Rinehart - The bat

YOUVE GOT TO GET him, boysget him or bust! said a tired police chief, pounding a heavy fist on a table. The detectives he bellowed the words at looked at the floor. They had done their best and failed. Failure meant resignation for the police chief, return to the hated work of pounding the pavements for themthey knew it, and, knowing it, could summon no gesture of bravado to answer their chiefs. Gunmen, thugs, hi-jackers, loft-robbers, murderers, they could get them all in timebut they could not get the man he wanted.

Get himto hell with expenseIll give you carte blanchebut get him! said a haggard millionaire in the sedate inner offices of the best private detective firm in the country. The man on the other side of the desk, man hunter extraordinary, old servant of Government and State, sleuthhound without a peer, threw up his hands in a gesture of odd hopelessness. It isnt the money, Mr. De CourcyId give every cent Ive made to get the man you wantbut I cant promise you resultsfor the first time in my life. The conversation was ended.

Get him? Huh! Ill get him, watch my smoke! It was young ambition speaking in a certain set of rooms in Washington. Three days later young ambition lay in a New York gutter with a bullet in his heart and a look of such horror and surprise on his dead face that even the ambulance-doctor who found him felt shaken. Weve lost the most promising man Ive had in ten years, said his chief when the news came in. He swore helplessly, Damn the luck!

Get himget himget himget him! From a thousand sources now the clamor arosepress, police, and public alike crying out for the capture of the master criminal of a centurylost voices hounding a specter down the alleyways of the wind. And still the meshes broke and the quarry slipped away before the hounds were well on the scentleaving behind a trail of shattered safes and rifled jewel caseswhile ever the clamor rose higher to Get himget himget

Get whom, in Gods nameget what? Beast, man, or devil? A spectera flying shadowthe shadow of a Bat.

From thieves hangout to thieves hangout the word passed along stirring the underworld like the passage of an electric spark. Theres a bigger guy than Pete Flynn shooting the works, a guy that could have Jim Gunderson for breakfast and not notice hed et. The underworld heard and waited to be shown; after a little while the underworld began to whisper to itself in tones of awed respect. There were bright stars and flashing comets in the sky of the world of crimebut this new planet rose with the portent of an evil moon.

The Batthey called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day. Hed never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didnt run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the Fence couldnt swear he knew his face. Most lone wolves had a moll at any ratewomen were their ruinbut if the Bat had a moll, not even the grapevine telegraph could locate her.

Rat-faced gunmen in the dingy back rooms of saloons muttered over his exploits with bated breath. In tawdrily gorgeous apartments, where gathered the larger figures, the proconsuls of the world of crime, cold, conscienceless brains dissected the work of a colder and swifter brain than theirs, with suave and bitter envy. Evils Four Hundred chattered, discussed, debatedsent out a thousand invisible tentacles to clutch at a shadowto turn this shadow and its distorted genius to their own ends. The tentacles recoiled, baffledthe Bat worked alonenot even Evils Four Hundred could bend him into a willing instrument to execute anothers plan.

The men higher up waited. They had dealt with lone wolves before and broken them. Some day the Bat would slip and falter; then they would have him. But the weeks passed into months and still the Bat flew free, solitary, untamed, and deadly. At last even his own kind turned upon him; the underworld is like the upper in its fear and distrust of genius that flies alone. But when they turned against him, they turned against a spooka shadow. A cold and bodiless laughter from a pit of darkness answered and mocked at their bungling gestures of hateand went on, flouting Law and Lawless alike.

Where official trailer and private sleuth had failed, the newspapers might succeedor so thought the disillusioned young men of the Fourth Estatethe tireless foxes, nose-down on the trail of newsthe trackers, who never gave up until that news was run to earth. Star reporter, legman, cub, veteran gray in the tradeone and all they tried to pin the Bat like a caught butterfly to the front page of their respective journalssoon or late each gave up, beaten. He was newsbigger news each weeka thousand ticking typewriters clicked his adventuresthe brief, staccato recital of his career in the morgues of the great dailies grew longer and more incredible each day. But the big newsthe scoop of the centurythe yearned-for headline, Bat Nabbed Red-Handed, Bat Slain in Gun Duel with Policestill eluded the ravenous maw of the Linotypes. And meanwhile, the red-scored list of his felonies lengthened and the rewards offered from various sources for any clue which might lead to his apprehension mounted and mounted till they totaled a small fortune.

Columnists took him up, played with the name and the terror, used the name and the terror as a starting point from which to exhibit their own particular opinions on everything and anything. Ministers mentioned him in sermons; cranks wrote fanatic letters denouncing him as one of the seven-headed beasts of the Apocalypse and a forerunner of the end of the world; a popular revue put on a special Bat number wherein eighteen beautiful chorus girls appeared masked and black-winged in costumes of Brazilian bat fur; there were Bat club sandwiches, Bat cigarettes, and a new shade of hosiery called simply and succinctly Bat. He became a fada catchworda national figure. And yethe was walking Deathcoldremorseless. But Death itself had become a toy of publicity.

A city editor, at lunch with a colleague, pulled at his cigarette and talked. See that Sunday story we had on the Bat? he asked. Pretty tidyhuhand yet we didnt have to play it up. Its an amazing listthe Marshall jewelsthe Allison murderthe mail truck thingtwo hundred thousand he got out of that, all negotiable, and two men dead. I wonder how many people hes really killed. We made it six murders and nearly a million in lootdidnt even have room for the small stuffbut there must be more

His companion whistled.

And when is the Universes Finest Newspaper going to burst forth with Bat Captured by BLADE Reporter? he queried sardonically.

Oh, forlay off it, will you? said the city editor peevishly. The Old Mans been hopping around about it for two months till everybodys plumb cuckoo. Even offered a bonusa big oneand that shows how crazy he ishe doesnt love a nickel any better than his right eyefor any sort of exclusive story. Bonushuh! and he crushed out his cigarette. It wont be a Blade reporter that gets that bonusor any reporter. Itll be Sherlock Holmes from the spirit world!

Well, cant you dig up a Sherlock?

The editor spread out his hands. Now, look here, he said. Weve got the best staff of any paper in the country, if I do say it. Weve got boys that could get a personal signed story from Delilah on how she barbered Samsonand find out who struck Billy Patterson and who was the Man in the Iron Mask. But the Bats something else again. Oh, of course, weve panned the police for not getting him; thats always the game. But, personally, I wont pan them; theyve done their damnedest. Theyre up against something new. Scotland Yard wouldnt do any betteror any other bunch of cops that I know about.