The Weak-Eyed Bat

“My impeccable honesty has never been questioned. I am stabbed by the dagger of distrust, and I go to my room to bleed in silence.” He bowed himself out.

“You have corrupted my servants,” Emily said in a tear-laden voice, “broken into my house, and insulted my nephew and myself, merely because some homicidal maniac escaped from an institution and killed one of our little community.”

“A homicidal maniac with bushy hair and big hands all-the-better-to-strangle-you-with-my-dear, and a wild gleam in his eye? I’ve read of them but I’ve never seen one. The bushiest hair I know belongs to a musician, the biggest hands to a sculptor, and the wildest gleam to a fellow who got a tip on a sure thing in the third at Pimlico. The homicidal maniac of fiction has no prototype in fact.”

“How interesting,” Emily said coldly.

“More interesting, I think, is the fact that the insane and the sane kill for exactly the same motive: to make life easier for themselves, to rid themselves of money troubles, wives, mistresses, rivals, grudges, or fears, real and imagined. If an insane man appears to kill without motive it is because we do not know enough of his history to find the motive. His victim, for instance, might bear a strong resemblance to his uncle Theodore who once gave him a chocolate-coated onion on April Fools’ Day, and the crime becomes a motivated one. The difference, then, between the murders committed by the sane and the insane lies in their attitude to consequences. The sane man will go to infinite pains to avoid the consequences. The really insane man will not try to avoid them because he thinks he is doing the right thing. I have used as examples the two extremes, sanity and insanity. But there are middlemen.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“The middlemen are the dangerous ones. They are able to keep their places in society, and to lead, on the surface, normal lives. They may be considered slightly ‘odd’ but if they are lucky enough to avoid great shocks or strain they may continue to pass as normal beings. An automobile accident, a serious illness, the death of a close relative — any of these may be the detonator. The obsession, the phobia, or whatever has been festering in the mind, passes out of control.”

He paused, staring at her rather ferociously, and she said with a laugh: “You should have been a missionary, Prye. You love to enlighten. Do you think I’m your middleman?”

Without answering he got up and went over to the window.

“Seeing a storm from this room must be rather terrifying, especially a storm in the grand manner like last night’s.”

Emily sniffed faintly. “Do you call that a storm? Wait until you see a real one.”

“Don’t you have trouble with the servants during a blow?”

“They get used to it as I did. All except that sniveling little wretch of an Alfonse. She was quite hysterical. I almost sent for you.”

“Really. What time was that?”

“Around ten, I suppose.”

“She got over it all right?”

Emily nodded grimly. “After I stuck her head in the bathtub she did.”

“What bathtub?”

“My bathtub. What does it matter what bathtub?”

“I was simply wondering whether she came in here to have her hysterics and why she didn’t come sooner. The storm began at least an hour before that.”

“Oh. That is curious, isn’t it? Well, I can’t help you. All I know is that she came in here shrieking at ten o’clock.”

“And what did you do?”

“There was only one thing I could do. I held her over my knee and wheeled into the bathroom and pushed her into the tub. Then I turned on the cold water.”

Prye threw back his head and let out a roar of delight.

“What’s so funny?” Emily said.

“The thought of two overweight women dashing around a bathroom in a wheelchair.”

“It doesn’t amuse me in the least,” she said coldly. “Now I suppose you intend to go and browbeat my nurse so that she’ll be completely useless for a week. That will mean another seventy-five dollars wasted.”

“Do you pay that woman seventy-five dollars a week?”

“Of course. I have to pay my servants well for the inconvenience of being snowbound three months of the year.”

“Where did you get Alfonse?”

“I advertised in a Toronto paper,” Emily said.

“Did you check her references?”

“No, I didn’t. I looked at them though. There were at least twenty of them, and all spoke very highly of her. One of them, I remember, was a Lord Somebody-or-other who had a coat of arms on his note paper. Or was it a picture of his castle?”

“If I know Alfonse,” Prye said dryly, “it was both.”

“Dr. Prye” — Wang’s voice came from the hall — “Dr. Prye is most urgently requested.”

Prye went out, closing the door behind him tightly despite Emily’s protests.

“The telephone message originates in Miss Jennie Harris,” Wang said softly. “I am to inform you that Mrs. Little is half-dressed. She said you would understand.”

Prye sighed. “I do. Where is Miss Alfonse’s room?”

Wang pointed to a door at the end of the long hall, and Prye said: “Would you like to sit outside that door until I get back?”

Wang beamed and nodded his head vigorously.