“Someone was. I’ll have to look into this myself,” declared Peter. “It may tie in with what we found out. There are all kinds of thieves, you know. That cashier is probably a petty thief and should be reported. A thief like Clarence Lawson plays his confidence game for bigger winnings. But the most insidious kind, I think, are thieves of the mind. Do you follow me, Angel?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” Judy admitted. “I’ve heard of brain washing, of course. I wish someone would wash those golden-haired people out of my brain, so I could stop dreaming about them and think straight. Is that what you mean?”
“I mean they may have been deliberately put there by the enemies of our most precious possession. You know what it is, don’t you? It’s our freedom to think our own thoughts.”
“You mean—oh, Peter! I do see what you mean!” cried Judy. “I don’t know how it was done, but someone has been doing things to our subconscious minds—to frighten us—and make us dream. Clarissa was frightened, too. She couldn’t have done it. But who was it, Peter? How do we find out who did this horrible thing to us?”
“One way,” said Peter, “is to review the facts. Judy, I’m serious. I want you to go back over everything that happened Saturday.”
“But we’ve been doing that. We haven’t come up with very many answers, only more questions. You said what happened to Clarissa might tie in with what you found out. What did you mean?” asked Judy.
“I told you we overheard some plans,” Peter began. “Mind manipulation could have been part of them. If only we knew the name of the missing actress—”
“Is some actress missing? Maybe Irene knows her,” Judy suggested. “She could give you the names of all the people who appeared on her show. There was the witch. She could have cast some sort of hypnotic spell over us, I suppose. Hypnotism is one sort of mind manipulation, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but there are other sorts. There’s a machine, for instance, called the tachistoscope. It’s sort of a magic lantern with a high-speed shutter—”
“There were a lot of machines,” Judy interrupted. “The studio floor was filled up with them. I tried to remember their names when we were on the tour, but I couldn’t possibly remember them all.”
“What else happened on that tour?” asked Peter. “You haven’t told me everything.”
“There’s so much to tell. I can’t think of it all at once. Irene invited Francine Dow to be her guest star. Did I tell you she didn’t arrive until the last minute?” asked Judy. “Then she left hurriedly with her aunt before we had a chance to meet her.”
“Did you meet the aunt?” Peter questioned. “A phony aunt would fit in very nicely with what we already know.”
“What do you know? I can see you’re not free to tell me,” Judy added when Peter was silent. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not free to think about it. These thieves of the mind may invent machines to make me dream, but when I’m awake I intend to do my own thinking, and right now I think Francine Dow may be in danger. She didn’t sing. Irene thought she had a cold. But maybe something else was wrong. I didn’t tell you, but there was an argument in the film storage room. The projectionist was very angry. I heard him say something might be as dangerous as an atom bomb. I had no idea what the danger was, but if Francine Dow is missing—”
Judy stopped. It wasn’t Francine Dow, it was Clarissa Valentine who was missing. The two girls, as she remembered them, were somewhat alike. The absurd idea came to her that one of them could have been real and the other a changeling. But Peter didn’t want fairy tales. He wanted facts.
“Peter,” Judy said after a little silence, “you’re looking for facts, and I do have something that may help you uncover them. It’s—right here.”
She handed him the slip of paper she had been saving and told him what it was.
“Lawson’s post office box number!” exclaimed Peter. “I can’t believe it. You should be working for us—”
“For you, Peter,” she interrupted quietly.
“Where did you get this little piece of paper?”
“It was handed to me by a fat woman who peered at me from behind a shattered glass door—”
“Judy, you didn’t—”
“I did,” she confessed. “I found his name on the back of the church calendar, and Pauline told me where he lived. He was gone, of course. The people in the church don’t know their building fund money went with him, do they?”
“They do now,” Peter said, handing her the paper he had been reading when she came in. An item on the second page told only part of the story.
Boy Held in Shooting of FBI Agent Pleads Guilty in Kidnap Plot, the headlines ran. Underneath it told how Frederick H. Christie, sixteen, of New York, arrested for the shooting of an FBI agent, pleaded guilty but refused to give any information that would lead to the apprehension of Clarence Lawson, who was wanted in a dozen states for extortion and robbery.
“Won’t the box number I gave you lead to his apprehension?” asked Judy when she had finished reading the newspaper account.
“We can have the box watched. Maybe we can nab him when he comes for his mail. I’ll be out of here in a day or two. Then we can really go to work on it. In the meantime perhaps we can uncover a few more facts. The so-called plot never got beyond the talking stage, the boy said. We may have scared them off. Since it didn’t happen I guess I’m at liberty to tell you about it,” Peter continued. “I think Lawson planned to bring the victim to his home and then changed his mind. We heard him say, ‘We’ll hold the actress until her husband comes across with a donation.’ That’s the way Lawson operates. His charities are all legitimate. People are asked to make donations on the theory that they may be helped because they have been helpers. Someone is missing. A donation is made, and the missing person promptly returns. It’s one of the slickest ransom schemes anybody has yet devised. Somehow they work it so that the victim is never held against his will. Some worried relative donates money to a worthy cause. No law is broken until the money disappears. By then Lawson or one of his business partners is off for parts unknown. We would have nabbed him this time if bedlam hadn’t broken loose in the street outside his house. It was staged to look like a rumble between two rival street gangs in which we were just accidentally involved.”
“Oh, Peter!” exclaimed Judy. “Nobody will believe that.”
“People do believe some surprising things. I’m no prophet,” he said grimly, “but I predict the boys will get long sentences and Lawson will go scot free. It’s happened that way before. He’s one of the slickest criminals in the United States. I don’t know who this actress was or how they planned to make her disappear, but they were counting on the fact that her husband would be worried.”
“Her husband? Oh dear!” Judy exclaimed. “Irene is married. I ought to warn her—”
“No, please, don’t alarm her,” Peter interrupted. “It didn’t happen the way they planned. I’m sure of that. It was supposed to take place Saturday night—”
“It was Saturday night that Clarissa disappeared. But she isn’t an actress, and she isn’t married.”
“And she isn’t a phantom,” Peter added. “Whatever else we know about her, we can be perfectly sure she’s real. She may be in real danger, too. If I can’t find Lawson I want the confidence men who are working with him. This is no small outfit. It appears to be a nationwide organization. We want the top men, not just the tough kids they hire to do the shooting for them.”
“Do you really think they were hired?” Judy asked.
“We know they were following orders. Their minds, in some way, had been taken over by the minds of the criminals who gave those orders.”
“I see.” Judy was quiet a moment. Did these mind manipulators have, in their possession, some fiendish machine more dangerous than an atom bomb? It was a terrifying thought.
“Peter,” she asked, “what about Irene? Why didn’t she have a nightmare like Pauline and Flo and me? Irene told me this morning that she hadn’t dreamed an unpleasant thing.”
“Was she on the tour with you?”
“No, she’d gone to her rehearsal. We didn’t see her again until it was time for the show. There were a lot of people we didn’t know on the tour with us,” Judy remembered. “There was an ad man from Flo’s office, too. He was the one who quarreled with Mr. Lenz.”
“Mr. Lenz?”
“The projectionist. Irene’s show isn’t all live, you know. Sometimes they run film strips. Nearly all the commercials are on film. The show is sponsored by a tooth paste company now, but she’s thinking of getting a new sponsor so she can be on one of the big networks. It would be almost like having her visit us every Saturday evening in our home. She was against it at first,” Judy went on. “Flo asked me to talk her into it.”
“Did you?”
“No. Irene knows what’s right,” declared Judy. “I still can’t imagine her saying she uses a product when she doesn’t. And she’d never use golden hair wash. She hates the idea of everybody being blond as much as I do. Imagine it, Peter! No more black or brown hair. No more dark blondes like Clarissa and Honey—”
“And no more redheads. We couldn’t letthathappen!” Peter exclaimed.
Judy gave him one of her special smiles. Gray eyes met blue ones in a moment of understanding. Then she said, “I want to help. I’ll begin by making a list of the things we did Saturday.”
“Ask Pauline and Flo to go over it with you,” Peter suggested. “Then call up Irene. I would call her myself. They’ve given me a telephone right here at my bedside. But it would be better if you made the call from the booth outside.”
“What’ll I say? I’m so mixed up at this point I’m not sure what I’m trying to find out. Am I supposed to ask her about Clarissa or this unknown actress?”
“You’re trying to find out about that redheaded patient upstairs, for one thing,” Peter told her. “Ask Irene to come in and pay her a visit. She may know who she is.”
Judy’s list, when she finally had it completed, was as long as Santa’s list of good boys and girls. That was what she told Peter when she presented it to him.
“Pauline and Flo helped me. We put in everything we could think of in the order it all happened. But still I have a feeling there’s something important that we left out. Irene’s coming this evening,” Judy added hopefully. “Maybe she has something to add to the list.”
Much later, when Peter was being interviewed by one of the agents from the New York office and Judy had stepped outside his room for a moment, she almost bumped into Irene. For a moment they stared at each other. Then both of them said, in the same breath, “You’re here!”
“Dale’s here, too,” Irene told her. “He’s outside in the waiting room with little Judy. We’ll take turns minding her so both of us can visit Peter.”
“You’ll have to wait. He has a visitor. Very confidential,” Judy said, lowering her voice. “They’re looking over a list that I gave them. Nobody is allowed in there until they’ve finished exchanging top secrets.”
“Then I’ll go up and visit Clarissa and find out what happened—”
“Wait, Irene!” Judy stopped her. “I should have told you. That patient isn’t Clarissa. I don’t know who she is, but you may be able to identify her. She keeps calling for you.”
Irene looked her disappointment.
“She could be someone who’s seen me on television—someone I don’t know at all. Doesn’t she know who she is?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Is she out of her head? I’ve never been able to overcome my fear of people who weren’t—rational,” Irene confessed. “Couldn’t someone else identify her?”
“She wants you, Irene. She keeps asking for the Golden Girl. She was hurt on the way to see your show, and the idea seems fixed in her mind. She may calm down the minute she sees you,” Judy said.
“I hope so.” Irene paused, glancing back toward Peter’s room. His visitor, portfolio in hand, had just come out. “We can go in now,” she told Judy. “I’d rather not visit that woman upstairs until I’ve seen Peter.”
“Wait a moment, Mr. Blake!” Peter called from his room. “Here are a couple of young ladies I want you to meet. They may have something to add to that list I just gave you.”
He introduced the man to Judy and Irene. They greeted him cordially, and then Judy said, “I have nothing to add, Mr. Blake. If anything else happened I can’t think of it, but Mrs. Meredith may have something for you. She’s on her way to identify that red-haired woman who was hurt in the taxicab.”
“I am going up, but I probably won’t know her from Adam,” Irene said.
“From Eve,” Peter corrected her with a boyish grin. “Is Dale here? Maybe he might have a clue to her identity.”
“If I had somebody to mind the baby in the waiting room, we could both go up,” Irene began.
“I’ll mind her,” Judy said. “Is it all right, Peter? I won’t be long.”
“Of course it’s all right. I’ll go with you,” Peter surprised Judy by saying. “I’m supposed to walk around and get used to this cast. It makes me feel a little top-heavy right now. You’ll have to help me on with my robe.”
Judy smiled. It was so good to see Peter up and walking. She escorted him to the waiting room where little Judy had to be stopped from pouncing on him. The baby stared at the cast and then said sorrowfully, “Peter all broke.”
“How does she mean that?” asked Dale. “Good to see you so chipper,” he added, shaking the hand that Peter extended. “I’ve always heard that you can’t keep a good man down.”
Mr. Blake was introduced and invited to accompany Dale and Irene to the room in the old building where the red-haired woman was. They left quietly just as Peter was saying to little Judy, “I guess I must look something like a broken dolly to you.”
“Baby,” little Judy corrected him. Irene had brought along one of little Judy’s “babies” to keep her amused.
“A dolly can also be a truck used for television cameras,” Judy remarked. “You learn a whole new language. A chair becomes a prop, and a log is no longer something to throw in the fireplace. It’s a complete record of everything that happens on a station from sign-on in the morning to sign-off at midnight. I might remember what I forgot to put on that list if I looked at the station log.”
“Do that,” advised Peter. “There may have been something to make you dream—”
“On television?” Judy laughed. “I don’t know what it was unless that witch gave me nightmares.”
“Funny witch!” spoke up little Judy.
“You see,” Judy pointed out, “she was a funny witch. She wasn’t frightening even to a baby. The whole play was delightful. Did you see the reviews of it? Nobody seemed to recognize Francine Dow. Little Judy is holding the doll—excuse me, I mean the baby, that played the part of Sleeping Beauty during the first part of the show. They also used a film strip of a real baby.”
“The advertising was on film, too, wasn’t it? That’s one thing you did omit from your list,” Peter pointed out. “You forgot to list the commercials you watched.”
“The commercials! Who could list them? There are so many of them. Anyway, they aren’t important. But maybe they are,” Judy quickly amended her first statement. “That golden hair wash commercial started us worrying about our hair. We watched it when we were waiting for the tour to begin.”
“At Radio City?”
“Yes, but it didn’t originate from there. It was on a local channel. You know, the same one that features the Golden Girl show. I wish you could have been there, Peter.”
“Perhaps that’s where I should have been. There are federal controls to keep advertisers in line. If I had known—”
“Where Mommy Daddy gone?” little Judy interrupted, suddenly realizing that Dale and Irene were no longer in the room.
“They went to call on a patient,” Judy explained hurriedly. She was eager to hear the rest of what Peter had started to say, but again the baby interrupted.
“Wanna see patient!”
“I’m a patient. You’re visiting me,” Peter told her.
“You’re not sick,” she replied. “You’re mended.”
“Beautifully mended,” Peter agreed, kissing the top of her curly head. “It’s no use, Judy. We’ll have to explore the possibilities another time.”
Little Judy chattered on. Peter let her examine his cast. “It’shard. Who did ’at? Scribbles on it,” she observed.
“Autographs,” Peter corrected her.
She tried to say the word and made such a funnyowith her mouth that both Judy and Peter had to laugh. It wasn’t easy for a two-year-old to say a big word likeautograph. Any attempt at serious conversation was abandoned. All three of them were laughing and saying funny words when Dale and Irene returned. Mr. Blake was with them. They looked so serious that even little Judy stopped laughing.
“What’s wrong?” Judy asked at once. “Did you know the patient? Is she all right?”
“She’s—she’s—Oh, Judy! I can’t believe it,” Irene burst out. “She must have been hurt right after the show.”
“No, Irene. It was during the show.” Judy remembered it distinctly. “We heard the ambulance siren right after Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on the spindle and the witch pronounced the curse.”
“Francine Dow played the part of Sleeping Beauty, didn’t she?” Peter inquired.
“I certainly thought she did,” Judy began.
“But that’s impossible,” Dale blurted out when Irene could only gasp in disbelief.
“You see,” Mr. Blake pointed out, “we identified the patient. She’s better. She knows her own name, and Mrs. Meredith is sure of it.She is Francine Dow!”
The silence that followed Mr. Blake’s announcement was like the moment after lightning strikes, when a clap of thunder is expected. It would come with the whole explanation. But at first Judy couldn’t believe it.
“I don’t understand this at all,” she heard herself saying. “You couldn’t have made a mistake, Irene?”
“No, Judy. Irene identified her. There’s no mistake unless Clarence Lawson made it when he snatched the wrong girl. Do you think that could be what happened?” Peter asked the other FBI agent.
“It’s worth an investigation,” Mr. Blake replied. “This woman is Francine Dow all right. She was on her way to the theater when she was hurt.”
“Do you mean—you can’t mean that she never arrived! Then who was that up there on the stage? Someone played the part of Sleeping Beauty. Did you know it wasn’t the guest star you invited?” Judy asked, turning to Irene in bewilderment.
“No, I didn’t,” she admitted. “I did think she’d kept her youth and beauty amazingly. But the right make-up can make a person look very young. I couldn’t see what was going on backstage from where I was standing. Afterwards, when I saw the reviews, I suspected there had been a last-minute substitute. But I still don’t know who she was.”
“Doesn’t anybody know?”
“The substitute does. Whoever she was, she played the part beautifully except for the last song. I did wonder why she didn’t sing. There was an unscheduled wait when the witch was spinning,” Irene said, “but I never guessed Francine Dow wasn’t there. The show would have been ruined if someone hadn’t stepped in to play the part.”
“But who was that someone?” Judy wanted to know. “And how did she know the lines?”
“There were cards,” Irene explained. “Cards are often used to prompt busy stars. Francine missed the rehearsals so we had the cards ready for her. The man on the dolly held them up.”
“Baby,” little Judy corrected Irene drowsily from Dale’s arms, and promptly fell asleep.
“I wish I could sleep like that without dreaming,” Judy said with a sigh. “My dreams are so real I keep thinking things that are actually happening are part of them. If I could only think—”
“You did all right when you compiled that list your husband showed me. That shows some pretty clear thinking,” Mr. Blake complimented her.
“But this! If I could think back to the exact time—”
“That’s it!” exclaimed Peter. “Now you’re on the right track.”
“Am I? It doesn’t seem possible. But if the lines Francine had to say were on the cards, and the wig and costume were ready, itcouldhave been played by some other actress. But who was she? Who took the part of Sleeping Beauty?”
“We know it wasn’t Francine Dow,” Irene said thoughtfully. “It wasn’t one of the fairies. They were still in costume. I don’t see who it could have been unless—”
She paused, and Peter said one word:
“Clarissa!”
“You’re right, Peter!”
This was the clap of thunder Judy had been expecting. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had known it all along. Clarissa, in the golden wig and the princess costume, had shown her real beauty for everyone to see. There could have been no doubt, even in her own mind, that she was a vision of loveliness on TV.
“She said she’d do anything to get on television,” Judy remembered. “Could she have planned all this?”
“I don’t see how she could,” Irene replied. “Nobody possibly could have known Francine Dow would have an accident. The whole show could have been spoiled!”
“But it wasn’t. Clarissa played the part so well that everybody thought she was Francine Dow. But what happened afterwards?” asked Judy. “Francine’s aunt must have known she wasn’t the real Francine—”
“Ifthat woman was her aunt,” Peter put in, and suddenly, just as the realization had come that Clarissa had played the part of Sleeping Beauty, a new and more terrifying fact became apparent.
“Peter!” cried Judy. “Those plans to hold an actress until her husband gave a ‘donation’ were meant for Francine Dow. But if they’re holding Clarissa—”
She stopped, aghast at the thought of what terror the girl, so easily frightened, must be feeling in the hands of Clarence Lawson and his ring of criminals. They had been desperate enough to use bullets to keep their plans from being discovered. Peter was aware of the danger.
“We must proceed with caution,” he told Mr. Blake. “It’s our job to see that the girl isn’t hurt—”
“And that she’s returned to her own people,” his partner added. “Where can we get hold of them?”
That proved to be the big question. A minister somewhere in West Virginia was pretty vague. But it was enough to trigger the field office there into action. An ordained minister by the name of Valentine ought not to be hard to find.
Mr. Blake was ready to leave. He said he would get back to the office and set the machinery in motion. Meantime Peter decided to call up Washington, since every case investigated in the field had to be supervised and coordinated from FBI headquarters there.
“We’ll get fast action on this,” he promised a short time later, returning from the telephone booth just outside the waiting room.
Judy could see how difficult it was for him to move about with the heavy cast on his shoulder, but the urgency of his case seemed to give him new strength. She turned to Irene, who still seemed a little baffled by all that was happening, and said, “Poor Peter! I know how much he wants to get out there in the field, as he calls it, and do the investigating himself, but he can’t. We mustn’t let him try until he’s stronger.”
“Is Clarissa in danger? I don’t understand what’s going on at all,” Irene admitted.
“None of us do. But we have to find out. There seems to have been a plot to kidnap some actress. It sounds like something out of one of my stories,” Dale said, “but I’m afraid it’s only too real.”
He glanced at the sleeping baby he was holding, and Judy knew what he was thinking. Until Clarence Lawson and his ring of criminals were caught, none of them could be sure who his next victim would be.
“Peter’s afraid they’ve snatched Clarissa, thinking she was Francine Dow. I don’t know how a thing like that could happen. Why would she have gone with them without a protest? Let’s go back over everything that happened,” Judy suggested. “Mr. Lenz knows something—”
“You can’t blame him for anything. He’s the kindest, best man,” Irene began to defend him.
“I’m not questioning his character,” Judy told her. “I’m just remembering what he said. Something in that film storage room was dangerous. ‘As dangerous as an atom bomb,’ he said, and I think that something, whatever it is, may be a clue to what happened to Clarissa.”
“What about Francine Dow? Why wasn’t she reported missing? Didn’t anybody care about her? She has a husband. She does try to conceal her age. She used to look a lot like Clarissa when she was a movie star. Now, with her hair dyed that weird shade of red and her face—Judy, it was a yellowish color. She looked terrible. I asked the nurse and she said Francine is in bad shape. I guess it’s something pretty serious,” Irene finished.
“And worry never helps. I’ve heard Dad say that,” Judy remembered.
“I tried to tell her the show wasn’t spoiled. It did quiet her a little,” Irene said. “I suppose, now that they know who she is, the hospital will get in touch with her husband. Everything is out of our hands, Judy. We may as well go home and get a little rest.”
Judy hoped she could rest without a whole parade of faceless golden-haired people swarming in to haunt her dreams. Flo had dreamed. So had Pauline. But what of Clarissa? Was there really something in that golden hair wash commercial to make them dream?
“You started to tell me something, Peter,” Judy began. “You said there were federal controls to keep advertisers in line—”
“There aren’t enough, I’m afraid. The big networks have banned this kind of advertising, but some of the local channels may be using it,” Peter said.
“Advertising? But Mr. Lenz said, ‘as dangerous as an atom bomb,’” Judy objected. “I thought he was talking about something that might blow up in our faces.”
“Mind control is equally dangerous. Think about it,” Peter advised. “Talk with this projectionist if you have a chance. We want to know exactly what you four girls saw on television.”
“So these are our suspects?” Judy looked about at the array of machinery in the area just in front of the studio floor. It was the next day. She had come with Irene to rehearsal. To all appearances she was simply an interested friend, but Mr. Lenz knew, the moment he saw her, that she had come for another purpose.
“I’ve seen the papers,” he said to Irene. “I know your friend is missing, and I can tell you something about what happened backstage last Saturday. I was standing at the door to the film storage room and saw it all. She came back here during intermission. Your guest star hadn’t arrived, and everybody was all excited. When they saw this girl you call Clarissa Valentine they jumped to the conclusion that she was Francine Dow and brought out the wig and costume.”
“I see.” It was clear to Judy what had happened. “Clarissa said she came to New York hoping to get a little part on TV. That was the way she put it. The part she got wasn’t so little.”
“She was there when she was needed,” Irene put in, “but how did she happen to go backstage in the first place?”
“I think I can answer that question,” Judy said. “She went back for those two bottles of shampoo she left in the dressing room, and when she saw Francine Dow wasn’t there, she stepped into the part because she didn’t want the show spoiled and because—well, it does happen that sometimes one person’s failure is another’s opportunity.”
“I guess that’s the way of it,” agreed Mr. Lenz. “That girl can really act. With all the publicity she’ll get when she is located, she’s sure to be in demand, and I don’t mean just for spot advertising.”
“Speaking of advertising,” Judy began as if it had just come up casually in the conversation, “there was a commercial on this channel last Saturday—”
“If you mean the golden hair wash commercial, it won’t be shown again. I can promise you that,” the projectionist went on, becoming excited. “I know why you’ve come. I could see you were curious. Well, that young ad man had talked somebody here into showing that film, phantoms and all—”
“Phantoms?” The word burst from Judy’s lips. “What phantoms, Mr. Lenz?”
“That,” said Mr. Lenz, perching on his counter like an angry bird, “will take a little explaining.” He waved his hand toward the pigeonholes behind him, where rows upon rows of film were stored for future use on the program. “It’s my job to bring the contents of those cans to life. There’s everything there—spot commercials, feature films, half-hour shows—everything. People who watch these films know what they’re watching. If they don’t like the program they can turn it off. If the commercial displeases them they can always walk out of the room until it’s over.
“But here,” he went on, “is something being fed into your mind without your knowledge and without your consent. You can’t turn it off because you don’t know you’re watching it until, suddenly, you feel compelled to buy some product or, worse yet, you’re plagued with guilt because you didn’t buy it. This is called subliminal advertising, and it’s forbidden—just as it should be. Only once has it been used on this channel—”
“Was that last Saturday, Mr. Lenz? Was it shown on Teen Time Party?”
“Yes. Superimposed on the picture of the golden-haired girl you saw was another picture—a shadowy, faceless figure which the advertiser wished you to imagine was yourself. This phantom was flashed on the screen too fast for your conscious mind to be aware of it. But your subconscious mind recorded it. And a desire was planted. You began to want to be like the beautiful golden-haired girl rather than the faceless shadow.”
“I dreamed of faceless people,” cried Judy. “They had golden hair, and they were all alike. They frightened me, Mr. Lenz. I couldn’t get them out of my mind.”
“Did you associate them with such words asdrabanddull?” he asked.
“That’s what Clarissa kept saying about her hair. I thought—we all thought she’d hypnotized us in some way. Why? Were those words flashed on television, too? Were all those queer feelings we couldn’t explain the result of that program we watched?”
“I’m afraid they were, my dear. But the film will not be shown again. I can promise you that. Erase it from your memory, if you can. But remember! Those faceless phantoms could be real if we once lost our freedom to think!”
He stopped, as if spent by his outburst, and Irene said, “We’ll remember, won’t we, Judy? This has certainly been a lesson for me.”
“What do you mean, Irene?” asked Judy.
“Because I’d just about decided to do the golden hair wash commercial. That is, I thought if Clarissa used the stuff, she could do the commercial for me. And with all the publicity she’ll be getting, people will be eager to see her. But now that I know that sponsor uses subliminal advertising, I wouldn’t think of working for those people,” Irene exclaimed.
“What’s more, Mrs. Meredith,” Mr. Lenz observed, “if the golden hair wash people don’t give up the use of subliminal advertising, no major network will have anything to do with them.”
“That’s right,” Irene sighed. “And I did so want to be on one of the big networks. It isn’t just the extra money. It’s being able to entertain so many more people—especially you,” she confided with a fond look at Judy. “You won’t see me on your TV at home until I do.”
“It’s a shame,” Judy sympathized. “But you’ll get there sooner or later. And when you do, I hope you’ll repeatSleeping Beauty.”
“I’d like to,” Irene said, “but how can I unless we find Clarissa?”
Judy shook her head. “We haven’t anything, not even a picture of her for the papers, and so far they haven’t been able to locate any minister named Valentine in West Virginia. Peter says it’s probably not her real name.”
“You’ll find her,” Mr. Lenz said. “But if she goes on the air for golden hair wash, she’ll be giving up more than she can possibly gain.”
“Peter said there were thieves of the mind,” Judy said, “and I’m beginning to understand what he meant. You wouldn’t know it if they flashed those faceless phantoms on a film you had made. It would be their film, wouldn’t it? They could do that—”
“Not without warning the viewers,” Mr. Lenz interrupted. “The public does have that much protection. The technique has been used in horror films, but the viewers have been warned.”
“Warned of what?” asked Judy. “Were they told that the film would give them nightmares?”
“Yes. As I told that young ad man, it’s still in the experimental stage. It’s dangerous—”
“As dangerous as an atom bomb. That’s what you said,” Judy reminded him.
“And that,” declared the projectionist, “is exactly what I meant. The day a man’s thinking can be controlled without his knowledge will be the day that marks the end of freedom.”
“No!” cried Judy. “We won’t let that happen!”
Mr. Lenz gave Judy’s hand such a grip that she winced, but afterwards it was good to remember. And there were no more nightmares, for Judy at least. After she had talked it over with Peter she knew exactly what had happened and what they had yet to do.
Shortly after Peter was discharged from the hospital, a letter came, addressed to Irene and postmarked Roulsville. It bore no return address.
“That’s funny. It was forwarded to me from the studio,” Irene said, turning it over in her hand. “My show is on a local channel. I don’t have any fans in Roulsville.”
“You know some people there, don’t you?” Judy asked.
Irene shook her head. “Only you and your family. But they live in Farringdon.”
“Horace could have been driving through Roulsville,” Judy said, “but it isn’t his handwriting. Anyway, he usually types—”
Peter interrupted, his blue eyes twinkling.
“The best way to find out who the letter is from is to open it,” he suggested.
Dale laughed. “Why make such a mystery out of an ordinary letter?”
“Did you say an ordinary letter? This isn’t—it can’t be, but it is!” Irene exclaimed as she tore open the envelope.
“You aren’t making any sense,” Judy began.
“Does this make sense?” Irene waved four crisp five-dollar bills before her face. “Clarissa sent them! She returned our money. Oh, Judy! I can’t believe it!”
“I can’t either,” Judy agreed. “How does Clarissa happen to be in Roulsville?”
“Wait till I read the letter,” Irene said. “It’s directed to all four of us.”
Judy’s bewilderment grew as Irene read:
“Dear Irene, Judy, Flo, and Pauline:Enclosed are four five-dollar bills. Thank you for helping me, a perfect stranger. Do good and gain good, my father always says. Trust people and you will be trusted. Please tell the police and the FBI that I am safe at home and they can stop looking for me. I saw it all in the papers. Dad thinks I ought to give up the idea of a career on TV until I’ve finished high school here in Roulsville. I am sorry I had to leave the theater in such a hurry, but Francine Dow’s aunt mistook me for her. I convinced her of her mistake and went home only to find that my parents were moving. I told you Dad used to be a minister, didn’t I? He doesn’t have a pastorate at present, but hopes to become active in church work. What church do you attend, Judy? I remember hearing you say you lived somewhere in the vicinity of Roulsville. We’ve bought a beautiful home here....”
“Dear Irene, Judy, Flo, and Pauline:
Enclosed are four five-dollar bills. Thank you for helping me, a perfect stranger. Do good and gain good, my father always says. Trust people and you will be trusted. Please tell the police and the FBI that I am safe at home and they can stop looking for me. I saw it all in the papers. Dad thinks I ought to give up the idea of a career on TV until I’ve finished high school here in Roulsville. I am sorry I had to leave the theater in such a hurry, but Francine Dow’s aunt mistook me for her. I convinced her of her mistake and went home only to find that my parents were moving. I told you Dad used to be a minister, didn’t I? He doesn’t have a pastorate at present, but hopes to become active in church work. What church do you attend, Judy? I remember hearing you say you lived somewhere in the vicinity of Roulsville. We’ve bought a beautiful home here....”
“I’ll bet they have,” Peter commented, reading over Irene’s shoulder. “Clarence Lawson has enough cash to buy a real beaut—”
“Clarence Lawson!” exclaimed Judy. “What are you saying, Peter? Clarissa’s with her father.”
“So the letter says. But did Clarissa write it?”
“It does sound a little stilted,” Judy admitted. “And I’m not familiar with her handwriting.”
“Well, I am familiar with some of those sayings she attributes to her father.Do good and gain good, for instance. Lawson’s overworked that one. Those were the very words he used when he approached Francine Dow’s husband for a donation. Dow and Francine had quarreled over her comeback on TV, and she’d left him to live with an aunt who had just come east from California.”
“Did you interview the aunt?” asked Dale. “Or aren’t you at liberty to say?”
“I didn’t. I checked with our field office there. The real aunt is still in California. Lawson had found out about her, some way. The ‘aunt’ who called at the stage door and left with Clarissa really did mistake her for Francine Dow. That’s one fact that is straight in the letter.”
“But the others? She says she’s living with her parents in Roulsville. Aren’t these people really her parents? It is odd she didn’t mention her brothers and sisters. Didn’t she say she was one of six children?” Judy asked.
“I didn’t hear her say that. I didn’t hear her say a lot of the queer things you girls said she said when you were on that tour of Radio City,” Irene replied. “I didn’t hear her call herself a changeling, for instance, or say she looked in the mirror and saw no reflection. Maybe she is trying to trick us after all.”
“It isn’t Clarissa. It’s Lawson who’s trying to trick us,” declared Peter, “but this time he won’t get away with it. He’s picked you for a sucker because you lent money to a stranger. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he finds out who you really are, Angel.”
“You mean when he finds out I’m married to an FBI man,” Judy laughed. “Peter, when can we leave for home?”
They had planned to return to Pennsylvania in a day or two, anyway. The letter made their return more urgent.
“Let’s leave tomorrow morning,” Peter suggested. “Maybe you’d better call your mother and ask her to open up the house. Otherwise it will be pretty cold. And I’m afraid you’ll have to do most of the driving.”
The Beetle had come through the gun battle with one small dent in its fender. That was repaired, and the car now looked like new. A few telephone calls were made and then the packing began. The following morning, Judy and Peter were on their way home.
“I don’t like New York much,” Judy admitted when they were out of the city, “especially Madison Avenue and what Flo calls the rat race to get a monopoly on all the big accounts. I don’t want anything big. I guess I’m just a country girl at heart.”