The Room with the Tassels

“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?”

“I hope so,” and Penny Wise carefully scrutinized the face of the speaker. “I think, Mr. Landon, that with Zizi’s help, with the enlightenment her awful experience gives us, I can get the criminal and that in a short time.”

“Good!” exclaimed Hardwick. “I am not vindictive, but I confess I never wanted anything more than to see brought to justice the man who could conceive and carry out such diabolical crimes!”

“Are you sure they are one and the same?” asked Braye, “I mean the man who killed Mr. Bruce and Vernie, and the one who carried off Miss Zizi?”

“Yes,” said Wise, thoughtfully. “There are not two such, I should say. But the quest of one person is my immediate business. If I find there are others implicated, I shall get them, too. I am not more incensed over the attack on Zizi than on your two friends, but I don’t deny it has given me an added wrong to avenge. But for the child’s strong nerve, and clever quickness of action, she would now lie at the bottom of the lake where – ”

He stopped abruptly.

“Go away, all of you,” he said, in a low, strained voice. “I mean, go about your business, but leave me to myself for a time. Peterson, come in here.”

He went into the Room with the Tassels. Peterson followed, and Zizi glided in beside them. The door closed and the group left in the hall looked at one another in perplexity and horror.

“I can’t understand, Wynne,” said Milly, “who took Zizi away?”

“I don’t know, dear; what do you think, Professor?”

“I think in so many directions, that I’m sure none of them is right. Awful things suggest themselves to my mind, but I can’t believe them, and I dismiss them, half thought out.”

“That’s the way with me,” sighed Braye. “It looks now as if there must be some one who gets in from outside the house, and who is responsible for all the inexplicable happenings. Of course, that would point to Stebbins, we must all admit that.”

The servants had left the hall, so Braye permitted himself this freedom of speech.

“I don’t say it’s Stebbins,” the Professor mused, “but I do think it’s some one from outside. There may be a village inhabitant who is possessed of a homicidal mania, that’s the theory that seems to me the only one possible. And we must assume, now, that there is a secret way to get in and out of the house.”

“If so, that clever detective ought to find it,” argued Braye.

“Perhaps he will,” said Hardwick, “also, perhaps he has. He doesn’t tell all he knows. Now, this is certain. All here present are, I am thankful to say, free from any breath of suspicion. For last night, you, Braye, and the detective and I all slept with our doors open, and none of us could have left our rooms without being observed by the others. The same is true of the ladies, and of course, Mrs. Landon can vouch for her husband.”

“Don’t talk that way,” said Norma, with a shudder. “You know none of us could be suspected.”

“Not by ourselves,” agreed the Professor; “nor by each other, of course. But by an outsider, or by the servants, or by the detectives, – it is indeed a good thing to have matters arranged as they are. I feel a decided satisfaction in knowing that no unjust suspicion can attach itself to any one of our party.”

“That’s so,” and Braye nodded. “But it doesn’t get us any nearer to the real criminal. I incline to the Professor’s idea of a man of homicidal mania, in the village. They say, that’s a real disease, and that such people are diabolically clever and cunning in carrying out their criminal impulses.”

“But how could such a man get in?” asked Eve, her eyes wide with wonder.

“We don’t know,” said Braye, “but there must be a secret entrance. Why, Stebbins as good as admitted there was, but he wouldn’t tell where it was. However, it’s unimportant, how he got in, if he did get in.”

“Do you mean that some such person acted the ghost, – and – all that?” said Norma, dubiously. “But, if so, how could he kill Mr. Bruce and Vernie? Oh, it’s too ridiculous! Those two deaths were not occasioned by any crazy man from East Dryden! It’s impossible.”

“Come out for a little stroll, Norma,” said Braye to her, seeing how nervously excited the girl was. “A breath of fresh air will do you good, and we can do nothing here.”

They went out into the pleasant August sunshine, and strolled toward the lake.

“Not that way,” begged Norma. “It’s too horrible. Oh, Rudolph, who do you suppose tried to drown that poor little Zizi?”

“Nobody, Norma. She made up that yarn.”

“Oh, no, Rudolph, I don’t think so!”

“Yes, she did. That Wise is trying to get at his discoveries in the theatrical fashion all detectives love to use, and that movie actress is part of his stock in trade. She fell in the lake, all right, I daresay, but the tale about the bogey man is fictitious, be sure of that.”

“But how did she get out of the house, and leave all the doors locked behind her?”

“Perhaps, as the Professor suggested, Wise knows of the secret entrance, if there is one, and of course, Zizi does too. Or, that little monkey could have scrambled down from the second-story window, she’s as agile as a cat! Anyway, Norma, she wasn’t pitched in the lake by the same villain that did for Uncle Gif and Vernie.”

“Who could that have been?”

“Who, indeed?”

“Rudolph, tell me one thing, – please be frank; do you think any one we know – is, – is responsible for those deaths?”

Braye turned a pained look at her. “Don’t ask such questions, dear,” he said. “I can’t answer you, – I don’t want to answer.”

“I am answered,” said Norma, sadly. “I know you share the – the fear, I won’t call it a suspicion, – that Eve and I do. And – Rudolph, Milly fears it, too. She won’t say so, of course, but I know by the way she looks at Wynne, when she thinks no one notices. And she’s so afraid Mr. Wise will look in that direction. Oh, Rudolph, must we let that detective go on, – no matter what he – exposes?”

“Landon got him up here,” said Braye, “no, the Professor really heard of him first, but Landon urged his coming.”

“Milly didn’t. Could Wynne have been prompted by – by bravado?”