“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.”