In the Onyx Lobby Part 38

"Like as not."

"Zizi, you're a smart little girl, but sometimes you don't see straight.

Now, drop the recipe, or consider it by yourself some other time. Your stunt is to interest friend Bates."

"The nephew?"

"Yes. Don't flirt with him,--that isn't the _role_, but talk kindly to him, and thereby find out all you can about the Everett bunch. If you admire his sweetheart----"

"Haven't seen her yet."

"Well, you will. And then be real nice and girly-chummy with her, and so get both the lovers on your side. Then we can find out things otherwise out of our reach."

"Meaning the oldsters won't give up."

"Of course not, if they're guilty. I'll take hold of the Crippen end,--and then, if your hunch about the recipe has anything to it, it will come out,--and you sidle up to the lovers. We want to get quick action, for the murderer may get scared and run away."

"Shall I insinuate anything about the older women to----"

"Mercy, no! You see, Bates is scared to death now, for fear it was his aunt, and even more scared for fear it was Dorcas' mother! And those very real fears let Bates himself out,--if anybody ever had a thought of him."

"Oh, n.o.body could."

"No; well, there's your work cut out for you. Also----"

"Also I'll keep at the servants. I've got the housekeeper just where I want her, but there's a head chambermaid who'll bear watching and I'm rather interested in the night porter."

"Yes, he's a knowing one. Flirt with him----"

"Oh, no, he's not that sort. And, too, he's engaged to a Tartar named Julie, who would scratch out my not altogether unattractive eyes."

"Vanity Box! Well, your eyes do set off what would otherwise be a commonplace face."

Zizi made a face at him that was far from commonplace, and the talk went on.

They were indefatigable workers, these two, and what they planned carefully they carried out with equal care.

And even while she talked, Zizi was looking about the room for a possible hiding-place for the recipe, which, so far as she knew, existed only in her imagination,--and, she had a dim idea that she had found a direction in which to look.

CHAPTER XV

And Zizi

In her own room, Zizi was holding a confab with the chambermaid, for whom she had sent.

"Yes, miss," the girl said, staring into Zizi's magnetic eyes. "I had the care of them rooms all the time Sir Binney was in 'em."

"Yes, Molly, I know you did, and I want to know a few things about Sir Herbert Binney. Was he a fussy gentleman, about germs, say, and----"

"Germs? miss, how do you mean?"

"Was he afraid of imperfect drains, unaired mattresses or careless cleaning?"

"He was not! Lordy, the germs coulda carried him off and he'd never noticed it. He wudden't know whether I swept or dusted rightly, or whether I gave the place a lick and a promise. He was wrapped up in his own affairs so's you could hardly get his attention to ask him anythin'.

Why, miss?"

"Don't ask me why,--ever!" Zizi spoke sharply but not unkindly, and the girl remembered. "Now, Molly, the day before Sir Herbert moved in, he had the sitting-room cleaned and repapered. If he wasn't afraid of germs, why have new paper?"

"Well, the old stuff was a sight, miss. All over, a dark green sorta lattice work pattern with smas.h.i.+n' big red roses."

"Sounds rather effective----"

"A nightmare, that's what it was. Well, Sir Herbert, the minnit he looked at it he said, 'Rip it off!'"

"Did you hear him say it?"

"No, miss, the bellboy told me. He was luggin' up bags and things and he said the new man was a peppery cuss."

"Was he?"

"Why, no, he didn't seem that way to me. Easy-goin', I sh'd say.

Absent-minded, now an' then,--av'rage generous, an' not payin' much attention to his surroundin's. That's the way _I_ size up Sir Binney."

"And who do you think killed him?"

"Oh, Lordy, don't ask me that!" The girl looked frightened, and quick-witted Zizi, instead of pursuing the subject then, turned it off with, "No, indeed, when detectives are busy on the case, small need to ask outsiders."

"Not that I'm exactly an outsider, neither," and Molly bridled as with a sense of self-importance. "Of course a chambermaid, now, can't help seein' a lot of what goes on."

"Of course not," Zizi said, carelessly. "But she isn't supposed to tattle and I shouldn't dream of quizzing you."

"No, ma'am. Not but what I could tell things----"

"But you wouldn't. You might get into serious trouble if you did."

Molly looked at her sharply.

"As how, miss?" she said.

"Well, you see, it's very hard to tell anything just exactly as it happened, and if you should vary a shade from the truth, and then tell it differently next time you might get arrested for--for perjury."

"Arrested! Do you mean that?"

"I certainly do. I've known girls to tell stories under stress of excitement and then try to repeat them and get all mixed up, and, oh, well, it's a dangerous performance."

"But if I just told _you_, now, miss?"