“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.