The Yellow Phantom

by Margaret Sutton

  CHAPTER XXVI

  HER MAJESTY ARRIVES

  The meal that Peter Dobbs cooked and served was a merry one. Truly, itwas an occasion for rejoicing.

  “A party after all,” Dale said. He told Irene about the other party andhow they waited and waited.

  Judy sat between Arthur and Peter dividing her attention between them.She rose, lifted her glass of water and gave a toast:

  “Happiness for all of us! Here’s how!”

  Her gayety was contagious. Everybody was laughing now. It was good tobe able to laugh with Irene again. She was just meant to be spoiled andlaughed with Dale declared.

  Horace brought in dessert. Like children at a birthday party everybodyscreamed, “Ice cream! Hurray for ice cream!”

  “And cake,” he added. “It’s a little late, Irene, but we might callthis your birthday cake.”

  He placed a foamy creation of walnuts and chocolate at her place. Shecut the first slice for Dale and the second slice for Horace.

  “Now you, Judy,” she went on, flourishing the knife, “and a littlecrumb for Blackberry.”

  The cat caught it in his paws and played with it, like a mouse, beforehe ate it.

  “To think that I used to dislike him,” Dale said apologetically.

  Everyone was served now. Judy remembered the two extra candles leftover from the party that hadn’t been a party. She brought them out andIrene lit them. How golden everything looked in their light! Irene’seyes shone. Her hair was a halo around her head.

  “You’re beautiful,” Dale said softly.

  Judy heard him and smiled, sharing their happiness. She turned to theothers. “It’s worth waiting for—this kind of a party, isn’t it,people?”

  “We’ll dance afterwards,” Pauline suggested. She excused herself toturn on the radio, hoping to tune in on Irene’s song. But before shefound anything worth while the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll answer it,” Irene cried. “I feel like surprising somebody and I’msure, whoever it is, they’ll be terribly surprised.”

  They were all watching Irene as she danced toward the door, quiteunprepared for the kind of surprise that awaited her on the other side.

  She swung it open. There, framed in the doorway, stood Her Majesty,Emily Grimshaw.

  “I’ve come to settle with you, Joy Holiday,” she shouted and raised athreatening finger at Irene.

  The three boys stared in blank bewilderment. They had never seen thisstrange old lady and imagined that she must be an escaped inmate fromsome near-by asylum—except that she had used the now familiar name,Joy Holiday.

  Chairs were pushed back from the table. Dale Meredith rose and strodeover to the door, followed by Judy and Peter.

  “What’s this?” the indignant young author demanded. “Miss Grimshaw,what’s the big idea of storming in here and frightening Irene?”

  “Who has a better right?” she retorted belligerently.

  Taking her gently by the shoulders, Peter pushed her into a chair. “Sitdown quietly now while we finish dinner. No need to raise a row aboutit. I’m sure Irene will be glad to listen to what you have to say.”

  “Irene, nothing!” she fumed. “That girl’s Johanna Holiday, the wenchwho made away with her mother’s poetry. I know you!” She pointed ashaking finger at the trembling Irene.

  Judy, standing near the old lady, caught a whiff of her breath andguessed that she had taken an overdose from the bottle that she calledher tonic. She had noticed how frequently her employer resorted to thestimulant. After a few drinks she always talked freely of spirits. ButJudy was in no mood for listening to ghost stories now.

  “I know you!” the indomitable old lady repeated. “I saw you, JoyHoliday, just before your mother’s funeral. Break her heart while shelived and then come back to gloat over her when she’s dead. You’re adevil, you are. Only devils are immune to death.”

  Dale moved closer to Irene as if to ward off the blows that must cometo her senses with the old lady’s words.

  “We’ve got to get her out of here,” Peter whispered hoarsely to Dale.

  “No! No!” Judy protested. “We must be civil to her. There’s some blackcoffee on the stove. That may sober her up a bit, and after all we didwant to see her.”

  “Then let’s get Irene out of the room.”

  “You take her out on the roof garden, Dale,” Judy begged. “I’m used tobeing alone with Miss Grimshaw.”

  He protested at first but when he saw that the black coffee was doingits work he finally slipped quietly out of the door, an arm aboutIrene’s waist.

  “What’s the trouble?” Horace whispered. He and Arthur couldn’tunderstand Emily Grimshaw’s grievance.

  “Too much excitement,” Judy stated briefly. “She was at the poet’sfuneral and thinks Irene is her mother’s ghost. We’ll be able to reasonwith her after a bit.”

  “But what does she mean about the poetry?” Horace insisted.

  Judy, however, would say nothing more. She turned her attention to theold lady now, endeavoring to engage her in a sensible conversation. “Soyou were at the funeral, Miss Grimshaw. I wondered why you hadn’t comein to the office. When did Sarah Glenn die?”

  “Lord knows!” Emily Grimshaw answered. “But I went out there to pay myrespects to the dead. Heard about it through friends. And there wasthat—that—that——”

  Her voice trailed off in a groan. She was pointing again but this timenot at Irene but at the vacant spot where the girl had stood.

  “Good Lord! She’s gone again.”

  “She went out quietly,” Judy explained. “Dale Meredith was with her.They’ll be back.”

  “They’d better be,” the irate woman answered. “Those poems had betterbe back too or I’ll know the reason why. Ghost or no ghost, that girlcan’t get away with stealing——”

  “Your poems are here,” Judy interrupted, her voice quiet but firm. Shelifted the stack of papers from the desk, and before Emily Grimshawcould get her breath, she had deposited them in the startled old lady’slap. “Now,” she continued, “after you finish another cup of this nicestrong coffee, I’ll call Dale and the girl back into the room and allof us can hear her story.”

  “You mean Joy Holiday?”

  “I mean the girl you call Joy Holiday. The real Joy Holiday is dead.You see, she didn’t vanish as you thought she did. She climbed downfrom the tower window and eloped with her lover. This girl is herdaughter and she was wearing her mother’s yellow dress the day you sawher.”

  Emily Grimshaw sat forward in her chair and passed her hand across hereyes.

  “Say that again. It didn’t—register.”

  Judy laughed. She could see that her employer was coming back to hersenses.

  “You tell her, Horace.” She motioned to her brother who had beensitting beside the table with Pauline and Arthur, listening.

  Joy Holiday’s story was a real romance, however badly told. But HoraceBolton, the reporter, made the tale so vivid that the five who heard itlived the adventure all over again. Whatever else it did, it clearedEmily Grimshaw’s clouded brain and brought the old, practical look backinto her eyes.

  Arthur wound up by telling of his search by air for Irene’s distractedfather. Now, if only Irene could explain about the poetry, they hadnothing to fear.

  Opening the door quietly, Judy beckoned to the two figures who sat inthe hammock. As Dale stood up, outlined against the sky, it remindedher of that first night that she and Pauline had found them there andthey had been invited to that never-to-be-forgotten dance on the hotelroof garden. She caught Irene’s hand as she entered the door.Impulsively she kissed her.

  “Tell us about it now, dear,” she murmured. “The boys and I willunderstand and I’m sure Pauline will too. And if Emily Grimshaw getsanother queer spell we’ll send her packing with her precious poetry. Wehave what we want—you.”

  The agent looked up as Irene entered the room. She stared for a momentas if t
he girl’s golden beauty fascinated her. Then she passed one handacross her forehead, smoothing out the furrows that twenty years hadleft there. The light of understanding came into her eyes.

  “You are ... you are the image of your mother,” she said at last.“While you live Joy Holiday will never be dead.”

  “‘Death cannot touch the halo of your hair,’” Judy quoted dreamily.“After all, it is a beautiful thought, Irene. There’s nothing uncannyabout that kind of a spirit.”

  “Don’t talk spirits to her,” the agent snapped.

  Her seriousness brought to Judy’s mind the phantom shape she had seenin the tower window. Disregarding her, she asked Irene to tell herabout it.

  The girl laughed, that familiar silvery laugh.

  “It frightened me too,” she admitted, “until Uncle Jasper told me itwas only a reflection. Then it seemed stupid of me not to have guessedit. He said any sane person would have. But you’re sane, Judy, and youdidn’t.”

  “That proves there’s no truth in what he said,” Horace assured her.

  It was a great satisfaction to Irene, knowing that. She sighed and wenton explaining about the ghost in the tower.

  “You know, the room is round and there are windows on all sides.Between the windows are mirrors that make the oddest reflections. Imust have been standing in the room so that you could see the mirrorbut not me. I should think you would have been scared to death.”

  “And then you pulled the shades?” Judy anticipated.

  “No, I didn’t. Uncle Jasper did, just before he went down and startedtaking the props out from under the tower. That must have been afteryou left.”

  “We saw the mirrors afterwards, too—and your yellow dress. But thatwas when we searched the house. You were gone by then.”

  “Yes, and Grandma was gone, too. Poor soul! It really made me happy tothink she could die in peace, believing that her golden girl stilllived. That poem you just quoted, Judy, was written to me. She thoughtI was immune to death.”

  “Well, people never do die if you look at it that way,” Judy saidthoughtfully. “Your mother’s beauty was reborn in you, and you may passit on to your children and their children——”

  “What about your children?” Arthur asked, smiling quizzically at Judy.

  “Oh, me? I’m too young to be thinking about them. My career comesfirst. Now I’m sure Chief Kelly will listen to me when I tell him Iwant to be a detective.”

  They all agreed. No one could doubt that solving mysteries was Judy’sone great talent.

  And yet—the missing poetry was still unexplained.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------