Irene consulted a timetable that was tacked to a bulletin board beside the telephone. “We just missed the two fifty-eight. This is Sunday morning. The trains don’t run very often. There isn’t another one until five o’clock. But we can drive in if you want to. We can bundle little Judy into the back seat, and she’ll never know the difference. Want to?”
“Yes, I do want to,” Judy replied gratefully. “I can’t stand this waiting.”
“You poor dear!” Irene sympathized. “We hoped you would get a little more sleep. Dale!” she called to her husband. “Judy wants us to drive in.”
“I rather thought she would.”
He appeared all dressed and ready. Irene had not undressed. Little Judy was carried to the car, blankets and all. She stirred once, said, “Go way, witch!” in a sleepy voice and then cuddled down to sleep again.
“That witch did scare her,” Irene began in a worried tone.
“Of course she did. She was meant to,” Dale broke in with a reassuring grin. “I wish you could have seen little Judy’s eyes when you came in with your magic wand to chase the witch away. It was symbolic of hope chasing away fear, and beautifully done, my dear. I was very proud of you. Sleeping Beauty herself was something of a disappointment.”
“She was?”
“Oh, I don’t mean she wasn’t beautiful and all that. Francine Dow is a girl of many faces. She did manage to look young and frightened if that was the effect she was trying to achieve. You could hardly see her face for that golden wig.”
“Was it a wig?” asked Judy. “I thought it was the natural color of her hair. I’m afraid I still don’t know whether it’s black, brown or golden.”
Irene laughed. “Very few actresses can keep the natural color of their hair. They’re the real changelings. They change their hair and even their faces to suit the various parts they have to play.”
“It may be all right for actresses, but for the rest of us—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Irene advised. “I know that dream upset you, but can’t you see that it wasn’t real? It couldn’t happen that way.”
“If everybody listened to the advertising on TV there’d be a lot more golden-haired people than there are now. There’d be too many. You’d see yourself coming and going just like the parade of golden-haired people in my dream. Everybody whose hair wasn’t golden would be thinking, ‘Your hair is dull. Your hair is drab!’—just the way I did.”
“Why?” asked Dale, looking past Irene’s golden head to Judy’s mop of curly red hair. “How anyone could say a thing like that about either of you is more than I can understand.”
“I can’t understand it either,” Judy admitted, “but it’s true. I kept hearingdull,drab, until even the train wheels seemed to be repeating it. If I didn’t have red hair and if I hadn’t been teased all my life about how bright it is—”
“Well, what would you do?” asked Irene when Judy hesitated.
“I’d wash my hair with that golden hair wash. I did buy some for you,” Judy confessed when Irene made no comment. Dale was busy with his driving, and Judy sat between them in the front seat of the car. There was hardly any traffic this early in the morning, but there was a heavy fog that made it hard for Dale to see more than a few feet ahead.
“For me?” Irene asked incredulously. “Why on earth would you buy that stuff for me?”
“I don’t know,” Judy confessed. “I don’t like the way I’ve been thinking things without knowing why I thought them. Peter never lets anything turn him from his convictions. I had a feeling, on the train, that something was wrong, while I was dreaming. I couldn’t know about Peter. But I did know something was wrong.”
Judy had been trying to hide her worry, but it was no use. They talked of many things as the car sped on toward the hospital. But their thoughts were with Peter. New York’s skyline could be seen but faintly as they crossed Manhattan Bridge. The fog had lifted a little, but it was not yet daylight when Dale stopped before a large building. It loomed, gray and forbidding, against the cold night sky.
Inside, the scrubbed stone floors and bare walls gave Judy the impression that they had entered a fortress instead of a hospital. A uniformed guard at the door directed them to a desk where Judy learned that Peter had been taken to a private room in the new wing. The operation was over, but he was still under sedation, the nurse said. She added brightly, “You can see him in about an hour.”
It would have been a long hour if another nurse, on night duty, hadn’t suddenly recognized Irene. Irene had come in with Judy, leaving Dale to mind little Judy, who was asleep in the car.
“You’re the Golden Girl, aren’t you?” the nurse asked, stopping Irene as they entered the luxurious waiting room in the new wing. “One of our patients has been asking for you—”
“Clarissa!” Judy and Irene exclaimed in the same breath.
The nurse looked a little puzzled.
“We have to wait here anyway. Could we see her?” asked Irene. “We were awfully worried. Was she badly hurt? We looked all over the theater. How and where did it happen?”
“It was a street accident,” replied the nurse in a brisk, professional manner. “She was in a cab. Her doctor can give you the details. I’m afraid you can’t visit her at this hour. It would disturb the other patients. Except in extreme emergencies, visitors are never allowed before daylight.”
Judy wanted to tell the nurse that this was an extreme emergency. But was it? A girl had vanished. Still the fact remained that she might have slipped out of the theater on purpose.
“Peter will help us figure out what really happened,” declared Judy. “Oh, I hope he’s well enough to be—interested. Right now I’m more concerned with what happened to him.”
“Will he be allowed to tell you?” Irene asked.
“I don’t know. So much of his work is secret. That’s the hardest part,” Judy continued, a little break in her voice. “I never know what dangers he’s facing. Usually he tries to make a joke of it when I ask him. But this time I can’t help thinking—”
Irene’s hand closed gently over Judy’s. “Don’t think of what might have been. Just be glad he’s here with good nurses to take care of him.”
“I am glad. I’m glad Clarissa’s here, too—if that patient is Clarissa. I’d like to think she didn’t trick us, but how could the accident have happened?” Judy wondered. “And where was she going in a cab?”
“It almost makes a person believe in phantoms, doesn’t it?” Irene asked. “Clarissa was so—naïve is the word. And now if she’s hurt—Oh, Judy! Why are we always getting mixed up in other people’s troubles? We have enough of our own.”
“The way I look at it, other people’s troubles are our troubles. Peter feels that way, too,” Judy continued thoughtfully. “He says what hurts one of us hurts all the rest. We can’t isolate ourselves and pretend trouble doesn’t exist. We have to fight the good fight with fidelity, bravery, and integrity. That’s the motto of the FBI, and if anybody has those three qualities, it’s Peter. He’s faithful, brave, and I never knew anybody as honest and sincere and—and—”
Judy was in tears, suddenly. The strain of waiting had been too much. A nurse, hurrying in, reassured her that Peter’s condition was not serious.
“He is asking for you,” she added in the usual composed manner of hospital nurses. “Will you come?”
Would she come? Judy wondered how she kept her feet from flying down the corridor. At the door of Peter’s room she paused, a nameless fear coming over her.
“You go in first,” she begged of the nurse, who had preceded her. “I’m not sure I look all right.”
“You look fine,” the nurse interrupted with a smile. “He’s seen enough of me. It’s you he wants. Go in to him just as you are, Mrs. Dobbs. I think it would be better if you went in alone.”
Irene was quick to understand. “I’ll go out and tell Dale—”
“Tell him not to wait,” Judy said. “I’ll be here all day. I’ll come out to Long Island this evening—by train.”
The slight hesitation in Judy’s voice did not betray her. She dreaded that train ride. But she felt she had to take herself in hand. Peter was depending on her.
A hospital attendant spoke to Judy as she entered the large, cheerful room where Peter was lying flat in bed with a bottle of transparent liquid suspended above his bed. “Watch the intravenous. He mustn’t move his arm.”
“I understand,” Judy replied. “My father is a doctor. I’ll see that nothing goes wrong.”
Her voice was determinedly cheerful. The young attendant left, closing the door softly. Judy was alone with Peter. For a moment she was all choked up with emotion and didn’t know what to say. He smiled a little, wryly, and glanced toward the bottle that was feeding liquid nourishment into his veins.
“Careful there,” he warned as she bent over to kiss him. “That’s my breakfast there in the bottle. A funny way to eat!”
“I’ll be careful,” she promised. “I’ll sit on the other side of the bed. Which shoulder was it?”
“The left.”
“Then I’ll sit on the right. You want me to stay here, don’t you?”
“Yes, I want you.” Peter’s strong fingers closed over her outstretched hand. “Judy, it was my big chance, and I muffed it. I let him get away.”
“Don’t try to talk about it—unless you want to,” Judy told him gently. “You’re still very weak. You must save your strength.”
“You’re right.” He was quiet for a moment just looking at Judy as if he could never see enough of her.
“You’re always—so brave,” he said at last.
Judy didn’t feel very brave. She felt like bursting into tears again. Little by little she heard how Peter had been brought to the hospital unconscious from loss of blood. They had given him a transfusion before the operation. That was why it had taken so long. Removing the bullet, he said, was a simple matter. It had been imbedded in the flesh close to his shoulder blade.
“I’ll be as good as new in a day or so,” he assured Judy, who sat beside his bed, ready to listen whenever he felt like talking. “My partner cornered most of the gang. They were better organized than we thought. We trailed this man—”
“What man?” Judy asked when Peter paused.
“His name’s Clarence Lawson. I can tell you about it now. It’s public knowledge. The public has to be warned against such characters,” he continued. “It all started when a woman came into our New York office and said her church had never received a donation she had given a man who claimed to be on the Ways and Means Committee. He’d enlisted her sympathy and talked her into donating quite a substantial sum to what she thought was the building fund. Lawson had joined the church and gained the confidence of a number of influential people.”
“That’s what you call the confidence game, isn’t it?” asked Judy. “Did you catch up with this—this Lawson?”
“Well, almost. We trailed him and overheard some of his plans. Then we made some quick plans of our own. Did you ever hear the story of the three little pigs?”
“Of course,” Judy replied, puzzled. “Are you joking? What do the three little pigs have to do with it?”
“The third pig, if you will remember, got to the orchard ahead of the wolf. Well,” Peter continued, “that was what we planned to do. We were there, but the wolf was early, too. So he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house in, and he shot up the poor little pigs.”
“Where was this house?” asked Judy. “Or aren’t you allowed to tell?”
“I can tell you where it wasn’t—” Peter sighed tiredly.
“No need,” Judy told him gently. “Stay quiet for a while, and I’ll tell you a story. We met a girl, and Pauline thinks she was playing the confidence game, too. Anyway, she made us sorry for her, and we each gave her five dollars so she could take the train home to West Virginia.”
“Did she take it?”
“The train? I don’t know. She took the money, if that’s what you mean. She also accepted our invitation to Irene’s show. I wish you could have seen it, Peter. Irene was marvelous as the good fairy, and her guest star, Francine Dow, made a beautiful Sleeping Beauty. The witch was a little frightening, though. She swooped in and seemed to cast an evil spell over the audience. Then Clarissa—”
“Clarissa?”
“She’s the girl I was telling you about,” Judy said. “She’s here in the hospital, I think. Peter, would you like to rest while I find out if the patient they brought here really is Clarissa? If I speak to the nurse who recognized Irene, I’m sure they’ll let me see her.”
“Is Irene here?” Peter questioned, pain as well as puzzlement in his blue eyes as they searched Judy’s face.
“She was. Oh, Peter! I hope I’m not tiring you, talking so much!” Judy exclaimed. “One of the nurses stopped Irene on the way in and said a patient had been asking for her. We thought of Clarissa right away. You see, if she met with an accident, it would explain her disappearance. I did tell you she vanished, didn’t I? We never saw her leave the theater, but I suppose she could have slipped out during the show and afterwards changed her mind and tried to come back.”
“She could have slipped out with no intention of coming back. I doubt if you’ll find her here in the hospital,” Peter said, “but it will do no harm to try. I can see you’re deep in another mystery. I wish I could help you solve it.”
“You can, Peter. You’ll be well soon,” Judy told him hopefully. “Then we can help each other.”
“I wish you wouldn’t try to help me this time, Angel.” Peter’s voice was grave. “I’m in trouble—serious trouble, and I’d rather you kept out of it.”
Just outside the door to Peter’s room, Judy paused, trying to think. Serious trouble! What did Peter mean? Had the man, Lawson, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, discovered his whereabouts? Would he be waiting for him when he was released from the hospital?
“Oh, please! Keep him safe,” Judy said to the walls which seemed, suddenly, to move dizzily before her eyes. The activities of the hospital day were beginning. Night nurses were going off duty. Day nurses were busy with breakfast trays. Carts were being wheeled—up and down. Up and down. In a moment Judy feared she would find they were being wheeled by golden-haired nurses with identical faces.
“Do you feel faint?” a voice asked quietly.
Judy turned to see one of the nurses standing beside her. The dizzy feeling had passed.
“Thank you, nurse. I’m all right—now. I was looking for the night nurse, but I guess I’m too late. Could you direct me to the patient who was asking for the Golden Girl?”
“The patient is awake,” was the quiet answer. “But you must have a permission slip to see her. Tell the guard you think you can identify the patient in Room 334, and you will be allowed to go up.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Judy, catching her breath in an exclamation of surprise. “Isn’t she identified?”
“Not yet,” the nurse replied. “She’s in a semi-coma. Sometimes we can make a little sense out of what she says, and sometimes we can’t.”
“If she’s Clarissa, I don’t wonder. Didn’t she give her name?”
“No, not her own name. All she would tell us was that she had to see Irene Meredith. Mrs. Meredith didn’t leave, did she?”
“I’m afraid she did. But I know her. I can identify her.”
“Good!” exclaimed the nurse. “The guard will probably let you go right up.”
Five minutes later Judy was standing beside a bed with crib sides around it. The next thing she saw was a white face—white and wholly unfamiliar. Flaming red hair fanned out on the pillow. The woman looked at least thirty. Judy gazed at her a moment. Then she turned to the nurse who had escorted her to the room.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “My friend, Clarissa Valentine, disappeared. I thought this patient might be Clarissa, but she isn’t. I never saw her before in my life.”
“Can’t you tell me anything at all about her?” the nurse asked anxiously.
“Nothing except what you probably know already. We talked with the taxi driver after the ambulance drove away from the scene of the accident. He told us what little we know about it. Apparently this woman was on her way to the theater to see Irene’s—I mean the Golden Girl show. I’m sorry,” Judy finished.
“Sorry,” mumbled the patient. “Everybody’s sorry.” Then, suddenly grasping the crib sides, she cried, “I’ve got to get out of here. Please, let me out.”
“And then?” the nurse prompted Judy.
“Well, then we heard the ambulance siren. The show was nearly over so we waited until afterwards to find out what it was. That’s all I know. I’m afraid it won’t be of much help.”
“No, I’m afraid not,” the nurse replied sadly as Judy turned to go.
Peter was sleeping when she returned to his room. He looked so peaceful she decided not to awaken him. She’d help, though. Later on they’d talk it all over. There was sure to be some way she could help.
“I’ll go out and have breakfast,” Judy told the new nurse who had just come on duty. The day nurse assured her that there was no need for her to come back until visiting hours that afternoon.
“You’ll notice a big change in your husband by then. He will probably sleep most of the morning.” Judy tried to hide a yawn and the nurse added, “You could use a little sleep yourself, Mrs. Dobbs. You must have been awake most of the night.”
Judy didn’t say so, but she had rested more when she was awake than when she had been dreaming. What had caused those terrible nightmares? Judy dreaded sleep because of them. She ordered two cups of coffee in a nearby restaurant, hoping to keep herself awake. Then she telephoned Pauline Faulkner and told her about Peter.
“You poor girl! Why don’t you come up and rest at my house until visiting hours?” Pauline suggested. “I expect Flo. It’s Sunday, or had you forgotten?”
“I do need some sleep,” Judy admitted. “But I keep dreaming the same dream every time I close my eyes. I’d never dare—”
“That’s funny,” Pauline interrupted. “So do I. And just now when I spoke to Flo she said she’d had a rough night, too. She didn’t say why but, to use an old expression of yours, I’d like to bet something precious that it was because she had nightmares, too. Come up and we’ll compare notes. I feel—” Pauline lowered her voice almost to a whisper. Judy could hardly hear the word “bewitched,” but she knew the feeling.
When Judy arrived at the tall stone house which was Dr. Faulkner’s combined home and office, she said, “Pauline, as you said, it’s Sunday. Let’s go to church.”
“All right.” Pauline hesitated a moment. Then she said, “You may not like my church, Judy. It isn’t at all like the one you attend.”
“Which one?” asked Judy. “The little white church in Dry Brook Hollow isn’t like the one I used to attend in Farringdon, but I like them both. I think it does a person good to learn different ways of believing, don’t you? How is your church different, Pauline?”
Pauline shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just a little more formal. But if you watch other people and do what they do you’ll get along all right. The order of service is printed on the church calendar. They’ll give you one as you come in. It’s a little church crowded in between two tall buildings. They’re going to tear it down and build a new one farther uptown. I’m rather sorry. But I guess it’s best.”
“In other words, you bow to the inevitable.”
Pauline laughed. “You sound like your brother Horace. Does he know about Peter, Judy? It isn’t going to be in the newspapers, is it?”
“I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway. I telephoned home right after breakfast. Horace will put something in after he checks with the authorities. Publicity could be dangerous. That’s what I told him. There’s nothing about Peter in the New York papers. I did find this, though.”
Judy pointed to a review ofSleeping Beauty. A columnist, known for his sarcasm, had called the play a triumph of youth over experience.
“As for the star, if that was Francine Dow, she has certainly discovered the fountain of youth. She has lost her voice and gained the fragile beauty of a china doll. This reviewer couldn’t believe his eyes.”
“There are others like it,” Pauline spoke up as Judy paused in her reading. “Here, I’ll show you. This paper calls her a changeling.”
“No?” Judy stared at the paper. “That’s what Clarissa called herself. I don’t get it at all. She was right beside us—”
“Was she?”
“I don’tknow. I certainly thought she was. Here’s Flo. Maybe she can explain it,” Judy finished as the doorbell rang.
Flo was flushed and excited.
“Have you seen the papers?” was her first question. “The reviewers don’t think that was Francine Dow on Irene’s show. They say—”
“We saw it,” Pauline interrupted.
“But those were the very words Clarissa used. Is there any word from her?”
“Not yet. Perhaps there never will be. Peter says she could have slipped out of the theater with no intention of coming back. He’s in the hospital, Flo. I’m so upset!”
“What happened to him?” Flo was immediately all sympathetic concern.
Judy started to tell her and then thought better of it. Florence Garner was a stranger, too. Judy had met her only a few hours before she met Clarissa. “I shouldn’t trust strangers,” she told herself grimly. Aloud she said briefly, “He was hurt. He’s in the same hospital where they took that redheaded woman. She was asking for Irene. I don’t know why. We both thought she might be Clarissa—”
“But she wasn’t? Then who is she?”
“She doesn’t know,” replied Judy. “It’s all so confusing, I need a little peace and quiet to make any sense to what’s happening. We thought we’d go to church.”
Flo looked from one of them to the other.
“You’re not telling me everything,” she charged. “Something’s happened. Something terrible has happened, and you’re keeping it from me. Do you think dreams warn people of tragedy? I dreamed—It’s still so real I can hardly tell you about it. But I dreamed that my hair—” She touched her head and seemed relieved upon discovering she was wearing her hat. “Well, never mind about that now.”
“Clarissa hypnotized us. We’re all under her spell. Maybe church—”
Judy stopped Pauline before she could finish.
“Religion isn’t magic,” she said quietly. “It’s—something inside.”
Judy’s sudden sincerity seemed to confuse Flo.
“Well, I—I thought you were keeping something from me, but if you want me to go—”
“Of course we want you.” Pauline decided the question for her. “Shall we go?”
Judy found Pauline’s church even more formal than she had described it. The minister and the people in the choir wore black robes. Judy’s prayers were all for Peter and his work that had been so cruelly interrupted. Thoughts of what he must have suffered took possession of her mind and would not leave her.
“And so it is, my friends,” the minister was saying, “we love each other and think that is enough. But were we not commanded in the fifth book of Moses, ‘Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.’”
Now Judy was more confused than ever. Clarissa was a stranger. Judy had followed her heart and loved her as a friend. But had she done the right thing? Was she a friend or a phantom? Should she have trusted her? What of the confidence game?
The words of the church service were printed on the calendar Judy had received at the door when the usher had handed her the hymnal. On the back, as she turned the calendar over in her hand during the long sermon, she noticed a list of names. Trustees of the church and the chairmen of various committees were listed. The names meant nothing to her until, all at once, she saw the name,Clarence Lawson! He was listed as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. It seemed impossible. Could he, a man wanted by the FBI, be sitting quietly in the congregation? Peter had trailed him and lost him.
“Peter said it was public knowledge,” Judy thought. “But surely these people don’t know the name of a confidence man is printed on their church calendar!”
Pauline, sitting on her right, touched Judy’s elbow. She was the last one to stand up when the congregation rose to sing the closing hymn. Flo gave her a look that asked, wordlessly, “What’s the matter?” Pauline whispered something to Flo as they filed out of church, and Judy knew Pauline had told Flo that Peter had been shot.
“That’s the name of the man he was trailing.” Judy pointed to the name on the back of the calendar. “Do you know him?”
“Of course,” Pauline replied, puzzled. “Everybody in the church knows him. He’s conducting our building fund drive.”
“Is he here?” asked Judy.
Pauline looked around. “I don’t see him. That’s funny. He never misses a Sunday. His wife isn’t here either.”
“Is she an actress?”
“Heavens, no! She’s a typical clubwoman, if you know what I mean. They haven’t been here long, but already she’s at the head of everything. I don’t know where she is this morning.”
“She doesn’t—have red hair, does she?”
“What are you thinking, Judy? Her hair is gray. If you’re trying to identify that patient in the hospital you ought to ask Irene about her. They must know each other if she was asking for her. Maybe she’s an actress. Irene knows a lot of theatrical people. Authors are my specialty,” Pauline finished with a laugh.
“Ad men are mine. They would change the minister’s text around to make it read, ‘Sellye therefore the stranger,’ but that’s today’s world,” Flo said with a sigh. “Nobody cares much about the kind of love they tell you about in church.”
“I care about it,” Judy said.
Flo gave her an odd look. “You sound like Clarissa. She said she cared about the truth, but what happens? She disappears—with our money. I guess you just don’t know what anybody is these days.”
Pauline agreed. “The people in our church certainly don’t know who Clarence Lawson is. Why was Peter trailing him, Judy? Is he wanted by the FBI?”
“Yes, he is. It’s about some money for a church building fund. He was supposed to turn it over to the treasurer of the church, but he didn’t.”
“Didn’t he? Oh dear!” Pauline exclaimed. “We didn’t give much, because we weren’t very enthusiastic about the new building, but a lot of people did. It’s supposed to be a real community center when it’s finished. Mr. Lawson knew an architect who drew up the plans and made an estimate. There was talk of bringing in professional fund raisers before Mr. Lawson took over. He said there was no need to pay people to raise money among us if we’d give it freely without pledges. Then he passed a plate around, and people threw in big bills and checks made out to him as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. He talked people into giving just the way Clarissa did. He was like her in a way. Even his name is a little like hers—Clarence, Clarissa—”
“That’s probably just a coincidence.” In spite of the evidence against her, Judy found herself defending Clarissa. “It’s the way I feel about her. I have no other reason,” she admitted. “You girls are probably right.”
“Judy!” The exclamation came from Pauline, very suddenly as if she had just thought of something. “I know what we ought to do. We ought to visit Mr. Lawson. If he really is the thief I’d like to know about it. I could pretend I wanted to make a donation or something. Shall we try it?”
Judy hesitated. She didn’t like that sort of pretending, though sometimes it was the best strategy. Also, Peter had asked her to stay out of trouble, and this would be walking right into it. But it could very easily be her chance to help him.
“How do we get there?” she asked. “Is it very far?”
“I’m hungry. Let’s eat something first,” Flo suggested.
The three girls had lunch in the same restaurant where they first met Clarissa. They asked the cashier about her, but he claimed he remembered no such scene as they described.
“No one goes away from this restaurant angry,” he told them. “Do you see that?” He pointed to a decorated sign bearing the words:Our Aim is to Please the Best People in the World, Our Customers.
“But this girl tried to cheat you,” Pauline protested.
“She was a customer. She was still one of the best people,” he replied without a change of expression.
“You might as well talk to a statue,” Flo whispered. “Come on.”
“It’s only a few blocks to the house where Mr. Lawson lives,” Pauline told them. “It isn’t as cold and blustery today as it was yesterday. We can walk.”
On the way, Judy and Flo began comparing their dreams of the night before.
“I know it sounds ridiculous,” Judy said, “but I can’t help feeling that my dream was a warning of some kind and that we ought to heed it. I’m not just sure how.”
“What about you, Pauline? Did you dream about hair, too? That may be a clue to what’s happening to us, if you did,” Flo said eagerly.
The dark-haired girl shook her head. “My dreams are never very clear. I can’t remember them well enough to tell them afterwards. I only know I cried out in my sleep, and Mary came up to see what was the matter. She said I was calling for my mother. I never do that. I hardly remember her. Mary’s kept house for us ever since I was about little Judy’s age. But Mother did have golden hair. I take after Father. I wish—”
“Don’t say it,” Judy stopped her. “You’re going to wish you had golden hair.”
“Could we have been hypnotized?” Flo began.
“I don’t know. Ask your father about hypnotism, Pauline,” Judy urged. “He’ll know. He may use it on his patients. Dr. Zoller, a sort of uncle of mine, is a hypnotist, and Dad approves of it when it’s not misused. Of course, if hypnotism was part of a confidence game Clarissa was playing—”
“It was! I’m sure of it,” Flo interrupted. “She said we read her mind, and she talked us into buying that shampoo, didn’t she?”
“I’m not sure. I thought it was your idea,” Judy began.
“Well, I’m sure. She talked us into lending her the money, too. Then she left the theater when we were all so interested in the play we didn’t notice. It was all a trick,” declared Flo. “Can’t you see it? Clarissa did it all.”
“She even vanished on purpose,” Pauline agreed. “It’s clear to me—”
“It’s clear to me, too,” Judy interrupted. “It’s perfectly clear that we haven’t found out a single thing. Isn’t it about time we started using our heads? Peter doesn’t jump to conclusions without examining the evidence. If he’s willing to risk his life to turn up a few facts to present at preliminary hearings, the least we can do is discuss this with him before we decide who’s guilty.”
“Guilty of what?” asked Flo. “Making us dream?”
Suddenly all three girls began to laugh. It seemed ridiculous for them to be taking their dreams so seriously. But their laughter died in their throats when they reached Mr. Lawson’s house. Judy was the first to notice the shattered glass in the door. It was broken in a peculiar way. Several round holes with cracks radiating from them told the story.
“Bullet holes!” she exclaimed. “This was the place where it happened. You’re too late, Pauline. You won’t find Mr. Lawson—”
Meantime Flo had rung the bell. A heavy-set woman came in answer to it just in time to hear the name. She peered at the girls through the shattered glass before she opened the door.
“So it’s Mr. Lawson you want, is it?” she inquired. “And what would you be wanting with the good man?”
Good man! Judy could hardly contain herself. Did the woman know what sort of man he really was? Or had he fooled her just as he had fooled the people in Pauline’s church? He had even outwitted Peter.
“We did want to see him,” Pauline began, affecting a timid voice. “We came to make a donation—”
“Indeed!” the woman interrupted. “I’ll take it, if you please, and forward it to him. He’s away for a couple of weeks.”
“Far away,” thought Judy, “and not likely to come back.” Aloud she said, with perfect control, “We prefer to send the money ourselves. Could you give us his address?”
“Well, now, I could.” She hesitated a moment and then went inside, returning with a piece of paper on which a post office box number was written. “You can reach him there,” she said briefly and closed the door.
“Now what do we do?” asked Flo. “Shall we write him a letter and invite him to come back home and be arrested? We aren’t really going to send him any money, are we?”
“He doesn’t need our money. He has plenty,” Judy began when Pauline interrupted heatedly.
“He certainly has. People were generous. There was all of fifty thousand dollars in the building fund. With that much on hand he can stay in hiding for a long, long time. Are you going to tell Peter where we were?” Pauline asked suddenly.
“Eventually,” Judy said. “It bothers me when I have to keep things from him. He won’t like it, of course. Maybe I ought to wait until he’s feeling a little better before I say anything.”
“I think you’re right,” Pauline agreed. “Just stay cheerful for Peter, and don’t worry about a thing.”
Judy found Pauline’s advice hard to follow.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” she had said when they parted on Sunday. But the words had meant very little. In church, in the restaurant, in front of the bullet-riddled door, on the subway returning to the hospital, and especially on the train going back to Long Island—wherever Judy went a vague worry went with her.
“What’s the matter with me?” she wondered. “Why can’t I clear my head and think straight the way I used to?”
Judy spent a restless night, haunted by the faceless golden-haired people of her dream. Again she was looking for Clarissa. But now she had a clue. They had all dreamed about hair—Pauline, Flo, and herself. But why? If they had been hypnotized as part of a confidence game, Peter ought to know about it. The next day Judy told him.
“You’d almost think someone had taken possession of our minds. All three of us had nightmares. What do you suppose caused them?” she asked when she was visiting him in the afternoon.
Peter shook his head. He was sitting up with his shoulder in a cast and feeling very much better. She hadn’t wanted to tire him the day before. But now it was different. There were a number of things she knew she mustn’t keep from him any longer.
“Nightmares are sometimes caused by something hidden in the subconscious mind,” he replied. “I’m sure I don’t know what you have hidden there.”
“Oh, Peter! I’m not hiding it on purpose. I feel silly telling you about it after all you’ve been through,” Judy burst out impulsively. “Will you forgive me?”
“On one condition,” he told her.
Judy thought he was serious until she saw the twinkle in his eyes.
“And what is that condition?”
“That you tell me more. You told me yesterday that the patient you visited wasn’t Clarissa, but you didn’t tell me much of anything else. What happened to this phantom friend, as you call her?” Peter asked curiously. “Begin at the beginning and tell me exactly how you met her.”
“We met her—in a restaurant. We went back there yesterday but didn’t find out anything.” Judy sighed. It was good to be telling Peter about it. She had so much to tell him that she thought she might as well dish it out in small doses. The big surprise would come when she handed him the post office box number of the thief he had been trailing. But that could wait. She told him about church first, and how the minister had said, “Love ye therefore the stranger.”
“It was easy to like Clarissa,” she continued in answer to his first request. “You asked how we met her. Well, the four of us were having lunch when there was a commotion at the cashier’s desk, and this stranger—we found out later that her name was Clarissa Valentine. Well, anyway, she claimed that she had given the cashier a twenty-dollar bill. He opened the cash drawer to prove that her bill wasn’t in it, but she insisted and we believed her. Was that wrong, Peter?”
“Not at all,” he replied. “I might have believed the girl myself and suspected the cashier of palming the bill.”
“Then I’m glad we believed her. Not that it makes what happened afterwards any easier to explain,” Judy added. “Pauline thought she had tricked us, but that was after she disappeared with the money we lent her. I don’t know how she could have vanished the way she did if it wasn’t a trick. Besides, the things she said—”
“What things?” asked Peter, more interested in the story than Judy had expected him to be. “If you can remember exactly what she said it may help us find out what happened to her.”
“Oh dear, no! I’m afraid not. So much happened! This is going to sound unbelievable to you,” cried Judy, “but she said things that made it seem almost as if she—she didn’t exist. Things like telling us she looked in a mirror once and saw no reflection. And then—you won’t believe this at all, but when we toured Radio City and looked at ourselves on television, all the rest of us showed, but Clarissa was nothing but a big white light closing in until it disappeared just the way she did—without a trace. We called her a phantom friend for a joke at first, but after that it seemed so real it wasn’t funny any more. Peter, what do you think happened?”
“Well, for one thing, a tube probably blew out on the TV set. That would cause the picture to close in and disappear. I’ve seen it happen myself, and it is weird—”
“It certainly was that,” Judy agreed. “I suppose a tube could have blown out. We didn’t wait to see what was wrong with the set, because Clarissa fainted. She wasn’t faking, either. She was really frightened. We went back and saw ourselves after the set was fixed, but she wouldn’t go near it. She said her hair was dull and drab and then we all started saying it—as if we were hypnotized or something. Was that a trick? Was Clarissa playing some sort of confidence game?”