Part 39 (1/2)
”What have you to tell? And why do you want to tell anybody?”
”I thought--I thought if I told I might get something for it.”
”I like your frankness, Molly, and I don't mind offering you a fair price for your goods, _if_ you can put 'em up. But can you?”
”Ma'am?”
”Do you really how anything of importance, that might lead to the discovery of the people who murdered Sir Herbert Binney? I don't want any hemming and hawing, but a straight answer.”
”Well, I can't give you a positive answer, because I don't know myself.
But I do know somebody has been in the rooms since, several times, searching about for something.”
”What did this person seem to be looking for?”
”Belike it was a paper, for I could tell as how the desk drawers and the boxes in the cupboard had been moved.”
”That's the sort of thing I want to know, Molly.” Zizi spoke quietly and earnestly. ”You can tell when things are moved as no one else can. You mean, of course, before Mr Wise took the rooms?”
”And once since. Why, last evening, when Mr Wise was out, somebody got in there.”
”Who could it be, Molly?”
The earnest, chummy att.i.tude of the inquirer made Molly feel at ease, and also anxious to please.
”I'm not sayin',” the chambermaid replied, a cloud pa.s.sing over her face, ”for I've no wish to get in jail, but it's somebody from the floor below.”
Zizi knew the Everetts' apartment was on the floor below, but she said, ”H'm, seventh floor, then. Who's down there?”
”I don't know, ma'am,” and Molly's vacant stare proved her a good actress, and one determined not to give away any information.
This att.i.tude showed Zizi that the girl was shrewd and canny, and she changed her tactics.
”There you go, Molly!” she exclaimed. ”How do you _know_ some one came up from the seventh floor? You state these things, and if you're not able to prove them--well, you know what I told you.”
”But I heard the--the person come up the stairs.”
”Stairs! A likely story! Why not use the elevator?”
”That's just it,--the--the person didn't want to be seen. So----”
”The person?”
”Yes'm, the person sneaks up the stairs and into the sitting-room----”
”Opening the door with a key?”
”Well,--you see, ma'am, I was in the bathroom,--and----”
”And the person didn't know you were there, and you made no sign?”