“Poor Meta!” Violetta put in. “She has so much on her mind, we won’t wait to ask. She’s sure to appreciate anything we can do to help. We saw the smoke from our house and came right over. All the children are safe? Thank heaven!”
“All right, boys, get in the back seat,” Dorcas ordered, and the six children scrambled in.
“Good-bye! Tell Ma where we went!” they shouted from the car, as Dorcas started off with a jerk.
Judy turned to Peter, laughing. “My, that was fast! I didn’t want Danny to leave until he’d seen his father. But they do have a big house with all those unused bedrooms upstairs and that wonderful telescope in the cupola. The boys may not want to leave.”
“They may not have to,” Peter replied. “The Jewell sisters could keep a couple of them. Foster homes may be the answer to this emergency.”
“Yes,” Judy agreed. “Of course, they are a little old—”
“The orphans?”
Judy laughed. “You know I mean the Jewell sisters, but they do seem to be getting younger since we solved their problems, don’t they?”
“One less haunted house,” agreed Peter. “Between us we’ve dehaunted quite a few.”
“And yet there is an air of mystery about all those houses—theirs, ours, and especially the house in Farringdon. I keep thinking how pleased Dad would be to have some of the furniture we thought we lost in the Roulsville flood. Even the table leg would be a souvenir of our old home,” Judy finished wistfully.
“We’ll find it,” Peter promised. “Your picture proves it was there in the beaver dam, and it couldn’t have walked away by itself.”
Judy shivered at the thought.
“There is something lifelike about it.”
“There certainly is,” agreed Peter. “It’s a puzzle all right, but right now we have a more urgent problem.”
“I know. Homes for the homeless. What about our house?” asked Judy. “We have a lot of room. We could take in Miss Hanley and quite a number of small children—” She broke off as she caught sight of the matron and the man Judy supposed she had photographed behind the lady’s face. They were standing together with quite a crowd around them.
“I dread telling him Danny went off with the Jewell sisters,” Judy said. “He’s calmed down, but he still looks worried. No matter what he’s done, I feel sorry for him. A father has a right to see his son.”
“He’ll want an explanation. I won’t question him just yet,” Peter decided. “This isn’t the right time or place. Of course there is a lot still to be explained.”
“The lady table leg, for instance?”
“Yes, and whatever it was that Danny overheard. If his fatheristhat man in the ghost picture—”
“Do you mean there’s a chance he isn’t?” Judy interrupted excitedly. “Oh, I hope none of the things we suspect are true!”
“I won’t think of Danny’s father as a thief,” Judy resolved to herself.
With this resolution in her mind, she found it easier to pass on the suggestion she had made to Peter. She didn’t look at Danny’s father, but spoke directly to Meta Hanley.
“The Jewell sisters took six of the boys home with them. We’ll help, too. We’ll do anything we can, and I’m sure Holly will, too. We have lots of room in our house, but not quite enough beds,” Judy admitted, looking around at the many orphans wandering about.
Soon she discovered that she and Peter were not the only ones to volunteer their homes to shelter the children. Hearing that the Jewell sisters had taken some of the boys, several more women pressed forward.
“We have room for two.”
“We’ll take one of the little tots. We have a crib upstairs. I suppose you’ll need clothing—”
“We’ll take care of that,” another woman put in. “Our church was planning a rummage sale. We’ve collected a lot of children’s clothing. It’s all yours for the asking.”
Miss Hanley thanked all those who were willing to help and told them she would be glad to have them keep the children overnight. She didn’t know what would be decided after that, but she said she hoped she could keep her family together.
“They are my family, you know,” she explained to the people gathered around her. “Some of them have been with me for years and treat each other like brothers and sisters. I hope a way will be found so they don’t have to be apart for more than a night or two. I don’t like to see them separated—”
“Where’s my son?” Danny’s father broke in.
He had been expecting Judy to return with Danny. The moment he saw that the boy wasn’t with her he started firing questions at her.
“Where’s Danny? What have you done with him? I don’t know who you—”
“Wait, George!” Meta Hanley interrupted. “Judy, didn’t you just tell me the Jewell sisters had taken six boys home with them? Was Danny one of them?”
“Yes, but—”
Judy was not allowed to finish.
“They had no right!” stormed the boy’s father. “A couple of blundering old ladies drive over and kidnap six of your boys, Meta, and you stand there and let them.”
“It was a kindness!” she retorted, angry now. “The children have to have a place to sleep.”
“A kindness? Taking my boy away when I haven’t seen him for six long years?” George Anderson spoke in such a loud voice that some of the women who had offered help backed away. “That’s no kindness! That’s kidnapping!”
“Hold on a minute!” Peter stopped him, “before you make any more charges. Your son wasn’t kidnapped by the Jewell sisters. And I suspect you had plenty of opportunity to see him before the fire. He’s been trailing you around for days. I’m afraid, after what he saw and heard, he doesn’t want to meet you.”
“That’s a lie!” Danny’s father charged. “He couldn’t have been trailing me around for days. I only got in from Canada this morning. I was on my way to the old house. I was going to open it up and make a home for Danny. Then I saw the fire—”
“You mean you haven’t been over there to that house with the boarded-up windows?” Judy interrupted in surprise.
“No, and I haven’t seen Danny. He couldn’t have been trailing me.”
“Well, he was trailing somebody who had a key to the house,” Peter insisted. “We found your son at the beaver dam, and he told us all about it. He’d missed his lunch at the orphanage, and so we stopped at the Beverly—”
“Where you and I used to go for dinner, George,” Meta Hanley put in.
“I know where it is,” George Anderson snapped. “I thoughtyouhad forgotten. Maybe they’ll make room for these children. Or maybe I will. It’s time I kept my promise and took Danny home.”
“You aren’t very good at keeping promises, are you, George?” Miss Hanley said quietly.
“What about you?” he retorted. “You speak of the Beverly as if it were just any restaurant and not—You’re the one who didn’t keep your promise. I had the ring—”
“This one?” Peter questioned, showing him the ring Blackberry had been rolling on the floor in the boarded-up house.
“Let me see that!” George Anderson demanded.
After scrutinizing it with a puzzled look on his face, he hurled back another question.
“Where did you find this ring?”
“Our cat found it,” Judy spoke up. “He rolled it out of a hole the beavers had gnawed in your house. We left him still in there, and we’d like to drive over there with you and get him out—”
“We’ll get him out all right!”
Judy didn’t like the way Danny’s father said that. He glared at her a moment, reminding her of Danny. “I trapped him,” the boy had said in evident satisfaction. Was there a streak of cruelty in both of them?
“The ring is yours, isn’t it?” Peter asked quietly.
“It is,” he replied, “but I can’t believe a cat found it. I put it away with my other valuables. It’s the wedding ring I bought for Meta—”
“George! You did buy it?” she gasped.
“Of course I bought it. You were with me when I picked it out. I had to wait for it to be engraved, didn’t I?” Puzzlement was rapidly taking the place of anger on the man’s face. “But what is it, Meta? Why are you suddenly so pale?”
“I can’t believe it, that’s all. If you bought the ring, why didn’t you meet me the way you said you would?”
“I was there,” he retorted. “Where were you?”
“Oh dear! I was there, too. I waited and waited.” She paused, passing her hand across her forehead as if the gesture might clear her confused thoughts. “It’s been such a terrible day with the fire and all these poor children left homeless. I don’t understand how such things happen,” she admitted. “I’m not even sure theyarehappening. Things do get mixed up like this in dreams. First a nightmare with people screaming at each other and running into burning buildings and then an impossible ending—”
“But Meta, you aren’t dreaming. This impossible ending is real.” George Anderson’s voice was husky. “You’ve been the mother my boy needed. I knew you would be when I left him at the orphanage. But now he’s old enough to need a father, too.”
He sounded sincere, but Judy couldn’t help thinking, “You need him, too, to help you with your business.” She couldn’t forget the note.
“What has happened?” Danny’s father was asking. “Why has he turned against me?”
Meta sighed. “I can’t explain that, George, but Peter Dobbs is with the FBI. I called them the other night when Danny didn’t come home. He was at the beaver dam. Beaver dam,” she repeated as if trying the sound of the word. “I was so sure you said you’d meet me at the beaver dam. It was our old meeting place. Remember?”
“Iremember,” he replied, looking more bewildered by the minute, “but how would Danny know about it? You didn’t tell him, did you?”
She shook her head. “I never said a word. Naturally I knew he was your boy, but I loved him for himself. I trusted him, too. When he said he was going over to watch the beavers, I believed him.”
“But why would he spend the night there?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him that question, George,” Meta replied quietly. “I’ve never spoken a word against you. If you’re worthy of your son’s love I’m sure you can win it back—”
“Yours, too?” he asked.
Meta turned away then. Her face was so white that Judy knew she must be near collapse. A neighbor suggested that she lie down for a little while in her house, but Meta protested.
“What will happen to the children?”
“We’ll see that they have places to stay for the night.” Judy turned to Danny’s father. “Did you mean it when you offered your house?”
“I never meant anything more sincerely in my whole life,” he declared, and Judy wouldn’t have doubted him if she hadn’t caught Peter looking as if he didn’t know what to believe. Was George Anderson a generous father offering his own home to the homeless children, or was this a trick?
“Peter,” asked Judy when they were in their own car following the lighter car driven by Danny’s father, “do you think it was all a mistake? I mean about the meeting place?”
“‘Beaver dam’ and ‘Beverly’ don’t sound much alike,” Peter replied. “But it does look as if one of them waited in one place and one in another. It’s this business of his that worries me. Well, here we are.”
Danny’s father was out of his car first. He parked it under a tree and waited for Judy and Peter a little impatiently.
“You see,” he pointed out, indicating the boarded-up windows and the unkept yard, “the house is just as I expected to find it. There’s plenty to do. It’s been closed for six years, but with the kids to help, it shouldn’t take us long to put it in shape.”
“Six years, did you say? That would be about the time of the Roulsville flood, wouldn’t it?” questioned Peter.
“About,” George Anderson replied without a change of expression. “It was right after the flood, as I recollect it. I lost my wife a short time before.”
He went on talking about his wife as they walked toward the house. She used to live in Roulsville and when he said her maiden name was Mary Turner, Judy thought she remembered her.
“She used to help Miss Pringle in the library, didn’t she? I must have been about eight years old when I got my first library card. A girl named Mary made it out. I remember how nicely she printed my name.”
“That was Mary all right.”
He spoke tenderly as if he had really loved her. But he claimed he loved Meta, too. Judy supposed it was possible to love two people at the same time although she couldn’t imagine herself being really in love with anyone but Peter. Still, before their marriage, she hadn’t been so sure. She tried to listen sympathetically but all the time there was that doubt in her mind.
“Sure I planned to marry Meta, but when she didn’t keep our date and managed to be out every time I telephoned, what could I think? I turned to Mary for sympathy, and it soon ripened into love. It often happens,” Danny’s father declared. “We had some good years together. Now, after six more years, I’m back home again, and trying to pick up the pieces.”
It was an unfortunate sentence. Just then Judy noticed the pieces, not of a shattered romance, but pieces of broken furniture. They were scattered here and there about the yard.
“Beavers,” Peter commented. “You can see their trails through the tall grass.”
“They didn’t get any of that stuff from my house. It is a mess, though,” George Anderson admitted. “But the boys can help me clean up the yard.”
His step was almost jaunty as he walked up on the front porch and inserted his key in the lock of the front door. It opened so easily that he gave a start backwards.
“That’s odd!” he exclaimed. “I thought the lock would be rusty after all these years.”
Was this an act, or did he really think the house had been closed that long? He went in first and just stood there sniffing the strong scent of varnish and glue that filled all the rooms. Judy was the first to speak.
“It’s dark in here,” she observed. “Those boarded-up windows keep out the daylight, but we can use my flash—”
“We won’t need it,” Peter said, flicking on the light switch and flooding the rooms with light. The dazed owner of the house stood blinking in their bright glare.
“Wh-what’s going on here?” he finally managed to stutter.
“I was about to ask you the same question,” replied Peter. “Danny showed me your note. Is this the business you mentioned?”
“You mean my boy thinks—” He broke off there, apparently too stunned to finish the sentence.
Judy was a little stunned herself. The house was not a home at all. It was a shop, complete with carpenter’s bench and sanding tools. To the left, as she came in, she noticed a small office. And there on the desk, in plain sight, sat a typewriter exactly like the one she had given Holly.
“Is this—your typewriter?” she asked when she could find her voice.
George Anderson glared at her. “You knew this stuff was here, didn’t you? I’ve read about you, always snooping around in empty houses and giving that brother of yours ghost stories for the Farringdon paper. You’re Dr. Bolton’s daughter, aren’t you?”
Judy nodded. She couldn’t speak because she had seen what was in the corner. Either she was dreaming or one of her ghost stories was about to come true. For there, on top of a neat pile of chair rungs and old rockers, was a familiar face. In fact, there were three of them. Only one leg from the lady table was missing.
“Look!” Judy finally exclaimed, pointing to the pile. “They’re like new, and yet I know they must be the other three legs from our table.”
“They’ve been refinished. The fourth leg must be around here somewhere,” declared Peter.
The marble table top was there. It was leaning against the wall waiting for the whole table to be assembled. Judy went over and touched it to make sure it was real.
“Now I’m like Meta Hanley. I think I’m dreaming,” she said.
“This stuff is solid enough!” Danny’s father picked up one of the table legs. “But how in thunder did it get in my house?” he demanded. “And what are all these tools doing on the shelves where Mary used to keep her books?”
“We’ll find out,” Peter promised. “We’ll find your wife’s books, too. Were they rare books?”
“They were old books, if that’s what you mean. She had quite a collection.”
“Peter?” Judy touched his arm. “There’s a collection of rare books in the Roulsville library. Mrs. Wheatley bought them just recently. She could tell you the name of the book dealer.”
“Books aren’t all that’s missing,” Danny’s father observed as he walked through the rooms. “There’s enough furniture in here to fill a warehouse, but very little of it is mine. We’ll go upstairs later. Right now let’s see what’s in the kitchen.”
He opened the door but could not enter. The way was blocked by piles of furniture, most of it broken and warped.
“What’s all this?” he questioned, pushing tables and chairs out of his way to make a path and growing more furious by the minute. “Someone has turned my house into a shop for rebuilding old furniture. Most of this stuff looks as if it had been through a flood!”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Peter replied evenly.
“And you’re accusing me of stealing it?”
“I didn’t say that. I did have an idea we might find something like this in your house,” Peter admitted. “One of those carved table legs in the other room was stolen by beavers—”
“Now I’ve heard everything!” George Anderson exploded. “Next thing you’ll be telling me beavers walked off with my wife’s books because they were a little short of reading matter. You said there was a cat in this house, too, didn’t you? Did the cat turn on the electricity?”
“No, but he was here,” Judy began, smiling in spite of herself. She had almost forgotten poor Blackberry in the excitement, but he was sure to be around somewhere. “Your son trapped him,” she started to explain to Danny’s father, but he wouldn’t let her finish.
“Well, I’m no cat, and you can’t trap me,” he broke in furiously as he started toward the door.
The door George Anderson chose for his hasty exit was the door to the kitchen. Peter made no move to stop him. Neither did Judy. He was stopped by what he saw when he flung open the door.
There, glittering in the bright sunlight that streamed in through the doorway, was an overturned tobacco jar spilling old jewelry, tie clasps, gold cuff links, and other trinkets. Nothing of any great value appeared to be in the collection, but it did tell the story of the ring Blackberry had found.
“You see,” Judy pointed out, “my cat did tip over this tobacco jar and roll the ring out to us. Peter, we’d better find him.”
“He’s disappeared before,” Peter reminded her as they searched the house, upstairs and down. “He always comes back. We may find him waiting for us in the car. I left the windows open.”
“You two are really fond of that cat, aren’t you?” Danny’s father asked, calming down now that he had seen the evidence. “What I can’t figure out is how he got inside my house in the first place.”
“We told you. He crawled in through this hole.” Judy pointed out a jagged opening near the kitchen door. “You can see it was gnawed by beavers. They really did haul away some of this stuff to build their dam. Your son watched them do it. But, apparently, someone else was watching, too.”
“You’re not accusing me again, are you?” He was still on the defensive, but Judy and Peter soon convinced him they were not accusing him of anything.
“We’re just trying to find out the truth. You can help us, Mr. Anderson, if you will,” declared Peter. “You know where this furniture came from, don’t you?”
“I don’tknow,” he replied with emphasis, “but I suspect it’s loot from the Roulsville flood. Somebody stored it here six years ago and set up a shop to refinish and resell it more recently, I suppose. But it was done without my knowledge, and I won’t take the blame for it!”
“You won’t have to, but we are asking you to help us find out who did it,” Peter told him. “My wife took a picture of him when Danny was trailing him. Danny thinks—”
“Danny thinks I’m the thief, doesn’t he?” his father interrupted. “That’s why he refused to see me?”
“He’ll know who the thief is tomorrow when I show him this picture blown up and separated from the one of the table leg. Do you see what happened?”
“I’m afraid I don’t see,” George Anderson admitted after taking a long look at the picture Peter handed him. “What is this? A joke of some kind?”
Judy laughed. “You might call it that, but the joke was on me. I took one picture on top of another. It does create a weird effect.” She pointed out the lady’s face on the man’s body. “You see, that’s the same face that you saw carved on those three table legs in the other room. One is missing. It must have been stored here in the kitchen when the beavers found it.”
“This seems to be where all the unfinished furniture is stored,” Peter observed as he gestured toward the stack of chairs that had blocked the doorway.
“Of course,” agreed Judy. “The beavers couldn’t get in the other room with the door closed, could they? I mean unless they gnawed their way in. That must be where this old furniture is taken to be sanded and varnished and made to look like new. We’ll have our whole table, just the way it was before the flood, as soon as we find the other table leg.”
“You mean the one the beavers stole?” Danny’s father asked, beginning to understand.
“Right,” agreed Peter. “Your house wasn’t broken into except by beavers—”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean,” Peter pointed out, “that whoever entered this house had a key. Danny saw him using it.”
“But I was the only one with a key,” George Anderson protested.
“Think! Didn’t you give a key to someone?”
“Only to the carpenter who boarded up the windows, and he sent it right back as soon as the work was finished.”
“He would have had time to order a duplicate—”
“That’s it!” Judy broke in excitedly. “Was the carpenter’s name John Beer?”
Immediately Judy regretted having asked the question. It was like poking at a hornet’s nest.
“John Beer is an honest carpenter,” Danny’s father exclaimed. “He wouldn’t do a thing like that. Get out, both of you, before you make any more accusations. I’ll call the police myself and have this stolen stuff hauled out of here, and then I’ll get my boy back from those meddling old ladies, and furthermore,” he added, glaring at Judy, “if I find that cat of yours prowling around in my house I’ll wring its neck!”
“You wouldn’t be so cruel! Come on, Peter,” Judy urged. When they were outside, she added, “I shouldn’t have mentioned John Beer. It was just a guess—”
“And a pretty good one,” Peter said. “He probably did have refinished furniture in his truck and then, when Sammis refused to buy it, he took it somewhere else and sold it. If that’s John Beer in the picture—”
“I don’t think it is,” Judy interrupted. “The man with the lady’s face is tall and thin like—like Danny’s father. You don’t think he will find Blackberry, do you?”
“Not before we do—I hope. Even if he does, I doubt that he’ll carry out his threat. He’s angry and confused now, but when he has time to think this over he may come to the same conclusion we did. That key he gave John Beer may turn out to be the key to the whole puzzle. Better call Blackberry once more before we leave,” Peter advised when they had reached the car. “We can’t wait long, though. I have a report to turn in. George Anderson may not know it, but his life may be in danger if we don’t get some of our men there fast.”
“You mean the thieves—”
“That’s right,” Peter agreed before Judy could finish the alarming thought. “If they return and find him there they’ll do anything to save their illegal business. It wasn’t his. I’m convinced of that.”
Judy began calling Blackberry. She walked a little way along the woods road calling and searching. The sun was low in the western sky. It looked like a bright ball of fire as she glimpsed it through the trees. Soon it would be dark.
With a shiver of apprehension she turned back. She had called and called, but it was no use.
“We’ve almost lost him so many times. Now I’m afraid we’ve really lost him,” she lamented as Peter started the car and they drove off without Blackberry.
When they reached the first telephone Peter called in his report and learned that George Anderson had summoned the police just as he had threatened.
“He won’t carry out his other threat, though.” Peter seemed convinced of this. Judy wished she could be as sure of Blackberry’s safety as he was.
As they passed the burned orphanage, they saw a few people still standing about. The ruins of the building still smoked, and one fire engine had not gone back to its firehouse. But there were no orphans to be seen.
“I wonder where they are. We were going to take some of them home with us,” Judy reminded Peter.
“We will if any more homes are needed. I’ll let you off here. You can find out from your father. That looks like his car parked in the next driveway,” Peter observed.
“It is!” Judy exclaimed. “Dad must be inside that neighbor’s house with Meta Hanley. Oh, I hope she’s all right. I’ll stay and see if I can do anything to help. I know you’ll be busy.”
“Will I!” Peter agreed as a police car screamed to a stop beside him and one of the officers took Judy’s place. Peter gave her a quick kiss and promised not to forget Blackberry. Then he turned to the officer.
“You men are fast,” Judy heard him say as he sped off, following the police car back to the house with the boarded-up windows.
In the neighbor’s house Judy did find her father. Only his eyes showed surprise at seeing her.
“How’s Meta?” she asked in a whisper. “You did come to see her, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “She’s sleeping. She’ll be all right when she wakes up.”
“And the orphans? Are any of them here?”
He opened the door to an adjoining room. Four babies, all under two years old, romped on a quilt spread on the floor.
“It will make a hard bed, but it was the best we could do unless you want to take them home. There’s an older child helping Mrs. Alberts in the kitchen.”
“Of course I’ll take them—all five of them,” declared Judy in her impulsive way. “Holly will help me take care of them. Her sister’s baby has outgrown his crib, and I can put two more in the old trundle bed stored in the attic, and two in the big spare bed—”
“Now wait a minute,” Dr. Bolton stopped her. “Your mother and I have room for a baby or two in our house.”
Judy laughed. “There won’t be enough babies to go around!” she said.
On her way home in her father’s car Judy had her hands full. She was so busy with the babies that there was no time to wonder what had become of Blackberry. Two of her small charges slept, and two of them cried. The older child wouldn’t talk. She just sat in a far corner of the car holding her baby brother and looking frightened. She wouldn’t even tell Judy her name.
“I forgot it,” she confessed at last. “You can just call me Sister.”
“I’d better go inside and prepare your mother for a shock,” Dr. Bolton said when they reached Farringdon. “She isn’t expecting company for dinner. You’ll help her with the babies, won’t you, Judy girl?”
“I’ll help too,” Sister spoke up. She wanted to give her baby brother his bottle and explained his formula very carefully to Judy.
Mrs. Bolton made the children welcome, as Judy had known she would, and Horace was there eager to hear more about the orphanage fire. Now Judy could give him the latest news.
“Two boys started it by accident. Peter questioned them, but he won’t want his name mentioned. Neither will I. You see,” Judy explained, “we’re working on something else. I’m not sure, but I think we’ve found Holly’s typewriter in that house with the boarded-up windows. And you’ll never guess what else was there!”
“What was it? How did you get in? Is that where the beavers got all that stuff they used to build their dam? You didn’t find any more of those lady table legs, did you?”
Horace was asking questions too fast for Judy to answer, but she did her best. When she told him they’d found the whole lady table refinished and looking like new, he was really surprised.
“Only one leg is missing. It must be the one that was in the beaver dam. I’m sorry now that you didn’t take it,” declared Judy. “It must have been stolen right after you and I left to take Danny back to the orphanage. It was his father who let us into the house. He said the orphans could stay there, but that was before he saw all that loot from the Roulsville flood.”
“It was his own house. He must have known the stuff was there.”
“No, Horace, I don’t think he did. Danny knew it, though. He watched the beavers drag some of that stolen furniture out of the house and build it into their dam. Then, when he saw a man open the door with a key, it was easy for him to believe his father might be the thief.”
“That sounds logical,” Horace commented when Judy stopped to spoon cereal into the mouth of one of the babies. “What do you think?”
“Well, six years ago, Mr. Anderson gave a key to the carpenter he hired to board up the windows. I guessed the carpenter’s name was John Beer. You know he was doing business with Sammis, or trying to. It all hangs together, but Danny’s father can’t see it. He chased us out and called the police the minute I mentioned John Beer’s name. Peter went back there with them, and that’s all I can tell you until I see him,” Judy finished.
All the time she had been talking she had been busy feeding the baby. Its mouth opened and closed as if it were a hungry baby robin. Sister fed her own baby brother, holding the bottle so carefully that he drank every drop. The other two babies already were sleeping.
“What about that picture you took?” Horace questioned when they finally sat down to a late dinner. “You told me over the telephone that I’d have to see it to believe it.”
“Well, here it is,” Judy said, handing him the print. “Peter’s having the film blown up and separated—”
“Holy cow!” Horace interrupted. “I’ve seen the picture, but I still don’t believe it. The beaver dam shows right through this man’s body. Or is it a man? He has a lady’s face. Did our lady table leg come to life and decapitate him?”
“It must have,” Judy giggled. “Seriously,” she added, “it didn’t come to life, and it didn’t walk away, either. We’ll find it when we find the man in the picture.”
“I could write up a whale of a story with a mystery angle,” Horace began, but Judy stopped him.
“Just wait, and you’ll have your story. We’re not sure of anything, but there may be something released for publication when Peter gets home. It may be late but I want to be there—”
“With all these babies?” Horace questioned.
Two of them had slept right through dinner. These were the two that had been crying in the car.
“They were just tired, poor dears,” Mrs. Bolton sympathized. “I have milk and cereal ready for them when they wake up. Just leave them here, Judy girl. You’ll have enough to do, taking care of the other three children.”
“I will take care of Little Brother,” Sister spoke up. “They won’t take him away from me, will they?”
“I’ll see that they don’t,” Judy promised. “You’re both going to stay with me.”
Horace offered to take them in his car. He wanted to stop and ask Honey to go along for the ride.
“She’ll be a help with the babies,” he began, but Judy objected.
“You may as well know it, Horace,” she told him, “Holly is jealous of you and Honey. She has a crush on you herself. If Honey is with us, Holly may not want to lend me Bobby’s outgrown crib, and this baby I’m holding is so lively she’ll need it.”
“So that’s it!” Horace was teasing again as they started off. “Suppose Holly isn’t in the mood for baby-sitting? You’ll really be in a jam then.”
Judy couldn’t see her brother’s face from the back seat of his car where she was minding the three children. But she knew he must be smiling.
“We’ll take all three of them to my house,” she decided, ignoring his teasing. “Then you can drive over and borrow the crib and see if Holly is free to come and help me.”
“Right,” agreed Horace as he turned in the long driveway that led to the house Judy had inherited from her grandmother.
“This used to be a farm,” Judy explained to Sister as the little girl gazed about her in wide-eyed wonder. “I still have a horse and a cow and a few chickens—”
“And a pussycat?”
“And a pussycat,” Judy agreed quickly. “He isn’t here right now. He’s probably off hunting somewhere in the woods.”
“Where’s Blackberry?” Judy asked, the moment Peter came home.
She had been nodding in the big chair, waiting up for him. “You didn’t find him, did you?”
“No,” he replied, “but I did make peace with George Anderson so he won’t hurt Blackberry if he finds him.”
“That’s a relief,” Judy said. She yawned and stretched. “Those babies made a wreck out of me,” she declared. “I thought they’d never go to sleep. And they aren’t the only ones! There are two more babies with Mother. Let’s go sit in the kitchen, and we can talk over coffee.” Peter was always hungry so Judy cut him a piece of pie to go with the coffee. “I’m saving a piece for Horace,” she said. “He’ll be here early in the morning. Too early, probably,” she added with a yawn. “He wants to print that ghost picture in the paper before the man is identified, and make a mystery of it.”
Judy stared at first one and then the other.Judy stared at first one and then the other.
Judy stared at first one and then the other.
“He’s too late. The mystery is solved,” announced Peter. “I have the separations with me. You won’t know the man—”
“But I do!” Judy exclaimed, seizing the pictures and staring at first one and then the other. The lady table leg was in the water just the way she had first seen it. The picture was almost too clear. It made her shiver just to look at it. The man’s face, in the other print, was equally clear.
“You know this man?” Peter inquired in a puzzled voice. “Where on earth—”
“Oh, I don’t really know him,” Judy interrupted. “His picture is in the Post Office, isn’t it? Horace and I were looking at it the other day, and I remember saying he didn’t look like a criminal. I’m so glad you found him!”
“He isn’t found, just identified,” Peter said. “He’s one of Joe Mott’s boys, of course. They’ve robbed everything from banks to flooded towns and set up all sorts of fronts for their illegal business.”
“Fronts?” Judy questioned. “Do you mean places like that sheared-off house? That hadn’t any front.”
Peter laughed. “I see what you mean, but it was a front just the same. Sammis will talk. He knew what was going on and wanted to frighten you away before you found out, but I’m afraid he overdid it. Actually that sheared-off house is still owned by Mr. Truitt. It’s one of a chain of second-hand stores. Our agent, Hank Lawson, found out that much from Donna Truitt herself. They had a good time on their date this evening.”
Judy wasn’t sure just what Peter meant. She had been too busy with the babies to think much about what was happening anywhere else. And now she was too tired to care.
“You must be tired, too,” she told him as she cleared away the coffee cups. “It’s been a long day. That orphanage fire alone was enough to make Meta Hanley collapse from exhaustion.”
“That wasn’t what did it. Don’t you remember?” asked Peter. “It was when she realized it was all a mistake and George Anderson still loved her.”
“Or was it when she thought he was a thief? I’m glad he isn’t, and I don’t blame him for being angry. You said you made peace with him. I’m glad of that, too,” Judy said with another yawn. “You can tell me all about the real thieves in the morning.”
“With Horace here? Not on your life,” declared Peter. “This is confidential. I wouldn’t have told you as much as I did if you hadn’t helped me uncover the man’s identity. We’re hoping he returns to the shop he set up in George Anderson’s house where our men will be waiting to nab him.”
“You say he set up the shop?” asked Judy, still puzzled. “Didn’t John Beer have anything to do with it?”