course he is! That goes without saying. But if he is suspected, say, if Stebbins or Thorpe or anybody else puts Wise up to suspicion, it may mean a bad quarter of an hour for all of us. So, just be quiet, dignified, pleasant-mannered and all that, but don’t say anything definite. For it might be misconstrued and misunderstood, and make trouble. At least, that’s the course I’m going to pursue, and I think it’s the best plan.”
“Oh, I know it is,” Milly agreed. “In fact, that’s just about what Wynne told me; he thinks if I try to help, I’ll only make mistakes, so he, too, told me to keep quiet. Eve is awfully angry, because that man is coming. She’s not saying so, but I know her! And, Rudolph, she’s afraid of something. I don’t know what, exactly, but she’s fearfully afraid of developments.”
“We all are, Milly. If the detective pins it on any human being,—that means trouble, and if he decides it’s spooks, after all,—I think I’ll be more afraid of them than ever!”
“I can’t be any more afraid of them than I am!” Milly shuddered. “Oh, Rudolph, how I wish we had never come up here!”
“We all wish that, Milly, but as we’re in for it now, we must see it through.”
Pennington Wise arrived the next afternoon. He came into the hall like an army with banners. A tall, well set-up man, of about thirty-three or four, thick chestnut hair, worn à la brosse, clear blue eyes, a clean-cut, fine-featured face, and a manner that proclaimed generalship and efficiency to the last degree.
“Here I am,” he announced, setting down several pieces of hand luggage and whipping off his soft gray felt hat. “You are the hostess?”
His quick-darting eyes had picked out Milly, and he greeted her as a distinguished visitor might.
“Who is that?” exclaimed Milly, looking at a slight, black-haired girl who followed quietly in Wise’s footsteps.
“That? oh that’s Zizi,—part of my luggage. Put her any place. Is there a housekeeper person? Yes? Well, turn Zizi over to her, she’ll be all right.”
Hester was peeping in at a rear door, unable to restrain her curiosity as to the commotion, and Zizi glided toward her and disappeared in the shadows.
“Now,” said Wise, his quick smile flashing inclusively at all of them, “we must get acquainted. I’m Penny Wise, and all possible jokes on my name have already been made, so that’s all right. I know Mrs. Landon, and you, of course,” looking at Wynne, “are her husband. Professor Hardwick,” and he bowed slightly, “is the man with whom I have had a short correspondence regarding my coming here. You, sir,——” he looked inquiringly at Braye.
“I’m Rudolph Braye, nephew of Mr. Gifford Bruce, and present heir to his fortune.” The quiet sadness of Braye’s tone precluded any idea of his triumph of exultation at the fact he stated. “This,” he went on, “is the Reverend Mr. Tracy, a friend of us all. And these ladies are Miss Carnforth and Miss Cameron, both deeply interested in the solution of the mysteries that confront us. Since introductions are in order, may I inquire further concerning the young lady,—or child,—who accompanied you?”
“Zizi? She’s part of my working outfit. In fact, one of my principal bits of paraphernalia. I always use her on mysterious cases. Don’t look on her as an individual, please, she’s a property,—in the theatrical sense, I mean.”
“But her standing in the household?” asked Milly, “does she belong with the servants, or in here with us?”
“She’ll look after that herself,” and Penny Wise smiled. “Pay no more attention to her than you would to my umbrella or walking stick. Now we know each others’ names, let’s proceed to the case itself. Who is going to tell me all about it?”
“Which of us would you rather have do so?” asked Eve, her long, glittering eyes fixed on the detective’s face.
He glanced at her quickly, and then let his gaze continue to rest on her beautiful, sibylline countenance.
“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