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,—it _was_ 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!