"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.