Bertha made little “cheeping” noises, finally said in exasperation, “Come on, Freddie, you old fool. Get out of here. I’m going to close and lock that door. You’ll die if I leave you inside.”
It might have been that the bat understood her, or perhaps the sound of the human voice sent him once more fluttering around her head.
“Get away,” Bertha said, brushing at him with her hand. “You make me nervous, and if you get on my neck again, I’ll—”
“Exactly what will you do, Mrs. Cool?” the voice of Sergeant Sellers asked. “You have me definitely interested now.”
Bertha jumped as though she had been jabbed with a pin, turned around, and at first failed to locate the sergeant’s hiding place. Then she saw him standing by a vine-covered corner of the porch, his hands resting on the rail, his chin on the backs of his hands. Standing on the ground, he was some two feet lower than Bertha Cool, and Bertha, looking down at him, could sense the triumph on the man’s smiling countenance.
“All right,” Bertha snapped. “Go ahead and say it.”
“Burglary,” Sergeant Sellers observed, “is a very serious crime.”
“This isn’t burglary,” Bertha snapped.
“Indeed? Perhaps you’ve had a special Act passed by the Legislature, or the Supreme Court may have changed the law, but a breaking and entering such as you have just done—”
“It’s just a little trick of the law that you don’t happen to know,” Bertha said. “To make it burglary, you must break and enter for the purpose of committing grand or petit larceny or some felony.”