The Bat | Page 5

- cold - remorseless. But Death itself had become a toy
of publicity in these days of limelight and jazz.
A city editor, at lunch with a colleague, pulled at his cigarette and
talked. "See that Sunday story we had on the Bat?" he asked. "Pretty
tidy - huh - and yet we didn't have to play it up. It's an amazing list - the
Marshall jewels - the Allison murder - the mail truck thing - two
hundred thousand he got out of that, all negotiable, and two men dead. I
wonder how many people he's really killed. We made it six murders
and nearly a million in loot - didn't even have room for the small stuff -
but there must be more - "
His companion whistled.

"And when is the Universe's Finest Newspaper going to burst forth
with "Bat Captured by BLADE Reporter?'" he queried sardonically.
"Oh, for - lay off it, will you?" said the city editor peevishly. "The Old
Man's been hopping around about it for two months till everybody's
plumb cuckoo. Even offered a bonus - a big one - and that shows how
crazy he is - he doesn't love a nickel any better than his right eye - for
any sort of exclusive story. Bonus - huh!" and he crushed out his
cigarette. "It won't be a Blade reporter that gets that bonus - or any
reporter. It'll be Sherlock Holmes from the spirit world!"
"Well - can't you dig up a Sherlock?"
The editor spread out his hands. "Now, look here," he said. "We've got
the best staff of any paper in the country, if I do say it. We've got boys
that could get a personal signed story from Delilah on how she
barbered Samson - and find out who struck Billy Patterson and who
was the Man in the Iron Mask. But the Bat's something else again. Oh,
of course, we've panned the police for not getting him; that's always the
game. But, personally, I won't pan them; they've done their damnedest.
They're up against something new. Scotland Yard wouldn't do any
better - or any other bunch of cops that I know about."
"But look here, Bill, you don't mean to tell me he'll keep on getting
away with it indefinitely?"
The editor frowned. "Confidentially - I- don't know," he said with a
chuckle: "The situation's this: for the first time the super-crook - the
super-crook of fiction - the kind that never makes a mistake - has come
to life - real life. And it'll take a cleverer man than any Central Office
dick I've ever met to catch him!"
"Then you don't think he's just an ordinary crook with a lot of luck?"
"I do not." The editor was emphatic. "He's much brainier. Got a ghastly
sense of humor, too. Look at the way he leaves his calling card after
every job - a black paper bat inside the Marshall safe - a bat drawn on
the wall with a burnt match where he'd jimmied the Cedarburg Bank - a

real bat, dead, tacked to the mantelpiece over poor old Allison's body.
Oh, he's in a class by himself - and I very much doubt if he was a crook
at all for most of his life."
"You mean?"
"I mean this. The police have been combing the underworld for him; I
don't think he comes from there. I think they've got to look higher, up
in our world, for a brilliant man with a kink in the brain. He may be a
Doctor, a lawyer, a merchant, honored in his community by day - good
line that, I'll use it some time - and at night, a bloodthirsty assassin. -
Deacon Brodie - ever hear of him - the Scotch deacon that burgled his
parishioners' houses on the quiet? Well - that's our man."
"But my Lord, Bill - "
"I know. I've been going around the last month, looking at everybody I
knew and thinking - are you the Bat? Try it for a while. You'll want to
sleep with a light in your room after a few days of it. Look around the
University Club - that white-haired man over there - dignified -
respectable - is he the Bat? Your own lawyer - your own Doctor - your
own best friend. Can happen you know - look at those Chicago boys -
the thrill-killers. Just brilliant students - likeable boys - to the people
that taught them - and cold-bloodied murderers all the same.
"Bill! You're giving me the shivers!"
"Am I?" The edit or laughed grimly. "Think it over. No, it isn't so
pleasant. - But that's my theory - and I swear I think I'm right." He rose.
His companion laughed