The Weak-Eyed Bat

She made no reply. She was staring down at her hands as if they did not belong to her, as if they were strangers who had trapped her.

Prye was thinking, I can’t tell yet. She hasn’t done anything to prove it, she may be as sane as I am...

Then he saw her put her head on one side, half smiling. She seemed to be listening, her whole body in an attitude of attention, her lips moving in soundless reply.

“Did you ever have a streptococcus infection, Mary?” he asked gently.

The smile faded from her face; her head jerked up.

“Yes. A year ago.”

“Do you remember what your doctor prescribed for you then? Was it sulfanilamide?”

She leaned forward toward him.

“I ought to have finished you,” she said in an impersonal voice. “You are an evil man.”

The others were watching her, paralyzed.

“I am not responsible to the laws of this world,” she said. “I am only an instrument. I have nothing to fear.”

“You remembered your reaction to sulfanilamide from last year?”

“Oh yes,” she said, nodding her head. “It was very unpleasant. I got all blue and cold. The doctor called it a complete collapse, so I had to stop taking it. But there was some of it left. All this time I’ve saved it.”

Prye’s face was grave. “Why did you save it, Mary?”

She did not hear him and he repeated the question.

“I knew I had to kill him some time, as soon as they told me to kill him. I saved it for an alibi. But I had to use it when I killed her. He remembered about the sulfanilamide from last year, so I had to kill him right away, too. I killed two birds with one stone.” She paused, looking around at them all with eyes that were growing excited. “I killed two birds with one stone.”

“Sulfanilamide can easily be detected in the blood stream,” Prye said. “Weren’t you afraid of that?”

“Of course not. I already had heart trouble and there was no reason for Dr. Innes to suspect anything else. I knew you weren’t much of a doctor. The only reason I let you live was to give me an alibi by swearing I had a heart attack. How did you find out about the sulfanilamide?”

“I didn’t,” Prye said. “But when I discovered you lied to me about throwing the ring out of the window I began to wonder if your heart attack had not been artificially stimulated or induced in some way. I’ve had very little experience with sulfanilamide and the possibility of its use didn’t occur to me until this afternoon.”

“I was very clever,” Mary said.

She looked around for approval, and the others, seeing Prye nod, nodded, too. One head after another bobbed up and down, puppet heads jerked by invisible strings. Nora thought, it’s crazy, we’re crazy, she’s saner than any of us. She put her hand to her mouth to hold back the hysterical giggle that kept bubbling up in her throat.

Mary was talking again in her quiet, even voice, speaking distinctly, as if she were teaching a lesson to some backward boys and girls.

“If Jennie hadn’t been so silly as to give me a chance to escape— Poor Jennie. As soon as you tested her hearing she knew I had killed them. Jennie is quite deaf. She didn’t hear me come downstairs on Monday night and go out the back door. I told her that I wanted to sleep, that she was to stay downstairs. Afterward she told you that she could hear quite well. She worried about that, because my alibi depended partly on her hearing. Poor Jennie. You must not be hard on her for giving me my chance.”

“Nothing will happen to Jennie,” Prye assured her.

“I was the chosen instrument and I alone.”

She’s proud of it, Nora thought. Anyone who is still proud can’t be very unhappy. I mustn’t be sorry for her. She’s still proud. And they’ll take good care of her...

“I was sitting in the dining room on Monday morning when I heard Miss Bonner’s ring,” Mary said. “I listened. I knew she was going to meet Joan at nine o’clock in the woods and I knew Joan was going away that night. Then at lunch Tom was acting strangely. He wouldn’t eat. He said he had a stomach ache. Tom was very stupid. I knew right away what he was going to do. I knew she was the thirteenth. And the thirteenth had to die.”

“You killed Joan because she was the thirteenth?” Prye asked quietly.

“Of course! Why don’t you listen to me? You’re stupid. You’re stupid like Tom.”

The words were tumbling out of her mouth. She put her hand to her head and closed her eyes for a minute.

Here is madness, Professor Frost was thinking. Here is real madness, not the lyrical, beautiful madness of Medea slaying her children. There’s no ecstasy in the madness of this plain, dowdy woman, no Euripides to write her speeches, no catharsis for us who are listening, no catharsis, no hope...

“It was very cunning of you to drug Tom on Monday night,” Prye said.

“Yes, it was very cunning. I put some veronal in his coffee at dinnertime. I know a great deal about drugs. I’ve always been sick. I get prescriptions from doctors and I save them.”

“Where do you keep these drugs?” Prye said, keeping his voice casual.

She looked up, her pale eyes suddenly shrewd.