Penny Wise and Zizi
And so it was at this stage of affairs that Pennington Wise got into the
game. He willingly agreed to take up the case, for the mystery of it
appealed to him strongly, and by a stroke of good luck he was not
otherwise engaged.
He had promised to call at Miss Raynor's, and as she had asked me to be
present also, I went up there, reaching the house before Wise did.
"What's he like?" Olive inquired of me.
"Good-looking sort of chap, without being handsome," I told her. "You'll
like his personality, I'm sure, whether he helps us out of our troubles
or not."
"I don't care a fig for his personality," she returned, "but I do want
him to solve our two mysteries. I suppose you'll think I'm dreadful,--but
I'd rather Mr. Wise would find Amory Manning for me, than to discover
Uncle Amos' murderer."
"I don't blame you at all for that. Of course, we want to find the
criminal, but even more, I too, want to find Mr. Manning for you."
"And, anyway, I suppose the police think now that Mr. Rodman did it."
"They don't go so far as to say that, but they're hunting up evidence,
and they've got hold of some pretty damaging information. It seems Rodman
was mixed up in some wrongdoing, and it begins to look as if Mr. Gately
was in some way connected with it,--at least, to a degree."
"If he was, then he didn't know it was wrong." Olive spoke with deep
conviction, and I didn't try to disabuse her mind.
And then Pennington Wise was announced.
As he entered the room his manner showed no trace of self-consciousness,
and as I had anticipated, Olive was greatly pleased with her first
glimpse of him. But to her surprise, and mine also, he was accompanied,
or rather followed, by a young woman, a mere slip of a girl, who paused
and stood quietly by.
As Olive smiled at her inquiringly, Wise said:
"That's Zizi. She's part of my working paraphernalia, and will just sit
and listen while we talk."
The girl was fascinating to look at. Slight of build, she had a lithe
suppleness that made her every motion a gesture of grace, and her pretty
smile was appreciative and responsive. She had black hair and very black
eyes, which sparkled and danced as she took in her surroundings. But she
said no word, acknowledging her brief introduction only by a slight bow,
and accepting the chair that Olive offered, she sat quietly, her small
gloved hands resting in her lap.
She wore a black suit with a fine set of black fox furs. Unfastening the
fur collar, she disclosed a black blouse of soft, thin material which
fell away from her slender white throat in becoming fashion.
Her manner was correct in every particular, and she sat in an
unembarrassed silence as Wise proceeded to talk.
"I know all that has been in the papers," he said, somewhat abruptly,
"now, I'd like you to tell me the rest. I can't help feeling there must
be more in the way of evidence or clews than has been made public. First
of all, do _you_ think Mr. Rodman the guilty man?"
He addressed himself mainly to Olive, though including me in his
inquiring glance.
"I'm sure I don't know," Olive returned; "I won't believe, however, that
Amos Gately was involved in any sort of wrong. His honor and integrity
were of the highest type,--I knew him intimately enough to certify to
that."
"What sort of wrongdoing is this Rodman accused of?" asked Wise.
"Nobody seems willing to tell that," I answered, as Olive shook her head.
"I've inquired of the police, and they decline to reveal just what they
do suspect him of. But I think it's something pretty serious, and they're
tracking it down as fast as they can."
"You see," Olive put in, "if Mr. Rodman is such a bad man, he may have
hoodwinked Mr. Gately and made him believe something was all right when
it was all wrong."
"Of course he might," said Wise, sympathetically. "Did people come here
to the house to see Mr. Gately on business?"
"No; never. Uncle had few visitors, but they were always just his
friends, not business callers."
"Then most of our search must be in his offices. You noticed nothing
there, Mr. Brice, that seemed indicative?"
Then I told him about the hatpin and the carriage check; and I also
related how Norah had found and kept the "powder-paper" that she picked
out of the waste basket.
Zizi's eyes flashed at this, and she said, "Has she traced it?"
It was the first time the girl had spoken, and I was charmed with her
voice. Low and soft, it had also a bell-like quality, and seemed to leave
a ringing echo in the air after she ceased speaking.
"Yes; to the shop where it was bought," I replied. "As Norah guessed, it
came from a very high-class perfumer's on Fifth Avenue. But of course he
could not tell us to whom he had sold that particular paper."
"I'd like to see it," said Zizi, simply, and again relapsed into silence.
"Norah must be a bright girl," observed Wise, "and she has made a good
start by finding the shop. Perhaps we can carry the trail further. It
wasn't yours, Miss Raynor?"
"No; I use a paler tint. This one, I have seen it, is quite a deep pink."
"Indicating a brunette possibly. Now, it's not likely it belonged to that
old Mrs. Driggs, so we must assume another woman in the office that day.
And we must discover who she is."
"There is the hatpin, you know," said Olive. "I have it here, if you care
to see it. But the police decided it meant nothing."
"Nothing means nothing," said Zizi, with a funny little smile. "Please
let us see the hatpin."
Olive took it from a desk drawer and handed it to the girl, who
immediately passed it over to Penny Wise.
He looked at it with interest, for a silent minute.
"There couldn't be a better _portrait parlé_!" he exclaimed. "This pin
belongs to a lady with dark, straight hair,--coarse, and lots of it. She
has good teeth, and she is proud of them. Her tastes incline to the
flashy, and she is fond of strong perfumes. She is of somewhat untidy
habits and given to sentiment. She is intellectual and efficient and, if
not wealthy, she has at least a competence."
"For gracious goodness sake!" gasped Olive; "and I've studied that hatpin
for hours and never could deduce a thing!"
"What I have read from it may be of no use to us," said Wise,
indifferently; "I think it will be a sufficient indication of which way
to look to find the lady in question, but that doesn't necessarily mean
the finding of her will do any good."
"But she may know something to tell us that will do good," Olive
suggested; "at any rate, let's find her. How will you go about it?"
"Why, I think it will be a good plan to ask the stenographer, Jenny Boyd,
if she ever saw anyone there who fits our description."
"She's the lady of the powder-paper, maybe," murmured Zizi, and Penny
Wise said, "Of course," in a preoccupied way, and went on:
"That Jenny person must be further grilled. She hasn't told all she
knows. She was in Mr. Gately's employ but a short time and yet she picked
up a lot of information. But she hasn't divulged it all, not by a long
shot!"
"How do you know all this?" asked Olive, wonderingly.
"I've read the papers. I have an unbreakable habit of reading between the
lines, and I think Miss Jenny has been persuaded by somebody to suppress
certain interesting bits of evidence that would fit right into our
picture puzzle."
"May I come in?" said a gentle voice, and Mrs. Vail appeared in the
doorway.
As we rose to greet her, Olive presented Mr. Wise, and then Mrs. Vail
permitted herself the luxury of a stare of genuine curiosity.
His whimsical smile charmed her, and she was most cordial of speech and
manner. Indeed, so absorbed was she in this new acquaintance that she
didn't even see Zizi, who sat, as always, back and in the shadow.
"Don't let me interrupt," said Mrs. Vail, fluttering into a chair. "Just
go on as if I were not here. I'm _so_ interested, just let me listen! I
won't say a word. Oh, Olive dear, did you show Mr. Wise the letter?"
"No; it's unimportant," replied the girl.
"But I don't think it is, my dear," Mrs. Vail persisted. "You know it
might be a--what do they call it?--a clew. Why, I knew a lady once----"
"A letter is always important," said Zizi from her corner, and Mrs. Vail
jumped and gave a startled exclamation.
"Who's that?" she cried, peering through her _lorgnon_ in the direction
of the voice.
"Show yourself, Zizi," directed Wise. "This is my assistant, Mrs. Vail.
She is in our council but not of it. I can't explain her exactly, but
you'll come to understand her."
Zizi leaned forward and gave Mrs. Vail a pleasant if indifferent smile,
then sank back to her usual obscurity.
The girl was, Wise had said, a negligible personality, and yet whenever
she spoke she said something!
Mrs. Vail looked bewildered, but apparently she was prepared to accept
anything, however strange, in connection with detective work.
"Well," she observed, "as that pretty little thing says, a letter is
always important, and I think you ought to show it, Olive. I had a letter
once that changed the whole current of my life!"
"What is this letter, Miss Raynor?" asked Wise, in a matter-of-fact way.
"One I received in this morning's mail," Olive replied; "I paid no
attention to it, because it was anonymous. Uncle Amos told me once never
to notice an anonymous letter,--always to burn and forget it."
"Good enough advice, in general," said Wise; "but in such serious matters
as we have before us any letter is of interest."
"Is the letter written by a woman, and signed 'A Friend'?" asked Zizi in
her soft voice.
"Did you write it?" cried Olive, turning to the wraith-like girl who sat
so quietly behind her.
"Oh, no, no, no! _I_ didn't write it," and the demure little face showed
a fleeting smile.
"Then how did you know? For it _is_ signed 'A Friend,' but I don't know
whether it was a woman who wrote it or not."
"It was," and Zizi nodded her sleek little black head. She had removed
her hat and placed it on a nearby chair, and as she nestled into her furs
which formed a dark background, her small white face looked more eerie
than ever. "Ninety per cent. of all anonymous letters are written by
women, and ninety per cent. of these are signed 'A Friend.' Though
usually that is a misstatement."
"May I see the letter?" asked Wise.
"Sure; I'll get it."
It was Zizi who spoke! And rising, she went swiftly across the room, to a
desk, and from a pigeonhole took an opened letter, which she carried to
Wise, and then dropped back into her seat again.
Mrs. Vail gave a surprised gasp, and Olive looked her amazement.
"How did you know where to find that?" she exclaimed, her great brown
eyes wide with wonder.
"Dead easy," said Zizi, nonchalantly; "you've scarcely taken your eyes
off that spot, Miss Raynor, since the letter was mentioned!"
"But even though I looked at the desk, how could you pick out the very
letter, at once?"
"Oh, I looked at the desk, too. And I saw your morning's mail, pretty
well sorted out. There's a pile of bills, a pile of what are unmistakably
social notes, and, up above in a pigeonhole, all by itself, was this
letter. You glanced at it a dozen times or more, so I couldn't help
knowing."
Olive laughed. One couldn't help liking the strange girl whose expression
was so earnest, even while her black eyes were dancing.
Meanwhile, Penny Wise examined the missive.
"I'll read it aloud?" and he glanced at Olive, who acquiesced by a nod.
"Miss Raynor:
"Quit looking for slayer of A.G. or you'll be railroaded in yourself.
This is straight goods. Call off all Tecs, or beware consequences. Will
not warn twice!
"A Friend."
"A woman," Pennington Wise said in a musing voice, after he read it.
"A business woman," added Zizi from her corner.
"A stenographer maybe," Wise went on, and Olive cried:
"Do you mean Jenny?"
"Oh, no; this is written by a woman with more brains than Jenny ever
dreamed of. A very clever woman in fact."
"Who?" breathed Olive, her eager face flushing in her interest and
anxious to know more.
"I don't know that, Miss Raynor, but----"
"Oh, Mr. Wise," broke in Mrs. Vail; "you are so wonderful! Won't you
explain how you do it, as you go along?"
She spoke as if he were a conjurer.
"Anything to oblige," Wise assented. "Well, here's how it looks to me.
The writer of this letter is a business woman, not only because she uses
this large, single sheet of bond paper, but because she knows how to use
it. She is a stenographer,--by that I do not necessarily mean that is her
business,--she may have a knowledge of stenography, and be in some much
more important line of work. But she is an accomplished typist and a
rapid one. This, I know, of course, from the neat and uniform typing. She
is clever, because she has used this non-committal paper, which is in no
way especial or individual. She is a business woman, again, because she
uses such expressions as 'quit,' railroaded,' 'Tecs,' 'straight
goods,'----"
"Which she might do by way of being misleading----" murmured Zizi.
"Too many of 'em, and too casually used, Ziz. A society girl trying to
pose as a business woman never would have rolled those words in so
easily. I should have said a newspaper woman but for a certain
peculiarity of style which indicates,--what, Zizi?"
"You've got it; a telegraph operator."
"Exactly. Do you know any telegrapher, Miss Raynor?"
"No, indeed!" and Olive looked astounded at the suggestion that she
should number such among her acquaintances. "Are you sure?"
"Looks mighty like it. The short sentences and the elimination of
personal pronouns seem to me to denote a telegraph girl's diction. And
she is very clever! She has sent the carbon copy of the letter and not
the outside typing."
"Why?" I asked.
"To make it less traceable. You know, typewriting is very nearly as
individual as pen-writing. The differentiations of the machine as well as
of the user's technique, are almost invariably so pronounced as to make
the writing recognizable. Now these peculiarities, while often clear on
the first paper, are blurred more or less on the carbon copy. So 'A
Friend,' thinking to be very canny, has sent the carbon. This is a new
trick, though I've seen it done several times of late. But it isn't so
misleading as it is thought to be. For all the individual peculiarities
of the typewriter,--I mean, the machine, are almost as visible on this as
on the other. I've noticed them in this case, easily. And moreover, this
would-be clever writer has overreached herself! For a carbon copy smudges
so easily that it is almost impossible to touch it, even to fold the
sheet, without leaving a telltale thumb or finger print! And this
correspondent has most obligingly done so!"
"Really!" breathed Zizi, with a note of satisfaction in her low voice.
"And the peculiarities,--what are they?" asked Olive.
"The one that jumps out and hits me first is the elevated _s_. Look,--and
you have to look closely, Miss Raynor,--in every instance the letter _s_
is a tiny speck higher than the other letters."
"Why, so it is," and Olive examined the letter with deep interest; "but
how can you find a machine with an elevated _s_?"
"It isn't a sign-board, it's a proof. When we think we have the right
machine, the _s_ will prove it,--not lead us to it."
"Let me see," begged Mrs. Vail, reaching for the paper. "A friend of mine
is a stenographer; maybe she----"
"Excuse me," and Penny Wise folded the letter most carefully. "We can't
get any more finger prints on this paper, or we shall render it useless.
Now, Miss Raynor, I'm going. I'll take the letter, and I've little doubt
it will be a great help to me in my work. I will report to you from time
to time, but it may be a few days before I learn anything of importance.
Zizi?"
"Yes; I'll stay here," and the girl sat quietly in her chair.
"That means she'll take up her abode with you for the present, Miss
Raynor," and Wise smiled at Olive.
"Live here?"
"Yes, please. It is necessary, or she wouldn't do it."
"Oh, let her stay!" cried Mrs. Vail; "she's so interesting--and queer!"
The object of her comment gave her an engaging smile, but said nothing,
and beckoning me to go with him, Wise rose to take leave.
But I wanted to have a little further talk with Olive on several matters
and I told Wise I'd join him a little later.
"Be goody-girl, Zizi," he adjured as he went off, and she nodded her
head, but with a saucy grimace at the detective.
"My room?" she said, inquiringly, with a pretty, shy glance at Olive.
"I'm no trouble,--not a bit. Any little old room, you know."
"You shall have it in a few moments," and Olive went away to see the
housemaids about it.
Mrs. Vail snatched at a chance to talk uninterruptedly to the strange
girl.
"What is your work?" she inquired; "do you help Mr. Wise? Isn't he
wonderful! How you must admire him. I knew a detective once,--or, at
least, a man who was going to be a detective, but---- Oh, _do_ tell me
what your part of the work is!"
"I sit by," returned Zizi, with a dear little grin that took off all edge
of curtness.
"Sit by! Is that some technical term? I don't quite understand."
"I don't always understand myself," and the girl shook her head slowly;
"but I just remain silent until Mr. Wise wants me to speak,--to tell him
something, you know. Then I tell him."
"But how do _you_ know it?" I put in, fascinated by this strange child,
for she looked little more than a child.
"Ooh!" Zizi shuddered, and drew her small self together, her black eyes
round and uncanny-looking; "ooh! I donno how I know! I guess the bogie
man tells me!"
Mrs. Vail shuddered too, and gave a little shriek.
"You're a witch," she cried; "own up, now, aren't you a witch?"
"Yes, lady, lady! I _am_ a witch,--a poor little witch girl!" and Zizi
laughed outright at her own little joke.
If her smile had been charming, her laugh was more so. It was not only of
a silvery trill, but it was infectious, and Mrs. Vail and I laughed in
sympathy.
"What are you all laughing at?" said Olive, reappearing.
"At me," and Zizi spoke humbly now; "I made 'em laugh. Sorry!"
"Come along with me, you funny child," and Olive led her away, leaving me
to be the victim of Mrs. Vail's incessant stream of chatter.
The good lady volubly discussed the detective and his assistant and
detailed many accounts of people she had known. Her acquaintance was
seemingly a wide one!
At last Olive returned, smiling.
"I never saw anything like her!" she exclaimed; "I gave her a pretty
little room, not far from mine. I don't know, I'm sure, why she's staying
here, but I like to have her. Well, in about two minutes she had the
furniture all changed about. Not the heavy pieces, of course, but she
moved a small table and all the chairs, and finally unscrewed an electric
light bulb from one place and put it on another, and then, after looking
all about, she said, 'Just one thing more!' and if she didn't spring up
on to a table with one jump and take down quite a large picture! 'There,'
she said, and she set it out in the hall; 'I can't bear that thing! Now
this is a lovely room, and I thank you, Miss Raynor. The pink one we
passed is yours, isn't it?'
"'Yes; how did you know?' I asked her. And she said, 'I saw a photograph
of Mr. Manning on your bureau.' Little rascal! I can't help liking her!"