Kitabı oku: «The Room with the Tassels», sayfa 9
CHAPTER XIII
Pennington Wise
When Mary Pennington married a man named Wise, it was not at all an unusual impulse that prompted her to name her first born son after her own family name, and so Pennington Wise came into being.
Then, of course, it followed, as the night the day, that his school chums should call him Penny Wise, which name stuck to him through life. Whether this significant name was the cause of his becoming a detective is not definitely known, but a detective he did grow up to be, and a good one, too. Eccentric, of course, what worthwhile detective is not? But clear cut of brain, mind and intelligence. And always on the lookout for an interesting case, for he would engage in no others.
Wherefore, his persistence in desiring to investigate the strange mysteries of Black Aspens won the day against Milly’s endeavours to prevent his coming. She had done all she could, and most of the house party had aided her efforts, but Professor Hardwick had become imbued with the idea that there was human agency at work, and that his belief in spiritual visitation, honest though it had been, was doomed to a speedy death, unless further proof could be shown.
Norma, too, was rather inclined to welcome a specialist in the solving of mysterious problems, and in conference with the Professor agreed to do all she could to help the Wise man in his work.
Norma was still of the opinion that the two tragic deaths were the work of evil spirits, but if it were not so, she wanted to know it.
But the principal reason why Pennington Wise came to Black Aspens was his own determination to do so. He had never heard of such an unusual and weird mystery, and it whetted his curiosity by its strange and almost unbelievable details.
The opposing party gave in gracefully, when they found his advent was inevitable. All but Milly, that is. She spent her time alternately crying her heart out in Wynne’s arms, and bracing herself up for a calm and indifferent attitude before the new investigator.
“Keep a stiff upper lip,” Braye advised her. “Remember not to give out any information, Milly. Let him find out all he can, but don’t help him.”
“All right, Rudolph; and, anyway, I know Wynne is innocent, – ”
“Of course he is! That goes without saying. But if he is suspected, say, if Stebbins or Thorpe or anybody else puts Wise up to suspicion, it may mean a bad quarter of an hour for all of us. So, just be quiet, dignified, pleasant-mannered and all that, but don’t say anything definite. For it might be misconstrued and misunderstood, and make trouble. At least, that’s the course I’m going to pursue, and I think it’s the best plan.”
“Oh, I know it is,” Milly agreed. “In fact, that’s just about what Wynne told me; he thinks if I try to help, I’ll only make mistakes, so he, too, told me to keep quiet. Eve is awfully angry, because that man is coming. She’s not saying so, but I know her! And, Rudolph, she’s afraid of something. I don’t know what, exactly, but she’s fearfully afraid of developments.”
“We all are, Milly. If the detective pins it on any human being, – that means trouble, and if he decides it’s spooks, after all, – I think I’ll be more afraid of them than ever!”
“I can’t be any more afraid of them than I am!” Milly shuddered. “Oh, Rudolph, how I wish we had never come up here!”
“We all wish that, Milly, but as we’re in for it now, we must see it through.”
Pennington Wise arrived the next afternoon. He came into the hall like an army with banners. A tall, well set-up man, of about thirty-three or four, thick chestnut hair, worn à la brosse, clear blue eyes, a clean-cut, fine-featured face, and a manner that proclaimed generalship and efficiency to the last degree.
“Here I am,” he announced, setting down several pieces of hand luggage and whipping off his soft gray felt hat. “You are the hostess?”
His quick-darting eyes had picked out Milly, and he greeted her as a distinguished visitor might.
“Who is that?” exclaimed Milly, looking at a slight, black-haired girl who followed quietly in Wise’s footsteps.
“That? oh that’s Zizi, – part of my luggage. Put her any place. Is there a housekeeper person? Yes? Well, turn Zizi over to her, she’ll be all right.”
Hester was peeping in at a rear door, unable to restrain her curiosity as to the commotion, and Zizi glided toward her and disappeared in the shadows.
“Now,” said Wise, his quick smile flashing inclusively at all of them, “we must get acquainted. I’m Penny Wise, and all possible jokes on my name have already been made, so that’s all right. I know Mrs. Landon, and you, of course,” looking at Wynne, “are her husband. Professor Hardwick,” and he bowed slightly, “is the man with whom I have had a short correspondence regarding my coming here. You, sir, – ” he looked inquiringly at Braye.
“I’m Rudolph Braye, nephew of Mr. Gifford Bruce, and present heir to his fortune.” The quiet sadness of Braye’s tone precluded any idea of his triumph of exultation at the fact he stated. “This,” he went on, “is the Reverend Mr. Tracy, a friend of us all. And these ladies are Miss Carnforth and Miss Cameron, both deeply interested in the solution of the mysteries that confront us. Since introductions are in order, may I inquire further concerning the young lady, – or child, – who accompanied you?”
“Zizi? She’s part of my working outfit. In fact, one of my principal bits of paraphernalia. I always use her on mysterious cases. Don’t look on her as an individual, please, she’s a property, – in the theatrical sense, I mean.”
“But her standing in the household?” asked Milly, “does she belong with the servants, or in here with us?”
“She’ll look after that herself,” and Penny Wise smiled. “Pay no more attention to her than you would to my umbrella or walking stick. Now we know each others’ names, let’s proceed to the case itself. Who is going to tell me all about it?”
“Which of us would you rather have do so?” asked Eve, her long, glittering eyes fixed on the detective’s face.
He glanced at her quickly, and then let his gaze continue to rest on her beautiful, sibylline countenance.
“Not you,” he said, “you are too – well, I suppose the word I must use is temperamental, but it’s a word I hate.”
“Why?” asked the Professor, “what do you mean by temperamental?”
“That’s the trouble,” smiled Wise. “It doesn’t mean anything. Strictly speaking, every one has temperament of one sort or another, but it has come to mean an emotional temperament, – ”
“What do you mean by emotional?” interrupted Hardwick.
“There you go again!” and Wise looked amused. “Emotions are of all sorts, but emotional has come to be used only in reference to demonstrations of the affections.”
“You’re a scholar!” cried the Professor. “Rarely do I meet a man with such a fine sense of terminology!”
“Glad you’re pleased. But, Professor, neither do I choose you as historian of the affairs of Black Aspens. Let me see,” his eyes roved from one to another, “it seems to me I’ll get the most straightforward, uncoloured statement from a clerical mind. I think Mr. Tracy can tell me, in the way I want to hear it, a concise story of the mysteries and tragedies you have been through up here.”
Mr. Tracy looked at the detective gravely.
“I am quite willing to do what I can,” he said, “and I will tell the happenings as I know them. For occasions when I was not present, or where my memory fails, the others will, I trust, be allowed to help me out.”
And then, the whole matter was laid before the intelligence of Pennington Wise, and with a rapt look of interest and a few pointed questions here and there, the detective listened to the history of his new case.
At last, the account having been brought up to date, Wise nodded his head, and sat silent for a moment. It was not the melodramatic silence of one affecting superiority, but the more impressive quietude of a mind really in deep thought.
Then Wise said, simply, “I’ve heard nothing yet to make me assume any supernatural agency. ’Ve you, Zizi?”
“No,” came a soft, thin voice from the shadowy depths of the rear hall.
Milly jumped. “Has she been there all the time?” she said.
“She’s always there,” returned Wise, in a matter-of-fact way. “Now I’m ready to declare that the deaths of your two friends are positively not due to spiritistic wills, but are dastardly murders, cleverly accomplished by human hands and human brains.”
“How?” gasped Eve Carnforth. She was leaning forward, her beryl eyes dilated and staring, her hands clenched, her slender form trembling with excitement.
“That I do not know yet, – do you, Zizi?”
“No,” came tranquilly from the distance.
“Let that girl come here,” cried Milly, pettishly. “It gets on my nerves to have her speaking from way back there!”
“Come here, Zizi,” directed Penny Wise, and the slim young figure glided toward them. She was a mere slip of a girl, a wisp of humanity, in a flimsy frock of thin black stuff, with a touch of coral-tinted chiffon in bodice and sash. The skirt was short, and her black silk stockings and high-heeled pumps gave her a chic air. Her black hair was drawn smoothly back, in the prevailing mode, and though she had an air of world-knowledge, she was inconspicuous in effect.
Without a glance at the people, personally, she sat down in a chair, a little apart, yet in full view of all.
Wise paid no attention to her, and went on, thoughtfully. “No, there is no evidence pointing to the occult, but innumerable straws to show which way the camel’s back is to be broken.”
“Mr. Wise,” said Eve, determinedly, “I don’t think it is fair for you to hear the story only from Mr. Tracy. I think he is opposed to a belief in psychics and so unintentionally colours his narrative to lead away from such theories.”
“That may be so,” said Tracy, himself, looking thoughtfully at Eve; “and I agree it would be fairer to hear the story, or parts of it, retold by Miss Carnforth or some one who fully believes in spiritism.”
“Right,” said Wise; “go ahead, Miss Carnforth, tell me anything that seems to you different in meaning from what Mr. Tracy has described.”
Quite willing, Eve told of the ghostly visitant that had appeared to her the night she slept in the Room with the Tassels, and then described vividly the ghost that had appeared to Vernie, as Vernie had told it to her.
“You see,” she concluded, “there is no explanation for these things, other than supernatural, for the locks and bars on the house preclude intrusion of outsiders, and all the occupants of the house are accounted for. I tell you the things just as they happened.”
“With no wish to be discourteous, Miss Carnforth, I would advise you to tell those tales to the submarines. Even the marines couldn’t swallow those! Could they, Zizi?”
“No,” and now that they could see the girl, all noticed a slight smile of amusement on her young face. It was quickly followed by a look of horror in her black eyes, as she murmured, “What awful frights you must have had!” and she glanced at Milly, in sympathy. Then she turned toward Norma, and seemed about to speak, but thought better of it.
Not looking toward his “property,” Wise went on talking. “I can readily see how any one willing to believe in the occult could turn these weird happenings into plausible proof. But it is not so. Miss Carnforth’s own story convinces me even more strongly that there has been diabolical cleverness used, but by a human being, not a phantom.”
“And you will discover how, you will solve the mysteries?” asked the Professor, eagerly.
“I hope to. But it is the most difficult appearing case I have ever encountered.”
“It is not an eleventh case, then?” and Professor Hardwick told again of Andrew Lang’s percentage of proof.
“No, it is not. It is one of the ten that are the result of fraud. Now to find the perpetrator of the fraud.”
“At least you must admit, Mr. Wise,” said Eve, a little spitefully, “that your saying it is a case of fraud does not make it so.”
“No,” agreed Wise, smiling in an exasperatingly patronizing way, “it sure does not. In fact it has already made itself so.”
“And your discovery of the means used is bound to come?” asked Tracy, with interest.
“Bound to come,” repeated the detective. “But don’t let us begin by being at odds with each other. I came here to discover the truth. If any one wants the truth to remain undiscovered, now is the time to say so. For it will soon be too late.”
“Why should any one want the truth to remain undiscovered?” said Braye, abruptly.
“For two reasons,” replied Wise, seriously. “First, any one criminally implicated might wish it to remain unknown; second, any one wishing to shield another, might also wish no discoveries made.”
“But you don’t think any of us are criminally implicated, I hope,” and Braye looked questioning.
“There are others in this house beside you people,” Wise returned; “and I tell you frankly, I’m not ready yet to suspect any one or even imagine who the criminal may be. I only state positively that disembodied spirits are not responsible for those two tragic deaths. Also, may I ask you to remember, that I’ve only just arrived, that I’ve had a tiresome journey, that I’d like rest and refreshment, and that there are more days coming for my further work.”
“Why, bless my soul!” exclaimed the Professor, “that’s all true! Do you know, Mr. Wise, it seems as if you’d always been here, it seems as if you were already one of us.”
“Thank you, sir, that’s a pleasant compliment to my personality, anyway. And now, if you please, Mrs. Landon, may I be shown to my room?”
“Certainly,” said Milly, and she rang for Thorpe, as Landon rose to escort the guest himself.
“Where’s that girl?” said Norma, looking round after the detective had gone off, “what became of her?”
But there was no sight of the little black-robed figure.
“Oh, let her alone,” said Eve, “she slid out to the kitchen, I think. Hester will look after her. That man said to pay no more attention to her than to his hand luggage. She’ll look out for herself, I’ve no doubt. Isn’t she awful, anyway?”
“I think she’s pretty,” said Norma, “in a weird, elfin sort of way.”
“She knows it all,” said Braye. “I never saw such an effect of old head on young shoulders in my life. But what a funny way to treat her.”
“She’s a spy,” declared Eve, “that’s what she is, a spy! With her silent, gliding ways, and her sly, soft voice! I hate her!”
“Now, now, Evie, don’t be unjust!” and Braye smiled at her. “She is a bit your style and temperament, but don’t be jealous!”
“Nonsense!” and Eve laughed back at him, “why, she isn’t a bit like me! She has black hair and eyes – ”
“I didn’t notice,” said Braye, “but she impressed me as being like you in lines and motions.”
“A pocket edition,” laughed Tracy. “Miss Carnforth would make two of that little shrimp, and Miss Carnforth is a sylph, herself.”
The party broke up into smaller groups, and Braye and Norma sauntered off for their usual afternoon stroll.
Eve watched them go, her eyes moodily staring.
“Won’t I do?” said Tracy’s quiet voice, and Eve pulled herself together and smiled at him.
“You’re the one I want most,” she declared gaily, unwilling to be thought disappointed. “Let’s walk down by the lake.”
The walk by the lake was always shaded, but as the day was murky it was gloomier than ever.
“You like this place?” asked Tracy, with a glance at the black grove of aspens, and their dark reflection in the still water of the deep pool.
“Yes, I do; or, I did, until that man came up here. There’s no use in pursuing our investigations with him around.”
“All the more use,” declared Tracy. “If any supernatural things happen it will refute his cocksure decisions.”
“Yes, it would. Oh, I do wish a ghost would appear to him, and scare him out of his wits!”
“He has plenty of wits, Miss Carnforth, and he’d take some scaring, I think. But if a real phantasm came, he’d know it, and he’d acknowledge it, I’m sure. He strikes me as an honourable man, and a decent, straightforward sort.”
“If he is,” and Eve ruminated, “perhaps he can help us to investigate – ”
“That’s what he’s here for.”
“I mean investigate our beliefs. If he could be convinced, as we are, of the existence of phantoms, and of their visitations, he’d be a splendid help, wouldn’t he? Perhaps I am in wrong in disliking him.”
“You’re certainly premature. Why, not one man out of a thousand does believe in the occult. And not one in a million detectives, I daresay.”
Meantime, Braye and Norma were talking in like vein.
“I do believe it was a spirit that killed our dear Vernie, and Mr. Bruce,” Norma declared, “but if Mr. Wise can prove the contrary, we want him to do so, don’t we, Rudolph?”
“Of course, Norma, we all feel that way. I, especially, for as heir to Uncle Gif’s money, I’m in a peculiar position. But if anybody can get at the truth, this Wise person can. He’s a live wire, I can see that.”
“Shall we help him, Rudolph, or hold back and let him work alone?”
“Help him, of course! Why not? But, be careful that it is help we offer him, and not merely stupid interference.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing particular; but some of us are inclined to be a bit officious, and – oh, I don’t know, Norma, – I don’t want to say anything – even to you. Let’s talk of pleasanter subjects.”
“What, for instance?”
“You, for instance! You’re enchanting to-day, in that pale blue gown. It makes you look like an angel.”
“Do they wear pale blue?”
“I don’t know what they wear, and shan’t care until you really are one, and then, I hope I’ll be one, too. But you look like an angel, because of your angelic face. It’s like a roseleaf washed in sunlight – ”
“Now, Rudolph, don’t try to be poetical! You can’t hit it off! A washed face is remindful of a soap advertisement, – not an angel!”
“Rogue! You love to make fun of me! But I don’t mind. Oh, Norma, I don’t care what you say to me, if you’ll only say yes. Won’t you, dearest?”
“Bad boy! Behave yourself! I told you not to ask any question until we get away from this place. I won’t listen to love talk at Black Aspens! It’s out of the picture!”
“But will you, as soon as we get back to New York? Will you, Norma – darling?”
“Wait till then, and we’ll see,” was all the answer he could get.
CHAPTER XIV
Zizi
“Where is she?” Milly asked of Hester, as, more out of curiosity than hospitality she went to the kitchen.
“Well! Mis’ Landon, I never see such a thing in all my born days! She slid out here like she was on roller-skates! ‘Hester?’ she says, smilin’, and with that she settled herself for good and all, ’sif she’d been born an’ brought up here! She slid to the cupboard, and picked out the tea caddy, and took down a little teapot, and in a jiffy, she’d snatched up the b’ilin’ teakettle, and was settin’ at that there table, drinkin’ her tea! I got her out some cakes, and by then she was a-cuttin’ bread an’ butter! Never’ve I seen her like!”
“Did she trouble you?”
“Land, no, ma’am! She waits on herself, but so quick, you’d think she was a witch!”
“Where is she now?”
“Well, ma’am, she finished her tea, and then she fair scooted up the back stairs. I heard her dart into one or two rooms, and then she took the little South gable room for hers. I could hear her stepping about, putting her things away, I make no doubt. She looked in here again, a minute, and said, ‘I’ve chosen that little room with the lattice wall paper,’ and then she disappeared again. That’s all I know about her. No, ma’am, she don’t trouble me none, and I don’t say I don’t sort o’ take to her. But she’s a queer little piece. She is that.”
Milly sighed. “Every thing’s queer, Hester,” she said, broodingly, and then she went back to the hall.
Wynne Landon sat there alone. His face was grave, and he sighed deeply as his wife came to him and laid her hand on his shoulder.
“Where’s everybody, Wynnsie?” she said cheerily.
“Traipsing over the house, hunting clues! Rotten business, Milly.”
“Why? What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing. I hope if that man is going to find the criminal, he’ll make short work of it!”
“So do I, dear, then we can go home, can’t we?”
“You bet! Here they are, now, – they seem in good spirits.”
The crowd came down the stairs and into the great hall, laughing at some quip of Wise’s. Ever since the day of the two deaths a sombre gloom had pervaded the whole place, and smiles had been few. The sound of laughter came as a shock to the Landons, but the cheery face of Penny Wise betokened only wholesome good nature, and not flippant heartlessness.
“Old Montgomery knew how to build a house,” he commented, looking at the finely curving staircase, and its elaborate balusters. “Living rooms nowadays are all very well, but these great entrance halls are finer places to congregate. You spend much of your time here, I’m sure. The worst part is, they’re difficult to light properly, – by daylight, I mean. And, you’ve no electrics here, have you?”
“No,” replied Landon, “only kerosene and candles. You see, the place has been unoccupied for years.”
“Haunted houses are apt to be, – ”
“Reputed haunted houses,” corrected the Professor.
“There are no others,” and Wise grinned. “All reputed haunted houses have nothing to haunt them but their repute. I mean, the story of their ghost is all the ghost they have.”
“But I saw the ghost here,” and Eve spoke with a quiet dignity that defied contradiction.
“Of course you did,” Wise assented. “The ghost came purposely to be seen.”
“Did you ever see one, Mr. Wise?”
“I never did, Miss Carnforth, I never hope to see one! But I can tell you anyhow, I’d rather see than be one.”
“Oh, of course, if you’re going to take that tone,” and Eve turned away, decidedly offended.
“Sorry!” and Wise flashed a smile at her. “But, you see, a detective can’t afford to believe in ghosts. We make our living solving mysteries, and to say, ‘It was the ghost! You’re right, it was the ghost!’ is by way of begging the question.”
“Then you think the phantoms that appeared to some of us were really human beings?” asked Tracy, interestedly.
“I sure do.”
“And you propose to find out who and how?” said Braye.
“If I live up to my reputation, I must do so. There are but two kinds of detectives. Effective detectives and defective detectives. It is the aim of my life to belong to the former class, and here’s my chance to make good. Now, I’ve examined the upper floors, I’ll look over this hall and the ground floor rooms. Shall I have time before dinner, Mrs. Landon?”
His charm and pleasant personality had already won Milly’s liking and she said, cordially, “Yes, indeed, Mr. Wise. And if you wish, we’ll delay dinner to suit your pleasure.”
“Not at all. Done in a few minutes. Stunning hall, eh, Zizi?”
“Yes,” said the thin little voice of the thin little girl, and Milly suddenly realized that Zizi was present with the crowd.
The graceful little figure stepped forward and stood at Wise’s side as he looked the hall over. He tapped at the panelled walls, and smiled as he said, “Solid and intact. No secret passage or sliding panel, – of that I’m sure.”
“If you’re trying to find a secret entrance into the house, Mr. Wise,” Landon said, “you are wasting your time. I am more or less architecturally inclined, and I’ve tapped and sounded and measured and calculated, – and I can assure you there’s nothing of the sort.”
“Good work! That saves me some trouble, I’m sure. Marvellous work on these doors, eh? And the bronze columns, – from abroad, I take it.”
“Yes;” Professor Hardwick said, slapping his hand against one of the fluted bronze pillars, “I admire these columns more than the doors even. They’re unique, I don’t wonder their owner ‘built a house behind them.’ I doubt if their match is in America.”
“And the locks and bolts are as ponderous as the doors,” commented the detective. “Eh, Zizi?”
“They are like that all over the house,” said the girl, in a casual tone. “Even the kitchen quarters are as securely fastened and bolted. And upstairs, any doors that give on balconies are strongly guarded. I have never seen a house more carefully looked after in the matter of barricades.”
The girl spoke slowly, as if on the witness stand. Then suddenly her black eyes twinkled, and she turned sharply toward Eve, saying, “Oh, do you do that, too?”
“Do what?” cried Eve, angrily. “What do you mean?”
“Scribble notes, and pass ’em to somebody. I do, too. It’s a habit I can’t seem to break myself of.”
“I didn’t!” and Eve’s face flushed and her eyes glittered with a smouldering fire.
“Oh, tra la la,” trilled Zizi, and nonchalantly turned away.
“Now for the Room with the Tassels,” said Wise, and led the way to the fateful room.
“Ghastly, ghostly and grisly!” he declared after a quick survey, “but no entrance except by door or windows.”
“And they were locked every time the room was slept in by any of our party,” announced the Professor, positively.
“That makes it easier,” smiled Wise. “You see, I feared secret panels and that sort of thing, – not uncommon in old houses. But you’ve found none?”
“None,” asseverated Landon. “If your theory of a human ‘ghost’ is right, you’ve got to account for the forcing of the big bolts of those front doors or – ”
“Or suspect some of your household,” concluded Wise, practically. “Well, I haven’t suspected any one as yet; I’m just absorbing facts, on which to base my theories. Now, for the drawing room.”
The long sombre, old-fashioned room received scant examination.
“Nothing doing, Zizi?” said Wise, briefly.
“Only a Bad Taste Exhibition,” the girl remarked, making a wry face at the ornate decorations and appointments. Then, with her peculiar, gliding motion, she slid across the hall again, and examined the knob and lock on the door of the Room with the Tassels.
“Fascinating room,” she said, with a glance round it. “But horrible,” and her thin shoulders shrugged. “Those tassels are enough to make a hen cross the road!”
Milly giggled, and for the first time since the day of the tragedies.
Dinner was rather pleasant than otherwise. The detective, laying aside all thought or talk of his purpose there, was entertaining and even merry. He spoke somewhat of himself, and it transpired that he was an artist, – an illustrator of current magazine stories.
“And Zizi is my model,” he informed them, “that is, when I want a thin, scarecrow type. I don’t use her for the average peach heroine. Look out Ziz, don’t eat too much of that potato puff! You see, if she puts on a bit of flesh, she runs straight back to the movie studios.”
“Ah, a film star?” said Braye.
“Not a star,” and Wise shook his head. “But a good little actress for a brat part.”
Zizi flashed an amused smile from her black eyes and partook again of the forbidden potato puff.
“Zizi! For the love of Mike!” expostulated Wise.
“The love of Mike is the root of all evil,” said Zizi, saucily; “but then, everything is.”
“Is what?” asked Eve, interested against her will in this strange child.
“Is the root of all evil,” was the calm reply.
“Whew! this must be an evil old world!” exclaimed Braye.
“And isn’t it?” Zizi flashed back, her big eyes sparkling like liquid jet.
“Are you a pessimist, little one?” asked the Professor, studying the clever, eerie face.
“Nay, nay, Pauline,” and the small, pointed chin was raised a bit. “Not so, but far otherwise.”
“Then why do you think the world is evil?”
“Ah, sir, when one spends one’s life between a Moving Picture Studio and a popular artist’s studio, one learns much that one had better left unlearnt.”
The child face suddenly looked ages old, and then, as suddenly broke into a gay smile: “Don’t ask me these things,” she said, “ask Penny Wise. I’m only his Pound Foolish.”
“You’ll put on another foolish pound if you eat any more of that dessert,” growled Wise, scowling at her.
“All right, I won’t,” and the slender little fingers laid down the teaspoon Zizi was using. Then, in an audible aside, she added, “Hester will give me more, later,” and chuckled like a naughty child.
The next morning Pennington Wise set about his work in earnest. “I’m going to East Dryden,” he announced. “I want to interview the doctors, also Mr. Stebbins. I don’t mind saying frankly, this is the deepest mystery I have ever encountered. If any of you here can help me, I beg you will do so, for the case looks well-nigh hopeless. Ah, there, Zizi.”
The girl appeared, ready to go with Wise in the motor car. She wore a small black hat with an oriole’s wing in it, and a full-draped black cape, whose flutterings disclosed an orange-coloured lining. Inconspicuous, save when the cape’s lining showed, Zizi looked distinguished and smartly costumed. A small black veil, delicately adjusted, clouded her sharp little features, and she sprang into the car without help, and nestled into a corner of the tonneau.
Only a chauffeur accompanied them, and he could not hear the conversation carried on in low tones.
“What about it, Ziz?” murmured Wise, as they passed the aspen grove and the black lake.
“Awful doings,” she returned, merely breathing the words. “The Eve girl has a secret, too.”
“Too?”
“Yes, she isn’t the criminal, you know.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you will know. She’s a queer mechanism, but she never killed anybody.”
“Sure, Zizi?”
“Sure, oh, Wise Guy. Now, who did do it?”
“Well, who did?”
“We don’t know yet, and we mustn’t theorize without data, you know.”
“Rats! I always theorize without data. And I’ve never failed to corral the data.”
“You’re a deuce of a deducer, you are!”
“And you’re a She Sherlock, I suppose! Well, oh, Mine of Wisdom, go ahead. Spill it to me.”
“Can’t now. I’ve lost my place! But, after a few more interviews with some few more interested parties, I may, perhaps, possibly, maybe, – oh, Penny, look back at the house from here! Did you ever see such a weird, wild spook-pit!”
Black Aspens did indeed look repellent. No one was in sight, and the grove of black, waving trees, mirrored in the deep black shadows of the lake gave it all a doomed effect that the dull, leaden sky intensified.
The grim old house seemed the right abode for evil spirits or uneasy wraiths, and Zizi, fascinated by the still scene continued to gaze backward until a turn of the road hid it from view.
