The Bat Part 34

"Not with me!" insisted Miss Cornelia. "I have something to show you."

He followed her unwillingly up the stairs, his whole manner seeming to betray a complete lack of confidence in the theories of all amateur sleuths in general and spinster detectives of sixty-five in particular.

Their footsteps died away up the alcove stairs. The living-room was left vacant for an instant.

Vacant? Only in seeming. The moment that Miss Cornelia and the detective had pa.s.sed up the stairs, the crouching, mysterious Unknown, behind the settee, began to move. The French window-door opened--a stealthy figure pa.s.sed through it silently to be swallowed up in the darkness of the terrace.

And poor Lizzie, entering the room at that moment, saw a hand covered with blood reach back and gropingly, horribly, through the broken pane, refasten the lock.

She shrieked madly.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

HANDCUFFS

Dale had failed with the Doctor. When Lizzie's screams once more had called the startled household to the living-room, she knew she had failed. She followed in mechanically, watched an irritated Anderson send the Pride of Kerry to bed and threaten to lock her up, and listened vaguely to the conversation between her aunt and the detective that followed it, without more than casual interest.

Nevertheless, that conversation was to have vital results later on.

"Your point about that thumbprint on the stair rail is very interesting," Anderson said with a certain respect. "But just what does it prove?"

"It points down," said Miss Cornelia, still glowing with the memory of the whistle of surprise the detective had given when she had shown him the strange thumbprint on the rail of the alcove stairs.

"It does," he admitted. "But what then?"

Miss Cornelia tried to put her case as clearly and tersely as possible.

"It shows that somebody stood there for some time, listening to my niece and Richard Fleming in this room below," she said.

"All right--I'll grant that to save argument," retorted the detective.

"But the moment that shot was fired the lights came on. If somebody on that staircase shot him, and then came down and took the blue-print, Miss Ogden would have seen him."

He turned upon Dale.

"Did you?"

She hesitated. Why hadn't she thought of such an explanation before?

But now--it would sound too flimsy!

"No, n.o.body came down," she admitted candidly. The detective's face altered, grew menacing. Miss Cornelia once more had put herself between him and Dale.

"Now, Mr. Anderson--" she warned.

The detective was obviously trying to keep his temper.

"I'm not hounding this girl!" he said doggedly. "I haven't said yet that she committed the murder--but she took that blue-print and I want it!"

"You want it to connect her with the murder," parried Miss Cornelia.

The detective threw up his hands.

"It's rather reasonable to suppose that I might want to return the funds to the Union Bank, isn't it?" he queried in tones of heavy sarcasm. "Provided they're here," he added doubtfully.

Miss Cornelia resolved upon comparative frankness.

"I see," she said. "Well, I'll tell you this much, Mr. Anderson, and I'll ask you to believe me as a lady. Granting that at one time my niece knew something of that blue-print--at this moment we do not know where it is or who has it."

Her words had the unmistakable ring of truth. The very oath from the detective that succeeded them showed his recognition of the fact.

"d.a.m.nation," he muttered. "That's true, is it?"

"That's true," said Miss Cornelia firmly. A silence of troubled thoughts fell upon the three. Miss Cornelia took out her knitting.

"Did you ever try knitting when you wanted to think?" she queried sweetly, after a pause in which the detective tramped from one side of the room to the other, brows knotted, eyes bent on the floor.

"No," grunted the detective. He took out a cigar--bit off the end with a savage snap of teeth--lit it--resumed his pacing.

"You should, sometimes," continued Miss Cornelia, watching his troubled movements with a faint light of mockery in her eyes. "I find it very helpful."

"I don't need knitting to think straight," rasped Anderson indignantly.

Miss Cornelia's eyes danced.

"I wonder!" she said with caustic affability. "You seem to have so much evidence left over."

The detective paused and glared at her helplessly.

"Did you ever hear of the man who took a clock apart--and when he put it together again, he had enough left over to make another clock?" she twitted.

The detective, ignoring the taunt, crossed quickly to Dale.

"What do you mean by saying that paper isn't where you put it?" he demanded in tones of extreme severity. Miss Cornelia replied for her niece.

"She hasn't said that."

The detective made an impatient movement of his hand and walked away--as if to get out of the reach of the indefatigable spinster's tongue. But Miss Cornelia had not finished with him yet, by any means.

"Do you believe in circ.u.mstantial evidence?" she asked him with seeming ingenuousness.

"It's my business," said the detective stolidly. Miss Cornelia smiled.

"While you have been investigating," she announced, "I, too, have not been idle."

The detective gave a barking laugh. She let it pa.s.s. "To me," she continued, "it is perfectly obvious that one intelligence has been at work behind many of the things that have occurred in this house."

Now Anderson observed her with a new respect.

"Who?" he grunted tersely.