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Anderson gave an involuntary start, then his eyes lit up with gri that away?" he said suavely "I like to get in the papers as much as anybody, but I don't want to have thelare of offended pride, but he endured it with such quiet equanimity that she merely replaced the revolver in the draith a hurt expression, and waited for him to open the next topic of conversation

He finished his preliminary survey of the room and returned to her

"Now you say you don't think anybody has got upstairs yet?" he queried

Miss Cornelia regarded the alcove stairs

"I think not I'ht sleeper, especially since the papers have been so full of the exploits of this criht" She nodded toward the evening paper

The detective smiled faintly

"Yes, he's contrived to surround hies on the supernatural--or seems that way to newspaperht of him in this connection" She looked at Anderson to see hoould take the suggestion but the latterrather a long way for a theory," he said "And the Bat is not in the habit of giving warnings"

"Nevertheless," she insisted, "soht"

Anderson see a theory in his mind

"Any liquor stored here?" he asked

Miss Cornelia nodded "Yes"

"What?"

Miss Cornelia beamed at him maliciously "Eleven bottles of home-made elderberry wine"

"You're safe" The detective slanced at it, shook his head "I'd forget the Bat in all this You can always tell when the Bat has had anything to do with a crins his naht "His naht nobody knew his nay "That was a figure of speech The newspapers named him the Bat because he ning his name I mean he leaves the symbol of his identity--the Bat, which can see in the dark"

"I wish I could," said Miss Cornelia, striving to see out"

Anderson's face grew stern "Sometimes he draws the outline of a bat at the scene of the criot hold of a real bat, and nailed it to the wall"