The Room with the Tassels

“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.”