In the Onyx Lobby Part 39

"What have you to tell? And why do you want to tell anybody?"

"I thought--I thought if I told I might get something for it."

"I like your frankness, Molly, and I don't mind offering you a fair price for your goods, _if_ you can put 'em up. But can you?"

"Ma'am?"

"Do you really how anything of importance, that might lead to the discovery of the people who murdered Sir Herbert Binney? I don't want any hemming and hawing, but a straight answer."

"Well, I can't give you a positive answer, because I don't know myself.

But I do know somebody has been in the rooms since, several times, searching about for something."

"What did this person seem to be looking for?"

"Belike it was a paper, for I could tell as how the desk drawers and the boxes in the cupboard had been moved."

"That's the sort of thing I want to know, Molly." Zizi spoke quietly and earnestly. "You can tell when things are moved as no one else can. You mean, of course, before Mr Wise took the rooms?"

"And once since. Why, last evening, when Mr Wise was out, somebody got in there."

"Who could it be, Molly?"

The earnest, chummy att.i.tude of the inquirer made Molly feel at ease, and also anxious to please.

"I'm not sayin'," the chambermaid replied, a cloud pa.s.sing over her face, "for I've no wish to get in jail, but it's somebody from the floor below."

Zizi knew the Everetts' apartment was on the floor below, but she said, "H'm, seventh floor, then. Who's down there?"

"I don't know, ma'am," and Molly's vacant stare proved her a good actress, and one determined not to give away any information.

This att.i.tude showed Zizi that the girl was shrewd and canny, and she changed her tactics.

"There you go, Molly!" she exclaimed. "How do you _know_ some one came up from the seventh floor? You state these things, and if you're not able to prove them--well, you know what I told you."

"But I heard the--the person come up the stairs."

"Stairs! A likely story! Why not use the elevator?"

"That's just it,--the--the person didn't want to be seen. So----"

"The person?"

"Yes'm, the person sneaks up the stairs and into the sitting-room----"

"Opening the door with a key?"

"Well,--you see, ma'am, I was in the bathroom,--and----"

"And the person didn't know you were there, and you made no sign?"

"Yes," eagerly. "Yes, that's the way it was; I thought I'd find out something----"

"And did you?"

But that time Zizi's eagerness proved her undoing.

For some reason or other Molly took alarm and shut up like a clam.

"No," she averred. "I couldn't see who it was, and as I peeked out, the--person ran away."

Zizi knew from the sly and obstinate look in her eyes that Molly was lying and that she intended to stick to it. She was n.o.body's fool, this Molly, and though Zizi was sure that she would yet sell her secret to the highest bidder, it was not altogether wise to begin the bidding at once. Also, Zizi felt certain that what the girl knew was of serious importance and it was imperative that Pennington Wise should learn the truth. But Zizi's ways were devious and she chose now to treat the matter lightly.

"Molly, you're a fraud," she said, laughingly; "you've built up a person of mysterious appearance and unknown s.e.x, but I can't fall for your plan. I don't blame you for wanting to make a little easy money,--who doesn't? But you didn't pick a winner when you selected _me_ to try it on! Go to somebody else with your wares. Try Mr Bates or Miss Prall."

The girl's face fell and Zizi smiled in satisfaction. But Molly grew belligerent and exclaimed, "Oh, very well, miss, but you'll be sorry. I _will_ go to some one else with my story, but it will be to----"

"I know! To the person herself! Well, go on, if you can get to her undiscovered!"

"I can! With no trouble at all!"

"Not forgetting the danger you run of being arrested?"

"Danger! Pooh! You can't scare me that way? Beside, you'll never know----"

"Who the person is? I know already. Kate Holland!"

This was a mere guess on Zizi's part, and she said it to learn from Molly's expression how near right it might be.

To her surprise, Molly looked mystified.

"Kate Holland!" she whispered. "You--you don't suspect her, do you?"

"Do you?" Zizi shot back.

"Yes, I do,--or I did, until----"

"Until you saw the person?"

"Yes, that's it."

Zizi was about to insist on the name of the person when there was a tap at the door, and the head chambermaid insisted on having the services of Molly at once. The girl went away and Zizi went straight to tell Penny Wise all about it.

She tried the door of Wise's rooms and as the k.n.o.b turned she walked in.

But to her surprise the man sitting at the table in the sitting-room, and reading the newspaper, was not Wise but Mr Vail.

"Good afternoon," he said, a little blankly, as he rose.

"How do you do?" Zizi returned, with one of her attractive smiles. "I'm Mr Wise's a.s.sistant. Can I do anything for you?"