CHAPTER V

THE TEST

The paper that Judy held in her hand was a jumble of morbid poetry written in what could have been a beautiful hand. Actually, it was an almost unreadable scrawl. In some places the rhymes were in perfect sequence, but in others the poet had wandered away from what must have been the theme to play with words that apparently amused her. Finally Judy made out this much:

When Love turns thief, grief, sheaf, oh, disbelief’Tis memories that sting, ring, cling like anything.When Joy departs, starts, smarts, makes broken hearts ...Too close I kept you, Joy.Should I have shared my toy?Tossed you to human tomcats to destroy?They say you’re dead. They lie!You cannot die!You drifted off in airTo shareYour hairYour fair white skin,The very dress you wear.IT’S MINE! YOU’RE MINE!I’ll find you if I chokeIn smoke ...My Joy my toy my Joy my toy my Joy JOYJOYMy head’s on fire!’Tis memories that burn.Better to crumble in a tower of flameThan sit with ghosts awaiting your return.

When Love turns thief, grief, sheaf, oh, disbelief

’Tis memories that sting, ring, cling like anything.

When Joy departs, starts, smarts, makes broken hearts ...

Too close I kept you, Joy.

Should I have shared my toy?

Tossed you to human tomcats to destroy?

They say you’re dead. They lie!

You cannot die!

You drifted off in air

To share

Your hair

Your fair white skin,

The very dress you wear.

IT’S MINE! YOU’RE MINE!

I’ll find you if I choke

In smoke ...

My Joy my toy my Joy my toy my Joy JOYJOY

My head’s on fire!

’Tis memories that burn.

Better to crumble in a tower of flame

Than sit with ghosts awaiting your return.

How could anyone crumble in a tower of flame, Judy wondered. Oh, well, she supposed it was just a lot of melancholy words jumbled together to give the reader the creeps. Certainly she was not going to give Emily Grimshaw the satisfaction of knowing that it had impressed her.

“With the poet’s permission,” she looked up and said, “I would take out a few lines and then type the poem on a clean sheet of paper.”

“I have the poet’s permission,” Emily Grimshaw replied shortly. And, after a pause, “What lines would you take out?”

“Half of some of them and all of this one.” Judy pointed. “The words ‘Joy’ and ‘toy’ are repeated too many times.”

“That’s the first thing one notices,” the old lady replied, evidently pleased with Judy’s suggestion. “How do you like that poetry?”

“Idon’tlike it,” the girl replied frankly. “It sounds as if the writer had a distorted idea of life. It depresses a person just to read it.”

“There are people who like to be depressed.”

“I suppose so,” Judy answered wearily. She could see that the conversation was getting them nowhere, and Irene must be dreadfully tired of waiting. Besides, she did not care to stand and argue with as queer a person as Emily Grimshaw seemed to be. Why, she was more peculiar, even, than the matron at camp or the queer old lady who ran the dog and cat hospital.

“Would you like me to sit down and type the poem for you now?” Judy suggested. “Then you could see exactly what I mean.”

The old lady consented with a wave of her hand, and Judy set to work. The task was not an easy one, and when she had finished cutting out all the queer-sounding lines the poem was about half its original length. Hardly knowing whether to expect praise or criticism, she handed the revised poem to Emily Grimshaw and waited while she read:

When Love turns thief ’tis memories that sting;When Joy departs ’tis memories that burn.Better to crumble in a tower of flameThan sit with ghosts awaiting your return.

When Love turns thief ’tis memories that sting;

When Joy departs ’tis memories that burn.

Better to crumble in a tower of flame

Than sit with ghosts awaiting your return.

“These are the four best lines,” Judy pointed out when she had finished reading. “I took out parts of the first three lines and switched the last three over toward the beginning. It’s more coherent that way if anyone should ever try to figure it out. But the middle stanza must either stay as it is or be taken out entirely. Which do you think, Miss Grimshaw?”

“I’d take it out,” she declared. “There’s too much truth in it.”

Too much truth? A person who could not die! Who drifted off in air! Judy would have said exactly the opposite. It was too impossible.

“Didn’t the poet explain what she meant when the manuscript was delivered?” she asked.

“Explain it! Humph! Jasper Crosby expects me to explain it. He’s the poet’s brother,” the agent pointed out. “He brings me the stuff in just such a jumble as this.”

The pile before her on the desk eloquently illustrated the word “jumble.” Old envelopes, bills, sales sheets, anything that happened to be about, had been used for the poet’s snatches of verse.

“It must take a lot of time to rearrange them,” Judy ventured.

“Time! That’s just it. Time and patience, too. But Jasper Crosby cares as much about the value of my time as a newborn baby. He never talks except in terms of dollars and cents. ‘What can you make out of this?’ ‘How much do we get out of that?’ And expects me to rewrite half of it! It’s trying my patience to the limit, I can tell you. If I weren’t so fond of the poet I would have given it up years ago. Her verses used to be of quite a different type. You knowGolden Girl?”

“You mean the popular song? Of course I do.”

“Well, she wrote that twenty years ago. It’s just recently been set to music.”

Judy was becoming interested. As well as holding a promise of many new and charming acquaintances for herself and the other two girls the work was sure to be fascinating. Emily Grimshaw seemed pleased with the changes she had made in the poem, but it was best not to hurry her decision. Judy could see that she needed an assistant, but to make the agent see it also would require tact and patience.

In the course of another half hour Emily Grimshaw had made up her mind. Judy was to report at her office the following day. No mention had been made of Irene as Judy knew her chances of holding the position were slim enough without asking an additional favor. But she felt sure that her new employer would not object to the presence of both girls in the office after she had grown accustomed to the idea of being helped.

“And if she does object,” Irene said cheerfully, “I’ll apply for a position with Dale Meredith’s publisher.”

Eager to tell Pauline of their adventure, they walked toward the subway entrance and arrived just as the school girls were coming home.

“We found out who that man we met on the bus is,” Judy announced the moment she saw Pauline. “He’s an author and has written stacks and stacks of books. We bought one to read in our spare time.”

“Really?”

“It’s the honest truth,” Irene declared. “I read ten chapters today while I was waiting for Judy. And what do you think? She has accepted a position in Emily Grimshaw’s office.”

Pauline stared. “The woman who sent that telegram? Who on earth is she and where did you find out?”

“In the classified telephone directory,” Judy confessed. “She’s Dale Meredith’s literary agent, though why he should pick such a crotchety old woman to sell his stories is beyond me. I thought, at first, she was going to bite my head off. But she found out she couldn’t frighten me so she decided to hire me. When she calms down a bit she’ll probably let Irene help her, too.”

“Imagine!” Irene exclaimed, still bubbling with enthusiasm, “our own spending money and an opportunity to meet the most interesting people——”

“You mean Dale Meredith?”

Did Judy imagine it or was there the smallest trace of bitterness in Pauline’s voice?

“Well, perhaps I do,” Irene replied.

THE NEW YELLOW GOWN

In spite of the opportunity presented, a whole week passed by without a sign of the handsome young author. Judy’s suggestion that Irene might help in the office had been flatly ignored, but she was still hoping that Emily Grimshaw would change her mind. In the meantime Irene occupied herself with Dale Meredith’s books and Pauline’s piano.

Little by little Judy became accustomed to her employer’s eccentricities, and meeting unusual people was an everyday occurrence. Jasper Crosby, of all the people she met, was the only one who seemed to resent her presence in the office. He came in, bringing an old shoe box stuffed with more poetry by the author ofGolden Girl. The box was poked full of tiny holes. Judy’s curiosity got the better of her and she asked the reason.

“So the verses can breathe, simpleton,” he replied. Then he turned to Emily Grimshaw,“What’s the idea of this upstart in your office? Getting old, eh? Work too much for you?”

“If you bring in any more of this stuff,” the agent retorted, “it will be too much for both of us. This girl is clever. She’s the only person I ever met who can revise your sister’s poetry as well as I can.”

Now Jasper Crosby’s hawk eyes were fixed on Judy. He studied her for a moment while she met his gaze unflinchingly.

“Huh!” he grunted. “Watch your step, now. It takes queer people to revise queer poetry, and, mind you, this stuff has got to sell. Bring it out in book form. Jazz it up! Make it popular, and the public will eat it. That so, cutie?” He gave Judy’s cheek a playful pinch as he turned to leave.

“The nerve of him!” she expostulated. “He’s the most repulsive person I have ever seen.”

“Quite so,” the agent agreed. “Quite so and, strange to say, his sister was once the most charming. You can see it yet in some of her verses. I would be more enthusiastic about this book of her collected poems if I had any assurance that the royalties would go to her.”

“Why won’t they?” Judy asked.

“Because he tells me that her health is failing. Years ago I was witness to her will, and the entire estate goes to that scoundrel, Jasper Crosby.”

As Judy busied herself typing and correcting the poetry this thought kept recurring to her mind. Nevertheless, the work itself fascinated her. She conceived the idea of grouping the verses with a sub-title for each group. Miss Grimshaw beamed her pleasure.

“A fine idea, Miss Bolton, a really constructive idea. It will take considerable time but don’t try to hurry. Better keep the manuscripts on your own desk and have the thing done right.”

“Could I take them home?” Judy ventured the question and immediately wished she had not asked it.

The agent’s eyes snapped. “Indeed not! Don’t you realize, young lady, that original manuscripts are sometimes very valuable? This poet is well known, and plenty of people would be glad to buy them or, what’s worse, steal them.”

Judy had not considered this. It had simply occurred to her that Irene might help arrange the poems. She liked to hear her read in her low, musical voice. She would make the poems live and catch hidden meanings between the lines. Judy tried to explain all this to her employer. She felt that she must excuse her own thoughtlessness.

“Well, if you are so anxious to have your friend help you, bring her here,” the old lady said with a sudden show of generosity.

Irene was thrilled when Judy told her.

“I feel as if this is a real occasion and I ought to dress up for it,” she declared. “A package came this morning from Farringdon, and I’ve been suspecting all the time that it’s a new dress. My birthday isn’t for another week, but do you think Dad would mind if I opened my present now?”

Without waiting for a reply, Irene ran to get the box her father had labeled,For My Little Girl’s Seventeenth Birthday. When she pulled off the wrappings the folds of a shimmering yellow satin dress fell into her hands. She stood up, holding it for Judy and Pauline to admire.

“Gorgeous!” Judy exclaimed. “Look at the puffed sleeves and high waistline! Why, it’s the very newest thing!”

“But it’s a party dress,” Pauline objected. “Really, it’s not at all the thing to wear in Emily Grimshaw’s office.”

“For once,” Irene announced, “I’m going to wear exactly what I want to wear whether it’s proper or not.”

Judy smiled at her independence. She had often felt that way herself. After all, what difference did it make? And Irene was breathtakingly lovely in the new dress. She stood before the long mirror in Pauline’s room while Judy pinned her hair in soft, bright curls at the back of her neck. Then she walked back a little distance, surveying the effect.

“You’re beautiful!” Judy exclaimed. “That dress fits in with your complexion as though you were part of a picture. You’re prettier than Lois or Honey or Lorraine. Don’t you think so, Pauline?”

She admitted it.

“Prettier than Lorraine?” Irene repeated wonderingly. Lorraine Lee had always considered herself the prettiest girl in Farringdon and dressed accordingly, while Irene’s fadedblues and browns had never flattered her. But in the new yellow dress she was transformed. There was a tiny jacket to go with it, also of yellow but more delicately golden, matching slippers and, in the very bottom of the box, a gold locket. Irene, delighting in her own recklessness, wore them all the next morning.

EMILY GRIMSHAW SEES THINGS

Emily Grimshaw often came in late, but as Judy had her own key this affected her work very little. In fact, she usually accomplished more when alone. Thus she was not surprised to find the office vacant when she and Irene arrived.

“It’s every bit as queer as you said it was,” Irene whispered as they unlocked the door and she examined the brass knocker. “She must trust you, Judy.” She smiled into her friend’s honest gray eyes. “And who wouldn’t?”

The girls seated themselves at either end of the long sofa in Emily Grimshaw’s office. With the pile of handwritten poetry between them it was easier to help each other decide into which group certain verses belonged.

“Some of them are rather horrible,” Judy remarked as she hunted through the pile. “I’ll sort out the worst ones, and you can read the others.”

“Oh, no! Let me read the horrible ones,” Irene begged.

Judy laughed. “Everyone to his own notions. I don’t mind, if you feel like giving yourself the shivers.”

There was a long table just back of the sofa, and it came in handy for the completed groups of papers. Judy removed a vase of flowers and a few books and made a clear place for the different piles.

“Golden Girlgoes at the top of the list,” she remarked, as she took a yellowed slip of paper in her hand. “Miss Grimshaw says it’s valuable.”

“Is it the song?”

“It is,” Judy replied. “This poet wrote it. Imagine! And then turns to such morbid things as that one I fixed up; you remember, about the tower of flame?”

She broke off suddenly as the telephone on Emily Grimshaw’s desk jangled imperiously.

Both girls were buried in papers, and the telephone rang a second time before Judy was free to answer it.

“The switchboard operator says it’s Dale Meredith!”

She turned away from the mouthpiece and gave out this information in an excited whisper. Irene let a few of the papers slide to the floor.

“Oh, Judy,” she cried, “our scheme did work after all!”

Judy’s answer was a glance of triumph, but her voice over the wire sounded very businesslike.

“Tell him to come up and wait. Miss Grimshaw will be in shortly.”

In the moment before he mounted the stairs Irene had time to smooth her hair and powder her nose. Then she picked up the fallen papers and was about to place them on the table.

“Never mind the work now. I’ll straighten things,” Judy told her. “You just sit there and look pretty when Dale Meredith comes in.”

The handsome young author greeted them with a surprised whistle. “Whoever expected to find you here!” he exclaimed, smiling first at Judy who stood beside the open door and then at Irene. “Why, the place looks like a palace with the princess enthroned on the sofa. What’s happened to Her Royal Highness?”

“You mean Miss Grimshaw?” Judy asked, laughing. “She will be in presently.”

“Not too ‘presently,’ I hope,” Dale replied, seating himself beside Irene. “Before we talk business I want to hear what happened to you girls. I’ve been scolding myself ever since for not finding out your names. The truth of the matter is, I was so dog-goned interested in thatArt Shop Robbery——”

“The title of your new book?” Judy ventured, and his nod told her that she had reasoned correctly.

“You see, it was a rush order,” he went on to explain. “There seems to be a big demand for mystery stories. Most people like to imagine themselves as sleuths or big time detectives. I do, myself. The trouble is, there aren’t enough mysteries in real life to supply the demand for plots, and what there are make tales too gruesome to be good reading.”

“You do write gruesome stories then?” Irene asked anxiously.

He studied her face for a moment before he answered. “That depends on your definition of the word. I never make it a point to dwell on the details of a murder. Suffice it to tell under what circumstances the body was found——”

“Don’t talk about it, please! You sound so cold and matter-of-fact, as if you didn’t feel it at all. Your flying stories are so different!”

“They were written from first-hand knowledge,” he explained. “I had a pilot’s license and flew with a friend of mine across the continent. There was story material and plenty of it!” He went on for fifteen minutes discussing his experiences with the girls.

Dale Meredith had a knack of telling stories so that the listeners lived his adventures with him. Judy and Irene sat enthralled. They were both imagining themselves scrambling out of a wrecked plane in their own Allegheny Mountains when the door opened, and in walked Emily Grimshaw! Dale and Judy both greeted her, but when Irene looked up and smiled the old lady started back as if she had seen a ghost. Judy, thinking she must be ill, helped her into a chair.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked solicitously.

“There’s a bottle.” Emily Grimshaw made a gesture with her hand. “Pour me out a bit. I need a stimulant. I must be getting old. Good lord! I must be seeing things!”

She took the glass that Judy held out to her and swallowed the contents in three great gulps, then rubbed her eyes and looked at Irene again.

“Guess the stuff is too strong,” she muttered and slumped in her chair.

Irene clutched Dale’s arm. “She isn’t going to die?” she asked in a panicky whisper.

More than a little bewildered, the young man reassured her and suggested that she wait downstairs in the lobby.

“She seems to have affected Miss Grimshaw strangely,” he explained to Judy later.

“Yes, and Irene can’t stand too much excitement,” she returned. “You didn’t know, but for the past three years she’s been working almost day and night, taking care of her crippled father. She’d be doing it yet if my dad hadn’t arranged to have him cared for in a sanitarium. It’s better for him and better for Irene. Her mother is dead.”

“Poor kid! No wonder she thought something dreadful had happened to Her Majesty.”

Judy had gone for a pitcher of water and stood beside her employer’s chair dampening her handkerchief and rubbing her forehead.That seemed to have little effect, but when Dale attempted to move her to the sofa the old lady promptly opened her eyes and protested violently. She staggered back to her chair and sat there staring at the spot where Irene had sat. Then she sighed heavily. “Old fool that I am—seeing things.”

THE MISSING POEMS

The agent’s collapse had unnerved Judy more than a little, and it was some time before she settled herself to her work. Dale had left but not before promising to see Irene safely home.

“She probably won’t want to come near the office again,” Judy thought. “Poor Irene! I wonder what made Emily Grimshaw act up and scare her so.”

But this was no time for deductions, Judy knew, when so much work remained to be done—twice as much now. And there was no use sitting in comfort on the sofa, either. Alone, she could group the poems better at her own desk.

She lowered the typewriter until a place was clear above it and then went for the pile of manuscripts. She looked on the table back of the sofa, but they were not there.

“That’s queer,” she thought. “I’m sure weleft them right on the corner of that table. I saw Irene when she putGolden Girlback, and it was right on top. But maybe she moved them afterwards.”

Next Judy looked on the sofa and under all three cushions. She felt beneath the arms, then got down on her hands and knees and looked under the sofa on the floor. She even lifted the rug and looked under that.

“Whatareyou doing?” Emily Grimshaw inquired, looking up with a scowl.

“Hunting for something,” Judy answered vaguely. She was not ready to tell her employer that the manuscripts were missing, not after having been told how valuable they were. Perhaps, absent-mindedly she had placed them in one of the drawers of her own desk.

After another ten minutes of Judy’s frantic searching the agent’s patience was exhausted.

“Sit down, young lady, and tell me why you are turning my office upside down in this ridiculous fashion. As if I hadn’t enough worries!”

“I’m sorry, Miss Grimshaw,” Judy replied contritely. “But the poems you gave me—the originals, I mean—they seem to have—disappeared.”

“Disappeared! Stuff and nonsense!” the old lady snorted. “Like all girls, you’ve been careless, and misplaced them.”

“I’ve looked everywhere except in your desk, and they couldn’t be there.”

“They couldn’t, eh? We shall see.”

Soon the agent had her own desk in worse confusion than Judy’s, but no papers could she find. She poured herself another drink from the bottle and regarded Judy with a wild light in her eyes.

“Joy Holiday took them! That’s what happened! I knew that girl was here for a reason.”

After that there was a long silence during which Emily Grimshaw sat moving her lips but making no sound. It was uncanny! Judy longed for five o’clock and freedom from her queer employer.

No one had entered the office; of that Judy felt sure. The sofa was opposite the door. No one could have passed it and taken the pile of papers from the table without being seen. And no one could enter without a key. The door locked from the inside, and Judy never left the catch off except when Emily Grimshaw was there. That had been her employer’s instructions, and she had followed them to the letter.

What, then, could she mean by saying Joy Holiday took the poems? Why had she collapsed the moment Irene looked up at her, and who or what had taken the pile of manuscripts?

Judy shivered. Would it be stretching the truth to say that some strange, invisible force had been at work in the office that day? Irene, timid, lovable little girl that she was, couldn’t possibly frighten a big capable woman like Emily Grimshaw. She must have seen something else!

Without meaning to, Judy glanced over her shoulder. Then a thought came to her that seemed all at once amusing. Dale Meredith had said there weren’t enough mysteries in real life. Wait till she told him this one! A writer of detective stories ought to be interested. He might even have a theory, perhaps from his own novels, that would work out a solution.

Or perhaps Dale knew what had happened to the poetry. He didn’t seem dishonest, but if he refused to show an interest or showed too great an interest.... How was it that people told the guilty party?

These questions ran through Judy’s mind as she sat before her typewriter. Mysteries intrigued her. But no mystery on earth would be worth the solving if it lessened her trust in people she loved.

“There has to be some way to get Irene out of this,” she said to herself. “Whatever Emily Grimshaw saw, she mustn’t be allowed to accuse Irene of taking the poetry.”

Then it occurred to Judy that, ordinarily, she would be under suspicion as well. Instead, Emily Grimshaw suspected someone named Joy Holiday. It sounded like an hallucination.

When closing time came, Judy walked in the direction of Gramercy Park and arrived at Dr. Faulkner’s house just as Pauline was leaving through a side door.

“Where are you going?” Judy asked in surprise. Usually Pauline would not be going out just at dinner time.

“I told Mary I’d not be home,” Pauline replied, “and you had better not be, either. Dale Meredith’s up on the roof garden with Irene, and we would be intruding if we thrust ourselves upon them.”

“Why? What makes you think that?”

“Just what I overheard.”

“Perhaps you didn’t understand,” Judy attempted. “There’s a brand-new mystery for us to solve. I’m sure Dale Meredith wants to hear about it. Something happened in the office today, and Irene was dreadfully upset. He may have been trying to comfort her.”

Pauline laughed bitterly. “A queer way of doing it—calling her a sweet girl, holding her hand and saying something about ‘another roof garden ... peppy orchestra, floor as smooth as wax ... and you to dance with....’ He said more, too, but that was all I heard. You see what a mistake I almost made! Of course he wants Irene to himself. He won’t be interested in your mystery now—only in Irene’s glorious eyes and her bright hair. I guess she knew what she was doing when she wore that party dress.”

“You wouldn’t feel that way if you knew how little pleasure Irene has had in her life,” Judy said. “My brother is the only boy who ever paid any attention to her, and he never took her out alone.”

“That doesn’t excuse her for dolling up on purpose to attract Dale Meredith.”

“Why, she didn’t even know he was going to come into the office! She dressed up only because it pleased her to look pretty. It pleased me, too,” Judy added warmly. “Do you think they have really gone out together, Pauline?”

“I’m sure of it. And she doesn’t deserve it after scheming to meet him. I’ll never quite forgive her, and you’re a little bit to blame, too. It wasn’t just the thing to go off and find yourself a position when you are really my guest.”

“I suppose it wasn’t,” Judy admitted, feeling sorry for Pauline in spite of the attitude she had taken. She couldn’t be blamed too much. It promised to be another one of these eternal triangles. Judy thought of Peter Dobbs and Arthur Farringdon-Pett at home. They both liked her and were still good friends to each other. She thought of Horace and Honey and Irene. One triangle made straight, only to be converted into another and more puzzling one. Why couldn’t Dale Meredith take out both Pauline and Irene, she wondered. She would even be willing to tag along if it would help. But tonight she would tag along with Pauline and sympathize.

They had hot chocolate and sandwiches in a drug store and called it their dinner. After that they walked uptown as far as Central Park and then back again in time to see the last show at a near-by movie.

“No need to hurry,” Judy said. “Irene is sure to be home late if she and Dale Meredith went out to dance.”

SUSPICIONS

It was twelve o’clock when Judy and Pauline, her head held high, walked into the house. All the lights were on and the radio was going in Pauline’s parlor room, but, as no one was there, they went on through to the roof garden. Irene looked up from the hammock.

“Oh, there you are!” she exclaimed. “Dale and I have been so worried. We couldn’t imagine where you were.”

Pauline noticed the familiar use of his first name and winced. The young author had been sitting beside Irene, and now he rose and stood smiling. Again Pauline felt as if she wanted to run away, but this time it was impossible.

Judy excused their lateness as well as she could without telling them she expected that they would be dancing. Irene soon explained that.

“You missed the most wonderful time,” she said. “Dale was going to take us to a hotelroof garden to dance, but when you didn’t come in we had to wait.”

“You could have left a note,” Pauline replied. “I’m sorry to have spoiled your date.”

“It isn’t spoiled,” Dale returned. “With your consent, we are going tomorrow night.”

“Whywith my consent? Irene is old enough to take care of herself.”

“But can’t you see?” he protested. “I want all three of you to come.”

“You can leave me out.”

“Why, Pauline,” Irene exclaimed, “I thought——”

“Never mind what you thought,” Judy interrupted. She knew that Irene had been about to say she thought Pauline wanted to meet interesting people. Then Dale would know she thought him interesting, and that wouldn’t be a very good thing to reveal right then. But Judy spoke more sharply than she realized, and her tone held the smallest hint of suspicion.

Irene’s expressive eyes were dark with reproach. “Judy!” she cried, almost in tears, “Now what have I done to offend you?”

“Nothing, dear. Nothing at all. I’m just tired.”

“You must be tired,” Dale put in. “Who wouldn’t be, after such a hectic day? But why take it out on Irene? She isn’t to blame if Her Majesty makes a grouch of herself.”

“Of course not,” Judy agreed, not quite sure that she spoke the truth. Certainly Irenehadhad something to do with Emily Grimshaw’s grouch for the old lady had not been herself since the moment she set eyes on the dainty figure in yellow, curled on her sofa in the office that morning.

“You don’t know the half of it,” she went on to explain. “Her Majesty, as you call her, acted queer and talked to herself like a crazy person all day. I didn’t dare speak to her for fear she’d go off in a fit again. She thinks someone, or something, came into the office. Did you ever hear of a person named Joy Holiday?”

“No, never,” Dale replied.

Then Judy turned to Irene. “Did you?”

“You know I didn’t,” she replied in surprise. “Why, Judy, you know everyone I know at home, and I have no friends here except Pauline. Why do you ask?”

“Because Emily Grimshaw thinks someone named Joy Holiday took those poems that were lost.”

“What poems?” asked Pauline.

“The ones Irene and I were reading this morning. Something happened to them. They aren’t anywhere. Of course someone took them, but the strange part of it is, we were the only ones in the office.”

“And you missed them right after Emily Grimshaw had that queer spell and collapsed?” Dale asked.

“Pretty soon afterwards.”

“I thought there was something fishy about that at the time,” he declared, “and I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if the old lady made away with them herself.”

“But why should she? What would be her object in taking poems she expected to publish and then pretending not to know what happened to them?”

“It’s beyond me! Maybe she didn’t. They might have been accidentally brushed off the table when someone passed.”

“In that case they would have been on the floor,” Judy replied.

Dale Meredith was coming to some rapid conclusions, she thought—too rapid to be sincere expressions of his opinion. But what use could a successful young author make of faded manuscripts of melancholy poetry. A plot for a story, perhaps. That was pure inspiration! Those queer old poems might furnish plots for a great many mystery stories if anyone had the patience to figure them out. Ghosts ... towers ... thrills ... shivers ... creeps.... Dale Meredith could do it, too. All he needed was a little time to study the originals. The revised poems with corrections and omissions, Judy could see, wouldn’t do half so well.

But that would be cheating, stealing. No, there was another word for it—plagiarizing. That was it. But Judy had hoped that Dale was too fine a man to stoop to anything like that, even to further the interests of his stories.

“Better to crumble in a tower of flame....”

A line from one of the missing poems, but it did ring true. It was far better that Judy’s plans for both her friends should crumble before the flame that was her passion for finding out the truth.

When she came into the room she had noticed Dale Meredith’s portfolio on top of the radio. It was the same portfolio that he had carried on the bus, the same portfolio that he had taken away with him when he left Emily Grimshaw’s office. Now Judy remembered watching Dale and Irene from the office window as they walked through Madison Square. Irene had carried nothing except her brown hand bag. That was far too small to hold the manuscript. But Dale’s portfolio——Why, even now it bulged with papers that must be inside! Yes, Judy had to face it, Dale Meredith might have taken the poems. They might be inside that very portfolio!

Excusing herself, she went inside. Blackberry followed at her heels.

DEDUCTIONS

Torn between a desire to find out what had actually happened and a fear of throwing suspicion upon the man who was Irene’s ideal, Judy stood in the center of the room staring at Dale Meredith’s portfolio. Blackberry sat on the floor at her feet, and the thumping of his tail on the rug played a drumlike march in time to her heartbeats. This was nonsense—just standing there. It was her duty to find out the truth.

She took a quick step forward and reached for the portfolio, accidentally stepping on the cat’s tail. He yowled! Judy almost dropped the papers that she held, caught at them, told in one glance that she had been wrong and was about to put them back when the door slowly opened.

There was no way out. Dale and the two girls came into the room, stopped and stood speechless. Blackberry looked up at them as though expecting to be commended for sounding the warning.

“That cat’s as good as a watchdog,” Dale broke the silence by saying.

“I suppose I do look something like a burglar,” Judy retorted. “I’m not going to apologize for anything either. I simply had to know.”

“Know what?” Pauline asked.

“She wanted to find out if I took the lost poetry,” Dale explained. “That’s clear enough, and don’t think for a moment that I blame her. Any good detective would have done the same thing. Being a comparative stranger, I am the logical one to suspect. Irene, we all know, is above suspicion.”

“Well then, who did take the papers?” Pauline asked.

Dale only shook his head, refusing to propound any more theories about the affair. Judy turned to him gratefully.

“I felt sure you would be dreadfully mad at me for snooping in your personal belongings,” she said. “It’s nice to have you uphold me inmy crude bit of detecting, and I do appreciate it. What puzzles me is this: nobody left the room ahead of you except——”

“Except me,” Irene broke in, “and you may be sure I didn’t take those papers.”

“We’re sure, aren’t we?”

Judy turned to the others and Dale nodded solemnly. It was Pauline who looked a little doubtful.

“What! Don’t you believe in her too?” Judy asked in surprise.

Pauline shrugged. “I suppose so, if she says she didn’t take them.”

“Then we all believe in each other, and it seems that even Emily Grimshaw believes in us,” Judy went on. “It appears that the next thing to do is find out who Joy Holiday is and how she could have entered the office without our knowing.”

“You’re pretty keen on solving this mystery, aren’t you?” Dale inquired.

“It’s just the way I am,” Judy replied. “I couldn’t bear not knowing. And I suspect that this Joy Holiday, whoever she is, had something to do with Miss Grimshaw’s collapse. Maybe tomorrow, if she’s in a pleasant mood, I’ll ask her about it.”

“Go easy,” Dale warned. “I’m beginning to think there’s more to this missing poetry business than may appear on the surface. What were they—very valuable manuscripts?”

“Valuable?” Judy repeated thoughtfully. “Why, I believe they were.”

“There wasGolden Girl,” Irene put in. “You said that was valuable. It’s beautiful, too. I read it over and over and over——”

“You’re getting sleepy, Irene. And no wonder!” Pauline looked at her wrist watch a second time to make sure. Then she turned to Dale. “One o’clock! Oh, what a calling down I’ll get from Father if the housekeeper catches sight of you leaving at this hour of the night. Better tiptoe down the back stairs.”

“Okay! How about that roof garden tomorrow night?”

“Not tomorrow night,” Irene pleaded. “I’ll be too tired. Can’t we wait?”

“Saturday, then. How about it, Pauline?”

“I said I wasn’t going.”

“But you must go. We won’t go without her, will we, Irene?”

She shook her bright head and laughed, “Indeed we won’t. Don’t be a goose!”

Did they want her, too, Judy wondered. Then she thought of Emily Grimshaw, and her doubts vanished. She might have something interesting to tell them about Joy Holiday.

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