“No; he’s never been so chummy with me since. I’ve tried to talk to him about the Binney murder case, but he almost snubbed me,—at least he shut me off mighty quick.”
“That’s all, Moore, and not a word to any one of anything that has been said in this room!”
“Now,” said Zizi, after Moore had disappeared, “Vail’s one; who’s the other?”
“Why, Zizi, Vail was in the elevator——”
“Penny, I’ve known that ‘Vail was in the elevator’ all through this whole matter. I’ve been told a thousand times that Vail was in the elevator! It’s been fairly rubbed into my noddle that Vail was in the elevator! Why, don’t you see, that’s Vail’s alibi! His being in the elevator is his safeguard! Oh, Penny-poppy-show, sometimes I despair of ever making a detective out of you! Well, my dear child, Mr Vail is one,—as I remarked,—and I found him; now you may find the other, and then we’ll have the ‘two men’ who ‘did this.’ Get busy.”
“S’pose, since you’re so smart, you find the other one,” said Wise, with no trace of jealousy in his tone. He was as elated at Zizi’s cleverness as if it had been his own, and he believed her implicitly.
“I can do it,” she said, calmly. “Send for Molly.”
“Yes, there’s the key to the situation,” Wise agreed.
Richard Bates sat still, wondering if the joyful news that no one he cared for was implicated could really be true! He awaited Molly’s coming with impatience, longing to get the whole matter cleared up.
“And so, Molly,” Zizi began, when the girl came into the room and Wise had closed the door behind her, “and so it was Mr Vail who married you!”