The Weak-Eyed Bat

“Let nobody in or out. I want Miss Alfonse to be in the best of health at least until I have a chance to talk to her.”

Chapter Twelve

Mary Little was already downstairs by the time Prye arrived. Her dress was ripped where she had torn it out of Jennie’s hands, her hair was flying over her shoulders, and she wore no shoes or stockings. Jennie was clutching one of her hands, periodically emitting a low moan.

Prye stood in the doorway watching them, not speaking. Under his gaze the tableau became fixed, self-conscious, and with a little shudder Mary stopped struggling and met his eyes. She looked embarrassed and half-ashamed, but she said defiantly:

“You can’t stop me, you can’t!”

Prye smiled. “Stop you making a fool of yourself? Well, I can try. Jennie, perhaps we’d better help Mrs. Little back to her room.”

“I’m not going back to my room,” Mary said. “I’m going out to find my husband. If you interfere with me, I’ll... I’ll—” She clung to the banister, breathing hard. Prye picked her up easily and carried her upstairs. He put her on the bed and she started to cry and beat her hands feebly on the pillow.

“Stop that,” Prye said. He called down to Jennie and told her to bring up his instrument bag. She brought it up, laid it on a chair, and backed out of the room. Prye went on talking in a steady, monotonous voice as he prepared a hypodermic needle with one eighth grain of morphine.

“I told you this morning that the police were doing their best to find your husband. I spend half my time soothing hysterical women like you. Sometimes they’re merely pretending, and in that case a smart slap on the face is the best cure.”

“Oh!” Mary gasped.

“Others have momentarily lost their powers of reasoning and I give them a hypodermic. That’s you. I have here a one eighth grain of morphine sulphate. It may put you to sleep and it may not, but it will ease your mind for a while.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” she protested weakly. “I’m scared. I—”

He rubbed her arm with an alcohol swab, still talking in a voice that had become a drone. She did not even wince as the needle entered her arm.

“You’re a good hypnotic subject. You’re practically asleep already. That’s because you’re suggestible. If I suggested that you were a cow you’d probably moo. It’s nearly three o’clock and the only thing to do at three o’clock in the middle of summer is to go to sleep. I wish to hell I were asleep. Mary?”

He touched her shoulder and she did not move. Her breathing was more even. He felt her pulse and found it fast and weak. Then he went out and closed the door.

“Is she all right?” Jennie asked fearfully when he came downstairs.

“My patients are always all right,” Prye said with dignity, “but if she has a relapse at seven o’clock let me know.”

Jennie was gazing at him, awed. “How did you do it?”

Prye smiled modestly. “Sheer force of personality though the opium poppy did its bit, too.” He went out whistling, and while Jennie was sitting down to have a nice long cry he was pounding on Miss Alfonse’s door.

Miss Alfonse was certainly in her room. There were rustlings and creakings from inside. But she made no move to open the door. From his pocket Prye took a small triangular piece of metal, a recent gift from a friend of his whose intermittent address was San Quentin, and within a minute the door was unlocked.

Prye rapped once again. “Miss Alfonse, shall I come in or would you prefer to come out?”

“You can come in,” she answered in a flat voice.

She was sitting on the edge of her bed, wearing her uniform. Her face was pale and completely without expression.

“Wise guy, eh?” she said.

“I have my talents,” Prye said. “One of them is saving young ladies from certain death. If you’re a lady you qualify. Even if you’re not a lady, somebody probably loves you and I don’t want you to be murdered. At a quarter after six last night you phoned Tom Little. What for?”

“I wanted to play honeymoon bridge and I needed a partner.”

“That’s your attitude, is it?”

“Until I can think of a better one, and I’m not thinking myself into a brain strain for your benefit.”

“I wouldn’t even ask you to,” Prye said. “Miss Jones, though, didn’t mention honeymoon bridge to me, but there was something about a pier. Miss Jones is the switchboard operator at Clayton. She’s got a dozen roses and I’ve got a record of your conversation with Little.”

Miss Alfonse’s face did not change but her fingers plucked at the chenille flowers on her bedspread.

“Mr. Little and I had business together,” she said at last.

“It must have been peculiar business because Tom Little hasn’t been seen since. Here’s another interesting point: at nine o’clock you had your appointment with Little, and an hour later you were throwing a fit in Miss Bonner’s room.”

“The hell I was.”

“That’s her story.”

“She’s an old goat,” Miss Alfonse said tightly.