The Weak-Eyed Bat

Nora stayed in the kitchen, unsatisfied with Jennie’s answers, and Prye went out to the veranda. Dr. Innes was still upstairs with Mary Little and Prye could hear the drone of voices from the front bedroom, Dr. Innes’ and Tom Little’s. Tom seemed to be angry and he did not accompany Innes downstairs.

“Hello, Prye,” Innes said cheerfully. “Got a pretty sick woman on my hands.”

Prye smiled. “How sick is pretty sick?”

“Pulse weak, unsteady, running at one hundred thirty with a skip beat in every ten. Blood pressure one hundred systolic, sixty diastolic, compared with her normal of one hundred thirty systolic and eighty diastolic. Face and hands cyanosed. Periodic attacks of severe pain on the left side.”

“What are you doing about it?”

Innes shrugged. “What can I do? Rest, quiet, amyl nitrate. Heart patients are the very devil anyway. The nearest electrocardiograph machine is forty miles away and they refuse to move it up here. In any case, I can’t read electrocardiograms. We have to send them to Toronto, and that takes time.”

“What’s the cause of the attack?”

Innes peered at him over his spectacles. “Well, what causes heart attacks? Strain, shock, exertion, worry, overeating, drinking — almost anything if your heart’s not good to begin with.”

“Didn’t you ask her?”

“I did,” Innes said with a dry smile. “She said it was the will of God.”

Chapter Eight

At four o’clock Dr. Prye was lying on the red leather couch in his sitting room. His head was throbbing like a T-model Ford, and every beat of his heart backfired at the back of his skull. He was thinking of a bag of stones and a pair of hands, fat red hands like Emily Bonner’s, and strong thin hands like Professor Frost’s, and the pale blue hands of Mary Little...

He started to get up, but his head fell off and rolled across the floor, and by the time it came rolling back he was asleep. He did not hear the knock on the front door. It was a soft, furtive sound followed by the gentle opening and closing of the door and light footsteps in the hall. Then the door of the sitting room opened noiselessly and a woman slipped through it and stood looking down at Prye.

Her gaze was so intense, so malignant that he moved in his sleep, and she retreated. A minute later she was knocking again, loudly this time, venting her anger until her knuckles stung.

“Great Scott,” Prye said, lifting his head from the pillow. “Must you do that? Come in!”

She went in, closing the door behind her.

“So you’ve remembered,” Prye said.

“Yes, a few minutes ago,” she said. “I came right over.”

It wasn’t Miss Alfonse any longer. The clothes were the same, but the accent, the leer, the gentility had been swept away by a hurricane of fury.

“You’ve ratted, I suppose? It’s smug hypocrites like you who keep a woman from going straight. Some little slut gets herself murdered as she deserves and you try to pin it on me. Sure I made a mistake once. But it was a mistake. The law said I wasn’t responsible.” Her voice was rising like a police siren. “I wasn’t responsible, see? I was crazy!”

“I think,” Prye said, “I can stand almost anything better than a noisy female. If you’ll sit down calmly, Miss Alfonse, I’ll get you a drink. What will you have?”

“Brandy,” Miss Alfonse said shortly. “A lot of it.”

She had a lot of brandy.

“What are you,” she said, “a detective?”

“No. Just a doctor.”

“I see. It’s money you want, is it?”

“No. I want information.”

“What for, if you’re not a detective?”

Prye shrugged. “When a young girl is murdered the day after my arrival and some of my oldest friends are suspected of murdering her, I feel obliged to help the police.”

“Very noble, I’m sure. What’s it got to do with me? They’re not my oldest friends.” Her sharp brown eyes pecked at him. “And they’re not yours either, I bet.”

Prye beamed at her benevolently. “You’re very shrewd, Miss Alfonse. They’re not.”

“I’m smart enough,” Alfonse said abruptly. “The thing is, are you?”

“You mean, am I smart enough to mind my own business?”

“That’s it.”

“Frankly, no. I thought you and I could make a deal. You probably know more about this community than I could discover in a year.”

“I don’t want to spoil anybody’s fun. Just go on detecting for a year. By that time...” Her jaws clamped on the words. “You might get another tap on the head, Prye.”

“From you?”

She gazed at him steadily. “When I hit you, you’ll stay hit.”

“Don’t be foolish, Miss Alfonse. You’re not in a position to make threats. Policemen are easily convinced that history repeats itself and with your history—”

She turned and walked to the door.

“Stool pigeon,” she said over her shoulder.

“Wait.”

She stopped, her hand on the doorknob.

“If you know anything about this murder,” Prye said, “I’ll insure your life for fifty thousand dollars and retire. Those are your prospects. But as a matter of fact I don’t think you do know anything about it.”

“No?” She smiled.