Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood (26 page)

"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.

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."

The Bat flung the revolver toward her with a curse. The real Anderson
instantly snatched up the gun that Bailey had dropped and covered the
Bat.

"Don't move!" he warned, "or I'll fill you full of lead!" He smiled
out of the corner of his mouth at Miss Cornelia who was primly picking
up the revolver that the Bat had flung at her—her own revolver.

"You see—you never know what a woman will do," he continued.

Miss Cornelia smiled. She broke open the revolver, five loaded shells
fell from it to the floor. The Bat stared at her—then stared
incredulously at the bullets.