"Probably, but not until I've exhausted all the different possibilities of this one."
Zizi showed her disappointment at the failure of her plan, but, after some further talk on general subjects, she went back to the Cranes'.
"Well, Ziz," Wise said to her, as they discussed the case alone, "we're not making our usual rapid headway this time. Rather baffling, isn't it?"
"Everything seems to point to Thorpe, except that I can't think he had motive enough. That foolish jealousy of the plans and suspicion of Blair's stealing his ideas isn't enough to make him commit murder."
"I don't think he did do it, but I can't agree with you that it wasn't a big enough motive. You don't know how the artistic temperament resents anything like that. Nor how it imagines and exaggerates the least hint of it. I think his motive is the strongest point against Thorpe. Who else had any motive at all?"
"That's what we have to find out. And we're going to do it. And, I say, Penny, I want to go to see that medium person the Cranes are so fond of."
"Think she'll help you?"
"Yes, though not by her spiritism. But I suspect she's one big fraud, and I want to be sure."
"Come along, then. No time like the present. Mr. Crane can arrange a session for us."
To Madame Parlato's they went, and soon had the pleasure of seeing that lady in one of her trances.