THE VANISHING OF BETTY VARIAN (1922, a Pennington Wise mystery)

CHAPTER I

Headland Harbor

It is, of course, possible, perhaps even probable, that somewhere on this green earth there may be finer golf links or a more attractive clubhouse than those at Headland Harbor, but never hope to wring such an admission from any one of the summer colony who spend their mid-year at that particular portion of the Maine coast.

Far up above the York cliffs are more great crags and among the steepest and wildest of these localities, a few venturesome spirits saw fit to pitch their tents.

Others joined them from time to time until now, the summer population occupied nearly a hundred cottages and bungalows and there was, moreover, a fair sized and fairly appointed inn.

Many of the regulars were artists, of one sort or another, but also came the less talented in search of good fishing or merely good idling. And they found it, for the majority of the householders were people of brains as well as talent and by some mysterious management the tone of the social side of things was kept pretty much as it should be.

Wealth counted for what it was worth, and no more. Genius counted in the same way, and was never overrated. Good nature and an amusing personality were perhaps the best assets one could bring to the conservative little community, and most of the shining lights possessed those in abundance.

To many, the word harbor connotes a peaceful, serene bit of blue water, sheltered from rough winds and basking in the sunlight.

This is far from a description of Headland Harbor, whose rocky shores and deep black waters were usually wind-swept and often storm-swept to a wild picturesqueness beloved of the picture painters.

But there were some midsummer days, as now, one in late July, when the harbor waters lay serene and the sunlight dipped and danced on the tiny wavelets that broke into spray over the nearby rocks.

Because it was about the hour of noon, the clubhouse verandah was crowded with members and guests waiting for the mail, which, as always, was late.

The clubhouse, a big, low building, with lots of shiny paint and weathering shingles, was at the nearest spot consistent with safety to the shore. From it could be had a magnificent view of the great headland that named the place.

This gigantic cliff jutted out into the sea, and rising to a height of three hundred feet, the mighty crag showed a slight overhang which rendered it unscalable. The wet black rock glistened in the sunlight, as spray from the dashing breakers broke half way up its sides.

The top was a long and narrow tableland, not much more than large enough to accommodate the house that crowned the summit. There was a strip of sparse lawn on either side the old mansion, and a futile attempt at a garden, but vegetation was mostly confined to the weird, one-sided pine trees that waved the branches of their lee sides in mournful, eerie motions.

“Can’t see how any one wants to live up there in that God-forsaken shack,” said John Clark, settling more comfortably in his porch rocker and lighting a fresh cigarette.

“Oh, I think it’s great!” Mrs Blackwood disagreed with him. “So picturesque—”

“You know, if you say ‘picturesque’ up here, you’ll be excommunicated. The thing is all right, but the word is taboo.”

“All right, then, chromoesque.”

“But it isn’t that,” Clark objected; “it’s more like an old steel engraving—”

“Oh, not with all that color,” said Lawrence North. “It is like an engraving on a gray, cloudy day—but today, with the bright water and vivid sunshine, it’s like a—”

“Speak it right out!” cried Ted Landon, irrepressibly, “like a picture postcard!”

“It can’t help being like that,” Mrs Blackwood agreed, “for the postcards for sale in the office of the club are more like the reality than any picture an artist has ever made of the Headland House.”

“Of course, photographs are truer than drawings,” North said, “and that card that shows the cliff in a storm comes pretty near being a work of art.”

“The difficulty would be,” Clark observed, “to get any kind of a picture of that place that wouldn’t be a work of art. Why, the architect’s blueprints of that house would come a good deal nearer art than lots of watercolors I’ve seen in exhibitions. I’m keen on the place.”

“Who isn’t?” growled Landon, for most of the Headlanders resented the faintest disparagement of their cherished masterpiece, a joint work of nature and man.

The promontory was joined to the mainland by a mere narrow neck of rocky land, and from that point a rough road descended, over and between steep hills, reaching at last the tiny village and scattered settlement of Headland Harbor.

Headland House itself was a modified type of old world architecture. Built of rough gray stone, equipped with a few towers and turrets, pierced by deep and narrow windows, it had some effects of a French chateau and others that suggested an old English castle.

It was true to no school, it followed no definite type, yet perched on its lonely height, sharply outlined against the sky, its majestic rock foundations sweeping away from beneath it, it showed the grandeur and sublimity of a well-planned monument.

And, partly because of their real admiration, partly because of a spirit of ownership, the artist colony loved and cherished their Headland House with a jealous sensitiveness to criticism.

“Stunning thing—from here,” John Clark said, after a few moments of further smoking and gazing; “all the same, as I stated, I shouldn’t care to live up there.”

“Too difficult of access,” Claire Blackwood said, “but, otherwise all right.”

Mrs Blackwood was a widow, young, attractive, and of a psychic turn of mind. Not enough of an occultist to make her a bore, but possessing quick and sure intuitions and claiming some slight clairvoyant powers. She dabbled in water colors, and did an occasional oil. She was long-limbed, with long fingers and long feet, and usually had a long scarf of some gauzy texture trailing about her. Of an evening or even on a dressy afternoon, she had a long panel or sash-end hanging below her short skirt, and which was frequently trodden on by blundering, inattentive feet.

Good-looking, of course, Claire Blackwood was—she took care to be that—but her utmost care could not make her beautiful—much to her own chagrin. Her scarlet lips were too thin, and the angle of her jaw too hard. Yet she was handsome, and by virtue of her personality and her implicit belief in her own importance, she was the leader socially, notwithstanding the fact that the colony disclaimed any society element in its life.

“Tell us about the Headland House people, Claire. You’ve called, haven’t you?”

This from Ted Landon, who by reason of his sheer impudence was forgiven any unconventionality. No other man at the Harbor would have dreamed of addressing Mrs Blackwood by her first name.

“Yes; I’ve called. They’re delightful people.” The words said more than the tone.

“With reservations?” asked North.

“Oh, in a way. They’re quite all right—it’s only that they’re not picture mad—as we all are.”

“Ignorant?”

“Oh, no—not that. Well, I’ll sketch them for you. Mr Varian is a Wall Street man—”

“Magnate?”

“Yes, I daresay. Wealthy, anyway. He’s big and Vandyke-bearded. Well mannered—but a bit preoccupied—if—”

“Yes, we get what you mean,” said the irrepressible Ted. “Go on—what about the daughter?”

“I haven’t come to her yet. The mother is due first. Mrs Varian is the clingingest vine I ever saw. I only saw her on parade, of course, but I’m positive that in curl-papers, she can whine and fret and fly into nervous spasms! Her husband spoils her—he’s far too good to her—”

“What a lot you gathered at one interview,” murmured Lawrence North.

“That’s what I went for,” Mrs Blackwood returned, coolly. “Well. Mother Varian is wrapped up in her blossom-child. Betty is a peach—as I know you boys will agree—but I never saw greater idolatry in any mother than Mrs Varian shows.”

“Betty worth it?” asked John Clark, idly.

“Rather!” Mrs Blackwood assured him. “She’s a dear thing. I don’t often enthuse over young girls, but Betty Varian is unusual.”

“As how?”

“Prettier than most girls, more charm, better manners, and—a suspicion of brains. Not enough to hurt her, but enough to make it a pleasure to talk to her. Moreover, she’s a wilful, spoiled, petted darling of two worshipping parents, and it’s greatly to her credit that she isn’t an arrogant, impossible chit.”

“Sounds good to me,” commented Ted; “when can I meet her?”

“I’ll introduce you soon. They want to meet some of our best people—”

“Of course. That lets me in at once. When will you take me?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. They’re having a small picnic and they asked me to bring two amusing young men.”

“May I go?” asked Lawrence North.

“Young men, I said,” and Mrs Blackwood looked at him calmly. “You are old enough to be Betty Varian’s father!”

“Well, since I’m not, that needn’t prevent my meeting her.”

“So you shall, some time. But I’m to take two tomorrow, and—what do you think? I said I would bring Rodney Granniss, and Mr Varian said, ‘No, he’d rather I asked some one in his place!’”

“Why, for heaven’s sake?” cried Landon. “Rod’s our star performer.”

“Well, you see, they know him—”

“All the more reason—”

“Oh, it’s this way. Rod Granniss is already a beau of Betty’s—and her father doesn’t approve of the acquaintance.”

“Not approve of Granniss!” John Clark looked his amazement. “Mr Varian must be an old fuss!”

“I think that’s just what he is,” assented Claire Blackwood, and then Ted Landon urged,

“You haven’t described the siren yet. What’s she like to look at?”

“A little thing, sylphish, rather—dainty ways, quick, alert motions, and with the biggest gray eyes you ever saw—edged with black.”

“Raving tresses?”

“No; very dark brown, I think. But the liveliest coloring. Red-under-brown cheeks, scarlet lips and—”

“I know—teeth like pearls.”

“No; good, sound, white teeth, and fluttering hands that emphasize and illustrate all she says.”

“All right, she’ll do,” and Ted looked satisfied. “I can cut out old John here, and if Granniss is barred, I’ll have a cinch!”

“You must behave yourself—at first, anyway, because I am responsible for you. Be ready to go up there with me at four tomorrow afternoon.”

“Leave here at four?”

“Yes, we’ll walk up. A bit of a climb, but motors can go only to the lodge, you know, and that’s not worth while.”

The porter’s lodge belonging to Headland House was partly visible from the clubhouse, and it guarded the gates that gave ingress to the estate. There was no other mode of entrance, for a high wall ran completely across the narrow neck that joined the headland to the main shore, and all other sides of the precipitous cliff ran straight down to the sea.

From where they sat the group could discern the motor road as far as the lodge; and here and there above that could be glimpsed the narrow, tortuous path that led on to the house.

“Grim old pile,” Landon said, looking at Headland House. “Any spook connected with its history?”

“I never heard of any,” said Mrs Blackwood. “Did you, Mr North?”

“Not definitely, but I’ve heard vague rumors of old legends or traditions of dark deeds—”

“Oh, pshaw, I don’t believe it!” and Mrs Blackwood shook her head at him. “You’re making that up to lend an added interest!”

North grinned. “I’m afraid I was,” he admitted, “but if there isn’t any legend there surely ought to be. Let’s make one up.”

“No, I won’t have it. I hate haunted houses, and I shan’t allow a ghost to be invented. The place is too beautiful to have a foolish, hackneyed old ghost yarn attached to it. Just because you were up here last summer and this is the first year for most of us, you needn’t think you can rule the roost!”

“Very well,” Lawrence North smiled good-naturedly, “have it your own way. But, truly, I heard rumors last year—”

“Keep them to yourself, then, and when you meet the Varians, as of course you will, don’t say anything to them about such a thing.”

“Your word is law,” and North bowed, submissively. “Here comes the mail at last, and also, here comes Granniss—the disapproved one!”

A tall outdoorsy-looking young man appeared, and throwing himself into a piazza swing, asked breezily, “Who’s disapproving of me, now? Somebody with absolute lack of fine perception!”

“Nobody here,” began Landon, and then a warning glance from Claire Blackwood prevented his further disclosures on the subject.

“Don’t make a secret of it,” went on Granniss, “own up now, who’s been knocking poor little me?”

“I,” said Mrs Blackwood, coolly.

“Nixy, Madame Claire! You may disapprove of me, but you’re not the one I mean. Who else?”

“Oh, let’s tell him,” North laughed; “he can stand the shock. They say, Granniss, you’re persona non grata up at the house on the headland.”

Rodney Granniss’ eyes darkened and he looked annoyed. But he only said, “That’s a disapproval any one may obtain by the simple process of admiring Miss Varian.”

“Really?” asked Claire Blackwood.

“Very really. To call twice is to incur the displeasure of one or both parents; to venture a third time is to be crossed out of the guest book entirely.”

“But, look here, old man,” Landon said, “they’ve only been in that house about a week. Haven’t you been rushing things?”

“I knew them before,” said Granniss, simply. “I’ve met them in New York.”

“Oh, well, then their dislike of you is evidently well-founded!”

But this impudence of Landon’s brought forth no expression of resentment from its victim. Granniss only winked at Ted, and proceeded to look over his letters.

It was the first time in the memory of any of the presenthabitués of Headland Harbor, that the house on the rocks had been occupied. Built long ago, it was so difficult of access and so high priced of rental that no one had cared to live in it. But, suddenly, and for no known reason, this summer it had been rented, late, and now, toward the end of July, the new tenants were only fairly settled.

That their name was Varian was about all that was known of them, until Mrs Blackwood’s call had been hospitably received and she brought back favorable reports of the family.

It seems Betty was anxious to meet some young people and Mrs Varian was glad to learn from her caller that small picnics were among the favored modes of entertainment, and she decided to begin that way.

Next day, she explained, a few house guests would arrive, and if Mrs Blackwood would bring two or three young men and come herself, perhaps that would be enough for a first attempt at sociability.

This met Mrs Blackwood’s entire approval, and she proposed Rodney Granniss’ name, all unsuspecting that he would not be welcomed.

“He’s all right, you understand,” Mrs Varian had said—Betty not being then present—“but he’s too fond of my daughter. You can tell—you know—and I want the child to have a good time, but I want her to have a lot of young acquaintances, and be friendly with all, but not specially interested in any one. Her father feels the same way—in fact, he feels more strongly about it even than I do. So, this time, please leave Mr Granniss out of it.”

This was all plausible enough, and no real disparagement to Rodney, so Mrs Blackwood agreed.

“Can I do anything for you?” she asked her hostess at parting. “Have you everything you want? Are your servants satisfactory?”

“Not in every respect,”—Mrs Varian frowned. “But we’re lucky to keep them at all. Only by the most outrageous concessions, I assure you. If they get too overbearing, I may have to let some of them go.”

“Let me know, in that case, and I may be able to help you,” and with a few further amenities, Claire Blackwood went away.

“But if I were one of her servants I shouldn’t stay with her!” she confided later to a trusted friend. “I never saw a more foolishly emotional woman. She almost wept when she told me about her cook’s ingratitude! As if any one looked for appreciation of favors in a cook! And when she talked about Betty, she bubbled over with such enthusiasm that she was again moved to tears! It seems her first two little ones died very young, and I think they’ve always feared they mightn’t raise Betty. Hence the spoiling process.”

“And it also explains,” observed the interested friend, “why the parents discountenance the attentions of would-be swains.”

“Of course—but Betty is twenty, and that is surely old enough to begin to think about such things seriously.”

“For the girl—yes. And doubtless she does. But parents never realize that their infants are growing up. It is not impossible that Rod Granniss and Miss Betty have progressed much further along the road to Arcady than her elders may suspect. Why did the Varians come here—where Rod is?”

“I don’t suppose they knew it—though, maybe Betty did. Young people are pretty sharp. And you know, Rod was here in June, then he went away and only returned after the Varians arrived. Yes, there must have been some sort of collusion on the part of the youngsters.”

“Maybe not. I daresay Miss Betty has lots of admirers as devoted as young Granniss. Can’t you ask me to the picnic?”

“Not this one. It’s very small. And there are to be some guests at the house, I believe. The family interests me. They are types, I think. Betty is more than an ordinary flutterbudget, like most of the very young girls around here. And the older Varians are really worth while. Mr Varian is a brooding, self-contained sort—I feel sorry for him.”

“There, there, that will do, Claire! When you feel sorry for a man—I remember you began by being sorry for Lawrence North!”

“I’m sorry for him still. He’s a big man—in a way, a genius—and yet he—”

“He gets nowhere! That’s because he isn’t a genius! But he’s a widower, so he’s fair quarry. Don’t go to feeling sorry for married men.”

“Oh, there’s no sentiment in my sympathy for Mr Varian. Only he intrigues me because of his restless air—his restrained effect, as if he were using every effort to keep himself from breaking through!”

“Breaking through what?”

“I don’t know! Through some barrier, some limit that he has fixed for himself—I tell you I don’t know what it’s all about. That’s why I’m interested.”

“Curious, you mean.”

“Well, curious, then. And how he puts up with that hand-wringing ready-to-cry wife! Yet, he’s fawningly devoted to her! He anticipates her slightest wish—he is worried sick if she is the least mite incommoded or disturbed—and I know he’d lie down and let her walk on him if she even looked as if she’d care to!”

“What a lot you read into a man’s natural consideration for his wife!”

“But it’s there! I’m no fool—I can read people—you know that! I tell you that man is under his wife’s thumb for some reason far more potent than his love for her, or her demand for affection from him.”

“What could be the explanation?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m curious. I’m going to find out, though, and that without the Varians in the least suspecting my efforts. Wait till you see her. She’s almost eerie, she’s so emotional. Not noisy or even verbally expressive, but her face is a study in nervous excitement. She seems to grab at the heartstrings of a mere passer-by, and play on them until she tears them out!”

“Good gracious, you make her out a vampire!”

“I think she is—not a silly vamp, that the girls joke about—but the real thing!”

CHAPTER II

Betty Varian

“Dad, you’re absolutely impossible!”

“Oh, come now, Betty, not as bad as that! Just because I don’t agree to everything you say—”

“But you never agree with me! You seem to be opposed on principle to everything I suggest or want. It’s always been like that! From the time I was born—how old was I, Dad, when you first saw me?”

Mr Varian looked reminiscent.

“About an hour old, I think,” he replied; “maybe a little less.”

“Well, from that moment until this, you have persistently taken the opposite side in any discussion we have had.”

“But if I hadn’t, Betty, there would have been no discussion! And, usually there hasn’t been. You’re a spoiled baby—you always have been and always will be. Your will is strong and as it has almost never been thwarted or even curbed, you have grown up a headstrong, wilful, perverse young woman, and I’m sure I don’t know what to do with you!”

“Get rid of me, Dad,” Betty’s laugh rang out, while her looks quite belied the rather terrible character just ascribed to her.

One foot tucked under her, she sat in a veranda swing, now and then touching her toe to the floor to keep swaying. She wore a sand-colored sport suit whose matching hat lay beside her on the floor.

Her vivid, laughing face, with its big gray eyes and pink cheeks, its scarlet lips and white teeth was framed by a mop of dark brown wavy hair, now tossed by the strong breeze from the sea.

The veranda overlooked the ocean, and the sunlit waves, stretching far away from the great cliff were dotted in the foreground with small craft.

Frederick Varian sat on the veranda rail, a big, rather splendid-looking man, with the early gray of fifty years showing in his hair and carefully trimmed Vandyke beard.

His air was naturally confident and self-assured, but in the face of this chit of a girl he somehow found himself at a disadvantage.

“Betty, dear,” he took another tack, “can’t you understand the fatherly love that cannot bear the idea of parting with a beloved daughter?”

“Oh, yes, but a father’s love ought to think what is for that daughter’s happiness. Then he ought to make the gigantic self-sacrifice that may be necessary.”

A dimple came into Betty’s cheek, and she smiled roguishly, yet with a canny eye toward the effect she was making.

But Varian looked moodily out over the sea.

“I won’t have it,” he said, sternly. “I suppose I have some authority in this matter and I forbid you to encourage any young man to the point of a proposal, or even to think of becoming engaged.”

“How can I ward off a proposal, Dad?” Betty inquired, with an innocent air.

“Don’t be foolish. Of course you can do that. Any girl with your intelligence knows just when an acquaintance crosses the line of mere friendship—”

“Oh, Daddy, you are too funny! And when you crossed the line of mere friendship with mother—what did she do?”

“That has nothing to do with the subject. Now, mind, Betty, I am not jesting—I am not talking idly—”

“You sound very much like it!”

“I’m not. I’m very much in earnest. You are not to encourage the definite attentions of any—”

“All right, let Rod Granniss come up here then, and I promise not to encourage him.”

“He shall not come up here, because he has already gone too far, and you have encouraged him too much—”

“But I love him, Daddy—and—and I think you might—”

“Hush! That’s enough! Don’t let me hear another word now or ever regarding Granniss! He is crossed off our acquaintance, and if he persists in staying here, we will go away!”

“Why, Father, we’ve only just come!”

“I know it, and I came here, thinking to get you away from that man. He followed us up here—”

“He was here before we came!”

“But he didn’t come until he knew we were coming.”

“All right, he came because he wanted to be where I am. And I want to be where he is. And you’d better be careful, Father, or I may take the bit in my teeth and—”

“And run off with him? That’s why I came here. You can’t get away. You perfectly well know that there’s no way down from this house but by that one narrow path—I suppose you’ve no intention of jumping into the sea?”

“Love will find a way!” Betty sang, saucily.

“It isn’t love, Betty. It’s a miserable childish infatuation that will pass at once, if you lose sight of the chap for a short time.”

“Nothing of the sort! It’s the love of my life!”

Varian laughed. “That’s a fine-sounding phrase, but it doesn’t mean anything. Now, child, be reasonable. Give up Granniss. Be friends with all the young people up here, boys and girls both, but don’t let me hear any foolishness about being engaged to anybody.”

“Do you mean for me never to marry, Father?”

“I’d rather you didn’t, my dear. Can’t you be content to spend your days with your devoted parents? Think what we’ve done for you? What we’ve given you—”

“Dad, you make me tired! What have you given me, what have you done for me, more than any parents do for a child? You’ve given me a home, food and clothing—and loving care! What else? And what do I owe you for that, except my own love and gratitude? But I don’t owe you the sacrifice of the natural, normal, expectation of a home and husband of my own! I’m twenty—that’s quite old enough to think of such things. Pray remember how old mother was when she married you. She was nineteen. Suppose her father had talked to her as you’re talking to me! What would you have said to him, I’d like to know!”

By this time Fred Varian was walking with quick short strides up and down the veranda. Betty rose and faced him, standing directly in his path.

“Father,” she said, speaking seriously, “you are all wrong! You don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“That will do, Betty!” When Varian’s temper was roused he could speak very harshly, and did so now. “Hush! I will not hear such words from you! How dare you tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about! Now you make up your mind to obey me, or I’ll cut off all your association with the young people! I’ll shut you up—”

“Hush, yourself, Dad! You’re talking rubbish, and you know it! Shut me up! In a turret of the castle, I suppose! On bread and water, I suppose! What kind of nonsense is that?”

“You’ll see whether it’s nonsense or not! What do you suppose I took this isolated place for, except to keep you here if you grow too independent! Do you know there is no way you can escape if I choose to make you a prisoner? And if that’s the only way to break your spirit, I’ll do it!”

“Why, Father Varian!” Betty looked a little scared, “whatever has come over you?”

“I’ve made up my mind, that’s all. For twenty years I’ve humored you and indulged you and acceded to your every wish. You’ve been petted and spoiled until you think you are the only dictator in this family! Now a time has come when I have put my foot down—”

“Well, pick it up again, Daddy, and all will be forgiven.”

Betty smiled and attempted to kiss the belligerent face looking down at her.

But Frederick Varian repulsed the offered caress and said, sternly:

“I want no affection from a wilful, disobedient child! Give me your word, Betty, to respect my wishes, and I’ll always be glad of your loving ways.”

But Betty was angry now.

“I’ll give you no such promise! I shall conduct myself as I please with my friends and my acquaintances. You know me well enough to know that I never do anything that is in bad form or in bad taste. If I choose to flirt with the young men, or even, as you call it, encourage them, I propose to do so! And I resent your interference, and I deny your right to forbid me in such matters. And, too, I’ll go so far as to warn you that if you persist in this queer attitude you’ve taken—you’ll be sorry! Remember that!”

Betty’s eyes flashed, but she was quiet rather than excited.

Varian himself was nervous and agitated. His fingers clenched and his lips trembled with the intensity of his feelings and as Betty voiced her rebellious thoughts he stared at her in amazement.

“What are you two quarreling about?” came the surprised accents of Mrs Varian as she came out through the French window from the library and looked curiously at them.

“Oh, Mother,” Betty cried, “Dad’s gone nutty! He says I never can marry anybody.”

“What nonsense, Fred”; she did not take it at all seriously. “Of course, Betty will marry some day, but not yet. Don’t bother about it at present.”

“But Daddy’s bothering very much about it at present. At least, he’s bothering me—don’t let little Betty be bothered, Mummy—will you?”

“Let her alone, Fred. Why do you tease the child? I declare you two are always at odds over something!”

“No, Minna, that’s not so. I always indulge Betty—”

“Oh, yes, after I’ve coaxed you to do so. You’re an unnatural father, Fred, you seem possessed to frown on all Betty’s innocent pleasures.”

“I don’t want her getting married and going off and leaving us—” he growled, still looking angry.

“Well, the baby isn’t even engaged yet—don’t begin to worry. And, too, that is in the mother’s province.”

“Not entirely. I rather guess a father has some authority!”

“Oh, yes, if it’s exercised with loving care and discretion. Don’t you bother, Betty, anyway. Father and mother will settle this little argument by ourselves.”

“I’d rather settle it with Dad,” Betty declared spiritedly. “It’s too ridiculous for him to take the stand that I shall never marry! I’m willing to promise not to become engaged without asking you both first; I’m willing to say I won’t marry a man you can convince me is unworthy; I’m willing to promise anything in reason—but a blind promise never to marry is too much to ask of any girl!”

“Of course, it is!” agreed Mrs Varian. “Why do you talk to her like that, Fred?”

“Because I propose to have my own way for once! I’ve given in to you two in every particular for twenty years or more. Now, I assert myself. I say Betty shall not marry, and I shall see to it that she does not!”

“Oh, my heavens!” and Mrs Varian wrung her hands, with a wail of nervous pettishness, “sometimes, Fred, I think you’re crazy! At any rate, you’ll set me crazy, if you talk like that! Do stop this quarrel anyhow. Kiss and make up, won’t you? To think of you two, the only human beings on earth that I care a rap for, acting like this! My husband and my child! The only things I live for! The apple of my eye, the core of my soul, both of you—can’t you see how you distress me when you are at odds! And you’re always at odds! Always squabbling over some little thing. But, heretofore, you’ve always laughed and agreed, finally. Now forget this foolishness—do!”

“It isn’t foolishness,” and Varian set his lips together, doggedly.

“No, it isn’t foolishness,” said Betty quietly, but with a look of indomitable determination.

“Well, stop it, at any rate,” begged Mrs Varian, “if you don’t I shall go into hysterics—and it’s time now for the Herberts to come.”

Now both Fred and Betty knew that a suggestion of hysterics was no idle threat, for Minna Varian could achieve the most annoying demonstrations of that sort at a moment’s notice. And it was quite true that the expected guests were imminent.

But no truce was put into words, for just then a party of three people came in sight and neared the veranda steps.

The three were Frederick Varian’s brother Herbert and his wife and daughter. This family was called the Herberts to distinguish them from the Frederick Varian household.

The daughter, Eleanor, was a year or two younger than Betty, and the girls were friendly, though of widely differing tastes; the brothers Varian were much alike; but the two matrons were as opposite as it is possible for two women to be. Mrs Herbert was a strong character, almost strong-minded. She had no patience with her sister-in-law’s nerves or hysterical tendencies. It would indeed be awkward if the Herberts were to arrive in the midst of one of Mrs Frederick’s exhibitions of temperamental disturbance.

“Wonderful place!” exclaimed Herbert Varian as they ascended the steps to the verandah. “Great, old boy! I never saw anything like it.”

“Reminds me of the Prisoner of Chillon or the Castle of Otranto or—” said Mrs Herbert.

“Climbing that steep path reminded me of the Solitary Horseman,” Herbert interrupted his wife. “Whew! let me sit down! I’m too weighty a person to visit your castled crag of Drachenfels very often! Whew!”

“Poor Uncle Herbert,” cooed Betty; “it’s an awful long, steep pull, isn’t it? Get your breath, and I’ll get you some nice, cool fruit punch. Come on, Eleanor, help me; the servants are gone to the circus—every last one of ’em—”

“Oh, I thought you were having a party here this afternoon,” Eleanor said, as she went with Betty.

“Not a party, a picnic. They’re the proper caper up here. And only a little one. The baskets are all ready, and the men carry them—then we go to a lovely picnic place—not very far—and we all help get the supper. You see, up here, if you don’t let the servants go off skylarking every so often, they leave.”

“I should think they would!” exclaimed Eleanor, earnestly; “I’m ready to leave now! How do you stand it, Betty? I think it’s fearful!”

“Oh, it isn’t the sort of thing you’d like, I know. Put those glasses on that tray, will you, Nell? But I love this wild, craggy place, it’s like an eagle’s eyrie, and I adore the solitude—especially as there are plenty of people, and a golf club and an artist colony and all sorts of nice things in easy distance.”

“You mean that little village or settlement we came through on the way from the station?”

“Yes; and a few of their choicest inhabitants are coming up this afternoon for our picnic.”

“That sounds better,” Eleanor sighed, “but I’d never want to stay here. Is Rod Grannis here? Is that why you came?”

“Hush, Nell. Don’t mention Rod’s name, at least, not before Father. You see, Dad’s down on him.”

“Down on Rod! Why for?”

“Only because he’s too fond of little Betty.”

“Who is? Rod or your father?”

Betty laughed. “Both of ’em! But, I mean, Dad is down on any young man who’s specially interested in me.”

“Oh, I know. So is my father. I don’t let it bother me. Fathers are all like that. Most of the girls I know say so.”

“Yes, I know it’s a fatherly failing; but Dad is especially rabid on the subject. There you take the basket of cakes and I’ll carry the tray.”

It was nearly five o’clock when the picnic party was finally ready to start for its junketing.

Mrs Blackwood had arrived, bringing her two promised young men, Ted Landon and John Clark.

Rearrayed in picnic garb, the house guests were ready for the fun, and the Frederick Varians were getting together and looking over the baskets of supper.

“If we could only have kept one helper by us,” bemoaned Minna Varian, her speech accompanied by her usual wringing of her distressed hands. “I begged Kelly to stay but he wouldn’t.”

“The circus is here only one day, you know, Mrs Varian,” Landon told her, “and I fancy every servant in Headland Harbor has gone to it. But command me—”

“Indeed, we will,” put in Betty; “carry this, please, and, Uncle Herbert, you take this coffee paraphernalia.”

Divided among the willing hands, the luggage was not too burdensome, and the cavalcade prepared to start.

“No fear of burglars, I take it,” said Herbert, as his brother closed the front door and shook it to be sure it was fastened.

“Not a bit,” and Frederick Varian took up his own baskets. “No one can possibly reach this house, save through that gate down by the lodge. And that is locked. Also the windows and doors of the house are all fastened. So if you people have left jewelry on your dressing tables, don’t be alarmed, you’ll find it there on your return.”

“All aboard!” shouted Landon, and they started, by twos or threes, but in a moment were obliged to walk single file down the steep and narrow path.

“Oh, my heavens!” cried Betty, suddenly, “I must go back! I’ve forgotten my camera. Let me take your key, Father, I’ll run and get it in a minute!”

“I’ll go and get it for you, Betty,” said Varian, setting down his burden.

“No, Dad, you can’t; it’s in a closet, behind a lot of other things, and you’d upset the whole lot into a dreadful mess. I know you!”

“Let me go, Miss Varian,” offered several of the others, but Betty was insistent.

“No one can get it but myself—at least, not without a lot of delay and trouble. Give me the key, Father, I’ll be right back.”

“But, Betty—”

“Oh, give her the key, Fred!” exclaimed his wife; “don’t torment the child! I believe you enjoy teasing her! There, take the key, Betty, and run along. Hurry, do, for it’s annoying to have to wait for you.”

“Let me go with you,” asked John Clark, but Betty smiled a refusal and ran off alone.

Most of them watched the lithe, slight figure, as she bounded up the rugged, irregular steps, sometimes two of them at a time, and at last they saw her fitting the key into the front door.

She called back a few words, but the distance was too great for them to hear her clearly, although they could see her.

She waved her hand, smilingly, and disappeared inside the house, leaving the door wide open behind her.

“Extraordinary place!” Herbert Varian said, taking in the marvelous crag from this new viewpoint.

“You must see it from the clubhouse,” said Landon; “can’t you all come here tomorrow afternoon, on my invite?”

“We’ll see,” Mrs Varian smiled at him, for it was impossible not to like this frank, good-looking youth.

The conversation was entirely of the wonders and beauties of Headland House, until at last, Mrs Blackwood said, “Isn’t that child gone a long while? I could have found half a dozen cameras by this time!”

“She is a long time,” Frederick Varian said, frowning; “I was just thinking that myself. I think I’ll go after her.”

“No, don’t,” said his wife, nervously, “you’ll get into an argument with her, and never get back! Let her alone—she’ll be here in a minute.”

But the minutes went by, and Betty didn’t reappear in the open doorway.

“I know what she’s up to,” and Frederick Varian shook his head, in annoyance.

Whereupon Mrs Frederick began to cry.

“Now, Fred, stop,” she said; “Herbert, you go up to the house and tell Betty to come along. If she can’t find her camera, tell her to come without it. I wish we had a megaphone so we could call her. Go on, Herbert.”

“Stay where you are, Herbert,” said his brother. “I shall go. It’s all right, Minna, I won’t tease the child—I promise you. It’s all right, dear.”

He kissed his wife lightly on the brow, and started off at a swinging pace up the rocky flight of steps.

“I’ll fetch her,” he called back, as he proceeded beyond hearing distance. “Chirk up, Minna, Janet; tell her I shan’t abuse Betty.”

“What does he mean by that?” asked Mrs Herbert of Mrs Frederick, as she repeated the message.

“Oh, nothing,” and Mrs Frederick clasped her hands resignedly. “Only you know how Betty and her father are always more or less at odds. I don’t know why it is—they’re devoted to each other, yet they’re always quarreling.”

“They don’t mean anything,” and her sister-in-law smiled. “I know them both, and they’re an ideal father and daughter.”

CHAPTER III

The Tragedy

Doctor Herbert Varian stood slightly apart from the rest of the group, his observant eyes taking in all the details of the peculiar situation of his brother’s house. His eye traversed back over the short distance they had already come, and he saw a narrow, winding and exceedingly steep path. At intervals it was a succession of broken, irregular steps, rocky and sharp-edged. Again, it would be a fairly easy, though stony footway. But it led to the house, and had no branch or side track in any direction.

“Everything and everybody that comes to this house has to come by this path?” he demanded.

“Yes,” said Minna Varian, and added, complainingly, “a most disagreeable arrangement. All the servants and tradespeople have to use it as well as ourselves and our guests.”

“That could be remedied,” suggested Varian, “a branch, say—”

“We’ll never do it,” said Minna, sharply. “I don’t like the place well enough to buy it, though that is what Fred has in mind—”

“No, don’t buy it,” advised her brother-in-law. “I see nothing in its favor except its wonderful beauty and strange, weird charm. That’s a good deal, I admit, but not enough for a comfortable summer home.”

He turned and gazed out over the open sea. From the high headland the view was unsurpassable. The few nearby boats seemed lost in the great expanse of waters. Some chugging motor boats and a dozen or so sailing craft ventured not very far from shore. North, along the Maine coast, he saw only more rocky promontories and rockbound inlets.

Turning slowly toward the South, he saw the graceful curve of Headland Harbor, with its grouped village houses and spreading array of summer cottages.

“I never saw anything finer,” he declared. “I almost think, Minna, after all, you would be wise to buy the place, and then, arrange to make it more getatable. A continuous flight of strong wooden steps—”

“Would spoil the whole thing!” exclaimed Claire Blackwood. “Oh, Doctor Varian, don’t propose anything like that! We Harborers love this place, just as it is, and we would defend it against any such innovations. I think there’s a law about defacing natural scenery.”

“Don’t bother,” said Minna, carelessly; “we’ll never do anything of the sort. I won’t agree to it.”

“That’s right,” said her sister-in-law. “This is no place to bring up Betty. The girl has no real society here, no advantages, no scope. She’ll become a savage—”

“Not Betty,” Minna Varian laughed. “She’s outdoor-loving and all that, but she has nothing of the barbarian in her. I think she’d like to go to a far gayer resort. But her father—”

“Where is her father?” asked Doctor Varian, impatiently. “It will be dark before we get to our picnic. Why don’t they come?”

He gave a loud view-halloo, but only the echoes from the rocky heights answered him.

“I knew it!” and Minna Varian began to wring her hands. “He and Betty are quarreling—I am sure of it!”

“What do you mean, Min? What’s this quarreling business about?”

“They’ve always done it—it’s nothing new. They adore each other, but they’re eternally disagreeing and fighting it out. They’re quite capable of forgetting all about us, and arguing out some foolish subject while we sit here waiting for them!”

“I’ll go and stir them up,” the doctor said, starting in the direction of the house.

“Oh, no, Herbert. It’s a hard climb, and you’ve enough walking ahead of you.”

“I’ll go,” and Ted Landon looked inquiringly at Mrs Varian.

“Oh, what’s the use?” she said; “they’ll surely appear in a minute.”

So they all waited a few minutes longer and then Janet Varian spoke up.

“I think it’s a shame to keep us here like this. Go on up to the house, Mr Landon, do. Tell those two foolish people that they must come on or the picnic will proceed without them.”

“All right,” said Ted, and began sprinting over the rocks.

“I’m going, too,” and Claire Blackwood followed Landon.

“We may as well all go, and have our picnic on our own verandah,” said Minna, complainingly, and though Doctor Varian would have preferred that to any further exertions, he did not say so.

“It’s always like this,” Minna’s querulous voice went on; “whenever we start to go anywhere, somebody has to go back for something and they’re so slow and so inconsiderate of other people’s feelings—”

“There they go,” interrupted Doctor Varian as the two latest emissaries went up over the rocks. “Now the house will swallow them up!”

“Oh, Herbert, don’t say such awful things,” wailed Minna; “you sound positively creepy! I have a feeling of fear of that house anyway—I believe it would like to swallow people up!”

“Ought we to intrude?” Claire Blackwood laughingly asked of Landon, as they neared the house; “if Betty and her father want to quarrel, they ought to be allowed to do so in peace.”

“Oh, well, if they insist, we’ll go away again, and let them have it out comfortably. Queer thing, for Daughter and Dad to make a habit of scrapping!”

“I take Mrs Varian’s statements with a grain of salt,” said Claire, sagely. “She’s not awfully well balanced, that woman, and I doubt if Betty and her father are half as black as they’re painted. Shall we ring the bell or walk right in?”

But this question needed no answer, for as they mounted the steps of the verandah and neared the open front door, they were confronted by the sight of Mr Frederick Varian sprawled at full length on the floor of the hall.

“Oh, heavens, what is the matter?” cried Claire; “the man has had a stroke or something!”

Landon went nearer, and with a grave face, stooped down to the prostrate figure.

“Claire,” he whispered, looking up at her with a white face, “Claire, this man is dead.”

“What? No—no! it can’t be—”

“Yes, he is—I’m almost certain—I don’t think I’d better touch him—or, should I? It can do no harm to feel for his heart—no, it is not beating—what does it mean? Where’s Miss Varian?”

“Think quickly, Mr Landon, what we ought to do.” Claire Blackwood spoke earnestly, and tried to pull herself together. “We must be careful to do the right thing. I should say, before we even think of Miss Betty we should call Doctor Varian up here—”

“The very thing! Will you call him, or shall I?”

Considerately, Landon gave her her choice.

With a shuddering glance at the still figure, Claire said, “You call him, but let me go with you.”

They stepped out on the veranda, and Landon waved his hand at the group of waiting people below him.

Then he beckoned, but no one definitely responded.

“I’ll have to shout,” Ted said, with a regretful look. “Somehow I hate to—” the presence of death seemed to restrain him.

But of necessity, he called out, “Doctor Varian—come here.”

The distance was almost too far for his voice to carry, but because of his imperative gestures, Herbert Varian said: “Guess I’ll have to go. Lord! What can be the trick they’re trying to cut up? I vow I won’t come back here! I’ll eat my picnic in your dining-room, Minna.”

“As you like,” she returned, indifferently. “I hate picnics, anyway. But for goodness’ sake, Herbert, do one thing or the other. If you’d really rather not go to the woods, take your baskets, and we’ll all go back to the house. It’s getting late, anyway.”

“Wait a bit,” counseled the doctor. “You people stay here, till I go up to the house, and see what’s doing. Then if I beckon you, come along back, all of you. If I don’t break my neck getting up there!”

“Don’t go, Father,” begged Eleanor; “let me go. What in the world can they want of you?”

“No—I’ll go. I suppose there’s a leak in the pipes or something.”

Herbert Varian went off at a gait that belied his recalcitrant attitude, and as he neared the house, he could see the white faces and grave air of the two that awaited him.

“What’s the great idea?” he called out, cheerily.

“A serious matter, Doctor Varian,” replied Landon. “An accident, or sudden illness—”

“No!” the doctor took the remaining steps at a bound. “Who?”

For answer, Landon conducted him inside the hall, and in an instant Varian was on his knees beside the stricken man.

“My God!” he said, in a hoarse whisper, “Frederick’s dead!”

“A stroke?” asked Landon, while Claire Blackwood stood by, unable to speak at all.

“No, man, no! Shot! See the blood—shot through the heart. What does it—what can it mean? Where’s Betty?”

“We don’t know,” Claire spoke now. “Doctor Varian, are you sure he’s dead? Can nothing be done to save him?”

“Nothing. He died almost instantly, from internal hemorrhage. But how unbelievable! How impossible!”

“Who shot him?” Landon burst out, impetuously; “or—is it suicide?”

“Where’s the pistol?” said the doctor, looking about.

Both men searched, Landon trying to overcome his repugnance to such close association with the dead, but no weapon of any sort could be found.

“I—I can’t see it—” Varian wiped his perspiring brow. “I can’t see any solution. But, this won’t do. We must get the others up here. Oh, heavens, what shall we do with Minna?”

“Let me go down, and take her home with me,” suggested Claire Blackwood, eager to do anything that might help or ease the coming disclosure of the tragedy.

“Oh, I don’t know—” demurred Varian. “You see, she’s got to know—of course, she must be told at once—and then—she’ll have to look after Betty—where is the child? Anyway, my wife is a tower of strength—she’ll be able to manage Mrs Varian—even if she has violent hysterics—which, of course, she will!”

“Command me, Doctor Varian,” said Landon. “I will do whatever you advise.”

“All right; I’ll be glad of your assistance. Suppose you go back to the people down there on the rocks, and then—let me see—suppose you tell my wife first what has happened; then, ask her to break the news to Mrs Varian—she’ll know how best to do it. Then—oh, Lord—I don’t know what then! They’ll have to come back here—I suppose—what else can they do? I don’t know, Mrs Blackwood, but your idea of taking Mrs Varian away with you is a good one. If she’ll go.”

“She won’t go,” said Claire, decidedly, “if she knows the truth. If I take her, it’ll have to be on some false pretense—”

“Won’t do,” said Varian, briefly. “We’ve got no right to keep her in ignorance of her husband’s death. No; she must be told. That girl of mine, too—Eleanor, she hasn’t her mother’s poise—she’s likely to go to pieces—always does, in the presence of death. Oh, what a moil!”

“Here’s another thing,” said Landon, a little hesitantly. “What about the authorities?”

“Yes—yes—” the doctor spoke impatiently, “I thought of that—who are they, in this God-forsaken place? Town Constable, I suppose.”

“I don’t know myself,” said Landon. “County Sheriff, more likely. But Clark’s a good, sensible sort. Say we send him down to the village—”

“Oh, must it be known down there right away?” cried Claire. “Before even Mrs Varian is told! Or Betty. Where is Betty?”

“Betty is somewhere in the house,” said Doctor Varian in a low voice. “We know that. Now, let that question rest, till we decide on our first move. I think, Landon, you’d better do as I said. Go and tell my wife, and, while she’s telling Mrs Varian and my daughter, Eleanor, you can take Mr Clark aside and tell him. Then—then, I think, you’d all better come back here to the house. We’ll send Clark on that errand later—or, we can telephone.”

Landon started on his difficult descent and on his even more difficult errand.

“Can’t you—can’t you put Mr Varian somewhere—somewhere—” Claire began, incoherently.

“I’m not supposed to move a body until the authorities give permission,” said Doctor Varian, slowly. “It would seem to me, that in this very peculiar and unusual case, that I might—but, that’s just it. I’ve been thinking—and the very mysteriousness of this thing, makes it most necessary for me to be unusually circumspect. Why, Mrs Blackwood, have you any idea what we have ahead of us? I can’t think this mystery will be simple or easily explained. I don’t—”

“What do you think—”

“I don’t dare think! Isn’t there a phrase, ‘that way madness lies’? Well, it recurs to me when I let myself think! No—I won’t think—and I beg of you, don’t question me! I’m not a hysterical woman—but there are times when a man feels as if hysterics might be a relief!”

“Then let’s not think—” said Claire, tactfully, “but let me try to be helpful. If Mrs Varian is coming here—do you advise that we—cover—Mr Varian with—”

“With a sheet, I suppose—do you know where to find one?”

“No, I’ve never been upstairs—and then, after all, isn’t a sheet even more gruesome than the sight as it is at present? How about a dark cover?”

“Very well—find one.” The Doctor spoke absorbedly, uncaring.

Glancing about, Claire noticed a folded steamer rug, on the end of the big davenport in the hall, and fetching that, she laid it lightly over the still form.

“Now, about Betty—” said the doctor, coming out of his brown study. “She is in the house—probably hiding—from fear—”

“Oh, do you think that? Then let us find her!”

“We can’t both go. Will you remain here and meet the others or shall I stay here while you go to look for the girl?”

Claire Blackwood pondered. Either suggestion was too hard for her to accept.

“I can’t—” she said, at last. “I’m a coward, I suppose—but I can’t search this great, empty house—for Betty. And, if she were in it, she would surely come here to us—”

Doctor Varian looked at her.

“Then I’ll go,” he said, simply. “You stay here.”

“No!” Claire grasped his arm. “I can’t do that either. Oh, Doctor Varian, stay here with me! Think—these are not my people—I’m sympathetic, of course, but, I’m terrified—I’m afraid—”

“There’s nothing to fear.”

“I can’t help that—I won’t stay here alone. If you leave me, I shall run down the path to meet them.”

“Then I’ll have to stay here. Very well, Mrs Blackwood, they’ll arrive in a few moments—we’ll wait for them together.”

And then Varian again fell to ruminating, and Claire Blackwood, sick with her own thoughts, said no word.

At last they heard footsteps, and looked out to see the little procession headed by the two sisters-in-law.

Janet Varian was half supporting Minna, but her help was not greatly needed, for the very violence of Minna’s grief and fright gave her a sort of supernormal strength and she walked uprightly and swiftly.

“Where’s Frederick?” she demanded, in a shrill voice as she came up the steps—“and where’s Betty? Where’s my child?”

Her voice rose to a shriek on the last words, and Doctor Varian took her by the arm, giving her his undivided attention.

“Be careful now, Minna,” he said, kindly but decidedly; “don’t lose your grip. You’ve a big trouble to face—and do try, dear, to meet it bravely.”

“I’m brave enough, Herbert, don’t worry about that. Where’s Fred, I say?”

“Here,” was the brief reply, and Varian led her to her husband’s body.

As he had fully expected, she went into violent hysterics. She cried, she screamed, then her voice subsided to a sort of low, dismal wailing, only to break out afresh with renewed shrieks.

“Perhaps it’s better that she should do this, than to control herself,” the Doctor said; “she’ll soon exhaust herself at this rate, and may in that way become more tractable. I wish we could get her to bed.”

“We can,” responded his wife, promptly. “I’ll look after that. Give a look at Eleanor, Herbert.”

The harassed doctor turned his attention to his daughter, who was controlling herself, but who was trembling piteously.

“Good girl,” said her father, taking her in his arms. “Buck up, Nell, dear. Dad’s got a whole lot on his shoulders, and my, how it will help if you don’t keel over!”

“I won’t,” and Eleanor tried to smile.

Claire Blackwood approached the pair.

“Doctor Varian,” she said, “suppose I take your daughter home with me for the night—or longer, if she’ll stay. It might relieve you and your wife of a little care, and I’ll be good to her, I promise you. And, if I may, I’d like to go now. I can’t be of any service here, can I? And as Miss Eleanor can’t either, what do you think of our going now?”

“A very good idea, Mrs Blackwood,” and the doctor’s face showed grateful appreciation. “Take one of the young men with you, and leave the other here to help me.”

“We’ll take John Clark,” Claire decided, “and Ted Landon will, I know, be glad to stand by you.”

The three departed, and then the sisters-in-law left the room and went upstairs, Minna making no resistance to Janet’s suggestions.

Left alone with the dead, Doctor Varian and young Landon looked at each other.

“What does it all mean?” asked the younger man, a look of absolute bewilderment on his face.

“I can’t make it out,” returned the other, slowly. “But it’s a pretty awful situation. Now the women are gone, I’ll speak out the thing that troubles me most. Where’s Betty?”

“Who? Miss Varian? Why, yes, where is she? She came for her camera, you know. She—why, she must be in the house.”

“She must be—that is—I can’t see any alternative. I understand there’s no way out of this house, save down the path we took.”

“No other, sir.”

“Then if the girl’s in the house—she must be found.”

“Yes—” and Landon saw the terrible fear in the other’s eyes, and his own glance responded. “Shall we search the rooms?”

“That must be done. Now, I’m not willing to leave the body of my brother unattended. Will you watch by it, while I run over the house, or the other way about?”

“I’ll do as you prefer I should, Doctor Varian—but if you give me a choice, I’ll stay here. I’ve never been in the house before, and I don’t know the rooms. However, I want to be frank—and, the truth is, I’d rather not make that search—even if I did know the rooms.”

“I understand, Mr Landon, and I don’t blame you. I’ve never been in the house before either—and I don’t at all like the idea of the search, but it must be made—and made at once, and it’s my place to do it. So, then, if you’ll remain here, I’ll go the rounds.”

Ted Landon nodded silently, and sat down to begin the vigil he had been asked to keep.

Herbert Varian went first upstairs to Minna’s room, and opening the door softly, discovered the widow was lying quietly on her bed. Janet, sitting by, placed a warning forefinger against her lip, and seeing that the patient was quiet, Varian noiselessly closed the door and tiptoed away.

He stood a moment in the second story hall, looking upward at a closed door, to which a narrow and winding staircase would take him.

Should he go up there—or search the two lower stories first? He looked out of a window at the foot of the little stair.

It gave West, and afforded no view of the sea. But the wild and inaccessible rocks which he saw, proved to him finally that there was no way of approach to this lonely house, save by that one and only path he had already climbed. He sighed, for this dashed his last hope that Betty might have left the house on some errand or some escapade before her father had reached it.

With vague forebodings and a horrible sinking at his heart, he began to ascend the turret stair.

CHAPTER IV

The Search

Doctor Herbert Varian was a man accustomed to responsibilities; more, he was accustomed to the responsibilities of other people as well as his own. Yet it seemed to him that the position in which he now found himself was more appalling than anything he had ever before experienced, and that it was liable to grow worse rather than better with successive developments.

Varian had what has been called “the leaping mind,” and without being unduly apprehensive, he saw trouble ahead, such as he shuddered to think about. His brother dead, there was the hysterical widow to be cared for. And Betty in hiding—

He paused, his hand on the latch of the door at the top of the stair.

Then, squaring his shoulders, he shook off his hesitation and opened the door.

He found himself in a small turret room, from which he went on to other rooms on that floor. They were, for the most part, quite evidently unoccupied bedrooms, but two gave signs of being in use by servants.

Varian paid little heed to his surroundings, but went rapidly about hunting for the missing girl.

“Betty—” he called, softly; “Betty, dear, where are you? Don’t be afraid—Uncle Herbert will take care of you. Come, Betty, come out of hiding.”

But there was no answer to his calls. He flung open cupboard doors, he peered into dark corners and alcoves, but he saw no trace of any one, nor heard any sound.

Two other tiny staircases led up to higher turrets, but these were empty, and search as he would he found no Betty, nor any trace of her.

Unwilling to waste what might be valuable time, Doctor Varian went downstairs again.

Then, one after another, he visited all the rooms on the second floor but found no sign of his niece.

He went again to the room where the women were and beckoned his wife outside.

“Minna is asleep?” he asked, in a whisper.

“Yes,” Janet replied, “but, of course, only as an effect of that strong opiate you gave her. She tosses and moans—but, yes, she is asleep.”

“I dread her waking. What are we to do with her? And, Janet, where is Betty? I’ve been all over these upper floors—and now I’ll tackle the rooms downstairs, and the cellar. The girl must be found—”

“Herbert! Did you ever know such a fearful situation? And—as to—Frederick—don’t you have to—”

“Yes, yes, of course; the authorities must be called in. Don’t think I haven’t realized that. But first of all we must find Betty—dead or alive!”

“Don’t say that!” Janet clutched at his arm. “I can’t bear any more horrors.”

“Poor girl—you may have to. Brace up, dear, I’ve all I can do to—”

“Of course you have,” his wife kissed him tenderly. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t add to your burdens, and I will help all I can. Thank heaven that kind woman took Eleanor away with her.”

“Yes; but I daresay we ought to have kept them all here. There’s crime to be considered, and—”

“Never mind, they’re gone—and I’m glad of it. You can get them back when necessary.”

“But it’s a mystery—oh, what shall I do first? I never felt so absolutely unable to cope with a situation. But the first thing is to hunt further for Betty.”

Pursuant of his clearest duty, Doctor Varian went on through the yet unsearched rooms, on to the kitchen, and on down to the cellar. He made a hasty but careful search, flinging open closets, cupboards and storerooms, and returned at last to the hall where Ted Landon sat with folded arms, keeping his lonely vigil.

“I can’t imagine where Betty can be,” and Varian sank wearily into a chair.

“She must be in the house,” said Landon, wonderingly, “for there’s no way out, except down the path where we all were.”

“There’s a back door, I suppose.”

“I mean no way off the premises. Yes, there must be a back door—you know I’ve never been in this house before.”

“No; well, look here, Landon; the authorities must be notified; the local doctor ought to be called in—and all that. But first, I want to find Betty. Suppose I stay here—I’m—I admit I’m pretty tired—and you take a look out around the back door, and kitchen porch. By the way, the servants will be coming home soon—”

“No, they were to stay out for the evening, I think Mrs Varian said.”

“But those people who went back to the village will, of course, tell of the matter, and soon we’ll have all kinds of curious visitors.”

“All right, Doctor Varian, I’ll do just what you say.”

The younger man went on his errand, and going through the kitchen, found the back porch. To reach it he had to unlock the outside door, thus proving to his own satisfaction that Betty had not gone out that way.

But he went out and looked about. He saw nothing indicative. The porch was pleasant and in neat order. A knitting-bag and a much be-thumbed novel were evidently the property of the cook or waitress, and an old cap on a nail was, doubtless, the butler’s.

He took pains to ascertain that there was no path or road that led down to the gate but the path that also went from the front door, and which he had been on when Betty returned to the house.

He had seen her enter the house, had seen her father go in a few moments later, now where was the girl?

Back to the kitchen Landon went, and in the middle of the floor, he noticed a yellow cushion. It was a satin covered, embroidered affair, probably, he thought, a sofa cushion, or hammock pillow, but it seemed too elaborate for a servant’s cushion. Surely it belonged to the family.

The kitchen was in tidy order, save for a tray of used glasses and empty plates which was on a table.

Landon picked up the pillow—and then, on second thoughts, laid it back where he had found it. It might be evidence.

An open door showed the cellar stairs. Conquering a strong disinclination, Landon went down. The cellar was large, and seemed to have various rooms and bins, and some locked cupboards. But there was nothing sinister, the rooms were for the most part fairly light, and the air was good.

Remembering that Doctor Varian had already searched down there for Betty, Landon merely went over the same ground, and returned with the news of his unsuccessful search.

“No way out?” queried the doctor, briefly.

“None, except by passing the very spot where we all were when Betty ran back to the house.”

“Where is she, Landon?”

The two men stared at each other, both absolutely at a loss to answer the question.

“Well,” and Varian pulled himself together, “this won’t do. It’s a case for the police—how shall we get at them?”

“I don’t know anything about the police, but if you telephone the inn or the clubhouse they’ll tell you. The local doctor is Merritt—I know him. But he couldn’t do anything. Why call him when you’re here?”

“It’s customary, I think. You call Merritt, will you, and then I’ll speak to the innkeeper.”

The telephoning was just about completed, when a fearful scream from upstairs announced the fact that Minna Varian had awakened from her opiate sleep and had returned to a realization of her troubles.

Slowly Doctor Varian rose and went up the stairs.

He entered the bedroom to find Minna sitting up in bed, wild-eyed and struggling to get up, while Janet urged her to lie still.

“Lie still!” she screamed, “I will not. Come here, Herbert. Tell me—where is my child? Why is Betty not here? Is she dead, too? Tell me, I say!”

“Yes, Minna,” Varian returned, quietly, “I will tell you all I can. I do not know where Betty is, but we’ve no reason to think she is dead—”

“Then why doesn’t she come to me? Why doesn’t Fred come? Oh—Fred is dead—isn’t he?”

And then the poor woman went into violent hysterics, now shrieking like a maniac and now moaning piteously, like some hurt animal.

“The first thing to do,” said Doctor Varian, decidedly, “is to get a nurse for Minna.”

“No,” demurred his wife, “not tonight, anyway. I’ll take care of her, and there will be some maid servant who can help me. There was a nice looking waitress among those who went off this afternoon.”

“The servants will surely return as soon as they hear the news,” Varian said, and then he gave all his attention to calming his patient.

Again he placed her under the influence of a powerful opiate, and by the time she was unconscious, the local doctor had come.

Varian went down to find Doctor Merritt examining the body of his brother.

The two medical men met courteously, the local doctor assuming an important air, principally because he considered the other his superior.

“Terrible thing, Doctor Varian,” Merritt said; “death practically instantaneous.”

“Practically,” returned the other. “May have lived a few moments, but unconscious at once. You know the sheriff?”

“Yes; Potter. He’ll be along soon. He’s a shrewd one—but—my heavens! Who did this thing?”

Doctor Merritt’s formality gave way before his irrepressible curiosity. He looked from Doctor Varian to Ted Landon and back again, with an exasperated air of resentment at being told so little.

“We don’t know, Doctor Merritt,” Landon said, as the other doctor said nothing. “We’ve no idea.”

“No idea! A man shot and killed in this lonely, isolated house and you don’t know who did it? What do you mean?”

In a few words Varian detailed the circumstances, and added, “We don’t know where Miss Varian is.”

“Disappeared! Then she must have shot her father—”

“Oh, no!” interrupted Landon, “don’t say such an absurd thing!”

“What else is there to say?” demanded Merritt. “You say there was nobody in the house but those two people. Now, one is here dead, and the other is missing. What else can be said?”

“Don’t accuse a defenseless girl—” advised Varian. “Betty must be found, of course. But I don’t for a minute believe she shot her father.”

“Where’s the gun?” asked Doctor Merritt.

“Hasn’t been found,” returned Varian, briefly. “Mrs Varian, my brother’s wife, is hysterical. I’ve been obliged to quiet her by opiates. Doctor Merritt, this is by no means a simple case. I hope your sheriff is a man of brains and experience. It’s going to call for wise and competent handling.”

“Potter is experienced enough. Been sheriff for years. But as to brains, he isn’t overburdened with them. Still, he’s got good horse sense.”

“One of the best things to have,” commented Varian. “Now, I don’t know that we need keep Mr Landon here any longer. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” said Merritt, thoughtfully. “He was here at the time of the—crime?”

“Yes; but so were several others, and they’ve gone away. As you like, Mr Landon, but I don’t think you need stay unless you wish.”

“I do wish,” Ted Landon said. “I may be of use, somehow, and, too, I’m deeply interested. I want to see what the sheriff thinks about it, and, too, I want to try to find or help to find Miss Betty.”

“Betty must be found,” said Varian, as if suddenly reminded of the fact. “I am so distracted between the shock of my brother’s death and the anxiety regarding his wife’s condition, that for the moment I almost forgot Betty. That child must be hiding somewhere. She must have been frightened in some fearful way, and either fainted or run away and hid out in the grounds somewhere. I’m positive she isn’t in the house.”

“She couldn’t have gone out the back door,” said Landon. “It was locked when I went to it.”

“She couldn’t have gone out at the front door or we should have seen her,” Varian added, “She stepped out of a window, then.”

“Are you assuming some intruder?” asked Merritt, wonderingly.

“I’m not assuming anything,” returned Varian, a little crisply, for his nerves were on edge. “But Betty Varian must be found—my duty is to the living as well as to the dead.”

He glanced at his brother’s body, and his face expressed a mute promise to care for that brother’s child.

“But how are you going to find her?” asked Landon. “We saw Miss Varian enter this house—”

“Therefore, she is still in it—or in the grounds,” said Varian, positively. “It can’t be otherwise. I shall hunt out of doors first, before it grows dusk. Then we can hunt the house afterward.”

“You have hunted the house.”

“Yes; but it must be hunted more thoroughly. Why, Betty, or—Betty’s body must be somewhere. And must be found.”

Doctor Merritt listened, dumfounded. Here was mystery indeed. Mr Varian dead—shot—no weapon found, and his daughter missing.

What could be the explanation?

The hunt out of doors for Betty resulted in nothing at all. There was no kitchen garden, merely a drying plot and a small patch of back yard, mostly stones and hard ground. This was surrounded by dwarfed and stunted pine trees, which not only afforded no hiding place, but shut off no possible nook or cranny where Betty could be hidden. The whole tableland was exposed to view from all parts of it, and it was clear to be seen that Betty Varian could not be hiding out of doors.

And since she could not have left the premises, save by the road where the picnic party was congregated, there was no supposition but that she was still in the house.

“Can you form any theory, Doctor Varian?” Landon asked him.

“No, I can’t. Can you?”

“Only the obvious one—that Miss Varian killed her father and then hid somewhere.”

“But where? Mind you, I don’t for a moment admit she killed her father, that’s too ridiculous! But whoever killed him, may also have killed her. It is her body I think we are more likely to find.”

“How, then, did the assassin get away?”

“I don’t know. I’m not prepared to say there’s no way out of this place—”

“But I know that to be the fact. There comes the sheriff, Doctor Varian. That’s Potter.”

They went into the house again, and found the sheriff and another man with him.

Merritt made the necessary introductions, and Doctor Varian looked at Potter.

“The strangest case you’ve ever had,” he informed him, “and the most important. How do you propose to handle it?”

“Like I do all the others, by using my head.”

“Yes, I know, but I mean what help do you expect to have?”

“Dunno’s I’ll need any yet. Haven’t got the principal facts. Dead man’s your brother, ain’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Shot dead and no weapon around. Criminal unknown. Now, about this young lady—the daughter. Where is she?”

“I don’t know—but I hope you can find her.”

And then Doctor Varian told, in his straightforward way, of his search for the girl.

“Mighty curious,” vouchsafed the sheriff, with an air of one stating a new idea. “The girl and her father on good terms?”

“Yes, of course,” Varian answered, but his slight hesitation made the sheriff eye him keenly.

“We want the truth, you know,” he said, thoughtfully. “If them two wasn’t on good terms, you might as well say so—’cause it’ll come out sooner or later.”

“But they were—so far as I know.”

“Oh, well, all right. I can’t think yet, the girl shot her father. I won’t think that—lessen I have to. But, good land, man, you say you’ve looked all over the house—where’s the murderer, then?”

“Suicide?” laconically said the man who had come with the sheriff.

It was the first time he had spoken. He was a quiet, insignificant chap, but his eyes were keen and his whole face alert.

“Couldn’t be, Bill,” said the sheriff, “with no weapon about.”

“Might ’a’ been removed,” the other said, in his brief way.

“By whom?” asked Doctor Varian.

“By whoever came here first,” Bill returned, looking at him.

“I came here first,” Varian stated. “Do you mean I removed the weapon?”

“Have to look at all sides, you know.”

“Well, I didn’t. But I won’t take time, now, to enlarge on that plain statement. I’ll be here, you can question me, when and as often as you like. Now, Mr Potter, what are you going to do first?”

“Well, seems to me there’s no more to be done with Mr Varian’s body. You two doctors have examined it, you know all about the wound that killed him. Bill, here, has jotted down all the details of its position and all that. Now, I think you can call in the undertakers and have the body taken away or kept here till the funeral—whichever you like.”

“The funeral!” exclaimed Doctor Varian, realizing a further responsibility for his laden shoulders. “I suppose I’d better arrange about that, for my sister-in-law will not be able to do so.”

“Jest’s you like,” said Potter. “Next, I’ll investigate for myself the absence of this girl. A mysterious disappearance is as serious a matter as a mysterious death—maybe, more so.”

“That’s true,” agreed Varian. “I hope you’ll be able to find my niece, for she must be found.”

“Easy enough to say she must be found—the trick is to find her.”

“Have you any theory of the crime, Mr Potter?” Landon asked.

“Theory? No, I don’t deal in theories. I may say it looks to me like the girl may have shot her father, but it only looks that way because there’s no other way, so far, for it to look. You can’t suspect a criminal that you ain’t had any hint of, can you? If anybody, now, turns up who’s seen a man prowling round—or seen any mysterious person, or if any servant is found who, say, didn’t go to the circus, but hung behind, or—”

“But if there’s any such, they or he must be in the house now,” Bill said, quietly. “Let’s go and see.”

The two started from the room and Landon, after a glance at Doctor Varian, followed them.

“I don’t see,” Landon said to Potter as they went to the kitchen, “why you folks in authority always seem to think it necessary to take an antagonistic attitude toward the people who are representing the dead man! You act toward Doctor Varian as if you more than half suspected he had a hand in the crime himself!”

“Not that, my boy,” and Potter looked at him gravely; “but that doctor brother knows more than he’s telling.”

“That’s not so! I know. I came up here to the house with him. I was with him when he found his brother’s body—”

“Oh, you were! Why didn’t you say so?”

“You didn’t ask me. No, I don’t know anything more. I’ve nothing to tell that can throw any possible light, but I do know that Doctor Varian had no hand in it and knows no more about it than I do.”

“Good land, I don’t mean that he killed his brother—I know better than that. But he wasn’t frank about the relations between the girl and her father. Do you know that they were all right? Friendly, I mean?”

“So far as I know, they were. But I never met them until today. I can only say that they acted like any normal, usual father and daughter.”

“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. It’ll all come out—that sort of thing. Now to find the girl.”

CHAPTER V

The Yellow Pillow

“What’s this pillow doing here?” the sheriff asked, as he picked up the yellow satin cushion. “This looks to me like a parlor ornament.”

“I thought it was strange, too,” returned Landon. “But I can’t see any clue in it, can you?”

“Anything unusual may prove a clue,” said Potter, sententiously. “You never saw this pillow before, Mr Landon.”

“No; but I’m not familiar with the house at all. Maybe it’s a discarded one, handed down to the servants’ use.”

“Doesn’t look so; it’s fresh and new, and very handsome.”

“Lay it aside and come on,” growled Bill Dunn, who was alertly looking about the kitchen. “You can ask the family about that later. Let’s go down cellar.”

To the cellar they went, Landon following. He had a notion that he might help the family’s interests by keeping at the heels of these detectives.

But the most careful search revealed nothing of importance to their quest.

Until Potter said, suddenly, “What’s this? A well?”

“It sure is,” and Bill Dunn peered over an old well curb and looked down.

“A well in a cellar! How queer!” exclaimed Landon. “I never heard of such a thing.”

“Uncommon, but I’ve known of ’em,” said Bill “Looks promising, eh?”

Potter considered. “It may mean something,” he said, thoughtfully. “We’ll have to sound it, somehow.”

“Sound it, nothin’!” said the executive Bill; “I’ll go down.”

“How?” Potter asked him. “There’s no bucket. It’s probably a dried up well.”

“Prob’ly,” and Bill nodded. He already had one foot over the broken old well curb.

“Wait, for heaven’s sake!” cried Landon. “Don’t jump down! You must have a light.”

“Got one,” and Bill drew a small flashlight from his pocket.

With the agility of a monkey he clambered down the side of the old well. The stones were large and not smoothly fitted, so that he had little trouble in gaining and keeping his foothold.

The others watched him as he descended and at last reached the bottom.

“Nothing at all,” he called up. “I’m coming back.”

“Just an old dried up well,” he reported, as he reached them again. “Must ’a’ dried up long ago. No water in it for years, most likely. But there’s nothin’ else down there, neither. No body, nor no clues of any sort. Whatever became of that girl, she ain’t down that well.”

All parts of the cellar were subjected to the same thorough search.

Landon was amazed at the quickness and efficiency shown by these men whom he had thought rather stupid at first.

Cupboards were poked into to their furthest corners; bins were raked; boxes opened, and Bill even climbed up to scan a swinging shelf that hung above his head.

“How about secret passages?” Potter asked, when they had exhausted all obvious hiding places.

“I been thinkin’ about that,” Bill returned, musingly; “but, so far, I can’t see where there could be any. This isn’t the sort of house that has ’em, either. It’s straightforward architecture—that’s what it is—straightforward.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Landon, interested in this strange man who looked so ignorant, yet was in some ways so well informed.

“Well, you see, there’s no unexpected juts or jambs. Everything’s four-square, mostly. You can see where the rooms above are—you can see where the closets and stairs fit in and all that. There’s no concealed territory like—no real chance for a secret passage—at least not so far’s I see.”

“That’s right,” agreed Potter. “Bill’s the man when it comes to architecture and building plans. Well—let’s get along upstairs, then.”

Going through the kitchen again, Potter picked up the yellow pillow and took it along with him. Quite evidently it belonged to a sofa in the large, square front hall. The upholstery fabric was the same, and there was a corresponding pillow already at one end of the sofa.

“Queer thing,” Potter said; “how’d that fine cushion get on the kitchen floor?”

“It is queer,” Landon assented, “but I can’t see any meaning in it, can you?”

“Not yet,” returned Potter. “Now, Doctor Varian,” and he turned to the physician who sat with bowed head beside his brother’s body, “I dessay the undertakers’ll be coming along soon. You see them and make plans for the funeral; while Bill and I go on over this house. Then, we’ll have to see the rest of the people who were around at the time of the—the tragedy.”

“Not Mrs Frederick Varian,” said Herbert, “you can’t see her. I forbid that, as her physician.”

“Well, we’ll see your wife first, and then, we’ll have to see the folks that went back to the village. And there’s the servants to be questioned.”

But the careful and exhaustive search of the two inquiry agents failed to disclose any sign of the missing Betty Varian or any clue to her whereabouts. They went over the whole house, even into the bedroom of the newly-made widow—whose deep artificial sleep made this possible.

This was the last room they visited, and as they tiptoed out, Bill said,

“Never saw such a case! No clue anywhere; not even mysterious circumstances. Everything just as natural and commonplace as it can be.”

“There’s the yellow pillow—” suggested Potter.

“I know—but that may have some simple explanation—housemaid took it out to clean it—or something.”

“Then, Bill, there’s got to be a secret passage; there’s just got to.”

“Well, there ain’t. Tomorrow, I’ll sound the walls and all that sort of thing, but I’ve measured and estimated, and I vow there ain’t no space unaccounted for in this whole house. But there’s a lot of questionin’ yet to be done. I’ll say there is!”

By this time some of the servants had heard of the affair and had returned.

Potter and Bill Dunn went to the kitchen to see them, and found Kelly the butler and Hannah the cook in a scared, nervous state.

“Do tell us, sir, all about it,” Kelly begged, his hard face drawn with sympathy. “The master—”

“It’s true, Kelly, your master is dead. He was killed, and we are investigating. What can you tell us? Do you know of anybody who had it in for Mr Varian?”

“Oh, no, sir! I’m sure he hadn’t an enemy in the world.”

“Oh, no, you can’t be sure of that, my man. But tell me of the circumstances. When you all went away, this afternoon, there was no sign of disturbance—of anything unusual?”

“Oh, no, sir. Everything was pleasant and proper. I had packed the luncheon for the picnic, Hannah here made the sandwiches, and I filled the coffee Thermos, and all such things. The baskets were all ready, and the family expected to start on the picnic almost as soon as we went off. I offered to stay behind and help Mrs Varian, but she was so kind as to say I needn’t do that. So we all went.”

“All at once?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You went down the path that leads from the front door?”

“There’s no other way. It branches around to the kitchen entrance, up here, but there’s no other way off the premises.”

“Not even for a burglar or robber?”

“No, sir. I don’t believe even a monkey could scramble up the cliff, and I know a man couldn’t. You see it overhangs, and it’s impossible.”

“But coming from the other direction—the village?”

“From that way, everybody has to pass through the lodge gate. The lodge, you know—that’s the garage, as well. There’s a gate here—”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, through that gate is the only way to get to this house.”

“But all the picnic party were waiting, in full view of that gate, and in full view of the house. Yet somebody—”

“You needn’t say somebody got in—for nobody could do that.”

“I don’t say it. But I’m looking out for some such person. If not, we must conclude—”

“What, sir?”

“That Miss Varian shot her father, and then—in some yet undiscovered place, killed herself, or still alive—is in hiding.”

“Miss Betty kill her father!” exclaimed Hannah, the cook, speaking to the sheriff for the first time. “No, she never did that!”

“Yet there was ill feeling between them,” Potter returned, quickly.

“That there was not! A more loving father and child I never met up with! Bless her pretty face! To dare accuse darlin’ Miss Betty of such a thing! I say, now, Mister Man, you better be careful how you say such lies around here! You know you’ve nothin’ to go on, but your own black thoughts! You know you don’t know who killed the master, and you’re too dumb to find out, and so you pick on that poor dear angel child, who ain’t here to speak up for herself!”

“Where is she, then? Where’s Miss Betty?”

“Where is she? Belike in some hidin’ place, scared into fits because of seein’ her father shot! Or maybe, stunned and unconscious herself—the deed bein’ done by the same villyun what did for the master! Oh, sakes! it’s bad enough without your makin’ it worse callin’ my darlin’ girl a murderer! Where’s Mrs Varian? What does she say?”

“She’s asleep. The doctor had to quiet her, she was in raving hysterics.”

“Ay, she would be. Poor lady. She’ll be no help in this awful thing. And, sir, another thing: The waitress and the chambermaid, they’re sisters, Agnes and Lena, they say they’re not coming back here. Nothing would induce them to step foot in this house again, they say. They bid me send ’em their things and—”

“Nonsense, they’ll have to come back.” This from Bill. “Tell me where they are. I’ll bring them back.”

“No, they won’t come. They’re going down to Boston tonight.”

“They mustn’t be allowed to do that!”

“They’ve gone by now,” and Hannah looked unconcerned. “But never you mind, they know nothin’ of this matter. They’re two young scared girls, and they’d be no good to you nor anyone else. They know nothin’ to tell, and they’d have worse hysterics than Mrs Varian if you tried to bring ’em back to this house.”

“You won’t desert Mrs Varian, will you, Hannah?” asked Potter.

“Well, I’ll be leavin’ in the mornin’,” and the cook shrugged her shoulders. “I couldn’t be expected to stay in such a moil.”

“No; of course you couldn’t!” exclaimed Potter, angrily. “You don’t care that poor Mrs Varian is in deep trouble and sorrow! You don’t care that there’ll be nobody to cook for her and her brother’s family! You’ve no sense of common humanity—no sympathy for grief, no heart in your stupid old body!”

“I might stay on for a time, sir—if—if they made it worth my while.”

“Oh, greed might keep you here! Kelly, what about you? Are you going to desert this stricken household?”

“I’ll—I’ll stay for a time, sir,” the butler said, quite evidently ill at ease. “Now, you mustn’t blame us, Mr Potter for—”

“I do blame you! I know how you feel about a house where there’s a mystery, but also, you ought to be glad to do whatever you can to help. And nothing could help poor Mrs Varian so much as to have some of her servants faithful to her. Also, I’m pretty sure I may promise you extra pay—as I know that will hold you, when nothing else will.”

“And now,” Bill Dunn put in, “you’d better fix up a meal for those who want it. They had no picnic supper, you see, and there are the guests to be considered as well as your Mrs Varian.”

“Speakin’ one word for them and two for yourself, I’m thinkin’,” Hannah sniffed, as she began to tie on her apron. “Well, Mr Potter, you’ll be welcome to a good meal, I’m sure.”

“One moment, Hannah,” said Bill, “when you left here today, was there a sofa pillow out here in the kitchen?”

“A sofy pillow? There was not. Why should such a thing be?”

“A yellow satin one—embroidered.”

“Off the hall sofy? No, sir, it never was in my kitchen at all.”

“What do you know about it?” Dunn turned to the butler. “When did you last see the sofa pillows on the hall sofa?”

Kelly stared.

“I saw them this morning, sir—yes, and I saw them this afternoon—when I set the picnic baskets out. I didn’t—”

“How did you happen to notice the pillows, Kelly?” Bill watched him closely.

“Why, I didn’t exactly notice them—but—well, if they hadn’t been in place I should have noticed it.”

“That’s right,” Dunn gave a satisfied nod. The pillow episode seemed important to him, though he could get no meaning to it as yet. “Now Kelly, tell me the truth. When you’ve been around, in the dining room, or the living rooms, haven’t you heard conversations between Miss Varian and her father that showed some friction between the two?”

“Oh, now, sir, Miss Betty’s a saucy piece—”

“I don’t mean gay chaff—I mean real, downright quarreling. Did you ever hear any of that? Tell me the truth, Kelly, you’ll serve no good purpose by trying to shield either of them.”

“Well, then, yes, sir, I did—and often. But not to say exactly quarreling—more like argufying—”

“Why do you say that, Kelly? They do quarrel—all the time they quarrel—and you know it.”

This astonishing speech was from the lips of Minna Varian, who suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway.

She was smiling a little, she looked tired and wan, but she was in no way excited or hysterical. She wore a trailing blue wrapper, and her hair was falling from its combs and hairpins.

“Mrs Varian!” exclaimed Potter, springing to her side. “Why are you here?”

“I heard voices and I wondered who was down here. Where are my people? Who are you two strange men?”

“There, there,” said Hannah, advancing and putting an arm round her mistress, “let me take you back to your room. Come now.”

“Just a minute,” and Potter looked keenly at the lady. “Say that again, Mrs Varian. Your daughter quarrels with her father often?”

“All the time,” Minna Varian laughed. “I have to make peace between them morning, noon and night. Oh, why do they do it? Fred is so dear and sweet to me—then he will scold Betty for the least trifle! And Betty never differs from me in her opinions, but she is antagonistic to her father, always. Can you explain it?”

Mrs Varian’s large gray eyes stared at Potter, and then turned to Bill Dunn. It was clear to be seen that she was still partly under the influence of the opiate effects, and that her memory of the recent tragedy was utterly obliterated.

“Take her to her room,” Potter said quickly, to Hannah. “If she comes to down here there’ll be a fearful scene. How did she get away?”

“There was nobody in my room,” Minna said, overhearing. “Who should be there? I’m not ill. I woke up from a nap, and I heard talking—my room is right above this, so I came down. Where’s Miss Betty, Hannah? Kelly, what are you doing?”

“I’m about to get supper, madam,” Kelly’s glance rested kindly on the pathetic figure.

Minna Varian looked small and frail, and her white face and vacant, staring eyes seemed to add to the mystery of the whole affair.

“Come, now, Mrs Varian, come along of Hannah.”

“Minna, where are you?” Janet’s frightened voice broke in upon them. “Merciful powers, however did she get down here? Help me get her back, Hannah. No, wait, I’ll call Doctor Varian.”

But Herbert Varian was already entering the kitchen, and between them, Minna was safely convoyed back to her room.

“Well, we’re getting at the truth,” said Potter, with an air of satisfaction as he glanced at Dunn. “Lord knows I’m sorry for that poor woman, but they say children and fools speak the truth, and so, though she isn’t herself, mentally, she told the truth about Miss Varian and her father being enemies.”

“Oh, she didn’t,” Hannah moaned, wiping her eyes on her apron. “I tell you it wasn’t as bad as Mrs Varian makes out.”

“Yes, it was,” said Kelly, slowly. “You’ve no way of knowing, Hannah, you’re always in the kitchen. But I’m about the house all the time, and I hear lots of talk. And it’s just as Mrs Varian said: Miss Betty and her father never agree. They scrap at the least hint of a chance; and though sometimes they’re terribly affectionate and loving, yet at other times, they quarrel like everything.”

“That’s enough, Kelly; now keep quiet about this. Even if Miss Varian and her father were not always friendly, it may not mean anything serious and it may make trouble for the young lady if such reports get out.”

“You expect to find Miss Betty, then?”

“Find her? Of course. You say yourself there’s only one way out of these premises. We know she didn’t go out that way, so, she must be here. There must be places we haven’t yet discovered, where she is hiding—or—or has been concealed.”

“It’s a fearful situation!” broke out Dunn. “That girl may be gagged and bound—in some secret closet—”

“You say there are none, Bill.”

“I do say I don’t see how there can be any, but, good lord, Potter, the girl must be somewhere—dead or alive!”

* * * *

An attractive supper, largely consisting of the delicacies intended for the picnic, and supplemented by some hot viands, was soon in readiness.

Hannah was deputed to sit beside Mrs Varian, now sleeping again, and the others, including the detectives, gathered round the table.

“I’d like the sum of your findings, so far,” Doctor Varian said, raising weary eyes to Potter’s face.

“Pretty slim, Doctor,” the sheriff responded. “But, I want to say, right now, that I’ve got to do my duty as I see it. Much as I’d like to spare the feelings of you people and all that, I’ve got to forge ahead and discover anything I may.”

“Of course you have, Mr Potter. Don’t think I’d put a straw in the way of truth or justice. But, granting that you may speak with all plainness, where do you come out?”

“Only to the inevitable conclusion that Miss Varian killed her father and then killed herself, and her body will yet be found.”

“Now, Potter,” Dunn said, slowly, “don’t go too fast. That is one theory, to be sure, but it’s only a theory. You’ve nothing to back it up—there’s no evidence—”

“There’s negative evidence, Bill. Nobody else could get up here to do that shooting, or, if he did, he couldn’t get away again. Say, for a minute, that some intruder might have been concealed in the house, say he shot Mr Varian, how’d he get out of here without being seen, and how did he do for the girl?”

“That’s all so,” Bill said, doggedly, “but it ain’t enough to prove—or, even to indicate that Miss Varian did the shooting. Where’d she get a pistol?”

“Pshaw, that’s a foolish question! If she had nerve and ingenuity enough to shoot, she had enough to provide the gun.”

“Betty never did such things,” said Janet Varian with spirit. “That girl did sometimes have words with her father—that’s a mere nothing—my own daughter does that—but Betty Varian is a loving, affectionate daughter, and she no more killed her father than I did!”

“Small use in asserting things you can’t prove,” said Potter, devoting himself to his supper. “Next thing for me to do’s to see those other people—the ones that were here this afternoon.”

“All right,” said Doctor Varian, “but what do you hope to learn from them? They don’t know as much as we do. I was first on the spot, young Landon, who’s gone home, was here with me, and those others stayed down on the path waiting for us. See them, by all means, but I doubt their helpfulness. Now, aside from that, and granting you get no new evidence, what’s to be done?”

“I think,” Potter said thoughtfully, “you’d better offer a reward for any news of Miss Varian. It’s not likely to bring results—but it ought to be done, I think.”

CHAPTER VI

The Varian Pearls

When Bill Dunn went up on the porch of Mrs Blackwood’s bungalow that evening, he found a group of neighbors there, and was not at all surprised that they were discussing the dreadful affair of Headland House.

Claire Blackwood greeted the caller courteously and asked him to go inside the house with her.

“Let us all go,” said Rodney Granniss. “I want to learn all about this case, and we’re entitled to know.”

“Come on, everybody,” Dunn invited, “I want to ask a lot of questions and who knows where I may get the best and most unexpected answers.”

Granniss and Lawrence North, with Ted Landon and John Clark, who had been up on the Headland in the afternoon, were the men, and Mrs Blackwood and her young guest, Eleanor Varian were the only women present.

Yet Dunn seemed well satisfied as he looked over the group.

“Fine,” he said, “all the witnesses I wanted, and all here together.”

“We didn’t witness anything,” offered John Clark, who was apparently by no means desirous of taking part in the colloquy. “And, as I’ve an engagement, can’t you question me first, and let me go?”

“Sure I can,” returned Dunn, whose easy manners were not at all curbed by the more formal attitude of those about him. “Just tell the story in your own way, son.”

Clark resented the familiar speech, but said nothing to that effect.

“There’s little to tell,” he began; “I’d never been up to Headland House before, and of course I’d never before met the Varians—any of them. I went on Mrs Blackwood’s invitation, and after meeting the family and their guests on the veranda, we all started for a picnic. We had reached a point half way down the steep path from the house, when Miss Betty Varian said she had forgotten her camera. She returned to the house for it, and we waited. She was gone so long, that we wondered—and then, her father went to hurry her up. He, too, was gone a long time, and then, Doctor Varian and Ted Landon went after him. That’s my story. Landon can tell you the rest.”

“I know the rest,” said Dunn, shortly; “I don’t see, Mr Clark, that you need remain. Your evidence is merely that of all the party who stayed behind while the others went up to the house.”

“Yes,” said Clark, with a sigh of relief, and making his adieux, he went away.

“Have you formed any theory of the crime, Mr Dunn?” asked Lawrence North, who was consumed with impatient curiosity, during the already known testimony of Clark.

“Not a definite one,” Dunn replied, seeming by his manner to invite advice or discussion. “It is too mysterious to theorize about.”

“By Jove, it is!” North agreed; “I never heard of a case so absolutely strange. I’d like to get into that house and see for myself.”

“See what for yourself Mr North?”

“Whether there’s any secret passage—but, of course you’ve looked for that?”

“Yes; thoroughly. I’m of an architectural mind—”

“So is Mr North,” said Mrs Blackwood. “He designed this bungalow we’re in now.”

“Are you an architect, Mr North?”

“Not by profession, but I’m fond of it. And I flatter myself I could discover a secret passage if such existed.”

“I flatter myself I could, too,” said Dunn, but not boastfully. “Yet, I may have overlooked it. I’d be obliged, Mr North, if you’d come up to the house, and give it the once over. You might spot what I failed to see.”

“But I don’t know the people at all—”

“No matter; I ask you as a matter of assistance. Come up there tomorrow, will you?”

North promised to do so, and Dunn turned to Eleanor Varian.

“Sorry to trouble you, Miss Varian, but I have to ask you some very definite questions. First, do you know your relatives up there pretty well?”

“Why, yes,” said Eleanor, with a surprised look. “They live in New York and we live in Boston, but we visit each other now and then and we often spend our summers at the same place. Of course, I know them well.”

“Then, tell me exactly the relations between Miss Varian and her father. Don’t quibble or gloss over the facts—if they were not entirely in accord it will be found out, and you may as well tell the truth.”

Eleanor Varian looked thoughtful.

“I will tell the truth,” she said, “because I can see it’s better to do so. Betty and her mother are much more in sympathy with one another than Betty and her father. I don’t know what makes the difference, but Aunt Minna always seems to want everything the way Betty wants it, while Uncle Fred always wants just the opposite.”

“Yet Miss Betty was fond of her father?”

“Oh, yes; they were devoted, really—I think. Only, their natures were different.”

“Was there any special subject on which they disagreed?”

“There has been of late,” Eleanor admitted, though with evident reluctance. “Of course Betty is a great belle. Of course, she has and has had many admirers. Now, Uncle Fred seems always to be willing for Betty to have beaux and young man friends, but as soon as they become serious in their attentions, and want to marry Betty, then Uncle Fred shoos them off.”

It was, as yet, impossible for Eleanor to speak of her uncle in the past tense. The girl had not at all realized this sudden death, and couldn’t help thinking and speaking of him as still alive. Nor could she realize Betty’s disappearance. She was somewhat in a daze, and also over-excited by the awfulness of the situation. She talked rapidly, yet coherently, and Dunn secretly rejoiced at her agitation, knowing he would learn more than if she had been cool and collected.

“But that’s not at all an unusual thing,” put in North, who felt sorry for Eleanor and wanted to relieve her all he could from the grilling fire of Dunn’s questions. “I find that the majority of fathers resent the advances of their daughters’ suitors. Now, mothers are different—they encourage a match that seems to them desirable. But a father can’t realize his little girl is growing up.”

“Well, Lawrence,” exclaimed Claire Blackwood, “for a bachelor, you seem to know a lot about family matters!”

“I’ve lots of friends, and I can’t help noticing these things. Isn’t it true, Miss Varian?”

“Yes,” Eleanor said, “to a degree, it is. I mean, in some instances. Any way, it’s quite true of Uncle Fred and Betty. Aunt Minna would be delighted to have Betty engaged to some nice young man, but Uncle Fred flies in a fury at mere mention of such a thing.”

“I can swear to that,” said Rodney Granniss. “I’ve known the Varians for two years, and it’s quite true. Mrs Varian smiled on the attachment between Betty and myself, but Mr Varian most certainly did not!”

“What!” exclaimed Dunn, “you one of Miss Betty Varian’s suitors?”

“Even so,” said Granniss, calmly. “I knew them in New York. I came up here to be near Betty. And now, Mr Dunn, I want to say that I’m going to do all I can to solve the mystery of Mr Varian’s death, but even more especially am I going to try to find Betty herself. I haven’t been up to Headland House yet, for it—well, it seems awful to go there now that Mr Varian can’t put me out!”

“Look here, young man,” Dunn gazed at him curiously, “it doesn’t seem to occur to you that you yourself may be said to have an interest in Mr Varian’s death!”

“Meaning that I shot him!” Grannis looked amused. “Well—if you can tell me how I accomplished it—”

“But, my dear sir, somebody accomplished it—”

“And it might as well be me! The only trouble with your theory Mr Dunn is, that I didn’t do it. Investigate all you like, you can’t pin the crime, on me.”

“And, I suppose you didn’t abduct Miss Betty either?”

“I did not!” Granniss looked solemn. “I only wish I had. But I’m going to find her, and I want to start out by being friendly with you, Mr Dunn—not antagonistic.”

“Easy enough to check up your alibi, Mr Granniss,” Dunn said; “no, don’t tell me where you were at the time—I’ll find out for myself.”

“I’ll tell you,” said North, casually. “Mr Granniss was out in his motor boat all the afternoon. I know, because I was out in mine, and I saw him frequently. We were both fishing.”

“That’s right,” said Granniss, carelessly, as if his alibi were of small moment to him, as indeed it was. “Now, Mr Dunn, you must have some theory—or if not a theory, some possible explanation of what occurred. Do give it to us.”

“Yes, do,” said North. “I’m fond of detective stories, but I never read one that started out so mysteriously as this.”

“I haven’t any theory,” Dunn looked at each in turn, his eyes roving round the room as he talked, “I can’t say as I can even dope out how it could have happened. But here’s what I work on—motive. That’s the thing to seek first—motive. We know Mr Varian is dead, we know Miss Varian is missing. That’s all we really know. Now, you can’t deduce anything from those facts alone. So, I say, hunt for a motive. It isn’t likely that Mr Varian had any enemies up here. And if he had, they never’d chosen such an opportunity to shoot him—for, just think how sudden, how unexpected that opportunity was! Who could have foreseen that Miss Varian would go back to the house for her camera? Who could have foreseen that her father would go back after her? If those goings back were unpremeditated, then no enemy could have been there ready to utilize his chance. If, on the other hand, those goings back were premeditated, then they were arranged by either Miss Betty or her father—”

“Impossible!” cried North. “Mr Varian couldn’t foresee that his daughter would forget her camera, and Miss Betty couldn’t foresee that it would be her father who would come back for her!”

“I know it seems that way,” Dunn looked deeply perplexed, “but I can’t get away from the idea of there being some premeditation about the two goings back to that empty house that resulted in a double tragedy.”

“Suppose a burglar—” began Claire Blackwood; “suppose he had been concealed in the house before we left to go to the picnic. Suppose when Betty came back unexpectedly, he attacked her, and then, when Mr Varian came—”

“But what became of the burglar—and of Miss Betty?” asked Dunn. “I’ve mulled over the burglar proposition, I’ve imagined him to be one of the servants, but it all comes back to the fact that such an intruder just simply couldn’t get away, and couldn’t get Betty away, dead or alive.”

“That’s perfectly true,” Claire agreed. “There’s no way to dispose of an imaginary intruder. But neither is there any way to dispose of Betty. Nothing in this world will make me believe that girl shot her father, but just assuming, for a moment, that she did—what happened next?”

Claire demanded this with the air of an accusing judge.

“Why, that’s the only possible theory,” said Dunn. “Say the young lady did shoot her father, then she went some place—where, we haven’t yet discovered—and shot herself—or, is there, alive yet.”

“If that’s the case, I’ll find her!” Rodney Granniss burst forth, his strong young face alight with zeal; “I’m going up there at once. Mr Varian didn’t like me, but Mrs Varian does, and maybe I can help her.”

“She can’t see you,” Dunn told him. “She’s under the influence of opiates all the time. Doctor Varian keeps her that way.”

“She’ll have to come to her senses some time,” said Rod. “I’m going up there any way.”

“I’m going with you,” declared Eleanor Varian. “I don’t want to stay here—forgive me, Mrs Blackwood, you’re kindness itself—but I want to be where father and mother are. I want to help find Betty, too. I know a lot of places to look—”

“You do!” exclaimed Dunn. “Where are they, now?”

But all that Eleanor mentioned, Dunn had already searched, and his hopes of the girl’s assistance fell. Still, she might be familiar with Betty’s ways, and might be of some slight use.

“Well, Miss Varian, you must do as you think best,” he said; “but I advise you to bide here till the morning, anyway.”

“Yes, do, dear,” urged Claire, and Eleanor, remembering the unavoidable climb up the steep rocks, consented.

“Tell me one thing, Miss Varian,” said Dunn, suddenly; “were you in the kitchen of the Varian house this afternoon at all?”

“Yes, I was; I went out there with Betty to get some cakes and things. Why?”

“When you were there, did you notice a yellow sofa pillow out there?”

“In the kitchen? No, I did not!”

“You know the two yellow cushions that belong on the hall sofa?”

“Yes—I think I know the ones you mean. What about them?”

“We found one of them in the middle of the kitchen floor. Do you think anybody could have put it there purposely?”

“I can’t imagine why any one should!”

“What do you deduce from that?” Lawrence North asked, interestedly, and Claire said:

“Why, that’s what you call a clue, isn’t it? What does it show?”

“It doesn’t show a thing to me,” declared Dunn; “leastways, nothing sensible. Look here, folks—either there was somebody else in that house at that time besides Betty and her father—or else there wasn’t. Now if there was, he surely wouldn’t be moving sofa pillows about. And if there wasn’t, then one of those two people moved it. Now, why? I can’t think of any reason, sensible or not, that would make anybody lug a fine handsome sofa cushion out to the kitchen.”

“Was it valuable enough to be worth stealing?” asked North.

“No; a good looking affair, but nothing to tempt a thief.”

“Looks like the servants’ work, I think,” suggested Claire. “Suppose one of them had stayed behind, and not with any criminal intent, either; and suppose, merely to be luxurious, she had taken a fine pillow out to her kitchen quarters.”

“But even so, and even if she were caught by the returning Betty she couldn’t have shot Mr Varian and concealed both herself and Betty—”

“You run up against a stone fence whatever you surmise,” exclaimed Landon. He had been a quiet listener, but had done some deep thinking. “There’s only one plausible solution—and that’s a secret passage.”

“Look here, Mr Landon,” Dunn said, sharply, “that speech gets on my nerves. Anybody who thinks there’s a secret passage in that house up there on the cliff is welcome to go up there and find it. But I’m no fool and sheriff Potter isn’t either; nor is Doctor Herbert Varian. And none of us can find a secret passage, and what’s more, we’re positive there isn’t any. So, either show where there could be one—or let up on that solution.”

“Good lord, Dunn, don’t get so wrathy!” Landon said, good-humoredly. “And I will go and look for one—since you invite me. Go with me, North?”

“Yes,” was the willing reply, and Rodney Granniss said:

“Well you fellows won’t want to make that search till tomorrow. But I’m going up to the house now. You’ll stay here, won’t you, Miss Varian?”

Reluctantly, Eleanor agreed to stay, and Granniss went off alone.

Rodney Granniss was a determined man, and when he made his mind to hunt for Betty Varian he also made up his mind to find her. To his mind the very fact that the whole case was so inexplicable made it likely to develop some sudden clue or key that would unlock the situation.

He still felt averse to visiting a house where his presence had been forbidden by one who was now unable to resent his coming, but this was offset by his desire to help Mrs Varian and to help in finding Betty.

He pondered over the idea of a secret passage in the house, but it was of small comfort to him. If those other indefatigable workers had not been able to find it, he had no reason to think he could do so. And, besides, it was anything but an attractive picture to imagine Betty, either hidden voluntarily or concealed against her will in some such place.

He trudged along up the rocky steps and presented himself at the door of Headland House.

Sheriff Potter admitted him, and listened to his story.

Then he took him to the library and introduced him to Doctor Varian and his wife.

“I am glad to see you,” cried Janet. “Tell me of Eleanor.”

“She’s all right,” returned Granniss, cheerfully. “She rather wanted to come up here with me, but they persuaded her to stay over night with Mrs Blackwood.”

“Better so,” said Doctor Varian. “Did Dunn learn anything from anybody that you know of?”

“No,” said Rodney, “and I fear there’s little to learn from anybody.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that whatever there is to be learned must be found out here in this house—not from any of those onlookers.”

“Sensible talk,” said Doctor Varian, “but how shall we set about it?”

“I don’t know. I’m not possessed of what is called detective instinct, nor am I especially clever at solving puzzles. But I have determination, and I’m going to devote my whole time and energy to finding Betty Varian!”

“Well said, young man,” put in Potter, who was listening, “but untrained sleuthing is not often productive of great results.”

“I don’t mean sleuthing, exactly,” and Granniss looked at him squarely, “I am untrained. But I’m willing to be advised, I’m willing to be dictated to; I only ask to help.”

“You’re a brick!” said Janet; “I shouldn’t be surprised if you succeed better than the detectives.”

“If so, it will be because of my more personal interest in the case. I ought to tell you, Mrs Varian, that Betty and I are practically engaged. It depended, of course, on her father’s consent—”

“And that he refused to give?” asked Potter.

“Yes, he did. Which immediately ticketed me as his murderer in the eyes of Mr Dunn. But I’m not a criminal, and I didn’t shoot Mr Varian. I shan’t insist on this point, because you can prove my words true for yourself. Now, I’d like a talk with Mrs Varian—Betty’s mother—when such a thing is possible—and convenient.”

“I’m not sure but it would be a good thing,” said Doctor Varian, thoughtfully; “when she wakes, Mr Granniss, she will either be hysterical still, and in need of further opiate treatment, or—and which I think more likely—she will be calm, composed and alert minded. In the latter case, she might be glad to talk to the man who cares so much for her daughter.”

“I hope so; and, in the mean time, what can we do in the matter of finding Betty?”

“There’s nothing to be done in that line that hasn’t been done,” said the sheriff, despairingly. “All evening Doctor and Mrs Varian as well as the butler and cook have been going over the house and the grounds, calling, and hunting for the girl, with no success of any sort.”

“Had she a dog?”

“No, there is none about. Now, just before you came, we were thinking of looking over some of Mr Frederick Varian’s papers—”

“And there’s no reason to change our plans,” said Doctor Varian; “Mr Granniss’ presence will not interfere.”

So Rodney sat by, awaiting the possible awakening of Mrs Varian, and trying hard to think of some new way to look for Betty.

With keys obtained from the pockets of the dead man, his brother opened the drawers of the desk.

“It must be done,” he said, as his hand slightly hesitated, “and, too, we may come across some clue to his death.”

Among the first of the important papers found was Frederick Varian’s will. The contents of this were a surprise to no one present, for the entire estate was left to the wife, with instructions that she make due and proper provisions for the daughter.

But a final clause caused Herbert Varian to stare incredulously at the paper.

“What is it, dear?” Janet asked, seeing his astonishment.

“Why—why, Janet! the Varian pearls are left to Eleanor!”

“To Eleanor? No!”

“But they are! See, it’s plain as day!”

There was no doubt as to his statement. The final clause of Frederick Varian’s last will and testament, bequeathed the string of pearls, known as ‘the Varian pearls,’ to his niece, Eleanor, the daughter of his brother Herbert.

“Just what is so startling in that?” asked Potter, curiously, and Doctor Varian replied:

“The Varian pearls are an heirloom, and are valued at two hundred thousand dollars. It is the custom for the oldest of the family to inherit them, and he is expected to bequeath them to his oldest child. Why did my brother leave them to my daughter instead of to Betty?”

“Herbert, it’s dreadful! Eleanor shall not take them!” Janet cried.

“That makes no difference, ma’am,” Potter said; “it’s the fact that Mr Varian left them away from his own child, that proves the attitude of the father to the daughter!”

CHAPTER VII

Minna Varian

It was not until after the funeral of her husband that Minna Varian really came to herself. The three intervening days, she had been free from hysterics but had been in a state of physical exhaustion and incapable of any exertion.

But on the day after the funeral, she seemed to take on a new vitality.

“I have come to life,” she said, speaking very seriously. “I have at last realized what has happened to me. I was dazed at first, and couldn’t seem to get my senses. Now, we will have no more hysterics, no more emotional scenes, but we go to work to find my child—to save what I can from my wrecked life. It is a wonder that I didn’t lose my mind utterly. Think of it, Herbert, to lose my husband by death and my child by a mystery far worse than death—”

Minna showed signs of breaking down again, but forced herself to control her voice.

“I have made up my mind,” she went on, “to go about the search for Betty systematically and immediately. The detectives can do nothing—they have proved that. The sheriff and that Mr Dunn are at the end of their rope. I don’t blame them—it is a baffling case. And I know they think Betty’s dead body is hidden somewhere on the premises. Though how they can think that, I don’t see, after the search that has been made.”

“They think it,” Janet said, “because there’s no other possible conclusion. You know, yourself, Minna, if Betty were alive we would know of it by this time.”

“Never mind theories or conclusions,” Minna said, determinedly, “action is what I want. I know my Betty never killed her father! I know that as well as I know that I’m alive. And Betty may be dead or alive—but I’m going to find her in any case. Now, first of all, I suppose you people want to get away from here. Herbert, your practice is calling you, of course. I’m not going to keep you. But I’m going to stay here, on these premises, where my child disappeared, until I get some knowledge of what happened to her.”

“But, Minna,” Varian objected, “you can’t stay here alone—”

“Then I’ll get some one to stay with me. I can get a companion or a nurse or a secretary—you see, Herbert, there’s a lot of business to be attended to in connection with Fred’s papers and affairs. He left me very well off, but the financial settling up will call for the trained work of a good lawyer or accountant.”

“Young Granniss spoke to me about that,” Doctor Varian said; “he’s a bright young lawyer, you know, and he thought perhaps you’d employ him, and then he thought he’d help you in the search for Betty.”

“I’d like that. Rod’s a nice chap, and truly, Fred had nothing against him, except that he wanted to take Betty away from us. It would be no slighting of Fred’s wishes if I should have to do with Mr Granniss—and nobody could be better help to me in my search.”

“I can’t see, Minna,” said Janet, “what you hope from that search. Every nook and cranny of this whole place has been thoroughly examined, and as nothing has been found—”

“That’s just it, Janet,” Minna spoke patiently, “because nothing has been found is the very reason I must search more and further. I shall, first of all, offer a large reward. The size of the reward may bring information when no other means would.”

“Make the offer as large as you like, Minna,” Varian said, but not unkindly, “for you’ll never be called upon to pay it. Why, child, there’s no hope. I don’t want to be brutal, but really, Minna, dear, you oughtn’t to buoy yourself up with these false hopes, that never can be realized.”

“Look here, Herbert, what do you think happened to my child? Who do you think killed Fred?”

“Since you ask me, Minna, I must say, in all honesty, that I can’t see any possible theory or any imaginable explanation except that Betty shot her father, and then shot herself.”

“Where is she, then?”

“Hidden in some secret cupboard in this house, that she knew of, but that we haven’t yet found.”

“I can see, Herbert,” Minna spoke slowly, “how you can believe that, because, as you say, you can’t think of any other case. But I know—I know Betty never shot her father. I know that—and I shall yet prove it.”

“But, Minna, there must have been more enmity between Fred and Betty than you know of, to make him leave the Varian pearls to Eleanor.”

“That is incredible,” Minna mused. “I can’t understand that and I shouldn’t believe it, if it were not right there in Fred’s own handwriting. I haven’t seen the pearls for some years. I’ve been too much of an invalid to wear them often, and they’ve stayed in the safe deposit for the last five or six years. But I meant Betty should wear them next winter. Of course, I was sure Fred would leave them to her in his will. I can’t understand it! It isn’t so much the loss of the value that affects me, as the appalling fact that he wanted to leave them away from Betty. As you say, there must have been something between those two—something desperate that I don’t know about.”

“But what could there be?” Janet said, a blank wonder on her face.

“That’s the very point,” said Minna. “I know there has never been any special or particular ground for disagreement between those two except as to the matter of Betty’s getting married—or engaged. Fred never would consent to that. But of course he would have done so, later. He didn’t approve of very early marriages—but more, I think, he dreaded the idea of Betty’s going away from us.”

“Yet that only proves a special and even selfish fatherly love,” Varian said, “and in that case, why take the pearls away from her?”

“I can’t understand it,” said Minna again; “it is too amazing! He adored Betty, and what ever possessed him to give the pearls to Eleanor—he liked Eleanor, as we all do, but he never seemed especially attached to her. Not to put her ahead of Betty, anyway!”

“Of course she shall never take the pearls,” said Janet, decidedly. “I think Fred was temporarily out of his mind when he made that will, or he was temporarily angry at Betty. When is it dated?”

“That’s the strange part,” said Minna. “He made that will ten years ago.”

“When Betty was only about ten years old! He couldn’t have been angry at the child then!”

“I think that is the only explanation,” Doctor Varian said. “I can’t think of any other explanation except that Fred was foolishly angry at the child, and in a fit of silly temper made the will giving the pearls to Eleanor, and then forgot all about it.”

“Forgot the Varian pearls!” cried Janet; “not likely. But I never shall let Eleanor accept them.”

“Don’t say that, my dear,” remonstrated her husband. “If Betty never is found, of course it’s right Eleanor should have the pearls. I am the next Varian to Fred, and my daughter is the rightful heir—after Betty.”

“That’s true,” said Minna. “But let that matter rest for the present. If Betty is never found, Eleanor ought to have the pearls. If Betty is found, I shall be so happy, I don’t care what becomes of them!”

“You’re right, Minna,” Doctor Varian said, “in thinking I ought to get back to the city. But Janet or Nell or both will stay here with you as long as you need or want them.”

“Only till I can get somebody else. I’ve about concluded to take Rodney Granniss as secretary and have him settle up Fred’s estate. With the co-operation of Fred’s own lawyers. Then, I’ll have a sort of nurse companion who can look after me, and then, I shall devote my life and, if need be, all my money to solving my mysteries. I shall get the best detectives in the country. I shall follow out also some ideas of my own, and if success is possible, I shall attain it.”

Minna sat upright, her eyes shining with a clear, steady determined light. She seemed another being from the one who had screamed in hysterics at first knowledge of her sorrows.

“I’ve found myself,” she said, in explanation. “I’ve risen above my dead self of grief and sorrow. Why, my desolation is so great, so unspeakable, that I must do something or go mad! I’m not going mad—I have too much to do. Now, Janet, if you and Eleanor—or one of you, will stay a day or two longer, I’ll get a nurse up from the city, and as soon as she arrives you can go. I know you’ll be glad to get away from this place of horrors—”

“Not that, Minna, dear, but we have several engagements—”

“Yes, of course, I know. Well, plan for two days more—I’ll be settled by that time.”

* * * *

And she was. Inside of forty-eight hours, the now energetic woman had Rodney Granniss installed as her secretary and man of business, and had secured the services of a capable and kindly woman as nurse and companion. Her new household made up, she let her relatives go back to their own summer home, and devoted herself to her life work.

“Of course,” she said to Granniss, “we must go ahead on the supposition that Betty is alive.”

“And she is, Mrs Varian,” the young man said, earnestly. “For, North and I have been all over this place, and North is a sort of an architect, you know, and I’m sort of a detective, and we can’t find any place where any one could be concealed. Now, it doesn’t do any good, as some do, to say there must be a secret passage, or secret cupboard. If there were, we must have found it. And it’s too ridiculous, even to think for a minute that Betty killed her father! I know Betty, even better, perhaps than you or her father ever knew her. We have been sweethearts for nearly a year, and I tried many a time to persuade Betty to defy her father, and announce her engagement to me. She would have done so soon, I’m sure, but it was her love and respect for him that made her hold off so long. As to their little squabbles, they meant nothing at all. To imagine that girl shooting anybody is too absurd! I could rather imagine—”

Granniss paused, and Minna took up his thought.

“You could rather imagine her father shooting her! I’ve thought that over, but you see, it’s impossible, because there was no weapon found.”

“It’s the strangest case I ever heard of! Now, about the reward. It’s time that was attended to.”

“Yes; and I think we’ll make it as high as ten thousand dollars—”

“For Betty’s return?”

“Yes, that is, for any information that may lead to knowledge of what happened to Betty and where she is now.”

“Nothing about apprehending the criminal?”

“You know, Mr Granniss, they make fun of me for imagining this ‘criminal.’ How could there be one? How did he get in the house? How did he disappear again? You say yourself there’s no secret passage—we know nobody came in through the regular way—how, then, even suggest a ‘criminal’?”

“Yes, but why offer a reward, if there’s no one who could by any chance appear to claim it?”

“That’s the point Doctor Varian makes. He says it doesn’t matter how large we make the offer, for it never will be claimed.”

“Then we’ll just assume that criminal, and go ahead with the reward plan,” said Granniss, cheerfully. “I’ll attend to it, and we won’t speculate on its result at present. It surely can’t do any harm. But, Mrs Varian, we must do more than that.”

“What, for instance?”

“Detectives. I think you should get the best one you can and get him up here at once.”

“Please do that, Mr Granniss. What do you do? Apply to a city agency?”

“Yes; or get a private detective. I know of one—the best there is in the country, but we might not be able to get him.”

“Try, anyway. Offer any price—any bonus. Only get him.”

“Very well—I’ll try. I have to go down to New York soon, for there are many important matters to see to with Mr Varian’s lawyers. I’ll see about this detective then.”

Minna had replaced the servants who had left her with maids from the village. There were some who were glad to go to a house suddenly made famous by such an astounding mystery. Others declared the house was haunted, and wouldn’t go near it.

Among those who inclined to the haunted house idea was the new nurse. A Mrs Fletcher: she was of a psychic turn of mind, and while she didn’t exactly believe Betty was carried off by spooks, yet she thought the girl might have taken her own life, and perhaps her father’s, because of supernatural influences or directions.

“Rubbish!” Minna Varian told her. “My Betty was—is—a healthy, normal girl. She has none of those foolish notions of the occult or supernatural.”

“It’s the only explanation,” said Mrs Fletcher, doggedly. “And I do think the house is haunted—I heard mysterious sounds last night—like rustling of wings.”

Minna Varian only looked amused at this, but Granniss, who was present, said, “That’s interesting, Mrs Fletcher. Tell me about it.”

The account, however, was merely a vague idea of sounds, that might have been mysterious, but were more likely made by the servants going about at night.

Sheriff Potter and his colleague, Bill Dunn, had practically given up the matter. They pretended to be working on it, but as they themselves put it, “What can you do when you can’t do nothin’?”

There was room for much discussion, but when it came to action, what was there to be done?

You can’t hunt a criminal when you’ve no reason to assume any criminal intent. You can’t hunt for a missing girl after you’ve scoured all the places where she could by any possibility be found. You can’t hunt for the murderer of a man when there was no way for a murderer to be on the scene.

“Then are you going to give up the quest?” Granniss asked of the sheriff.

“No, not that,” Potter said, uneasily. “We’re open to suggestion—we’re keen for any new clue or testimony—but where can we look for such? You must see, Mr Granniss, that it’s a mighty unusual case—a most mysterious and unsolvable case.”

“I do see that, and that’s why I’m going to get expert assistance.”

“Go ahead,” said Potter, agreeably. “I’ll be glad to see any man who can handle the thing. Why, there’s no handle to it. No place to catch hold. Here’s a man killed, and a girl missing. Now, we’ve no more idea what happened to those two people than we had at the moment of the discovery of the situation.”

“That’s perfectly true.”

“And what’s more, we never will have. That mystery will never be solved.”

“You’re saying that, Mr Potter, doesn’t necessarily make it true.”

“No; but it’s true all the same. If Miss Betty was in any way to blame—which, I can’t believe—you’ll never find out anything. Because, if she’s alive she’d have shown up by this time.”

“Go on—and if Miss Betty was not to blame—”

“Then, whoever was to blame made a blame good job of it—and you’ll never catch him!”

“That’s the principle I’m going to work on—the idea that somebody did do it—that he did make a good job of it—and that I am going to catch him!”

“Fine talk, but there’s the same old stumbling block. You can’t argue an outsider—an intruder, without allowing a secret entrance to that house—and you say there isn’t any.”

“There sure isn’t.”

“Well, suppose your criminal didn’t arrive and depart in an aeroplane?”

“I’ve thought of that—but it isn’t possible. You see there were half a dozen people looking on all the time. I wish I’d been there!”

“’Twouldn’t have done any good. You couldn’t ’a’ seen more’n anybody else did. There was nothing to see.”

“No,” agreed Granniss, “there was nothing to be seen.”

Lawrence North came up to the house again at Rod’s request, and once more they looked for a secret room or cupboard.

Armed with a yardstick and measuring tape, they went through the house from roof to cellar. They paced floors and measured walls and tapped ceilings, and proved to their own conviction that there was no foot of space in the whole structure unaccounted for.

“It isn’t,” said North, “as if it were an old English manor house or a medieval castle. It’s modern, it isn’t built with any sinister plan or any desire for secret maneuvers. There never was any smuggling going on up as far as this, and, anyway, this is a simple pleasure house, built for a pleasant simple family life. I’ve looked up the builders, and they say it was built by a commonplace man with a commonplace family. They moved out of the state long ago, but there never was anything secretive or mysterious about them.”

They spent a long time in the cellar, but here, too, there was no uncertain space. Everything was built four-square. Every room, bin or cupboard was as plainly defined as those above, and there was no hiding place possible.

Granniss looked down the old dried up well. “Dunn went down that,” Lawrence said; “nothing doing.”

“I’ve got to go down myself,” returned Rodney, shortly, as he took off his coat.

“Be careful, then,” North admonished him. “I’ll hold the light.”

A good, strong flashlight illumined the old well, and Rod Granniss clambered down its stone sides.

But he returned with the same message Dunn had brought.

“All dried up; nothing down there but a muddy bottom and moss-grown stones.”

“No stones missing?”

“No; all solid and complete. I gave it a most careful scrutiny, for I don’t want to have to go down again.”

“Well, that finishes the cellar, then.”

“Yes; and finishes the house. You must admit, Lawrence, there’s no possible chance of Betty Varian being in this house, dead or alive.”

“Of course, I admit that—but, what, then?”

“I can’t even suggest! Can you?”

“There’s nothing left but that she went away—managed somehow to elude the watchers—perhaps they were not noticing the house.”

“You talk as if she could get down from this headland by any other route than right past where the crowd were waiting.”

“Maybe she hid here in the house, until after dark—”

“Oh, don’t suggest such awful things! Betty kill her father, and then, hiding until dark, make her way out and down to the village and away from the Harbor—oh, impossible!”

“Alternative?”

“I don’t know! The more I think it over the less I can seeany solution!”

“What about the haunted house idea?”

“That doesn’t mean a thing to me,” Granniss scorned it. “In fact, I usually come back to the idea that Mr Varian in some way killed himself.”

“Weapon?”

“I know, but I mean, maybe he shot himself, and Betty, who might have been trying to prevent it, took the pistol and ran away.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know! You are too exasperating, Lawrence! You just stand there and say ‘why’? Stop it.”

“Keep your temper, Rod. I’m only trying, as you are, to find some way to look. It is indeed impenetrable!”

“And then that matter of the pearls.”

“To me that is the strangest revelation yet. No matter how much the father and daughter had little disagreements, even quarrels, how could he leave that great treasure away from his child and give it to his niece!”

“I think that very thing is a key to the mystery.”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You know I don’t know, Lawrence; if I did I’d have told long ago! But I believe when the worthwhile detective that I’m going to get for Mrs Varian takes hold of the case, he’ll work from that strange bequest of the Varian pearls.”

“Maybe he will—but to me—while it’s passing strange, it doesn’t seem to indicate anything definite.”

“No, nor to me. But we haven’t the trained mind of the real detective.”

“Who’s the man you’re going to get?”

“Pennington Wise, the best in the country.”

“I’ve heard of him. Well, it will be interesting to see how he goes about it.”

CHAPTER VIII

Ransom

The Herbert Varians went back to their summer home, and Minna, left alone with her companion and her secretary, began what she called her campaign to find Betty.

Some people thought Mrs Varian a little affected mentally by her awful griefs, but those who knew her best read in her determination and persistence a steady aim and felt a slight hope of her success.

“Anything in the world I can do, dear,” Claire Blackwood said to her, “command me. I’ll go to the city for you or do errands or anything I can.”

“No,” said Minna, “there’s nothing you can do. Nothing anybody can do. I’m only afraid that if I get no encouragement in my efforts, I will lose my mind—and that’s what I’m trying to guard against. I follow my nurse’s directions as to exercise, diet and all that, but I feel as if I could only keep my brain from flying to pieces by hanging onto my hope of eventually finding my child.”

“And you will,” Claire said, earnestly, though she voiced a belief that she was far from feeling, “Oh, Mrs Varian, you will!”

“You see,” Minna went on, “I’ve a new theory now. I think that maybe Betty killed her father accidentally—”

“That is a new idea.”

“Yes; I know it’s almost incredible—but what idea isn’t? Say Mr Varian went suddenly insane—and I can’t think of any other way—and attacked Betty with a revolver. Say, trying to protect herself, it went off and killed him—perhaps the weapon was in his hands, perhaps in hers—and then, the child, in an agony of fear or remorse, ran away—I don’t know how she got away—but, don’t you see, Mrs Blackwood, she must have left the premises somehow—or—”

“Or they would have found her by this time—yes, of course.”

“Now, I’ve offered ten thousand dollars reward for any information that will lead to finding Betty—dead or alive. Mr Granniss thinks it will bring no results, but I can’t help hoping. And if it doesn’t—what can I do?”

“You’re going to employ a detective, aren’t you? These local authorities are not capable of managing a case like this.”

“Yes; Mr Granniss advises a Mr Wise—but I can’t see what any detective can do. There’s nothing to detect, as I can see.”

“That’s just it. We can’t see—but the trained detective can.”

“Here is your mail, Mrs Varian,” said Granniss, coming into the room, “will you run it over?”

Minna glanced at the letters, mostly notes of sympathy, or letters of advice from would-be helpful friends, but there was one that caused her to exclaim in amazement.

“Oh, Rodney,” she cried, “will you look at this!”

So great was her agitation that Claire Blackwood went in search of the nurse, for she feared some emotional outburst beyond her power to control.

The disturbing letter was a plain looking affair, on ordinary letter paper, and it read:

“Mrs Varian.

We have your daughter safe. We are holding her for ransom. Your reward does not tempt us at all but if you are ready to pay one hundred thousand dollars, you may have your child back. If not, you will never see her again. There must be no dickering, no fooling, and, above all, no police interference. I will not go into details now, but if you want to take up with this offer put a personal in any of the large Boston papers, saying, “I agree,” and all directions will be sent to you as to how to proceed. But if you tell the police or allow any detective to know anything about this deal, it is all off. Don’t think you can fool us, we have eyes in the back of our heads and any insincerity or breach of faith on your part will result in sad results to your daughter. To carry this thing through you must trust and obey us implicitly and any lapse will mean far deeper trouble than you are in now.”

The letter was not signed, nor was it dated. The postmark was Boston, and it had been mailed the day before.

“It’s a fake,” Granniss declared, at once.

“I don’t think so,” said Claire Blackwood, “it sounds real to me—”

“I don’t care whether it’s real or not,” Minna interrupted, excitedly. “I mean I don’t care whether anybody believes it’s real or not. I’m going to answer it at once, and I’m going to agree to everything they say, and I’m not going to tell the police or a detective or anybody—and I’m going to get Betty back.”

Her face was radiant with joy, her eyes shone and she was smiling for the first time since that awful day of the double tragedy.

“Now, look here, Mrs Varian,” began Granniss, who was convinced the whole letter was a mere attempt to get money under false pretenses, “you mustn’t throw away a hundred thousand dollars in that fashion!”

“Why not? It is a lot of money, but I have the sum and it means getting Betty back! What is any sum of money—even my whole fortune, against that?”

“But it doesn’t surely mean getting her back. If I thought it did I’d feel just as you do about it—”

“Oh, it does—it does!” Minna cried, her face still transfigured with happiness. “I know it—I feel it—something in my heart tells me that it is true—and, you see, it explains everything. These people kidnapped Betty—abducted her, and now they’re holding her for ransom—and they’ll get it—and I’ll get Betty! They don’t want her, you see, but they do want the money. And they’ll get it!”

“I agree with Mrs Varian,” Claire said, quite convinced by Minna’s confidence in the good faith of the letter writer.

“But it’s too absurd!” insisted Rodney. “You know—Mrs Varian, you must know, that I want to find Betty quite as much as you do—no, I won’t qualify that statement. I love her as much as you can. But I don’t believe for one minute that that letter is genuine. I mean, I don’t believe the man who wrote it has Betty, or ever saw her! Why, think a minute. Of all the theories regarding Betty’s disappearance, abduction is the least believable. How could any one abduct Betty that day—how could the kidnapper get into this house, and out again—with Betty—when so many people were about, watching?”

“I don’t know how it was done,” Minna said, doggedly, “but it’s a chance, and I’m going to take it. You can’t stop me, Rodney. You’ve no authority to say what I shall do with my own money. I’ve a right to try this thing—”

“But, oh,” said Claire, “suppose it should be a fake! Not only you’d lose all that money—but think of your disappointment!”

“The disappointment would be no worse than things are at present.”

“Oh, yes, it would. If you follow up that letter and pay all that sum, and then get nothing in return, it would just about kill you.”

“It would just about kill me not to take the chance,” returned Minna. “Now, I suppose I still have the right to order my own movements. I shall at once send the personal to the Boston paper—I’ll put it in several, so he’ll be sure to see it—and then, I’ll await his further advice. Will you send the messages, Rodney, or must I do it myself?”

“Of course, I am at your orders, Mrs Varian.” Rod gave her his winning smile, “But, at least, let’s think it over a bit.”

“No; send the word at once. We can talk it over afterward.”

There seemed to be no way out, so Granniss went off to do her bidding.

Even then, he had half a mind to pretend to send the word but really to withhold it. On reflection, he concluded he had no right to do this. But he remembered that Minna had not bound him to secrecy, though, of course, it was implied.

So with the letters to the Boston papers went also one to Pennington Wise begging him to come at once to investigate the remarkable case of Betty Varian, and telling him frankly of the strange letter just received.

That same afternoon a telegram came for Mrs Varian.

Granniss opened it, as was his custom, and its contents so surprised him that he nearly succumbed to the temptation to keep it from Mrs Varian.

But, he reconsidered, he had no right to presume on his position as confidential secretary, so with grave fears of its effects he handed it to her.

“Dear Mother,” it ran; “I am all right, and if you do just as you agree, I will soon be with you again. Please obey implicitly.

“Betty.”

“From her!” Minna cried, and fainted.

Nurse Fletcher soon revived her, but she was in a shaken, nervous state, and could stand no contradiction or disapproval.

“Now you see, Rodney,” she cried triumphantly, “it is all right! Here is word from Betty herself—oh, my darling!” and she fell to kissing the yellow paper, as if it were the face of her child.

“But, Mrs Varian,” Granniss hesitated to correct her but felt he must, “that may not be from Betty, you know. Anybody could send a telegram signed with Betty’s name.”

“Rodney!” Minna’s eyes blazed with anger, “why do you try every way to make me miserable? Why dash every cup of joy from my lips? You seem to hope that we never find Betty! I can’t understand your attitude, but unless you are more helpful—yes, and more hopeful—I don’t think we can get along together.”

But Granniss knew that he must stand by this distracted woman. Another secretary might have more leniency and less judgment, which would be a bad thing for Minna’s interests. No, even at risk of letting her be imprudent, he must stand by her, and protect her all he could against her own wrong decisions.

“Oh, yes, we’ll get along all right, Mrs Varian,” he said, trying to treat the matter lightly. “You can’t get rid of me so easily—and, too, you know that I want to believe all this quite as much as you do. But you must admit that a telegram is not like a letter. It might be faked.”

“Well, this isn’t,” said Minna, contentedly, still caressing the paper missive.

“Let’s consider it,” said Rod. “It doesn’t sound to me like Betty’s diction. Would she use the word ‘implicitly’?”

“Why not?” Minna stared at him. “And, too, she wrote it under compulsion, most likely. Oh, my darling child—at the mercy of those ruffians! Yet, I make no doubt they’re good to her. Why should they harm my baby? They only want the ransom money, and that they shall have. I’m glad it’s a large sum, it makes me more sure I’ll get Betty.”

Granniss was in despair. He felt the awful responsibility of Mrs Varian’s wild determination, but he couldn’t see anything to do about it.

To report to Doctor Varian was not his duty, and though he thought it was his duty to tell the story to the police, Minna had exacted his promise not to do so, and he had given it. After all, it was her money—if she chose to give it up so easily, it was not his affair. And, too, he couldn’t help a lurking hope that it might be all true and might result in Betty’s restoration to her sorrowing mother—and, to himself. For he knew, now that the opposing influence of her father was removed, if Betty should ever be found, she would some day be his wife. He trusted in her faith and loyalty to himself as he believed in his own to her.

And yet, he couldn’t approve of Minna’s wholesale compliance with the exorbitant demands of people who might be and probably were mere swindlers. He was thinking these things over when Mrs Varian came to him.

“I want you to go right down to New York,” she told him, “and get me a hundred thousand dollars in cash. Now, don’t raise objections, for I should only combat them, and it takes my strength so to argue with you. My husband’s fortune is mine. There is no one to dictate to me how I shall use it. I want—I insist upon this sum in cash, or some sort of bonds or securities that may be cashed by anybody, without identification. Oh, you know what I mean—I want the money in such shape that these kidnappers will take it willingly. Of course, they won’t accept checks or notes. Go on, now, Rodney, get off at once, and get back as soon as you can. And I want some man to stay in this house while you’re away. I’m not exactly timid, but I’ve never stayed nights in a house without a man in it—beside the butler, I mean—and I’m sure you can invite some friend who would be willing to come. Perhaps Mr Landon. He’s so nice, and I’d try to make it pleasant for him in any way I could. There are plenty of books, and with good cigars, he might be contented.”

“Oh, he’d be contented, all right; but Landon’s gone off on a little trip. He won’t be back for several days. How’d you like to have North? Probably he’d come.”

“Very well—if he’s perfectly willing. I’d hate to bore him. You’ll be back—when?”

“I’ll have to be away two nights—if North can’t come, there’s young Clark—he’s a good sort.”

“I hate to ask it of any of them, but I hate worse to stay alone. I’d get nervous and I shouldn’t sleep at all.”

“That’s all right, Mrs Varian, I know how you feel about it, and I’ll get somebody.”

Granniss was as good as his word, and, finding that Lawrence North was glad to do anything in his power to help Mrs Varian, it was arranged that he should visit at Headland House until Rodney could get back from New York.

“But promise me,” Granniss said, “that if you get further letters from the kidnappers you won’t do anything definite until I return.”

“I can’t,” said Minna, thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t promise, anyway, but, as you must see for yourself, I can’t do anything till I get that money.”

“I suppose not,” Granniss agreed, and went off. During a sociable and chatty evening, Minna told North about the letter from the abductors.

“Oh Mrs Varian,” he exclaimed, “you don’t believe it, do you? I only wonder you haven’t had several. It’s a common way of crooks to attempt to get money.”

“But this rings so true,” Minna defended herself, and showed him the letter.

North studied it.

“It sounds plausible enough,” he said, “but how is it possible? How could anyone have kidnapped the girl?”

“Now, look here, Mr North, don’t say over and over again, ‘how could he?’ You know somebody or something is responsible for Betty’s disappearance as well as for Mr Varian’s death. Don’t think for a minute that my anxiety about my daughter in any way obliterates or lessens my grief at my husband’s death. But, as you must see, nothing can bring Mr Varian back. While—something may bring Betty back! Can you wonder, then, that I catch at any straw—believe in any hope—take up with any suggestion on the mere chance of getting my child back? If they had asked for my whole fortune, I should pay it—on the chance!”

“Yes,” North spoke slowly—“I see how you feel about it—but you ought to have some proof that they really have your Betty.”

“I’ve thought about that,” Minna shuddered, “but, I’ve read of these cases, and—when they send a proof—sometimes, it’s a—a finger—you know—”

“Oh, now, now, don’t be morbid! I don’t mean anything of that sort. But if they would give you a bit of her hair, or a scrap of her own handwriting—”

“But how can I demand that? How can I ask for it?”

“You just wait for their next instruction. If they are sincere in this offer, if they really have Miss Betty and are really ready to negotiate, they must tell you what to do next. And, Mrs Varian, I advise you to do it. It may be a wrong principle, but your case is exceptional—and, since you’ve showed me this letter, I can’t help feeling it’s the real thing. For one thing, you can see it’s written by at least a fairly well educated man. I mean, not by the common, ignorant class. Moreover, the very audacity of demanding such enormous ransom, indicates to my mind that the writer can perform his part of the bargain. A mere crook, writing a fake letter, would never dream of asking such a sum. How are you going to manage the payment?”

“If you mean the method of handing it over, I don’t know. I shall do as I’m directed. If you mean how shall I obtain the cash, I’ve asked Mr Granniss to bring it up from New York for me.”

“Is he going to travel home with that sum on his person!”

“Yes, he said he had no fear in that direction.”

“Oh, no; since no one knows of it, he runs little risk.”

Meantime, Rodney Granniss, in New York, was putting through his errands in record time.

He attended to the money matter, and by the aid of some influential friends of the Varian family, he obtained the desired sum in cash and unregistered bonds.

Then he went to see Pennington Wise.

That astute detective declared himself too busy to accept any new commission. But after Granniss had personally told the astonishing details of the case, Wise was unable to resist the temptation to undertake its investigation.

“The way you put it, Mr Granniss,” he said, “it sounds like an impossible condition. I can’t see any explanation at all, but, as we know, there must be one. The obvious solution is a secret passage, but since you tell me there is none, I feel I must go up there and see for myself what could have happened.”

“Then you’ll come?”

“Yes—I’ll drop all else, and go straight off. We won’t travel together, though. You go ahead, right now, and I’ll follow soon. And, by the way—you’re carrying that money with you?”

“Yes.”

“Let me take it. It’s far safer so.”

Rod Granniss opened his eyes wide. Was this strange man asking him to transfer his trusted errand to him?

Wise laughed. “I can’t say I blame you for not wanting to hand it over. But, this I do tell you—it will be safe with me—and it may not be with you.”

“Why, nobody knows I have it!”

“Even so. I strongly advise your letting me take it—but you must do as you choose.”

“You’ll get it safely up to Mrs Varian?” Granniss said, reluctantly producing the rather bulky parcel.

“Yes, I will—and if I don’t—I’ll make the loss good.”

He looked meaningly at the younger man, and, flushing a little, Rodney said, “That’s right—Mr Wise. I couldn’t make it good if I lost it. Take it.”

And with no further security than the detective’s word, Granniss handed over the money.

He went to his train in a most perturbed spirit. Had he done right or not? It all depended on the fidelity of the detective. To be sure, Granniss had every confidence in him, but the sum of money was so large that it might well prove a temptation to hitherto impeccable honesty.

He boarded his train, still uncertain of the wisdom of his course, and more uncertain as to what Mrs Varian would say.

But, he reasoned, if they were to employ the services of one of the best and best known detectives in the country, it was surely right to obey his first bit of advice.

This thought comforted Granniss somewhat, and he was further comforted by an event which took place that night, and which proved the wisdom of the detective’s advice.

Granniss was asleep in his lower berth when the merest feeling of a cautious movement above awakened him.

He could hear no sound, but through half-dosed eyes, he saw the occupant of the berth above crawl silently down and stealthily reach for Rodney’s clothes, which were folded at the foot of the berth.

Interested rather than afraid, Granniss watched the performance, keeping his own eyes nearly closed. It was too dark for him to see the marauder, who worked entirely by feeling, and who swiftly examined the clothing of his victim and then turned his attention to his bag.

Still Granniss made no sign, for he preferred to see the chagrin of the robber rather than to interrupt him at his work.

The bag yielded nothing of interest, and then the upper berth man came along and slipped his hand under Granniss’ pillow.

Deftly done as it was, Rodney shot out his own hand and grabbed the wrist of the other. But it was twisted away from him, and in an instant the man was back in his own berth.

Rod thought it over, and concluded to raise no outcry. In the morning he would see who his visitor was, and then take such steps as he thought best. He fell asleep, and when he awoke the sun was up and his would-be robber had disappeared.

Chagrined at his own stupidity in over-sleeping, but rejoiced at the safety of Mrs Varian’s money, Granniss went on with his journey home.

But, when he found on the floor of the car a handkerchief that had been under his pillow, he realized that a still further search for treasure had been made beneath his sleeping head.

CHAPTER IX

Poor Martha

When Granniss stepped off the train at Headland Harbor, there were but few other passengers who alighted at the same time. But one of these, a mild young man, came nearer Rodney and said, quietly:

“Mr Granniss, may I speak to you a moment?”

“Certainly,” Rod answered, after a quick glance at him.

“I am a messenger from Mr Wise. I have with me the money for Mrs Varian. Shall I give it to you here, or go up to the house with you and carry it? No one seems to be observing us; take it if you like.”

Rodney stared at him. Wise, then, had sent his messenger with the money along on the same train. By this means he had outwitted the man in the upper berth, who, without question, knew of Granniss’ errand, and who had thus been foiled in his attempt to rob him.

“Good for you!” Granniss exclaimed, heartily. “I think it will be all right for me to take it now—here is the Varian car. But would you prefer to go up to the house?”

“No; I’d rather not. I’m sure the way is clear now. I saw that performance in the train last night. But don’t talk any more about it. Just take the box, and I’ll go right back on the next train. Mr Wise will arrive tomorrow.”

Marveling at the detective’s way of managing, Granniss took the unimportant looking parcel the young man offered, and with a brief good-by, got into the Varian car.

The car could go only to the lodge gate, and from there Rodney trudged up the steep path to the house, half afraid that some bandit would even yet appear to rob him of the treasure.

But nothing untoward happened, and he reached Headland House in safety.

It was nearly noon when he arrived, and Lawrence North, still there, was as eager as Minna to hear the results of Granniss’ errands in New York.

But not until after luncheon, when the three were alone in the library, did he tell the whole story.

He then gave a frank account of the detective’s asking to take charge of the package of money, and of the lucky stroke it was that he did so.

“But I never imagined,” Rodney said, “that he would send it along by a messenger on the same train!”

“Clever work!” said North. “Now, Mrs Varian, have you a really good safe?”

“Yes, I have. My husband had it sent up here with our trunks. It looks like a wardrobe trunk, but it is a modern and secure safe.”

The safe was in a closet in the library, and as the men examined it, they agreed that it was a good safe and proof against even a most skilful burglar.

“Unless he carries it off,” suggested North. “It’s not very large.”

“But it’s very heavy,” Minna said, “and besides, it’s clamped to the floor.”

They put the parcel of money in the safe, tucked it well back behind less important matters, and Minna herself closed the door.

“I’ll use the same combination Fred used,” she said, “nobody on earth knows it but myself.”

“Keep it to yourself, Mrs Varian,” North counseled her, “a secret shared is no secret.”

“I’m not afraid to trust you two,” Minna returned, “but I won’t tell any one else.”

“You’ve had no further communication from the kidnappers?” asked Granniss.

“I have,” she said, “a letter came in this morning’s mail. I don’t know what to do about it. It’s so strange—and yet—I feel a positive conviction that I ought to do as they tell me.”

“Whatever they ask, I beg of you not to decide until Mr Wise gets here,” Rodney said, earnestly. “Since I have seen him, I know he will help us, and I feel sure that he would disapprove of your going ahead with this until he can advise you.”

“What do they ask you to do?” North inquired; “that is, if you care to tell us.”

“Oh, I’m glad to tell you, and see what you think. I know it might be a better plan to wait for Mr Wise’s arrival, but that may scare off these people and lose me my one and only chance to meet their demands—and—get my Betty!”

“Where’s the letter?” asked Granniss, looking very serious.

Minna handed him a paper, and the two men read it at the same time.

“This is your one and only chance to get back your daughter. Unless you obey these directions exactly and secretly you have no chance at all. At midnight, tonight, take the packet of money, if you have it, and drop it over the cliff into the sea. First you must place it in a light pasteboard box that is too large for it. This will insure its floating until we can pick it up. Now if you have told any one of this and if there is any boat on the sea at that time, we will not carry out our plans, the money will be lost and your daughter will be killed. So, take your choice of acting in good faith or losing your child forever. We are desperately in earnest and this is your one and only chance. If you fear to go to the cliff’s edge alone, you may take a companion but only one who is in your faith and confidence. If you breathe a word to the police we shall know of it, and we will call off all our arrangements. It is up to you.”

There was no signature. The paper and typing were like those of the previous letter from the same source, and the tenor of the letter seemed to be an ultimatum.

“Don’t think of it for a minute,” urged Granniss. “You are simply throwing away a large sum of money and you cannot possibly get any return. If the thing were genuine, if it were from real kidnappers who really had Betty, they would have given you a sign, a proof that they have her. They would have enclosed a scrap of her handwriting or some such thing. That telegram is of course a fake! This letter proves it!”

North looked dubious.

“You may be right, Granniss,” he said, “perhaps you are. But—I can’t help thinking there may be some way to foil these people. Suppose Mrs Varian throws a faked packet over the cliff—”

“No,” Granniss declared, “that would do no good.”

“Wait a minute,” North went on; “then we could have a swift motor boat hidden in the shadows, and follow the boat that picks it up—for I have no doubt that they will come for the money in a motor boat.”

“Of course they’ll do that,” Rod agreed, “but it will be a boat more powerful than any we have around here—”

“Anyway,” broke in Minna, “I won’t play them false. I shall either follow their instructions in good faith, or not do it at all. I’m sure if I try to fool them, they’ll take it out on Betty.” She began to cry, and North said, hastily:

“Don’t let me influence you, Mrs Varian. You must do just as you please in the matter. If you feel that the mere chance of getting Betty by such means is sufficient to justify your equal chance of losing all that money—you must follow your own wishes.”

Minna Varian sat for several moments in deep thought. Then she said, quietly: “I’ve made up my mind. I shall not do this thing tonight. I am more influenced by Rodney’s remark about the telegram than anything else. As he says, if these people really had Betty, they would send a note in her writing and not a telegram.”

“That’s the way to look at it, Mrs Varian,” cried Granniss, much pleased at her logical decision. “The telegram was a mistake on their part. To begin with, if Betty is closely confined, which she must be, if there’s any truth at all in this matter, how could she get out to send a telegram? And if they sent it for her—why not a note?”

“That’s all true,” said North, thoughtfully; “and when Mr Wise gets here, he can doubtless discern the real truth of it all. The money will be all right in the safe over night, and tomorrow the detective can look after it. Then you’re decided, Mrs Varian?”

“I’m decided for the present—” she smiled a little; “but I don’t say I won’t change my mind. It’s a terrible temptation to do as they bid me, even if it proves a false hope.”

North went away, and poor Minna spent the rest of that day in alternate decisions for and against the directions of the kidnappers.

Granniss tried his best to dissuade her from what he deemed a foolish deed.

“To begin with,” he argued, “I can’t believe in kidnappers. How could they have abducted Betty, in broad daylight, with half a dozen people looking for her to come out of the house?”

“I don’t know,” said poor Minna, dejectedly, “but oh, Rodney, it doesn’t mean anything to ask such questions as that! For how could any other thing happen? I mean, how do you explain Betty’s disappearance without being kidnapped, any more easily than by such means? How explain Fred’s death? How explain anything? Now, the only chance—as the letter says—is this plan of theirs. Shall I try it?”

“Look at it this way, Mrs Varian,” Granniss said at last. “Suppose you throw that money over the cliff. It’s by no means certain that they will retrieve it safely.”

“But that’s their business. It’s full moon now, and at twelve o’clock the sea will be bright as day. There’ll be no spying boat around at that hour, and they will watch the box fall, get it quickly, and go away. Then they will send Betty back!”

Minna’s face always lighted up with a happy radiance when she spoke of the return of Betty.

“But think a minute. Suppose by some chance they don’t get the money—suppose there is some stray boat out at that hour. Suppose the parcel gets caught on the way down—”

“It can’t if I drop it right down from the overhang. And I’d have you to protect and watch over my own safety—oh, Rodney, I must do it!”

And so, despite Granniss’ dissuasion, in defiance of her own misgivings as to the genuineness of the anonymous bargainers, the poor distracted mother made up her mind to take the slim chance of recovering her lost child by the desperate method offered her.

But an unforeseen difficulty prevented her.

Shortly before midnight the sky clouded over and became entirely black. A terrific thunderstorm followed, and when that was over the whole heavens remained darkened and a drizzling rain kept up.

“It’s out of the question,” Granniss said, as the clock struck twelve. “It’s still raining, it’s pitch dark, nobody could see a parcel dropped over the cliffs, and you might lose your own life in the process. But, let this comfort you, if these people are really the kidnappers, they will give you another chance. They won’t lose their chance of a fortune for a rainstorm, and they’ll communicate with you again.”

“That’s probably true, Rod,” and Minna gave a sigh of relief as she gazed out of the window at the rain. “And so, let’s go to rest and try to hope for a future opportunity.”

Mrs Fletcher was waiting to put her patient to bed, and was much displeased at her late hour of retiring.

So, little was said by either of the women, and at last with a curt good night, the nurse went away to her own room, and Minna closed the door between.

But she could not sleep, she was restless and nervous.

At last she began to worry over the safety of the money in the safe. She imagined the thwarted kidnappers, disappointed at the collapse of their plans, coming up to the house to rob her of the money they had reason to suppose she had in her possession.

To her anxious and worried mind, it seemed the money would be safer up in her own room than down in the library safe.

On a sudden impulse she determined to go down stairs and get it. She donned dressing gown and slippers and stealthily, not to awake Fletcher, she crept down the stairs.

Into the library she went and, opening the closet door, began to work the combination that unlocked the safe.

Absorbed in her occupation, she did not hear a slight noise behind her. But suddenly a voice said; softly, “Oh, it’s you, ma’am! I thought it was a robber!”

Minna turned quickly to see Martha, the waitress, staring at her.

As she already had the safe door open and was about to take out the parcel she was after, she was annoyed at any interruption.

“Martha!” she exclaimed, though in a low whisper, “what are you doing here? Go back to bed!”

“Yes, ma’am. I thought I heard robbers, ma’am.”

“No; it’s only I. I have to see about some important papers, and I can’t sleep, so I’m attending to it now. Go back to your room at once, Martha.”

“Yes, ma’am,” and the girl obeyed.

Drawing a sigh of relief, Minna took her precious parcel, shut the safe, and went softly back to her own room. She put the package beneath her mattress, locked her bedroom door, and soon fell asleep, worn out with weariness and exhaustion.

“Great doin’s,” grumbled the cook, as Martha, who shared her room, returned to it, “where you been?”

“Hush up,” said Martha. “I heard a noise and I thought it was burglars.”

“And you went downstairs!” exclaimed Hannah. “Why, what foolishness! They might ’a’ shot you!”

“There wasn’t any,” Martha explained. “It was Mrs Varian, poking about in her safe.”

“The pore leddy,” said Hannah, sympathetically; “she can’t sleep at all, at all. The nurse tells me she lies awake nearly all night and only gets forty winks in the morning after sun-up.”

“Well, she was a bit upset at my coming in,” said Martha. “I wouldn’t ’a’ gone, only I thought it was my duty.”

“Oh, you and your duty!” growled the cook. “I’m thinkin’ your duty is to keep quiet and let me get a bit of sleep myself. I can’t do without it as you and the missus can!”

Hannah grunted as she turned over and promptly went to sleep again, while Martha, who was both imaginative and curious of mind, lay awake, wondering what fearful things had happened or would happen to this strange house.

The girl was of a fearless nature, but deeply interested in the mysterious, and had more than once made investigations herself in an effort to find some secret passage such as the family were continually discussing.

But she had found nothing, and now, still unable to sleep, she occupied her mind in trying to form some new theory of the tragedies of Headland House.

* * * *

Hannah awakened in the morning by reason of the alarm sounding from her bedroom clock.

“My goodness,” she growled, to herself, “seems like I’d only just dropped to sleep. Well—I’ve got to get up. Hey, Martha, come along, my girl.”

But no response came from the other bed, and Hannah stepped across the room to give the girl an arousing shake.

“Why, heaven bless us, she ain’t here!” exclaimed the startled cook. “Now, don’t that beat all! Not content with rampoosin’ round the house in the night, she must be up and off early in the mornin’! She thinks she’s able to help them as has the detective work in charge! That Martha!”

Hannah proceeded to make her toilet and then descended the back stairs to the kitchen.

But on reaching the kitchen she gave voice to such a scream as could be heard by all the servants in the house, and even penetrated to the rooms occupied by Minna and her nurse.

“Whatever is the matter?” cried Fletcher, running out to the hall in her night clothes.

“Matter enough,” Hannah called back. “Will you get Mr Granniss, and tell him to come quick!”

Stunned by the cook’s voice and manner, the nurse hurriedly knocked at Rodney’s door, and he responded at once.

He was partly dressed, and finishing a hasty toilet, he ran down stairs.

He found Hannah, and Kelly, the butler, gazing at a huddled heap on the kitchen floor, which he saw at once, was the dead body of Martha, the waitress.

“What does it mean?” he asked, in an awed voice. “Who did it?”

“Who, indeed, sir?” Hannah said, whimpering like a child. “Oh, Mr Granniss, sir, do get Mrs Varian to go away from this accursed house! Nobody is safe here! I’m leaving as soon’s I can pack up. Kelly, here, is going, too—and I hope the missus will go this very day. It’s curst indeed, is this place! Oh, Martha, me little girl—who could ’a’ done this to ye?”

Going nearer, Rodney looked at the body, touched it and felt for the girl’s heart.

There was no heartbeat and the cold flesh proved her death took place some hours since.

“What do you know about it?” he asked the cook.

“Not a thing, sir. Martha was down stairs late last night, and she came up again, saying Mrs Varian was down in the library.”

“Mrs Varian down stairs! At what time was this?”

“’Long about one o’clock, sir. Then me and Martha both went to sleep—leastways, I did, and that’s all I knew till morning. Then I went to call the girl to get up, and her bed was empty. I came down—and here I saw—this!”

Throwing her apron over her face, Hannah rocked back and forth in her chair.

Rodney forced himself to think—to give orders.

“Hannah,” he said, “I’m sorry, but we mustn’t touch Martha—and you’ll have to get breakfast—just the same.”

“I can’t, sir—I can’t get the breakfast, with that poor dead girl—why, I loved that young one like she was my own.”

“But, Hannah, remember your duty to Mrs Varian. Now, we’ll lay a coverlet over Martha, and you and Kelly between you must prepare the coffee, and such things as Mrs Varian wants. Be brave now, for there’s enough sorrow for Mrs Varian to bear. You and Kelly must do whatever you can to help.”

Then Rodney looked hastily at all the doors and windows, finding them all securely fastened, as they always were at night.

“Thank goodness, Wise is coming today,” he thought, as he went to telephone for Sheriff Potter again.

Potter summoned, he turned his mind to the question of how best to tell the news to Minna, and concluded to tell Nurse Fletcher first.

She came down then, greatly excited, to learn what had happened.

Granniss told her, and then said, “Now Mrs Fletcher, I beg of you, don’t threaten to leave. Mrs Varian needs you now more than ever, and as Mr Wise, the great detective, is coming today, I’m sure you need not be afraid to stay on.”

“Very well,” Fletcher returned, primly, “I know my duty, and I propose to do it. I will stay with Mrs Varian until she can get some one else—or until I can get some one else for her—but not an hour longer. How did the maid die?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” Rodney looked puzzled. “I didn’t think it best to touch the body, except to convince myself that she is really dead. Now, will you tell Mrs Varian, or shall I?”

“I’ll tell her—but I’d like you to stand by.”

So, taking Minna’s breakfast tray, quite as usual, the nurse went back to her patient.

“You needn’t tell me,” was the greeting she received. “I overheard enough to know what has happened. It’s awful—but I suppose it’s only the beginning of a further string of tragedies.”

The utter hopelessness of the white face alarmed Granniss more than a hysterical outburst would have done.

“Now, Mrs Varian,” he said, consolingly, “it is an awful occurrence, but in comparison with your nearer sorrows, it means little to you. Try not to think about it; leave it to us and trust me to do all that is necessary or possible.”

Potter arrived then, and Granniss went down to receive him.

“Another!” the sheriff exclaimed. “What devil’s work is going on here, any way?”

He went to the kitchen and knelt beside the dead girl.

“Strangled,” he said, briefly, after an examination. “Choked to death by a strong pair of man’s hands. Mr Granniss, I accuse you of the murder of this girl!”