The Room with the Tassels

“I know he was,” Eve spoke scornfully. “He was afraid, I’m positive. No one ought to have joined this party who was afraid.”

“We only asked him to fill in, you know,” said Milly, rather apologizing for the minister’s timidity. “And goodness knows, I’m afraid! Or I should be, if Wynne weren’t always with me. If that thing appeared to me, – well!”

Milly could find no words to express her horror, and Landon looked at her anxiously.

“It won’t,” said Zizi, reassuringly, “it won’t, Mrs. Landon.”

“How do you know?” said Eve, a bit abruptly.

“Your mama told my mama and my mama told me,” returned Zizi, who could put such graphic impudence into the silly phrase, that it was impossible not to be amused at it. “Oh, do you do that, too?” she added, as Eve bit her lip in annoyance. “So do I! It’s such a hard habit to break, ain’t it? But you oughtn’t to, it scars your lips. Now, Penny Wise, if you’ll go for a walk and a talk with your little otherwise, she’ll tell you sumpum that you ought to know.”

“Look out, Ziz,” Wise said to her, as they walked off by themselves, and followed the path by the lake, “you mustn’t be too saucy to Miss Carnforth, or there’ll be trouble.”

“Have to, honey. I’ve got to get her real mad at me, to find out her secret. She’s no criminal, as I’ve told you, but she knows who is.”

“Do you?”

“Not yet, but soon. Now, listen, while I expound a few. Friend Spook did appear to me last night.”

“Really?”

“Sure as shootin’! I thought it over, and decided I’d better not admit it to the gaping crowd, or we’ll never find out who does the stunt.”

“But, really, Zizi?”

“Yes, really, Pen. It was about two o’clock, – not four. A tall shape, draped in white, breezed in and toddled around trying to attract my attention. I lay there and looked sort of glassy-eyed, as if I was awake, but kinda hypnotized, you know. Well, I kept up that attitude, and the thing came nearer and leaned over me, and sure enough it had a skull for a face; but, land, Penny, it was a papier maché skull, – a mask, you know. ’Twould be fine in the movies, I must put Manager Reeves up to that dodge!”

“Go on, Ziz.”

“Well, the thing, – the person, I mean, for it was a real, live person all right, – sashayed around a bit, then gave a hollow groan, – I guess that’s what they call hollow, – and slid out. That’s all.”

“You’re a corker, Zizi! Why didn’t you yell?”

“I wanted to see the game. Then, when the pleasant-faced visitor left, I knew it was because I was supposed to have been sufficiently impressed. I thought it over, and I decided that at breakfast, I’d say I hadn’t seen anything, and see who looked self-conscious. And, by jiminy! nobody did! If any one around that table was my visiting spook, he or she carried it off something marvellous! Not one of ’em flickered an eyelash when I said I’d had a sweet, sound sleep all night. I can’t see how any one could be so self-controlled. Now, Penny, could it have been anybody who wasn’t at the breakfast table?”

“Meaning Stebbins or the Thorpes?”

“Oh, no! none of them! But how about some outsider, hired, you know, by somebody in the house.”

“How’d he get in?”

“There’s a secret way into this house. You needn’t tell me there isn’t. Just ‘cause you haven’t stumbled over it yet! Also, who’s doing the hiring?”

“You said everything came around toward Landon.”

“There’s motive there. You see, after Mr. Braye, Mr. Landon inherits all the Bruce fortune, and that’s millions.”

“What’s the matter with Braye being the murderer? He inherits first.”

“That’s just it. If Mr. Braye wanted to kill his relatives to get the fortune, he wouldn’t do it up here, where he’s so liable to be suspected. He’d invent some subtler way, or some less suspicious scheme. But Mr. Landon could do it up here, and feel sure the suspicion would fall on Mr. Braye. Then, you see, Mr. Braye gets the money, and later on, Mr. Landon puts him out, too. In some awfully clever way, that can’t be traced to him, d’y’ see? And, too, Mr. Braye has declared he’ll give all the money, if necessary, to discovering the criminal, if there is one. And he said, he’d give what was left to build a hospital. No, he doesn’t want the money that came to him in such an awful way, leastwise, not if it throws suspicion on him. He’s going to be cleared, or he’s not going to use the money for himself. Miss Carnforth told me all that, I’ve talked a lot with her.”

“You’ve talked with all of them, haven’t you?”

“Yes, indeed. I’ve babbled on, and most often they tell me a lot that they don’t realize. Mrs. Landon, now, she’s struggling hard not to suspect her own husband, but Miss Carnforth has said a few things that scare Mrs. Landon ’most to death. Oh, Penny, it’s a fearful case! We must fix it up, we must!”

“We will, Zizi. There’s so much evidence not to be denied, that we must ferret out what it really means. I’m getting a glimmer, but your help is invaluable. That was a stroke of genius for you not to tell of your ghost! Weren’t you frightened?”

“Not a bit. All I wanted to do, was to find out who it was. But I didn’t dare grab at it, for I knew it would get away. I hope it will come again. I’ll try to make it speak, and maybe I’ll get a line on the voice.”

“Was it a man or a woman?”

“I couldn’t tell. The draperies were long and full, and the skull-mask covered the face.”

“Didn’t you see the hand?”

“It was lost in the draped shawl. But I’m sure I’ll have another visit, and then I’ll get more information. You think I did well, oh, Wise Guy?”

“I do indeed!” and the approving smile that was Zizi’s most welcome reward lighted up the detective’s face.

Zizi pursued her plan of talking to the various people separately. She gleaned much this way and with her powers of lightning calculation, she put two and two together with astounding results.

She even lured the old Professor into a tête-à-tête conversation.

“No, I don’t believe those deaths were supernatural, now,” he said, thoughtfully; “I did, but it’s too incredible. However, it’s no more unbelievable than that they could have been accomplished by human power.”

“They were,” and Zizi’s black head nodded affirmation.

“How, then?”

“By a diabolically clever genius. Tell me again, Professor, just how those people were sitting? Were they together?”

“Mr. Bruce and Vernie? No. There was the width of the room between them.”

“Were you near either?”

“Yes, sitting next to Mr. Bruce. We were talking absorbedly.”

“Had he tasted his tea?”

“I think he had taken one sip, – not more, I’m sure.”

“There was poison in that tea, Professor.”

“There must have been, but how could there be?”

“Who gave it to him?”

“Let me see; Miss Carnforth presided, as Mrs. Landon was not at home. Miss Carnforth made the tea, and poured the cups, and Vernie and Mr. Tracy, – yes, and Mr. Landon were passing the things around. It was all most informal, we never have the servants in at tea-time. I couldn’t really say just who did give Mr. Bruce his cup. Vernie gave me mine, I think.”

“Well, the poison was put in Mr. Bruce’s cup, after Miss Carnforth fixed it for him.”

“Bless my soul, do you think so? That lets Braye out, then, for he wasn’t there.”

“You don’t suspect Mr. Braye, do you?”

“No; of course not; but I don’t really suspect anybody. But Mr. Braye is the heir, you know, and so may be said to have motive.”

“That is true of Mr. Landon, – in a way.”

“I can’t suspect either of those two, – it’s impossible.”

“Go on, Professor, tell me about the little girl’s death.”

“You’ve heard it before.”

“I know, but every little helps.”

“She was across the room. I was looking at Bruce, of course, when I heard an exclamation – ”

“From whom?”

“I don’t know; Miss Carnforth, I think. Any way, she and Tracy were bending over Vernie, – they had laid her on a couch, – and in a moment, they said she was dead. At the same time, Mr. Bruce breathed his last. It was all so fearful, so terrible, we were stunned. At least, I was, and one by one we pulled ourselves together, trying to realize what had happened.”

“All right, I know the rest. You’ve helped me a little – ”

“Do you suspect anybody? Does Mr. Wise? Tell me, child. I can doubtless be of help, if I know what to do.”

“No, Professor, you can’t help. It’s very awful, but it will soon be clear to all. Heaven help that poor Miss Carnforth.”

“Nonsense! Eve didn’t do it! Of that I’m certain.”

“So am I. Of course, Miss Carnforth didn’t do it. The tea was all right when she fixed Mr. Bruce’s cup.”

“Then who tampered with it? Not Vernie!”

But Zizi had run away. She had a way of making sudden exits and entrances, and one never knew where she was or when she would appear.

That night Zizi declared that she hoped the ghost would visit her. She said this openly, as the whole crowd were preparing to go to their rooms for the night.

“Perhaps it will,” said Wise, looking at her, thoughtfully. “If it called on Mr. Tracy last night, it may be here again to-night, and you may be favoured. Are you not afraid?”

“Not of the ghost,” said Zizi, “but I am afraid that some of you people may play a trick just to scare me. Will you double up, so I can feel sure there’s nothing of that sort?”

“I’ll take Mr. Tracy’s room,” said Mr. Wise, “then I can keep my eye on Mr. Braye and Professor Hardwick. Though I’ve no mental image of either of them trailing round in sheets!”

“I should say not!” and Braye shuddered. “No, Miss Zizi, you’ve nothing to fear from us.”

“Nor us,” Norma assured her. “I was going to sleep in the room with Miss Carnforth, anyway, and that will preclude either of us impersonating a phantom.”

“What an awful idea,” and Eve glowered at Zizi. “You don’t really think any of us would stoop to such a despicable thing, do you?”

“You never can tell,” said Zizi, nonchalantly. “Mrs. Landon, you won’t let your husband leave your room, will you?”

“No,” said Milly, not at all resenting the question which Zizi put to her in a gentle, pleading tone, very different from that she had used to the others.

And so, the inmates of the house being accounted for, and the doors and windows looked after with extra care and precaution, the household settled itself to quietness, and the dark hours passed, ticked off and struck by the great deep-toned clock in the hall.

It was between two and three, when Zizi, watching, perceived her door slowly and silently swing open.

Determined to learn all possible as to who the intruder could be, the girl lay motionless, but breathing deeply as if asleep.

Her eyes, almost closed, yet took in every movement of her silent visitor.

It was no white-robed ghost, but a tall figure, clad in a long black cloak, and wearing a black mask.

With a swift stride, that betokened a man, the figure approached the bed, having first softly closed the door that led to the hall.

Watching covertly for the next development, Zizi was all unprepared for what really happened.

The man, with a sudden, swift gesture, took the girl’s chin in one strong hand, and opened her mouth, while with the other he thrust in a thick soft cloth, saturated with chloroform.

Not enough to make her lose her senses entirely, it partially stupefied her, and the choking cloth prevented all speech.

Whipping off the long dark cloak he wore, the man flung it round Zizi, as he lifted the slender form from the bed.

Vainly trying to emit a shriek, or utter a groan, Zizi fell, half-conscious, back in the arms that supported her.

After an unknown interval, a draught of cool air on her face brought her back to a dim consciousness, and she realized she was out of doors. A struggle of her arms and legs resulted in a firmer grasp of the strong arms that carried her, and she quit moving, to think. She had been kidnapped, taken from her bed, and had been carried out of doors, but she had no knowledge of who her captor was nor by what means they had left the house. Her brain was furiously wide awake, but she made no move, lest more chloroform be administered, and she lose her regained consciousness.

On the shore of the black lake the man stopped, and set her on her feet. Her mouth, still filled with the soft cloth, was strained and painful, but the first attempt to raise her hand resulted in its being clutched by the strong hand of the man who swayed her destiny.

So slender and light was she, that he handled her as one might a child, and in his strong grasp she was as powerless as an infant.

Working quickly and deftly, he tied a strong rope round her ankles and to it attached what was only too evidently a bag of stones or bricks.

Then, without a word, he flung her into the deep, dark waters of the lake, and with one backward glance, he walked away.

CHAPTER XVI

What Happened to Zizi

“Just like a kitten!” Zizi sputtered; “just like a little, day-old kitten! Ugh! I’m as mad as a wet hen!”

She was sitting on the bank of the lake, dripping wet, daubed with mud, her black eyes snapping with anger.

When she had been thrown into the pool, the big, entangling cape had caught in the sedge grass that bordered the water, and clutching this, the girl had hung on till she could manage to slip her slim little feet from the rope that bound them. A stiff rope and clumsily tied, it had been possible to free herself, though she might not have been able to do it, but for her experiences as a moving picture actress. It was not the first time she had been flung into water, for her slim agility had proved useful in film thrillers, and acrobatic feats were her long suit.

Able, too, to remain under water for a few moments without breathing, she had freed herself from the rope, and scrambled up the bank almost as rapidly as she had been sent to her intended doom.

She had pulled the cloth from her mouth, and sat, breathing in good air, but too exhausted to rise.

“If he’d only spoken, drat him!” she muttered, “and yet it must have been that wretch! I know it was, but how can I prove it? Oh, I wish it wasn’t so dark! And I’m so wet!”

She got up now, and tried to wring the water from the cloak that she still clutched round her. Beside that she had on her nightdress, and a thin silk kimono, both of which were wetly clinging to her slim little body.

Throwing the still soaking wet cloak about her, and shivering as it sopped against her, she went toward the house.

It stood, still and sombre, a black thing amid blacker shadows. The aspen branches soughed eerily, but no other sound broke the silence. The great doors were closed, the windows all shut, and no sign of life was visible.

Zizi hesitated. Should she whistle beneath Penny Wise’s window, or —

The alternative she thought of seemed to her best, and she drew her wet draperies about her and scuttled off at a smart pace toward the village.

Barefooted as she was, she chose grassy ground whenever possible, but her feet were sadly cut and bruised before she reached her destination.

This was the house of Dan Peterson, and a ring at his doorbell, brought the sound of a hastily flung-up window, and a sharp “Who’s there?”

“Me,” said Zizi, truthfully, “please let me in.”

Not quite certain of the identity of his caller, but touched by the pleading little voice, Peterson came downstairs, followed by his wife.

A few words of explanation resulted in Zizi’s being put into warm, dry clothes, and tucked into bed by Mrs. Peterson, who admonished her to ‘sleep like a baby till mornin’.’

Which, nothing loth, Zizi did.

Morning at Black Aspens brought a shock of surprise.

It was Hester who first discovered the absence of Zizi from the Room with the Tassels.

Hester had been fond of the child from the beginning, and in spite of her fifteen years, and her even older world-knowledge, Zizi was a child, in many ways. Hester mothered her whenever possible, though Zizi’s natural efficiency made little assistance really necessary. But Hester loved to wait on her, and so, this morning, when, going into the room with a can of hot water, she found no sleepy little occupant of the great bed, she ran straight upstairs to Miss Carnforth’s room.

“Where’s that child?” she demanded as Eve opened the door to her loud knock.

“What child? Who?”

“Zizi. She’s gone! Sperrited away! What have you done with her?”

“Hush, Hester! You act crazy – ”

“And crazy I am, if any harm’s come to that girl! Where is she?”

Doors opened and heads were thrust out, as the voice of the irate Hester was heard about the house.

Penny Wise, in bathrobe and slippers, appeared, saying, “What’s up? Zizi disappeared?”

“Yes,” moaned Hester, “her bed’s been slept in, but she ain’t nowhere to be found. Oh, where can she be?”

“Be quiet,” commanded Wise. He ran downstairs, and examined the doors and windows minutely. Except for those that Hester or Thorpe had opened that morning, all were locked as they had been left the night before.

“She may be in the house somewhere,” suggested Norma, wide-eyed and tearful.

“Not she,” said Wise. “She would hear our commotion, and come to us. Zizi is not one to play mischievous tricks.”

“But how did she get out?”

“How did Vernie’s body get out?” asked Braye, gravely. “There’s no chance for a human marauder this time.”

“No,” and Professor Hardwick looked over the great locks and bolts on the front doors, and examined the window catches.

Pennington Wise looked very serious.

“Don’t talk any foolishness about spooks,” he said, sternly; “I don’t want to hear it. Zizi has been carried off by mortal hands, and if any harm has been done her it will go hard with the villain who is responsible!”

“Who could have done it – and why?” cried Eve.

“Those who know the most about it, are often the loudest in their lamentations,” Wise returned and stalked off to his room.

Breakfast was eaten in a silence that seemed portentous of impending trouble. Pennington Wise was deep in thought and apparently had no knowledge of what he was eating nor any consciousness of the people about him.

During the meal a note was brought to him by a messenger from the village. He read it and slipped it in his pocket without a word.

After breakfast he requested the entire household, including the servants, to gather in the hall.

He addressed them in grave, earnest tones, without anger or undue excitement, saying, in part:

“I have made considerable progress in the investigations of the tragedies that have occurred in this house. I have learned much regarding the crimes and I think I have discovered who the guilty party is. I may say, in passing, that there is not, and has not been any supernatural influence at work. Any one who says that there has, is either blindly ignorant of or criminally implicated in the whole matter. The two deaths were vile and wicked murders and they are going to be avenged. The kidnapping of Zizi is the work of the same diabolical ingenuity that compassed the deaths of two innocent victims. A third death, that of my clever child assistant, was necessary to prevent discovery, hence Zizi’s fate.”

“Is she dead?” wailed Hester, “oh, Mr. Wise, is she dead?”

“I will tell you what happened to her,” said Wise, quietly. “She was taken from her bed in the so-called haunted room, she was carried out of the house, and a bundle of bricks was tied to her, and she was thrown into the lake. That’s what happened to Zizi.”

Milly screamed hysterically, Norma Cameron cried softly and Eve Carnforth exclaimed, with blazing eyes, “I don’t believe it! You are making that up! How can you know it? Why didn’t you rescue her?”

The men uttered various exclamations of incredulity and horror, and the servants sat, aghast.

Pennington Wise surveyed rapidly one face after another, noting the expression of each, and sighing, as if disappointed.

“She is not dead,” he said, suddenly, and watched again the telltale countenances.

“What!” cried Wynne Landon, “bricks tied to her, and thrown in the lake but not drowned! Who saved her life?”

“She herself,” returned Wise, “didn’t you, Zizi?”

And there she was, in the back of the hall, behind the group, every member of which turned to see her. Peterson was with her, and the two came forward.

Zizi was garbed in clothes that Mr. Peterson had lent her, and though too large, she had pinned up the plain black dress until it looked neither grotesque nor unbecoming.

“Yes, I’m here,” she announced, “but only because a bag o’ bones can’t be sunk by a bag o’ bricks! Your Shawled Woman, – only he didn’t have his shawl over his head, – carried me off about as easy as he might have sneaked off a doll-baby! Then, – shall I tell ’em all, Pen?”

“Yes, child, tell it all, just as it happened.”

“Well, he stuffed a bale of cotton into my mouth, which same was soaked with chloroform, so, naturally I couldn’t yell; likewise, I didn’t know just where I was at for a few minutes.”

“Who was he?” exclaimed Braye, “what did he look like?”

“Was it the skull face?” asked Eve.

“Nixy on the bone face!” returned Zizi, “he was a plain clothes man in civilian dress, with a black mask over his patrician features.”

“Don’t you know who it was?” and Eve’s voice was intense and strained.

“Not positively,” Zizi answered. “Well, he picked me up like I was a feather, and how he got out of the house I’ve no idea, but I felt a breeze of night air, and there was I by the bank of the lake, and there was he, busily engaged in tying a load of bricks to my ankles!”

“Did you scream?” asked the Professor, absorbed in the account.

“My dear man, how could I, with my mouth chock-a-block with a large and elegant bundle of gag? I was thankful that my wits were workin’, let alone my lung power! Well, he tossed me in the nasty, black lake, and that’s where he spilled the beans! For ground and lofty tumbling into lakes is my specialty. I’m the humble disciple of Miss Annette Kellerman, and not so awful humble, either! So, I held my breath under water long enough to wriggle my feet out of those ropes, the old stupid didn’t know how to tie anything but a granny slip knot! and I scrambled out, just as my windpipe was beginning to go back on me.”

“You make light of it, Zizi, but it was a narrow squeak,” said Wise, looking at her gravely.

“You bet it was! If he’d had a softer rope, I’d been done for. It was the stiffness of that rope, and – well, the stiffness of my upper lip, – that rescued your little Ziz from a watery grave, and horrid dirty old water, too!”

Wise slipped his arm round the child, and told her to go on with the story.

“Then,” she proceeded, “I squz out what wetness I could from my few scanty robes, in which I was bedecked, and I borrowed the long cloak, which friend Kidnapper had kindly wrapped me in.”

“What kind of a cloak?” asked Eve.

“Nothing very smart,” said Zizi, nonchalantly, “looked to me like an old-fashioned waterproof, – the kind they wore, before raincoats came in. Only, it wasn’t waterproof, not by several jugs full! But I wrung it out all I could, and then I tried to get in the house. But, – it was all locked up, and as it seemed a pity to disturb all you sound sleepers, I ran to the village and begged a lodging with my friend, Mr. Peterson. He and his wife were most kind, and put me in a nice dry, little bed, that had no tassels or ghosts attached to it. I sent Mr. Wise a note, as soon as I could, so he wouldn’t worry.”

“That was the note I received at the breakfast table,” Wise informed them. “Now, you see, there is a real man at the bottom of the villainy going on up here. He desired to remove Zizi, lest she discover his crime, and I daresay, he planned to dispose of me also, if he could manage it. His seems to be a will that stops at nothing, that is ready to commit any crime or any number of crimes to save his own skin. Has anybody present any idea of the identity of this man? Any reason to suspect any one? Any light whatever to throw on the situation?”

“No!” declared Landon, “we have not! I speak for myself, and for all present, when I say we have no knowledge of a wretch answering to that description! Nor did I suppose that such existed! Can you track him down, Mr. Wise? Is your power sufficient to discover and deal death to this beast you describe?”