Page:Weird Tales Volume 29 Number 1 (1937-01).djvu/13

lay the dart he had blown at Costello.

"Be careful how you handle them," de Grandin warned as Officer Clancy picked up the paper clip of darts; "a scratch from them is death!"

"Humph," Costello murmured as he viewed the body of the murderer, "they wuzn't takin' any chances, wuz they, Doctor de Grandin, sor? This felly's as bare o' clues as Billy-be-damned. Th' woman Mike wuz tellin' us about is our best bet. A dame as sthrikin' as ye tell me this one wuz ought not to be so hard to locate. If she just blew into town, like Caldes said, an' if she's been around enough for him to notice her, she's likely livin' at some swank hotel. We'll put th' dragnet out for her immejiately, an' when we find her I'm afther thinkin' she'll have some mighty fancy answerin' to do."

We were enjoying coffee and Chartreuse in the study after dinner the next evening when Nora McGinnis announced: "Sergeant Costello an' a lady's here to see yez, sors. Shall I have 'em wait?"

"Not at all; by no means; show them in," de Grandin bade, and, as the burly Irishman loomed in the doorway, "Welcome, mon sergent; is it news of the strange woman that you bring?"

"Well, sor, yis an' no, as th' felly sez," Costello answered with a rather sheepish grin as he beckoned to someone behind him. "This here young lady's got a sthory which may shed some light on last night's monkey-business."

The girl who entered at his gesture seemed absurdly small and fragile in comparison to his great bulk, though in fact she was something over middle height. It was not until she took a seat upon the sofa at de Grandin's invitation that I recognized her as the bubble-dancer at the Caldes cabaret. How a young female who dances naked dresses when she is not working at her trade had never been a subject of my thought, but certainly I was not prepared for any costume such as that our visitor wore. She was almost nun-like in her sheer black dinner dress of marquisette trimmed with tiny ruffles of white organdy, her corsage of gardenias, her small black hat, and her white-kid gloves. She might have been a clergyman's daughter, or a member of the Junior League, judging from appearances.

"I'm Nancy Meigs," she told us as she folded white-gloved hands demurely in her lap and looked at us with wide, grave, troubled eyes. "Rita Smith, the girl they killed last night, and I were pals."

"Smith! Mon Dieu, her name was Smith, and she so beautiful!" de Grandin murmured sadly. "This English, what a language!"

"It was Los Niños de la Murciélaga—the 'Children of the Bat'—who killed her," Nancy added. "I was sure——"

"Perfectly, Mademoiselle, and so are we," de Grandin interrupted, "but who are these sixty-times-accursèd ones, where may they be found, and why, especially, should they kill and crucify a young girl in New Jersey?"

Her gray eyes were clear and soft and steady as they looked at him, but they were frightened, too. "Was—did you find a bat wing by her body?" she responded.

"By blue, I did!" he answered. "Wait, I have it in my room.”

He hurried out, returning in a moment with the sheet of paper wrapped around the wing he had retrieved the night before.

She took the folded wing between her thumbs and forefingers, extending it against the light cast by the study lamp. "Can you read it?" she demanded, moving the membranes across the field of light.