The Bat Part 30

"Now?" queried the Doctor with some reluctance.

"Now, please."

The Doctor slowly followed her into the alcove and took up the position she a.s.signed him at the foot of the stairs.

"Now, Dale," said Miss Cornelia briskly, "when I give the word, you put out the lights here--and then tell me when I have reached the point on the staircase from which the flashlight seemed to come. All ready?"

Two silent nods gave a.s.sent. Miss Cornelia left the room to seek the second floor by the main staircase and then slowly return by the alcove stairs, her flashlight poised, in her reconstruction of the events of the crime. At the foot of the alcove stairs the Doctor waited uneasily for her arrival. He glanced up the stairs--were those her footsteps now? He peered more closely into the darkness.

An expression of surprise and apprehension came over his face.

He glanced swiftly at Dale--was she watching him? No--she sat in her chair, musing. He turned back toward the stairs and made a frantic, insistent gesture--"Go back, go back!" it said, plainer than words, to--Something--in the darkness by the head of the stairs. Then his face relaxed, he gave a noiseless sigh of relief.

Dale, rousing from her brown study, turned out the floor lamp by the table and went over to the main light switch, awaiting Miss Cornelia's signal to plunge the room in darkness. The Doctor stole, another glance at her--had his gestures been observed?--apparently not.

Un.o.bserved by either, as both waited tensely for Miss Cornelia's signal, a Hand stole through the broken pane of the shattered French window behind their backs and fumbled for the k.n.o.b which unlocked the window-door. It found the catch--unlocked it--the window-door swung open, noiselessly--just enough to admit a crouching figure that cramped itself uncomfortably behind the settee which Dale and the Doctor had placed to barricade those very doors. When it had settled itself, unperceived, in its lurking place--the Hand stole out again--closed the window-door, relocked it.

Hand or claw? Hand of man or woman or paw of beast? In the name of G.o.d--WHOSE HAND?

Miss Cornelia's voice from the head of the stairs broke the silence.

"All right! Put out the lights!"

Dale pressed the switch. Heavy darkness. The sound of her own breathing. A mutter from the Doctor. Then, abruptly, a white, piercing shaft of light cut the darkness of the stairs--horribly reminiscent of that other light-shaft that had signaled Fleming's doom.

"Was it here?" Miss Cornelia's voice came m.u.f.fledly from the head of the stairs.

Dale considered. "Come down a little," she said. The white spot of light wavered, settled on the Doctor's face.

"I hope you haven't a weapon," the Doctor called up the stairs with an unsuccessful attempt at jocularity.

Miss Cornelia descended another step.

"How's this?"

"That's about right," said Dale uncertainly. Miss Cornelia was satisfied.

"Lights, please." She went up the stairs again to see if she could puzzle out what course of escape the man who had shot Fleming had taken after his crime--if it had been a man.

Dale switched on the living-room lights with a sense of relief. The reconstruction of the crime had tried her sorely. She sat down to recover her poise.

"Doctor! I'm so frightened!" she confessed.

The Doctor at once a.s.sumed his best manner of professional rea.s.surance.

"Why, my dear child?" he asked lightly. "Because you happened to be in the room when a crime was committed?"

"But he has a perfect case against me," sighed Dale.

"That's absurd!"

"No."

"YOU DON'T MEAN?" said the Doctor aghast.

Dale looked at him with horror in her face.

"I didn't kill him!" she insisted anew. "But, you know the piece of blue-print you found in his hand?"

"Yes," from the Doctor tensely.

Dale's nerves, too bitterly tested, gave way at last under the strain of keeping her secret. She felt that she must confide in someone or perish. The Doctor was kind and thoughtful--more than that, he was an experienced man of the world--if he could not advise her, who could?

Besides, a Doctor was in many ways like a priest--both sworn to keep inviolate the secrets of their respective confessionals.

"There was another piece of blue-print, a larger piece--" said Dale slowly, "I tore it from him just before--"

The Doctor seemed greatly excited by her words. But he controlled himself swiftly.

"Why did you do such a thing?"

"Oh, I'll explain that later," said Dale tiredly, only too glad to be talking the matter out at last, to pay attention to the logic of her sentences. "It's not safe where it is," she went on, as if the Doctor already knew the whole story. "Billy may throw it out or burn it without knowing--"

"Let me understand this," said the Doctor. "The butler has the paper now?"

"He doesn't know he has it. It was in one of the rolls that went out on the tray."

The Doctor's eyes gleamed. He gave Dale's shoulder a sympathetic pat.

"Now don't you worry about it--I'll get it," he said. Then, on the point of going toward the dining-room, he turned.

"But--you oughtn't to have it in your possession," he said thoughtfully. "Why not let it be burned?"

Dale was on the defensive at once.

"Oh, no! It's important, it's vital!" she said decidedly.

The Doctor seemed to consider ways and means of getting the paper.

"The tray is in the dining-room?" he asked.

"Yes," said Dale.

He thought a moment, then left the room by the hall door. Dale sank back in her chair and felt a sense of overpowering relief steal over her whole body, as if new life had been poured into her veins. The Doctor had been so helpful--why had she not confided in him before? He would know what to do with the paper--she would have the benefit of his counsel through the rest of this troubled time. For a moment she saw herself and Jack, exonerated, their worries at an end, wandering hand in hand over the green lawns of Cedarcrest in the cheerful sunlight of morning.

Behind her, mockingly, the head of the Unknown concealed behind the settee lifted cautiously until, if she had turned, she would have just been able to perceive the top of its skull.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN