All crowded about the Unknown, trying to read the riddle of his identity. Miss Cornelia rapidly revised her first impressions of the stranger. When he had first fallen through the doorway into Beresford's arms she had not known what to think. Now, in the brighter light of the living-room she saw that the still face, beneath its mask of dirt and dried blood, was strong and fairly youthful; if the man were a criminal, he belonged, like the Bat, to the upper fringes of the world of crime. She noted mechanically that his hands and feet had been tied, ends of frayed rope still dangled from his wrists and ankles. And that terrible injury on his head! She shuddered and closed her eyes.
"Does anyone recognize him?" repeated the Doctor but one by one the others shook their heads. Crook, casual tramp, or honest laborer unexpectedly caught in the sinister toils of the Cedarcrest affair—his identity seemed a mystery to one and all.
"Is he badly hurt?" asked Miss Cornelia, shuddering again.
"It's hard to say," answered the Doctor. "I think not." The Unknown stirred feebly—made an effort to sit up. Beresford and the Doctor caught him under the arms and helped him to his feet. He stood there swaying, a blank expression on his face.
"A chair!" said the Doctor quickly. "Ah—" He helped the strange figure to sit down and bent over him again.
"You're all right now, my friend," he said in his best tones of professional cheeriness. "Dizzy a bit, aren't you?"
The Unknown rubbed his wrists where his bonds had cut them. He made an effort to speak.
"Water!" he said in a low voice.
The Doctor gestured to Billy. "Get some water—or whisky—if there is any—that'd be better."
"There's a flask of whisky in my room, Billy," added Miss Cornelia helpfully.
"Now, my man," continued the Doctor to the Unknown. "You're in the hands of friends. Brace up and tell us what happened!"
Beresford had been looking about for the detective, puzzled not to find him, as usual, in charge of affairs. Now, "Where's Anderson? This is a police matter!" he said, making a movement as if to go in search of him.
The Doctor stopped him quickly.
"He was here a minute ago—he'll be back presently," he said, praying to whatever gods he served that Anderson, bound and gagged in the billiard room, had not yet returned to consciousness.
Unobserved by all except Miss Cornelia, the mention of the detective's name had caused a strange reaction in the Unknown. His eyes had opened—he had started—the haze in his mind had seemed to clear away for a moment. Then, for some reason, his shoulders had slumped again and the look of apathy come back to his face. But, stunned or not, it now seemed possible that he was not quite as dazed as he appeared.
The Doctor gave the slumped shoulders a little shake.
"Rouse yourself, man!" he said. "What has happened to you?"
"I'm dazed!" said the Unknown thickly and slowly. "I can't remember." He passed a hand weakly over his forehead.
"What a night!" sighed Miss Cornelia, sinking into a chair. "Richard Fleming murdered in this house—and now—this!"
The Unknown shot her a stealthy glance from beneath lowered eyelids. But when she looked at him, his face was blank again.
"Why doesn't somebody ask his name?" queried Dale, and, "Where the devil is that detective?" muttered Beresford, almost in the same instant.
Neither question was answered, and Beresford, increasingly uneasy at the continued absence of Anderson, turned toward the hall.
The Doctor took Dale's suggestion.
"What's your name?"
Silence from the Unknown—and that blank stare of stupefaction.
"Look at his papers." It was Miss Cornelia's voice. The Doctor and Bailey searched the torn trouser pockets, the pockets of the muddied shirt, while the Unknown submitted passively, not seeming to care what happened to him. But search him as they would—it was in vain.
"Not a paper on him," said Jack Bailey at last, straightening up.
A crash of breaking glass from the head of the alcove stairs put a period to his sentence. All turned toward the stairs—or all except the Unknown, who, for a moment, half-rose in his chair, his eyes gleaming, his face alert, the mask of bewildered apathy gone from his face.
As they watched, a rigid little figure of horror backed slowly down the alcove stairs and into the room—Billy, the Japanese, his Oriental placidity disturbed at last, incomprehensible terror written in every line of his face.
"Billy!"
"Billy—what is it?"
The diminutive butler made a pitiful attempt at his usual grin.
"It—nothing," he gasped. The Unknown relapsed in his chair—again the dazed stranger from nowhere.
Beresford took the Japanese by the shoulders.
"Now see here!" he said sharply. "You've seen something! What was it!"
Billy trembled like a leaf.
"Ghost! Ghost!" he muttered frantically, his face working.
"He's concealing something. Look at him!" Miss Cornelia stared at her servant.
"No, no!" insisted Billy in an ague of fright. "No, no!"
But Miss Cornelia was sure of it.
"Brooks, close that door!" she said, pointing at the terrace door in the alcove which still stood ajar after the entrance of the Unknown.
Bailey moved to obey. But just as he reached the alcove the terrace door slammed shut in his face. At the same moment every light in Cedarcrest blinked and went out again.
Bailey fumbled for the doorknob in the sudden darkness.
"The door's locked!" he said incredulously. "The key's gone too. Where's your revolver, Beresford?"
"I dropped it in the alcove when I caught that man," called Beresford, cursing himself for his carelessness.
The illuminated dial of Bailey's wrist watch flickered in the darkness as he searched for the revolver—as round, glowing spot of phosphorescence.
Lizzie screamed. "The eye! The gleaming eye I saw on the stairs!" she shrieked, pointing at it frenziedly.
"Quick—there's a candle on the table—light it somebody. Never mind the revolver, I have one!" called Miss Cornelia.
"Righto!" called Beresford cheerily in reply. He found the candle, lit it—
The party blinked at each other for a moment, still unable quite to co-ordinate their thoughts.
Bailey rattled the knob of the door into the hall.
"This door's locked, too!" he said with increasing puzzlement. A gasp went over the group. They were locked in the room while some devilment was going on in the rest of the house. That they knew. But what it might be, what form it might take, they had not the remotest idea. They were too distracted to notice the injured man, now alert in his chair, or the Doctor's odd attitude of listening, above the rattle and banging of the storm.
But it was not until Miss Cornelia took the candle and proceeded toward the hall door to examine it that the full horror of the situation burst upon them.
Neatly fastened to the white panel of the door, chest high and hardly more than just dead, was the body of a bat.
Of what happened thereafter no one afterward remembered the details. To be shut in there at the mercy of one who knew no mercy was intolerable. It was left for Miss Cornelia to remember her own revolver, lying unnoticed on the table since the crime earlier in the evening, and to suggest its use in shattering the lock. Just what they had expected when the