The Third Girl Detective

by Margaret Sutton

“Well, my dear, it is a most wonderful surprise for Mr. Bryant and me. Just wait—one more moment, now—” Vicki heard someone’s light, quick footsteps. “Vicki, Mr. Dorn has found our granddaughter. Ah, here she is!”

  A slender dark-haired girl, taller than Vicki, came into the room. She was the Miss L. Rowe who had been on Vicki’s plane. She lightly kissed both elderly people, and smiled politely when Mrs. Bryant said:

  “Lucy, this is Vicki Barr who is about your age. She’s the one who was so helpful to your grandfather on our airplane trip.”

  “How do you do, Miss Barr?” If the girl recognized her, she gave not the slightest sign.

  “I remember you on my plane earlier this week,” Vicki said pleasantly. She started to say how excited she’d been on finding a Miss L. Rowe aboard, but caught herself just in time. Mrs. Bryant had requested her not to mention her own search to anyone. It was likely that Mrs. Bryant had not told even Lucy this secret. Then Vicki noticed that Lucy Rowe was staring at her blankly, as if she had never seen the flight stewardess before.

  “You remember, Miss Rowe,” Vicki said, “the day we nearly had to make an emergency landing.”

  Lucy Rowe gave her a forced smile and turned away. Vicki was astonished.

  “Why, Lucy,” her grandmother said, “you didn’t tell us about any difficulty in landing!”

  “It was nothing. I didn’t want to alarm you,” the girl said. “May I have a cup of that nice, hot tea? I’m not used to your cold weather in New York—but I expect I’ll love it here. Who else is coming today? I’m so eager to be presented to your friends.… No, I won’t mind a bit that they’re all older people.”

  Lucy chattered on. Although Mrs. Bryant was eager for the two girls to be friendly, it seemed to Vicki that Lucy avoided conversing with her. Particularly it seemed that Lucy did not want last Tuesday’s flight mentioned again. Evidently it embarrassed her in some way.

  “I wonder why?” Vicki thought. She would not be so tactless as to raise the subject again, of course. “But why does Lucy Rowe act as if she’s never seen me before?”

  Vicki felt embarrassed and disappointed. She’d anticipated a lively, warmhearted, approachable girl—from the several descriptions of Lucy Rowe—not someone so very charming and sophisticated. Lucy was affectionate toward the Bryants, and they were already devoted to their new-found granddaughter. Vicki saw the lacelike silver ring that Lucy wore. She recognized it as the Bryant family’s ring, no doubt about that. Vicki said, hoping to prompt her to talk:

  “What a lovely and unusual ring you’re wearing, Miss Rowe.”

  “Thank you.” Lucy held out her hand for Vicki to inspect the ring, and said, “I value this ring more than I can tell you, because it’s a family heirloom. Mother gave it to me, and I’ve worn it constantly ever since she died. It hasn’t ever been off my finger, not even once.”

  Mrs. Bryant murmured appreciatively, even Marshall Bryant looked touched. But Vicki was thinking, “You didn’t wear the silver ring last Tuesday on my flight. I looked, I made sure—”

  Why was Lucy lying? A lie about the ring—an evasion about having been on Vicki’s plane—what else would she lie about? Vicki was puzzled and troubled. She managed to conceal it, for if something was amiss here, she must not arouse the girl’s suspicions. She needed to gain more information.

  “I think it’s wonderful that Mr. Dorn found your granddaughter so soon,” Vicki said to Mrs. Bryant, hoping she would talk.

  “Yes, Mr. Dorn found her on his second trip to San Francisco,” Mrs. Bryant said, looking warmly at Lucy. “He flew out there just last week on Friday, and by the following Sunday—exactly a week ago today, I remember it was Washington’s Birthday, February twenty-second—he wired us that he had found our young lady.”

  “Last Sunday,” Vicki thought. “And I saw the girl I took to be Lucy at Pine Top last Saturday.”

  Lucy said, with a little laugh, “I was the most surprised girl in the world when Mr. Dorn appeared and told me that my grandparents wanted me. And the happiest girl.”

  Marshall Bryant lighted a fresh cigar and gave a grunt of approval. “Dorn is a good man.”

  Vicki thought, “Have I made a mistake and traced the wrong Lucy? I don’t see how. Yet surely Mr. Dorn, who’s a lawyer, and who has time and money to work with, didn’t make any mistake?”

  “Of course we wanted to meet our granddaughter instantly, the very next day after Mr. Dorn’s telegram,” Mrs. Bryant said with a smile. “He flew back to New York and came to tell us—Lucy, darling, you can’t imagine how absurdly disappointed your grandfather and I were when Mr. Dorn told us that you needed a little time to settle your affairs in San Francisco, and would fly east by yourself.”

  “I could hardly wait, too,” Lucy said. “I practically ran, in San Francisco, doing all my good-bys and chores. Even so, the fastest I could get here to you was Thursday.”

  “Thursday!” Vicki nearly exclaimed aloud. “Why, this Miss L. Rowe was on my plane on Tuesday. She left La Guardia Airport, alone, at three o’clock Tuesday afternoon—I saw her—but she didn’t meet her grandparents until Thursday! Where was she during that interval?”

  Lucy leaned toward her grandparents. “And when Mr. Dorn met me at La Guardia Airport on Thursday afternoon I was terribly nervous about meeting you! He had to talk quietly to me for about half an hour before I’d even get in the car.”

  Another lie, Vicki thought angrily. Or had this girl returned to the airport two afternoons later and pretended to Mr. Dorn that she had just got off the plane? So this was why, Vicki realized, Lucy Rowe did not want any mention of her having been on the New York-bound plane on Tuesday afternoon. Vicki said guardedly:

  “New York is a wonderful place but so is your city, Miss Rowe. I’m just getting to know San Francisco on occasional visits. It’s a fascinating place. In what part of the city did you live?”

  “For a while I lived on Telegraph Hill, wonderful views from there. Then three other girls and I took a beach house one summer. It was fun, but such a lot of commuting to my job.”

  No mention of the women’s hotel, Hotel Alcott. No mention of sharing an apartment with Mary Scott and her mother. That did not tally with what Vicki had learned. Lucy had answered readily, even glibly. Vicki tried another tack.

  “Some of the best views in New York,” she said, “are from high up in the office buildings. Is that true in San Francisco? Was it so on your job?”

  Lucy looked amused. “I worked so hard at Whitney Decorators that there wasn’t much time to admire the views.”

  “Poor darling,” said her grandmother.

  “Oh, no, it was a perfectly nice job with nice people,” Lucy said. “But I was awfully happy to give it up and come to you.”

  No mention of working for the Interstate Insurance Company. Was the interior-decorator job a fact or another lie? If a fact, when had Lucy worked for a decorator? And why didn’t she mention her job with Mrs. Heath? Lucy made it sound as if she had been employed in a San Francisco office building at the time when Mr. Dorn had found her a week ago. Vicki knew she had resigned from Interstate about a month earlier, and had gone to Pine Top a couple of weeks later. Why all these lies? If this girl was actually Lucy, she was trading on the love of her grandparents. Or if she was an impostor, she must be very clever to have fooled Mr. Dorn.

  Vicki said to her, “I’m not sure, but I think that I met an acquaintance of yours while I was in San Francisco. Jill—I can’t remember her last name—” Vicki pretended.

  “Was it Jill Baker?” said Lucy. “Such a nice girl.”

  Vicki nodded and did not press the point.

  Not Jill Baker—that name was Jill Joseph. Unless Baker had been Jill’s name before her marriage? Vicki decided to check the next time she was in San Francisco. She noticed that Lucy did not mention her old friend Jill’s living in her family’s former house, n
or their having been in school together—in fact, nothing about Jill. Didn’t this girl know Jill Joseph? Lucy again chattered along, changing the subject. Or was the omission of no importance?

  Just then Thurman Dorn came in.

  CHAPTER VIII

  A Game of Wits

  For a moment Vicki wished she had never gotten mixed up in the search for Lucy Rowe. The lawyer looked so cold, so professional, that her own small efforts to find Lucy shrank to absurdity. How impertinent she would appear if Mrs. Bryant happened to tell about Vicki’s search—how difficult it would be to justify to the lawyer her doubts about this girl.

  Vicki glanced beseechingly toward the grandmother. Very, very slightly, Mrs. Bryant shook her head. Did that mean she was not going to reveal their secret? Vicki hoped so. She glanced away just in time to hear and answer Mr. Dorn’s “How do you do?”

  “Careful, now,” Vicki warned herself. “Don’t say or ask anything which could alert Lucy that I suspect her. And I mustn’t intrude on Mr. Dorn’s territory, particularly since Mr. Bryant has praised him so highly.”

  The lawyer seated himself at Marshall Bryant’s right. He was a perfectly correct and formal figure as he accepted a cup of tea from Lucy. She made a little fuss over the young lawyer, and her grandmother teased her about it.

  “Well, just think of what Mr. Dorn has done for me!” Lucy answered, laughing. “He’s the one who found me, and I shall always be grateful to him.” She shook her head, remembering. “Last Sunday, this stranger came to me asking to see my family letters and my silver ring. Asking me to identify myself. At first I didn’t know whether to take Mr. Dorn seriously.”

  Vicki longed to know if they had met at Pine Top, but she could not afford to ask questions.

  Thurman Dorn smiled a little. “I can tell you now, Miss Lucy, that a month earlier I was exasperated at not finding you. And your grandparents”—he turned toward them deferentially—“were exasperated with me. It’s a good thing for all of us that you came back to San Francisco from your vacation. If you hadn’t met me in the lobby of the St. Clair Hotel last Sunday, I believe I would have sent out some sort of alarm for you.”

  So they had met last Sunday in San Francisco, Vicki noted. That meant Lucy had come in from Pine Top. Reasonable enough. But why did Lucy give Dorn and the Bryants the impression that her tour with Mrs. Heath was a “vacation”? Vicki wanted to see whether Lucy would mention, in the course of conversation, Mrs. Heath or the Reverend Mr. Hall or Knowlton Graves.

  Curiously, she did not mention them and Mr. Dorn did not, either. He did talk in detail about his methods of search and the fine co-operation he had received from the San Francisco Post Office and Police Department. Mr. Dorn named persons and places involved in his search—Whitney Decorators, Lucy’s old Telegraph Hill residential address (where he couldn’t find her), a Dr. Alice James who was Lucy’s and Lucy’s mother’s physician. Vicki had not unearthed any of these in the course of her own search in and around San Francisco. Not one of them! This was nightmarish!

  “Then who is the girl I traced to Pine Top?” Vicki thought again, in utter bewilderment. “Is this girl the same girl I saw? No, she isn’t. This girl’s hair is very dark brown, sable brown, and that girl’s was almost dark blond.”

  Yet, Vicki thought, in tracing Lucy Rowe herself, she had received straightforward answers from Jill Joseph, Mrs. Stacey at the Hotel Alcott, Mr. Hall, Gravy. They obviously were not lying because all their accounts of Lucy Rowe tallied and dovetailed. Vicki could only think:

  “Either Mr. Dorn has been misled by this girl who is lying, or—less likely—the lawyer’s lying. Or—more likely—I’ve made some glaring error.”

  In fairness to all concerned, she could do only one thing: check back on the facts in San Francisco, this coming week. She must try to keep an open mind. Even so, she felt uneasy about this avowed Lucy and her several lies and evasions. She was startled out of her thoughts when the girl said:

  “Mr. Dorn, Miss Barr met a friend of mine in San Francisco. Isn’t that a coincidence?”

  “Small world,” he said casually, though he paid attention to Vicki for the first time since he had come in. “Are you in San Francisco often, Miss Barr?”

  Vicki noticed that Mrs. Bryant had grown tense. Evading Dorn’s question, she simply said:

  “I’m in San Francisco only when my airline sends me there. It isn’t too often.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember now,” said Dorn. “You’re a stewardess on—?”

  “Federal Airlines,” said Vicki.

  Mr. Dorn nodded and lost interest, and started to talk to Marshall Bryant about something else. Vicki half waited for Lucy to ask her a question about Jill Baker or make some further remark about Vicki’s being in San Francisco. But Lucy, too, dropped the subject.

  Mr. Bryant, Mr. Dorn, and Lucy went into the next room to discuss some legal papers. Mrs. Bryant came over to Vicki.

  “Will you accompany me upstairs, my dear? I want to—ah—show you something of interest.”

  A pretext? So that they could talk together privately? Vicki wondered whether the elderly lady shared her doubts as to whether this girl was actually the Bryants’ granddaughter.

  She did not. Indeed, she told Vicki how happy she was “that Mr. Dorn has found Eleanor’s daughter,” and what a fine girl she considered her to be. “I can see something of Eleanor in her, in little ways.”

  “In what ways?” Vicki asked. “Does she look like her mother?”

  “N-no, Lucy doesn’t really resemble Eleanor—or Jack Rowe, either. But then I never resembled my parents! No, she reminds me of Eleanor in a certain dignity and reserve which she has, and in—oh—maybe I’m imagining it, but in little mannerisms—

  “And Lucy knows so much about our family history,” Mrs. Bryant went on. “It’s gratifying to me, naturally, that she takes such a great interest in the family. It—In fact, it’s—” The lady hesitated. “I almost wonder, considering her youth and the family’s separation, how it’s possible for her to have learned so much family history. In such detail, too.”

  Vicki waited for Mrs. Bryant to think further about her doubt, to pay attention to this danger signal. But the elderly lady smiled and said:

  “Lucy’s family loyalty accounts for her remarkable knowledge, of course.”

  Vicki said nothing, but she did not necessarily agree. The Marshall Bryant family was a prominent one; from time to time newspapers and magazines mentioned their activities and printed photographs; Mr. Bryant’s career was listed in

  Who’s Who. What was there to prevent a clever, unscrupulous girl from going to the public library in any big city, looking up these facts, and memorizing them?

  A question occurred to Vicki: How had this girl, if she was an impostor, discovered that Thurman Dorn was seeking the young heiress to a fortune? She could have found out in a number of ways—something overheard, a newspaper notice inquiring about Lucy Rowe, even a word dropped by Lucy herself. And how had this girl sidetracked Mr. Dorn from finding the true Lucy? Was it more than a coincidence that Dorn had been unable to find Lucy on his first trip to San Francisco? Was it more than a coincidence that another girl named Lucy Rowe had gone away on a job to a lonely place like Pine Top? Vicki shivered.

  Mrs. Bryant was saying, “I couldn’t be happier, and I couldn’t be more grateful to Thurman Dorn. He’s done a wonderful thing in reuniting the three of us.” The lady said hastily, “I appreciate the interest you took in this matter, Vicki. I hope you didn’t put yourself to any trouble.”

  “Nothing worth mentioning, at least not now, Mrs. Bryant.” How and what could she tell of her own search under the circumstances?

  “My husband says Mr. Dorn located Lucy comparatively quickly, after so many years of silence.”

  Vicki remembered the questions she wanted to ask. “Mrs. Bryant, about Mr. Dorn’s search—do yo
u happen to recall the exact dates of his first trip to San Francisco?”

  “I remember every detail of the search for our granddaughter. Mr. Dorn said he was in San Francisco his first trip from January tenth to twenty-third. His second trip was February twentieth to twenty-second.” Vicki imprinted these dates on her memory. “Don’t you think Mr. Dorn was quick to find Lucy on his second trip? Apparently his efforts on the first trip paid off.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Vicki said, trying to keep the doubt out of her voice. “Mrs. Bryant, you—you haven’t told anyone that you wanted me to try to get in touch with Lucy?”

  “Oh, no, indeed!” Mrs. Bryant laughed. “Wouldn’t you and I look foolish, now that Lucy is here? I was foolish ever to make such a request of you, I’m afraid. Why don’t we simply forget our little secret?”

  Vicki smiled, but she had no intention of dropping her search, not after meeting that dark-haired girl today.

  “Vicki, as a matter of sentiment, this morning I took the other silver ring out of the safe here in the house to show you. Come in here with me, won’t you?”

  Vicki followed Lucy’s grandmother into an old-fashioned bedroom. From a bureau drawer she took a silver ring, exactly like the one the dark-haired girl wore.

  “You see, Vicki? It is unusual. There isn’t another ring like it anywhere except Lucy’s. A jeweler made just the two from his own original design, and then destroyed the pattern. Mr. Bryant had them made when Eleanor was born.”

  “It’s lovely, like filigree or lace,” Vicki said.

  Mrs. Bryant said she would return the ring to the safe, and suggested they go downstairs.

  Mr. Bryant and Mr. Dorn had finished their business, and Lucy had disappeared in order to powder her nose. It was five o’clock. Other guests were beginning to arrive. Although the Bryants urged her to stay, Vicki asked to be excused. She had experienced quite enough for one afternoon.

  She returned to the apartment which she shared with several other Federal Airlines stewardesses. Jean Cox was at home, writing letters to her family. She said Charmion Wilson and Dot Crowley had just come in from their Texas run, and were asleep in the front bedroom. Tessa and Celia were working aloft somewhere along the Atlantic seaboard. The stewardesses’ housekeeper, Mrs. Duff, was out visiting friends.