The Weak-Eyed Bat

Her cottage, which she had chosen because it was cool and surrounded by trees, now appeared to her as a deathtrap, a spot designed by nature for murderous assaults. She had eaten both breakfast and lunch locked in the kitchen, and at one-thirty she sprinted to Prye’s cottage with no thought for dignity. Dignity was a desirable quality, she reflected, but speed was more important under the circumstances.

“Mind if I rent a few inches of your veranda for a week or so?” she asked, getting to her feet as Prye came up the steps.

He took her hand and said in a fatherly tone: “My dear girl, what would people think? If you compromise yourself in the eyes of man, don’t expect me to marry you.”

“I don’t,” Nora said affably. “But it might be rather nice if you’d ask me so I could say no.”

Prye held the screen door open and she went in.

“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I don’t think I’d like being a doctor’s wife. Take being the wife of a street cleaner, for instance, a street cleaner called Harry. Well, Harry comes home all covered with dirt from street-cleaning and sees me looking cool and clean and fetching, and says to himself, ‘I’m a lucky man.’ Then take you, for example. You come home after spending the day being chased around wards by competent and beautiful nurses. You aren’t a bit like Harry. You say, ‘Where in hell is my dinner?’ ”

Prye grinned down at her. “All right. Where in hell is my dinner?”

“You don’t get any dinner,” Nora said distantly. “Why not let one of your competent and beautiful nurses pack you a lunch?”

“Miss Alfonse is the only nurse around here and if she packed me a lunch I’d want it thoroughly tested in a lab.”

Nora took his hand and drew him into the sitting room. She looked suddenly very serious and Prye said: “Something eats you, Nora?”

She removed her hand from his and frowned at him.

“Look, I want to apply for a position.”

She paused, and Prye prompted: “Well, what would you like from me, references?”

“I’m applying to you.”

“To me?”

“I’m... well, I’m not exactly frightened to stay alone in my cottage, but I would feel better if you gave me a job as cook. That will solve everything: I can stay here and at the same time hold up my head in good society. Does the idea appeal to you?”

“Strongly. But it might be better for you to ask the Frosts to put you up. Joan’s room will be vacant. It will save wear and tear on your reputation.”

“Joan’s room!” Nora cried. “Are you delirious? I wouldn’t sleep in Joan’s room for... for anything! I’m surrounded by homicidal maniacs and you gibber about my reputation! How do you suppose my reputation will survive being murdered?”

“I can’t think of any reason why you should be murdered unless there’s something you haven’t told me. Is there?”

“No.”

“Then Mr. Smith must have been imagining things when he told Inspector White that you and Wang—”

“Well, that mean little wretch,” Nora said warmly.

“I suppose you and Wang are a gymnastic team and you were just practicing outside Mr. Smith’s kitchen window? Are you in good form?”

“Tolerable,” Nora said.

“And that’s your story?”

“Yours, but I’m using it. You may tell Inspector White if you wish. You may also give me an alibi for last night in case Tom Little turns up murdered.”

Across the lake from Prye’s cottage a small boy was sailing a toy boat along the shore. He was so engrossed in his play that the drifting canoe almost touched him before he looked up and saw it.

The canoe was half-submerged, and on the bottom of it a man lay face down in several inches of dirty pink water. A hat had been jammed on the back of his head and it was covered with brownish stains.

Tom Little was still wearing his rubbers and his coat although he had not needed either for some time.

The small boy caught the rope of the canoe and held it while he stared with interest at this curious object. Then he went quite calmly to tell his mother.

Chapter Eleven

“My Baby!” cried Mrs. St. Clair Remington. “To think that my baby should find a dead man! Why, he doesn’t even know what death is. My poor baby!”

Apparently her baby was hardened to this sort of thing. He squirmed expertly out of her grasp and was in the act of crawling between Inspector White’s legs in order to get another look at the corpse. The inspector reached down and grabbed him.

“A dreadful experience for the young,” Inspector White said solemnly. “If you have some place where we could discuss this, Mrs. Remington, we shall be able to prevent his youthful mind being wounded further.”

Dr. Prescott and two provincial policemen were left at the beach and Mrs. Remington led the way to her cottage.

“How many people have you told about the discovery?” the inspector asked.

“No one at all. That is, except my sister who is staying with me.”

“The servants?”

“Oh yes, and my maid Lucy. Run along, Tommy. Go up to your room and get your nice new airplane, that’s a good boy.”