“Who’s that?” she cried, peering through her lorgnon in the direction of the voice.
“Show yourself, Zizi,” directed Wise. “This is my assistant, Mrs. Vail. She is in our council but not of it. I can’t explain her exactly, but you’ll come to understand her.”
Zizi leaned forward and gave Mrs. Vail a pleasant if indifferent smile, then sank back to her usual obscurity.
The girl was, Wise had said, a negligible personality, and yet whenever she spoke she said something!
Mrs. Vail looked bewildered, but apparently she was prepared to accept anything, however strange, in connection with detective work.
“Well,” she observed, “as that pretty little thing says, a letter is always important, and I think you ought to show it, Olive. I had a letter once that changed the whole current of my life!”
“What is this letter, Miss Raynor?” asked Wise, in a matter-of-fact way.
“One I received in this morning’s mail,” Olive replied; “I paid no attention to it, because it was anonymous. Uncle Amos told me once never to notice an anonymous letter,—always to burn and forget it.”
“Good enough advice, in general,” said Wise; “but in such serious matters as we have before us any letter is of interest.”
“Is the letter written by a woman, and signed ‘A Friend’?” asked Zizi in her soft voice.