As soon as the commercial was over, the cameras were again on Irene. She stood in front of the curtain.
“The king has issued a decree commanding that every spindle in the kingdom be burnt, but it is no use,” she said sadly. “Fifteen years have passed. The witch’s curse is almost forgotten, but look what’s hidden away in a dusty old room at the top of the castle!”
The curtain opened on the set she had described. There, before an old spinning wheel, sat the witch spinning flax. For a time nothing was heard except the whir of the spinning wheel. Then a door opened, and a lovely young girl tiptoed in. Judy breathed a sigh of relief.
“It’s Francine Dow! Her hair is golden just as I knew it was,” Pauline whispered.
“It could be a wig,” Flo whispered back.
The princess stood behind the old witch, not saying a word until she turned her head. Then, appearing frightened, she said, “Good day, my good lady, what are you doing here?”
“I am spinning,” said the witch, nodding her head.
“What thing is that which twists round so merrily?”
“It is a spindle. Want to try it, my pretty?”
It was the same evil voice Judy had heard back in the dressing room.
“I—I’m afraid.”
The princess did sound afraid as she took the spindle. Her long golden hair fell almost to her waist. Were those real tears in her eyes when she pricked her finger? She fell, almost immediately, in an undramatic pose with her face turned away from the audience. The witch, chuckling softly to herself, began to chant:
“My curse is done. The sleep of deathShall take away the princess’ breath!”
“My curse is done. The sleep of death
Shall take away the princess’ breath!”
Judy drew a breath of her own that was almost a gasp. She knew the old fairy story by heart, and yet there was a moment when the play seemed so real that she wasn’t at all sure the curse wouldn’t come true.
“Isn’t it spooky?” Pauline whispered, breaking the spell that was upon Judy. The theater was so dark she couldn’t see her friend, but she could hear her voice. She was about to answer when the sound of a wailing siren reached her ears.
“What’sthat?” she questioned fearfully.
Pauline touched her arm. “Judy! You’re all goose-flesh,” she whispered. “It’s only an ambulance. Probably there was an accident outside. But don’t worry about it. We’re safe enough in here.”
“I hope we are.” Judy had thought, for just a fleeting moment, that something might have happened back in the film room. Maybe an explosion or a fire. But common sense told her Pauline was right. Her attention was drawn back to the set where the fairies were now singing:
“The witch! The witch! Her curse came true.Pray tell us, what can fairies do?”
“The witch! The witch! Her curse came true.
Pray tell us, what can fairies do?”
“Nothing, my pretties!” chuckled the witch. She nodded her head so that the green hair fell in straggly wisps across her ugly face and repeated, “Nothing, my pretties. You can do nothing at all.”
“Not so! Not so!” cried all the fairies, rushing at her in a wild dance, their feet flying faster and faster as the music increased in tempo.
Judy and her friends sat in rapt attention as did the entire audience. The siren outside could still be heard wailing above the music, but nobody paid much attention to it. Irene, leading her train of fairies, drove the witch into the wings and returned to where the princess had fallen.
“She only sleeps. She is not dead.We’ll take her to her royal bed,”
“She only sleeps. She is not dead.
We’ll take her to her royal bed,”
the fairies sang softly. Making cradles of their arms, they lifted the sleeping princess and carried her to another set where she was placed in a canopied bed to sleep for a hundred years.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Judy whispered. “She looks—”
“Watch!” Pauline interrupted as the cameras turned quickly on another set showing the kitchen of the castle. Here the cook fell asleep just as she was raising her hand to box the ears of the kitchen boy. In still another room the king and queen fell asleep on their thrones. Finally the audience was given a glimpse of the castle itself. It was only a background painting pulled down to hide the various sets, but it looked real enough on the television screen. Irene, standing in front of it, waved her wand and began to chant:
“Arise, oh misty vapors, riseTo hide from all beneath the skiesThe place where Sleeping Beauty lies.”
“Arise, oh misty vapors, rise
To hide from all beneath the skies
The place where Sleeping Beauty lies.”
“Look!” whispered Judy. “Now I know why everything is so misty. Steam is being blown from a big black kettle over there to the right.”
The mist was now very dense. A fan was blowing it across the set. When it cleared away the castle had changed. A thick growth of weeds and brush made it seem as if a hundred years had passed during the brief pause for the commercial.
All this time Irene had been standing to the left of the set. She introduced the prince, now seen in a puzzled pose before the forsaken castle.
“What’s this?” he cried. “A lovely castle now appears.The mist has hidden it for years.”
“What’s this?” he cried. “A lovely castle now appears.
The mist has hidden it for years.”
Parting the thorny bushes, he made his way toward it. Suddenly, to Judy’s surprise, the whole background scene went up like a window shade, revealing the rooms inside the castle.
“There’s Sleeping Beauty again! Isn’t she lovely?” a voice behind Judy whispered.
“And so young looking!” another whispered. “Isn’t it wonderful that Francine Dow can still play the part of a fifteen-year-old girl?”
The face of the actress was turned a little away from the viewers. A veil covered it. She lay as still as death until the prince lifted the veil and kissed her. Then quickly, almost too quickly, it seemed to Judy, the play ended and Irene was before the cameras singing her closing song. She sang it all the way through. When it was finished, she blew a kiss to the children in the audience, adding, “And here’s one for you, Judykins.” Little Judy was always Judykins to her adoring young mother.
“Francine Dow wasn’t really the star. Irene was,” declared Judy as the red lights flashed off. Almost immediately the prop men began dismantling the set. Fairyland backgrounds disappeared. Cameras were pushed aside. The magic spell that had held the audience was over.
“Where’s Clarissa?” Pauline Faulkner asked suddenly.
Judy looked around for the girl they had met in the restaurant, but she was nowhere in sight. The seat next to Flo was vacant. Judy tried to think when she had last seen Clarissa or heard her speak. A shivery feeling came over her.
“Didn’t you see her leave?” Pauline was asking Florence Garner.
Flo shook her head. “I wasn’t looking at anything except the play,” she replied. “Wasn’t it beautiful when that fairy mist covered the castle and made it vanish?”
Judy waved her hand in front of Flo’s eyes. “The play’s over. Come back from fairyland,” she told her. “Clarissa has vanished. You were sitting right beside her. You must have seen her when she left her seat.”
“She didn’t leave it. Anyway, not that I noticed,” Flo protested. “Maybe she was a phantom after all. Maybe she disappeared into the mist.”
“If she did, she disappeared with the money we lent her,” Pauline declared.
“Good heavens!” This statement brought Flo out of her trancelike state. She stared at the empty seat and then at Pauline. “Well, what do you know?” she said at last. “I think all four of us, including Irene, have been played for suckers. We should have known better than to trust a stranger. We don’t even know where she lives.”
“I thought she was a phony. What do you think, Judy?” asked Pauline.
“I still can’t believe it,” Judy declared. “Clarissa was our friend.”
“Our phantom friend,” Pauline reminded her.
“It is sort of weird, isn’t it?” agreed Judy. “We called her a phantom and then she—well, she just vanished. I can’t think how or where. Was she there when we heard that siren, Flo?”
“What siren?”
Apparently Flo had been so engrossed in the show that she hadn’t heard it.
“It was an ambulance we heard outside the theater right after the witch put her curse on Sleeping Beauty. An ambulance!” Judy exclaimed, a new possibility dawning upon her. “Do you suppose Clarissa—”
“Of course not,” Pauline interrupted. “She was in here watching the show, not outside on the street.”
“Who was in that ambulance?” Judy inquired“Who was in that ambulance?” Judy inquired
“Who was in that ambulance?” Judy inquired
“We don’t know that,” Judy objected. “We don’t know how long her seat has been vacant. She could have slipped outside, for some reason, and been hurt in an accident. Come on, girls! We have to find out for sure.”
Grabbing their coats, they hurried outside to see what had happened. They were just too late. The ambulance with its wailing siren had already disappeared down the street. At the curb a taxicab with its rear fender smashed in was waiting to be towed away. The crowd that had gathered around the scene of the accident was beginning to thin. Judy spied a policeman and rushed over to him.
“We can’t find our friend. We think she may have left the theater and been hurt or something. Who was in that ambulance?” she inquired all in one breath.
Judy knew a moment of panic. When she tried to describe Clarissa all she could remember was her hair. She called it honey colored while Pauline and Flo described it as dark blond.
“She was pretty,” they all agreed. “She looked a little like—well, like Francine Dow. She’s the guest star who played Sleeping Beauty,” Judy added.
“She wasn’t that pretty,” Flo objected quickly. “Her hair was dull, and she had a rather drab look about her. She was young—”
“How young?” the policeman asked.
“About sixteen.”
“The woman they took away in the ambulance can’t be your missing friend if that’s the way it is,” the policeman said reassuringly. “No one could call her sixteen. Besides, she was hurt on her way to the theater—not coming away from it. The taxi driver says she kept after him to hurry. He turned the corner too fast and skidded into another car. Fortunately, no one in the second vehicle was hurt. But here’s the cab driver,” he ended abruptly. “He can tell you about it himself.”
Judy was introduced to the cab driver, who was a little shaken up, but not hurt. More than anything else, he seemed concerned about his passenger.
“Friend of yours?” he inquired.
Judy didn’t know what to say. Was Clarissa a friend or wasn’t she? Had she deceived them as Pauline and Flo seemed to think? It was Pauline who described the missing girl and took down the name of the hospital where the victim of the accident was taken.
“She couldn’t have been Clarissa. She was going in the wrong direction,” Flo told Pauline.
“Where did she hail your cab?” Judy asked finally.
“Grand Central Station,” he replied. “She said she’d just arrived in town and had to get to the theater in a hurry. She didn’t say why. Just gave me the address and a big tip and told me to step on it as she was already late—”
“She certainly was if she expected to see the Sleeping Beauty show. She’d already missed the best part of it.”
“Do you mean the witch dance?” the cab driver asked. “She said something about that.”
“What else did she say?” Judy asked eagerly.
“Don’t know. I don’t listen much,” the cab driver confessed. “I got my own problems. If this dame don’t come to—”
“Was she badly hurt?” Pauline interrupted.
“Out like a light. Couldn’t give her name or anything. I wish you girls did know her. It would be a help. She was what I’d call the theatrical type,” the cab driver continued. “Older than you, but sort of young looking—if you get what I mean.”
“What color was your passenger’s hair?” asked Judy.
The cab driver’s answer startled her. “Red,” he replied. “But not natural looking like yours. Think you know her?”
“I’m sure we don’t. It’s funny she mentioned the witch dance, though,” Flo said thoughtfully as the three girls turned away. “If there’s any truth in that story Clarissa told us—”
Pauline broke in with a laugh.
“You aren’t entertaining the idea that she might really be a changeling, are you?”
“No, but it did frighten her when that witch whirled in.”
“You remember that? You know she was sitting beside you then?” Pauline questioned.
“I remember it, too,” put in Judy. “I heard her say she’d left her two bottles of shampoo back there on the witch’s dressing table. Maybe she went backstage after them.”
“If she went anywhere,” Pauline said grimly, “it was for the reason I mentioned. She had our twenty dollars, didn’t she?”
“She said her father is a minister. I’ll bet he is—not!” scoffed Flo. “And Irene was telling me she didn’t think some advertising was honest! I wonder what she’ll say when she hears that our phantom friend disappeared with the money we lent her.”
“But Flo, maybe she didn’t,” Judy protested. “Maybe she’s back there in the theater looking for us.”
“That could be exactly where she is,” agreed Pauline. “Let’s ask Irene if she knows what happened to her. I’m sure our phantom friend didn’t disappear into the mist.”
Judy shivered at the way she said it. Remembering the film storage room and the secret it held, anything seemed possible. A real chill went through her as they reentered the theater. The overhead lights had been turned off, and the seats were all empty. The cameras, idle now, looked more like monsters than ever in the semidarkness. Most of the technicians had gone home, but there was some activity backstage where props were being put away. Voices came from the dressing room. Irene was saying, “I wonder where they went.”
“We went outside if it’s us you’re wondering about,” replied Judy, popping in at the door. Her entrance was so sudden that Irene jumped. The witch, who was just removing her green make-up, dropped her artificial nose. Pauline and Flo laughed, but their faces sobered when they attempted to describe the accident and their fears for Clarissa.
“We thought at first she might have taken a cab, but the cab was coming from Grand Central terminal and it had a redheaded woman in it. She was taken to the hospital—”
“You’re sure it wasn’t Clarissa?” Irene interrupted.
“We’re not sure of anything,” Flo replied with a shiver. “Clarissa is a strange girl. One minute she was there beside me, and the next time I looked she was gone. She probably sneaked out with the money we lent her. I was under the spell of the play and didn’t see her leave.”
“You see how good you were,” Irene said to the girl who had played the part of the witch. With her make-up removed, Judy could see that she was quite an ordinary-looking person. Her cackling voice, too, had been an act.
“Most people enjoy being frightened,” the girl said. “But I hope I didn’t upset your friend.”
Clarissa was not in the dressing room. Neither were the two bottles of shampoo she claimed she had left there.
“She must have taken them. Did you see her come back here?” Judy asked.
Irene shook her head. “I thought she was out there with you watching the play. I looked for you afterwards. I wanted to introduce you to Francine Dow, but her aunt hurried her away as soon as we went off the air. I’m not sure, but I don’t think she was quite well. Maybe she had a sore throat or something. She didn’t sing to the prince—”
“Was she supposed to?” Pauline interrupted to ask.
“Yes, at the end. I sang my whole theme song to fill in. Was it very noticeable?”
“It was beautiful, Irene.Youwere the star,” Judy declared warmly. “Francine Dow played her part well, of course, but I liked best the part where you danced around the baby.”
“Did it look like a real baby in the crib? It wasn’t,” Irene explained. “It was only one of little Judy’s dolls. She knew we were going to use it. I told her we’d make it look like a real baby, but she didn’t understand about the film strip.”
“Will she think her doll came to life?”
“Perhaps. When she’s older I’ll explain it. To her television is a magic box where just about anything can happen.”
Judy thought about this a minute. The thought troubled her. Anything? She had a feeling something had happened—something she didn’t like at all. The film storage room was searched but yielded no clue to the disappearance of Clarissa.
“There’s nothing dangerous here, is there?” asked Judy, remembering the argument between the projectionist and the man from Flo’s agency.
Irene opened one of the waffle-shaped cans to show her the roll of film inside.
“This is a spot commercial for the golden hair wash people,” she said. “You couldn’t call that dangerous, even though young girls who use it would look so much lovelier with their own natural shade of hair.”
“I didn’t mean that. I’m not sure just what I did mean.”
The can of film looked innocent enough, but the fear that had gripped Judy stayed with her. Mr. Lenz had been justifiably angry, and the danger, whatever it was, had been real.
“I guess we’ll just have to go home and forget Clarissa,” Pauline said finally after they had searched the whole theater and questioned everybody—technicians as well as actors who were still there in the cast. Some had already left, but those who remained could tell them nothing.
“She fainted before,” Judy remembered.
Irene heard, for the first time, how Clarissa had looked into a mirror and seen no reflection. “And then,” Flo went on telling her, “something went wrong with that closed circuit TV set where we were supposed to see our pictures, and she didn’t show. That was when she fainted. We took her to the first aid room and then went back and finished our tour. The TV set was all right. All the rest of us showed. We forgot to ask the guide if she knew what went wrong with it. Clarissa wouldn’t go back there. She was afraid.”
“Of what?” asked Irene.
“That she wasn’t real, I guess. I’m beginning to be afraid of it myself,” Flo admitted. “The doorman said nobody left the show early, and nobody left by the stage entrance except a few people who were in the cast.”
“Francine Dow was one of them, wasn’t she? What about her aunt?” asked Judy. “You said she left with her.”
“That’s right. I forgot about her,” Irene admitted. “She left by the stage entrance, too. I know what you’re thinking, Judy, but she was an old lady. Well, anyway, middle-aged. She was a plump, motherly looking woman with gray hair. I noticed her earlier in the studio audience.”
“When Clarissa was still there?”
“Yes, it was before the show went on the air. I guess Francine had planned to meet her aunt afterwards and go home with her. They probably left in a hurry because Francine wasn’t feeling well and wanted to avoid meeting people. I heard her aunt say something about a week end in the country. We could find out where they went and question them, I suppose, but I’m sure it wouldn’t do any good.”
“It might,” Judy said hopefully. “They might have seen Clarissa.”
“I doubt it,” Pauline replied. “If she deliberately ran off with the money we lent her, she would have made sure she wasn’t seen. Obviously, that’s what happened.”
It did seem obvious.
“We never should have trusted her in the first place,” Pauline went on. “That story she told must have been part of her plan to trick us and make us sorry for her. It isn’t possible for a girl to look in a mirror and see no reflection. Things like that only happen in ghost stories.”
“This is a ghost story,” Flo said in an awed tone, “only it’s happening to us. Maybe she wasn’t real. She didn’t show—”
Pauline turned to her friend. “Flo, you aren’t going to believe—?” she began.
But Irene cut in, “In phantoms? Of course she isn’t. What’s your theory, Judy? You always come up with something.”
“I will,” Judy promised. “Just give me time. It would help if we knew exactly when she disappeared.”
“Wasn’t it just about the time that misty haze covered the set?” Flo questioned. “What was it, anyway, some new kind of vapor to make people vanish?” she asked nervously.
“It was only steam,” Irene reassured her. “I couldn’t see what was going on backstage from where I was standing, but I had a good view of that steam kettle. There was nothing unnatural about it.”
“No?” Flo sounded dubious. “Maybe not, but there was something strange about Clarissa. Vanishing like that—it’s utterly fantastic!”
“I have a few fantastic theories of my own,” Judy admitted. “If she’d had time to use that golden hair wash—”
“What do you think’s in it? Vanishing cream?” Pauline was laughing. Her theory was really the only sensible one, Judy decided. She was eager to talk it over with Peter. He knew so much more about the workings of the criminal mind than she did. There were patterns of behavior. Would Clarissa’s behavior fit one of them? Somehow Judy doubted it.
“I suppose we shouldn’t have trusted her,” she said at last. “Her innocent appearance didn’t fool the cashier in the restaurant. But I’m not sorry if it fooled us. Peter might not agree with me, but I believe in trusting people. Clarissa may be involved in some sort of confidence game. And yet, somehow, I believe she is a friend. I mean a real one.”
“You’re a real friend to her, Judy.” Irene shook her head. “It’s beyond me. I suppose she’ll go home, wherever her home is, and we’ll never see her again. It was an experience, anyway.”
Judy found she couldn’t dismiss it that lightly. Too many experiences had crowded in to make her vacation in New York not at all what she had anticipated. First there had been her discovery that Tower House was no longer standing. It appeared to have vanished but, in reality, it had only been torn down to make room for a new apartment building. Irene and Dale were now living in a more modern house farther out on Long Island.
Weird things had happened in Tower House as they had in Judy’s own home both before and after her marriage to Peter Dobbs. She would never forget the time she saw the transparent figure floating about in her garden. Blackberry, her cat, had provided the clue to that mystery as well as to the latest one she and Peter had solved. Always there had been a solution. The only real ghosts, Judy had discovered, were such things as suspicion and fear. Some fear could be haunting Clarissa.
“She must be somewhere,” Judy said as they left the theater. They took a taxi, not without misgivings.
“Don’t ask the driver to hurry,” Flo warned them. “The streets are still slippery. Remember what happened to the woman with the red hair.”
“Like mine,” Judy recalled thoughtfully, “only not as natural looking. We don’t know what happened to her. I’d like to meet her and ask her a few questions. I wonder if she has regained consciousness.”
“I’ll call the hospital tomorrow and find out,” Pauline promised. “Drop me off first, please,” she told the driver. “Then the others want to drive on to Penn Station.”
“That’s where we take the Long Island Railroad,” Irene explained. “Flo goes home by train, too, but on a different line.”
Judy found the railroad station confusing. People were hurrying this way and that. There was an upper level and a lower level and ever so many turns before they reached a crowded section of the station where Flo bade them good-by and left them to join another line of people. It seemed to Judy that half the city must be commuting to Long Island by train.
“I like to watch all the different faces, don’t you?” she whispered to Irene. “Clarissa could be in this crowd—”
Presently a man in uniform opened a gate, and the crowd surged through. Judy and Irene found seats on the train, but not together. A man, concealed by his open newspaper, occupied the place next to the window. All the seats were soon filled, and the train started on its way. Irene, who was sitting just behind Judy, tapped her shoulder.
“We can’t talk much. The train is making too much noise,” she said above the creaks and rattles.
“That’s all right. I’m a little tired, anyway,” Judy confessed. “It’s been a long day.”
“Why don’t you lean back and close your eyes?” Irene suggested. “I will, too. It’s an hour’s ride—” A yawn came, interrupting the sentence.
“I won’t sleep,” Judy told herself when she saw that Irene was resting. “I’ll have to keep my eyes open to watch for our station.”
The conductor, she discovered a little later, was calling the stations. She roused herself to listen, dozing between stops. But it was only her conscious mind that slept. The thoughts she could control were at rest, but other thoughts came unbidden.My hair is dull. My hair is drab.But those were Clarissa’s thoughts! They rushed on with the train.Dull! Drab! Dull! Drab!—faster and faster.
As the unwanted thoughts pounded in Judy’s head the train swayed, first this way and then that way. A frail old lady making her way down the aisle changed suddenly to a young girl with golden hair. Judy stared at her. Then she looked at the girl sitting beside her and saw that she, too, had golden hair. Her face was blank like the face of a department-store dummy.It was a man before! He had been reading a newspaper!How had the strange transformation taken place? Had it happened this way to Clarissa?
Behind Judy sat another girl with a blank face and golden hair. Another one was in front and still another across the aisle. The train, moving backwards now, seemed full of golden-haired girls with identical faces. Judy’s thoughts, too, were moving in a reverse direction. Now she was at the station backing through the gates. All the golden-haired people surged forward, pressing closer and closer until she could scarcely breathe. She tried to call to them in protest. At last, as if from a great distance, she heard her own voice whispering Irene’s name. She tried desperately to speak louder and presently the cry came.
“Irene!”
With that she swayed and would have fallen sideways if the man with the newspaper hadn’t caught her. Irene was at her side. Unaccountably, they were back in the train.
“How—where—what?” Judy stammered. She was awake now, but the feeling that a crowd of golden-haired people were suffocating her still lingered.
“What happened? Where are we?” she managed to ask.
Irene’s reply was hurried. “We’rehere. Come on, Judy! Wake up!”
“I am awake. What happened to all the golden-haired people? They were suffocating me. They—”
“Comeon!” Irene interrupted, pulling Judy to her feet just as the train lurched to a stop. People began to get off. Judy saw now that they were all kinds of people—men, women, even a drowsy child on one man’s shoulder. The hair that showed below their hats was black, brown, straight and curly. Their faces were no longer blank. Each had its own individuality. Dark faces, fair faces—how beautiful they suddenly were, and how different!
“I dreamed,” Judy managed to say, “that they were all alike. It was a terrible, a frightening dream. I never have nightmares, especially on trains. What happened?”
“Nothing,” Irene replied, laughing, “but something will if we don’t hurry. The train will take us past our station. I was asleep, too. We nearly missed it. Wait!” she called to the conductor.
“You getting off here?” he inquired. “Hurry up. I’ll hold the train.”
It started again with a jolt almost as soon as Judy and Irene stepped down to the platform.
“That was close. People have been killed getting off moving trains,” Irene said with a shudder.
Bewildered, Judy looked around her. “Isn’t anybody going to meet us?” she inquired.
“Dale didn’t know which train we were going to take. We’ll go home by taxi,” Irene announced.
She hailed a cab that was just about to pull away from the station. She and Judy were crowded in along with other passengers who lived in the same suburban town. Again Judy had that elated sense of being glad—glad that they were different.
“How terrible it would be if we were all alike,” she said to Irene as they huddled together in the crowded taxi. “Our faces, our hair, our thoughts—everything. Would you like it if everyone in the whole world had golden hair and a face like yours?”
“I’d hate it,” Irene replied. “It’s bad enough when I buy a dress and find out someone else has one like it. Why do you ask such a question?”
“It was that way in my dream. I told you—”
“I wasn’t listening. You’ll have to tell me again when we’re home. After all, it was only a dream.”
“Was it?”
“What do you think it was?” Irene inquired.
“A prophecy, maybe. People used to have prophetic visions. Maybe, some time in the future—”
The cab stopped to let two of the passengers out. Irene lived in a beautiful neighborhood. The houses, like the people who lived in them, were all different. Behind them were tall trees, outlined against the night sky, and a brook that reminded Judy of Dry Brook at home. An innocent brook and yet, when it had poured its flood waters into the pond above the Roulsville dam ... Judy shuddered at the memory.
“Horace dreamed the dam would break—and it did!” she said suddenly. “I can still hear the roar and feel the horror—before I knew the people would be saved. Irene, there could be another flood—”
“What flood?”
“A flood of advertising. Don’t laugh. Flo asked me to talk you into accepting that offer—”
“There’s no need,” Irene broke in. “I’ve already decided. Flo’s right. It’s silly of me to feel the way I do about commercials. If I can get a sponsor there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be on the big network. Dale thinks I should. There he is at the window motioning for us to hurry,” Irene observed as the cab stopped to let them out. “Oh, I do hope little Judy is all right. There’s a light in her room.”
There were lights all over the house. Dale’s anxious face told Judy that something was wrong. He started to say something to her, but Irene broke in.
“It’s little Judy. I know it.”
Saying this, she hurried into the baby’s room with Judy close behind her. Little Judy was awake. Apparently she had reached over and turned on the light by herself.
“I heard Daddy on the tefelone,” she announced solemnly. Then, with a little jump, she landed in Irene’s arms and began to hug her. Judy could see that she was perfectly all right. But something was wrong. She could feel it.
“You comed out of the TV. I saw you, Mommy,” the baby continued her chatter. “I saw the bad witch, too. Sheskeeredme!”
“Did she, lamb? I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, that’s all right, Mommy. I like to be skeered.”
“Were you thinking about the witch? Is that why you couldn’t go to sleep?” asked Judy.
“I did sleep. Daddy woke me up. He was talking on the tefelone.”
“Don’t you love the way she saystelephone?” Irene exclaimed, hugging little Judy again. “I was so sure something had happened to her, but if it was just the telephone—”
“Maybe Peter called up. We didn’t give Dale a chance to tell us—”
Dale, in the doorway, interrupted Judy.
“It was the hospital. I tried to call you, but you had already left the theater. We can be thankful it isn’t any worse—”
“What isn’t?” asked Judy. “Why did the hospital call? What hospital was it?”
Dale mentioned the name of the hospital.
“Judy, isn’t that where you said they took that red-headed woman?” Irene questioned.
“Yes, but they wouldn’t call Dale about her. She’s a stranger. If someone we know was hurt. If Peter—”
“ItisPeter. I tried to break the news gently,” Dale said in so grave a tone that Judy found herself staring at him in silent terror.
“Dale, what has happened?” she cried when she could find her voice. “Why is he in the hospital? What are they going to do to him?”
“They’re going to operate—”
“But why? Why? Peter is never sick. He must be hurt. Was he—was he—” The word wouldn’t come. Judy knew Peter’s work was dangerous. She knew, too, that his latest assignment was one of his biggest. He couldn’t discuss it, but he had said, just before he left, “Wish me luck, Angel. This is something really big.”
To an FBI man, something big was usually a raid. Peter carried a gun but seldom used it. “Criminals carry guns, too,” thought Judy. Aloud she said, “Tell me the truth, Dale. Was Peter—shot?”
Dale nodded, adding quickly, “It could have been worse. They’re going to operate to remove a bullet from his shoulder. There’s not much danger—”
“But there is a little. He came close to being killed, didn’t he? How soon can I see him?” Judy questioned breathlessly.
“The hospital will call—”
“When? When?”
“When the operation is over. Meantime, why don’t you try and get a little rest? You can stretch out here on the sofa, Judy, until the telephone rings,” Dale suggested.
Judy shook her head. “I couldn’t sleep. I’m going back to New York—I want to be at the hospital—”
“In the middle of the night?” Irene shook her head. “You’ll do Peter more good if you’re not exhausted when you see him.”
This silenced Judy. She knew it would be better to try and get some rest as Dale suggested. “I won’t sleep,” she told herself when Dale and Irene had left her alone in the dimly lighted living room. She remembered thinking the same thing just before she fell asleep on the train. The sofa was long and low—like a train. Again she could hear the clanking wheels as they rumbled out the words, “Dull, drab, dull, drab ...” faster and faster. Once more she was crowded in, almost suffocated by the throng of golden-haired people. She was looking for Peter. But she could see nothing but blank faces topped by golden curls.
“Peter, where are you?” came the voiceless cry.
Judy awoke from her dream of terror to hear the telephone ringing. She sprang toward it, half asleep, jerked the instrument from its resting place, and asked breathlessly, “Is this the hospital? How is he?”
“It’s Honey.” The voice of Peter’s sister seemed to come from very far away. “They called us, since they couldn’t reach you. How is he, Judy? And how are you taking it? I couldn’t sleep. I just had to call and find out how everything is.”
“Is this the hospital?” she asked breathlessly“Is this the hospital?” she asked breathlessly
“Is this the hospital?” she asked breathlessly
“Everything’s terrible,” wailed Judy. “I don’t know how Peter is. I couldn’t find him in the parade of golden-haired, faceless people. Honey, promise me!”
“I’ll promise anything,” came the sympathetic voice over the wire.
“Then promise—” Judy paused, trying to shake off the web of sleep that seemed to be holding her prisoner. Then, to her own surprise and Honey’s horror, she finished, “Promise me you won’t do anything to change the color of your hair!”
“Judy, are you well?” Honey’s voice held a note of deep anxiety. She was calling all the way from Farringdon, Judy knew. Judy hadn’t meant to worry her. But how could she explain what she had just said when she didn’t understand it herself?
“I mean—” Now Honey was floundering for the right words. “Was it too much of a shock—about Peter? Or were you just trying to change the subject? This is certainly a strange time to be asking me about my hair.”
“I know. I was half asleep. Forgive me,” Judy said. “I was dreaming, I guess. This is the second time I’ve had the same dream. It still seems horribly real. I am worried, of course. I’m still waiting for the hospital to call.”
“Then I’ll hang up so they can.”
“Wait a minute. Talk a little more,” Judy begged finally. “I need the reassurance of your voice.”
“That’s more like the Judy I know. Don’t worry. Peter will be all right, and then you’ll stop dreaming.”
“But I had the dream before I knew he was hurt,” Judy protested.
“Don’t ask me to explain it. I’m no good at that sort of thing. Remember that old dream book, Judy? I’ll hunt it up, if you want me to, and find out what it means to dream of faceless people—”
“With golden hair.” Judy stopped herself quickly and said, “Don’t bother, Honey. The dream doesn’t matter any more. It’s Peter—”
“I know, dear. Call me back when you have news.”
Judy promised that she would. She felt better after talking with Honey. Now she was wide awake. Irene, hearing her up, tiptoed out into the living room.
“Any news?” she asked.
“Not yet,” replied Judy. “That was Honey on the phone. It seems ages ago that we were pretending she was at the table with us. So much has happened since then—Clarissa’s disappearance, and now Peter. I want to go to him, Irene. I’m not tired any more. I can sit in the hospital waiting room and be there when he wakes up. The Long Island trains run all night, don’t they?”