The Bat | Page 4

slipped away before the hounds were well on the scent -
leaving behind a trail of shattered safes and rifled jewel cases - while
ever the clamor rose higher to "Get him - get him - get - "
Get whom, in God's name - get what? Beast, man, or devil? A specter -
a flying shadow - the shadow of a Bat.
>From thieves' hangout to thieves' hangout the word passed along
stirring the underworld like the passage of an electric spark. "There's a
bigger guy than Pete Flynn shooting the works, a guy that could have
Jim Gunderson for breakfast and not notice he'd et." The underworld

heard and waited to be shown; after a little while the underworld began
to whisper to itself in tones of awed respect. There were bright stars
and flashing comets in the sky of the world of crime - but this new
planet rose with the portent of an evil moon.
The Bat - they Called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours
for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly,
noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day.
He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run
with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the
Fence couldn't swear he knew his face. Most lone wolves had a moll at
any rate - women were their ruin - but if the Bat had a moll, not even
the grapevine telegraph could locate her.
Rat-faced gunmen in the dingy back rooms of saloons muttered over
his exploits with bated breath. In tawdrily gorgeous apartments, where
gathered the larger figures, the proconsuls of the world of crime, cold,
conscienceless brains dissected the work of a colder and swifter brain
than theirs, with suave and bitter envy. Evil's Four Hundred chattered,
discussed, debated - sent out a thousand invisible tentacles to clutch at
a shadow - to turn this shadow and its distorted genius to their own
ends. The tentacles recoiled, baffled - the Bat worked alone - not even
Evil's Four Hundred could bend him into a willing instrument to
execute another's plan.
The men higher up waited. They had dealt with lone wolves before and
broken them. Some day the Bat would slip and falter; then they would
have him. But the weeks passed into months and still the Bat flew free,
solitary, untamed, and deadly. At 1ast even his own kind turned upon
him; the underworld is like the upper in its fear and distrust of genius
that flies alone. But when they turned against him, they turned against a
spook - a shadow. A cold and bodiless laughter from a pit of darkness
answered and mocked at their bungling gestures of hate - and went on,
flouting Law and Lawless alike.
Where official trailer and private sleuth had failed, the newspapers
might succeed - or so thought the disillusioned young men of the
Fourth Estate - the tireless foxes, nose-down on the trail of news - the

trackers, who never gave up until that news was run to earth. Star
reporter, leg-man, cub, veteran gray in the trade - one and all they tried
to pin the Bat like a caught butterfly to the front page of their respective
journals - soon or late each gave up, beaten. He was news - bigger news
each week - a thousand ticking typewriters clicked his adventures - the
brief, staccato recital of his career in the morgues of the great dailies
grew longer and more incredible each day. But the big news - the scoop
of the century - the yearned-for headline, "Bat Nabbed Red-Handed",
"Bat Slain in Gun Duel with Police" - still eluded the ravenous maw of
the Linotypes. And meanwhile, the red-scored list of his felonies
lengthened and the rewards offered from various sources for any clue
which might lead to his apprehension mounted and mounted till they
totaled a small fortune.
Columnists took him up, played with the name and the terror, used the
name and the terror as a starting point from which to exhibit their own
particular opinions on everything and anything. Ministers mentioned
him in sermons; cranks wrote fanatic letters denouncing him as one of
the even-headed beasts of the Apocalypse and a forerunner of the end
of the world; a popular revue put on a special Bat number wherein
eighteen beautiful chorus girls appeared masked and black-winged in
costumes of Brazilian bat fur; there were Bat club sandwiches, Bat
cigarettes, and a new shade of hosiery called simply and succinctly Bat.
He became a fad - a catchword - a national figure. And yet - he was
walking Death