The Last Letter
When Wise and Zizi returned to Headland House, they found Doctor Varian
there on one of his brief visits.
Deciding that it was the best course to pursue the detective took the
physician entirely into his confidence. The two were closeted in the
library, and Wise related his discoveries regarding the Vermont hospital.
“It is astounding! Incredible!” exclaimed Varian, “but if true, and it
must be true, it explains a great many things. As a doctor, I can
understand these things, and looking back, I see that Betty never had any
traits of either parent. Not always are children like their parents but
I’ve never seen a case where there was not some sign of heredity, some
likeness to father or mother in looks or character.
“But Betty showed none such. She was a dear girl, and we all loved
her,—but she was not in any way like Fred or Minna. To be sure, I never
thought about this definitely, for I had no reason to think of such a
thing as you’re telling me. But, recollecting Betty, for I’ve known her
all her life, I can see where she is of a totally different stamp from my
brother or his wife. My, what a case!”
“Do you blame Mr Varian?”
“Not a bit! He did it out of the kindest of motives. He was not only a
devoted husband but a willing slave to his wife, even in cases where she
was unreasonable or over-exacting. He petted and humored her in every
imaginable way, and when the third baby was expected, the poor man was
nearly frantic lest it should not live and Minna could not bear the
disappointment. And so, when, as it seems by a mere chance he had an
opportunity to provide her with a strong, healthy, beautiful child,—I,
for one, am not surprised that he did so, nor do I greatly blame him. As
you represent it, the poor mother was willing and glad to consent to the
arrangement. An adoption would have been perfectly legitimate and proper.
Fred only chose the substitution plan to save Minna from trouble and
worry. I know Fred so well, he was impulsive and he stopped at nothing to
please or comfort his wife. So, I can easily see how he decided, on the
impulse of the moment, to do this thing, and if, as you say, Minna took
to the child at once, and loved it as her own, of course he felt that the
plan must be kept up, the deception must be maintained.”
“It accounts, I dare say, for the slight friction that so frequently
arose between Betty and her father,—for we may as well continue to call
him her father.”
“It does. I suppose when the child exhibited traits that annoyed or
displeased Fred, he resented it and he couldn’t help showing it. He had a
strong clannish feeling about the Varians and he was sensitive to many
slight faults in Betty that Minna never gave any heed to.”
“It’s an interesting study in the relative values of heredity and
environment.”
“Yes, it is; and it proves my own theory which is that their influences
average about fifty-fifty. Many times heredity is stronger than
environment, and often it’s the other way, but oftenest of all, as in
this case, the one offsets the other. I know nothing of Betty’s real
ancestry, but it must have been fairly good, or Fred never would have
taken her at all.”
“And it was, of course, his clannish loyalty to his family name that
would not let him leave the pearls to Betty.”
“Yes, they have always been left to a Varian and Fred couldn’t leave them
to one who was really an outsider.”
“It also explains Mr Varian’s objections to Betty’s marriage.”
“Oh, it does! Poor man, what he must have suffered. He was a high-strung
nature, impulsive and even impetuous, but of a sound, impeccable honesty
that wouldn’t brook a shadow of wrong to any one.”
“I suppose what he had done troubled him more or less all his life.”
“I suppose so. Not his conscience,—I can see how he looked on his deed as
right,—but he was bothered by circumstances,—and it was a difficult
situation that he had created. The more I realize it, the sorrier I feel
for my poor brother. To make his will was a perplexity! His lawyer has
told me that when he left the pearls away from Betty, he said, ‘I _must_
do it! I _have_ to do it!’ in a voice that was fairly agonized. The
lawyer couldn’t understand what he meant, but assumed it was some cloud
on Betty’s birth. I daresay Fred was not bothered about his money, for he
knew if he died first, Minna would provide for Betty. But the pearls he
had to arrange for. Oh, well, Mr Wise, now then, viewed in the light of
these revelations, where do we stand? Who killed my brother? Who killed
the maid, Martha? Who kidnapped Betty and Mr North?”
“Those are not easy questions, Doctor Varian,” Wise responded, with a
grave face, “but of this I am confident,—one name will answer them all.”
“You know the name?”
“I am not quite sure enough yet to say that I do,—but I have a strong
suspicion. I think it is the man who wrote the blackmailing letters to Mr
Varian.”
“The man we call Stephen? It well may be. They referred to a robbed
woman. Now, my brother never robbed anybody in the commonly accepted
sense of that term, but it may mean the mother of Betty. Could the doctor
in the Greenvale Hospital, that attended the two women that night, be
trying to make money out of the matter?”
“They tell me he died some years ago.”
“But these letters are not all recent. And, too, he might have divulged
the secret before he died, and whoever he told used it as a threat
against my brother.”
“It’s hardly a blackmailing proposition.”
“Oh, yes, it is. Say the doctor,—or the doctor’s confidant threatened
Fred with exposure of the secret of Betty’s birth, I know my brother well
enough to be certain that he would pay large sums before he would bring
on Minna and Betty the shock and publicity, even though there was no
actual disgrace.”
“Well, then, granting a blackmailer, he’s the one to look for, but on the
other hand, why should he kill Mr Varian, when he was his hope of
financial plunder? Why should he kidnap Betty? And, above all, why should
he kill Martha and abduct Lawrence North?”
“The only one of those very pertinent questions that I can answer is the
one about Betty. Whoever kidnapped her, did it for ransom. That is
evidenced by the letters to Minna.”
“If they are genuine.”
“Oh, they are,—I’m sure. She had another while you were away.”
“She did! To what purport?”
“Further and more desperate insistence of the ransom,—and quickly.”
“The regular procedure! If it is a fake they would do the same thing.”
“Yes,—and they would also, if it is a real issue.”
Wise went at once to find Minna and see the new letter.
It was indeed imperative, saying, in part:
“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.”
“She can’t without your knowledge, I admit. But, she can without your
consent. Her money is her own and you’ve no real authority that will let
you dictate to her how to use it.”
“True, oh, Queen!”
“Oh, Penny, when you smile like that, I know something’s up! What is it?”
“My luck, I hope. Ziz, do you remember you said you had a green smear on
your frock like the one on Martha’s hand?”
“Yes; why?”
“Is it there yet, or did you clean it off?”
“It’s there yet, I haven’t worn the dress since.”
“Get it, will you?”
Zizi went, and returned with the little frock, a mere wisp of light, thin
material, and handed it to Pennington Wise.
He inspected the green streak, which was visible though not conspicuous,
and then he sniffed at it with such absorption that Zizi laughed
outright.
“Pen,” she said, “in detective stories they always represent the great
detective as sniffing like a hound on a scent. You’re literally doing
it.”
“Not astonishing that I should, little one, when you realize that this
green smear is a beacon to light our way.”
“What is it?” Zizi’s big Hack eyes grew serious at Wise’s tone.
“The way out; the exit; the solution of the mystery of the secret
passage.”
“Oh, Penny, tell me! You’ll be the death of me if you keep the truth from
me! I’m crazy with suspense!”
But Zizi’s curiosity could not be gratified just then, for Fletcher came
to say that Minna desired the girl’s company.
Minna Varian had come to depend much on Zizi’s charm and entertainment,
and often sent for her when feeling especially blue or nervous.
Zizi had been waiting for an opportunity, and now as the nurse left her
alone with Mrs Varian, she gradually and deftly led the talk around to
Betty as a baby.
“Tell me what you thought when you first saw your little daughter,” Zizi
said, in her pretty, coaxing way. “How old was she?”
“About an hour or so, I think,” Minna said, reminiscently. “And my first
thought was, ‘Oh, thank God for a healthy, beautiful baby!’ She was so
lovely,—and so strong and perfect! I had hoped she would be all right,
but I never looked for such a marvel as came to me!”
“And Mr Varian was as pleased as you were!” Zizi said, gently.
“Oh, yes,—but,” Minna’s face clouded a little, “I don’t know how to
express it,—but he never seemed to love Betty as he did our first
children. He admired her,—nobody could help it,—but he had a queer little
air of restraint about her. It lasted all through life. I can’t
understand it,—unless he was jealous——”
“Jealous?”
“Yes, of my love and adoration of the child. Silly idea, I know, but I’ve
racked my brain and I can’t think of any other explanation.”
“That doesn’t explain the Varian pearls——”
“No; nothing can explain that! Oh, nothing explains anything! Zizi,
you’ve no idea what I suffer! I wonder I keep my mind! Just think of a
woman who never had to decide a question for herself, if she didn’t want
to,—who never had a care or responsibility that she didn’t assume of her
own accord,—who had a husband to care for her, a daughter to love her——”
The poor woman broke down completely, and Zizi had her hands full to ward
off the violent hysterics that attacked her at times.
Meantime, Pennington Wise, convinced of the origin of the green smear on
Zizi’s frock, was starting forth to prove his conviction.
Armed only with a powerful flashlight and a good-sized hammer, he went
out to the kitchen and through that to the cellar.
There, he went straight to the old well, and testing the rope as he did
so, he let the bucket down as far as it would go. Then, with monkey-like
agility he began to clamber down,—partly supported by clinging to the
rope, partly by getting firm footholds on the old stones that lined the
well.
Scarcely had he started, when he experimentally drew his hand across the
stones, and by his flashlight perceived a green smear, the counterpart of
that on Zizi’s frock. Also, the counterpart of that on Martha’s hand.
Yet, the dead girl could scarcely have been in the well! So,—her
assailant must have been.
However, he went on investigating.
He noted carefully the walls as he descended, and it was not until he
almost reached the bottom of the dried-up old well, that he noticed
anything strange.
All of the wall was very rough and uneven but here was what appeared to
be a distinct hole, roughly filled in with loose stones.
Standing now on the bottom of the well, slippery with moisture but no
water above his shoe soles, he used his hammer to dislodge these stones,
working carefully and slowly, but with a certainty of success.
“Fool that I was,” he chattered to himself, “not to come down here the
very first thing! To trust to Zizi was all right,—the kid couldn’t notice
this place,—but I had no business to trust that half-baked sheriff or his
man!”
His work soon disclosed the fact that the loose stones apparently closed
the mouth of a deep hole.
When all that were loose had been either pulled out or pushed in, he
found there was an aperture large enough to permit a man’s body to pass
through, and without hesitation, he scrambled through it.
His flashlight showed him that almost from the start the hole widened
until it became a fair-sized tunnel. Crawling along this for a hundred
yards or so, he heard the splash of water, and soon he no longer needed
his flashlight, as daylight streamed in through a narrow fissure in the
rock.
It was fortunate for Wise that it did, for just ahead the tunnel
descended sharply, and at the bottom, what was evidently the surf was
surging in from the ocean.
It was quite dark below, and being unable to progress further, Wise
backed out of the tunnel, it wasn’t wide enough to turn around in, and
reaching the well again, he ascended to the surface.
He went to his room, looked with satisfaction on the numerous smears of
green and brown that disfigured his suit,—which he had taken care should
be an old one.
No one knew what he had done, nor did any one know his destination when,
half an hour later, he set off for the village.
He went to the inn and inquired where he could get the best motor boat
that could be hired.
A suitable one was found and its owner agreed to take Wise on an
exploring expedition at the next low tide. This would not be until the
following morning, so the detective went back to Headland House.
Then, he concentrated all his efforts and attention on the subject of the
moving picture film that had been said to portray Betty Varian.
“Rod Granniss vows it was really Betty,” Zizi insisted.
“He ought to know,” said Wise. “A man in love with a girl doesn’t mistake
her identity. Besides, it’s quite on the cards, Ziz. Say Betty is
confined somewhere,—say she is let out for a little exercise in care of a
jailer, of course,—say there’s a M. P. contraption taking a picture of a
crowd,—they often do,—pick up stray passers-by you know, and say, Betty
somehow got into the picture——”
“Oh, the jailer, as you call him, wouldn’t let her!”
“More likely a woman in charge of her. And, maybe a woman not averse to
taking the few dollars those people pay to actors who just make up a
crowd. Well, say that happened, and then Betty, not daring to speak
aloud, made her lips form the words ‘I am Betty Varian,’ in the hope that
among a few thousands of lip readers in the country one might strike
twelve!”
“Nobody could be so clever as all that, Pen!”
“She might be on a chance inspiration. Anyway, how else can you explain
it?”
“Why, anybody might have said that, who wasn’t Betty at all.”
“But why? What would be the sense of it? and why would such a thing occur
to anybody but Betty?”
“If it’s true,—then you can find her! Surely you can track down a moving
picture company!”
“Oh, it isn’t that! It’s tracking down the place where Betty is
confined,—and—doing it while she is still alive. You see, Zizi, those
ransom letters are true bills, and the villains have nearly reached the
end of their patience.”
“Then why don’t you approve of Mrs Varian’s throwing the money over the
cliff?”
“I may advise her to do it by Friday night,—if nothing happens in the
meantime.”
“But look here, Penny,” Zizi said, after a thoughtful moment, “if your
theory is the right one, why didn’t Betty scream out, ‘I am Betty
Varian!’ and take a chance that somebody in the crowd would rescue her?”
“It would seem a natural thing to do, unless the girl had been so cowed
by threats of punishment or even torture if she made any outcry when
allowed to go for a walk. I’m visualizing that girl as kept in close
confinement, but not in any want or discomfort. She is most likely
treated well as to food, rooms and all that, but is not allowed to step
out of doors except with a strict guard and under some terrible penalty
if she attempts to make herself known. With Betty’s love of fresh air and
sunshine she would agree to almost anything to get out of doors. Then,
too, if she merely formed those words without sound, the chance of their
being read by a lip reader was really greater than the chance of doing
any good by crying out aloud.
“Had she done that, whoever had her in charge would have whisked her away
at once, and no one would have paid any attention to the slight
disturbance.”
“It’s all perfectly logical and, oh, I hope Rodney gets some clue to the
place where the picture was taken.”
“I hope so, Ziz, but they’ve probably moved Betty away from there by
now.”
“Did you find out, Penny, what that stain on my frock was?”
“I did.”
“Well?”
“Yes, my dear, you’ve struck it! You got that stain while you were down
the well.”
“Oh,” Zizi’s eyes lighted up; “of course I did! Those damp, mossy stones.
And, then, oh, Wise one, just how did the same stain get on Martha’s
hand?”
“That, Zizi,” Wise spoke almost solemnly, “is part of the solution of the
whole great mystery.”