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Show TTJTTC1 BAT A Novel JTIJC jD-Tlv JL from the Play By MARY ROBERTS RINEHART. and AVERY HOPWOOD "Thi But." cocrrliht, 1920, by Marr Robrt WNU Servlc, ILlnehart lad Aver ilopwood. 6TORY FROM THE START Defying alt efforts to capture him, ftftfir a long series of murders mur-ders and robberies, a super-orook super-orook known only aa "The lint" has brought about a veritable reign of terror. The chief of police po-lice asHlgns his best operative, Anderson, to (?et on the trail of The Hat. With her niece. Dale Oden, Miss Cornelia Van Oorder Is living In the country home of the late Courtleltfh Fleminp. who until his recent death had been president of the Union bank, wrecked because of the theft of 1 a large sum of currency. flllss Van Gorder receives a note warning her to vacate the place at once on pain of death. Dale returns from the city, where she had been to hire a gardener. The gardener arrives, giving his name as Brooks. He admits he is not a gardener, but needs work. Miss Cornelia tells Doctor Wells of the threatening note. They are Interrupted by the smashing of a window In the house. They find another warning note. The detective, Anderson, arrives, is told of the situation, . and announces an-nounces he will stay on watch that night. Miss Van Gorder tells Anderson she has an idea Courtleigh Fleming robbed his own bank and concealed the money In the house, but the detective de-tective believes the bank's cashier, cash-ier, Bailey, who Is missing, Is the guilty one. Brooks (who is really Bailey, the sought-for cashier, and Dale's fiance) tells the girl ho knows there Is a hidden hid-den room In the house. Dale tells Richard Fleming, Courtleigh's nephew, of her knowledge of the hidden room. Ho gets rid of her wliile he seeks and Hnds blueprints blue-prints of the house. Dale, returning, re-turning, finds he has the secret in a scrap of blueprint, but he refuses to give it to her, declaring declar-ing lie means to have the money If it is there. Knowing the find-ing find-ing of the money means everything every-thing to Bailey, Dale seizes part of the scrap of paper and during the struggle Fleming Is shot and killed. CHAPTER VI Continued 10 He stopped. His right hand moved Idly over the edge of the table halted beside an ash tray closed upon something. some-thing. Miss Cornelia arose. "Is that true, Dale?" she said, sorrowfully. sor-rowfully. Dale nodded. "Yes." She could not trust herself to explain at greater length. Then Miss Cornelia made one of the most magnificent gestures of her life. "Well, even If It Is what has that got to do with it?" she said, turning upon Anderson, fiercely, all her protective pro-tective Instinct for those whom she loved aroused. Anderson seemed somewhat Im-linpressed Im-linpressed by the fierceness of her query. When he went on, it was with less harshness in his manner. "I'm not accusing this girl," he said, more gently. "But behind every crime there Is a motive. When we've found the motive for this crime, we'll have found the criminal." Unobserved, Dale's hand Instinctively Instinctive-ly went to her bosom. There It lay I lie motive the precious fragment of blue-print which she had torn from Fleming's grasp but an instant before he was shot down. Once Anderson found it In her possession the case was closed the evidence against her overwhelming. She could not destroy It it was the only clew to the hidden room and the truth that might clear Jack Bailey. But, somehow, she must hide it get it out of her hands before Anderson's third-degree meth-h1s meth-h1s broke her down or he insisted on a search of her person. Her eyes roved wildly about the room, looking for a biding place. The rain of Anderson's questions be gan anew. 'What papers did Fleming burn in tjnit grate?" he asked abruptly, turning turn-ing back to Dale. 'Tapers I" she faltered. Tapers! The ashes are still there." Miss Cornelia made an unavailing Interruption. "Miss Ogden has said he didn't come Into this room." The detective smiled. "I hold in my hand proof that he was in this room for some time," he raid, coldly, displaying the half-burnt cigarette he had taken from the ashtray ash-tray a moment before. "His cigarette with his monogram on it." He put the fragment of tobacco to-bacco and paper carefully away in an envelope and marched over to the fireplace. fire-place. There he rummaged among the ashes for a moment, like a dog uncovering un-covering a bone. He returned to the center of the room with a fragment of blackened blue paper fluttering between be-tween his fingers. "A fragment of what Is technically known as a blue-print," he announced. -"What were you and Richard Fleming doing with a blue-print?" His eyes boicd into Dale's. Dale hesitated shut her lips. "Now, think it over!" he warned. "The trath will cot'e out, sooner or later! Hotter tie frank now!" "!f he only knew how I wanted to tit lie wouldn't be so cruel," thought rule wearily. 'But I can't I can't!" '.t'l.cn tier heart gave a throb of relief Jack had tome back Into LLs roam Jack and Billy Jack would protect her! But even as she thought of this, her heart sang again. Protect her, Indeed In-deed ! Poor Jack I He would find It hard enough to protect himself. If once this terrible man with the cold smile and steely eyes started questioning him. Bailey made his report, breathlessly. "Nothing in the house, sir." Billy's Impassive lips confirmed him "We go all over house nobody!" Nobody nobody In the house! And yet the mysterious ringing of the phone the groans Miss Cornelia had 1, . I 1 IV,,,... ,,:,.r,c t.,to ..n witches' fables true, after all? Did a power merciless evil exist, outside the barriers of the flesh blasting that trembling liesh with a cold breath from beyond the portals of the grave'; There seemed to be no other explana tion. "You men stay here!" said the detective. de-tective. "I want to ask you some questions." lie doggedly returned to his third-degreeing of Dale. "Now what about this blue-print?" he queried sharply. Dale stiiTened in her chair. Her lies had failed. Now she would tell a portion of the truth as much of it as she could without menacing Jack. "I'll tell you just what happened," she began. "I sent for Richard Fleming Flem-ing and when lie came, I asked him if lie knew where there were any blueprints blue-prints of the house." The detective pounced eagerly upon her admission. "Why did you want blue-prints?" he thundered. "Because," Dale took a long breath, "I believe old Mr. Fleming took the money himself from the Union bank and hid it here." "Where did you get that Idea?" "Because I'd heard there was a hidden hid-den room in this house." The detective leaned forward intently. "Did you locate that room?" Dale hesitated. "No." "Then why did you burn the blueprints?" blue-prints?" Dale's nerve was crumbling breaking break-ing under the repeated, monotonous impact of his questions. "He burned them !" she cried wildly, wild-ly, "1 don't know why !" The detective paused an instatt, then returned to a previous query. "Then you didn't locate this hidden room?" Dale's lips formed a pale "No." "Did he?" went on Anderson, Inexorably. In-exorably. Dale stared at him, dully the breaking break-ing point had come. Another question another and she would no longer be able to control herself. She would sob out the truth hysterically that Brooks, the gardener, was Jack Bailey, the missing cashier that the scrap of blue-print hidden In the bosom of her dress might unravel the secret of the hidden room that But just as she felt herself, sucked of strength, beginning to slide toward a black, tingling pit of merciful ob livion, Miss Cornelia provided a diversion. diver-sion. "What's that?" she said, in a startled voice, staring toward the French windows. All eyes followed the direction of her stare. There was an instant of silence. Then, suddenly, traveling swiftly from right to left, across the shades of the French windows, there appeared a glowing circle of brilliant white light. Inside the circle was a black, distorted shadow a shadow like the shadow of a gigantic black bat I It was there then a second later, it was gone ! "Oh, my God ! wailed Lizzie from her corner. "It's the Bat that's his sign !" Jack Bailey made a dash for the terrace door. But Miss Cornelia halted him. peremptorily. "Wait, Brooks!" She turned to the detective. "Mr. Anderson, you are familiar fa-miliar with tile sign of the Bat. Did that look like it?" The detective seemed both puzzled and disturbed. "Well it looked like the shadow oi a bat I'll say that for it," lie said, finally. On the heels of his words the front door bell began to ring. All turned in the direction of the hull. "I'll answer that !" said Jack Bailey, eagerly. Miss Cornelia gave hiui Oie key of the front door. "Don't admit anyone till you know who it Is," she said. Bailey nodded, and disappeared into the hall. There was the click of an opening door the noise of a little scuffle then men's voices raised in an angry dispute. dis-pute. "What do I know about a Hash-light?" Hash-light?" cried an irritated voice, "I haven't got a pocket-Hash take your hands olT me!" Bailey's voice answered an-swered the other voiix1, grim, threatening. threaten-ing. The scullle resumed. Then Doctor Wells burst suddenly into the room, closely followed by Iiailey. The doctor's tie was askew he looked rull'ed ana enraged. Bailey followed film, vigil:. ally, not quite sure whether to ai'ow lilia to enter r not. "My dear Miss Van Gorder," began the doctor In tones of high dudgeon. "Won't you Instruct your servants that even If I do make a late call, I am not to be received with violence?" "I asked you If you had a pocket-flash pocket-flash about you!" answered Bailey, indignantly. in-dignantly. "If you call a question like that, violence " He seemed about to restrain the doctor by physical force. Miss Cornelia quelled the teacup-tempest. teacup-tempest. "It's all right. Brooks," she said, taking the front-door key from his hand and putting it back on the table. '" nnmu iu i'wuii ileus. "You see, Doctor Wells," she explained, ex-plained, "just a moment before you rang the door-bell, a circle of white light was thrown on those window shades." 'The doctor laughed, with a certain relief. "Why, that was probably the searchlight search-light from my car!" he said. "I noticed no-ticed as I drove up that it fell directly on that window." Miss Cornelia was. not entirely at ease. "In the center of this ring of light," she proceeded, her eyes on the doctor's doc-tor's calm countenance, "was an almost al-most perfect silhouette of a bat." "A bat!" The doctor seemed at sea. "Ah, I see the symbol of the criminal of that name." He laughed again. "I think I can explain what you saw. Quite often my lamps collect insects in-sects at night and a large moth, spread on the glass, would give precisely pre-cisely the effect you speak of. Just to satisfy you, I'll go out and take a look." He turned to do so. Then he caught sight of the raincoat-covered huddle on the floor. "Why . . ." he said, In a voice that mingled astonishment with horror. hor-ror. He paused. His glance slowly traversed the circle of silent faces. CHAPTER VII Billy Practices Jiu-Jitsu "We have had a very sad occurrence here, Doctor," said Miss Cornelia, gently. The doctor braced himself. "Who?" "Richard Fleming." "Richard Fleming?" gasped the doctor, doc-tor, In tones of Incredulous horror. "Shot and killed from that staircase," stair-case," said Miss Cornelia, tonelessly. The doctor knelt beside the huddle on the floor. He removed the fold of the raincoat that covered the face of the corpse and stared at the dead, blank mask. Till a moment ago, even at the height of his irritation with Bailey, he had been blithe and offhand off-hand a man who seemed comparatively comparative-ly young for his years. Now age seemed to . fall upon him, suddenly, like a gray, clinging dust he looked stricken and feeble under the impact of this unexpected shock. "Shot and killed from that stairway," stair-way," he repeated, dully. He rose from his knees and glanced at the fatal fa-tal stairs. Then: "What was Richard Fleming doing In this house at this hour?" he said. He spoke to Miss Cornelia but Anderson An-derson answered the question. "That's what I'm trying to find out," he said, with a saturnine smile. The doctor gave him a look of astonished as-tonished inquiry. Miss Cornelia remembered re-membered her manners. "Doctor this is Mr. Anderson." "Headquarters," said Anderson, tersely, shaking hands. Miss Cornelia addressed Doctor Wells. "I didn't tell you, doctor I sent for a detective this afternoon." Then, with mounting suspicion, lou hap-. hap-. pened in very opportunely!" The doctor pulled himself together. "After I left the Johnsons' I felt very uneasy," he explained. "I determined de-termined to make one more effort to gel you away from this house. As this shows my fears were justified!" He shook his head, sadly. Miss Cornelia Cor-nelia sat down. His last words had given her food for thought. She wanted to mull them over for a moment. mo-ment. The doctor took out his handkerchief handker-chief and began to mop his face, as If to wipe away some strain of mental excitement under which he was laboring. la-boring. His breath came quickly the muscles of his Jaw stood out. "Died instantly, I suppose?" he said, looking over at the body. "Didn't have time to say anything?-' "Aslt the young lady," said Anderson, Ander-son, with a jerk of his head. "She was here when It happened." The doctor gave Dale a feverish glance of Inquiry. "He just fell over," said the latter pitifully. Uer answer seemed to relieve re-lieve the doctor of some unseen weight on his mind. He drew, a long breath, and turned back toward Fleming's Flem-ing's body with comparative calm. "Mr. Anderson," he said, with dignified dig-nified pleading, "I ask you to use your Inllucnce to see that these two ladies find some safer spot than this for the night." Lizzie bounced up from her chulr, instanter. "Two?" she walled. "If you know any safe spot, lead me to It!" The doctor overlooked her sudden eruption into the scene. He wandered back again toward the huddle under the raincoat, as If still unable to believe be-lieve that It was or rather had been Richard Fleming. Miss Cornelia spoke suddenly, In a low voice, without moving a muscle of her body. "I have a strange feeling that I'm being watched by unfriendly eyes," she said. Lizzie clutched at her across the table. "I wish the lights would go out again!" she pattered. "No, I don't either!" as Miss Cornelia gave the clutching hand a nervous little slap. During the little Interlude of comedy, com-edy, Billy, the Japanese, unwatched by the others, had stolen to the French windows, pulled aside a blind, looked out. When he turned back to the room, his face had lost a portion of Its oriental calm there was suspicion sus-picion in his eyes. Softly, tinder cover of pretending to arrange the tray of food that lay untouched on t lie table, he possessed himself of the key of the front door, unnerceiveil hv the rest, and slipped out of the room like a ghost. Meanwhile the detective confronted Doctor Wells. "You say, doctor, that you came back to take these women away from the house. Why?" The doctor gave hiin a dignified stare. "Miss Van Gorder has already explained." ex-plained." Miss Cornelia elucidated. "Mr. Anderson An-derson has already found a theory of f Pulled Aside a Blind and Looked Out. the crime," she said with a trace of sarcasm in her tones. The detective turned on her quickly. quick-ly. "I haven't said that." He started. It had come again tinkling persistent per-sistent the phone-call from nowhere the ringing of the bell of the house telephone! "The house telephone again !" breathed Dale. Miss Cornelia made a movement to answer the tinkling, Inexplicable In-explicable bell. But Anderson was before be-fore her. "I'll answer that!" he barked. He sprang to the phone. "Hello hello " All eyes were bent on him, nervously nervous-ly the doctor's face, in particular, seemed a very study In fear aDd amazement He clutched the back of a chair to support himself his hand was the trembling hand of a sick, old man. "Hello hello " Anderson swore impatiently. He hung up the phone. "There's nobody there!" Again a chill breath from another world than ours seemed to brush across the faces of the little group in the living room. A light came into Anderson's eyes. "Where's that Jap?" he almost shouted. "He just went out," said Miss Cornelia. Cor-nelia. The cold fear the fear of the unearthly subsided from around Dale's heart leaving her shaken, but more at peace. The detective turned swiftly to the doctor, as If to put his case before the eyes of an unprejudiced witness. "That Jap rang the phone," he said, decisively. "Miss Van Gorder believes that this murder Is the culmination of the series of mysterious happenings happen-ings that caused her to send for me. I do not." "Then what Is the significance of the anonymous letters?" broke In MlS Cornelia heatedly. "Of the man Lizzie Liz-zie saw going up the stairs, of the attempt at-tempt to break Into this house of the ringing of that telephone bell? Anderson replied with one deliberate delib-erate word. "Terrorization," he said. The doctor moistened his dry Hps In an effort to speak. "By whom?" he asked. Anderson's voice was an Icicle. . "I Imagine, by Miss Van Gorder's own servants. By that woman there," lie pointed at Lizzie, who rose Indtg-nontly Indtg-nontly to deny the charge. But he gave her no time for denial. He rushed on, "who probably writes the letters," he continued. "By the gar dener," his pointing finger found Bailey, "who may have been the man Lizzie saw slipping up the stairs. By the Jap, who goes out and rings the telephone," he concluded triumphantly. tri-umphantly. Miss Cornelia seemed unimpressed by his fervor. "With what object?" she queried smoothly. "That's what I'm going to find out!" There was determination In Anderson's Ander-son's reply. Miss Cornelia sniffed. "Absurd ! The butler was In his room when the telephone tele-phone rang for the first time." The thrust pierced Anderson's armor. For once he seemed at a loss. Here was something he had omitted from his calculations. But he did not give up. He was about to retort when crash! thud! the noise of a violent struggle in the hall outside drew all eyes to the hall door. An instant later, the door slammed open, and a disheveled young man In evening clothes was catapulted Into the living room as if slung there by a giant's arm. He tripped and fell to the floor In the center of the room. Billy stood in the doorway behind him, Inscrutable, arms folded, on his face an expression of mild satisfaction satisfac-tion as if he were demurely pleased with a neat piece of housework, neatly neat-ly carried out. The young man picked himself up, brushed off his clothes, sought for his hat, which had rolled under the table. Then he turned on Billy furiously. "D n you what do you mean by this?" "Jiu-jitsu," said Billy, his yellow face quite untroubled. "Pretty good stuff. Found on terrace with searchlight," search-light," he added. "With searchlight?" barked Anderson. Ander-son. The young man turned to face his new enemy. "Well, why shouldn't I be on the terrace with a searchlight?" he demanded. de-manded. The detective moved toward him. menacingly. "Who are you?" "Who are you?" said the young man, with cool impertinence, giving him stare for stare. Anderson did not deign to reply, In so many words. Instead he displayed the police badge which glittered on the inside of the right lapel of his coat. The young man examined It coolly. "H'm," he said. "Very pretty nice neat design very chaste!" He took out a cigarette case and opened It, seemingly entirely unimpressed by both the badge and Anderson. The detective chafed. "If you've finished admiring my badge," he said with heavy sarcasm, I'd like to know what you were doing down on the terrace." The young man hesitated shot an odd, swift glance at Dale who, ever since his abrupt entrance into the room, had been sitting rigid in her chair witli her hands clenched tightly together. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |