Mary Roberts Rinehart

The Bat Mary Roberts Rinehart

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 spook-a shadow. A cold and bodiless laughter from a pit of darkness answered and mocked at their bungling gestures of hate-and went on, flouting Law and Lawless alike.