“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?”