“Oh, don’t suggest such awful things! Betty kill her father, and then, hiding until dark, make her way out and down to the village and away from the Harbor—oh, impossible!” “Alternative?” “I don’t know! The more I think it over the less I can see _any_ solution!” “What about the haunted house idea?” “That doesn’t mean a thing to me,” Granniss scorned it. “In fact, I usually come back to the idea that Mr Varian in some way killed himself.” “Weapon?” “I know, but I mean, maybe he shot himself, and Betty, who might have been trying to prevent it, took the pistol and ran away.” “Why?” “Oh, I don’t _know_! You are too exasperating, Lawrence! You just stand there and say ‘why’? Stop it.” “Keep your temper, Rod. I’m only trying, as you are, to find some way to look. It is indeed impenetrable!” “And then that matter of the pearls.” “To me that is the strangest revelation yet. No matter how much the father and daughter had little disagreements, even quarrels, how could he leave that great treasure away from his child and give it to his niece!” “I think that very thing is a key to the mystery.” “How do you mean?” “I don’t know. You know I don’t know, Lawrence; if I did I’d have told long ago! But I believe when the worthwhile detective that I’m going to get for Mrs Varian takes hold of the case, he’ll work from that strange bequest of the Varian pearls.” “Maybe he will,—but to me,—while it’s passing strange, it doesn’t seem to indicate anything definite.” “No, nor to me. But we haven’t the trained mind of the real detective.” “Who’s the man you’re going to get?” “Pennington Wise, the best in the country.” “I’ve heard of him. Well, it will be interesting to see how he goes about it.” CHAPTER VIII Ransom The Herbert Varians went back to their summer home, and Minna, left alone with her companion and her secretary, began what she called her campaign to find Betty. Some people thought Mrs Varian a little affected mentally by her awful griefs, but those who knew her best read in her determination and persistence a steady aim and felt a slight hope of her success. “Anything in the world I can do, dear,” Claire Blackwood said to her, “command me. I’ll go to the city for you or do errands or anything I can.” “No,” said Minna, “there’s nothing you can do. Nothing anybody can do. I’m only afraid that if I get no encouragement in my efforts, I will lose my mind,—and that’s what I’m trying to guard against. I follow my nurse’s directions as to exercise, diet and all that, but I feel as if I could only keep my brain from flying to pieces by hanging onto my hope of eventually finding my child.” “And you will,” Claire said, earnestly, though she voiced a belief that she was far from feeling, “Oh, Mrs Varian, you will!” “You see,” Minna went on, “I’ve a new theory now. I think that maybe Betty killed her father accidentally——” “That is a new idea.”