The Room with the Tassels

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?”