She did not ask if their differences were all mended. Lorraine said simply, “We’ve been talking with Horace.”
“How is he?” asked Judy. “The sound of his typewriter has been like music—”
“Not to me,” Lorraine interrupted.
Arthur gave her one of his frosty looks and answered Judy’s question. “He looks about the same as usual. He was treated for shock and submersion and sent home.”
Judy laughed. “I am in a fog. I don’t even know what day it is.”
“Time passes quickly in a hospital. It seems ages since we had luncheon together. Did you know Arthur had asked Peter to arrange it?” Lorraine asked. “Arthur didn’t trust me, either, I guess. He’s always arranging things for me. But we don’t want to burden you with our troubles. We brought you some flowers.”
“Oh, thank you!” exclaimed Judy. She took the roses Arthur gave her and breathed in their fragrance. “I can breathe now,” she told him, “without that awful pain in my chest. Dad says I’ll be as good as new before long, and so will Horace. But how are you, Lorraine? You were so frightened the last time I saw you.”
“I’m still frightened. Oh, Judy! Judy!” cried Lorraine. “How can I ever explain things to Arthur?”
“What is there to explain?” he asked coldly. “Peter has given me all the facts.”
“I don’t mean facts!” Lorraine cried. “You see, Judy, he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t want to listen when I try to tell him. He says he’s heard enough about that terrible gangster. He could have killed you, Judy—”
“He didn’t, Lorraine. I’m very much alive.”
“He killed something else then. He killed Arthur’s love for me. That beautiful ring was a symbol of his love, and I gave it to that awful man. I thought I had to keep him quiet. I don’t expect either of you to believe it, but when Falco telephoned me and made all those threats, I thought he’d expose Arthur and the whole family would be disgraced if I didn’t give him the ruby. Then he said it wasn’t enough, and I went back and gave him more of my jewelry. He called himself Falco and said he was fighting crime.”
“Who was I?” asked Arthur. “The criminal?”
“Well, no—not exactly, but he did make me think you were cheating people, misrepresenting everything, building all those new houses in Roulsville and even the Farringdon post office, out of defective materials.”
“You believed all that—of me, Lorraine?”
She admitted it with a nod. Tears were streaming down her face. Judy tried to comfort her. But she said the wrong thing. She mentioned the ring, only to learn that the police had been unable to recover any of the jewelry Lorraine had foolishly given to Falco.
“That ruby has caused a lot of grief,” Arthur said bitterly. He seemed stunned by Lorraine’s confession. They kept looking at each other as if they were strangers instead of the devoted couple Judy had believed them to be. Finally Arthur said, “We’d better go now. We shouldn’t have upset you with our problems, Judy. May I apologize for both of us?”
Lorraine was still crying when they left. The nurse hurried in with Dr. Bolton. She said something to him about the visitors being bad for patients and he agreed. Judy did feel weak. She was glad when visiting hours were over and she could rest.
Lorraine was alone the next time she came to visit Judy. In the meantime Judy’s mother, Peter’s grandparents, his sister Honey, and many of Judy’s friends and neighbors had been in to see her. Horace had visited her while he was still in the hospital, but now he was out on the trail of more news.
“I miss hearing his typewriter,” Judy told her father, who was there when Lorraine came in.
“Is it all right?” she asked, peeping through the half-open door. “The nurse at the desk downstairs said I could come up for a little while.”
“Of course it’s all right. You two girls may have the room to yourselves,” Dr. Bolton told them. “I’m on my way out. I’ll see you at home, Judy girl.”
“Did he sign you out?” asked Lorraine when he was gone. “That’s wonderful, Judy! I guess you won’t be needing these.”
The room was filled with flowers. Judy added the bouquet Lorraine gave her to the collection. “I’ll take them all home. People have been so good to me.”
“I haven’t,” Lorraine said. “I didn’t mean to upset you the other day, but I’ve been so mixed up. You solved everything else. That man will go to prison—”
“Not Dick? They aren’t going to send him back. Peter talked with his parole officer. He understands how it was.”
“Arthur doesn’t,” Lorraine said with a deep sigh. “He thinks I should have suspected those signatures were forged. I could have written to the Brandts.”
“Peter did get in touch with them,” Judy told her. “They didn’t lease their estate. They left Stanley to take care of it, and he allowed the gang to move in. Falco must have bribed him or something. I think the Brandts hired Roger Banning, too. He was supposed to repair the fountain.”
“It wasn’t repaired when we were there,” Lorraine remembered.
“I know. Roger was forced to work for the gang, instead. They made him bring his friend along. Dick didn’t know what they were up to at first, but when he found out it was extortion he refused to have any part of it. He told Horace all about it.”
Judy had seen the papers and read her brother’s story, but there were still a few pieces of the puzzle that didn’t fit.
“The police didn’t find the jewels they were looking for,” she continued. “I told Peter they should have looked in the fountain. Lorraine, there is a locked room down under it. The loot from their robberies might be stored there. Peter knows about it now. He’ll get back your ring.”
“I hope he will. Lois said there wasn’t anything you couldn’t solve,” Lorraine remembered, “and I guess that goes for Peter, too. Everybody else knew I was doing wrong before I did. I don’t expect Arthur to forgive me, but if we had the ring back he might unbend a little and stop being so cold and polite all the time.”
“He’s that way because he’s hurt,” Judy explained. “Most men are like that. Girls cry, but men just hold it all in and hurt back, or else they get angry and shout. I think Peter would get angry.”
“I wish Arthur would get angry! I deserve it after all the trouble I’ve caused.”
“Lorraine,” Judy said, taking her hand, “did it ever occur to you that you felt exactly the way Falco intended you to feel? Peter says that’s the way confidence men work, and Falco was a confidence man as well as a jewel thief and an extortioner. Roger Banning, the Cubberlings, and Dick Hartwell were all victims of his vicious lies. He should be behind bars for a long, long time.”
“I guess he will be, but that doesn’t solve my problem. I don’t think there is a solution,” Lorraine declared. “Arthur knows I deceived him. I told him I went to the movies with you the night I met Falco. I even said I was calling from the movies when I was actually calling from the Brandt place. He and Peter had arranged to trace the call. They knew it wasn’t true. Now Arthur will never trust me.”
“Do you trust him? I mean completely?” asked Judy. “Before this happened, weren’t there a few little doubts in your mind? Weren’t you afraid to let him have friends for fear he’d like them better than you? Be honest with yourself, Lorraine, and be honest with him, and I think everything will work out in time.”
“I hope it will,” Lorraine replied, as she rose to leave.
“You might trust the rest of us a little bit, too, while you’re at it,” Judy added. “Just keep on believing the stolen jewels will be found and we’ll keep on trying to find them. Peter hasn’t given up yet, you know. And pretty soon I’ll be well enough to help him.”
“It isn’t just the ring,” Lorraine said, “but it would help if I had it. ’Bye, Judy, and thanks—for everything.”
CHAPTER XXIV
The Secret of the Fountain
Judy was home at last. The cast would soon be removed from her foot and she would be ready for the next exciting chapter in a life that had, so far, been a series of problems and solutions.
Blackberry was curled contentedly in Judy’s lap unconscious of the fact that the collar he wore was now decorated with a life-saving medal.
“A cat is good publicity,” the editor, Mr. Lee, had told Horace. “The public gets tired of dog stories. But a cat—well, that’s different. When a cat saves a life that’s really news.”
The life he was talking about was the life of Dick Hartwell. “In another five minutes,” Dr. Bolton was telling the group in the living room, “it would have been too late to save him. I didn’t know you were in the tower, Judy girl, when I hurried past—”
“I’m glad you hurried, Dad,” she told him. “If you’d stopped to help me, Dick would have died, wouldn’t he? I can see why you told Falco he was dead, but why did you say Horace was dead, too? I’ve been meaning to ask you. It was the end of the world for me when I heard it. I tease him and torment him, and we’ve often quarreled with each other. Anything you can do I can do better, that sort of stuff. But I really love my brother.”
“I know you do, Judy girl. I really love that son of mine, too,” Dr. Bolton said. “That’s why I hurried him out of there so fast. ‘Neither of them will do much talking,’ I told that gangster and the woman who was with him. Then I covered the boys’ faces and we rushed them to the ambulance, where a pulmotor was waiting to revive them. Peter was there by then. The police, Dick’s parole officer, and several more Federal agents came soon afterwards. But I was alone at first. It was a ticklish situation.”
“I see. I guess you did what you had to do, the same as I did.”
“That’s right. Maybe you learned your strategy from your old dad. You know how strict I am about the truth. Don’t misunderstand me,” the doctor warned. “I wouldn’t stretch it even a little way unless there was a life at stake. It wasn’t far from the truth, anyway. Horace was unconscious—”
“He doesn’t look it now!”
Judy was through being serious. Her brother was at the table devouring a huge piece of cake that Honey had just cut for him. Peter had a slice nearly as large. The house was full of people as it had been ever since Judy came home. Lois, Lorraine, and Arthur were there. Other friends and neighbors were in and out, glad of a chance to help Judy, although she insisted she was well able to help herself. She could walk with the cast on her foot, but not very gracefully. Everybody had autographed it, even Blackberry with his paw print. The next guest to arrive was Helen Brandt, home early from what had started out to be a winter vacation.
“We came right home as soon as we got Peter’s message,” she explained. “Imagine Stanley letting those criminals move in, and then saying, ‘Every man has his price.’ I don’t believe it, do you, Judy?”
“No, I don’t,” she said. “Peter, come here and meet Helen Brandt. She’ll be interested in hearing about that cache of jewels you found down under the fountain.”
“So that’s the secret you two have been keeping!” several of Judy’s friends exclaimed.
“I can’t believe it!” cried Helen. “That used to be a storeroom. There was an outside door then—”
“They walled it in and stuffed the loot from dozens of robberies between the wall and the door. It was concealed from the inside, too, but not quite well enough. The only entrance they left clear was the one under the cupids. If they hadn’t dropped one of their stolen diamonds by accident on the way in, we might have given up the search. Judy found it,” Peter finished proudly.
“I pretended it was a frozen tear. Can you guess why, Helen?” asked Judy. “Were you there, the day, years ago, when I came with my grandparents?”
“I remember,” Helen Brandt replied. She was a little vague about it, but soon her explanation of the unsolved mystery began to make sense. “Your grandmother said she’d found you crying over the picture of our fountain,” she told Judy. “The picture appeared once in a magazine with an article about gardens. I guess your grandmother had the magazine. You know it’s an old fountain, don’t you? It’s been there ever since my mother can remember.”
“Tell us about the rooms under it. I’d like to see them,” declared Honey.
“They were built underground so we could have heat down there in the winter to keep the pipes from freezing. The caretaker we had before Stanley used to live down there and take care of the pipes. He suggested making the other room into a playroom for me,” Helen continued, “but he died before it was finished. I used to pretend things about his ghost.”
Judy shivered. “I didn’t need to pretend things. The moans we heard were real.”
“It was Dick Hartwell,” Lois whispered. “They had him locked up in one of those rooms.”
“What was in the other one?”
This question was ignored as Helen Brandt went on with her story. “Stanley wouldn’t fix anything. The fountain used to be pretty. We wanted it that way again, so we hired Mr. Banning. He’s a plumber, you know. He sent his son, Roger, to do the work—”
“That fits,” agreed Peter.
“But what about that other voice Judy heard?” asked Horace. “We still haven’t figured out that one.”
“I think I have,” Judy told him. “Helen, if you heard what my grandparents were saying, and then found me crying again, you must have pretended you were the fountain.”
“You used to be full of tricks, Helen,” Lois put in. “When we played dolls together you were always talking for them and pretending they came to life at midnight—things like that.”
Honey laughed. “That must be how it happened, Judy. Now I won’t be afraid to go down there. That is, if I’m ever invited.”
“You pretended a lot of other things, didn’t you, Helen?” asked Judy. “I mean things like wishes that came true if you shed a tear in the fountain.”
“I read about it in a fairy story once,” Helen Brandt confessed. “There were two sisters. The good one shed tears that turned into diamonds, but the tears the other one shed changed into toads. I tried it on you just for fun. Then I peeked out from behind those cupids and watched you wish. But what were you crying about? Your tears looked real.”
“They were,” declared Judy. “Growing up isn’t easy. There are lots of things to cry about when you’re fourteen.”
“I know,” Helen said. “When you’ve outgrown your dolls and you’re not old enough for boys—”
“Didn’t you have any pets, Judy?”
Judy wasn’t sure who asked the question. She held up Blackberry for inspection. “I wasn’t very old when I got him,” she said. “He was such an adorable kitten. But now he’s old and wise and decorated with medals. If I had another wish to make in the fountain, do you know what it would be?”
Everybody gathered around Judy to hear.
“I’d wish that Blackberry would never grow old and die,” she told them. “I’d wish he could live forever and ever. If your fountain can make a wish like that come true, I’ll stop thinking it’s haunted.”
“But Judy,” Lois objected. “Nothing could make an impossible wish like that come true.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lorraine said with a meaning glance in Arthur’s direction. “Sometimes Judy manages to do the impossible. She found the diamond that started all this and led to the discovery of that walled-in hiding place—and my ruby. It means more now than it ever did. Arthur will tell you. We talked it all over, and now he really understands.”
Judy could see it was true. Arthur smiled at Lorraine in the old, devoted way. And Horace and Honey were more devoted than ever in spite of her art work.
“The fountain inspired me,” Honey declared. “I designed a new fabric. It has little fountains all over it. The air brush makes
beautiful spray. Judy, you’ll love to have a dress made out of it.”
“Could I have one, too?” asked Helen Brandt. “You wouldn’t mind if I had a dress like yours, would you, Judy? I mean if I told you how your wish about Blackberry could come true.”
“You’re joking,” Judy said. “No cat can live forever.”
“Cats have kittens,” Helen pointed out. “Blackberry didn’t come to our house because of the fish we have there. He was paying a social call. I have a cat, too. Her name is Tabby and if she has kittens—”
“Promise me,” Judy interrupted, “that if one of them looks like Blackberry you will give it to me. I’d like my little namesake, Judy Meredith, to have a black kitten and name it Blackberry, too. Did I tell you we’ve been invited to spend Christmas with Dale and Irene in New York? They’re little Judy’s parents,” Judy explained to Helen Brandt. All the rest of them knew Irene’s Cinderella story. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Everybody thought so except Judy’s young neighbor, Holly Potter.
“We traded birthdays. Remember? You were going to have yours on Christmas so I could have mine last September when we opened the forbidden chest.”
“That’s right,” the others agreed. “You two girls did trade birthdays.”
Helen Brandt had an idea.
“Why not have the celebration just before Judy and Peter leave for New York? We can have it in that room under the fountain. We’ll open it up and make a playroom and set up a Christmas tree.”
“Not there,” Judy objected. “I’d love to have a party at your house, Helen, and make another wish in the fountain. I’ll think of how I felt when I thought Horace was drowned, and the tears will come easy. But please, not in the tunnel. There are real ghosts down there. The fountain will always be haunted—”
“Objection!” shouted Peter. “Enchanted is the word you want. I ask but one favor. Promise me, Angel, that when you make your next wish I’ll be there to grant it.”
“You will have to be.” Judy’s gray eyes were tender. “Because my wish will be that you’ll always be there.”
The Third Girl Detective Page 27
