The Weak-Eyed Bat

The stolid, middle-aged police matron looked strangely out of place in Miss Bonner’s frilly bedroom. Miss Bonner certainly thought so.

“Can you play solitaire?” she asked coldly.

“I can,” the matron replied, “but I’m not supposed to.”

“Why not?”

“I have to watch you.”

Emily grunted. “You’ve been watching me for four hours. You must have an incredible capacity for boredom.”

“It’s my job.”

“I’ll give you another job. I’ll pay you two dollars an hour to look out of the window. You have suspicious eyes. They annoy me.”

“I can’t help my eyes,” the matron said calmly.

“No, but you still have control over your eyelids. Close them. Or look at something else. I’m abnormally sensitive. For a murderer, that is. Or perhaps murderers are abnormally sensitive. Are they?”

“I don’t know. I never saw one until you.”

In his room further along the hall Ralph was eating his dinner under the watchful eyes of a uniformed policeman. He fought down his resentment for some time, and then he threw down his fork with a clatter and said loudly:

“Like my table manners?”

“Sure,” the policeman said. “They’re all right.”

“I don’t like your tone. You don’t have to humor me.”

“Sure. I know that.”

“I’m tired of being patronized!” Ralph shouted.

“Sure you are.”

“You can go to hell!”

“Sure,” the policeman said affably.

“We all got to eat,” Jennie said. “Try some of this jelly, that’s a dear. Miss Susan made it for you specially.”

“I’m not hungry,” Mary Little said, shaking her head. “I don’t want anything.”

Jennie was alarmed.

“You’re not thinking of starving yourself to death, surely?”

Mary sighed and reached out for the jelly and began to eat it listlessly.

“That’s a dear,” Jennie said. “Mustn’t grieve over a man like Mr. Little. He isn’t worth it. He sinned against—”

“Stop it! Go down and get your dinner.”

“Just the same I’m right.” Jennie went to the door and said over her shoulder: “You’re better off this way. The murderer’s done you a favor, that’s what!”

Mr. Smith picked up his telephone.

“Hello. Certainly I’d like to come. I’ll be there at nine. All right.”

Mr. Smith replaced the receiver and looked thoughtfully at Horace.

“I’m sorry in a way,” he told Horace. “After all, she did push you in the lake.”

It was Jennie who opposed the meeting most violently. She insisted it would not be fair to Mrs. Little to have all those people traipsing into her house. Mary herself was completely apathetic.

At nine o’clock the residents had all arrived.

Emily had made the trip in her wheelchair (“Might as well give that damned matron something to do!”) and was installed beside the front windows which looked out on the veranda and over the lake. Mary, in a dowdy black dress, was sitting on the chesterfield near the doorway, with Jennie hovering around her.

The rest were seated in chairs placed along the opposite wall: Mr. Smith, Professor Frost and Susan, Nora, and Ralph Bonner with his uniformed attendant. The police matron, Dr. Prye, and Professor Frost were the only occupants of the room who did not appear harassed and guilty.

“We look like a Rogues’ Gallery pygmalionized,” Nora said to Ralph. He stared at her blankly and she said: “It’s all right. Don’t laugh. I don’t want to put anyone out.”

“Miss Shane,” Inspector White said, “we are about to begin.”

His eyes moved about the room, stabbing them each in turn.

“This meeting has been called at the instigation of Dr. Prye. He has some questions to ask each of you and I want you to answer these questions as if they came from me. Go ahead, Prye.”

Prye went over to the doorway.

“Miss Bonner,” he said loudly.

Emily jumped, and the large capable hand of the police matron descended instantly on her shoulder.

“Get your hands off me!” Emily shouted. “Really, Prye. My nerves. Having that creature’s unlovely pan in front of my face for five hours—”

“Emily,” Prye interrupted, “on Wednesday night after you had dinner in your room, what did you do?”

“I’ve told you at least fifty times, I went to sleep.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Certainly it’s unusual. It’s unheard of. I’m a nervous wreck. I was doped. My head felt funny. I floated.”

“You were woozy,” Mr. Smith encouraged her.

“That’s just it. Woozy,” Emily cried. “Who is that man? He has a feeling for words. Sympathetic. Why, it must be Mr. Smith—”

“Thank you, Emily,” Prye said in a tone of finality. “Ralph Bonner.”

Ralph started, got to his feet, and sat down again, flushing.

“Ralph, on Monday night you went out for a walk by yourself. I suggest that you went to see Joan Frost. Did you?”

“No.”

“I suggest it again.”

“All right,” Ralph said. “Yes.”

“Did you see her?”

“Yes. Through the window. She was packing to go away with — with him.”

“With whom?”

“Tom Little,” Ralph said.

Mary clutched Jennie’s hand. “No! It’s a lie! He’d never have left me. Ask Jennie. He’d never really have left me.”

She sank back, panting, and Jennie patted her hand. “There. You mustn’t get excited. It’s all for the best.”

Prye turned to Susan.

“Susan, will you come over here, please?”