might bite her!
“Put it there on the hamper,” ordered Miss Cornelia.
“I’m scared to touch it!” moaned Lizzie. “It may have a bomb in it!”
She took up the bag between finger and thumb and, holding it with the care she would have bestowed upon a bottle of nitroglycerin, carried it over to the hamper and set it down. Then she backed away from it, ready to leap for the door at a moment’s warning.
Miss Cornelia started for the satchel. Then she remembered. She turned to Bailey.
“You open it,” she said graciously. “If the money’s there—you’re the one who ought to find it.”
Bailey gave her a look of gratitude. Then, smiling at Dale encouragingly, he crossed over to the satchel, Dale at his heels. Miss Cornelia watched him fumble at the catch of the bag—even Lizzie drew closer. For a moment even the Unknown was forgotten.
Bailey gave a triumphant cry.
“The money’s here!”
“Oh, thank God!” sobbed Dale.
It was an emotional moment. It seemed to have penetrated even through the haze enveloping the injured man in his chair. Slowly he got up, like a man who has been waiting for his moment, and now that it had come was in no hurry about it. With equal deliberation he drew the revolver and took a step forward. And at that instant a red glare appeared outside the open window and overhead could be heard the feet of the searchers, running.
“Fire!” screamed Lizzie, pointing to the window, even as Beresford’s voice from the roof rang out in a shout. “The garage is burning!”
They turned toward the door to escape, but a strange and menacing figure blocked their way.
It was the Unknown—no longer the bewildered stranger who had stumbled in through the living-room door—but a man with every faculty of mind and body alert and the light of a deadly purpose in his eyes. He covered the group with Miss Cornelia’s revolver.
“This door is locked and the key is in my pocket!” he said in a savage voice as the red light at the window grew yet more vivid and muffled cries and tramplings from overhead betokened universal confusion and alarm.
Chapter Twenty - “He is—The Bat!”
*
Lizzie opened her mouth to scream. But for once she did not carry out her purpose.
“Not a sound out of you!” warned the Unknown brutally, almost jabbing the revolver into her ribs. He wheeled on Bailey.
“Close that satchel,” he commanded, “and put it back where you found it!”
Bailey’s fist closed. He took a step toward his captor.
“You—” he began in a furious voice. But the steely glint in the eyes of the Unknown was enough to give any man pause.
“Jack!” pleaded Dale. Bailey halted.
“Do what he tells you!” Miss Cornelia insisted, her voice shaking.
A brave man may be willing to fight with odds a hundred to one—but only a fool will rush on certain death. Reluctantly, dejectedly, Bailey obeyed—stuffed the money back in the satchel and replaced the latter in its corner of shadows near the window.
“It’s the Bat—it’s the Bat!” whispered Lizzie eerily, and, for once her gloomy prophecies seemed to be in a fair way of justification, for “Blow out that candle!” commanded the Unknown sternly, and, after a moment of hesitation on Miss Cornelia’s part, the room was again plunged in darkness except for the red glow at the window.
This finished Lizzie for the evening. She spoke from a dry throat.
“I’m going to scream!” she sobbed hysterically. “I can’t keep it back!”
But at last she had encountered someone who had no patience with her vagaries.
“Put that woman in the mantel-room and shut her up!” ordered the Unknown, the muzzle of his revolver emphasizing his words with a savage little movement.
Bailey took Lizzie under the arms and started to execute the order. But the sometime colleen from Kerry did not depart without one Parthian arrow.
“Don’t shove,” she said in tones of the greatest dignity as she stumbled into the Hidden Room. “I’m damn glad to go!”
The iron doors shut behind her. Bailey watched the Unknown intently. One moment of relaxed vigilance and—
But though the Unknown was unlocking the door with his left hand the revolver in his right hand was as steady as a rock. He seemed to listen for a moment at the crack of the door.
“Not a sound if you value your lives!” he warned again, he shepherded them away from the direction of the window with his revolver.
“In a moment or two,” he said in a hushed, taut voice, “a man will come into this room, either through the door or by that window—the man who started the fire to draw you out of this house.”
Bailey threw aside all pride in his concern for Dale’s safety.
“For God’s sake, don’t keep these women here!” he pleaded in low, tense tones.
The Unknown seemed to tower above him like a destroying angel.
“Keep them here where we can watch them!” he whispered with fierce impatience. “Don’t you understand? There’s a KILLER loose!”
And so for a moment they stood there, waiting for they knew not what. So swift had been the transition from joy to deadly terror, and now to suspense, that only Miss Cornelia’s agile brain seemed able to respond. And at first it did even that very slowly.
“I begin to understand,” she said in a low tone. “The man who struck you down and tied you in the garage—the man who killed Dick Fleming and stabbed that poor wretch in the closet—the man who locked us in downstairs and removed the money from that safe—the man who started that fire outside—is—”
“Sssh!” warned the Unknown imperatively as a sound from the direction of the window seemed to reach his ears. He ran quickly back to the corridor door and locked it.
“Stand back out of that light! The ladder!”
Miss Cornelia and Dale shrank back against the mantel. Bailey took up a post beside the window, the Unknown flattening himself against the wall beside him. There was a breathless pause.
The top of the extension ladder began to tremble. A black bulk stood clearly outlined against the diminishing red glow—the Bat, masked and sinister, on his last foray!
There was no sound as the killer stepped into the room. He waited for a second that seemed a year—still no sound. Then he turned cautiously toward the place where he had left the satchel—the beam of his flashlight picked it out.
In an instant the Unknown and Bailey were upon him. There was a short, ferocious struggle in the darkness—a gasp of laboring lungs—the thud of fighting bodies clenched in a death grapple.
“Get his gun!” muttered the Unknown hoarsely to Bailey as he tore the Bat’s lean hands away from his throat. “Got it?”
“Yes,” gasped Bailey. He jabbed the muzzle against a straining back. The Bat ceased to struggle. Bailey stepped a little away.
“I’ve still got you covered!” he said fiercely. The Bat made no sound.
“Hold out your hands, Bat, while I put on the bracelets,” commanded the Unknown in tones of terse triumph. He snapped the steel cuffs on the wrists of the murderous prowler. “Sometimes even the cleverest Bat comes through a window at night and is caught. Double murder—burglary—and arson! That’s a good night’s work even for you, Bat!”
He switched his flashlight on the Bat’s masked face. As
he did so the house lights came on; the electric light company had at last remembered its duties. All blinked for an instant in the sudden illumination.
“Take off that handkerchief!” barked the Unknown, motioning at the black silk handkerchief that still hid the face of the Bat from recognition. Bailey stripped it from the haggard, desperate features with a quick movement—and stood appalled.
A simultaneous gasp went up from Dale and Miss Cornelia.
It was Anderson, the detective! And he was—the Bat!
“It’s Mr. Anderson!” stuttered Dale, aghast at the discovery.
The Unknown gloated over his captive.
“I’m Anderson,” he said. “This man has been impersonating me. You’re a good actor, Bat, for a fellow that’s such a bad actor!” he taunted. “How did you get the dope on this case? Did you tap the wires to headquarters?”
The Bat allowed himself a little sardonic smile.
“I’ll tell you that when I—” he began, then, suddenly, made his last bid for freedom. With one swift, desperate movement, in spite of his handcuffs, he jerked the real Anderson’s revolver from him by the barrel, then wheeling with lightning rapidity on Bailey, brought the butt of Anderson’s revolver down on his wrist. Bailey’s revolver fell to the floor with a clatter. The Bat swung toward the door. Again the tables were turned!
“Hands up, everybody!” he ordered, menacing the group with the stolen pistol. “Hands up—you!” as Miss Cornelia kept her hands at her sides.
It was the greatest moment of Miss Cornelia’s life. She smiled sweetly and came toward the Bat as if the pistol aimed at her heart were as innocuous as a toothbrush.
“Why?” she queried mildly. “I took the bullets out of that revolver two hours ago.”
