The Yellow Phantom
Page 22
CHAPTER XXI
ANOTHER JULIET
No matter what happens the trivialities of life must go on. Food mustbe cooked and eaten, no matter how dry it tastes. Work must be done.Judy knew that and dragged her tired body out of bed. She dressed andwent down into the kitchen where Mary made coffee and brought out thetoaster. Pauline had left for school, she said. Would Judy mind thetoast herself?
She nodded, staring at the coffeepot and wondering if Irene would eversit across the breakfast table and drink coffee with her again. She letthe toast burn and threw it away. Then she put on a second piece,watched it until it turned golden brown and flipped it over.
The doorbell rang!
Always, when the doorbell rang, there came that sudden exaltation. Itmight be news of Irene! Peter might have found her! With each newdisappointment Judy’s hopes for Irene’s safe return sank lower.
This time it was not Peter. It was Arthur Farringdon-Pett, the youngpilot-engineer, who owned his own airplane and had taken Judy for anever-to-be-forgotten ride far above the beautiful St. Lawrence River.Judy’s brother, Horace, stood in the doorway beside him, and both ofthem looked as if they had not slept for a week. Horace’s usually sleekhair was disordered and Arthur needed a shave. He was the first tospeak.
“Any news of Irene?”
“Didn’t you bring any?” she asked. And before they could answer shewent on saying how sure she was that they must have news or theywouldn’t have flown all the way to New York. She could tell they hadbeen flying as they were still dressed for it.
“We were in too much of a hurry to bother changing these togs at thehangar where I left the plane,” Arthur explained.
“That’s all right,” Judy murmured, trying to shake off the queerfeeling she had that he was some stranger.
“We do have news,” Horace told her finally, “but, I’m sorry to say,it’s not news of Irene.”
“What is it then?”
“News of her mother. We thought it might help you find her. I meanIrene. Her mother, of course, is dead.”
“I knew that,” Judy said. “But she has relatives. I’m sure your newswill help me.” Taking their things, she invited the boys to sit downand share her breakfast while they told her. She poured out the extracoffee Mary had made and pushed her brother into a chair. Arthur foundhis own and soon all three were seated beside the table. The boysexplained their delay.
They had expected to arrive a day earlier but when Horace and Honeycalled at the sanitarium they found that Mr. Lang was gone.Immediately, Horace telephoned Arthur who agreed to help search for himin his plane. It would have been easy to find him if, as they expected,he had taken the straight road for New York. But his crippled legs gaveout and, toward evening, they found him helpless in the edge of a deepwood. Here, while they were waiting for the ambulance to take him backto the hospital, Mr. Lang told his story.
When Tom Lang was a young man, only eighteen or twenty, he had workedas a chauffeur for a wealthy family in Brooklyn. The daughter of thehouse gave parties, a great many of them, and after the parties Tomwould drive the whole crowd of young people home. He never paid muchattention to them until, one night, a new girl came to a party. She wasdifferent from all the others. She had glamour, radiance, all thequalities a man wants in a girl. But the young chauffeur dared not hopethat she would have any use for him. She only came to the oneparty—like a princess in her golden dress and slippers. He took herhome and remembered the house. After that he would drive past it,always hoping that she would see him.
And one day she did! She waved to him from the tower window. Finally heunderstood, from the motion of her hand, that she wanted to comedown—and couldn’t. The door locked from the outside, and her tiny keywas of no use from within. Clutching it in her hand, she leaned fartherand farther out of the tower window.
Just like the princess in Tom’s old fairy book. He would be the braveknight and rescue her. There was a rope in the car. It had been used asa towing rope but would now serve a nobler purpose.
He swung one end of it up to the tower; he saw the slim white handreach out and grasp it, the lithe body throw itself over the windowsill and descend—slowly, slowly. She was almost to the ground when therope came loose from where she had fastened it.
She fell!
Quick as a flash, Tom Lang caught her in his strong young arms. Thatsame day he made her his bride. She lived just long enough to bear hima little daughter, the image of herself. Heartbroken, Irene’s fatherhad never spoken of her. But he had saved her golden wedding dress andon Irene’s seventeenth birthday sent it to her with a letter explaininghis gift and enclosing the key to her tower room. His Annie had beenjust seventeen.
* * * * *
“Romantic, wasn’t it?” Arthur asked after Horace had told the story asonly a reporter could tell it.
Judy, who had listened to it all without making any comment, admittedthat it was the most romantic true story she had ever heard.
“But Mr. Lang didn’t give Irene the name or address,” Arthur saidthoughtfully. “He only sent the key to her mother’s room because hewanted her to have it as a remembrance. In fact, he told so little inhis letter that it seems impossible—unthinkable—that she could havefound her grandmother——”
“Unless she found the same description somewhere else,” Judyinterrupted.
“Yes, but where?”
“In her grandmother’s poems. She and I read them together.”
Judy did not add that the manuscripts were now missing and that shefelt almost certain that Irene had taken them to help locate herrelatives. That knowledge was confined to four persons: Pauline, DaleMeredith, Peter and herself.
The fact that Irene’s grandmother wrote poems surprised Arthur. He hadheard the popular song, _Golden Girl_, but had never connected it withIrene, probably, because he had never seen her in her mother’s goldendress.
“And you say the poet’s name is Glenn?”
“It’s really Holiday,” Judy explained. “She wrote under a nom de plume.”
But the boys couldn’t remember ever hearing the name Joy Holiday. Mr.Lang had called his wife simply Annie.
When Judy had finished a complete account of the police search throughSarah Glenn’s house they were more puzzled than ever. But they appearedto be simply puzzled—not alarmed.
“We’ll find out all about it,” Horace promised, “when we find Irene.”
It was good to hear them saying “when.” It gave Judy new courage. Shewould need courage to get through that day. She told them her plans.First they were to get in touch with the police to learn what theycould of the funeral that had been held in Sarah Glenn’s house. Judythen suggested that Horace and Arthur call on Dale Meredith and ask hisadvice while she spent a few hours in Emily Grimshaw’s office.
“I’ll be of more use there than anywhere else,” she said. “Besides,it’s my job and I’m being paid for it. Irene comes first, of course.But the police are doing all they can, and if I could see EmilyGrimshaw and talk with her—well, I might find out some things thateven the police don’t know. We discovered a card on the floor when wesearched the poet’s house. It showed that my employer must haveattended the funeral.”
Both boys agreed that Emily Grimshaw’s office was the place for Judy.Knowing that there must be stacks of papers for her to read andcorrect, Judy even consented to their plan that she go to the office atonce and await news of Irene there. They would go on to the Parkvillepolice station and telephone her. Peter had gone there and they mightmeet him.
After giving them explicit directions, Judy walked with them as far asthe subway station at Union Square. There they separated, Judy takingthe uptown train while the boys boarded an express for Brooklyn.
Horace turned to Arthur and spoke above the roar of the train.
“What puzzles me is how Irene found that house with nothing but a fewcrazy verses to go by, and
I think that Judy knows if only she wouldtell.”
“She certainly knows something more,” he agreed, “but I’m not worrying.Judy is on the square.”
“I believe she is,” Horace replied, “but what about Irene?”
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