She said nothing of the midnight intruder, being determined in her own mind, that he was an emissary from the medium, Madame Parlato, whom Zizi regarded as an absolute fake. To prove this was a desire of Zizi's mind as well as to solve the mystery of the Blair murder.
But her fondness for the Cranes was such, that she was not sure she should expose the medium's trickery, even if she discovered it herself. So she went on with her secret investigations, and at present they included an inquiry into the matter of that reporter's visit and John Harrison's appearance on the scene.
Zizi had, of course, read Benjamin Crane's book, and in it had seen the picture of Peter, but the portrait was so different in effect from the bearded man whom she saw but indistinctly by the dim light in the library that she never connected the two in her thoughts.
But she thoroughly believed that the man in the library had come there for the purpose of acquiring either information or materials for further manifestations of the medium. She was sure that the tobacco pouch and the handkerchief which had been "materialized" had been obtained in this way and, she argued, the best way to find out, was to remain silent as to John Harrison's call.
When told by Mr. Crane of the visit of Douglas, the reporter, Zizi had suspected something beneath the surface,—it did not seem plausible to her, that the case was just as it was stated.
And somehow, in the back of her astute little brain, she had a notion that the Blair murder and the supernatural manifestations were in some way connected, at least, indirectly.
So she was merely receptive, and put herself in the way of learning all she could of the medium's affairs without showing her own hand. She obtained a detailed account of the séances from the elder Cranes, and each time she became not only more convinced of the medium's fraud, but sure that the faker, more and more secure in her clients' credulity, was growing both daring and careless.
This, Zizi concluded, was her opportunity, and she hoped to profit by her knowledge of the visit of John Harrison.
And meantime, the so-called John Harrison, whom Zizi had sized up so mistakenly, was puzzling his head over the identity of the girl who had seen him.