The Weak-Eyed Bat

Mr. Smith shuddered and pulled his bathrobe closer around him. “I have heard so.”

“What will she do if she finds you?”

“She’ll gloat,” Mr. Smith said simply.

Prye tossed the revolver in the air and caught it again.

“I’d rather be gloated at than arrested for murder,” he said. “Why didn’t you clear this up before instead of trying to escape on Monday night?”

“The press. If I got my name or my picture in the papers she’d be here like a shot. She always reads all the papers.”

“Did you know someone else has disappeared?” Prye asked.

“Yes. Inspector White said Mr. Little had gone.”

“Besides Mr. Little.”

“No— I— Who was it?”

“Miss Alfonse is missing,” Prye said, watching him closely.

Smith’s only reaction seemed one of relief.

“Nobody I know,” he said.

“She was Miss Bonner’s nurse.”

“I’ve seen her once or twice,” Smith said. “I didn’t know her.”

“What were you doing at nine o’clock last night, Mr. Smith?”

“I’ve told Inspector White all that. I was reading.”

“Reading what?”

Mr. Smith blushed. “A detective story. I’ve been reading a lot of them to find out about disguises and things. I thought perhaps I could disguise myself. But it seems you have to be a very good actor to disguise yourself.”

Prye glanced at him coldly. “You did all right on Tuesday pretending you were drunk.”

“Oh that. Well, you see, alcohol has a very peculiar effect on me. It goes right to my head and wears off almost instantly. So I really was drunk. More or less.”

“Less,” Prye said.

“I’m sorry I did that. I guess it makes me look very suspicious.”

“I guess.”

“But you don’t actually suspect me, do you?”

“To me you are white like snow,” Prye said.

They had both forgotten the revolver and Horace seized his chance. He pranced around the room holding it between his teeth.

It took quite a long time to persuade Horace to relinquish it and still longer to placate Inspector White when he saw the marks of Horace’s teeth. It was one o’clock by the time Prye got into bed.

He pulled the night table up to his bed and lit a cigarette.

Mr. Smith was temporarily erased from the list of suspects. Although his pier had probably been the scene of Tom Little’s murder, Smith had no connection with the other members of the community. If his story about hiding from his ex-wife was true — and it could easily be checked — Mr. Smith would have been too engrossed in his own affairs to bother about those of complete strangers.

Miss Alfonse’s name, too, was written off. Technically she could have been the murderer and arranged for her escape in such a way as to suggest that she herself was murdered. But this possibility seemed remote. Even though Alfonse might have considered getting rid of Joan so that she could marry Ralph herself, she had no motive for killing Tom Little. Besides, all her actions were explicable when one assumed that she was guilty only of having knowledge of the real murderer.

It was Little’s murder, in fact, that was difficult to fit in. It was practically impossible that Tom was killed because he knew the identity of the murderer — he was not shrewd enough to have guessed, and he could not have been an eyewitness to Joan’s murder. Jennie Harris was no friend of Tom’s, and if she said that he sat sleeping in a chair all Monday evening, there he must have sat. Nor was his death a question of money: his life had not been insured and his wallet and the large gold signet ring on his hand had remained untouched.

But Tom Little had been killed, and no one kills without a reason.

Prye’s mind kept returning to the theme of justice.

“I do not kill without reason,” the murderer had written. Had he meant a moral reason?

Prye stubbed his cigarette impatiently.

“The whole thing may be a blind,” he said aloud. “There may be some good earthly reasons behind these murders. The murderer may be leading us astray, perhaps for the sake of amusement. We are not amused.”

The sardonic smile of Professor Frost rose before his eyes. Yes, he thought, it would move Frost to hilarity to watch me chasing my tail and running up blind alleys, and climbing stepladders to search for someone who was already at the bottom of the lake.

But unless Frost’s exterior was a complete fraud what Nora had said of him was true: he wouldn’t care enough to murder anyone. He was an intellectual turtle. He would not attack even in self-defense, but would tuck his head back under his shell and read a book.

Who would kill for moral reasons?

“Practically any psychotic,” Prye said to himself. “Those with a severe psychosis might kill in response to their auditory or visual hallucinations. But even so apparently harmless a creature as an idealist will kill to preserve his ideals. He might toss a bomb into a capitalist’s lap and save the working classes. Or if his ideal has already been shattered he might kill for revenge. And that spells Ralph Bonner to me.”