In the Onyx Lobby Part 36

"You'll be pretty smart if you can," Richard sighed. "But get busy as soon as possible. Can you get over to-day?"

"Yes; and I must bring my a.s.sistant,--a young lady."

"You're to use Sir Herbert Binney's rooms. Where shall I put the girl?"

"Is there a matron or housekeeper? Yes? Then the girl will attend to all that herself. Don't bother."

"All right, I won't. Now, see here, Mr Wise, I want you to get at the truth, of course, but--if it leads----"

"Stop right there, Mr Bates. If I take this case, it's to get the truth, no matter where it leads. You've mentioned the two women most important in your life,--oh, yes, I see the importance of Mrs Everett. You are, you must be, interested in her daughter, for you showed it in your face when you spoke her name. Now, so far, I've nothing to connect those two women with the case, except that they are women, and the written paper accuses women. I believe that paper implicitly. I've had wide experience and no word of his murderer left by a dying victim is ever anything but the truth. I must see the paper as soon as I can; it may be informative.

But, remember, the processes of justice are inexorable,--where the truth leads, I must follow, absolutely irrespective of personal prejudice."

"If you're sure it _is_ the truth----"

"Right. I must be sure, beyond all doubt. And I will be before I make any important decisions. You are sole heir?"

"Yes, except for some minor bequests."

"Suspicion hasn't attacked you?"

Bates started at the question, but Pennington Wise seemed to think it a casual one, so Richard replied, frankly, "No, it hasn't,--and I rather expected it."

"Yes, it would not be strange. While, as I say, I believe, so far as I know now, that women killed him, yet others may feel the written message is faked."

"Oh, it's positively Sir Herbert's writing; it doesn't need an expert to see that."

"Were it not for the message, I should be inclined to look into his business relations."

"I think that's the reason he wrote the note. My uncle was a quick thinker, and I can see how, knowing he must die, he did all he could to a.s.sist justice. I've no doubt he realized that attention would be turned toward men, and he wrote the truth, as far as he had strength to do so, in order to facilitate the work of his avengers. Without doubt he was intending to write the names of his murderers when his muscles or his brain power gave out."

"That's the way I see it, but I can't be sure till I see the paper.

There are many motives for murder, but they can all be cla.s.sed as affairs of the heart, the mind or the purse. The first cla.s.s takes in all love interests; the second, business deals, and the third, robbery.

The last, I understand, we may eliminate; the second seems to be knocked out by that message, and we come back to some affair of the heart, which may not be love, but jealousy, revenge or a sudden, impulsive quarrel.

To look for the women is not an easy task, but it is a help to be started in the right direction."

And so, Penny Wise established himself in the comfortable rooms lately occupied by the victim of the crime he was to investigate, and Zizi, his capable and picturesque a.s.sistant, found her quarters in the domain of the housekeeper.

Mrs Macey was a shrewd, capable woman, or she would not have been housekeeper at The Campanile. She looked in cold disdain at the glowing little face of the girl who unceremoniously invaded her room, and stared with increasing interest as the visitor talked.

"You see," Zizi said, nodding her correctly hatted little head, "I've just simply got to be taken in somewhere in the house, and it might as well be here. I'm too young to have an apartment by myself, and I'll promise you won't regret any 'small kindnesses' you may show me. In fact, Mr Pennington Wise, my sponsor in baptism, is the greatest rememberer of small kindnesses you ever saw!"

"My goodness!" remarked Mrs Macey, dazzled by the girl's beauty and animation, and bewildered by her insistent manner.

"Yep," sauced Zizi, with her irresistible smile, "it's your goodness that'll turn the trick. I'll confide to you that I'm here on business, most important secret business, and if your goodness pans out well and you put me up properly, you'll be what is known as handsomely rewarded.

So, which is my room?"

The girl whirled through a doorway and spied a neat little bedroom.

"This'll do," she said, and setting down her small handbag proceeded to push things around on the dresser and fling her gloves and veil into a drawer, then with what was indubitably a farewell smile, she gently pushed Mrs Macey out, and closed the door after her, pausing only to say, "You've good horse sense,--use it."

"So far, so good," commented Zizi, to her pretty reflection in the mirror. "That woman's a joy. Easily managed, but full of initiative.

Just the sort I like."

She flew around, adjusting the appointments to suit her taste; she telephoned downstairs for her further luggage to be sent up, and soon she was as fully established in the room as if she had been there weeks.

"And now," she spoke finally to the pretty girl in her mirror, "I shall sally forth, as they call it, and see what's what in The Campanile."

Her progress through the house was so inconspicuous and casual that no one noticed her especially. It was Zizi's forte to go around unnoticed, when she chose. Though she could, on the other hand, make a decided stir, merely by her appearance.

A slender wisp of a girl, black of hair and eyes, demure without self-consciousness, and gentle-mannered, she glided here and there as she listed and none said her nay. She quickly learned the location of rooms and people, the ways of the house and certain of its tenants, and, without effort, made friends with elevator girls and other employees.

She arrived at last at the Binney rooms, now occupied by Wise.

He was not in then and she found a chambermaid dusting about.

"I belong here," Zizi said, quietly. "I am Mr Wise's a.s.sistant; and, as he has doubtless already told you, you are not to chatter about him or myself. We are here on important business matters and if you carry tales you will get into serious trouble. Do you see?"

"Yes, miss," said the woman, impressed by Zizi's air of wisdom and authority. "Mr Wise told me the same."

"Very well, then; go on with your work."

Zizi began forthwith to study the rooms. She found little of interest, for Sir Herbert had lived in them but a few months and had not cared to add any personal comforts or luxuries to those provided by the management. Therefore, the appointments were the conventional ones of furnished apartments, and were quickly pa.s.sed over by the girl, who was looking for stray bits of evidence.

She didn't go through the papers and letters still on the writing table, for she felt sure they had been examined over and over by the police detectives and probably by Wise himself.

She was musing when the detective came in.

"Caught on to anything, Zizi?" he asked.

"Nope; that is, only one small hint of a possible question to be asked,--later. Where are you?"

"Progressing with the opening chapter. That's about all. But it's a corker of a case. I've seen the paper left by the dying man, and I'd stake my reputation that it's the real thing. I mean that it is the dying statement of a murdered man, and was written in a desperate effort to help along the discovery of his murderers. If he'd only been able to go on with it and tell the names!"

"Then there wouldn't have been any case, and we wouldn't be here. Go on, Wiseacre."

"Well, the two women at feud,--I told you of them,--are great! Miss Prall, spinster, and aggressively unmarried, loathes and despises Mrs Everett, a fascinating widow."

"Fascinating to whom."

"Dunno. Except to herself. But she's the dressy sort and is a blonde cat, while the Prall person is--well, I understand they call her the Grenadier."

"Who calls her that?"

"Dunno. It's in the air."

"How about these two women being the women meant on the paper message?"

"No. I thought of that, but I can't see yet how they could have joined forces, even though they both wanted the old chap out of the way. Nor can I connect them with the case separately,--as yet. But it seems to me that one faction or the other must be at fault, for there are no other women on the horizon."

"Chorus girls? Elevator girls?"