The Weak-Eyed Bat

“You would not be in a position to say whether your daughter went out of the house or not?”

“No. Why?”

“Her engagement ring has been found. From the position in which it was found I thought it probable that she had left it there herself. Since she was wearing it when she was talking to Mr. Bonner, she may have taken it off later in the afternoon. But if she did not go out the ring must have been removed after her death.”

Frost seemed uninterested. “It was a valuable ring. I hardly think Joan would have left it anywhere.”

Inspector White coughed slightly, and said casually: “Bad storm last night. One of the worst I’ve ever seen.”

Frost began to smile ironically. “Inspector, I do not consider you the type of man who voluntarily discusses the weather. I am forced to conclude that Mr. Little’s disappearance interests you. Perhaps you have found him, murdered, of course, and are asking me to provide my alibi, if any. But I am a most unnatural creature, a moth in the social fabric let us say. And since I have this contemptible habit of solitude I deserve to suffer for it. I am suffering for it. I have no alibi. Are you too warm, Inspector?”

“No,” the inspector said shortly.

“Then I shall go on to say that the word alibi means ‘elsewhere,’ although in English it has come to be used as a noun signifying the statement made by a suspected person and attested by witnesses that he was elsewhere at the time of a crime. But what time, my dear Inspector, and what crime? Until one has these pertinent facts how can one prove one was elsewhere? You follow me?”

“Closely,” the inspector said.

“In that case I must repeat, what time and what crime?”

“I don’t know,” the inspector said somewhat truthfully. “But the very fact that a man has disappeared gives me the right to question his acquaintances about their own movements.”

“God forbid,” Professor Frost said fervently, “that I should go down in history as an acquaintance of Tom Little’s. But I see your point of view. I can only say that I know nothing about his disappearance. I was, as usual, working alone in my study.”

“You own this cottage?”

“Yes.”

“Come here every summer?”

“Yes.”

“Have you a car?”

“A kind of car.”

“But like the others up here you usually travel around in boats?”

“I don’t travel around at all,” Frost said, amused. “I don’t like boats. My daughter Susan attends to the necessary shopping.”

“But you have a boat?”

“Two of them. A canoe and a dinghy with an outboard motor. They belong to my daughters.”

“May I see your boathouse?”

“Of course. Susan will take you.”

“I prefer to go alone.”

Inspector White came back in ten minutes, looking hot and harassed.

“You may have had two boats,” he said slowly, “but you haven’t any now.”

At that moment Dr. Prye was straggling up the lane. He was extremely warm. The sun and wind had painted his face a brilliant red, and by way of minor irritation his shoes were filled with a pound of small pebbles and sand. He felt precisely in the right mood to deal with Miss Emily Bonner.

“Miss Bonner,” Wang told him, “has given orders and I find myself grieved to be unable to admit you.”

“We’ll fix that,” Prye said grimly. “Out of my way, purveyor of demons.”

Wang stood back, grinning. “In the event that you force your way in I shall be held blameless. For the sake of verisimilitude you may push me aside with violence.”

Prye pushed him aside and made for the stairs. He knocked lightly on Emily’s door and she called out: “Who’s there?”

Prye raised his voice to the approximate pitch of Wang’s. “The indescribable doctor is storming the portals with a million men and three machine guns.”

He opened the door and went in. “Are you presentable, Emily, or shall I close my eyes?”

“How did you get in?” she demanded. “Get out. Go away.”

“Later. Mind if I sit down?”

“I mind very much. Wang! Wang!”

At the ninth “Wang” the little Chinaman appeared at the door wreathed in smiles.

“Miss Bonner desires me?”

“Stop that incessant grinning and go down and phone the police. I want this man arrested for... for—”

“Attempted rape,” Prye suggested.

“I want him arrested for something! Hurry up. I’m going to faint.”

Wang departed, and Prye sat down and lit a cigarette. The silence was broken only by the sound of Emily’s heavy breathing.

“I’m a louse,” Prye said to open the conversation.

Emily glared at him without speaking.

“No one but a louse,” he continued, “would browbeat a poor old crippled lady on the point of fainting, although I may say that when ordinary people faint the blood leaves the head whereas your blood, Emily, seems to be all concentrated in your head. That is if the color of your face is any indication.”

Emily made no reply, and in a short time Wang came back.

“I am desolated that the police are not in,” he announced. “They have all gone swimming, owing to the unkindly weather.”

“Most unfortunate,” Prye said, “although one can see their point of view.”

“You’re lying,” Emily said flatly. “This man has bribed you.”