The Weak-Eyed Bat

Prye made suitable noises of surprise. “How time flies.”

Wang looked wise. “Some persons say she is over a hundred and will never die.” The prospect seemed to depress him.

“Exaggeration,” Prye said cheerfully. “Don’t bother showing me up. I remember the room.”

He took the red-carpeted steps two at a time, stopped in front of a thick oak door, and rapped lightly.

“Come in!” a voice roared. “Come in!”

Miss Emily Bonner was sitting in her wheelchair by the window, and since she expected to shake hands with Prye, the field glasses were nestling in the folds of a feathery pink negligee. She was so massive that she overflowed her chair and seemed hidden by her own fat.

“Ha. Prye. You’re late.” From under piles of frizzy grey hair her shrewd little eyes glowered at him.

Prye took both her hands. “Hello, Emily. You’re looking younger every day.”

“Younger. Ha. You must be blind, Prye. I’ll be ninety soon.” She took her hands away crossly. “Sit down.”

Prye sat down in a chair facing her and watched her, half-smiling.

“Still an old fibber, eh? When did you take to your chair, Emily?”

Miss Bonner growled. “You’re like all the rest of these doctors — take everyone else’s symptoms altogether too lightly. Look at me, for instance. High blood pressure. Arthritis. Enlargement of the heart. And never a crumb of sympathy!”

“That couldn’t have been you cavorting around the beach two years ago, then,” Prye said solemnly. “Extraordinary likeness, though.”

“Oh, nonsense! Your memory’s going, Prye. Why, only yesterday I had a temperature of a hundred five degrees. Don’t believe me, eh?” She took a deep breath and let out a roar: “Alfonse! Alfonse!”

The nursing companion rustled starchily into the room and said: “Yes, modom?”

“Alfonse, what was my temperature yesterday afternoon at four o’clock?”

“One hundred and five, modom.”

“All right. Go away.”

Alfonse went away, leaving no doubt in Prye’s mind why Miss Bonner thought highly of her nurse.

“Look here, Prye,” Emily said suddenly. “I don’t want to talk about myself. Do you remember Joan Frost?”

“Vividly,” Prye said with feeling.

“She’s engaged to my nephew. What does that suggest to you?”

“That they’re going to get married.”

“They are not going to get married!” Emily cried. “She’s a vixen and I have no intention of allowing my money to be spent on the upkeep of vixens. I want the affair stopped, and you’re the man to stop it.”

“I rarely dabble in love affairs. The heart is too incalculable an organ.”

“Nonsense! You love dabbling in everything that doesn’t concern you. Now I’m fond of Ralph, at least as fond as one can be of someone living in the same house. But I know his weakness. He’s got to marry some big strapping girl who’ll keep him toeing the line.”

“And carry on your good work, I suppose?” Prye suggested.

Emily, surprisingly, did not take offense. “Precisely. Ralph has no head at all.”

“If you want the engagement broken why not do something about it yourself? Your staggering list of ailments doesn’t include laryngitis, I note.”

“Leave me out of this. What can you do?”

“Well,” Prye said pensively, “I suppose I could attempt to woo the young lady myself, but I’m afraid I’m off to a bad start. Our interview this morning was hardly amorous.”

“Your interview! What did she say to you?”

“A great deal,” Prye said easily. “None of it repeatable. But the general idea was that I’m of a low order, barely clinging, in fact, to the bottom rung of the social ladder.”

“Exactly what she would say. She hates everyone.”

“Including Tom Little?”

Emily regarded him grimly. “So you know. You must have had a busy time since your arrival.”

Prye smiled modestly. “Information thrusts itself upon me. Why not send your heir and nephew away for a time?”

“He won’t go.”

“I hope you’ve been too wise to threaten him with disinheritance. But I seem to recall that you threaten quite a number of people in that way whether they’re due to inherit or not.”

“Naturally I’ve told him he won’t get any of my money if he marries that creature. He said he didn’t want any of it, that he was going to join the Air Force.” Emily took out a pink lace handkerchief and dabbed at eyes that were completely tearless. “So you’ll just have to see that she gets put in jail, Prye.”

He started. “Good God. Is that all? Do you want to prefer charges against her?”

“No. I won’t have anything to do with it. I have my reasons. She’s been stealing consistently for years now. Her father manages to get her out of it.”

“She can’t be arrested unless she is charged specifically.”

Emily put down her handkerchief and snorted. “Do you mean to tell me that the law won’t protect me against thieves?”

“Not unless you cooperate. If Joan has taken anything from your house—”

“No, no,” Emily said quickly.

Prye rose from his chair and went over to the window. “Nice view you have here, Emily. Why don’t you give up scheming and enjoy it? Girls of eighteen are changeable creatures and even psychiatrists sometimes need a holiday.”

Emily thumped a fist on the arm of her wheelchair.