CHAPTER IV

Unwelcome Visitors

“Oh dear! I wasn’t quite quick enough,” Lois complained as she gave the steering wheel another turn.

Judy and Lorraine had gotten out of the car to direct her as she turned the car around. Now it refused to budge, spattering mud as the wheels spun. The two men came nearer, shouting and waving their arms.

All at once Judy recognized one of them as Roger Banning. His light hair emphasized the angry flush that covered his face.

“What are you girls doing here?” he demanded. “Can’t you read?”

“Oh dear! I wasn’t quick enough.”

Lois had an answer for that. She spoke fearlessly in spite of her predicament.

“You should know, Roger. You went to school with us. I should think you’d help instead of yelling at us. One little push on the back of the car ought to do it. Please!”

“Go ahead, help her,” the huskier man said.

With that Roger and the other man almost lifted the car back on the road where it was soon turned in the other direction. Lois smiled sweetly as she thanked them.

“Are you friends of the Brandts?” she asked.

“That’s not the point,” Roger Banning retorted. “You and your girl friends are trespassing on private property.”

“I can explain why we came here if you’ll listen,” Judy put in quietly. “When we started on this trip we thought the Brandts still lived here. Lois knows Helen Brandt from school. We thought she’d be glad to show us around the estate.”

“You did, eh? Well, nobody gets shown around this estate. Now get going!”

“Wait a minute. Don’t hurry us.” Judy’s voice was still quiet. “What, exactly, is your objection to showing people around?”

“It ain’t a showplace,” the other man objected.

“It was when the Brandts lived here. We didn’t know they’d sold the estate.”

“They haven’t,” was the reply. “They went to Florida for the winter and leased it to us. Why don’t you drop in for a call after they get back?”

“Watch it, Cubby,” Roger Banning warned him. “I wouldn’t be handing out any invitations if I were you. I recognize this girl now. She’s Judy Bolton, or was, before she married that smart young lawyer, Peter Dobbs. Her brother’s that pasty-faced newspaper reporter they call the hero of the Roulsville flood. Dr. Bolton’s on the staff at Farringdon Hospital and that’s where these kids will wind up if you let—”

“Watch it yourself,” the heavy-set young man called Cubby interrupted.

They both glared at her, waiting for her to explain herself further. But what could she say? Her wide gray eyes must have told them she was baffled.

Lorraine was not saying a word. As she shielded her face with her hands she looked like a poor, frightened bird trying to hide under its own wing.

“She’s really in trouble,” thought Judy, “and these men know something about it.”

Determined to find out something herself, she faced them unflinchingly. It was Lois who finally apologized for the intrusion, explaining that she had been a guest of the Brandts several times and felt sure they wouldn’t mind if she and her friends had just one more look at the fountain.

“Fountain! What fountain?” Roger Banning laughed derisively. “There’s no fountain on the estate and never has been. You girls have taken the wrong road if you’re looking for a fountain.”

“I don’t think we have,” Lois told him calmly.

“What about the tower?” asked Judy. “We noticed what looks like a water tower over there in the woods. Isn’t it used to store water for the fountain?”

“It is no longer in use. Now will you leave?”

“I think we’d better,” Lorraine whispered, pulling Judy toward the car.

It seemed the only thing to do. The two young men who had made up what Judy called the “unwelcoming committee” watched them as they drove off down the road. When they were nearly to the main highway Lois laughed and said, “If they think they’ve scared us away they’re greatly mistaken. I’ll hide the car the way Lorraine suggested. It wasn’t such a bad idea after all.”

Judy helped her find a secluded place just beyond the entrance to the estate. Apparently people had picnicked there in the summertime. A big evergreen tree with branches dipping to the ground hid the car from view while the girls planned their next strategy.

“We’ll find that fountain if it’s the last thing we do,” declared Judy. “The idea of telling us it doesn’t exist! You girls both saw it, didn’t you?”

“That—that was years ago,” Lorraine said. “They—they could have torn it down or something.”

“I don’t believe they did. We just drove past the path without seeing it,” Lois declared.

“It will be easier to find if we walk back. Let’s do it,” Judy suggested. “We should have walked up to the estate in the first place. Then they wouldn’t have heard us coming.”

“But suppose they see us?” Lorraine objected, holding back.

“They won’t bite—if you mean those two overgrown schoolboys,” Judy said. “Anyway, I don’t believe they have any more right on the estate than we have. They weren’t necessarily telling the truth about it. Do you know the other one, Lois?”

“Cubby? No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“What about the third character, the one who passed us in the car?”

“I never saw him before,” declared Lois. “Did you, Lorraine?”

Her silence was answer enough. She had seen him before, but she was afraid to say so. If he lived on the estate, Judy decided it might be a good idea for them to do their exploring before he returned.

“I wouldn’t care to have him catch us, would you?” she questioned.

Lorraine finally agreed to Judy’s plan, and they started back up the narrow road. They had not walked far when they came to the sign that Lois had chosen to ignore the first time.

NO TRESPASSING, it warned them in big black letters.ALL PERSONS ARE FORBIDDEN TO ENTER THESE PREMISES UNDER PENALTY OF THE LAW.

“We can’t walk right past it,” Lorraine objected as they stopped to read the sign.

“I don’t see why not. We drove right past it,” Lois returned with a defiant toss of her head. “Who cares about their old sign, anyway? I’m sure the Brandts wouldn’t forbid us to come here. They may even thank us for it.”

These puzzling words only partially convinced Lorraine. But Judy was beginning to enjoy the adventure. She studied theNO TRESPASSINGsign a moment more and then began to laugh.

“It saysALL PERSONS,” she told her friends as they walked deliberately past it, searching for the path to the fountain. “Whoispermitted to enter, I wonder—ghosts?”

“Spirits, maybe, like the one that spoke to you,” Lois said with a shiver.

“Then the fountain wouldn’t be enchanted at all. It would behaunted,” declared Lorraine.

And suddenly she held back, afraid.

Forbidden Ground

“Come on, Lorraine,” urged Lois. “We were only joking. You know there’s really no such thing as a haunted fountain. And perhaps they really have torn it down.”

“I haven’t been here since that day I came with my grandparents, but we won’t find out by just standing here,” declared Judy. “I think those men had some reason for telling us the fountain didn’t exist, and I mean to find out what it was. I should have brought Blackberry along. He was my excuse for exploring the ruined castle. I was supposed to be looking for my cat.”

“What did you do with him?” Lois questioned.

“Blackberry?” Judy gave a little gasp. “I am careless! I do believe I left him shut in the attic, but Peter will rescue him when he comes home.”

“We may need him to rescue us if those men find out what we’re up to. What time do you expect him?” Lorraine wanted to know.

“He said he might be late and suggested that I spend the night with Mother and Dad,” replied Judy. “I didn’t ask him why. You know Peter doesn’t want me to get myself involved in any of his cases. I don’t even know what sort of assignments he has any more. The Bureau is so secret about it.”

“Well, we can be secret about this investigation, too. How do we know those men aren’t criminals hiding out here while the Brandts are away?” asked Lois.

“Roger Banning isn’t a criminal,” Lorraine objected.

“His pal, Dick Hartwell, was. Remember?”

“Wasn’t there something in the paper about him being out on parole?” asked Lorraine. “I don’t think we should label him a criminal if he is. Probably he has a good job and is no more inclined toward crime than we are. After all, we are trespassing.”

“I don’t care if we are,” Lois said recklessly as they trudged on.

It seemed a long way uphill to the part of the estate where Judy felt sure the path branched off and led toward the fountain.

“Watch for it! We don’t want to miss it. Maybe we ought to look for it on the other side of that hedge,” she suggested.

“How can we?” asked Lois.

“We’ll go back to where the hedge begins,” declared Judy. “It’s the only way.”

“We’ll be all afternoon finding it,” complained Lorraine. “Maybe the fountain isn’t haunted, but it is creepy here in the woods. You know, Judy, I’ve missed most of your shivery adventures. I wouldn’t be so interested in this one if it didn’t directly concern me.”

Judy didn’t see how, but she was curious. She waited until they were well concealed behind the hedge. It was safer, just in case someone did drive up the road. Then she turned to Lorraine and said as casually as she could, “That’s so. Lois did say you had a problem. What is it, Lorraine? Don’t you want to tell me about it?”

Apparently she didn’t. Nobody spoke for a minute. Then Lois said, “She won’t even tell me. I just know something is wrong from the way she acts.”

“I didn’t say anything was,” Lorraine protested.

“You did say something about not being able to trust Arthur,” Judy reminded her. “Do you still want to turn back the clock so that things will be the way they were before you quarreled?”

“We didn’t quarrel,” Lorraine retorted quickly.

“Maybe you should,” Judy began. “Peter and I do occasionally. Dad says it’s good for us. He says it clears the air, and we do love each other all the more after we make up. If you’d tell Arthur about this problem—”

“Please,” Lorraine stopped her. “Can’t you see the way it is? If I could tell him or anyone else about it, then it wouldn’t be a problem. I just want to believe in things the way I did when I was a little girl. I mean impossible things like wishes coming true.”

“But they do come true if you work at it. Mine did,” Judy reassured her.

Lorraine started to say something more, but broke off suddenly as Lois stumbled into what she felt sure must be the path.

“You were right, Judy!” she cried excitedly. “They’ve concealed it on purpose. We couldn’t possibly have seen it from the road. There isn’t a break in the hedge.”

The path didn’t look very much as Judy remembered it, but she agreed that it might not have been used recently.

“Anyway,” she said, “it’s going in the right direction. We should pass the tower and then come to a rock garden with statues—what’s this?”

A fence with barbed wire running from post to post was directly across the path.

“Shall we crawl under it?” asked Lois.

“We might climb over it,” Judy suggested. “The wires seem loose. I’ll hold them down.”

“Wait! They’re electric!”

The warning from Lois came just too late. Without noticing the white insulators attached to it, Judy had put her hand on the top wire. Quickly she drew back with a sharp cry of pain.

“Don’t touch those wires!” she warned Lorraine. “I guess they mean that sign back there. This fence is charged with electricity. It gave me quite a shock.”

“I burned my hand—almost,” Lois corrected herself as she looked and saw no burn. “It felt like it, but I guess those wires aren’t really deadly.”

“Ihopenot.” Lorraine turned to Judy and asked a little plaintively, “What do we do now?”

“I have an idea,” Judy replied, looking around for a forked stick. When she had found one of just the right size she was able to hold back the wires without receiving any more electric shocks. As soon as Lois and Lorraine had crawled under the fence, she gave them the stick to hold for her.

“Now,” she announced, standing erect and brushing herself off, “we’re really on forbidden ground.”

All three girls followed the path beyond the fence. White statues, like white ghosts, loomed up in unexpected places. Over to the left was the tower. Lois glanced at it and then shivered.

“It gives me the creeps,” she confessed. “Do you think somebody could be up there watching us?”

“I don’t see how,” replied Judy. “The tower has no windows.”

“There may be a stairway inside. Look!” Lois suddenly exclaimed. “There’s a broken statue.”

It was a cupid-like figure with the head broken off at the neck. Judy didn’t see it until Lois pointed it out. There it lay beside the marble base that had once supported it. A little farther along the path its head grinned up from a thicket. Lorraine saw it first and uttered a piercing scream.

“Sh!” Judy warned her. “You don’t want Roger Banning and his heavyweight friend to follow us, do you? It’s only a piece of that broken statue.”

“I know. I guess I’m nervous,” Lorraine confessed.

“There’s no need to be,” Lois put in. “You can see this part of the estate is deserted. Lots of old showplaces like this are going to pieces. We may find they were telling the truth about there not being any fountain. People just don’t go to the expense of keeping up these big estates.”

Judy didn’t think this was true of the Brandts. Everyone knew Mr. Brandt had made millions with his chain of department stores. He might employ a caretaker for the estate in his absence, but she didn’t really think he would lease it.

“Except, of course, to friends,” she added.

“The Bannings could have been friends. It’stheirfriends who worry me,” Lorraine admitted.

“That one we met in the car when you hid your face?” Lois questioned. “You were afraid of him. I could see that.”

“I just didn’t want him to recognize me,” Lorraine said, and quickly changed the subject.

They had reached the rose trellis, now bare of roses. It, too, had been broken. A bird bath Judy remembered leaned at an angle. She found a tree with a hook in the trunk and cried out excitedly, “This is the hook that held one end of the hammock. Now I know exactly how I walked to reach the fountain. I should think you could hear it from here. I did then.”

She stood for a moment listening and then walked on, growing more puzzled by the minute. Lois and Lorraine followed. It was a strange walk. Everything was familiar and yet oddly different. Not a sound could be heard except the crunch of their own footsteps along the path toward the fountain.

“Where is it?” Lorraine whispered. “It was here.”

“Yes, it was,” agreed Lois, “but that was in the summer. It’s winter now. Maybe they turned it off for fear the pipes would freeze or something.”

“That must be it. I can see the circle of cement,” announced Judy. “There should be steps going up to it. We can explore what used to be the fountain. We may find a clue to my old mystery!”

A Diamond Clue

“A clue, did you say? Now we’re looking for clues,” Lois said with a laugh as she followed Judy toward what they now felt almost sure was the broken and deserted fountain.

“It’s a shame, isn’t it?” asked Judy. “It used to be so beautiful.”

“You remember it in the summer,” Lois reminded her again. “Now it’s winter. Things naturally change with the changing seasons.”

“Not this much,” Judy objected. “It isn’t the same at all. There should be steps—”

“There are!” Lois interrupted.

Lorraine found them and almost bumped into one of the stone lions beside them. He seemed to have a startled expression on his face.

“You should have said, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Lion!’” Lois teased her.

“This is the fountain all right,” declared Judy. “Those stone lions used to have water spurting out of their mouths. Now there’s nothing but a rusty old water pipe.”

“So that’s what gives Mr. Lion such a startled expression?” Lois cocked her head to one side and made a face at the statue.

“Is that Mrs. Lion on the other side?” asked Judy. “They look exactly alike. There should be eight of them guarding the four flights of steps leading up to the pool. I remember running up and down those steps and meeting all the lions. Shall we do it again?”

“Let’s!” cried Lois, seizing Judy’s hand.

“Wait!” urged Lorraine. “Stop acting like children. I think there’s still a little water in the main fountain, and if there is, I intend to make my wish.”

“Sowe’reacting like children?”

Lois looked at Judy and giggled, but Lorraine was serious. She walked sedately up the steps to the circular pool and peered over the edge.

“You can’t wish,” Judy called, “unless you shed a tear. The spirit said so.”

“The spirit is gone, and so is most of the water,” declared Lois.

“All the better for exploring. I would like to see what’s over there. Do you think I can make it?” asked Judy.

“You can try,” Lois told her. “We’ll follow you if you don’t get your feet wet.”

“I won’t. I wore my rubbers. Anyway, there’s a thin coating of ice over what little water there is left in the pool. I’ll just skate over to the center fountain and have a look.”

It was not quite as easy as it sounded. Judy had some difficulty climbing over the edge of the pool and sliding down into its nearly dry bottom. The ice turned out to be nothing but melting slush from an earlier snowfall. She waded through it to the smaller circle of cement immediately surrounding the pedestal which was ornamented with cupids. At their feet she found a pool that had not been drained. A cap that looked like the nozzle of a watering pot covered another rusty waterpipe that seemed to be clogged with dead leaves. Judy peered into a cave behind the cupids, trying to see what was there.

“What have you found?” called Lois, seeing something in Judy’s hand.

“A sprinkler, I guess. There’s a cave that seems to go down underneath the fountain. I can’t see anything in it but rusty pipes. Could the spirit voice have come from there?”

“It seems logical, doesn’t it?”

“You sound like Peter,” laughed Judy. “There’s nothing logical about a spirit that lives in a fountain. I’m a little disappointed that it’s all so ordinary, now. Maybe we shouldn’t have come.”

“Let’s go then,” Lorraine suggested. “I can’t wish if there isn’t any water—”

“There is a little. I don’t know why it wouldn’t work just as well, especially if you shed a tear.”

“I can’t turn my tears on and off like a faucet,” Lorraine objected. “Couldn’t we throw in a coin or something?”

“People toss coins in wishing wells. Shall we try it?” asked Lois.

“Come on over and try it if you think it will do any good,” Judy invited them.

“It does seem a shame to throw perfectly good money away. Would a penny do?” Lois asked after she had helped Lorraine across. “I suppose you have to feel enchanted.”

“I did.” Judy stopped and listened. “Do you hear anything? Maybe the voice will still speak to us if we’re perfectly quiet.”

“Out of a dry fountain? Oh, Judy!” Lorraine cried. “I did so want to wish. It’s the only thing left to do.”

“Why?” asked Lois.

“That’s what everybody keeps asking,” Lorraine replied in a rush of sudden emotion. “Why? Why? And I keep asking myself the same question. Maybe it was silly of me to think I could wish away a problem as serious as this, but I have to do something. I can’t go on like this, holding it all back and pretending—”

“Then don’t hold it back. Tell us, dear!” Judy urged her.

“Oh, if only I could! If only I could cry my heart out and tell you everything!” sobbed Lorraine.

And suddenly, as she leaned over the little pool that was left around the fountain she did shed a tear that splashed in the water and made ripples all around the spot where it fell.

“Wish! Wish!” Judy and Lois cried both together.

They were so excited that they heard only part of what Lorraine whispered into the fountain.

“... it wasn’t Arthur,” the wish ended and then, as the ripples vanished, Lorraine sobbed, “Oh, but it was! It was! How can I keep on loving him if I can’t trust him? Judy, could you love Peter if—if you thought he was a—acheat? Could you?”

“I wouldn’t think it—even with proof. I mean it,” declared Judy. “I’ve learned my lesson. Once I did doubt him, and then when I found out what was really happening I was so ashamed. No matter what happened now, I’d keep on trusting him because I love him, and loving him because I trust him. The two go together—”

“It looks—like a diamond!” gasped Judy

Suddenly Judy stopped speaking. She had been idly dabbling her hand in the pool as she talked. Now she felt something small and hard at the bottom. “Like a small gravel stone,” she thought as she took it between her thumb and forefinger to examine it.

“Have you found another clue?” asked Lois. “What is it this time?”

“It looks—like a diamond!” gasped Judy. “But it can’t be. What would a diamond be doing in an old deserted fountain?”

“It could be a piece of ice,” Lorraine ventured.

“A frozen tear, perhaps,” Lois put in whimsically. “Maybe the tear you shed, Lorraine, turned into a diamond. Maybe there are more diamonds in the pool. Maybe we’ll walk home with our hands full—”

“We’ll walk home dripping wet if we aren’t careful! The fountain is beginning to bubble!” cried Lorraine as she seized her friend’s hand and pulled her away from the water. Judy stood spellbound watching the transformation as if a miracle had taken place. Finally Lois expressed the obvious.

“Someone has turned it on!”

“Someone in the tower,” guessed Judy.

“Or down underneath,” Lorraine whispered. “Judy, I’m scared. This was planned, somehow. I think we’re being watched!”

A Moaning Cry

“This is a real diamond,” declared Judy.

She brought her find over to the edge of the pool to examine it more closely. Then she turned to gaze in wonder at the fountain.

Soon it was not only bubbling. It was sending great sprays of water in all directions—from the center of the high pedestal, from the cupid-like creatures that held it, over the cave behind them and from the mouths of the eight stone lions that guarded the four flights of steps going down from the fountain.

“It’s beautiful!” breathed Judy. Then, in a louder voice, she called to her friends, who were huddled together over by the yew hedge. “See how fast the pool is filling up! Now the little pool where I foundthe diamond has vanished and everything looks just the way I remember it. Even the cupids look alive now that they’re all wet and shiny.”

“It’s haunted with all sorts of queer noises,” cried Lorraine. “Don’t stand so close to it, Judy. You may get wet.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” she replied, still under the spell of the fountain.

A little of the spray had wet her coat and covered her hair with a mist that made it cling to her forehead in damp, red ringlets. She brushed them back with a laugh and turned again to listen.

“I’m all right. This warm coat protects me,” she began.

“From the water, yes! But are any of us protected from those men back there?” asked Lois.

“We’ve been seen. I know we have!” Lorraine’s voice was almost hysterical. “Somebody saw us and turned on the fountain full force!”

“Look at the way it sparkles and dances as if it were filled with diamonds!” Judy exclaimed. “You two girls may be used to fountains, but I’m not. This one does something to me.”

“Me, too,” Lorraine said with a shiver. “It scares me. Come on away from it, Judy. We ought to be going home.”

Judy, still reluctant to leave, walked around the fountain to where they were. As she came nearer Lois said, “Look at your hand, Judy! You didn’t lose the diamond out of your engagement ring, did you? That could be the diamond you found in the fountain.”

Judy checked quickly, but the diamond in her ring was intact. She had lost it once, but that was another mystery. Now the new prongs held it securely. It was about the size of the stone she had found. Comparing the two as well as she could in the fading daylight, Judy now felt certain of her discovery.

“This is a clue to something,” she declared, tying the diamond she had found in the corner of her handkerchief for safekeeping. “You girls weren’t wearing diamonds, were you?”

“I wasn’t,” Lois replied.

“My ring isn’t a diamond. It’s a ruby,” Lorraine began and then broke off abruptly, hiding her hand.

“But you aren’t wearing it!” Judy exclaimed. “Where is that gorgeous big ruby Arthur gave you, Lorraine? I’ve never seen you without it before.”

“Neither have I. What have you done with it?” asked Lois. “You haven’t lost it, have you?”

“I guess—I must have,” Lorraine explained lamely.

“Where? In the fountain? Then we’ll hunt for it,” declared Judy.

“I’m sure it isn’t in the fountain,” Lorraine said hurriedly. “Besides, it’s growing dark. If we don’t leave now we won’t be able to find the path.”

“But we can’t go without your ring,” Lois protested.

“Of course not,” agreed Judy. “Where do you think you lost it?”

“Maybe itwasin the fountain? Oh dear!” Lois lamented. “Now the water is on we won’t be able to look for it. That fountain must attract jewels—”

“Or tears,” Lorraine said, “but it doesn’t matter. We wouldn’t find it there, anyway.”

“Why wouldn’t we? Do you know where you lost it?”

“Did you take it off?”

“Was it loose on your finger?”

Judy and Lois were both firing questions at Lorraine. They were questions that she seemed unable to answer. Finally she admitted that she had removed the ring from her finger on purpose.

“Why?” demanded Lois. “I don’t think that was fair to Arthur.”

“I don’t either,” agreed Judy.

“But I did it for him,” Lorraine protested.

“You did what? Took off your ring? Why?” asked Judy. “How could that help him?”

“I can’t tell you,” Lorraine said stiffly. “Please don’t ask me anything more about it. We’ve all behaved like children today—me with my wishes and you with your pretending. If that is a diamond you found, Judy, it’s no frozen tear.”

“I know,” Judy admitted. “It belongs to someone, I suppose, and we’ll have to report it. I remember how I felt when my diamond was lost. Someone else may be feeling the same way.”

“If we report it,” Lois said, “we’ll have to report the fact that we were trespassing. I’d rather find out who lost it some other way.”

“We could advertise.” Judy brightened at the thought. “We could tell Horace—”

“And have him spread our little adventure all over the front page of the paper. Oh, no, you don’t,” Lorraine objected. “I’ve seen what happened to other stories you told your brother. Besides, I don’t want my father to know. He’s editor, and he’ll look into any story that has my name in it.”

“I didn’t think of that,” Judy admitted. “What I can’t understand, Lorraine, is why you took off your ring—”

“Look,” Lorraine interrupted, “can’t we just forget it? My ring is gone. It’s been gone for several days if you must know. I’ll get it back somehow.”

“How?” asked Judy.

“Wishing, maybe. I don’t know how else.”

“Do you mean someone’s stolen it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you implied it.”

Judy soon discovered her questions were leading her nowhere. It was all very confusing. The diamond she had found and the ring Lorraine had lost seemed to be clues to something, but she couldn’t figure out what.

“Maybe the fountain will tell us where it is,” Judy was beginning with a laugh when suddenly they all heard a low moan. It seemed to come directly from the fountain.

“Wh-hat was that?” gasped Lois.

Lorraine had turned pale.

“Sh!” Judy cautioned them.

If the fountain had anything to say, she wanted to hear it. A chill came over her as she waited. Lois and Lorraine huddled together, shivering. The moan came a second time and with it the long drawn-out words, “Go-oo a-wa-ay!”

“He doesn’t need to tell me twice. I’m going!” declared Lois. “Come on, Judy! Why are you standing there?”

“I’m not afraid of a voice. If someone is trying to scare us, he will have to think of something more frightening than that. I’m just puzzled. Before, it was a woman—or a girl.”

“What was?” asked Lois and Lorraine both together.

“The voice from the fountain. It wasn’t a man, and it wasn’t moaning. There it is again!”

Thoroughly frightened, Lois and Lorraine rushed ahead of Judy down the path. It was already so dark they had difficulty following it, but the moans that were following them gave wings to their feet. Only Judy was reluctant to leave. She turned to the fountain, as if it were alive, and called, “I’ll be back! I will, too,” she reiterated, catching up with her two friends, who were determined to leave with or without her. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning, and either Horace or Peter or both of them will be with me. I’m not going to let any moaning fountain keep me from finding out what’s going on.”

Lorraine stopped short. They had come to the fence. Now a voice shouted at them from another direction.

“Who’s there? Stop where you are!”

“He’s back!” exclaimed Lorraine, panic-stricken. “That’s the man who passed us in the car! We mustn’t let him stop us!”

“We won’t,” promised Judy, “but I’m afraid we’ll have to stop long enough to protect ourselves from these electric wires. Here’s the stick I used before. I’ll hold them back while you girls crawl under them.”

Lois and Lorraine quickly obeyed. But they did not wait for Judy. Stumbling, falling, picking themselves up and hurrying on, they were out of sight while she was still struggling to get through the fence.

Judy Is Warned

“Having trouble?” a sneering voice inquired.

Judy had managed to prop up the wires and slide under them by herself without receiving a shock. She was about to hurry on when the dark man Lorraine feared approached her. It was not hard to pretend that she, too, had been frightened.

“I—I’m all right now. I—just want to get out of here,” she chattered. “That fountain back there must be haunted. I heard moans coming from it.”

“Is that all you heard?”

“That was enough!” declared Judy, not admitting to any curiosity concerning the moans. “I just want to go—”

“Go, then, and don’t come back!” the man warned. “We don’t want strangers snooping around here.”

Judy was thankful he thought she was a stranger. Apparently he hadn’t seen Lois and Lorraine. As she hurried on, Judy kept telling herself that they wouldn’t leave without her. And yet, when she finally reached the spot where they had parked the car Lois was in the very act of driving away.

“Wait!” shouted Judy. “What kind of friends are you to leave me here after I helped you through the fence? How did you think I would get home?”

“We didn’t think. Oh, Judy! I’m sorry,” Lois apologized. “Are we being followed?”

“No, I don’t think so. He went back up the hill, but not before I had a good look at him. He’s just a man. No horns! He warned me not to come back.”

“You won’t, will you?”

“I’m considering—”

“There isn’t time to consider now. Hop in, Judy,” Lorraine commanded, “if you don’t want us to drive off without you. It would serve you just right for getting us into this.”

Judy hopped in, but she wasn’t happy about leaving. She didn’t like running away from a mystery.

“I got you into it?” she asked when they were on their way. “From the way you’ve been acting, Lorraine, you were in serious trouble before I mentioned the fountain, and I suspect that man back there has something to do with it. I was only trying to help—”

“Well, don’t try any more. It’s no use.”

“Maybe not,” agreed Judy, and changed the subject. “It gets dark so quickly, these December evenings,” she observed. “But it’s still early. See? The lights are still on in the stores,” she added as they drove into Farringdon.

She had planned to spend the night with her mother and go Christmas shopping with her early in the morning. Now she was rapidly changing her plans to include Horace.

“Let me off at the newspaper office,” she said to Lois when they reached Main and Grove Streets. “Horace may be working late. I don’t care what you girls say, I have to at least put a notice about this diamond in the Lost and Found column.”

“I suppose you do,” Lois agreed. “Knowing you, I’m sure you wouldn’t keep it without advertising for the owner.”

“Do you have to mention where you found it?” Lorraine asked anxiously.

“No, but I do have to go back there. Suppose we’re needed? That moan sounded as if the—the fountain hurt somewhere—”

“How could a fountain hurt?” asked Lois.

“The same way it could speak, I suppose. If I knew, I wouldn’t be so eager to explore it. As for your problem, Lorraine,” Judy finished as Loisstopped the car to let her out, “I think it will solve itself if you just trust Arthur and put his ring back on your finger.”

“I would if I could,” Lorraine said sadly. “Good-bye, Judy. We both wish you luck.”

“I’ll need it,” thought Judy as she headed for theHeraldBuilding just opposite the county courthouse where Peter worked. The resident agency of the FBI would be located in the new Post Office as soon as it was completed. The Ace Builders, Arthur’s company, was in charge of construction.

Judy entered the front office where she received permission to hunt up Horace somewhere in back. Finally she found him pecking away at his typewriter and looking immensely dissatisfied with what he had written.

“Hi, sis!” he greeted Judy. “Why so gloomy? You look better in a smile.”

“Thanks, brother of mine,” replied Judy, smiling at him. “I was thinking gloomy thoughts, I guess. For a girl whose wishes come true, I ought to know better. Horace, I have something to tell you.”

“I surmised as much. Well, let’s have it!”

Quickly she told him the story of the fountain, adding the information that their grandparents had been friends of the Brandts.

“That’s where they must have taken you all right,” he agreed, “but what of it? Why should something that happened five or six years ago worry you now?”

“It doesn’t—not any more. It’s something that happened today.”

Horace grinned expectantly.

“Let’s have it then. It’s time for all honest people to stop working, but newspapermen never stop. Things have a way of happening at night. Is what you have to tell me news, by any chance?”

“Not yet,” she replied, “but I think I’m on the trail of something that will be. I only hope it doesn’t happen at night, because I want to go there with you tomorrow morning.”

“Where?” he asked. “Not to that enchanted fountain you were telling me about? That’s for kids. It has to be some place important if I go on the newspaper’s time. Not only that, I have to give a reason for going.”

Judy told him several good reasons, adding that she had been warned to stay away by a mysterious character who seemed to frighten Lorraine.

“He knows Roger Banning and a heavy-set friend of his called Cubby,” she continued. “They apparently live there. They say the Brandts leased the estate to them, but I don’t believe it. They said there wasn’t any fountain, but we found not only a fountain but a diamond in the water. As Lorraine says, it’s no frozen tear. Take a look at it, Horace!” Judy untiedher handkerchief and exhibited the gem. “There!” she finished. “Now is it important? Do you think we should advertise?”

“Not yet. Jeepers, what a piece of ice! Think we can find any more of them scattered around that fountain?”

“We can try. Please go with me,” begged Judy. “You’ll have to think of some excuse—”

“Tell you what,” Horace decided. “I won’t use this story I have in the typewriter. It’s supposed to be a writeup for my ‘Meet Your Neighbor’ column, but now I have another neighbor in mind. This week the readers of theFarringdon Daily Heraldwill meet George Banning, father of Roger. He used to be a plumber, but he must have some more lucrative job now if he can afford to lease the Brandt estate. I’ll just assume he’s somebody important. Think that will get us in?”

Judy smiled. “I think so. A plumber might be employed by the Brandts to repair the fountain, but that doesn’t make sense, either, does it? The fountain was still badly in need of repair.”

On the way home Judy told Horace more about the mysterious fountain and the moaning cry she had heard.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just a noise in the pipes?” Horace asked dubiously.

“It wouldn’t say ‘Go away!’ would it?”

“You might have thought it did. The air would come out with a peculiar sound if someone suddenly turned on the water.”

That, in Horace’s opinion, could account for the “voice” in the fountain. He expounded his theory later around the dinner table. It had holes in it, as Judy soon pointed out to her parents. Dr. Bolton was especially interested in the moan.

“Someone could be in pain. You say you didn’t have time to explore underneath the fountain?”

“We couldn’t, Dad, with the water turned on. I think there is a place to go down behind those cupids that hold the pedestal, but the water shoots right over it. Lorraine acted as if she thought that man she seems so afraid of was trying to drown us. She and Lois almost drove off without me.”

“That was unkind of them,” Mrs. Bolton began in the overly sympathetic tone she sometimes used.

“Oh, Mother! You just don’t understand them,” Judy objected. “They knew each other long before they met me. Besides, we’re—well, different. We don’t care about being proper the way a Farringdon-Pett does. Roger Banning did say a funny thing, though. It was something about Dr. Bolton’s kids winding up as the patients if Cubby would let them. That wasn’t just the way he said it. Dad, what do you think he meant?”

“I don’t know,” the doctor admitted, “but I’ll be at the hospital between eleven and twelve o’clock. Call me there if you need me. Perhaps you’d better call anyway,” he added. “I’m a little worried about this haunted fountain, as you call it. I haven’t forgotten the haunted road. Your ghosts very often need medical care.”

“I see what you mean, Dad.”

Judy had not forgotten the haunted road, either, or her terrifying experience at the end of it. Now she was deep in a new mystery. The spirit of the fountain had not called for help, she reminded her father. The voice had called, “Go away!” She was sure of that.

“Probably it was only one of those boys hiding under the fountain and trying to frighten you,” Mrs. Bolton said. “They might have known they would only whet your curiosity. Have you told Peter about it?”

“I haven’t seen him,” replied Judy. “Has he called?”

Judy’s mother said he hadn’t. “Perhaps you’d better call him,” she added. “Tell him there’s a nice chicken pie I can warm up for him if he hasn’t had dinner.”

“I think he has, Mother. From the way he spoke I think he had plans for the whole evening. But I’ll call, anyway.”Judy dialed the number and soon heard the telephone ringing in her own house in Dry Brook Hollow. It was right beside the door so that she could hurry in and answer it if she happened to be outside. Peter had another outside wire in his den, and there was an extension in their bedroom. Nobody could complain that it took too long to reach the telephone. After six rings Judy decided there was nobody at home.

“Peter may be on his way here. If he is, I hope he let Blackberry out of prison. I think I shut him in the attic by mistake,” confessed Judy. “He was up there playing with my sewing things.”

“Thinks he’s a kitten, does he?” chuckled the doctor. “I wouldn’t worry about him if I were you, Judy girl. Cats have a way of taking care of themselves.”

“Blackberry does. Peter will think the house is haunted if he comes in and hears him rolling spools around up there. He will investigate the noise, and Blackberry will be rescued—like that!” Judy finished and dismissed the matter from her mind.

Back to Index Next