The Weak-Eyed Bat

He closed his coat to hide his white shirt front and stepped off the path into the grove. The darkness poured around him like thick black oil, and the air seemed to be sucked out of the forest. Breathless, he turned to go back. There was a sudden swish behind him and he fell forward on his face. His head kept getting bigger and bigger and when it was as big as a house it splintered into little stars.

By that time he did not know or care that Miss Bonner’s spotlight had been shattered into a thousand pieces and that Mr. Smith’s dog was howling like a falling bomb.

Chapter Four

Mr. Smith said, “Oh, dry up, Horace. You’d think somebody was being murdered.” He resumed his reading.

Nora was making dispirited daubs at her sunrise.

“He’s nice,” she said aloud.

She absent-mindedly painted a purple petunia in the middle of the sun.

In the kitchen of Miss Bonner’s house Wang heard the spotlight shatter.

“Miss Bonner,” he told the cook, “is pursued by demons envious of her great age.”

“Oh, you’re a nasty little heathen,” said the cook, shaken.

“I am immune from demons,” he added pensively, “because of my vast wisdom.”

“Alfonse! Alfonse!”

Miss Bonner rose like a phoenix from her cold compresses. “Alfonse! Where is that half-witted little Southerner? Alfonse!” Although Miss Bonner’s house was equipped with bells, she preferred her voice as the instrument of urgency.

“Alfonse! Where is that woman?”

The sound floated into the kitchen window.

“Observe,” Wang said with complacence. “She calls out in agony.”

“What do the demons do?” the cook asked fearfully.

“They tickle the feet,” Wang said.

At five minutes to nine Miss Alfonse was running breathlessly up the steps into Miss Bonner’s room.

“Modom,” she cried. “Your spotlight. It’s broken! It’s gone!”

“Where’s Ralph?” Emily whispered. “Where’s Ralph?”

Miss Alfonse was trembling. “I don’t know.”

“The Frost girl. Has she left yet?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where have you been?” Emily said suspiciously.

Alfonse gulped. “Just— I just sat down by the lake. I thought you were sleeping. I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t see anyone.”

“Oh, get out of here. Phone Prye.”

Alfonse returned in a few minutes.

“The line is busy, modom.”

“Well, tell them to get off the line!” Emily shouted. “Do you want us to be murdered in our beds? Get Prye.”

In all the cottages the phones rang two long and one short.

“Oh, dry up, Horace,” Mr. Smith said.

“That’s a new ring,” Nora said to herself. “It must be Dr. Prye’s.”

In the Little cottage Jennie fidgeted and fumed. She was in the dining room and Mr. Little was in the sitting room, and she couldn’t very well answer the phone with him there, knowing it wasn’t their ring. She crocheted on furiously.

Two long and one short.

It was fifteen minutes past nine.

“Why doesn’t he answer?” Nora said. “Something’s wrong.”

Two long and one short. She got up quickly and went out into the darkness. The lights were on in Dr. Prye’s cottage. Of course he was there. Perhaps he didn’t know that it was his ring. Then she heard him say, “Nora?” in a whisper.

“Where are you?” she called.

“Quiet! I’m over here.”

She stumbled in the direction of his voice. “Damn. Damn these logs. Are you hurt? Where are you? I can’t see anything. Strike a match.”

She nearly fell over him. He was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree.

“Give me your arm,” Prye said. “I can’t get up. That’s fine. I knew you were the kind of girl who doesn’t shriek.”

He got to his feet, hanging on to her heavily, and they stumbled through the woods. Prye crawled up the steps of the back veranda and sat down on the kitchen floor. The back of his head was matted with blood and distorted by a huge swelling. Beneath a thick layer of dirt and damp leaves he was grinning.

“I feel woozy,” he said. “Listen hard. Phone Miss Alfonse. Tell her to bring bandages and iodine. And watch her.”

“You need a doctor,” she cried.

“The hell I do. Get Alfonse. But keep an eye on her while she does it. If she gave me this wallop she might be tempted to finish the job.”

He tried to get to his feet and couldn’t, and Nora hurried to the telephone, her legs shaking under her.

Half an hour later Prye’s head had been dressed and he was lying in bed asleep. Miss Alfonse was washing her hands in the bathroom and Nora stood in the doorway, still trembling.

“Is he hurt badly?” she asked.

“Just a scratch,” Miss Alfonse said cheerfully. “He’s thick-headed.”

“But all that blood! It must have come from somewhere.”

Miss Alfonse dried her hands calmly. “There’s enough left.”

“Hadn’t we better phone the police?”

The towel dropped out of Alfonse’s hands. She bent over to pick it up and her voice was muffled. “The police? I don’t see why.”

“Because she shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it,” Nora said savagely.

“She?”

“Joan Frost.”

Alfonse arched her brows and said: “Did Miss Frost hit him? That is interesting.”

“I’m going to call the police.” Nora turned and started to go out.

Miss Alfonse put her hand firmly on Nora’s arm. “I wouldn’t,” she said.

“Why not?”