“It must have been a blow to the Doctor and Courtleigh Fleming when
they found me settled in the house!” She smiled grimly. “And when their
letters failed to dislodge me.”
But it was the Bat who held her interest; his daring assumption of the
detective’s identity, his searching of the house ostensibly for their
safety but in reality for the treasure, and that one moment of
irresolution when he did not shoot the Doctor at the top of the ladder.
And thereafter lost his chance—
It somehow weakened her terrified admiration for him, but she had
nothing but acclaim for the escape he had made from the Hidden Room
itself.
“That took brains,” she said. “Cold, hard brains. To dash out of that
room and down the stairs, pull off his mask and pick up a candle, and
then to come calmly back to the trunk room again and accuse the
Doctor—that took real ability. But I dread to think what would have
happened when he asked us all to go out and leave him alone with the
real Anderson!”
It was after two o’clock when she finally sent the young people off to
get some needed sleep but she herself was still bright-eyed and
wide-awake.
When Lizzie came at last to coax and scold her into bed, she was
sitting happily at the table surrounded by divers small articles which
she was handling with an almost childlike zest. A clipping about the
Bat from the evening newspaper; a piece of paper on which was a
well-defined fingerprint; a revolver and a heap of five shells; a small
very dead bat; the anonymous warnings, including the stone in which the
last one had been wrapped; a battered and broken watch, somehow left
behind; a dried and broken dinner roll; and the box of sedative powders
brought by Doctor Wells.
Lizzie came over to the table and surveyed her grimly.
“You see, Lizzie, it’s quite a collection. I’m going to take them and—”
But Lizzie bent over the table and picked up the box of powders.
“No, ma’am,” she said with extreme finality. “You are not. You are
going to take these and go to bed.”
And Miss Cornelia did.