“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.”