The Third Girl Detective

by Margaret Sutton

  Vicki was glad that the apartment, so often full of guests and parties, was quiet this Sunday. She wanted to be alone for a little while, to write down the names, dates, and addresses she had learned this afternoon at the Bryants’, and to plan her next steps.

  * * * *

  It was the following Wednesday, March fourth, before Vicki’s scheduled New York-Chicago-San Francisco flight landed her in San Francisco again. She had fumed at the delay but now she had three days—Thursday, Friday, Saturday—off. “And I’m going to make good use of them!”

  She wanted tremendously to fly at once to Pine Top, but it would be foolish to go unprepared, with spotty information. Her first step, obviously, must be to check on the statements she had heard Lucy and Mr. Dorn make on Sunday.

  Vicki decided to make full use of the telephone. In her hotel room she collected paper, pencils, the telephone directory, her list of names and addresses, which Dorn and Lucy had mentioned in accounting for Lucy’s recent past. Then Vicki sat down at the telephone.

  First she called up Jill Joseph, out in Sutro Heights. When Jill answered, Vicki could hear in the background a babble of children’s voices and dogs barking. She and Vicki exchanged hellos, and then Vicki asked:

  “Have you heard from Lucy?”

  “No, I haven’t,” Jill Joseph answered. “It’s beginning to worry me. Have you?”

  Vicki hesitated. “I’m still trying to get news of her. Tell me again—is her hair light brown or dark brown?”

  “Light brown. Lucy calls it dirty blond.”

  The alleged Lucy Rowe at the Bryants’ house had dark, sable-brown hair.

  “Would Lucy color her hair, do you think?” Vicki asked.

  “I can’t imagine why she would, its natural color is pretty. She never has tinted it.”

  Vicki said she had an even stranger question, and asked Jill Joseph what her maiden name had been.

  “Rossiter. Why, for goodness’ sake?”

  “Do you know—or does Lucy know—anyone named Jill Baker?” Vicki asked.

  “Never heard of Jill Baker. Vicki, all these questions—is something wrong?”

  Again Vicki hesitated. “There may be. I’m trying to find out. One more question—did you ever hear from a Mr. Dorn?” Jill had not. “Or from a girl, or anyone else, inquiring about Lucy?”

  “No,” said Jill Joseph. “You’re the only one.” Well, that proved nothing. Mr. Dorn’s line of investigation need not have included an old friend whom Lucy now saw only occasionally. “Vicki? If something’s wrong, why don’t you report it to the police?”

  “Because I’m not positive anything is wrong. Besides, there’s a delicate situation here.” Vicki was not at liberty to mention the Bryants and their dislike of publicity; if the police stepped in, the newspapers would get wind of the story. Vicki said, “I really don’t think it’s necessary to go to the police. Don’t worry.”

  “Well, I am worried. Let me know as soon as you have any news of Lucy, will you, please?”

  Vicki promised, said good-by, and hung up.

  Would the Scotts be home from their trip by now? According to Jill Joseph, Lucy had lived with Mary Scott and Mrs. Scott. Dorn and Lucy in New York had never mentioned them. Why? Vicki tried the Scotts’ telephone number, which Jill Joseph had given her earlier.

  A woman’s voice answered. Vicki introduced herself, and explained that she was trying to locate Lucy Rowe.

  “This is Mrs. Scott,” the voice said. “I don’t see why you should have any trouble in locating Lucy, Miss Barr. She has an excellent job with a Mrs. Heath.… Well, no, Mary and I haven’t heard from her.… No, Lucy was not traveling with us, not at any time.”

  But Mr. Dorn had told the Bryants that day at luncheon that Lucy was traveling with another girl and the girl’s mother. Had the lawyer lied? Such a minor point to lie about. Or had he honestly misunderstood Lucy’s trip with Mrs. Heath to be a trip with the Scotts? There was no way of knowing. Vicki set aside this question of traveling and tried another.

  “Mrs. Scott, did Lucy live with you and your daughter?”

  “Yes, she shared our apartment for several months. Then, last January, she moved to the Hotel Alcott for women.”

  Last Sunday, when Vicki asked Lucy Rowe where she’d lived in San Francisco, the girl had not mentioned the Scotts and the Hotel Alcott. Instead, she’d talked of living on Telegraph Hill and, one summer, sharing a beach house with three other girls.

  “Mrs. Scott,” Vicki asked, “can you give me Lucy’s former address on Telegraph Hill?”

  “Why, Lucy never lived on Telegraph Hill, to the best of my knowledge.” No wonder Mr. Dorn had said he couldn’t find Lucy there.

  “Did she share a beach house one summer with three other girls?” Vicki asked.

  “If she did, Lucy never mentioned it to us. And it isn’t like her to be secretive. I think you must have some wrong information, Miss Barr.”

  “I guess I have.” Unless the alleged Lucy’s story of the beach house and living on Telegraph Hill was an out-and-out falsehood. Or unless she was another Lucy Rowe?

  “Mrs. Scott, Lucy Rowe isn’t an uncommon name. The Lucy Rowe I’m looking for is the daughter of Eleanor Bryant Rowe and Jack Rowe, both of them deceased.”

  “Yes, that’s right. That’s the Lucy we know—the Lucy who stayed with us.”

  Then the presumed granddaughter in New York was lying. Vicki sighed. “I’m sorry to have troubled you, Mrs. Scott.”

  “Not at all. Any more questions?… Good-by, then, Miss Barr.”

  Well, in fairness to Mr. Dorn, he had not mentioned the beach house and Telegraph Hill. The lie was the girl’s.

  Vicki consulted her list of names and addresses. She was feeling rather grim about these lies. She decided to check with Whitney Decorators, where the presumed Lucy had said she had been employed.

  There was no Whitney Decorators listed in the regular telephone directory, nor in the Classified Advertisements telephone book. Vicki called a professional association of decorators. They had no knowledge of a firm or person named Whitney. Next, Vicki called Information. She waited while the operator looked up the name.

  “We have no record of any firm by that name. However, there are several persons named Whitney listed in your regular directory, if you care to call them.”

  Vicki did that. Not one of them was a decorator nor even in any allied field. Not one of them had ever heard of a Lucy Rowe.

  So that was that. An outright lie! Vicki tried to recall whether Mr. Dorn had been party to this lie. No, as she remembered the talk last Sunday, only Lucy had mentioned Whitney Decorators.

  “I suppose,” Vicki thought, “that seeing her silver ring and family letters convinced Mr. Dorn that he had found the right Lucy. How in the world did she come by the ring and other family things, if she’s an impostor? It doesn’t seem possible! Unless she stole them from the true Lucy?”

  That was perfectly possible—though Vicki had no way of proving it, as yet.

  Dr. Alice James.… Let’s see, it was Dorn who last Sunday had brought up this physician’s name. Vicki remembered how he had made rather a point of telling that Dr. James had been both Lucy’s and Lucy’s mother’s physician.

  Vicki had difficulty in locating an address and telephone number for Dr. Alice James, in San Francisco or in any of its suburbs. She used the same methods as in her search for Whitney Decorators, with the same result: there was no record of any Dr. Alice James. No such person existed.

  Lucy in New York had lied again. And on this point, Mr. Dorn had lied.

  Up to now Vicki had more or less dismissed her doubts about why Dorn’s findings did not tally with hers, by taking the blame for any error upon herself. But now she was brought up short. Mr. Dorn was guilty of a lie about the search for Lucy Rowe!

  It struck her as odd that
, so far as she had checked today, he had lied only about this one point—about the nonexistent Dr. Alice James. On what other points involving Dorn could she check?

  “Well, Mr. Dorn said he met Lucy last Sunday in the lobby of the St. Clair Hotel,” Vicki recalled, “and Mr. Bryant, that first day at lunch, mentioned Dorn’s being at the St. Clair Hotel. I assume Dorn stayed there on his second visit last week, too. Let’s see what a check turns up on that.”

  She tried calling the St. Clair Hotel, but the desk would not release any information over the telephone. Vicki powdered her nose, put on her hat and gloves, and went over to the hotel.

  She was obliged to see the hotel manager, prove who she was, and state her business (as far as she discreetly could) before she could persuade him to have an assistant look up back records. The assistant, a Mr. Craig, finally told her:

  “Mr. Thurman Dorn stayed at this hotel from January twelfth through January twenty-first, and overnight on February twenty-first.”

  But these dates did not fully tally with Mrs. Bryant’s statement! According to her, Dorn was in San Francisco, and presumably at this hotel, January tenth to twenty-third, and February twentieth to twenty-second. Two days were unaccounted for at the beginning of his January trip, and two days were unaccounted for at the end of his January trip. Also, two days were unaccounted for on his February trip. Where had Dorn been? At another San Francisco hotel? Not likely, no point to it. At Pine Top? But in January, Lucy and Mrs. Heath had not yet left San Francisco for Pine Top, so Dorn would have had no reason to be there. And in February—on Sunday, February twenty-second—Dorn and Lucy had said they met in this hotel lobby.

  Where had Mr. Dorn been on those unaccounted-for days, and what had he been doing? Since he flew from coast to coast, traveling had not eaten up those several extra days. Unless he had made a stopover somewhere en route, and not come directly from New York to San Francisco? But that was sheer speculation.

  Vicki walked back toward her own hotel, wondering. A total of six days unaccounted for! A great deal could happen in six days. Especially during the course of an intensive search—That brought another question to mind. Why had neither the presumed Lucy nor Mr. Dorn ever mentioned Mrs. Heath or Graves, the painter, or the Reverend Mr. Hall? Lucy Rowe was closely associated with these three people, yet the Bryants had never been informed of their existence.

  “Even if Lucy in New York hadn’t wanted Mr. Dorn to know about these three people,” Vicki thought, “Dorn could have found about them on his own, just as I did.”

  Her mistrust of Dorn grew. Either the lawyer had made an inadequate, misleading investigation—or he had discovered the existence of Mrs. Heath, Gravy, Mr. Hall, but was not telling the Bryants about them for some reason. The reason was sadly obvious. Dorn—Dorn and the alleged Lucy together—did not want to give the Bryants the names and addresses of three persons who could help the grandparents find the true Lucy.

  “Yet that may not be true at all. I’m only speculating,” Vicki reminded herself. “Before I can believe anything, or say anything to the Bryants, I must get proof—more facts.”

  Even more urgent than proof was the need—assuming the Lucy in New York to be an impostor—to find the true Lucy Rowe. Was she the girl seen at Pine Top? If not, who was that light-brown-haired girl? “I promised myself to fly back to Pine Top,” Vicki thought. “It seems the time is now.”

  Returning to her hotel room, she picked up the telephone, called Novato Airport, and reserved the Cessna 150 for tomorrow. Perhaps she would discover something of real importance back there in the hills.

  CHAPTER IX

  Secrets at Midnight

  Timing was important. Vicki had figured her flight from San Francisco in the Cessna 150 to bring her in over Pine Top just about dusk. With nightfall, and the story she planned to tell, she hoped to have to stay overnight at the hidden house. She hoped to give Mrs. Heath no choice, no chance decently to send her away. During the night there should be time and privacy to talk with Lucy, or whoever the girl really was—provided Mrs. Heath did not intrude on them.

  It was a bold plan, not foolproof by any means. Vicki had sense enough to be scared.

  High up in the hills, Vicki left the few houses of Pine Top behind. She headed the plane higher over the wooded mountainside, flew over the woods and wall at the extreme end of the Glidden place. Then she cut her speed as she came soaring out above the meadow. This was the landing site inside the walled grounds which she had chosen last time.

  Vicki could not see either woman anywhere down there on the shadowy grounds, but lights were on in the house. Someone was at home. Landing on the meadow near the rear of the house, she made the plane’s perfectly tuned engine as noisy as she could, so the women would hear her.

  The kitchen door flew open. A girl came out, running toward the plane. An older woman followed more slowly. Vicki already was opening the engine hood and had assumed an anxious expression.

  “What do you mean by landing on our grounds?” the woman called out.

  “I was forced down—I beg your pardon—” Vicki called back. “I’m having engine trouble—”

  The girl reached her side. “Are you all right?”

  In one swift glance in the half-light, Vicki took in the girl’s light-brown hair and open, friendly gaze. She was very like the girl in Gravy’s portrait, rather tall and athletic as Jill Joseph had said. What’s more, she wore the Bryant silver ring! “I’ve found her,” Vicki thought, but she hid her exultation.

  “Yes, thanks, I’m all right,” she answered.

  “You can’t stay here,” the woman said, coming up. “This is really annoying! Surely you weren’t forced to land right in our laps!”

  “I’m sorry,” Vicki said again. “I’ll try to repair the engine and take off in a few minutes. Although in this fading light it’s hard”—she looked in the engine—“to see where the trouble is.”

  She glanced up to study the elusive Mrs. Elizabeth Heath. The woman did have quite an air of authority, of poise. She was well-dressed and held her gray head high. Beside her, Lucy seemed very young and unsure of herself.

  “Can I help you?” the girl asked Vicki. She was a warmhearted girl, as Jill had said. “Not that I know about plane engines—”

  “I don’t know an awful lot about them myself,” Vicki said pointedly.

  “Then how do you expect to make the repair?” Mrs. Heath said in exasperation. “I think you had better call up a garage—you may use my telephone—or an airport, and have them come and get you out of here.”

  The girl said, “I’m afraid there isn’t a garage within miles of here, Mrs. Heath. And no airport.”

  Mrs. Heath fumed while Vicki poked in the engine. Vicki straightened up.

  “This engine is rough from carburetor trouble. Or there may be a little water in the engine. Whatever it is, I don’t want to fly at night with a rough engine and be forced down in the dark.”

  There was a silence. Then Mrs. Heath said, “No, I suppose you can’t be expected to take such a risk.”

  Lucy asked, “Can’t she possibly stay here overnight, Mrs. Heath?”

  “Well, I don’t wish to appear harsh, but I really hadn’t counted on having a guest. We were planning to do some work this evening, you know.”

  Vicki apologized for disturbing them, and said that if they could possibly put her up she wouldn’t be a nuisance. “Of course I’d want to reimburse you, and I’d leave early in the morning,” Vicki pleaded.

  “But really—” Mrs. Heath protested.

  “Perhaps someone in Pine Top could take you in,” Lucy said. “I could—I mean, we could,” Lucy corrected herself, “drive her down to Pine Top and ask around.”

  “No, no,” Mrs. Heath said hastily. “We’ve steered clear of our inquisitive neighbors so far. Besides, I shouldn’t care to drive down that mountain road at night.�
� In a friendlier tone she said, “You may have the extra bedroom. I’m Mrs. Heath, and this is my young friend, Lucy Rowe.”

  “How do you do?” Vicki said and gave her name. “I’ve flown in from San Francisco. My home is in Illinois. I’ve been in San Francisco just for a short stay.”

  “I’m from San Francisco,” Lucy said eagerly, “and a little homesick for it.”

  Mrs. Heath interrupted, saying they had better go in the house and see about dinner. She led the way around through the side garden and, via a side door, into the large, long living room of the country house. Mrs. Heath was being an amiable if resigned hostess. She asked Lucy to take their guest up to the extra room and see that she would be comfortable.

  “But please come right down, Lucy,” said Mrs. Heath. Didn’t she want Lucy to talk alone with a stranger? “I’m sure that we’re all hungry for dinner.”

  Upstairs, Lucy led Vicki to a small, rear bedroom. The large front bedroom adjoining was Mrs. Heath’s, with its door closed. Across from Mrs. Heath’s room was Lucy’s smaller front room, with its door open. A short hall connected all three bedrooms and the bathroom. Vicki noted the layout, planning where it would be safest to talk with Lucy late tonight.

  “Here are fresh towels,” Lucy said, bringing them into Vicki’s room, “and I’ll lend you a housecoat and slippers.”

  Vicki seized the moment of privacy.

  “Miss Rowe—Lucy—”

  “Yes, please call me Lucy.”

  “Lucy, do you know of a Mr. Dorn? Thurman Dorn?”

  “Why, no, I’ve never heard of him. Should I? Perhaps Mrs. Heath would know him.”

  “Please don’t mention his name to Mrs. Heath,” Vicki said. “Please! I’ve brought you an extremely important message, but Mrs. Heath mustn’t know. That’s why I landed the plane here—”

  “You what—?” The girl was startled.