“But I tell you—” began the chief in tones of high exasperation. Then he stopped and looked at his protege. There was a silence for a time. “Oh, well—” said the chief finally in a hopeless voice. “Go ahead—commit suicide—I’ll send you a ‘Gates Ajar’ and a card, ‘Here lies a damn fool who would have been a great detective if he hadn’t been so pig-headed.’ _Go_ ahead!” Anderson rose. “Thank you, sir,” he said in a deep voice. His eyes had light in them now. “I can’t thank you enough, sir.” “Don’t try,” grumbled the chief. “If I weren’t as much of a damn fool as you are I wouldn’t let you do it. And if I weren’t so damn old, I’d go after the slippery devil myself and let you sit here and watch _me_ get brought in with an infernal paper bat pinned where my shield ought to be. The Bat’s supernatural, Anderson. You haven’t a chance in the world but it does me good all the same to shake hands with a man with brains _and_ nerve,” and he solemnly wrung Anderson’s hand in an iron grip. Anderson smiled. “The cagiest bat flies once too often,” he said. “I’m not promising anything, chief, but—” “Maybe,” said the chief. “Now wait a minute, keep your shirt on, you’re not going out bat hunting this minute, you know—” “Sir? I thought I—” “Well, you’re not,” said the chief decidedly. “I’ve still some little respect for my own intelligence and it tells me to get all the work out of you I can, before you start wild-goose chasing after this—this bat out of hell. The first time he’s heard of again—and it shouldn’t be long from the fast way he works—you’re assigned to the case. That’s understood. Till then, you do what I tell you—and it’ll be _work_, believe me!” “All right, sir,” Anderson laughed and turned to the door. “And—thank you again.” He went out. The door closed. The chief remained for some minutes looking at the door and shaking his head. “The best man I’ve had in years—except Wentworth,” he murmured to himself. “And throwing himself away—to be killed by a cold-blooded devil that nothing human can catch—you’re getting old, John Grogan—but, by Judas, you can’t blame him, can you? If you were a man in the prime like him, by Judas, you’d be doing it yourself. And yet it’ll go hard—losing him—” He turned back to his desk and his papers. But for some minutes he could not pay attention to the papers. There was a shadow on them—a shadow that blurred the typed letters—the shadow of bat’s wings. CHAPTER TWO THE INDOMITABLE MISS VAN GORDER