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 assistant; 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 passed 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?”