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.
Then she became silent, and would vouchsafe no answer to Wise's questions
or make any remarks of her own.
During the interview between the detective and Elijah Stebbins, she said
almost nothing, her big eyes staring at the owner of Black Aspens, until
the old man writhed in discomfort.
"How did you get in?" she shot at him, as he frankly admitted his
harmless tricks to give his tenants their desired interest in his house.
"I _was_ in, miss," Stebbins said, nervously twisting his fingers; "I
staid there the first night, and 'twas then I moved the old candlestick."
"I don't mean that," and Zizi's eyes seemed to bore through to his very
brain, "I mean the night you played ghost."
"Why,--I--that is,--they left a window open----"
"They did not!" Zizi shot at him, "and you know it! How did you get in?"
But old Stebbins persisted in his story of entrance by an overlooked
window.
"There's heaps of windows in that house," he declared. "Land, I could get
in any time I wanted to."
"Sure you could," retorted Zizi, "but not through a window!"
"How, then?" said Stebbins.
"That's what I asked you. I know."
"You know! _How_ do you know?"
"Your mama told my mama and my mama told me!" Zizi's mocking laughter so
incensed the old man that he shook with fury.
"You don't know!" he cried, "'cause there's nothin' to know! Land! All
them folks up there has hunted the place for secret entrances, and I
ruther think you have too," and he nodded at Wise.
"I have," said Wise, frankly, "and I've discovered none as yet. But,
listen here, friend Stebbins, if there is one, I will find it,--and
that's all there is about that!"
Zizi said nothing, having returned to her taciturn rôle, but the glance
she threw at Stebbins, he said afterward, made his blood run cold.
"She's a witch-cat!" he declared to his cronies, when telling the tale,
"she ain't all human,--or _I'm_ a sinner!"
On their way to see Dan Peterson, Wise inquired concerning Zizi's
knowledge of a secret way to get into the house.
"A small bluff," she said, carelessly. "I dunno how he got in, I'm sure.
But I don't believe those people left a window conveniently open,
unless--they did it on purpose. Who does the locking up, do you know?"
"Mr. Landon, I believe."
"Quite so! It's a pity, isn't it Pen, how everything appears to wind
around back to that nice Mr. Landon!"
"Well, what now?"
"Well, if he and Stebbins were in cahoots----"
"Hold up, Zizi, don't run away with yourself! You're a day ahead of the
fair. Now, are you going to talk, in here at Peterson's, or sit like a
bump on a log,--smiling at grief?"
"I dunno; which would you?"
"Talk," said Wise, succinctly, and Zizi talked.
Indeed, she carried on the main part of the conversation, which was
exactly what Wise had meant for her to do.
She charmed Peterson with her bright, alert air and her pleasant,
quick-witted way of putting things.
Together they went over the known details, and then she cleverly drew
from Peterson his deductions and decisions.
At first, inclined to resent the advent of this all-wise detective, he
now began to think that if they could work together, he would shine by
reflected glory, that is, if the new chap succeeded in solving the
mystery, which to him was inexplicable.
"I can't suspect the Thorpes or Mr. Stebbins," Peterson finally declared:
"I did think I could, but though Eli did cut up some tricks, they were
harmless and merely in fun. And, too, he has absolute alibis for all the
spook appearances after a certain date. And that's the date when that
Miss Carnforth saw a ghost. As near as I can make out, that ghost was
Stebbins himself, but no spooks after that was Stebbins' doings. Now, I
give you that straight and simple, Mr. Wise, but it took me a long time
to ferret it out. I suspected it, but I've had hard work to get Stebbins
to admit his tricks, and also to check up his alibis after that
particular night."
"These perfectly attested alibis are sometimes manufactured very
carefully," said Zizi, fixing her black eyes on Peterson.
"Yes, they are. That's why I checked up Eli's so carefully. But they're
all true. I've got an exact list of the spook performances from the
people at the house. I got the data from different ones, at different
times, so's to be sure they were all there. Then, I looked up Stebbins'
whereabouts on each occasion, and as I tell you, after the night he owns
up to playing ghost, he never did it again."
"Then did he arrange for the Thorpes or one of the waiting-maids to do
it?" queried Zizi.
"That I can't say. I think he must have done so, but I can't find a scrap
of proof, nor is there any motive. Stebbins is a good old sort and he
honestly wanted to give his tenants the ha'nts, as he calls 'em, that
they wanted. But why, on this good green earth, he should want to kill
two of them is unanswerable. No, take it from me, Eli Stebbins is no
murderer. I've looked up his record and his life story, and there's no
indication that he knew any of these people before they came up here, so
he couldn't have had any old grudge or family feud or anything of that
sort. Stebbins isn't the criminal, no sir-ee!"
"I never thought he was," said Wise, quietly. "You've done good work Mr.
Peterson, and you've saved me a heap of trouble in getting these facts so
undeniably established. I thank you, and I shall be glad of your
coöperation in my further work."
"Good for you, I'll be right down glad to work with you. And this young
lady, Mr. Wise, is she one of us?"
"She _is_ us," returned Wise, simply. "Don't bother about her, Mr.
Peterson, she's the sort that looks after herself. Report to me, please,
if you discover anything new."