Bertha switched out the flashlight.
Abruptly she heard motion in the room. Her ice-cold thumb fumbled with the switch of the flashlight. She was conscious of something coming toward her; then bony fingers seemed to clutch her throat.
Bertha lashed out in front of her with a frenzied kick. She swung her left fist and groped with her right, trying to find the wrists of her assailant.
Her hands encountered nothing. Her kick merely threw her off balance. She knew she had given a half-scream.
It wasn’t until Bertha Cool had screamed that reason reinstated itself. The object at her throat abruptly left. She heard a fluttering sound, and caught the dim glimpse of a sinister shape flitting past her into the darkness.
“Freddie!” she muttered under her breath. “It’s that damn bat.”
She turned, the beam of her flashlight exploring the room while Bertha tried to, convince herself there were no more death traps planted in the house against the return of the blind man.
Bertha’s search of the place was necessarily impeded because of her desire to feel her way cautiously, to avoid running into some thread which, all but invisible in the dim light, would release a deadly bullet.
It was easy now to visualize what had happened the night before; Bollman, hurrying into the house, trying to get that music box and get out before anyone caught him — the lunge against the string that led to the trap gun. Bertha, too, felt impelled by that same haste, that fear of discovery, yet she dared not surrender to it.
The house was plainly but comfortably furnished. Evidently Kosling tried to keep five or six comfortable chairs for his cronies when they came to visit. These chairs, all cushioned and comfortable, were arranged in a half-circle around the living room. Against the wall under a window was a book-case whose glass-enclosed shelves held no books, a table which was absolutely devoid of a magazine. On a stand over near the window — Bertha’s eyes fixed on that stand. She advanced toward it. Her eager hands pounced upon the music box. When she had first seen it, when the blind man had exhibited it to her on the street, her inspection had been only casual. Now she studied it with a concentration that was all but microscopic.
The light of her flash showed Bertha that it was made of smoothly polished hardwood. On the outside was an oil painting of a pastoral scene. On the opposite side was a pox-trait of a beautiful young woman, somewhat ample as far as curves were judged by present-day standards, but quite definitely the belle of a bygone era.
At one time the paint had been varnished over, but now there were places where paint and varnish had worn thin. However, the grain of the wood showed through a beautiful satin-like finish, and the excellent preservation of the box indicated that here was something that had been long treasured as a family heirloom, something which had had the best of care. Little wonder that it had become one of the prized possessions of the affluent blind beggar.
Bertha explored the outside of it carefully, holding her spotlight within a couple of inches of the surface. There was not so much as a mark or a label on it. Disappointed, Bertha raised the cover. Almost instantly the music box picked up the strains of Bluebells of Scotland and filled the room with its tinkling sweetness.
Just inside the cover Bertha found what she wanted. A small oval label had been pasted on the top. It said, “Britten G. Stellman, Rare Antiques.”
Bertha replaced the music box. The closing cover shut oil the strains of music. She turned, started for the door, then came back to wipe her fingerprints from the music box.
Her spotlight turned toward the door. Vague, dancing blotches of darkness drifted along the wall, looking as though dark figures were bunched there waiting to pounce on her. Bertha realized that it was the bat flying in frenzied circles around the room, casting shadows when it crossed the beam of her spotlight. Evidently the bat was hungry for human companionship, but sensed that Bertha was not the blind man.
Bertha tried to entice the bat outside so that she could close the door, but the bat apparently preferred to stay inside.
Bertha made little “cheeping” noises, finally said in exasperation, “Come on, Freddie, you old fool. Get out of here. I’m going to close and lock that door. You’ll die if I leave you inside.”
It might have been that the bat understood her, or perhaps the sound of the human voice sent him once more fluttering around her head.
“Get away,” Bertha said, brushing at him with her hand. “You make me nervous, and if you get on my neck again, I’ll—”
“Exactly what will you do, Mrs. Cool?” the voice of Sergeant Sellers asked. “You have me definitely interested now.”
Bertha jumped as though she had been jabbed with a pin, turned around, and at first failed to locate the sergeant’s hiding place. Then she saw him standing by a vine-covered corner of the porch, his hands resting on the rail, his chin on the backs of his hands. Standing on the ground, he was some two feet lower than Bertha Cool, and Bertha, looking down at him, could sense the triumph on the man’s smiling countenance.
“All right,” Bertha snapped. “Go ahead and say it.”
“Burglary,” Sergeant Sellers observed, “is a very serious crime.”
“This isn’t burglary,” Bertha snapped.
“Indeed? Perhaps you’ve had a special Act passed by the Legislature, or the Supreme Court may have changed the law, but a breaking and entering such as you have just done—”
“It’s just a little trick of the law that you don’t happen to know,” Bertha said. “To make it burglary, you must break and enter for the purpose of committing grand or petit larceny or some felony.”
Sellers thought that over for a minute, then laughed and said, “By George, I believe you are right.”
“I know I’m right,” Bertha snapped. “I wasn’t associated with the best legal brain in the country for several years for nothing.”
“That brings up a very interesting question. Exactly what was your purpose in entering the house?”
Bertha, doing some fast thinking, said triumphantly, “I had to let the bat out.”
“Ah, yes, the bat,” Sergeant Sellers said. “I’ll admit eluded you. You gave it a name, I believe. Freddie, wasp it?”
“That’s right.”
“Most interesting. That’s the tame bat?”
“Yes.”
“More and more interesting. And you came here to let out?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I knew that it would die for lack of food and water someone didn’t let it out.”
Sergeant Sellers came walking around the corner of the porch to climb up the stairs and stand on a level with Bertha Cool. “I’m not trying to be funny. I’m trying to be polite. You might also remember that I’m asking these question not as a mere matter of idle curiosity, but in my official capacity.”
“I know,” Bertha said. “You’re putting on a lot of dog, but you’re boring in just the same. I always did distrust a polysyllabic cop.”
Sellers laughed.
Bertha said, “When they started putting college men on the force, they damn near ruined it.”
“Oh, come, Mrs. Cool. It isn’t as bad as that.”
“It’s worse.”
“Well, let’s not discuss the police force in the abstract the moment. I’m interested in bats — and one in particular Freddie.”
“All right, what about Freddie? I’ve told you why I can out here.”
“You wanted to release Freddie. You knew he was in the building then?”
“I thought he might be.”
“What gave you that idea?”