“Good work,” he said, it seemed, exultingly. “When I first found the cave a year ago, I began to plan how I could get the Varians to take this house. They little thought I brought it about through the real estate people——”
“Never mind all that,” Wise urged him, “where’s Betty?”
“Betty? ah, yes,—Betty——” His mind seemed to wander again and Varian gave him a few drops more stimulant.
“Get it out of him,” he said to the detective, “this will lose all efficacy in another few moments. He is going.”
“Going, am I?” and North was momentarily alert. “All right, Doc, I’ll go and my secret will go with me.”
“Where is Betty?” Wise leaned over the miserable wretch, as if he would drag the secret from him by sheer will power.
But the other’s will power matched his own.
“Betty,” he said,—“oh, yes, Betty. Really, my wife’s daughter, you know,—my step-daughter,—I had a right to her, didn’t I——”
“‘Step’!” Wise cried, “Step, that you signed to those letters was short for Stepfather!”
“Yes, of course; my wife didn’t mean to tell me that story,—didn’t know she did,—she babbled in her sleep, and I got it out of her by various hints and allusions. Mrs Varian never knew, so I bled the old man. My, he was in a blue funk whenever I attacked him about it!”