The Room with the Tassels

“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.”