The Weak-Eyed Bat

“Now here’s my idea. On Tuesday you told Constable Jakes that you had an alibi for the time of Joan’s murder. Yesterday you and I had a little chat. At first you were pretty skittish but by the time you left you were feeling good again. I think I know why.”

“All right. Why?”

“Because you didn’t have an alibi but you had suddenly thought of a fine way to get one. It had to be a man because you had already told Jakes you were out with a man that night. It had to be someone who would be glad to provide an alibi for himself, and it couldn’t be Ralph because you have other ideas about Ralph. Tom Little filled the bill nicely. He was one of the chief suspects, he had an elastic code of ethics, and he would be sap enough to fall in with any scheme presented by a lady in the right way. It’s lucky for you that he disappeared, because Little already had an alibi and it wouldn’t have looked well if he had two of them. When you’re counting alibis and not apples, one plus one equals none.”

Miss Alfonse sat rigid, a film of ice forming over her eyes.

“Now just suppose that you met Tom Little as you had planned and told him your intellectual blitz. He would naturally wonder why you were so anxious to have an alibi and it might have occurred to him that your anxiety had its source in a guilty conscience. So Tom says, ‘Nuts to you, Miss Alfonse. I know now who murdered Joan. Wait right there until I go and get a policeman.’ But you don’t like that idea at all. You have given yourself away, you are desperate. You reach down and pick up a rock and several people are given the opportunity to quote ‘De mortuis nil nisi bonum.’ As simple as that.”

Miss Alfonse got up and went over to the window. Without turning her head she said: “You mean he’s dead?”

“We think so,” Prye said.

“What did I do with the body?”

Prye went over to the window and stood beside her and they both looked out at the lake. It was dimpling in the sun like a fat baby.

“Nasty place to end up, isn’t it?” Prye said. “Joan knows about that. I guess Tom knows, too. Funny about Tom. You’d expect him to have more sense than to go traipsing about in the woods with someone he scarcely knew. People take foolish risks sometimes. When someone has committed one murder the second is easier. The third? The third is the simplest of all. The murderer is in good training.”

Miss Alfonse turned on him savagely. “What in hell are you talking about?”

Prye did not raise his voice. “You. You’re the third.”

For a minute the silence was so thick that Prye’s skin began to crawl with invisible insects. Then he heard Emily shouting “Wang!” and he began to smile.

“How much are you getting?” he asked.

“For what?”

“Keeping your mouth shut.”

“I don’t know anything. I didn’t keep that date with Tom Little. I’m scared of thunderstorms. I wouldn’t go out in one unless I had to.”

“You had to,” Prye said.

She shook her head.

“You’re being very naive, Miss Alfonse, to trust a murderer.”

“I won’t,” she said in a firm voice. “I know what I’m doing. What’s more, I know what you’re doing. You’re bluffing, and you’re a mile wide of the mark.”

“If you say so,” Prye agreed politely.

“I’m not worried about not having an alibi. A lot of other people haven’t. And I’m not worried about getting a bash on my head for the simple reason that I don’t intend to turn my back to anyone. Not even to you, Dr. Prye.”

She had backed to the door, and now she opened it and waited for him to go out. He heard the lock slipping into place behind him.

It was nearly four o’clock when he arrived at his cottage. Nora and Inspector White were waiting for him in the sitting room, and he greeted them gloomily and flung himself into a chair.

“What’s the matter?” Nora asked.

“The heat,” Prye said. “And murders. And storms and liars. If this were an epidemic of typhoid, we’d inoculate. But it looks like an epidemic of murder.”

Inspector White coughed gently. “In my own way I have inoculated.”

“Have you men posted at each end of the lane and throughout the woods? Have you a string of spotlights put up? Have you told everyone to stay inside and lock their doors? It may sound drastic but I for one would rather be drastic than dead.”

“I have sent for more men,” Inspector White said. “But there are only a limited number available and the commissioner—”

“To hell with the commissioner,” Prye said. “If there aren’t enough men, why doesn’t he hire some deputies?”

“Could I help?” Nora said in a small voice. “I can fire a gun.”

“The trick is to hit something,” Prye said. He turned to Inspector White. “You have a fine reputation, Inspector. You understand criminals and how they work. You know all about fingerprints and poroscopy and moulages and ballistics and the other tools of crime detection. But I don’t think these murders are in your field at all. I think they’re in mine. I think we are dealing with a mind that believes it is divinely inspired to dispense justice, with a person who considers himself an instrument of God.”