“Jest’s you like,” said Potter. “Next, I’ll investigate for myself the absence of this girl. A mysterious disappearance is as serious a matter as a mysterious death, – maybe, more so.”
“That’s true,” agreed Varian. “I hope you’ll be able to find my niece, for she must be found.”
“Easy enough to say she must be found, – the trick is to find her.”
“Have you any theory of the crime, Mr Potter?” Landon asked.
“Theory? No, I don’t deal in theories. I may say it looks to me like the girl may have shot her father, but it only looks that way because there’s no other way, so far, for it to look. You can’t suspect a criminal that you ain’t had any hint of, can you? If anybody, now, turns up who’s seen a man prowling round – or seen any mysterious person, or if any servant is found who, say, didn’t go to the circus, but hung behind, or – ”
“But if there’s any such, they or he must be in the house now,” Bill said, quietly. “Let’s go and see.”
The two started from the room and Landon, after a glance at Doctor Varian, followed them.
“I don’t see,” Landon said to Potter as they went to the kitchen, “why you folks in authority always seem to think it necessary to take an antagonistic attitude toward the people who are representing the dead man! You act toward Doctor Varian as if you more than half suspected he had a hand in the crime himself!”
“Not that, my boy,” and Potter looked at him gravely; “but that doctor brother knows more than he’s telling.”
“That’s not so! I know. I came up here to the house with him. I was with him when he found his brother’s body – ”
“Oh, you were! Why didn’t you say so?”
“You didn’t ask me. No, I don’t know anything more. I’ve nothing to tell that can throw any possible light, but I do know that Doctor Varian had no hand in it and knows no more about it than I do.”
“Good land, I don’t mean that he killed his brother, – I know better than that. But he wasn’t frank about the relations between the girl and her father. Do you know that they were all right? Friendly, I mean?”
“So far as I know, they were. But I never met them until today. I can only say that they acted like any normal, usual father and daughter.”
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. It’ll all come out, – that sort of thing. Now to find the girl.”
CHAPTER V
The Yellow Pillow
“What’s this pillow doing here?” the sheriff asked, as he picked up the yellow satin cushion. “This looks to me like a parlor ornament.”
“I thought it was strange, too,” returned Landon. “But I can’t see any clue in it, can you?”
“Anything unusual may prove a clue,” said Potter, sententiously. “You never saw this pillow before, Mr Landon.”
“No; but I’m not familiar with the house at all. Maybe it’s a discarded one, handed down to the servants’ use.”
“Doesn’t look so; it’s fresh and new, and very handsome.”
“Lay it aside and come on,” growled Bill Dunn, who was alertly looking about the kitchen. “You can ask the family about that later. Let’s go down cellar.”
To the cellar they went, Landon following. He had a notion that he might help the family’s interests by keeping at the heels of these detectives.
But the most careful search revealed nothing of importance to their quest.
Until Potter said, suddenly, “What’s this? A well?”
“It sure is,” and Bill Dunn peered over an old well curb and looked down.
“A well in a cellar! How queer!” exclaimed Landon. “I never heard of such a thing.”
“Uncommon, but I’ve known of ’em,” said Bill “Looks promising, eh?”
Potter considered. “It may mean something,” he said, thoughtfully. “We’ll have to sound it, somehow.”
“Sound it, nothin’!” said the executive Bill; “I’ll go down.”
“How?” Potter asked him. “There’s no bucket. It’s probably a dried up well.”
“Prob’ly,” and Bill nodded. He already had one foot over the broken old well curb.
“Wait, for heaven’s sake!” cried Landon. “Don’t jump down! You must have a light.”
“Got one,” and Bill drew a small flashlight from his pocket.
With the agility of a monkey he clambered down the side of the old well. The stones were large and not smoothly fitted, so that he had little trouble in gaining and keeping his foothold.
The others watched him as he descended and at last reached the bottom.
“Nothing at all,” he called up. “I’m coming back.”
“Just an old dried up well,” he reported, as he reached them again. “Must ’a’ dried up long ago. No water in it for years, most likely. But there’s nothin’ else down there, neither. No body, nor no clues of any sort. Whatever became of that girl, she ain’t down that well.”
All parts of the cellar were subjected to the same thorough search.
Landon was amazed at the quickness and efficiency shown by these men whom he had thought rather stupid at first.
Cupboards were poked into to their furthest corners; bins were raked; boxes opened, and Bill even climbed up to scan a swinging shelf that hung above his head.
“How about secret passages?” Potter asked, when they had exhausted all obvious hiding places.
“I been thinkin’ about that,” Bill returned, musingly; “but, so far, I can’t see where there could be any. This isn’t the sort of house that has ’em, either. It’s straightforward architecture, – that’s what it is, – straightforward.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Landon, interested in this strange man who looked so ignorant, yet was in some ways so well informed.
“Well, you see, there’s no unexpected juts or jambs. Everything’s four-square, mostly. You can see where the rooms above are, – you can see where the closets and stairs fit in and all that. There’s no concealed territory like, – no real chance for a secret passage, – at least not so far’s I see.”
“That’s right,” agreed Potter. “Bill’s the man when it comes to architecture and building plans. Well, – let’s get along upstairs, then.”
Going through the kitchen again, Potter picked up the yellow pillow and took it along with him. Quite evidently it belonged to a sofa in the large, square front hall. The upholstery fabric was the same, and there was a corresponding pillow already at one end of the sofa.
“Queer thing,” Potter said; “how’d that fine cushion get on the kitchen floor?”
“It is queer,” Landon assented, “but I can’t see any meaning in it, can you?”
“Not yet,” returned Potter. “Now, Doctor Varian,” and he turned to the physician who sat with bowed head beside his brother’s body, “I dessay the undertakers’ll be coming along soon. You see them and make plans for the funeral; while Bill and I go on over this house. Then, we’ll have to see the rest of the people who were around at the time of the – the tragedy.”
“Not Mrs Frederick Varian,” said Herbert, “you can’t see her. I forbid that, as her physician.”
“Well, we’ll see your wife first, and then, we’ll have to see the folks that went back to the village. And there’s the servants