THE VANISHING OF BETTY VARIAN (Part 2)

CHAPTER X

Pennington Wise

Granniss looked at the constable blankly. Then he said, “Oh, well, you may as well accuse me as anybody, for the present. Where’s Dunn?”

“He’s coming,” replied Potter, angry at the young man’s indifference to his charge. “But you can’t treat this matter so scornfully, Mr Granniss. I’ve been thinking a whole lot about you in connection with all these mysteries up here, and I’m of the opinion you know more about some things than you admit.”

“Quite right, I do,” said Rod, cheerfully. “But don’t arrest me just yet, for a really worth while detective is coming this morning and he may disagree with your conclusions. But this is a bad thing—about this poor girl. I can’t understand it.”

“I can,” and Potter looked straight at him. “You found her in your way and—you put her out of it.”

“Oh, come now, Sheriff,” this from Bill Dunn, who had come hurrying in, “don’t go off half-primed! You haven’t any evidence against Mr Granniss, except that he was in the house.”

“I will have, though!” Potter muttered. “Where’s the butler?”

“Here I am,” and Kelly put in his appearance.

“Who saw this girl last?” Potter thundered, glaring round at the assembled members of the household. They were all present, for Nurse Fletcher had been unable to resist her aroused curiosity, and Minna Varian, too, stood in the background, composed and quiet, but evidently holding herself together by a strong effort of will-power.

“I did,” said Hannah, who stood, silent and grim, with folded arms, watching the sheriff.

“Where was she, then?”

“In her bed—last night after midnight. She had been down stairs—”

“After midnight?”

“Yes. She heard somebody down stairs, and—Martha was a brave one! She thought it was robbers in the house and she went down to see.”

“Well?”

“Well, it was Mrs Varian, who had gone down to the library. So Martha came up again—”

“Leaving Mrs Varian down there?”

“Yes,” Minna interrupted, “leaving me down there.”

“What were you doing, Mrs Varian?”

“I was wakeful, and I went down to the library to look over some papers.”

“And this girl came to you there? Tell the story in your own way.”

“There’s little to tell. I was startled at Martha’s unexpected appearance, and sent her back to her room. Shortly afterward, I went back to my own room. That is all.”

“Then Martha must have come down stairs again.”

“That is quite evident,” said Minna, looking sorrowfully at the dead girl. “Oh, Mr Potter—Rodney—what does it all mean?”

“It will take a lot of clearing up, ma’am, before anybody can say what it means. Where were you at this time, Kelly?”

“In my own room, asleep,” answered the butler.

“You heard nothing of the goings on?”

“No; my room is up in the third story, and I sleep very soundly.”

“Humph! You do? Well, how about the doors and windows? I suppose they were locked and barred as usual?”

“Yes, they were,” asserted Kelly. “I always look after those—especially nowadays.”

“Then there was no way for an intruder to get in this house, last night, between midnight, say, and morning?”

“No way, sir,” assented Kelly.

“Then this girl was murdered by either you, Kelly, or by Mr Granniss. Those marks on her throat of a strangling hold, were made by a man—and by a strong man. Either of you two could have done it—now, which one did?”

“Not I, sir,” Kelly denied, as calmly as if he were merely refuting a slight accusation. “I know nothing about it.”

“I don’t believe you do,” said Potter, judicially, “but I do think you’re implicated, Mr Granniss. Were you in your room all night?”

“Of course I was. I retired about one o’clock, and I didn’t open my door again until I was summoned this morning to learn of Martha’s death.”

“You say that glibly enough—but it will take some proof.”

“No; your denial of it, or suspicion of my veracity will take the proof. Can you produce it?”

“You’re not wise to be so cocksure, sir. There is such a thing as elimination, and I say that only you could have done this thing. The women are not capable of such a deed, and I’ve no reason to suspect Kelly.”

“And just what is your reason for suspecting me?” Rodney’s eyes were beginning to grow stern and his jaw set firmly. “Also, what evidence have you for your suspicions?”

“Come off, Potter,” Bill Dunn warned him. “You ain’t got no real evidence against Mr Granniss, and you’d better go easy. To my mind, Mr Granniss ain’t going to kill a servant girl without a good reason.”

“He may have a very good reason. Suppose Mr Granniss was at the safe and suppose Martha surprised him there as she had startled Mrs Varian. And suppose Mr Granniss didn’t want it known that he had been there, so he took the only sure method of silencing her lips.”

“And what would Mr Granniss be doing at the safe?” asked Dunn.

“Well, I happen to know that there was considerable of value in that safe last night.”

Rodney started. How did the sheriff know that?

But he said, “This is aside the mark, Mr Potter. For Mrs Varian has trusted me with the combination of the safe. I can open it at any time without let or hindrance. Why, then, should I sneak down in the middle of the night to do so?”

“For the very good reason that you wanted to take the money that was there and make off with it.”

“And did I get it?”

“I should say not,” declared Potter, “since you are still here!” He looked proud of this triumph of deduction, and went on:

“You had some valuables in that safe last night, Mrs Varian, did you not?”

“Yes,” replied Minna, almost smiling at the trend of the questions.

“Are they there now?”

“No, they are not.”

“Aha! What did I tell you?”

“But they are not there, because when I visited the library late last night, I took them away to my room for better protection of them.”

“Oh!” Potter looked deeply chagrined.

“You have them safe, then?”

“Oh, yes, quite safe, thank you.”

“Well, all the same,” went on the sheriff, doggedly, “Mr Granniss thought they were there, and went down to steal them.”

“Maybe Martha was there on the same errand,” said Dunn, thoughtfully.

“Don’t you dare say a word against that pore dead child,” cried Hannah, resenting at once any aspersion of her friend. “She would never dream of such a thing.”

“What did she come down for, then?” asked Potter. “She had been down and had spoken to Mrs Varian. Then she returned to her room, you say, and went back to bed. Now, why did she go down again?”

“That I do not know,” Hannah said, belligerently, “but it was for no wrong purpose. Maybe she thought again she heard burglars, and maybe—this time she was not mistaken.”

“That would be a fine theory,” Potter observed, “but for the fact that a burglar couldn’t get in or out. So if she heard any one prowling about it must have been some member of the household. Isn’t she a very daring young person?”

“She was afraid of nothing,” Hannah stated. “She was great for detective stories, and she was crazy to investigate and inquire into all the goin’s on of this terrible house! Martha was a dabster at puzzles. She was terrible quick-witted, and sensed out everything—like a ferret! I never saw her beat at findin’ out things!”

“That would explain why an evil-doer, if there was one, would put her out of the way rather than have her live to tell of his depredations.”

“All right, sir,” Hannah conceded, “if so be’s you put it that way. But don’t you accuse that innocent girl of any wrongdoings herself, for she never did! Never.”

“It does look that way,” Rodney said, thoughtfully. “If Martha had that investigating proclivity, that would explain her reappearance down stairs—that is, if there was a burglar—yet, how could there be one? As usual, we’re reasoning round in a circle. Now, Mr Potter, I think your conclusions are logical and probable, except in so far as they drag me into this thing. I didn’t leave my room last night at all. But I shall be at your disposal any time you want to question me further on the subject. Now, I want to go to the library and attend to my daily routine of business matters. Also, Mr Wise will arrive before noon, and perhaps his skill may be helpful to your inquest.”

* * * *

Shortly before noon Pennington Wise did arrive.

He brought with him a strange, almost weird little girl creature, who ran up the steps and into the house before him.

Granniss had opened the door to them, and after greeting Wise, he turned to the girl.

“My assistant,” Wise said, carelessly. “Name, Zizi. Give her over to the housekeeper, she’ll take care of herself. Where’s the library—or living room?”

Quite apparently tired from the steep walk up the cliff, Wise sank into a chair that Rodney placed for him. They stayed in the hall, which was large and square, and was often used as a sitting room.

Zizi, however, dropping her bag in the hall, darted toward the dining room and thence to the kitchen.

“Oh,” she cried, to Hannah, “are you the cook? Do give me some tea and toast or something—I’m famished! My heavens! Who’s that?”

Zizi bent over the dead girl, whose body still lay on the kitchen floor.

Martha was clad only in a kimono, over her nightdress, and wore bedroom slippers but no stockings.

“Hopped out of bed and ran down suddenly, didn’t she?” commented the strange girl. “Didn’t even stop to pin up her hair. Must have heard somebody that she was pretty sure was burglaring, or she wouldn’t have run down again on the chance of its being Mrs Varian the second time.”

“How do you know all about it?” asked Hannah, aghast, at the remarkable person that had invaded her kitchen. “But you’re right! Martha was too cute to be caught in a mistake twice—she must have been sure it was not Mrs Varian again!”

“Your chauffeur, who met us at the train, told us about this poor girl.” Zizi’s black eyes snapped as she delicately touched the awful bruises on Martha’s throat. “Small doubt what did for her! Brute!”

Kneeling down, she ran her tiny fingers lightly over the body, and finally scrutinized the hands.

“Look, Hannah,” she said, quietly, and held open the left hand.

It showed a dark green streak, of some sort, that spread entirely across the palm.

“Paint?” asked Hannah, not specially interested. “Our porch chairs have been painted lately—but I don’t see how she got out on the porch. Though o’ course, she could ’a’ done so. That Martha.”

Just then Potter and Bill Dunn returned, and said they were ready to take the body of the girl down to the village, where her parents lived.

“And a good job to get it out of this house,” said Dunn. “I tell you, Potter, poor Martha’s death has nothin’ to do with those other horrors up here; and Mrs Varian has all she can stagger under without the extra sorrow and trouble of a servant girl.”

“Wait!” commanded Zizi, for her ringing tone was nothing less than commanding, “wait, till Mr Wise sees this girl.”

She ran for the detective, who came at once.

The sheriff gazed with eager curiosity at the great city detective, and sniffed to see that he was a mere human being after all. He saw only a good-looking, well set up man, with chestnut hair, brushed back from a broad forehead, and sharp blue eyes that were kindly of expression but keen of observation.

But the astute Bill Dunn saw more than this. He recognized the air of efficiency, the subtle hint of power, the whole effect of generalship which fairly emanated from this quiet-mannered man.

There was no bustle about Pennington Wise, no self-assertion, but to those blessed with perceptions he gave an instant impression of sure reasoning and inerrant judgment.

He glanced quickly at Zizi, caught the almost imperceptible motion of her own little bird claw of a hand, and then, without seeming to notice her at all, he spoke genially to the two men, and nodded sympathetically at the cook.

And they all liked him. If asked why, they could not have told, but his manner and attitude were so friendly, his mien so inoffensive and his cordial acceptance of each of them was so pleasant that he was instantly in their good graces.

Even the sheriff, who had been fully prepared to dislike and distrust this city wizard, capitulated gladly, and was ready to subscribe to all his theories, deductions and decisions.

“Too bad,” Wise said, with real feeling, as he knelt by Martha’s side. And few could have seen, unmoved, the bright young face of the strong healthy girl who had been so brutally done to death.

Gently, he lifted her chin and examined the black bruises on her throat.

“Finger-prints?” suggested Potter, eager to show the city man his familiarity with modern methods.

“Hardly,” Wise said. “I doubt much could be learned that way—the bruise is so deep. Perhaps there may be prints of the ruffian’s hands on her clothing. You might try it out, Mr Potter.”

Then, while the two men were speaking to each other about the matter, Wise unobtrusively looked at the inside of the girl’s hands.

On the left palm he saw the long smear of dark green, and after quick but careful scrutiny, he bent lower and smelled of it. Then he closed the dead hand and rose to his feet.

“You may take away the body, Sheriff,” he said, “so far as I am concerned. She has people?”

“Yes, sir. Parents and sisters. Oh, it’s a sorry thing for them.”

“It is so,” and then Wise let his perceiving eyes roam over the kitchen.

“Have you searched the floor well for anything that may have been dropped?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” the sheriff answered. “That’s all been done, Mr Wise. We’re plain country folks here, but we know a thing or two.”

“I’m sure of that,” Wise assented. “Did you look under the dresser and beneath that corner cupboard?”

“Well, no; we didn’t think it necessary to go so far as that.”

“Probably not; most likely not. Yet, I wish, Hannah, you’d get a broom and just run it under there.”

“I’ll do it,” volunteered Kelly, who had come to the kitchen.

He brought a broom, and brushing under the two dressers, brought out some dust, some threads and shreds and two yellow beads.

“Martha’s?” asked Wise, quietly, picking up the beads.

“No!” exclaimed Hannah, staring at them. “Miss Betty’s!”

“Miss Varian’s!” Wise was himself surprised.

“Yes, sir; the very ones she wore the day—the day she—was lost.”

“I’ll take charge of them,” he said, simply, and put them in his pocket.

Kelly and his broom failed to find anything further, and suddenly realizing the side light it gave on her housekeeping habits, Hannah began to explain how everything was going at sixes and sevens of late.

“Of course it would,” Zizi soothed her, as Wise returned to the hall. “Now, Hannah, tell me, did you find anywhere, any more of Miss Betty’s beads?”

“I found two, when I was sweepin’ here one day. But I slipped ’em in this drawer an’ never remembered them again. Here they be.”

She retrieved the two beads, and Zizi took them.

“Did she wear a long string of them?”

“No, miss, a fairly short string. About like that you’ve on yourself.”

Zizi’s modest little string of black beads hung perhaps four inches below her throat. She examined the yellow beads, saw they were of amber, and put them away in her little handbag.

“Now, Hannah,” she went on, “you and I are friends—”

“An’ that I’m proud to be, miss!”

“And you must help me all you can—”

“Help you what?”

“Find out the truth about Miss Betty—and perhaps—find her.”

“Are you—are you—”

“Yes, I’m a detective—that is, I’m the assistant of Mr Wise, and he’s the greatest detective in the world.”

“Is he that, now?” and Kelly, unable to resist the fascination of this queer visitor, joined the group.

“Yes, he is. And he is going to solve the whole mystery—if we all help. And, maybe we’ll help best by doing nothing. And especially by saying nothing. So, you two keep quite still about finding these beads, won’t you, and about matters in general. You talk over things with the villagers, I suppose, but don’t say anything about what happens up here now. Discuss the past, all you like, but not the present. See?”

They didn’t see clearly, but they were more than ready to promise whatever this girl asked, and then between the two, Zizi was served with such a luncheon as might have befitted a royal guest.

“Goodness, gracious, sakes alive!” she exclaimed, “don’t bring me anything more, I beg of you. I shall go to sleep like an anaconda and not wake up for six months!”

Then, while the detective ate his luncheon at the table with Minna Varian and her secretary, Zizi went in search of the nurse.

She found Mrs Fletcher eating her meal from a tray in her sitting room. It hurt her pride to do this, but Minna Varian declared that she saw quite enough of Fletcher between meals and must have some respite.

“Nice to eat alone, I think,” was Zizi’s observation as she entered, uninvited, and perched herself on the arm of a nearby chair.

“You’re Fletcher, aren’t you? Now, won’t you please tell me some things confidentially? I see, you’re a woman of deep perceptions, and are not to be caught napping. Tell me, do you think Mrs Varian went down stairs a second time last night?”

“That she did not,” asserted the nurse. She was flattered at Zizi’s attitude and would have told her anything she asked.

“How do you know?”

“I can’t go to sleep myself, you see, till Mrs Varian is asleep. So I always wait until I hear her steady breathing before I let myself drop off.”

The statement was too surely true to be disbelieved and Zizi went on.

“Then who was it that Martha heard downstairs, that she went down a second time?”

“Maybe she didn’t hear anybody. Maybe she went down to see what she could pick up herself—”

“Steal, do you mean? Oh, for shame! To accuse a poor, dead girl!”

Mrs Fletcher looked ashamed.

“I oughtn’t to—I s’pose. But, Miss, what else is there to think? I well know how this house is locked up of nights; nobody from outside could get in. The other servants are as honest as the day, and though I’ve no real reason to suspect Martha, yet there doesn’t seem to be any other way to look—does there, now?”

“Some way may turn up,” said Zizi. “Tell me more about Betty—Miss Varian.”

“I can’t tell you from having known her, for I never saw the girl, but since I’ve been taking care of Mrs Varian there’s little I don’t know about the whole family. She’s nervous, you know, and so she talks incessantly, when we’re alone.”

“Nothing, though, to cast any light on Miss Varian’s disappearance?”

“Oh, no; nothing but sort of reminiscences about her husband and how good he was to her, and how she grieves for him—and for her child. Poor woman—it’s fearful to hear her.”

“It must be,” said Zizi, sympathetically; “my heart bleeds for that poor tortured soul.”

CHAPTER XI

Clues

It was after luncheon, in the library, that Pennington Wise began his real business of the investigation of the Varian mysteries.

First of all, he desired to look over the papers in Mr Varian’s desk, and with the assistance of Granniss, he was soon in possession of the principal facts to be learned that way.

Moreover, he discovered some things not yet taken into consideration by the local detectives, and he read with interest a number of letters that were carefully filed, apparently for preservation.

Rapidly he scanned them and tossed them aside, retaining a few for further consideration.

“I think, Mrs Varian,” he said, at last, “that a most important fact in the case is the strange bequest of the Varian pearls to your husband’s niece instead of to his daughter. Can you explain this?”

“I cannot,” said Minna, “it seems to me absolutely unexplainable. For generations those pearls have descended from parent to child—sometimes a mother owned them, sometimes a father, but they were always given to the oldest daughter, or, if there were no daughter, then to a son. Only in case of a childless inheritor did they go to a niece or nephew. Why my husband should so definitely bequeath them to his niece—I cannot imagine. I’ve thought over that for hours, but I can’t understand it I will say frankly, that Betty and her father frequently had differences of opinion, but nothing more than many families have. They were really devoted to one another, but both were of decided, even obstinate nature, and when they disagreed they were apt to argue the matter out, and as a result of it, they did sometimes lose their temper and really quarreled. But it always blew over quickly and they were good friends again. I never paid any attention to their little squabbles, for I knew them both too well to think they were really at enmity. But this matter of the pearls looks as if my husband had a positive dislike for the child, and as a mark of spite or punishment left the pearls away from her. It makes little difference, if—if—”

“Don’t think about that, Mrs Varian,” said Wise, kindly; “I’m considering this strange clause of Mr Varian’s will from the viewpoint of the whole mystery. It may prove a clue, you see. I want to say, right now, that the whole affair is the greatest and most baffling puzzle I have ever known of. The disappearance of your daughter and the death of your husband offer no solution that seems to me possible—let alone probable. I can set up no theory that does not include a secret passage of some sort. And though I am emphatically informed there is none, yet, as you may imagine, I must investigate that for myself.”

“I’ve found the house plans,” said a low, thin little voice, and the strange girl, Zizi, appeared in the room. That slender little wisp of humanity had an uncanny way of being present and absent, suddenly, and without explanation. She was there, and then she wasn’t there—but her goings and comings were so noiseless and unobtrusive that they were never noticed.

Pennington Wise held out his hand without a word. Zizi gave over a bulky roll of papers and subsided.

Unrolling the time-yellowed sheets, they saw that they really were the old contractor’s plans of the house.

With a sigh of satisfaction Wise commenced to study them—Granniss looking over his shoulder.

Minna sat quietly, her nervousness lost in her eager anticipation of the new detective’s successful quest.

The two men studied the plans carefully.

“I wish North could see these,” Rodney said; “he’s of an architectural bent, Mr Wise, and he measured the house all over, trying to find an unexplained bit of space. According to these plans, North is right, and there isn’t any.”

“I’m of an architectural bent myself,” Wise smiled, “and I agree, there’s no foot of room left unaccounted for on these papers. Of course a secret passage could have been built in, in contradiction of the plans, but I can’t think there is any such, after your own search. It might be out-of-doors?”

“But we would have seen anyone going in or out of the house,” Minna explained. “We were all watching.”

“The back doors?”

“There’s only one,” Rodney told him. “And that was locked on the inside. Locked and bolted. No, whatever happened, nobody came in through the kitchen.”

“Do you assume an intruder, then, Mr Wise?” Minna asked.

“I am obliged to, Mrs Varian. To begin with the only fact we can positively affirm, Mr Varian was shot—and not by his own hand. This we assume because of the absence of the weapon. Now, either Miss Betty shot him or someone else did. I can’t think the daughter did it, for it’s against the probabilities in every way—though, of course, it’s a possibility. But the difficulties in the way of explaining what the girl did with herself afterward, seem to me greater than the objections to assuming an intruder from outside. I mean from outside the family—not from outside the house. The explanation of his entrance and exit is no more of a puzzle than the explanation of Miss Varian’s exit. And I think we must dismiss the idea that the girl concealed herself in this house—whether alive or—a suicide.”

“The girl didn’t do it,” came Zizi’s low murmur. She was sitting on an ottoman, near Minna, and now and then she caressed the hand of her hostess. “There’s a big mind at the back of all this. And you’re overlooking the death of the maid last night Why, Penny, it’s all of a piece.”

“Yes”; and Wise roused himself from a brown study. “It is all of a piece, and it hinges on that bequest of the Varian pearls.”

“Hinges on that?” said Zizi.

“I mean that’s a key to the situation. When we learn why Mr Varian made that strange arrangement, we’ll be on our way to a solution of the mystery. But the first thing is to find Miss Varian.”

“Oh, Mr Wise,” Minna cried out, “you think she is alive—”

“I very much hope so, and though I don’t want to give you false encouragement, I can’t help feeling that she may be,”

“Yes, she is,” came Zizi’s quiet assurance, and Minna impulsively kissed her.

“What a comfort you are!” she exclaimed; “elf, pixie—I don’t know what to call you—but you bring me courage and hope.”

Zizi’s great dark eyes gave appreciation, but she only said, “You’re up against it, Penny.”

“I am, indeed,” Wise said, very gravely; “and my first work must be a deep investigation of all Mr Varian’s affairs. You were entirely in his confidence, Mrs Varian?”

“Oh, yes; we had no secrets from one another. He told me all his financial ventures or business worries. There were none of those of late, but years ago, there were some. Yes, I may say I know everything that ever happened to my husband.”

“Then who has been blackmailing him of late, and what for?”

“Blackmail!” Minna looked blank. “Never such a thing as that has happened to my husband!” She spoke proudly and positively.

“You know of no one who had a hold over Mr Varian—or thought he had—and who wrote him threatening letters?”

“Most assuredly not! And I know that nothing of the sort ever did occur, for he would most certainly have told me. We were more confidential than most married people, and we never had secrets from one another.”

“Well, perhaps I am over-imaginative.”

“What made you think it?” asked Minna, curiously; “if you have found any letters you can’t explain, show them to me—I can doubtless tell you about them.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Wise handed her a letter.

It bore neither date nor address, but it read,

“Unless you accede to my demands, I shall expose you, and the woman you robbed will claim redress or return of her property.”

This brief message was signed “Step.” and Minna read it with a look of utter perplexity.

“I don’t know what it means,” she said, handing it back, “but I’m sure it’s of no importance. Mr Varian never robbed a woman in his life! The very idea is too absurd to consider. You are at liberty to hunt it down, Mr Wise, but you will never find it has a meaning that will reflect on my husband’s stainless honor! You may refer to any of his friends, his relatives or his business associates. All will tell you that Frederick Varian and dishonesty are contradictory terms!”

“That may all be true, Mrs Varian, and doubtless is true, but you know blackmailers are not so scrupulous, and they sometimes find a peg to hang their demands on even in the case of the most upright. This note is undated, but the envelope shows it was mailed less than six months ago. Therefore the matter may be still unsettled, and may have a bearing on the whole case. Could there have been any family reason that would influence him to leave the pearls away from his daughter?”

“Oh, no! His brother and sister-in-law were quite as much surprised as I was to learn of that. But, Mr Wise, what do you think about this matter of the kidnappers asking for ransom? Do you think it is all a fraud?”

“I’m going to look into that as soon as I can. At first glance, it seems fraudulent, but the wonder is that you haven’t had similar letters from other fakers. However, I am going to work backward. I want, first of all to look about a bit, for evidences or clues regarding last night’s tragedy. I am sure the whole string of horrors is a connected one, and to find out who killed poor Martha, will in my opinion be a stepping-stone to the solution of the other mysteries.”

“There’s a clue for you, then,” Zizi said, not moving from her seat, but pointing to a spot on the rug near the safe.

Wise’s eyes followed her finger’s direction and saw a slight mark, as of a dusty footprint.

In a moment, he was on his knees near it, and scrutinized it carefully.

“I’ve heard of footprint clues,” said Granniss, interested, “but that is so vague and imperfect, I don’t think you can deduce who made it—can you?”

“Not from the print—” Wise said—thoughtfully, and then added nothing to his unsatisfactory statement.

He then took a paper-cutter from the desk, and scraped onto a bit of smooth paper what dust he could get from the footprint, and carefully folded it up and put it in his pocketbook.

“What shoes were you wearing when you visited the safe last night, Mrs Varian?” he asked.

“Bedroom slippers,” she replied.

“Had you walked anywhere except to traverse the halls and stairs, from your bedroom down here?”

“No, nowhere else.”

“And you took that package of money up to your room with you?”

“Yes.”

“Had you not done so, it would have been stolen,” Wise said, calmly. “A thief visited this safe after you were here—he thought the money was here. He was surprised by the maid, Martha, coming down to spy on him—and in order to get rid of her—and save himself, he strangled her.”

All present stared at him, and Rodney Granniss flushed a deep red.

“To a disinterested observer, Mr Wise,” he said, “it might easily appear that I was that thief. I knew the money had been put in the safe. I did not know Mrs Varian had removed it. I—”

“Look here,” interrupted Zizi, “you talk too much! If you’re going to be suspected, for the love of cheese, let somebody else do it! Don’t meet trouble half way, and sing out, ‘Pleased to meetcha!’ Be careful, Mr Granniss.”

“Hush up, Zizi,” Wise counseled her. “Children should be seen and not heard.”

“All right, Penny, I’ll be good. Now, here’s a present for you.”

She gave him the yellow beads given her by the cook.

“Divulge,” he said, briefly, as he stared at the tiny objects in his palm.

But Minna Varian had caught sight of them and had recognized them. “Oh!” she cried, “Betty! Betty! Those are the beads she had on that day! Where did you get them? Where did they come from?”

And then, before they could answer her, her over-wrought nerves gave way, her calm broke through the constraint she had put upon it, and she became hysterical.

Granniss went at once for Mrs Fletcher, and the nurse took her patiently away.

“She’ll be all right with Fletcher,” Rodney said, returning after he had assisted Minna to her room; “it won’t be a very bad attack, nurse thinks. Really, I’ve been surprised that Mrs Varian has kept up as well as she has. Now, Mr Wise, tell me what you suspect regarding Mr Varian? And also, tell me if you suspect me—in any way. I plead not guilty—and I want to add that Miss Varian and I are sweethearts. We couldn’t call it an engagement for her father wouldn’t hear of such a thing. But we hoped to persuade him in time—and truly, I thought he would finally consent. I’m telling you this, so you can see what a deep interest I have in the recovery of Betty—for I am not willing to believe she is dead. In fact, I believe she has been kidnapped, and though I’m not sure those letters Mrs Varian has received are in good faith—yet I believe she is being held for ransom.”

“By whom?” asked Wise.

“By the kidnapper—”

“Who also is the—”

“Blackmailer!” said Zizi, in an awestruck voice. “Oh, Penny Wise, how you do jump at a solution! You just clear all intervening obstacles, and land on the truth!”

“I’m far from having landed,” said Wise, ruefully; “that’s all theory—with very little fact to back it up.”

“Well, these beads are facts,” Zizi said. “They’re two more, Penny, from the same string that you already have a few from. You see, Mr Granniss,” she said, turning to Rod, “Mr Wise discovered a few of these beads in the kitchen this morning, and a little later, I found that the cook had picked up two in the kitchen the day after Miss Betty’s disappearance. The string of them that she wore was not a long one, but still there were at least a dozen or so more than we have found. Where are they?” She had turned again to Wise as she put this question.

“I know the beads well,” Granniss said, “but how did they get in the kitchen?”

“It may be a simple matter,” Wise responded. “Perhaps the string broke when she was out there getting the lemonade. I understand all the servants were away.”

“But, Penny,” Zizi reminded him, “in that case the other beads would be about, somewhere. She would have picked them up and put them in a box or something.”

“Yes, she would,” Rodney agreed, “for Betty loved that necklace. She loved anything yellow. You’ve heard about the yellow pillow?”

“No,” said Wise. “Do try, Mr Granniss, to tell me everything. I was called to this case altogether too late. Much could have been done had I been here sooner. But, now tell me every little thing you can think of.”

So Granniss told them of the finding of the yellow satin sofa-pillow in the middle of the kitchen floor. He obtained the pillow from the hall and showed it to them.

Zizi scrutinized it with her eager black eyes, and carefully extracted from its embroidered design a small fine hairpin.

“An invisible,” she said, holding it up to the light. “Betty’s—I daresay?”

“Yes,” and Granniss looked at it. “She wore dinky little ones like that in her front hair. All girls do, I guess.”

“It may mean something or nothing,” Wise said, musingly. “If Miss Varian was in the habit of lying on the hall sofa, the hairpin may have been caught in the cushion some time ago.”

“I don’t know,” Granniss said; “I never was here while—when Betty was here.”

“Well, aside from the hairpin, what about the yellow pillow, on the kitchen floor, Penny?” Zizi asked, looking up into the detective’s face as at an oracle.

“It’s a clue, all right,” Wise said; “oh, if I’d only been here that very day! A most astounding case, and every possible evidence wiped out!”

“Oh, no, not that,” Zizi spoke cheerfully. “And now, as you say, you must get busy in the matter of poor Martha. What about the green streak?” “Yes,” the detective spoke to Rodney. “There was a dull green smear across the palm of that girl’s left hand. I see no freshly painted furniture in this room.”

“No, there wouldn’t be,” Zizi ruminated. “And it wasn’t paint—you know it wasn’t.”

“It looked like paint, and what else would remain there so indelibly?”

“What could it be anyway?” queried Granniss. “What do you suggest?”

“I can’t think, myself,” and Wise looked nonplussed. “I smelled it, but there was no odor of paint. Nobody around the house uses water colors, I suppose?”

“No,” said Granniss.

“It was such a smear as might have been made by a paint brush filled with a dull green watercolor pigment—but I don’t say it was that.”

“It was more like a vegetable stain,” Zizi suggested. “A mark like that could have been made, by grasping a dish or saucepan that had held spinach.”

“Oh, come now, Zizi, that’s a little far-fetched.”

“Not if we find cold spinach in the refrigerator,” Zizi persisted. “Martha might have been getting something to eat.”

“In that case the green smear doesn’t count for much,” Wise said. “But we have accumulated some clues. We have the yellow beads, the yellow pillow, the green streak, and last, but by no means least, the dust I scraped from the floor in this room.”

“Explain the significance of that, won’t you?” asked Granniss. “Or are you one of those secretive detectives?”

“Not at all. That dust is, to my mind, from the shoe of the man who tried to rob this safe last night, thinking that money was in it. Now, I admit, Mr Granniss, that you knew, or thought you did, that the money was there; you knew the combination; you are quite strong enough to have strangled a woman who surprised you at your job; yet I know you didn’t have anything to do with the attempted robbery, because—”

“Because you love Betty!” Zizi said, softly, her eyes shining with sympathy and understanding. “Right you are, Wise, go on.”

“Also, because,” Wise went on, “because, I’m sure that is the footprint of the would-be burglar, and while the footprint as a print is too indistinct to be a clue to the man who made it, yet the dust that forms the print is indicative. It is a fine dust made up of particles of cement. I mean such dust as would adhere to a shoe that had traversed a cement floor, and, more likely an imperfect cement floor.”

“That means the cellar!” Rodney cried; “I’ve been down there a lot of late, poking around for that everlasting secret passage, and there’s a lot of loose cement.”

Wise gave him a quick glance, but his enthusiasm was so genuine, that the detective dismissed a sudden qualm of suspicion.

“Slip down and get me a sample, will you?” he said, and Granniss went at once.

“Big case, Zizi,” Wise said, as the two were left alone.

But he spoke heavily, almost despairingly, and with no show of his usual exultant interest in a big case.

“Yes, but,” the black eyes turned hopefully to his own, “there are tangible clues. And those of Betty’s can wait. Do you chase those that have to do with Martha first.”

“I certainly shall. Martha was killed by the burglar. Did he kidnap Betty?”

“And kill Mr Varian?” Zizi added, and then Granniss returned.

He brought a little cellar floor dust in a paper, and, as Wise had expected, that and the particles he had scraped from the library rug, were indubitably the same.

“Well, then,” Wise remarked, “the burglar came up from the cellar.”

“Where he had been hiding, goodness knows how long!” Rodney exclaimed. “For we locked the house securely before we went upstairs.”

“I think it’s time I took a look at the cellar,” said Wise, and all three started down.

CHAPTER XII

A Letter from Nowhere

Pennington Wise himself assisted in the locking up of the house that night, for he was determined if any more burglars came, he would know how they got in. The money that Minna had in her possession he took charge of, saying he would be responsible for its safety.

Long the detective lay awake in his pleasant bedroom that overlooked the sea. He could hear the great waves tossing and breaking at the foot of the cliff and he couldn’t free his mind from a queer obsession to the effect that those waves held the secret of the mysteries of Headland House.

“It’s too absurd,” he thought to himself in the darkness, “but I do feel that the whole matter is dependent in some way or other on the cliff and the sea.”

Had he been asked to elucidate this more definitely he could not have done so. It was only a hunch—but Wise’s hunches were often worthy of consideration, and he determined to go out on the sea in somebody’s boat when the morning came, and see if he could find any inspiration.

When the morning came it brought a fresh surprise.

The household assembled promptly for an eight o’clock breakfast. Minna Varian, pale and fragile looking, clad in a simple black house dress, was a strong contrast to the young and glowing vitality of Zizi, whose slim little black frock was touched here and there with henna, and whose vivid and expressive face needed no aid of cosmetics to be a bright, colorful picture in itself.

Wise was very grave and silent—he was in a mood which Zizi knew was that of utter bafflement. It was not often the detective felt this conviction of helplessness, but it had occurred before, and Zizi noted it with some alarm. It meant desperate and wearing effort on Wise’s part, deep thinking and dogged persistence in forming and proving theories, that more likely than not would prove false. It meant a strain of brain and nerves that might result in a physical breakdown—for the detective had been working hard of late, and this impenetrable mystery seemed the last straw.

Granniss was the most serene of the quartette. He was young and hopeful. He was innocent of any crime or knowledge of it, and he cared naught for the half-voiced suspicions of the local police. In fact, they had practically given up the case as far beyond their ken, and now that Wise was in charge, the sheriff wanted nothing to say in the matter, except when Wise desired to consult him.

And Granniss was confident that Wise would find Betty. He had no real reason for his belief in the detective’s magic, but he had unbounded faith, and he was a born optimist. He felt sure that, if Betty had been killed, the fact would have become known by this time—and if she were still alive, surely she would be found. He had come to believe in the kidnappers, and though he couldn’t understand how the deed had been done, he cared more to get Betty back than to learn what had happened to her. Also, he was kept busy in attending to the daily influx of business letters and financial matters connected with the Varian estate. Doctor Varian had promised to come up to Headland House again as soon as he could, but he was a busy man and hadn’t yet made time for the visit.

As breakfast was about to be served, Kelly brought a letter to Minna saying simply, “This was on the hall table when I came downstairs this morning, madam.”

A glance showed Minna that it was from the same source as the other “ransom” letter, and she handed it unopened to Wise.

Staring hard at the envelope, he slit it open, and read the contents aloud.

“We know all that is going on. We have your daughter. You have the required sum of money. If you will bring about an exchange, we will do our part. Your fancy detective must work with you, or at least refrain from working against you, or there can be no deal. You may drop the package over the cliff, exactly as directed before, at midnight on Friday. Unless you accomplish this, in strict accordance with our orders, you will lose both the money and your child. One divergence from our directions and your daughter will be done away with. You can see we have no other way out. This is our last letter, and our final offer. Take it or leave it. Enclosed is a note from your daughter to prove that we are telling you the truth.”

And enclosed was a small slip of paper on which was written,

“Mother, do as they tell you. Betty.”

“Is that your daughter’s writing?” Wise asked, as he passed the little note to Minna.

“Yes,” she whispered, trembling so violently and turning so white, that Zizi flew to her side, and induced her to take a sip of coffee.

“Brace up, now, dear,” Zizi said, “you’ll need all your strength and all your pluck. And cheer up, too. If that’s from Betty, she’s alive, and if she’s alive, we’ll get her! Bank on that!”

Zizi’s strong young voice and encouraging smile did as much as the coffee to invigorate and cheer the distracted mother, and Rod Granniss, said, “Sure! that’s Betty’s own writing—no forgery about that! Now, Mr Wise, what next?”

“Next, is to find out how that note got into this house,” said Pennington Wise. “I locked up myself last night—I listened but I heard no intruder’s footstep, and I know no outside door or window was opened. It was—it must have been an inside job. Kelly!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where were you all night?”

“In my bed, sir. On the third floor of the house.”

“Oh, pouf! I know it wasn’t you, Kelly, you could no more have engineered this letter than you could fly to the moon! And Hannah, I suppose was in her bed, too. I’ve no wish to question the servants—they had nothing to do with it.”

“It was the kidnappers, then?” Zizi asked, softly.

“It was the kidnappers,” Wise said. “They—or he—came into this house by some secret way, which we have got to find. They, or their agent, came in night before last to steal that money from the safe. Foiled in that attempt, they have returned to their ransom scheme, hoping to get the money that way. They are desperate, and—I don’t know, Mrs Varian but that we’d better—”

“Oh, Penny,” Zizi cried, “don’t throw away all that money—”

“What is that sum—any sum—in comparison with getting my child?” cried Minna, so excited as to be with difficulty warding off a hysterical attack.

“But you wouldn’t get her,” Zizi asserted, positively. “First, they’d never get the money—thrown down in the darkness like that—it’s too uncertain. And, if they did, they wouldn’t return Betty—I know they wouldn’t.”

“Never mind that now, Zizi,” Wise spoke from deep preoccupation. “We have till Friday night to decide about it. Today is only Wednesday. What I hope to get at from this note is the identity of the kidnapper. I am sure it is the same man as the one who wrote that blackmail letter.”

“This is typewritten,” Granniss said, studying the letter. “And not signed in any way. I’ve heard, though, that typewriting is as easily distinguished or recognized as penwriting.”

“That’s true in a sense,” Wise told him. “I mean, if you suspect a certain person or machine, you can check up the peculiarities of the script, and prove the typing. But in this case, the letter was doubtless written on some public machine—say in a hotel or business office, and even if found, would give no clue to the writer. We have to do with the cleverest mind I have ever been up against. That is positive. Now the reason I connect the kidnapper and the blackmailer is twofold. First, if this man’s blackmailing scheme proved unsuccessful, he may have struck at his victim in this more desperate way. And, second, there is a resemblance in the diction of the notes from the kidnappers and the note of blackmail intent, signed ‘Step’.”

“What do you suppose ‘Step’ means?” Granniss asked.

“Short for Stephen, I daresay,” replied Wise. “There’s no other name that begins—oh, yes, there is Stepney—but it doesn’t matter. ‘Step’ is our man—of that I’m sure. But how to find such an elusive individual is a puzzling problem.”

“Then you believe there’s a secret passage?” Granniss said.

“There simply has to be. It may be a hidden one—or it may be a false doorway or window frame, but there is most certainly a way for that villain to get in and out of this house at will. Now that way must be found, and at once or I give up my profession and make no further claim to detective ability!”

“We’ll find it, Penny,” Zizi promised him.

“Find it, if you have to tear down the whole house,” Minna exclaimed, excitedly. She was nervously caressing the note from Betty, and was ready to further any project that was suggested.

“You don’t own the house?” Wise asked.

“No; but I’ll buy it. It’s in the market, and the price is not so very high. Then you can tear it down, if you wish, and I can sell the ground afterward.”

“Good business deal!” Granniss said. “I’d like nothing better than to drive a pick into these old walls.”

“But there’s no place to drive, with any expectation of success,” Wise demurred. “Where’s your friend North? Isn’t he an architect? Can you get him up here?”

“Surely,” Rod said, “I’ll telephone him, if you say so. I’m sure he’ll be glad to come. He isn’t a professional architect, but he knows more about building plans than many a firm of contractors does.”

“Call him, then, please, when you’ve finished your breakfast,” Wise directed, and returned to his study of the letter.

“I can’t understand it at all,” he groaned to Zizi, after breakfast was over.

Minna had gone to her room, and Rodney was reading the mail.

Wise and Zizi were in the hall, sitting on the sofa with the yellow pillows.

“This figures in it,” Zizi said, patting the yellow pillow that had held the little hairpin.

“As how?”

“Find that secret entrance first,” she said, drawing her pretty brows together. “That will explain ’most everything. And, Penny, it isn’t a secret passage, as they call it. It’s just a concealed entrance.”

“And through the cellar—for you know, there was cellar dust on the library floor—near the safe.”

“That only proved the man had been down cellar—hiding probably until the time was ripe. I’ve scoured that cellar myself.”

“So have I, Zizi, and there’s not a loose stone in its walls or a trap in its floor—of that I’m certain.”

“I’m sure of that, too; and Penny, I even went down the well.”

“You did! You little rascal. They told me Dunn went down and examined that.”

“Well, I had to go, too. It wasn’t difficult—the stone sides are easy to climb up and down. Not very slippery, either. But dirty! My, I ruined one of my pet dresses. Yet there was no hole in the old well sides. No missing stone or anything suspicious. And that settles the cellar!”

“I don’t think the entrance is through the cellar. I incline more to the idea of a false door frame—you know, the frame and all on hinges. Then, locking would not affect the opening of the whole affair.”

“That’s all right—but, which door?”

“There are only two. I’ve examined them both. It may be a window.”

“Get friend North to confab with you. You’re clever enough, Penny, but you’re not a real architect. Mr North may have some suggestions to make, that with your ingenuity may work it out.”

* * * *

Lawrence North arrived and with him came Claire Blackwood. The latter was urged to the visit largely by curiosity to learn how things were going, and also by a desire to renew her expressions of sympathy and hope to Mrs Varian.

Zizi managed to get a few words alone with Claire.

“Tell me about this Eleanor,” the girl said. “I feel sure a lot hinges on that peculiar matter of the pearls. Is Eleanor a scheming sort?”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Mrs Blackwood. “She is a dear girl—very young, and of a simple, charming nature. She was devoted to her cousin, and had no thought of the family pearls ever being hers. Don’t for a moment think of Eleanor Varian as capable of the slightest thought of disloyalty, much less of envy or covetousness.”

“Well, I just wanted to know,” said Zizi, with her winning, confidential smile. “What about her parents? Could her mother have influenced Mr Frederick Varian’s mind against his own daughter?”

“No, indeed! Nor Doctor Varian either! Why, they’re the best and finest kind of people, all of them. Whatever the explanation of those pearls being left away from Betty, it was not due to any maneuvering on the part of Eleanor or her parents! Of that you may be sure!”

Meantime, Lawrence North and the detective were discussing architecture. They were in the library and the plans of the house were spread out before them.

“I’m interested,” North said, looking eagerly at the plans, “for I’m always fond of plans. And, too, I want to prove my contention that there’s no space unaccounted for. At first, I thought there might be a bit of spare room between this wall and this—you see. But that jamb is merely the back of a small cupboard in the hall. Can you find any hint of false building?”

“No; I can’t,” Wise admitted, and then he unfolded his theory of a double door frame—or, rather a hinged door frame or window frame.

“That,” said North, “must be looked for in the house, not on the plans. But I doubt it. Any such thing would be apt to show the joints after years of disuse. You see, this house hasn’t been lived in before for a long time.”

“Then I’ll have to give up the notion of a double door,” and Wise sighed. “Now, here’s another matter. I want to go out in a boat—a good motor boat, and have a look round the sea and the cliff and observe for myself the possibilities of an expert climber entering the grounds from that side. Will you take me in your boat? I’m told you have a fine one?”

“Of course I will,” was the ready response. “When do you want to go?”

“As soon as you can make it convenient. I want to work rapidly, as things are coming to a focus, and I don’t dare delay.”

North stared at him, as if wondering how a trip in his boat would advance the work definitely, but the detective had no intention of telling him about the kidnapper’s letter and, too, Wise wanted to view the whole headland from the ocean.

The result was that the two started off at once, and going first to North’s bungalow to get his keys, and also his man who helped run the boat, inside of an hour Pennington Wise found himself out on the ocean with North, and Joe Mills, who, though taciturn and even grumpy, was a good navigator.

“Remarkable cliff!” Wise exclaimed, amazed at its effect from below.

“It’s all of that!” North said; “most wonderful cliff on the whole Maine coast, they say. Notice the overhang, and then tell me if any one could climb it!”

“No human being could!” Wise declared. “And I can think of no animal—unless a spider. Go clear round to the other side, will you?”

North gave orders and Mills drove them round the great headland, and on all sides it was as massive and forbidding as the first view.

“High tide, isn’t it?” asked Wise, as they went on beyond the headland, and then turned back again.

“Yes,” said North, glancing at the rocky base. “Almost top notch.”

“Rise high?”

“Very. Twenty feet at least.”

“I thought so. Marvelous tides up in this locality. Well, there’s nothing more to be discovered by gazing at these rocks and water: let’s go home.”

On the trip homeward, the detective proved himself so entertaining that North went back to Headland House with him.

Again they poured over the plans of the house, and Wise announced his determination of using a pick on one room in the third story that he surmised might be a trifle shorter than its adjacent walls implied.

“But it measures up,” North insisted.

“Not quite,” Wise declared. “There may be a two foot space in there, which would be enough for a secret passage.”

“You’re a persistent one!” North laughed. “All right, Mr Wise, go ahead with your investigation. May I help? I can wield a pick with the best of them!”

The detective glanced at the lithe, sinewy form, that seemed to be all muscle and no superfluous flesh, and said, admiringly, “I believe you! But I think Kelly or the chauffeur can do the really hard work.”

“No, let me do it,” North offered. “I’d really enjoy it.”

So, half amused at his own decision, Wise agreed, and the two went in search of the necessary tools.

But the result of their labor was absolutely nothing, beyond an incredible amount of dust and dirt, of lath and plaster, and two very much disheveled men.

“Now you must stay to dinner, Mr North,” the detective urged him. “You can put yourself to right enough for our informal meal, and it is too late for you to get to your home by dinner time.”

So North stayed, and at dinner they all discussed freely the whole affair. Mrs Varian did not appear at the table, the nurse thinking it was better for her to have no more excitement that day.

So Zizi calmly appropriated the chair at the head of the table, and acted the part of hostess prettily and capably.

Wise changed his mind about confiding to Lawrence North the matter of the ransom letters, and concluded that in the absence of Mrs Varian the subject might be discussed.

“At any rate,” the detective summed up, “we’re in the possession of positive knowledge. We know that Betty was kidnapped—”

“Oh, come now,” North said, thoughtfully, “those letters may be faked—it seems to me they must be—by some clever villain who expects to get all that money under false promises. I don’t believe for a minute there is a kidnapper—why would anyone kidnap Betty Varian?”

“For the usual kidnapper’s reason—ransom,” Wise replied.

“Well, how did the kidnapper get in?”

“Oh, Mr North!” Wise threw up his hands. “This from you! I made up my mind that if one more person said to me, ‘How did the kidnapper get in?’ I’d have him arrested! I don’t know how he got in—but I’m going to find out!”

“I think I won’t assist in the work personally the next time you try,” Lawrence said. “I scarcely could get myself presentable for dinner! But, seriously, Mr Wise, you asked me up here to consult with you. Now, I’m sure we must agree, that there is a way in and out of this house that we don’t know of. And that explains the entrance of the person who killed that poor girl in the kitchen.”

“And explains the disappearance of Miss Varian, and the scattering of her beads.”

“Beads?” said Lawrence North, interrogatively.

“Yes; there were several beads found in the kitchen that have been identified as hers.”

“Then the way in must be connected with the kitchen,” North remarked.

“Perhaps, but not necessarily.”

“It’s a dark night, Mr North,” Rodney Granniss said, hospitably. “Won’t you spend the night here? We can give you a room.”

After a polite demurrer, North accepted the invitation.

The evening was spent in further and repeated discussion of the known facts and the surmised possibilities of the mystery, and then, both the detective and Granniss went about locking up the house against further marauders, and they all retired.

* * * *

And the next morning they found that Lawrence North had disappeared! His room showed signs of a struggle. A chair was overturned, a rug awry and deep scratches on the shining floor proved a scuffle of some sort.

“Another kidnapping case!” Granniss exclaimed. “Must have been a husky chap that got the better of North! Could there have been two against him? He’s a powerful fighter!”

“Search the house,” said Wise, briefly, “and keep everybody out of North’s bedroom. I’ll lock it and take the key myself. Now look for him. Is he given to practical joking?”

But no amount of searching disclosed Lawrence North, or any sign of him, dead or alive. And the locked doors and windows were undisturbed.

“He certainly didn’t leave of his own accord,” said Granniss; “he couldn’t have locked the doors behind him.”

“He was carried off,” cried Minna, “just as Betty was! Oh, who of us is safe now?”

CHAPTER XIII

Where is North?

Pennington Wise was at his wits’ end. His wits were of the finest type and had always stood him in good stead; but he had reached their limit, at least regarding this present case.

Baffling was too mild a word for it. Uncanny it was not, for there was no hint or evidence of anything supernatural in the taking off of Lawrence North. He was a big, strong personality, and he had gone out of that house by natural means, whether voluntarily or not.

That is, of course, if he had gone out of the house.

Wise was inclined to think he had, but Rodney Granniss still held to the possibility of some concealed room—perhaps a dungeon, where the mysterious disappearances could be compassed.

Wise paid no attention to Granniss’ opinions, not from any ill-will toward the young man, but because he had concluded to his own satisfaction that there was really no space for a concealed room in the house.

North had come up there for the purpose of helping him look for such a matter, and North had agreed that it could not be.

And now North himself was gone—carried off—yet the mere phrase, “carried off” seemed to Wise incongruous.

Could North have been carried off without making noise enough to rouse some of the sleeping household? It was incredible!

Before discussing the matter with Minna, or calling the local police again, Wise went to the bedroom North had occupied and locked himself in.

“If I can’t tell,” he said to himself, “whether that man was kidnapped or whether he sneaked himself off—yet whywould he do such a thing as that? My desperation over this puzzle is leading my mind astray.”

Carefully, without touching a thing, Wise considered the state of the room.

The bed had been occupied, and, it was quite evident, had been hastily quitted. The coverings were tossed back over the footboard, and the pillow still bore the impress of a head.

On the dresser lay North’s collar and tie, and beneath the pillow, Wise discovered his watch and a handkerchief.

Clearly, the man had gone, after a hasty and incomplete toilette.

On the small table, lay some sheets of paper and a pencil.

These papers were some that they had used the night before drawing plans and making measurements of the house.

Scanning the papers, Wise was startled to see a scrawled message on the corner of a sheet. It read:

They’ve got me. L. N.

It had been so hastily jotted down as to be almost illegible.

Had North managed to scribble it while his captor or captors looked another way? It was all too unbelievable!

The thought would creep in that North was implicated in the mystery himself. Yet that was quite as unbelievable as the rest of it—if not more so.

Wise turned his attention to the disordered furniture.

The overturned chair was not broken, but a glass tumbler was. Evidently it had been knocked off the night stand. The rug was in wrinkles and one window curtain had been partly pulled from its rod.

The scratches on the hardwood floor were apparently made by scuffling feet, but of that Wise could not be sure.

In fine, the whole disorder of the room could have been made by struggling men, or could have been faked by any one desiring to produce that effect.

“Yet I’ve no reason to think North faked it,” Wise told himself frankly, “except that that would be an easy way out of it for me! And that message he left looks genuine—and his watch is a valuable one—oh, Lord, I am up against it!”

He went downstairs, and learned that Lawrence North’s straw hat still hung on the hall rack. The man must have been forcibly carried off. He couldn’t have walked out without collar, tie or hat! Moreover, the doors were all locked.

It still was necessary to assume a secret exit from the house.

Wise inclined to the hinged door frame, or window frame, but his most careful search failed to reveal any such. He determined to get an expert carpenter to look over the house, feeling that such would be better than an architect.

Crestfallen, dispirited and utterly nonplussed, Wise sat down in the library to think it over.

First, the authorities must be told of North’s disappearance, and all that, but those things he left to Granniss. The mystery was his province.

Acting on a sudden impulse, Wise started off at once for North’s home. This was a good-looking bungalow, of artistic effects and quiet unpretentious charm.

His knock brought the grumpy Joe Mills to the door.

“Whatcha want?” was his surly greeting.

“As I’m here on an important matter, I’ll come inside,” Wise said, and entered the little living-room.

“Whatcha doin’ here?” Mills continued. “Where’s Mr North?”

“I don’t know where he is. Isn’t he here?”

“Why no—he stayed up to Headland House last night. Ain’t you the detective from there?”

“Yes, I am. And Mr North left Headland House—er—before breakfast this morning. Didn’t he come home?”

“No, he didn’t. Leastways, I ain’t seen him. An’ I’ve got work to do—so you can leave as soon as you like.”

“Look here, my man, keep a civil tongue in your head. Mr North has disappeared—”

“Well, he’s got a right to disappear if he likes—ain’t he?”

“But he went off—”

“I don’t care how he went off. It’s nothin’ to me. An’ I’ve got my work to do. Now you vamoose.”

“Not yet,” said Wise coolly, and began to look about the house. “There’s no use in taking that attitude, Mr Mills, the authorities of the village and of the county will be here shortly—unless Mr North turns up, which I don’t think he will. Now, I’m going to do a little looking about on my own.”

Wise set to work, and went swiftly over the house, from room to room. He found nothing that gave him any clue to North’s disappearance nor anything that gave him much information as to North’s private life.

Even an examination of the letters and notes in the small desk showed only some bills, some invitations, some circulars, that meant nothing to the detective.

He noted some memoranda in Lawrence North’s handwriting and saw that it corresponded with the note left for him.

Sheriff Potter came in while he was there, but the conversation between the two men was of little interest to either.

It was all so hopeless, it seemed to Wise—and, so blankly mysterious it seemed to Potter.

Claire Blackwood came over from her home, and Wise turned to her as to a friend.

“Do tell me something about this man, North, Mrs Blackwood,” he said. “Have you known him long?”

“Only through this summer,” she replied. “He’s a New Yorker, but I don’t know much else about him.”

“What’s his business?”

“I’m not sure, but I think he’s a real estate man. He’s spending two months here, and he rented this bungalow furnished. You see, Mr Wise, the people of this colony are a sort of lawless, happy-go-lucky set. I mean if we like any one, we don’t bother to inquire into their antecedents or their social standing.”

“Is North married?”

“I don’t think so. At least, I’ve always thought him a bachelor, though nowadays you never can tell. He may have a wife, for all I know.”

“At any rate, Mrs Blackwood, he has most mysteriously disappeared. And I do hope if you know anything—anything at all, about the man, you will tell me. For, I don’t mind admitting I am greatly distressed and disturbed at this new development of the Varian case.”

“You connect Mr North’s disappearance with Betty Varian’s, then?”

“How can I help it? Both vanished from the same house. It proves, of course, that there is a secret exit, but it is strange that such cannot be found.”

“It is disappointing, Mr Wise, to find that such a famous detective as you cannot find a concealed entrance to a country house!”

“You are not more disappointed than I am, at that fact, Mrs Blackwood. I am chagrined, of course, but I am more frankly puzzled. The whole case is so amazing, the evidence so scanty—clues are non-existent—what can I do? I feel like saying I was called in too late—yet, I’m not sure I could have done better had I been here at first. I can’t see where evidence has been destroyed or clues lost. It is all inexplicable.”

“You are delightfully candid and far from bumptious,” she said, smiling at him. “I feared you were of the know-it-all variety, and I see you aren’t.”

“Help me to know it all, Mrs Blackwood,” Wise urged. “I can’t help feeling you know more about Lawrence North than any one else up here. If so, can’t you tell me something of his life?”

“No, truly, Mr Wise, I don’t know any more than I’ve told you. He was up here last year—this is my first season. But I don’t know of any one up here now, that knows him very well. He is a quiet, reserved sort of man—and—as a matter of fact, we are not a gossipy lot.”

Disheartened and disappointed, Wise went back to Headland House only to find that Doctor Varian had arrived during his absence.

The detective was glad to have him to talk to, for it promised at least a fresh viewpoint to be considered.

“I admit, Doctor Varian,” Wise said frankly, as the two confabbed in the Varian library, “I have no theory that will fit this case at all. I have solved many mysteries, I have found many criminals, but never before have I struck a case so absolutely devoid of even an imaginary solution. Granting a criminal that desired to bring disaster to the Varian family, why should he want to abduct Lawrence North?”

“Perhaps North knew something incriminating to him,” suggested the doctor.

“But that’s purely supposition, there’s no fact to prove it, or anything like it. As a start, suppose we assume a kidnapper of Betty Varian. Although, even before that, we have to assume a secret entrance into this house.”

“That, I think, we must assume,” said Varian.

“It seems so—yet, if you knew how hard I’ve hunted for one! Well, then, assume a kidnapper, who, for the sake of ransom, abducts Betty Varian—”

“And kills her father?”

“And kills her father, who interrupted the abduction.”

“Good enough, so far, but what about North?”

“I can’t fit North in—unless he is in league with the criminal.”

“That’s too absurd. He and my brother weren’t even acquaintances.”

“Oh, I know it’s absurd! But, what isn’t? I can’t see a ray of light! And, then, there’s that awful matter of the maid, Martha!”

“I think, Mr Wise, that since you admit failure, there is nothing for it, but to take Mrs Varian away and give up the case.”

“Leaving Betty to her fate!”

“We can search for the child just as well from Boston or New York as from here.”

“I don’t think so, Doctor. Take Mrs Varian away, if you wish—and if she will go. I shall stay here and solve this mystery. Because I have failed thus far, is no proof I shall continue to be unsuccessful. Mrs Varian is a rich woman—I am not a poor man. I shall use such funds as she provides, supplementing them, if necessary, with my own, but I shall find Betty Varian, if she’s alive—I shall find Lawrence North—if he is alive—and I shall discover the murderer or murderers of Frederick Varian and of Martha.”

“You speak confidently, Mr Wise.”

“I do; because I mean to devote my whole soul to this thing. I can’t fail, ultimately—I can’t!”

The man was so desperate in his determination, so sincere in his intent, that Doctor Varian was impressed, and said heartily, “I believe you will. Now, here’s something I’ve found out. I’ve talked with my brother’s lawyer, and I find there was something in Frederick’s life that he kept secret. I don’t for one minute believe it was anything disgraceful or dishonorable, for I knew my brother too well for that. But it may have been some misfortune—or even some youthful error—but whatever it was, it had an effect on his later years. And, there’s that strange matter of the Varian pearls. Those pearls, Mr Wise, are historic. They have never been bequeathed to any one save the oldest son or daughter of a Varian. Now, the fact that Betty and her father sometimes squabbled, is not enough to make my brother leave them tomy daughter instead of to his own. Yet I can form no theory to explain the fact that he did do so. I’ve tried to think he was temporarily or hypochondriacally insane, but I can’t reconcile that belief with my knowledge of his physical health and well-being. Then, I’ve wondered if he ever did me a wrong in the past, that I never learned of, and if this was by way of reparation. But that is too unlikely. Again, I’ve thought that there might be some error in the family records, and that I might be the elder son instead of Fred. But I checked it all up, and he was two years my senior. Yet, he told the lawyer, who drew up his will, that justice demanded that the pearls be left to his niece instead of to his daughter. Now, what could he have meant by that?”

“I can’t imagine, but I’m glad you have told me these things. For it makes me feel there must be something pretty serious back of all this. You don’t think it could in any way reflect on Mrs Varian?”

“No, I don’t. I’ve talked it over with the lawyer and also with my wife, and we all agree that Minna Varian is a true, sincere and good woman. There is not only no blame or stigma to be attached to her in any way, but whatever was the secret of my brother’s life, his wife knows nothing of it.”

“Yet I can imagine no secret, no incident that would necessitate that strange bequest of the family pearls.”

“Nor can I, except that he might have thought he owed me some reparation for some real or fancied wrong. It must have been to me, for he couldn’t have wronged my daughter in any way. There was no question about the division of my father’s fortune. We were the only children and it was equally shared. The pearls were Frederick’s as he was the oldest child. That’s all there is to the matter—only it is strange that my brother spoke in the way he did to his lawyer. He seemed really broken up over the business, the lawyer said. And he was deeply moved when he dictated the clause leaving the pearls to Eleanor.”

“Betty is really the child of the Frederick Varians?” Wise asked.

“Oh, yes. Mrs Varian lost her first two babies in infancy, and when the third child was expected, we were all afraid it would not live. But Betty was a healthy baby from the first, and I’ve known her all her life.”

“Her father was as fond of her as her mother was?”

“Yes—and no. I can’t explain it, Mr Wise, but in my medical practice, I’ve not infrequently found a definite antipathy between a father and a daughter. For no apparent reason, I mean. Well, that condition existed between Frederick Varian and his child. They almost never agreed in their tastes or opinions, and while they were affectionate at times, yet there was friction at other times. Now, Minna and Betty were always congenial, thought alike on all subjects and never had any little squabbles. I’m telling you this in hopes it will help you, though I confess I don’t see how it can.”

“I hope it may—and at any rate, it is interesting, in view of the strange occurrences up here. You’ve found no papers or letters bearing on this matter among Mr Varian’s effects?”

“No; except a few proofs that he was more or less blackmailed.”

“And you can’t learn by whom?”

“No; there were one or two veiled threats, that might have meant blackmail, and yet might not. I have them safe, but I didn’t bring them up here.”

“It doesn’t matter, such a careful blackmailer as the one we have to deal with, never would write letters that could be traced.”

“And what is to be done in this North matter?”

“First of all, I shall offer a large reward for any word of him. I have faith in offered rewards, if they are large enough. They often tempt accomplices to turn state’s evidence. I’ve already ordered posters and advertisements with portraits of North. My agents will attend to this, and though it may bring no results, yet if it doesn’t—it will be a hint in another direction.”

“Meaning?”

“That Lawrence North is implicated in the crimes.”

“No, I can’t agree to that. Why the man himself was carried off—”

“I know—oh, well, Doctor Varian, first of all, we must find that secret passage. There is one—we can’t blink that fact. Now, where is it? Think of having a given problem like that, and being unable to solve it! I am so amazed at my own helplessness that I am too stunned to work!”

“Go to it, man—you’ll find it. Tear the house down, if necessary, but get at it somehow.”

“I shall; I’ve already sent for carpenters to demolish some parts of the house.”

“I wish I could stay up here and see the work progress. You’ll have to find the secret, you know. You can’t help it, if you tear down the whole structure.”

“I don’t mean to do that. I want to continue to live in the house. But some expert carpenters can dig into certain portions of it without making the rest uninhabitable, and that’s what I propose doing.”

“What about finger prints? I thought you detectives set great store by those.”

“Not in a case like this. Suppose we find finger prints—they’re not likely to be those of any registered criminal. And since this talk with you, I shall turn my investigations in a slightly different channel, anyhow. I must look up Mr Varian’s past life—”

“Look all you wish, but I tell you now, you’ll find nothing indicative. Whatever secret my brother had, it was not a matter of crime—or even of lighter wrongdoing. And, if Frederick Varian wanted to keep the matter secret neither you nor any other detective will ever find it out!”

“That may have been true during your brother’s life, Doctor, but now that he can’t longer protect his secret, it must come out.”

“All right, Mr Wise, I truly hope it will. For even if it reflects against my brother’s integrity, it may aid in finding Betty. I don’t believe that girl is dead—do you?”

“No; I don’t. I believe these letters from the kidnappers are true bills. I believe they have her concealed and confined, and by Heaven, Doctor Varian, I’m going to find her! I know that sounds like mere bluster, but I’ve never totally failed on a case yet—and this—the biggest one I’ve ever tackled, shall not be my first failure! I must succeed!”

“If I can help in any way, command me. I’m glad to see you don’t think I’m criminally implicated because of the legacy of the pearls. Eleanor shall never touch them until we’ve positively concluded that Betty is dead. But that’s a small matter. Those pearls have lain undisturbed in safe deposit many years—they may lie there many years more—but let the search work go on steadily.”

“You know nothing of North, personally?”

“No; I never met him. Has he no relatives?”

“Haven’t found any yet. But you see, the police don’t hold that it is a criminal case as yet. They say he may have walked out of his own accord.”

“Half dressed, and leaving his watch behind him?”

“And that note to say what had happened! That note rings true, Doctor, and either it is sincere, or North is one of the cleverest scamps I ever met up with!”

“It’s conceivable that he is a scamp, but I can’t see anything that points to it. Why should a perfect stranger to the Varian family cut up such a trick as to come up here and pretend to be kidnapped—if he wasn’t? It’s too absurd.”

“Everything is too absurd,” said Wise, bitterly.

CHAPTER XIV

A Green Stain

“Tell me more about Betty,” Zizi said, “that is, if you don’t mind talking about her.”

“Oh, no,” Minna returned, “I love to talk about her. It’s the only way I can keep my hope alive!”

Zizi was sitting with Mrs Varian while the nurse went out for a walk. There was a mutual attraction between the two, and the sympathetic dark eyes of the girl rested kindly on the face of the bereaved and suffering mother.

“Tell me about her when she was little. Was she born in New York?”

“No; at the time of her birth, we chanced to be spending a summer up in Vermont—up in the Green Mountains. I hoped to get home before Betty arrived, but I didn’t, and she was born in a tiny little hospital way up in a Vermont village. However, she was a strong, healthy baby, and has never been ill a day in her life.”

“And she is so pretty and sweet—I know not only from her picture, but from everything I hear about her. I’m going to find her, Mrs Varian!”

Zizi’s strange little face glowed with determination and she smiled hopefully.

“I don’t doubt your wish to do so, Zizi, dear, but I can’t think you will succeed. I’m so disappointed in Mr Wise’s failure—”

“He hasn’t failed!” Zizi cried, instantly eager to defend her master. “Don’t say that—he is baffled—it’s a most extraordinary case, but he hasn’t failed—and he won’t fail!”

“But he’s been here a week, and what has he done so far?”

“I’ll tell you what he’s done, Mrs Varian.” Zizi spoke seriously. “We were talking it over this morning, and he’s done this much. He’s discovered, at least to his own conviction, that Betty was really kidnapped. That those letters you have received are from the abductors and that through them we must hope to trace Betty’s present whereabouts. This would not be accomplished by merely following their instructions as to throwing money over the cliff. As you know, Doctor Varian advises strongly against that—and Mr Wise does, too. But they have learned of some more letters found among your husband’s papers, signed ‘Step,’ and we hope to prove a connection between those and the kidnapper’s letters.”

“What good will that do?” Minna asked, listlessly. “Oh, Zizi, you’re a dear girl, but you’ve no idea what I’m suffering. Nights, as I lie awake in the darkness, I seem to hear my baby Betty calling to me—I seem to feel her little arms round my neck—somehow my mind goes back to her baby days, more than to her later years.”

“That’s natural, dear, when you’re so anxious and worried about her. But, truly, I believe we’ll get her yet. You see, everything points to the theory that she is alive.”

“I’m so tired of theories—they don’t help any.”

“Oh, yes, they do, dear. Now, try to get up a little more hope. Take it from me—you’ll see Betty again! She’ll come dancing in, just as she used to do—say, Mrs Varian, why did she and her father squabble so?”

“I can’t explain it. I’ve thought over it often, but it seems to me there was no reason for it. He admired Betty, he was proud of her beauty and grace and accomplishments, but there was something in the child that he didn’t like. I hate to say this, but he seemed to have a natural dislike toward her that he honestly tried to overcome, but he utterly failed in the attempt.”

“How very strange!”

“It surely is. I’ve never mentioned it to any one before, but you are so sympathetic, I want to ask you what you think could have been the reason for anything like that?”

“Did Betty feel that way toward him?”

“Oh, no! I mean, not naturally so. But when he would fly at her and scold her for some little, simple thing, of course she flared up and talked back at him. It was only petty bickering, but it was so frequent.”

“Wasn’t Mr Varian pleased when he learned that you expected another child?”

“Yes, he was delighted. He feared it might not live—as the others hadn’t, but he was pleased beyond words at the prospect, and we both hoped for a healthy baby. He was so careful of me—so devoted and loving, and so joyful in the anticipation of the new baby.”

“He was with you in Vermont?”

“Oh, yes; we had a cottage, and he stayed there while I was in the hospital during my confinement. The house was near by, and he could come to see me at any time.”

“Well, I can’t understand his turning against her later. Do they look alike?”

“No—that is, they have similar coloring, but no real resemblance.”

“Betty doesn’t look like you, either?”

“Not specially. Though I can’t see resemblances as some people do. She was—”

“Is, Mrs Varian!”

“Well, then, Betty is a dear, pretty, sweet-faced girl, healthy and happy, but not remarkable in any way.”

“Did she inherit your disposition or her father’s?”

“Neither particularly. But I don’t think a young girl often shows definite or strong traits of character.”

“Some do,” Zizi said, thoughtfully. “How about talents? I want to find out, you see, more of what Betty is like.”

“She has a little musical talent, a taste for drawing, and a fondness for outdoor sports—but none of these is marked. I can’t describe the child otherwise than as a natural, normal everyday girl. I adore her, of course, but I am not blind to the fact that she is not a genius in any way.”

“Nor do you want her to be! As you’ve told me of her, she seems to me a darling, and I mean to find her for you—and for Mr Granniss.”

“Yes, Rodney loves her, and he is as desolate as I am at her loss. Oh, Zizi, have you really any hope, or are you just saying this to comfort me?”

“I really have hope, and more, I have conviction that we will yet have Betty back here. But it is not yet a certainty, and I only can offer you my own opinions. Still, dear, it’s better to hope than to despair, and any day may bring us good news.”

Zizi recounted this whole conversation to Pennington Wise, not so much because she deemed it important, as that he wanted every word she could get, reported to him.

The man was frankly bewildered.

“It’s too ridiculous,” he exclaimed to Zizi, “that I, Pennington Wise, should have a great, a unique mystery, as this one is—and not be able to make one step of progress toward its solution!”

“‘Step,’” Zizi said, “makes me think of that black-mailing person, Stephen, or whatever his name is. Let’s work from that end.”

“I’ve tried and there’s no place to start from. You see, the letters signed ‘Step’ are as untraceable as the kidnappers’ letters. They’re typed, not on the same machine, but on some equally obscure and unavailable one. It’s impossible to hunt a typewriter, with no suspect and no indication where to look!”

“It would be for an ordinary detective, Penny, but for you—”

“That’s just it, Ziz. An ordinary detective would say, ‘pooh, of course we can trace that!’ But I’m not an ordinary detective, and my very knowledge and experience prove to me how baffling—how hopeless—this search is. Sometimes I think Frederick Varian did away with Betty.”

“That’s rubbish!” Zizi said, calmly. “But I do think there was some definite reason for Mr Varian’s attitude toward his daughter.”

“No question of her paternity?”

“Good Lord, no! Minna Varian is the best and sweetest woman in the world! But I’ve a glimmer of a notion that I can’t work out yet—”

“Tell me.”

“It’s too vague to put into words.” Zizi knit her heavy eyebrows, and screwed up her red lips.

And then the carpenters came, and the demolition of Headland House began. It was carefully managed; no rooms that the family used were put in disorder, but the kitchen quarters, and the cellar were desperately dug into.

“The kitchen is indicated,” Wise said to Doctor Varian. “For it is clear to my mind that Betty was carried out through it.”

“Through the kitchen?”

“Yes; you see, Doctor, we must reconstruct the matter like this. Betty came back to the house alone. She came in the front door with her father’s key. Now, she must have been attacked or kidnapped then and there. I mean whoever did it—and we have to assume somebody did do it—was in the house waiting. Well—say he was—for the moment. Then, say Betty put up a fight, which of course she would, then she was carried off through the kitchen by means of the secret passage, which we have got to find! She had the yellow pillow in her hands for some reason—can’t say what—and she dropped it on the kitchen floor—or maybe the villain used the pillow to stifle the girl’s screams.”

“Go on,” said Doctor Varian, briefly.

“Then, owing to the girl’s struggles, the string of beads round her neck broke, and scattered over the floor.”

“Only part of them.”

“Yes; the others stayed with her, or were picked up by the kidnappers.”

“More than one?”

“I think two. For, when Mr Varian arrived upon the scene, one of them turned on him—and killed him—while there must have been another to hold Betty. It is possible there was only one, but I doubt it.”

“And you think the concealed entrance is through the kitchen?”

“That, or the cellar. Anyway, there is one, and it must be found! It was used the night Martha was killed—it was used the night North disappeared—why, man, it must be there—and I must find it!”

“True enough, and I hope you will.”

“Here’s something, Penny,” Zizi said, appearing suddenly at his elbow. “I’ve found a stain on my frock that’s exactly like the one we noticed on poor Martha’s hand.”

“What?”

“Yes, a green stain—a long swish, as of green paint—but it isn’t paint.”

Zizi held up a little linen frock that she sometimes wore mornings.

On the side, down near the hem, was a green smear, and it was similar in appearance to the strange mark on the hand of the dead girl.

“Where’d it come from?” asked Wise, shortly.

“I don’t know, but it’s the dress I wore when I was exploring the cellar, and it got pretty dirty.”

“Been washed?”

“No, I shook off and brushed off most of the dirt, but this stain stuck, and wouldn’t brush off. That’s how I noticed it.”

“Coincidence, I’m afraid. Or maybe Martha went down cellar that night for something.”

“But what in the cellar would make a mark like that?”

“Dunno, Ziz. There’s no green paint down there.”

“It isn’t paint, Penny,” Zizi persisted. “It doesn’t smell like paint.”

“What does it smell like?”

“There’s no odor to it, that I can notice. But it’s a clue.”

“So’s the yellow pillow—so are the scattered beads—so was the footprint of cellar dust on the library floor—but they’re all blind clues—they lead nowhere.”

“Penny Wise! what ails you? I never knew you so ready to lie down on a job!”

“No, Zizi, not that. It’s only that I can see how futile and useless all these clues are. We’ve got to get some bigger evidence. In fact, we can do nothing till we find the way the criminal got in and out of this house. Don’t tease me, Zizi, I never was so put about!”

“You must be, when you revert to your old-fashioned phrases!” the girl laughed at him, but there was deepest sympathy in her dark eyes, and an affectionate, brooding glance told of her anxiety for him.

Yet the carpenters found nothing. They proved beyond all possible doubt that there was no secret passage between the interior of Headland House and the outer world—that there could be none, for every inch of space was investigated and accounted for.

“There’s no way to get into that house except through its two doors or its windows,” the master carpenter declared, and the men who were watching knew he spoke the truth.

“It proves,” Granniss said, looking up from the plans to the actual walls, “it’s all just as this drawing shows it.”

“It certainly is,” agreed Doctor Varian. “There’s no missing bit.”

“No,” said Wise, thoughtfully, “there isn’t. And, at least, the carpenters have proved that there is no secret passage built into this house. Yet there is one. I will find it.”

For the first time, his words seemed to be spoken with his own conviction of their truth. His voice had a new ring—his eyes a new brightness, and he seemed suddenly alert and powerful mentally, where, before, his hearers had thought him lacking in energy.

“You’ve thought of a new way to go about it?” asked Granniss.

“I have! It may not work, but I’ve a new idea, at least. Zizi, let me see that stained dress of yours again.”

Obediently Zizi brought her frock with the smear still on its hem. Wise looked at it closely, sniffed it carefully, and gave it back, saying:

“If you want to remove that stain, dear, just wash it with soap and water. It’ll come off then. Now, I’m going down to the village, and I may not be back for luncheon. Don’t wait for me.”

He went off, and Doctor Varian said to Zizi:

“Do you think he really has a new theory, or is he just stalling for time?”

“Oh, he’s off on a new tack,” she said, and her eyes shone. “I know him so well, you see, I’m sure he has a new idea and a good one. I’ve never seen him so cast down and so baffled as he has been over this case—but now that his whole demeanor is changed, he has a fresh start, I know, and he’ll win out yet! I never doubted his success from the beginning—but the last two days he has been at the lowest ebb of his resources.”

“I have to go back to Boston this afternoon,” Doctor Varian went on, “but I’ll be up again in a few days. Meantime, keep me informed, Rodney, of anything new that transpires.”

* * * *

Down in the little village of Headland Harbor, Pennington Wise went first to see Claire Blackwood.

She seemed to know more about Lawrence North than any one else did, yet even she knew next to nothing.

“No,” she told the detective, “the police haven’t found out anything definite about him yet. Why don’t you take up the search for him, Mr Wise?”

“I’ve all I can do searching for Betty Varian,” he returned with a rueful smile. “I’m not employed to hunt up North, and I am to find Miss Varian. But surely the police can get on the track of him—a man like that can’t drop out of existence.”

“That’s just what he’s done, though,” said Claire. “Do you know, Mr Wise, I believe Lawrence North is a bigger man than we supposed. I mean a more important one, than he himself admitted. I think he was up here incognito.”

“You mean that North is not his real name?”

“I don’t know about that, but I mean that he wanted a rest or wanted to get away from everybody who knew him—and so he came up here to be by himself. How else explain the fact that they can’t find out anything about him?”

“Don’t they know his city address?”

“Yes, but only an office—which is closed up for the summer.”

“Ridiculous! They ought to find him all the more easily if he is a man of importance.”

“I don’t mean of public importance, but I think—oh, I don’t know what! But I’m sure there’s something mysterious about him.”

“I’m sure of that, too! And you know nothing of his private life, Mrs Blackwood?”

“No; I’ve heard that he is a widower, but nobody seems quite certain. As I told you, up here, nobody questions one’s neighbors.”

“Isn’t it necessary, before members are taken into the club?”

“Oh, yes; but Mr North wasn’t a member of the club. Lots of the summer people aren’t members but they use the clubhouse and nobody makes much difference between members and non-members. It isn’t like the more fashionable beaches or resorts. We’re a bit primitive up here.”

“Well, tell me of North’s financial standing. He’s a rich man?”

“Not that I know of. But he always has enough to do what he likes. Nobody is very rich up here, yet nobody is really poor. We’re a medium-sized lot, in every way.”

“Yet North owns a fine motor boat.”

“About the best and fastest up here. But he doesn’t own it, he rents it by the season. Most people do that.”

“I see. And that not very pleasant factotum of his—Joe Mills—is he a native product?”

“No, he came up with Mr North. He’s grumpy, I admit, but he’s a good sort after all. And devoted to his master.”

“Ah, then he must be inconsolable at North’s disappearance.”

“No; on the contrary he takes it calmly enough. He says North knows his own business, and will come back when he gets ready.”

“Then he knows where North is—”

“He pretends he does,” corrected Claire. “I’m not sure that he is as easy about the matter as he pretends. I saw him this morning and I think he is pretty well disturbed about it all.”

“Guess I’ll go to see him. Thank you, Mrs Blackwood, for your patience and courtesy in answering my questions.”

“Then, Mr Wise, if you’re really grateful, do tell me what you think about the Varian affair. That’s much more mysterious and much more important than the matter of Lawrence North’s disappearance. Are they connected?”

“It looks so—doesn’t it?”

“Yes—but that’s no answer. Do you think they are?”

“I do, Mrs Blackwood—I surely do.”

And Pennington Wise walked briskly over to the bungalow of Lawrence North.

He found Mills in no kindly mood.

“Whatcha want now?” was his greeting, and his scowl pointed his words.

“I want you to take me out for a sail in Mr North’s motor boat.”

“Well, you gotcha nerve with you! What makes you think I’ll do that?”

“Because it’s for your own best interests to do so.”

Wise looked the man straight in the eye, and had the satisfaction of seeing Mills’ own gaze waver.

“Whatcha mean by that?” he growled, truculently.

“That if you don’t take me, I’ll think you have some reason for refusing.”

“I gotta work.”

“Your work will keep. We’ll be gone only a few hours at most. How is the tide now?”

“Plumb low.”

“Come on, then. We start at once.”

Whether Mills decided it was best for him to consent to the trip or whether he was cowed by the detective’s stern manner, Wise didn’t know and didn’t care, but the trip was made.

Wise directed the course, and Mills obeyed. Few words were spoken save those necessary for information.

Their course lay out around the headland, and into the small bay on the other side of it.

As they rounded the cliff, Wise directed the other to keep as close to the shore as possible.

“Dangerous rocks,” Mills said, briefly.

“Steer clear of them,” said Wise, sternly.

After passing round the headland on all its exposed sides, Wise declared himself ready to return.

In silence Mills turned his craft about and again Wise told him to make the trip as close to the rocky cliff as he could manage.

“You want to get us into trouble?” asked Mills, as he made a quick turn between two treacherous looking points of rock. “I nearly struck then!”

“Well, you didn’t,” said Wise, cheerfully. “You’re a clever sailor, Mills. Get along back home, now.”

CHAPTER XV

Criminal or Victim?

Pennington Wise came to the conclusion that he had now on hand the hardest job of his life. This knowledge did not discourage him, on the contrary it spurred him to continuous and desperate effort.

Yet, as he told Zizi, his efforts consisted mostly in making inquiries here and there, in a hope that he might learn something indicative.

“It isn’t a case for clues, evidence or deduction,” he told her. “It’s—I hate the word—but it’s psychological.”

“If you can’t be logical be psychological,” said Zizi, flippantly. “Now, you know, Penny, you’re going to win out—”

“If I do, it’ll be solely and merely because of your faith in me,” he said, his face beginning to show the look of discouragement that she had learned to dread.

“That’s all right,” she responded, “but this old faith of mine, while it will never wear out—its effect on you will. Don’t depend on it too long. Now let’s count up what we’ve really got toward a solution.”

“We’ve got a lot,” began Wise hopefully. “We know enough to assume that Betty Varian was kidnapped and her father shot by the same hand. Or rather by orders of the same master brain. I don’t say the criminal himself committed these crimes. Then, we know that our master villain got in and out of this house—or his subordinates did—by means which we haven’t yet discovered, but which I am on the trail of.”

“Oh, Penny, are you? Tell me where you think it is? Is it through the kitchen?”

“Wait a couple of days, Ziz. I’ll tell you as soon as I’m certain. In fact, I may have to wait a week to find out about it.”

“Getting an expert on it?”

“Nope. Working it out myself—but it all depends on the moon.”

“Oh, Penny, I’ve long suspected you of being luny, but I didn’t think you’d admit it yourself! Howsumever, as long as you’re jocular, I’m not discouraged. It’s when you pull a long face and heave great, deep sighs that my confidence begins to wobble.”

“Don’t wobble yet, then, my dear, for when the moon gets around to the right quarter, I’ll show you the secret way in and out of this house.”

“It’s too bad of you, Penny, to spring those cryptic remarks on me! Save ’em for people you want to impress with your cleverness. But all right, wait till the moon gets in apogee or perigee or wherever you want her.”

“I shall. And meantime, I’m going to track down Friend North. He is a factor in the case, whether sinned against or sinning. That upset room was never upset in a real scuffle.”

“It wasn’t!”

“No, ma’am, it wasn’t. I’ve been over it again, and unless I’m making the mistake of my life, that upset chair was carefully—yes, and silently overturned by a cautious hand.”

“Meaning North’s?”

“Meaning North’s. Of course, Ziz, I may be mistaken, so I’m not advertising this yet, but I can’t see a real scuffle in that room. To begin with, if a man, or two men, or three men tried to kidnap Lawrence North and carry him off against his will don’t you suppose there would be enough noise made to wake some of us?”

“Maybe they chloroformed him.”

“Maybe they did. But, I’m working on a different maybe. Say that man wanted to disappear and make it look like an abduction. Wouldn’t he have done just what he did do? Leave the room looking as if he had gone off unwillingly or unconsciously? The very leaving of his watch behind was a clever touch—”

“Oh, come now, Penny, I believe you are luny! Do you suspect Lawrence North of all the crimes? Did he abduct Betty, shoot her father—kill Martha? and then—finally abduct himself! And, if so—why?”

“Zizi, you’re a bright little girl, but you don’t know everything. Now, you stay here and hold the fort, while I go off for a few days and stalk North. I don’t say he did commit all that catalogue of crimes you string off so glibly, but I do say that he has to be accounted for—and I must know whether he is a criminal or a victim.”

Wise went away and the little family at Headland House tried to possess their souls in patience against his return.

Zizi devoted herself to the cheer and entertainment of Minna Varian, while Rodney Granniss found enough to do in looking after the accounts and financial matters of the estate.

Doctor Varian came up again, and was both surprised and pleased to find his brother’s wife in such a calm, rational state of mind.

“Yet it is not a unique case,” he said; “I’ve known other instances of hysterical and even unbalanced minds becoming rational and practical after a great shock or sorrow.”

And the fearful blows Minna Varian had received from the hand of Fate, did indeed seem to change her whole nature, and instead of a pettish, spoiled woman, she was now quiet, serious, and mentally capable.

She kept herself buoyed up with a hope of Betty’s return. This hope Zizi fostered, and as the days went by, it came to be a settled belief in Minna’s mind, that sooner or later her child would be restored to her waiting arms.

Nurse Fletcher did not approve of this state of things at all.

“You know that girl will never be found!” she would say to Zizi. “You only pretend that you think she will, and it isn’t right to fill Mrs Varian’s mind with fairy tales as you do!”

“Now, Nurse,” Zizi would wheedle her, “you let me alone. I’m sure Mrs Varian would collapse utterly if the hope of Betty’s return were taken away from her. You know she would! So, don’t you dare say a word that will disturb her confidence!” Doctor Varian agreed with Zizi’s ideas, regarding Minna, though he said frankly, he had grave doubts of ever seeing Betty again.

“To my mind,” he said, as he and Zizi had a little confidential chat, “nothing has been accomplished. Nearly a month has passed since Betty disappeared. There is no theory compatible with a hope that she has been kept safely and comfortably all that time. The kidnappers—if there are any—”

“Why doubt their existence?”

“Because I’m not at all sure that those ransom letters are genuine. Anybody could demand ransom.”

“You’re not at all sure of anything, Doctor Varian,” Zizi said, “and strictly speaking, Mr Wise isn’t either. But he is sure enough to go away and stay all this time—he’s been gone ten days now, and I know unless he was on a promising trail he would have abandoned it before this.”

And Pennington Wise was on a promising trail.

It was proving a long, slow business, but he was making progress.

His first start had been from Lawrence North’s New York office. This he found closed and locked, and no one in attendance.

Instead of bring disturbed at this, he regarded it as a step forward.

The owner of the building in which Mr North’s office was, told the detective that Mr North had gone away for the summer—that he had said, his office would be closed until September, at least, and that there was nothing doing.

Wise persuaded him that there was a great deal doing and in the name of justice and a few other important personages he must hand over a key of that office.

At last this was done, and Wise went eagerly about the examination of Lawrence North’s books and papers.

The fact that he found nothing indicative, was to him an important indication. North’s business, evidently, was of a vague and sketchy character. He seemed to have an agency for two or three inconspicuous real estate firms, and he appeared to have put over a few unimportant deals.

What was important, however, was a small advertisement, almost cut out from a newspaper and almost overlooked by the detective.

This was a few lines expressing somebody’s desire to rent a summer home on the seashore, preferably on the Maine coast.

It was signed F. V. and Wise thought that it might have been inserted by Frederick Varian. He hadn’t heard that the Varians took Headland House through the agency of or at the suggestion of North, yet it might be so.

At any rate there was nothing else of interest to Wise in North’s whole office—and he left no paper unread or book unopened.

It took a long time, but when it was accomplished the detective set out on a definite and determined search for North.

The man proved most elusive. No one seemed to know anything about him. If ever a negligible citizen lived in these United States, it was, the detective concluded, Lawrence North.

He hunted directories and telephone books. He visited mercantile agencies and information bureaus. He had circulars already out with a reward offered for the missing man, but none of his efforts gave the slightest success.

Had he been able to think of North as dead, he could have borne defeat better, but he envisaged that nonchalant face as laughing at his futile search!

There was, of course, the possibility that North was an assumed name, and that the true name of the man might bring about a speedy end to his quest. But this was mere surmise, and he had no way of verifying it.

By hunting down various Norths here and there, he one day came upon a woman who said,

“Why, I once knew a woman named Mrs Lawrence North. She lived in the same apartment house I did, and I remember her because she had the same name. No, her husband was no relation of my husband—my husband has been dead for years.”

“Was her husband dead?” Wise inquired.

“No, but he better ’a’ been! He only came to see her once in a coon’s age. He kept her rent paid, but he hardly gave her enough money to live on! He was one of these hifalutin artistic temperament men, and he just neglected that poor thing somethin’ fierce!”

“What became of her?”

“Dunno. Maybe she’s livin’ there yet.”

To the address given Wise went, scarcely daring to hope he was on the right track at last.

At the apartment house he was informed that Mrs Lawrence North had lived there but that she had also died there, about three months previous.

The superintendent willingly gave him all the details he asked, and Pennington Wise concluded that the woman who had died there was without doubt the wife of the Lawrence North he was hunting for.

But further information of North’s later history he could not gain. After the death of his wife he had given up the apartment, which was a furnished one and had never been there since.

Wise cogitated deeply over these revelations. So far, he had learned nothing greatly to North’s discredit, save that he had not treated his wife very well, and that he had, directly after her death, gone to a summer resort and mingled with the society there.

Yet this latter fact was not damaging. To his knowledge, North had in no way acted, up at Headland Harbor, in any way unbecoming a widower. He had not been called upon to relate his private or personal history, and if he had sought diversion among the summer colony of artists and dilettantes, he had, of course, a right to do so.

Yet, the whole effect of the man was suspicious to Wise.

He told himself it was prejudice, that there was no real evidence against him—that—but, he then thought, if North was a blameless, undistinguished private citizen, why, in heaven’s name would anybody want to kidnap him?

This he answered to himself by saying North might have learned some secret of the kidnappers or of the secret entrance that made it imperative for the criminals to do away with him. This might also explain the death of the maid, Martha.

Yet, through it all, Wise believed that North was in wrong. How or to what extent he didn’t know, but North must be found. So to the various under-takers’ establishments he went until at last he found the one who had had charge of the obsequies of Mrs Lawrence North.

That was a red letter day in the life of Pennington Wise. For, though he gained no knowledge there of his elusive quarry, he did learn the name and former dwelling place of the woman North married.

She had been, he discovered, a widow, and had been born in Vermont. Her name when she married North was Mrs Curtis, and they had been married about ten years ago.

This, while not an astounding revelation was of interest and, at least promised a further knowledge of North’s matrimonial affairs.

The town in Vermont was Greenvale, a small village Wise discovered, up in the northern part of the state.

It was a long trip, but the detective concluded that this case on which he was engaged was a case of magnificent distances and he at once made his railroad reservations and bought his tickets.

Meantime the household at Headland House had been thrown into a new spasm of excitement by the receipt of a letter from a stranger.

It was addressed to Mrs Varian, and was of a totally different character from the frequent missives she received telling of girls who looked like the pictures of the advertised lost one.

This was a well written, straightforward message that carried conviction by its very curtness.

It ran:

Mrs Varian,

Dear Madam:

I address you regarding a peculiar experience I have just had. I am deaf, therefore I never go to the theatre, as I can’t hear the lines. But I go often to the Moving Pictures. Of late I have been taking lessons in Lip Reading, and though I have not yet progressed very far in it, I can read lips sometimes, especially if the speaker makes an effort to form words distinctly. Now last night I went to the Movies and in a picture there was a girl, who seemed to be speaking yet there was no occasion in the story for her to do so. She was merely one of a crowd standing in a meadow or field. But as practice in my Lip Reading I watched her and I am sure she said, “I am Betty Varian—I am Betty Varian.” This seemed so strange that I went again this afternoon, and saw the picture again—and I am sure that was what she said—over and over. I don’t know that this will interest you, but I feel I ought to tell you.

Very truly yours,

Ella Sheridan.

“It can’t mean anything,” Minna said. “Wherever Betty is, she isn’t in a moving picture company!”

“But wait a minute,” cried Granniss, “when they take pictures of crowds, you know—in a field or meadow, they pick up any passer-by or any one they can get to fill in.”

“Even so,” Zizi said, “I can’t see it. I think somebody was talking about Betty and the girl read the lips wrong. She’s only a beginner, she says. I’ve heard it’s a most difficult thing to learn.”

“I don’t care,” Granniss said, “it’s got to be looked into. I’m going to answer this letter—no, I’m going straight down there, it’s from Portland, and I’m going to see that picture myself.”

“Make sure it’s still being shown,” said the practical Zizi.

“I’ll telegraph and ask her,” cried Rodney; his face alight at the thought of doing some real work himself.

“Oh, don’t go, Rod,” Minna said; “I can’t get along without you—and what good will it do? You know a picture isn’t the real people, and—oh, it’s all too vague and hazy—”

“No, it isn’t,” Granniss insisted. “It’s the first real clue. Why didn’t that girl notice what the girl in the picture looked like? Oh, of course I must go! I can get to Portland and back in three days, and—why, I’ve got to go!”

And go he did.

The picture was still on at the theater, and with a beating heart Rodney took his seat to watch it.

He could scarce wait for the preliminary scenes, he knew no bit of the plot or what happened to the characters: he sat tense and watchful for the appearance of the crowd on the meadow.

At last it came—and, he nearly sprang from his seat—itwas Betty! Betty Varian herself—he could not be mistaken! She wore a simple gingham frock, a plain straw hat, and had no sign of the smartness that always characterized Betty’s clothes, but he could not be deceived in that face, that dear, lovely face of Betty herself!

And he saw her lips were moving. He could not read them, as the girl who told of it had done, but he imagined she said, “I am Betty Varian—I am Betty Varian.”

Yet her face was expressionless—no eager air of imparting information, no apparent interest in the scene about her—the face in the screen seemed like that of an automaton saying the words as if from a lesson.

Rod couldn’t understand it. He feared that it was merely a chance likeness—he had heard of exact doubles—and as the scene passed, and the crowd on the meadow returned no more to the story, he left his seat and went in search of the owner of the theater.

But all his questioning failed to elicit any information as to the scene or where it was taken. The theatrical manager arranged for his picture through an agent and knew nothing of the company that took it or the author of the play.

The next morning Rodney tried again to locate the producer, but failing, decided to return home and put the matter in the hands of Pennington Wise:

He was sure the girl on the screen was Betty, yet had he been told authoritatively that it was not, he could believe himself the victim of a case of mistaken identity.

He related his experiences to Minna and Zizi and they both felt there was little to hope for as a result.

“You see,” Zizi explained it, “when those crowds are picked up at random that way, they are always chatting about their own affairs. Now, it may well be this girl had been reading the circulars about Betty, also she may have been told how much she looked like her, and that would explain her speaking the name. And except for the actual name, I don’t believe the Ella Sheridan person read it right.”

“I don’t either,” Minna agreed. “I wish I could see something in it, Rod, but it’s too absurd to think of Betty in the moving pictures, even by chance, as you say. And, too, where could she be that she would saunter out and join in a public picture like that?”

“I know, it seems utterly absurd—but—it was Betty—it was, it was! When will Mr Wise be back, Zizi?”

“I had a letter this morning, and he says not to expect him before the end of the week at least. He is on an important trail and has to go to a distant town, then he will come back here.”

“Oh, I want to consult him about this thing,” and Rodney looked disconsolate.

“Work at it yourself, Rod,” Zizi advised him. “Get lists of the picture making companies, write to them all, and track down that film. It must be a possible thing to do. Go to it!”

“I will,” Rodney declared, and forthwith set about it.

“Now, I want to go off on a little trip,” Zizi said to Minna. “And I don’t want to say where I’m going, for it may turn out a wild goose chase. The idea is not a very big one—yet it might be the means of finding out a lot of the mystery. Anyway, I want to go, and I’ll be back in three days or four at most.”

“I hate to have you leave me, Zizi,” Mrs Varian answered, “but if it means a chance, why take it. Get back as soon as you can, I’ve grown to depend on you for all my help and cheer.”

So Zizi packed her bag and departed.

With her she took a letter that she had abstracted from a drawer of Minna Varian’s writing-desk.

She had taken it without leave, indeed without the owner’s knowledge, but she felt the end justified the means.

“If indeed the end amounts to anything,” Zizi thought, a little ruefully.

Once started on her journey, it seemed like a wilder goose chase than it had at first appeared.

The route, the little, ill-appointed New England railroad, took her inland into the state of Maine, and then westward, until she was in the green hills and valleys of Vermont.

It was when the conductor sung out “Greenvale” that Zizi, her journey ended, alighted from the train.

She found a rickety old conveyance known as a buckboard and asked the indifferent driver thereof if she might be conveyed to any inn or hostelry that Greenvale might boast.

Still taciturn, the lanky youth that held the horse told her to “get in.”

Zizi got in, and was transported to a small inn that was not half so bad as she had feared.

She paid her charioteer, and as he set her bag down for her on the porch, she went into the first room, which seemed to be the office.

“Can I have a room for a day or two?” she asked.

“Sure,” said the affable clerk, looking at her with undisguised admiration.

Zizi smiled at him, quite completing his subjugation, for she wished to be friendly in order to get all the help she could on her mission.

She registered, and then said,

“Greenvale is a lovely place. How large is it?”

“’Most three thousand,” said the clerk, proudly. “Gained a lot of late.”

“Do you have many visitors in the summer?”

“Lots; and we’ve got a noted one here right now.”

“Who?”

“Nobody less than—why, here he comes now!” and Zizi looked toward the door, and just entering, she saw—Pennington Wise!

CHAPTER XVI

In Greenvale

“For the love of Mike, Zizi, what are you doing here?” exclaimed Pennington Wise, nearly struck dumb with astonishment at sight of the girl.

“I ask you that!” she returned, looking at him with equal amazement.

“Well, anyway, I’m glad to see you;” he smiled at her with real pleasure. “I’ve had a long, horrid and most unsatisfactory quest for the elusive L. N. and I haven’t found him yet.”

“Any hope of it?”

“Nothing but. I mean no expectation or certainty—but always hope. Now, what’s your lay? Why—Zizi, tell mewhy you’re here, or I’ll fly off the handle!”

“Well, wait till we can sit down somewhere and talk comfortably. I haven’t had a room assigned to me yet.”

“But tell me this: you’re here on the Varian case?”

“Yes, of course. Are you?”

“I am. Oh, girl, there must be something doing when we’re here from different starting points and for different reasons!”

“I’m here because of some revelations of Mrs Varian,” Zizi said and Wise stared at her.

“Mrs Varian!” he exclaimed. “I say, Ziz, go to your room, get your bag unpacked and your things put away as quick as you can, won’t you? And then let’s confab.”

Zizi darted away, she arranged to have a bedroom and sitting-room that she could call her own for a few days, and in less than half an hour, she was receiving Wise in her tiny but pleasant domain. “Now,” he said, “tell me your story.”

“It isn’t much of a story,” Zizi admitted—“but I came here because this is where Betty Varian was born.”

“Up here? In Greenvale, Vermont?”

“Yes—in a little hospital here.”

“And what has that fact to do with Betty’s disappearance?”

“Oh, Penny, I don’t know! But I hope—I believe it has something!”

“Well, my child, I’m up here to investigate the early life of Mrs Lawrence North.”

“Then we are most certainly brought to the same place by totally different clues—if they are clues, and one or both of them must prove successful! Who was she, Penny?”

“As near as I can find out, she was a widow when North married her. Her name was then Mrs Curtis. Her maiden name I don’t know.”

“Well, what’s the procedure?”

The procedure, as Wise mapped it out, was to go to the hospital first and see what could be learned concerning Mrs Varian’s stay there twenty years ago.

They had no difficulty in getting an interview with the superintendent of the institution, but as Wise had feared, he was not the man who had been in charge a score of years previous.

In fact, there had been several changes since, and the present incumbent, one Doctor Hasbrook, showed but slight interest in his callers’ questions.

“The hospital is only twenty-two years old,” Hasbrook said, “so the patient you’re looking up must have been here soon after it was opened.” “You have the records, I suppose?” asked Wise. “Yes—if you care to hunt them over, they are at your disposal.”

As a result of this permission, Wise and Zizi spent several hours looking over the old and not very carefully kept records of the earliest years of the little country hospital.

“The worst of it is,” said Zizi, “I don’t exactly know what we’re hoping to find, do you?”

“I have a dim idea, Zizi, and it’s getting clearer,” Wise replied, speaking as from a deep absorption. “Here’s something.”

“What?”

“It’s a list of births for a year—the year Betty Varian was born and—oh, Zizi! the very same night that Mrs Varian’s baby was born, a Mrs Curtis also bore a child!”

“Well?”

“Oh, don’t sit there and babble ‘What?’ and ‘Well?’ Can’t you see?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Well, wait a bit—now, let me see—yes, Miss Morton—h’m—Miss Black—”

“Pennington Wise, if you’ve lost your mind, I’ll take you to a modern sanitarium—I don’t want to go off and leave you here in this little one-horse hospital!”

“Hush up, Zizi, don’t chatter! Miss Morton—h’m—”

Zizi kept silent in utter exasperation. She knew Wise well enough to be sure he was on the trail of a real discovery, but her impatience could scarcely stand his mutterings and his air of suppressed excitement.

However, there was nothing to do but wait for his further elucidation and when at last he closed the books and looked up at her, his face was fairly transfigured with joyous expectancy.

“Come on, girl,” he cried, “come on.”

He rose, and, as Zizi followed, they went back to the superintendent’s office.

“Can you tell us, Doctor Hasbrook,” Wise asked, “where we can find two nurses who were here twenty years ago? One was named Black and one Morton.”

This was a matter of definite record, and Hasbrook soon informed them that Nurse Black had died some years ago but that Nurse Morton had married and was still living in Greenvale.

“Thank Heaven,” murmured Wise as he took the address of Mrs Briggs, who had been Nurse Morton.

To her house they then went, Zizi now quite content to trudge along by the detective’s side, without asking further questions. She knew she would learn all in due time.

The pretty little cottage which was the home of Mrs Briggs they found and went through the wooden picket gate and up to the front door.

“Something tells me she won’t be glad to see us,” Wise whispered, and then they were admitted by a middle-aged woman who answered Wise’s courteous question by stating that she was Mrs Briggs.

She looked amiable enough, Zizi thought, and she asked her callers to be seated in her homely but comfortable sitting-room.

“I am here,” Wise began, watching her face for any expression of alarm, “to ask you a few questions about some cases you attended when you were a nurse in the Greenvale Hospital.”

“Yes, sir,” was the non-committal response, but Zizi’s quick eye noticed the woman’s fingers grasp tightly the corner of her apron, which she rolled and twisted nervously.

“One case, especially, was that of a Mrs Varian. You remember it?”

“No—I do not,” Mrs Briggs replied, but it was after a moment’s hesitation, and she spoke, in a low, uncertain voice.

“Oh, yes, you do,” and Wise looked at her sternly. “Mrs Frederick Varian—a lovely lady, who gave birth to a girl child, and you were her attendant.”

“No; I don’t remember any Mrs Varian.” The voice was steadier now but the speaker kept her eyes averted from the detective’s face.

“Your memory is defective,” he said, quietly. “Do you, then, remember a Mrs Curtis?”

This shot went home, and Mrs Briggs cried out excitedly, “What do you mean? Who are you?”

“You haven’t been asked anything about these people for twenty years, have you?” Wise went on. “You didn’t think you ever would be asked about them, did you? Your memory is all right—now what have you to say—”

“I have nothing to say. I remember a Mrs Curtis, but she was not my patient.”

“No; Mrs Varian was your patient. But Mrs Curtis figured in the Varian case pretty largely, I should say!”

Mrs Briggs broke down. “I didn’t do any harm,” she said. “I only did what I was told. I obeyed the others who were in greater authority than I was.” She buried her face in her apron and sobbed.

“That’s right, Mrs Briggs,” Wise said kindly; “tell the truth, and I promise you it will be far better for you in the long run, than to make up any falsehoods.”

“Tell me what happened,” the woman said, eagerly, as she wiped her eyes. “Oh, sir, tell me? Did Mrs—Mrs Varian’s little girl live to grow up?”

“Mrs Varian’s little girl!” Wise repeated with a strange intonation and a shrewd shake of his head.

“Yes, Mrs Varian’s little girl,” the woman insisted obstinately. “They took the child away when it was four weeks old, Mrs Varian was quite well and happy then.”

“Of course she was—but, were you happy?”

“Why not?” The words were defiant, but Mrs Briggs’ face showed an involuntary fear.

“Come now, Mrs Briggs, tell me the whole story and you will get off scot free. Keep back the truth or any portion of the truth, and you will find yourself in most serious trouble. Which do you choose?”

“Where are the Varians? Where is Mr Varian?”

“Mr Varian is dead. You have me to reckon with instead of him. Oh, I begin to see! Was it Mr Varian’s scheme?”

“Yes, it was. I told you I had no choice in the matter.”

“Because he paid you well. Now, are you going to tell me, or must I drag the story from you, piece-meal?”

“I’ll—I’ll tell.”

“Tell it all, then. Begin at the beginning.”

“The beginning was merely that the Varians were spending the summer here in a little cottage over on the next street to this. Mrs Varian was expecting a confinement but hoped to get back to the city before it took place. However, she was not well, and Mr Varian brought her to the hospital for consultation and treatment. I was her nurse, and I came to know her well, and—to love her. She was a dear lady, and as her first babies had died in infancy she was greatly worried and anxious lest this new baby should be sickly or, worse, should be born dead.

“Mr Varian was the most devoted husband I ever saw. He put up with all his wife’s whims and tantrums—and she was full of them—and he indulged and petted her all the time. He was quite as anxious as she for a healthy child, and when they discovered that she must remain here for her confinement, he sent to town for all sorts of things to make her comfortable and happy.

“Well—the baby was born—and it was born dead. Mrs Varian did not know it, and when I told Mr Varian, he was so disappointed I thought he would go off his head.

“Now there was another case in the hospital that was a very sad matter. It was Mrs Curtis. She, poor woman, was confined that same night, and her baby was born, fine and healthy. But she didn’t want the child. She was so poor she scarce could keep soul and body together. She had three little children already and her husband had died by accident only a month before. How to care for a new little one, she didn’t know.

“It was Nurse Black who thought of the plan of substituting the lovely Curtis child for the dead Varian baby, and we proposed it to Mr Varian. To our surprise he fairly jumped at it. He begged us to ascertain if Mrs Curtis would agree, saying he would pay her well. Now, Mrs Curtis was only too grateful to be assured of a good home and care for her child, and willingly gave it over to the Varians. But Mrs Varian never knew.

“That was Mr Varian’s idea, and it was an honest and true desire to please his wife and to provide her with a healthy child such as she herself could never bear.

“I think Mr Varian was decided at the last by the piteous cries of Mrs Varian for her baby. When he heard her, he said quickly, ‘Take the Curtis child to her—and see if she accepts it?’”

“And did she?” asked Zizi, her eyes shining at the dramatic story.

“Oh, she did! She cried out in joy that it was her baby and a beautiful, healthy child, and she was so pleased and happy and contented that she dropped off into a fine, natural sleep and began to get well at once. When she wakened she asked for the child, and so it went on until there was no question what to do. The whole matter was considered settled—”

“Who knew of the fraud?” asked Wise.

“No one in the world but Mrs Curtis, Mr Varian and we two nurses. Mr Varian paid the poor mother ten thousand dollars, and he gave us a thousand dollars apiece. The authorities of the hospital never knew. They assumed the dead child was Mrs Curtis’ and the living child was Mrs Varian’s.”

“And the doctors?”

“There was but one. I forgot him. Yes, he knew, but he was a greedy scamp, and Mr Varian easily bought him over. He died soon after, anyway.”

“So that now—what living people know of this thing?”

“Why—you say Mr Varian is dead?”

“Yes.”

“And Mrs Varian never learned the truth?”

“No,” Zizi answered, emphatically, “she never did.”

“And Nurse Black is dead, and the doctor is dead—why, then nobody knows it—oh, yes, Mrs Curtis, of course.”

“She, too, is dead,” Wise said.

“Then nobody knows it but we three here. Unless of course, Mr Varian or Mrs Curtis told.”

“Mr Varian never did,” Wise said—“as to Mrs Curtis I can’t say.”

“Oh, she’d never tell,” Mrs Briggs declared. “She was honest in the whole matter. She said she didn’t know how she’d support her three children, let alone a fourth. And, she was glad and thankful to have it brought up among rich and kind people. She never would have let it go unless she had been sure of their kindness and care, but we told her what fine people the Varians were and she was satisfied.”

“Were there adoption papers taken out?”

Mrs Briggs stared at Wise’s question.

“Why, no; it wasn’t an adoption, it was a substitution. How could there be an adoption? Mrs Varian thought it her own child—the authorities of the hospital thought the living child was Mrs Varian’s. The matter was kept a perfect secret.”

“And I think it was all right,” Zizi defended. “So long as Mr Varian knew, so long as Mrs Curtis was satisfied, I don’t see where any harm was done to anybody.”

“I don’t either, miss,” said Mrs Briggs eagerly. “I’m gratified to hear you say that, and I hope, sir, you feel the same way about it.”

“Why, I scarcely know what to say,” Wise returned. “It depends on whether you view the whole thing from a judicial—”

“Or from a viewpoint of common sense and kind-heartedness!” Zizi said. “I think it was fine—and I’m only sorry for poor Mr Varian who had to bear the weight of his secret all alone through life.”

“Oh, Zizi, that would explain the pearls!” Wise cried.

“Of course it does! He had to leave them to a Varian—and Betty wasn’t a Varian—oh, Penny, what a situation! That poor man!”

“And it explains a lot of other things,” Wise said, thoughtfully. “Well, Mrs Briggs, we’ll be going now. As to this matter, I think I can say, if you’ll continue to keep it secret, we will do the same, at least for the present. Did you never tell anybody? Not even your husband?”

“I never did. It was the only secret I ever kept from my husband, he’s dead now this seven year, poor man—but I felt I couldn’t tell him. It wasn’t my secret. When I took Mr Varian’s money, I promised never to tell about the child. And I kept my word. Until now,” she added, and Wise said,

“You had to tell now, Mrs Briggs, if you hadn’t told willingly and frankly, I could have brought the law to bear on your decision.”

“That’s what I thought, sir. Please tell me of the child? Is she now a fine girl?”

Wise realized that up in this far away hamlet the news of Betty Varian’s disappearance had not become known, so he merely said,

“I’ve never seen her, but I’m told she is a fine and lovely girl. Her mother is a charming woman.”

“I’m glad you say so, sir, for though I was sorry for her, she was a terror for peevishness and fretting. Yet, after she got the little girl she seemed transformed, she was that happy and content.”

Back to the inn went Pennington Wise and Zizi.

“The most astonishing revelation I ever heard,” was Wise’s comment, as he closed the door of Zizi’s sitting room and sat down to talk it over.

“Where do you come out?”

“At all sorts of unexpected places. Now, Zizi, have you realized yet that Lawrence North married that Mrs Curtis?”

“You’re sure?”

“Practically; he married a widow named Curtis, who formerly lived in Greenvale, Vermont. I’ve not struck any other. And besides, it connects North with this whole Varian case and I’m sure he is mixed up in it.”

“But how?”

“That’s the question. But here’s a more immediate question, Zizi. Are we to tell Mrs Varian what we have learned from the nurse up here?”

“How can we help telling her?”

“But, think, Zizi. Have we a right to divulge Frederick Varian’s secret? After he spent his life keeping it quiet, shall we be justified in blurting it out—”

“Oh, Penny, that’s why Mr Varian and Betty were at odds! She wasn’t his child—”

“She didn’t know that—”

“No; but he did, and it made him irritable and impatient. Oh, don’t you see? He was everlastingly thinking that her traits were not Varian traits nor traits of her mother’s family—and he couldn’t help thinking of the child’s real mother—and oh, I can see how altogether he was upset over and over again when Betty would do or say something that he didn’t approve of.”

“Yes, that’s so—but Zizi, here’s a more important revelation. The reason Frederick Varian was so opposed to Betty’s marrying was because he found himself in such an equivocal position! He couldn’t let her marry a decent man without telling him the story of her birth—yet, he couldn’t tell it! He couldn’t tell the young man without telling his wife—and to tell Mrs Varian—at this late date—oh, well, no wonder the poor father—who was no father—was nearly distracted. No wonder he was crusty and snappish at Betty—yet of course the poor girl was in no way to blame!”

“Wouldn’t you think Mrs Varian would have suspected?”

“No; why should she? And, too, her husband took good care that she shouldn’t. It’s a truly marvelous situation!”

CHAPTER XVII 

The Last Letter

When Wise and Zizi returned to Headland House, they found Doctor Varian there on one of his brief visits.

Deciding that it was the best course to pursue the detective took the physician entirely into his confidence. The two were closeted in the library, and Wise related his discoveries regarding the Vermont hospital.

“It is astounding! Incredible!” exclaimed Varian, “but if true, and it must be true, it explains a great many things. As a doctor, I can understand these things, and looking back, I see that Betty never had any traits of either parent. Not always are children like their parents but I’ve never seen a case where there was not some sign of heredity, some likeness to father or mother in looks or character.

“But Betty showed none such. She was a dear girl, and we all loved her—but she was not in any way like Fred or Minna. To be sure, I never thought about this definitely, for I had no reason to think of such a thing as you’re telling me. But, recollecting Betty, for I’ve known her all her life, I can see where she is of a totally different stamp from my brother or his wife. My, what a case!”

“Do you blame Mr Varian?”

“Not a bit! He did it out of the kindest of motives. He was not only a devoted husband but a willing slave to his wife, even in cases where she was unreasonable or over-exacting. He petted and humored her in every imaginable way, and when the third baby was expected, the poor man was nearly frantic lest it should not live and Minna could not bear the disappointment. And so, when, as it seems by a mere chance he had an opportunity to provide her with a strong, healthy, beautiful child—I, for one, am not surprised that he did so, nor do I greatly blame him. As you represent it, the poor mother was willing and glad to consent to the arrangement. An adoption would have been perfectly legitimate and proper. Fred only chose the substitution plan to save Minna from trouble and worry. I know Fred so well, he was impulsive and he stopped at nothing to please or comfort his wife. So, I can easily see how he decided, on the impulse of the moment, to do this thing, and if, as you say, Minna took to the child at once, and loved it as her own, of course he felt that the plan must be kept up, the deception must be maintained.”

“It accounts, I dare say, for the slight friction that so frequently arose between Betty and her father—for we may as well continue to call him her father.”

“It does. I suppose when the child exhibited traits that annoyed or displeased Fred, he resented it and he couldn’t help showing it. He had a strong clannish feeling about the Varians and he was sensitive to many slight faults in Betty that Minna never gave any heed to.”

“It’s an interesting study in the relative values of heredity and environment.”

“Yes, it is; and it proves my own theory which is that their influences average about fifty-fifty. Many times heredity is stronger than environment, and often it’s the other way, but oftenest of all, as in this case, the one offsets the other. I know nothing of Betty’s real ancestry, but it must have been fairly good, or Fred never would have taken her at all.”

“And it was, of course, his clannish loyalty to his family name that would not let him leave the pearls to Betty.”

“Yes, they have always been left to a Varian and Fred couldn’t leave them to one who was really an outsider.”

“It also explains Mr Varian’s objections to Betty’s marriage.”

“Oh, it does! Poor man, what he must have suffered. He was a high-strung nature, impulsive and even impetuous, but of a sound, impeccable honesty that wouldn’t brook a shadow of wrong to any one.”

“I suppose what he had done troubled him more or less all his life.”

“I suppose so. Not his conscience—I can see how he looked on his deed as right—but he was bothered by circumstances—and it was a difficult situation that he had created. The more I realize it, the sorrier I feel for my poor brother. To make his will was a perplexity! His lawyer has told me that when he left the pearls away from Betty, he said, ‘I must do it! I have to do it!’ in a voice that was fairly agonized. The lawyer couldn’t understand what he meant, but assumed it was some cloud on Betty’s birth. I daresay Fred was not bothered about his money, for he knew if he died first, Minna would provide for Betty. But the pearls he had to arrange for. Oh, well, Mr Wise, now then, viewed in the light of these revelations, where do we stand? Who killed my brother? Who killed the maid, Martha? Who kidnapped Betty and Mr North?”

“Those are not easy questions, Doctor Varian,” Wise responded, with a grave face, “but of this I am confident—one name will answer them all.”

“You know the name?”

“I am not quite sure enough yet to say that I do—but I have a strong suspicion. I think it is the man who wrote the blackmailing letters to Mr Varian.”

“The man we call Stephen? It well may be. They referred to a robbed woman. Now, my brother never robbed anybody in the commonly accepted sense of that term, but it may mean the mother of Betty. Could the doctor in the Greenvale Hospital, that attended the two women that night, be trying to make money out of the matter?”

“They tell me he died some years ago.”

“But these letters are not all recent. And, too, he might have divulged the secret before he died, and whoever he told used it as a threat against my brother.”

“It’s hardly a blackmailing proposition.”

“Oh, yes, it is. Say the doctor—or the doctor’s confidant threatened Fred with exposure of the secret of Betty’s birth, I know my brother well enough to be certain that he would pay large sums before he would bring on Minna and Betty the shock and publicity, even though there was no actual disgrace.”

“Well, then, granting a blackmailer, he’s the one to look for, but on the other hand, why should he kill Mr Varian, when he was his hope of financial plunder? Why should he kidnap Betty? And, above all, why should he kill Martha and abduct Lawrence North?”

“The only one of those very pertinent questions that I can answer is the one about Betty. Whoever kidnapped her, did it for ransom. That is evidenced by the letters to Minna.”

“If they are genuine.”

“Oh, they are—I’m sure. She had another while you were away.”

“She did! To what purport?”

“Further and more desperate insistence of the ransom—and quickly.”

“The regular procedure! If it is a fake they would do the same thing.”

“Yes—and they would also, if it is a real issue.”

Wise went at once to find Minna and see the new letter.

It was indeed imperative, saying, in part:

“Now we have Betty safe, but this is your last chance to get her back. We are too smart for your wise detective and we are in dead earnest. Also Betty will be dead in earnest unless you do exactly as we herein direct. Also, this is our last letter. If you decide against us, we settle Betty’s account and call the whole deal off. Our instructions are the same as before. On Friday night, at midnight, go to the edge of the cliff and throw the package of money over. Tie to it some float and we will do the rest. That is, if you act in sincerity. If you are false-minded in the least detail, we will know it. We are wiser than Wise. So take your choice and—have a care! No one will be more faithful than we, if you act in good faith. Also, no one can be worse than we can be, if you betray us!”

The somewhat lengthy letter was written on the same typewriter as had been used for the others, and Wise studied it.

“There’s nothing to be deduced from the materials,” he said. “They’re too smart to use traceable paper or typing. But there are other indications, and, I think, Mrs Varian, at last I see a ray of hope, and I trust it will soon be a bright gleam and then full sunshine!”

“Good!” Zizi cried, clapping her hands. “When Penny talks poetry, he’s in high good humor—and when he’s in high good humor, it’s ’cause he’s on the right track—and when he’s on the right track—he gets there!”

Then they told Wise about the strange communication from the girl who knew lip-reading, and the detective was even more highly elated.

“Great!” he exclaimed. “Perfectly remarkable! Where’s Granniss?”

“Gone to Boston to see a moving picture concern. He may have to go on to New York. He hopes to be back by Saturday at latest.”

It was Minna who answered, and her face was jubilant at the hope renewed in her heart by Wise’s own hopefulness.

But she determined in her secret thoughts to throw the money over the cliff on Friday night, whether the detective agreed to that plan or not. What, she argued to Mrs Fletcher, whom she took into her confidence on this matter, was any amount of money compared to the mere chance of getting back her child? She urged and bribed Fletcher until she consented to help Minna get out of the house on Friday night without Wise’s knowledge.

It was now Tuesday, and after much questioning of every one in the house as to what had taken place in his absence, the detective shut himself alone in the library, and surrounded by his own written notes, and with many of Mr Varian’s letters and financial papers, he thought and brooded over it all for some hours.

At last he opened the door and called Zizi.

“Well, my child,” he said, closing the door behind her, “I’ve got a line on things.”

“I do hope, Penny, you’ll watch out for Mrs Varian. She’s going to throw the money over the cliff on Friday night without your knowledge or consent.”

“She can’t do that.”

“She can’t without your knowledge, I admit. But, she can without your consent. Her money is her own and you’ve no real authority that will let you dictate to her how to use it.”

“True, oh, Queen!”

“Oh, Penny, when you smile like that, I know something’s up! What is it?”

“My luck, I hope. Ziz, do you remember you said you had a green smear on your frock like the one on Martha’s hand?”

“Yes; why?”

“Is it there yet, or did you clean it off?”

“It’s there yet, I haven’t worn the dress since.”

“Get it, will you?”

Zizi went, and returned with the little frock, a mere wisp of light, thin material, and handed it to Pennington Wise.

He inspected the green streak, which was visible though not conspicuous, and then he sniffed at it with such absorption that Zizi laughed outright.

“Pen,” she said, “in detective stories they always represent the great detective as sniffing like a hound on a scent. You’re literally doing it.”

“Not astonishing that I should, little one, when you realize that this green smear is a beacon to light our way.”

“What is it?” Zizi’s big Hack eyes grew serious at Wise’s tone.

“The way out; the exit; the solution of the mystery of the secret passage.”

“Oh, Penny, tell me! You’ll be the death of me if you keep the truth from me! I’m crazy with suspense!”

But Zizi’s curiosity could not be gratified just then, for Fletcher came to say that Minna desired the girl’s company.

Minna Varian had come to depend much on Zizi’s charm and entertainment, and often sent for her when feeling especially blue or nervous.

Zizi had been waiting for an opportunity, and now as the nurse left her alone with Mrs Varian, she gradually and deftly led the talk around to Betty as a baby.

“Tell me what you thought when you first saw your little daughter,” Zizi said, in her pretty, coaxing way. “How old was she?”

“About an hour or so, I think,” Minna said, reminiscently. “And my first thought was, ‘Oh, thank God for a healthy, beautiful baby!’ She was so lovely—and so strong and perfect! I had hoped she would be all right, but I never looked for such a marvel as came to me!”

“And Mr Varian was as pleased as you were!” Zizi said, gently.

“Oh, yes—but,” Minna’s face clouded a little, “I don’t know how to express it—but he never seemed to love Betty as he did our first children. He admired her—nobody could help it—but he had a queer little air of restraint about her. It lasted all through life. I can’t understand it—unless he was jealous—”

“Jealous?”

“Yes, of my love and adoration of the child. Silly idea, I know, but I’ve racked my brain and I can’t think of any other explanation.”

“That doesn’t explain the Varian pearls—”

“No; nothing can explain that! Oh, nothing explains anything! Zizi, you’ve no idea what I suffer! I wonder I keep my mind! Just think of a woman who never had to decide a question for herself, if she didn’t want to—who never had a care or responsibility that she didn’t assume of her own accord—who had a husband to care for her, a daughter to love her—”

The poor woman broke down completely, and Zizi had her hands full to ward off the violent hysterics that attacked her at times.

Meantime, Pennington Wise, convinced of the origin of the green smear on Zizi’s frock, was starting forth to prove his conviction.

Armed only with a powerful flashlight and a good-sized hammer, he went out to the kitchen and through that to the cellar.

There, he went straight to the old well, and testing the rope as he did so, he let the bucket down as far as it would go. Then, with monkey-like agility he began to clamber down—partly supported by clinging to the rope, partly by getting firm footholds on the old stones that lined the well.

Scarcely had he started, when he experimentally drew his hand across the stones, and by his flashlight perceived a green smear, the counterpart of that on Zizi’s frock. Also, the counterpart of that on Martha’s hand.

Yet, the dead girl could scarcely have been in the well! So—her assailant must have been.

However, he went on investigating.

He noted carefully the walls as he descended, and it was not until he almost reached the bottom of the dried-up old well, that he noticed anything strange.

All of the wall was very rough and uneven but here was what appeared to be a distinct hole, roughly filled in with loose stones.

Standing now on the bottom of the well, slippery with moisture but no water above his shoe soles, he used his hammer to dislodge these stones, working carefully and slowly, but with a certainty of success.

“Fool that I was,” he chattered to himself, “not to come down here the very first thing! To trust to Zizi was all right—the kid couldn’t notice this place—but I had no business to trust that half-baked sheriff or his man!”

His work soon disclosed the fact that the loose stones apparently closed the mouth of a deep hole.

When all that were loose had been either pulled out or pushed in, he found there was an aperture large enough to permit a man’s body to pass through, and without hesitation, he scrambled through it.

His flashlight showed him that almost from the start the hole widened until it became a fair-sized tunnel. Crawling along this for a hundred yards or so, he heard the splash of water, and soon he no longer needed his flashlight, as daylight streamed in through a narrow fissure in the rock.

It was fortunate for Wise that it did, for just ahead the tunnel descended sharply, and at the bottom, what was evidently the surf was surging in from the ocean.

It was quite dark below, and being unable to progress further, Wise backed out of the tunnel, it wasn’t wide enough to turn around in, and reaching the well again, he ascended to the surface.

He went to his room, looked with satisfaction on the numerous smears of green and brown that disfigured his suit—which he had taken care should be an old one.

No one knew what he had done, nor did any one know his destination when, half an hour later, he set off for the village.

He went to the inn and inquired where he could get the best motor boat that could be hired.

A suitable one was found and its owner agreed to take Wise on an exploring expedition at the next low tide. This would not be until the following morning, so the detective went back to Headland House.

Then, he concentrated all his efforts and attention on the subject of the moving picture film that had been said to portray Betty Varian.

“Rod Granniss vows it was really Betty,” Zizi insisted.

“He ought to know,” said Wise. “A man in love with a girl doesn’t mistake her identity. Besides, it’s quite on the cards, Ziz. Say Betty is confined somewhere—say she is let out for a little exercise in care of a jailer, of course—say there’s a M. P. contraption taking a picture of a crowd—they often do—pick up stray passers-by you know, and say, Betty somehow got into the picture—”

“Oh, the jailer, as you call him, wouldn’t let her!”

“More likely a woman in charge of her. And, maybe a woman not averse to taking the few dollars those people pay to actors who just make up a crowd. Well, say that happened, and then Betty, not daring to speak aloud, made her lips form the words ‘I am Betty Varian,’ in the hope that among a few thousands of lip readers in the country one might strike twelve!”

“Nobody could be so clever as all that, Pen!”

“She might be on a chance inspiration. Anyway, how else can you explain it?”

“Why, anybody might have said that, who wasn’t Betty at all.”

“But why? What would be the sense of it? and why would such a thing occur to anybody but Betty?”

“If it’s true—then you can find her! Surely you can track down a moving picture company!”

“Oh, it isn’t that! It’s tracking down the place where Betty is confined—and—doing it while she is still alive. You see, Zizi, those ransom letters are true bills, and the villains have nearly reached the end of their patience.”

“Then why don’t you approve of Mrs Varian’s throwing the money over the cliff?”

“I may advise her to do it by Friday night—if nothing happens in the meantime.”

“But look here, Penny,” Zizi said, after a thoughtful moment, “if your theory is the right one, why didn’t Betty scream out, ‘I am Betty Varian!’ and take a chance that somebody in the crowd would rescue her?”

“It would seem a natural thing to do, unless the girl had been so cowed by threats of punishment or even torture if she made any outcry when allowed to go for a walk. I’m visualizing that girl as kept in close confinement, but not in any want or discomfort. She is most likely treated well as to food, rooms and all that, but is not allowed to step out of doors except with a strict guard and under some terrible penalty if she attempts to make herself known. With Betty’s love of fresh air and sunshine she would agree to almost anything to get out of doors. Then, too, if she merely formed those words without sound, the chance of their being read by a lip reader was really greater than the chance of doing any good by crying out aloud.

“Had she done that, whoever had her in charge would have whisked her away at once, and no one would have paid any attention to the slight disturbance.”

“It’s all perfectly logical and, oh, I hope Rodney gets some clue to the place where the picture was taken.”

“I hope so, Ziz, but they’ve probably moved Betty away from there by now.”

“Did you find out, Penny, what that stain on my frock was?”

“I did.”

“Well?”

“Yes, my dear, you’ve struck it! You got that stain while you were down the well.”

“Oh,” Zizi’s eyes lighted up; “of course I did! Those damp, mossy stones. And, then, oh, Wise one, just how did the same stain get on Martha’s hand?”

“That, Zizi,” Wise spoke almost solemnly, “is part of the solution of the whole great mystery.”

CHAPTER XVIII

The Trap

In a small but powerful motor boat Wise went on his voyage of exploration. The man who managed the craft was a stolid, silent person who obeyed Wise’s orders without comment.

But when the detective directed that he go round the base of the headland, and skirt close to the rocks he grumbled at the danger.

“Be careful of the danger,” Wise said, “steer clear of hidden reefs, but go close to the overhanging cliff, there where I’m pointing.”

Skirting the cliff, at last Wise discovered what he was looking for, a small cave, worn in the rock by the sea. The floor of this cave rose sharply and it was with difficulty that Wise managed to scramble from the boat to a secure footing on the slippery wet rocks.

“Look out there,” said the imperturbable boatman, “you’ll get caught in there when the tide comes up. I never noticed that hole in the wall before, it must be out o’ sight ’ceptin’ at low tide.”

“Stay where you are and wait for me,” Wise directed, “if I’m not out here again in half an hour, go on home. But I’ll probably be back in less than that.”

“You will, if you’re back at all! The tide will turn in fifteen minutes and in half an hour it’ll be all you can do to get out!”

Disappearing, Wise began his climb up the floor of the cave, and at a point just above high water there was a fissure in the cliff which admitted air and some light. At this point the cave ran back for some distance, though still on a rising level. During the winter storms the ocean evidently had worn this tunnel in the rock.

Wise at once realized that this nature-made tunnel ran on for some distance until it ended in the old well.

Using his flashlight when necessary, he made his way, until he reached the pile of stones which he himself had pushed out from the well and found to his satisfaction that he had indeed come to the well, and that his solution of the mystery of a secret passage into Headland House was accomplished.

But what a solution! The difficulty and danger of entrance or exit by means of that rock tunnel and that old well could scarce be exaggerated!

Moreover, all such entrances or exits must be made at the lowest ebb of the tide. But the cave was roomy, not uncomfortable, and the tunnel, though cramped in places, was fairly navigable.

There was plenty of room in the cave quite above reach of the highest tide, and the whole matter was clear and simple now that he saw it all, but he marveled at the energy and enterprise that could conceive, plan and carry out the various attacks.

Whoever the criminal, or the master criminal, might be, he had come up through that tunnel and well on the several occasions of the kidnapping of Betty, the murder of Martha, the abduction of North—yes—and Wise remembered the letter that had been mysteriously left on the hall table—also the night the library had been entered—clearly, the man came and went at will!

A master mind, Wise concluded, he had to deal with, and he set his own best energies to work on his problems.

The way between Headland House and the outer world was not easy of negotiation, but it was a way, and it was passable to a determined human being.

Wise was back inside the prescribed half hour, and the uninterested boatman took him back to the Harbor without question or comment as to his enterprise.

That afternoon, Wise called Minna and Doctor Varian into the library and closed the door.

Zizi was also present, her black eyes shining with anticipation, for she knew from Wise’s manner and expression that he was making progress, and was about to disclose his discoveries.

“I have learned a great deal,” the detective began, “but not all. At least, I have found the so-called secret passage, which we all felt sure must exist.”

He described the cave and the tunnel as he had found them, and the outlet into the old well, so carefully piled with loose stones that it would escape the observance of almost any searcher.

He told briefly but graphically of his exit from the well for a distance, and of his later entrance from the cave and his procedure to the well.

Zizi nodded her bird-like little head, with an air of complete understanding, Doctor Varian was absorbedly interested and profoundly amazed, while Minna looked helplessly ignorant of just what Wise was talking about.

“I can’t understand it,” she said, piteously, “but never mind that, I don’t care, if you say it’s all so. Now, where is Betty?”

“That we don’t know yet,” Wise said, gently, “but we are on the way at last to find out. As I reconstruct the crime, now, that day that Betty returned for her camera, she must have done so under one of two conditions. Either her errand was genuine, in which case, she surprised the criminal here at some nefarious work—or, which I think far more probable, she came back pretending it was for her camera, but really because of some message or communication which she had received purporting some good to her, but really a ruse of the criminal, who was here for the purpose of abducting the girl.”

“For ransom?” asked Doctor Varian.

“Yes, for ransom. Now, he would naturally attack her in the hall. Perhaps she threw herself on the sofa, clung to it, and was carried off, still holding that yellow pillow, either unconsciously, or he may have used it to stifle her cries. There were two men involved, of that I am sure. For, when they had partly accomplished their purpose, Mr Varian appeared at the door and one of the men had to intercept his entrance.

“I rather fancy the killing of Mr Varian was unintentional—or possibly, self-defence, for these ruffians did not want to kill their blackmail victim. They may have parleyed with the father to pay them to release the girl, and when he showed fight, as he would, they did also, and as a result, Mr Varian met his death.

“However, that is mere surmise. What we know is, that Betty was carried through the kitchen where the pillow fell—still holding one of her hair-pins, probably caught during the struggle—and she was carried down the cellar stairs. During this trip her string of beads broke, and were scattered about. As we never found but a few, and those were under furniture or cupboards, I gather the villains picked up all they could see, lest they should be found as evidence.”

“Which they were!” said Zizi.

“Which they were,” Wise assented. “Then, they carried that girl whether conscious or chloroformed I can’t say, down to the cellar, down the old well, through the tunnel to the cave. There they could wait any number of hours until the tide served, and take her away in a boat without attracting the notice of anybody.”

“Most likely at night,” Zizi put in.

“Most likely. Anyway, Mrs Varian, that’s my finding. It’s all very dreadful, but horrifying as it is, it opens the way to better things. To go on, there can be no doubt that this same villain, and a clever one he is, returned here at night for plunder and on other errands.

“He came and left the letter found so mysteriously on the hall table. He came to rob the library safe, thinking the ransom money was in it. And he was spied upon and discovered by the maid, Martha, so that he ruthlessly strangled the poor thing to death, rather than face exposure.”

“And then he abducted North!” Doctor Varian cried; “and it’s easy to see why! North had doubtless also spied on him, and somehow he forced North to go away with him—perhaps at pistol’s point.”

“Now our question is—”

“Two questions!” Zizi cried; “first, who is the criminal—and second where is he keeping Betty all this time?”

“Yes, and we know a great deal to start on.” Wise spoke thoughtfully. “We know, almost to a certainty, that it is the man whom we call Stephen, because he wrote threatening letters signed ‘Step.’ We know he is diabolically clever, absolutely fearless, and willing to commit any crime or series of crimes to gain his end, which is merely the large sum of money he has demanded from Mrs Varian, and which he had previously demanded from Mr Varian, as blackmail.”

“Why should he blackmail my husband?” Minna asked, tearfully, and Wise said, “There is not always a sound reason for blackmail, Mrs Varian. Sometimes it is an unjust accusation or a mistaken suspicion. Any way, as you have often declared, Mr Frederick Varian was a noble and upright man, and his integrity could not be questioned.”

“Now, then,” said Doctor Varian, “to find this master hand at crime. I am astounded at your revelations, Mr Wise, and I confess myself utterly in the dark as to our next step.”

“An animal that attacks in the open,” Wise returned, “may be shot or snared. But a wicked, crafty animal may only be caught by a trap. I propose to set a trap to catch our foe. It is a wicked trap, but he is a wicked man. It will harm him physically, but he deserves to be harmed physically. It is a sly, underhand method, but so are his own. Therefore, I conclude that a trap is justified in his case.”

“You mean a real, literal mantrap?” asked the doctor.

“I mean just that. I have already procured it and I propose to set it tonight. This is Thursday. As matters stand now, our ‘Stephen’ is assuming or at least hoping that Mrs Varian means to accede to his last request and throw the money over the cliff tomorrow, Friday night. Now, I feel pretty positive that Stephen is not so confident of getting that money safely as he pretends he is. He must be more or less fearful of detection. I’m sure that he will return to this house tonight, by his usual mode of entrance, and will try to steal the money. Then he will disappear and he may or may not give up Betty.”

“You think he’ll come here? Tonight?” Doctor Varian was astonished.

“I do.”

“Then we’ll be ready for him! I fancy between us, Mr Wise, we can account for him and his accomplice.”

“Too dangerous, Doctor. He would kill us both before we knew it. No, I’m going to set my trap. If he comes he deserves to be trapped. If he doesn’t come, there is certainly no harm done.”

“Where shall we hide the money?” asked Minna, nervously.

“It doesn’t matter,” and Wise’s face set sternly. “He will never get as far as the money.”

Hating his job, but fully alive to the justice and necessity of it, Wise set his trap that night.

It was a real trap, and was set up in the kitchen in such a position that it faced the cellar door. It consisted of a short-barreled shotgun which was mounted on an improvised gun carriage, made of a strong packing box.

This contrivance was fastened carefully to the kitchen wall about twelve feet in front of the cellar door, and when the door should be opened, the trap would be sprung and the shotgun discharged.

A steel spring fastened to the trigger, and a strong cord running to a pulley in the ceiling, thence to another, and finally to a pulley in the floor, and on to the door knob completed the deadly mechanism.

The tension of the spring was so carefully adjusted that an intruder might open the door a foot or more before the strain was carried to the trigger. This insured a sure aim and a clear shot.

Wise tested his trap thoroughly, and finally, with a grim nod of his head, declared it was all right.

He had sent the servants and the women-folks to bed, before beginning his work, and now he and Doctor Varian seated themselves in the library to await developments.

“As I said,” Wise remarked, “‘Stephen’ may not come at all, he may send an accomplice. Yet this I expect the most surely—he will come himself.”

“Have you no idea of his identity, Mr Wise?” the doctor asked.

“Yes; I have an idea—and if he does not come tonight, I will tell you who I think he is. But we will wait and see.”

They waited, now silent and now indulging in a few low toned bits of conversation, when at two o’clock in the morning the report of the gun brought them to their feet and they raced to the kitchen.

The roaring detonation was still in their ears as they strode through the hall, and the smell of powder greeted them at the kitchen door.

The cellar door was open, and on the floor near it lay a man breathing with difficulty.

Doctor Varian dropped on his knees beside him, and his professional instinct was at once in full working order, even as his astonished voice exclaimed:

“Lawrence North!”

“As I expected,” Wise said, “and well he deserves his fate. Will he live, Doctor?”

“Only a few moments,” was the preoccupied reply. “I can do nothing for him. He received the full charge in the abdomen.”

“Tell your story, North,” Wise said, briefly; “don’t waste time in useless groaning.”

North glared at the detective.

“You fiend!” he gasped, gurgling in rage and agony.

“You’re the fiend!” Varian said; “hush your vituperation and tell us where Betty is.”

A smile of low cunning came over North’s villainous face. He used his small remaining strength to say: “That you’ll never know. You’ve spiked your own guns. Nobody knows but me—and I won’t tell!”

Alarmed, Wise tried another tone.

“This won’t do, North,” he said; “whatever your crime, you can’t refuse that last act of expiation. Tell where she is, and die the better for it.”

“No,” gasped the dying man. “Bad I’ve lived and bad I’ll die. You’ll never find Betty Varian. There are standing orders to do away with her if anything happens to me, and,”—he tried to smile—“something has happened!”

“It sure has,” Wise said, and looked at him with real pity, for the man was suffering tortures. “But, I command you, North, by the blood you have shed, by the two human lives you have taken, by the heart of the wife and mother that you have broken—I charge you, give up your secret while you have strength to do so!”

For a moment, North seemed to hesitate.

A little stimulant administered by the doctor gave him a trifle more strength, but then his face changed—he turned reminiscent.

“Good work,” he said, it seemed, exultingly. “When I first found the cave a year ago, I began to plan how I could get the Varians to take this house. They little thought I brought it about through the real estate people—”

“Never mind all that,” Wise urged him, “where’s Betty?”

“Betty? ah, yes—Betty—” His mind seemed to wander again and Varian gave him a few drops more stimulant.

“Get it out of him,” he said to the detective, “this will lose all efficacy in another few moments. He is going.”

“Going, am I?” and North was momentarily alert. “All right, Doc, I’ll go and my secret will go with me.”

“Where is Betty?” Wise leaned over the miserable wretch, as if he would drag the secret from him by sheer will power.

But the other’s will power matched his own.

“Betty,” he said—“oh, yes, Betty. Really, my wife’s daughter, you know—my step-daughter—I had a right to her, didn’t I—”

“‘Step’!” Wise cried, “Step, that you signed to those letters was short for Stepfather!”

“Yes, of course; my wife didn’t mean to tell me that story—didn’t know she did—she babbled in her sleep, and I got it out of her by various hints and allusions. Mrs Varian never knew, so I bled the old man. My, he was in a blue funk whenever I attacked him about it!”

“Where is she now?” Wise hinted.

“No, sir, you don’t get it out of me. You caught me—damn you! now I’ll make you wish you hadn’t!” and Lawrence North died without another word.

Baffled, and spent with his exhausting efforts, Wise left the dead man in the doctor’s care and returned to the library.

He found Zizi there. She had listened from the hall and had overheard much that went on, but she couldn’t bring herself to go where the wounded man lay.

“Oh, Penny,” she sobbed, “he didn’t tell! Maybe if I had gone in I could have got it out of him! But I c-couldn’t look at him—”

“Never mind, dear, that’s all right. He wouldn’t have told you, either. The man is the worst criminal I have ever known. He has no drop of humanity in his veins. As to remorse or regret, he never knew their meaning! Now, what shall we do? Is Mrs Varian awake?”

“Yes; in mild hysterics. Fletcher is with her.”

“Doctor Varian must go to her, and after that doubtless you can soothe her better than any one else. I’ll get Potter and Dunn up here—and I fervently hope it’s for the last time!”

“Penny, your work was wonderful! You were right, a thing like that had to be trapped—not caught openly. You’re a wonder!”

“Yet it all failed, when I failed to learn where Betty is. I shall find her—but I fear—oh, Zizi, I fear that the evil that man has done will live after him—and I fear for the fate of Betty Varian.”

Zizi tried to cheer him, but her heart too was heavy with vague fears, and she left him to his routine work of calling the police and once again bringing them up to Headland House on a gruesome errand.

These things done, Wise went at once to North’s bungalow in Headland Harbor. He had small hope of finding Joe Mills there, and as he had foreseen, that worthy had decamped. Nor did they ever see him again.

“I suppose,” Wise said afterward, “he was in the cellar when North was killed; but I never thought of him then, nor could I have caught him as he doubtless fled away in the darkness to safety.”

“Then it was a put up job, that scene of struggle and confusion in North’s bedroom that day he disappeared?” Bill Dunn asked of Wise.

“Yes; I felt it was, but I couldn’t see how he got away. You see, at that time, North began to feel that my suspicions were beginning to turn in his direction, and he thought by pretending to be abducted himself, he would argue a bold and wicked kidnapper again at work. At any rate, he wanted to get away, and stay away the better to carry on his dreadful purposes, and he chose that really clever way of departing. The touch of leaving his watch behind was truly artistic—unless he forgot it. Well, now to find Betty Varian.”

“Just a minute, Mr Wise. How’d you come to think of looking for that cave arrangement?”

“After I began to suspect North, I watched him very closely. I had in my mind some sort of rock passage, and when I took him out in a boat, or Joe Mills, either, when we went close to that part of the rocks where the cave is, I noted their evident efforts not to look toward a certain spot. It was almost amusing to see how their eyes strayed that way, and were quickly averted. They almost told me just where to look!”

“Wonderful work!” Dunn exclaimed, heartily. “No,” Wise returned, “only a bit of psychology. Now to find Betty.”

But though the detective doubtless would have recovered the missing girl, he had not the opportunity, for love had found a way.

By the hardest sort of work and with indefatigable perseverance, Granniss had gone from one to another of the various officials, mechanicians and even workmen of the moving picture company he was on the trail of and after maddening delays caused by their lack of method, their careless records and their uncertain memories, he finally found out where the picture of a crowd, in which Betty had appeared, was taken.

And then by further and unwearying search, he found an old but strongly built and well guarded house where he had reason to think Betty was imprisoned.

Finding this, he didn’t wait for proofs of his belief, but telegraphed for Pennington Wise and Sheriff Potter to come there at once and gain entrance.

Rod’s inexperience led him to adopt this course, but it proved a good one, for his telegram reached Wise the day after North’s death, and he hurried off, Potter with him.

The house was in Vermont, and while Potter made the necessary arrangements with the local authorities, Wise went on to meet Granniss.

“There’s the house,” and Wise saw the rather pleasant-looking old mansion. “I’m dead sure Betty’s in there, but I can’t get entrance, though I’ve tried every possible way.”

But the arrival of the police soon effected an entrance, and armed with the knowledge of North’s death as well as more material implements, they all went in.

Pretty Betty, as pretty as ever, though pale and thin from worry and fear, ran straight into Granniss’ arms and nestled there in such absolute relief and content, that the other men present turned away from the scene with a choke in their throats.

If Granniss hadn’t found her!

The news of North’s death brought the jailers to terms at once. They were a man and wife, big, strong people, who were carrying out North’s orders “to be kind and proper to the girl, but not to let her get away.”

The moving picture incident had occurred just as Wise had surmised. On her daily walks for exercise, Betty was sometimes allowed to get into a crowd at the studio near by, and frequently she had tried her clever plan of silent talk. But only once had that plan succeeded.

Yet once was enough, and Granniss said, “Look here, you people, clear up all the red tape, won’t you? Betty and I want to go home!”

“Run along,” said Wise, kindly. “There’s a train in an hour. Skip—and God bless you!”

* * * *

Their arrival at Headland House, heralded by a telegram to Zizi, had no unduly exciting effects on Minna Varian.

Doctor Varian watched her, but as he saw the radiant joy with which she clasped Betty in her arms, he had no fear of the shock of joy proving too much for her.

“Oh, Mother,” Betty cried, “don’t let’s talk about it now. I’ll tell you anything you want to know some other time. Now, just let me revel in being here!”

Nor did any one bother the poor child save to ask a few important questions.

These brought the information that Betty had been decoyed back to the house that day, by a false message purporting to be from Granniss, asking her to return after the rest left the house, and call him up on the telephone. This Betty tried to do, using her camera as an excuse.

But she never reached the telephone. Once in the house, she was grasped and the assailants, there were two, attempted to chloroform her. But chloroforming is not such a speedy matter as many believe and she was still struggling against the fumes when her father appeared.

North held Betty while the other man, who was Joe Mills, fought Frederick Varian, and, in the struggle, shot him.

This angered North so, that he lost his head. He almost killed Mills in his rage and fury, and seizing Betty, made for the secret passage.

On the way, her string of beads broke, the pillow which they used to help make her unconscious was dropped on the kitchen floor, and then she was carried down the well, through the tunnel and cave and away in a swift motor boat.

But in a half conscious state, all these things were like a dream to her.

“A dream which must not be recalled,” said Granniss, with an air of authority that sat well upon him.

“My blessing,” Minna said, fondling the girl. “Never mind about anything, now that I have you back. I miss your father more than words can say, but with you restored, I can know happiness again. Let us both try to forget.”

Later, a council was held as to whether to tell Minna the true story of Betty’s birth.

The two young people had to be told, and Doctor Varian was appealed to for a decision regarding Minna.

“I don’t know,” he said, uncertainly. “You see it explains the pearls—”

“I’ll tell you,” Granniss said. “Don’t let’s tell Mother Varian now. Betty and I will be married very soon, and after that we can see about it. Or, if she has to know at the time of the wedding, we’ll tell her then. But let her rejoice in her new found child as her own child as long as she can. Surely she deserves it.”

“And you don’t care?” Betty asked, looking at him, wistfully.

“My darling! I don’t care whether you’re the daughter of a princess or pauperess—you’ll soon be my wife, and Granniss is all the name you’ll ever want or need!”

“Bless your sweet hearts,” said Zizi, her black eyes showing a tender gleam for the girl she had so long known of, and only now known.

“And bless your sweetheart, when you choose one!” Betty said, her happy heart so full of joy that her old gayety already began to return.