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!”