Detective and mystery stories; Wise, Pennington (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
"Now I wouldn't say," Wise observed, "that there is no such thing as
occult phenomena----"
"What do you mean by phenomena?" interrupted the Professor. "Not one
person in ten uses that word correctly."
"I'm that single and unique one, old top," Wise assured him, "for my
exact meaning, see Webster; but I was going to say, even granting the
possibility of the two deaths being due to supernatural causes, I'm not
going to accept that solution of the mystery until I've exhausted all
other available means of finding a flesh and blood murderer, which same I
strongly expect to find."
"He'll do it," said Zizi, addressing the others, while her black eyes
looked at Wise as at an inanimate object. "He's an effective detective,
first, last and all the time. And I'm the little cog that makes the
wheels go round. So, I think, Tecky-teck, that I'll carry out a plan I've
just thought of. I'll move from the pretty little bedroom I now occupy,
and sleep in the Room with the Tassels."
"Oh, don't!" cried Norma. "Something might happen to you!"
"That's what I'm flattering myself. And it's nice of you, Miss Cameron,
to speak out like that." Zizi's eyes flashed a quizzical glance at Eve,
who was nodding satisfaction at the proposed plan.
Eve coloured and dropped her eyes, and Zizi went on. "You see, people,
Mr. Wise can't size up these ghosts of yours unless he sees them,--and
for me to see them is the same thing. So I'm going to take the haunted
room for my own and if the Shawled Woman appears, I'll pin a tag on her
shawl."
Norma shuddered. "Don't talk like that," she begged. "You don't know what
risk you run. Milly, don't let the child sleep there."
But all objections were overruled, and Zizi quietly transferred her few
simple belongings to the Room with the Tassels.
At breakfast, the morning after her first night in the haunted room, she
declared she had never slept better or more soundly, that there had been
no disturbance of any kind, and that she adored the room.
"You saw and heard nothing?" queried Eve, looking at her intently.
"Nixy," and the pert little face was all smiles. "But the game isn't out
till it's played out, you know."
"I fail to grasp the cryptic meaning of that remark," said Eve, with an
insolent stare at Zizi.
"Same here!" and the child's eerie laugh rang out. "But when I don't know
exactly what to say, I sing out some old saw like that."
Zizi's laugh was infectious, and Milly giggled in sympathy, while the
others smiled too.
"The experience was mine, last night," said Mr. Tracy, in his deep,
resonant voice. "I suppose I'd better tell of it."
"By all means," said Penny Wise, as the clergyman hesitated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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