The Weak-Eyed Bat

“Gladly I proffer my neck,” Wang said sadly. “Life is hollow without the good opinion of the inestimable doctor.”

Prye and the inspector exchanged glances. Then Prye took Wang by the shoulder and rocked him back and forth twice.

“How much do you get for being blind and deaf?”

Wang smiled gently. “The words are blown from my lips by the winds of wisdom.”

“You’re afraid to talk?”

“I fear only Mr. Einstein and his vast concept of the fourth dimension. And I fear chaos. I am a thinker. All thinkers fear chaos.”

“Oh my God,” Prye said.

Inspector White thought of his adrenals just in time and managed to say calmly:

“Why don’t you talk, Wang?”

Wang’s face was mildly reproachful. “My tongue hesitates to be a rudder for a ship of destiny that is not my own.”

“That’s enough!” the inspector cried, waving his hands. “Go away. I’ll put you in jail when I have the time.”

Wang turned to leave, and as he passed Prye one yellow eyelid descended on one bright black eye.

Inspector White did not approve of swearing but Prye’s, “Damn that man!” was a kind of vicarious catharsis. He whirled up the steps with the delicacy of a hurricane and caught Miss Emily Bonner in the act of transferring herself from a frilly pink negligee to an equally frilly green negligee.

Emily was not discomfited. She fixed him with a cold eye and said to Prye: “I don’t like the company you keep, Prye. Remove it while I finish dressing.”

“I have some questions for you to answer, Miss Bonner,” Inspector White said ominously. “And Dr. Prye will take notes.”

Emily murmured, “Indeed?” and went on tying a green ribbon. Prye took refuge in a corner of the room and pulled out a notebook and pen.

“We’ll start with Monday morning,” the inspector said. “You telephoned your bank and made arrangements for the delivery of a large sum of money.”

“I did.”

“Blackmail money?”

“No. My life holds no secrets. The money was an insurance policy on Ralph’s happiness. Joan telephoned me on Monday morning and said that she would leave Muskoka if I gave her five thousand dollars. I made the arrangements immediately.” She smiled faintly. “I’ve always been good at spotting a bargain.”

“What was to be the method of transferring this money?”

“That was another stipulation of Joan’s: I was to bring it to her in person. I believe she meant it to be an added humiliation.”

“She specified the meeting place?”

“Yes. ‘Susan’s Sit-Out’ as she called it. I expect the allusion was to sitting out a dance. Anyway, I agreed. I told Miss Alfonse she could have the evening off to go to a movie, and I left the house about a quarter after eight. No one saw me leave. I’ve told Prye the rest of it. Must I repeat?”

“Yes,” the inspector said abruptly. “Why are you confined to a wheelchair if you can walk by yourself?”

Emily showed no trace of embarrassment. “Prye could probably explain it to you better than I can. But I expect it’s because I have no husband and no children and because I’m ugly and fat. But mostly I think it was because I was tired, much too tired to be anything but an onlooker.”

Prye looked up from his book. “ ‘And I’m the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt, Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.’ ”

“Yes. I felt like that,” Emily said. “I simply went back to my four walls, like the old bat that I am.” Her huge body shook with laughter.

The inspector waited for her to stop. “All right. You left the house and then what happened?”

“I didn’t want Ralph to see me, of course, for a number of reasons. When I got outside I saw the spotlight, and since the switch is in the kitchen I threw a stone at the thing and broke it. I am not used to walking or to keeping rendezvous in dark woods, so I’m afraid I lost my courage. I returned to the house.”

“You still saw no one?”

“No one. I went back to bed and Miss Alfonse found me there a few minutes later.”

“How many minutes?”

“Possibly five or ten.”

“Then what did you do?”

Emily smiled at him. “I trembled, Inspector White, I shook and trembled. Naturally I had to raise a row about the spotlight because I didn’t want anyone to know I had broken it myself. I was afraid of what Joan would do when I didn’t meet her to hand over the money, so I telephoned the police, ostensibly to find out who broke the spotlight, actually, of course, to protect Ralph and myself”

“Protect you?” White repeated. “You were afraid of the girl?”

“I think it’s wise to be afraid of someone who is capable of anything,” Emily said calmly. “Joan’s ego was inflated like a barrage balloon.”

Prye stopped writing. “Delusions of grandeur. A symptom common to many mental diseases but not necessarily indicative of one. A mild type of this delusion is exhibited by people who are compensating for a physical defect or social and financial inferiority.”

White put up his hand. “That’s enough. I merely want to know whether you considered Joan Frost capable of violence and of inspiring Miss Bonner with fear.”

“Yes, and yes,” Prye said.

White thanked him dryly and returned to Miss Bonner. “We come to Tuesday. Go on.”