“Just what I overheard.”
“Perhaps you didn’t understand,” Judy attempted. “There’s a brand-new mystery for us to solve. I’m sure Dale Meredith wants to hear about it. Something happened in the office today, and Irene was dreadfully upset. He may have been trying to comfort her.”
Pauline laughed bitterly. “A queer way of doing it—calling her a sweet girl, holding her hand and saying something about ‘another roof garden…peppy orchestra, floor as smooth as wax…and you to dance with.…’ He said more, too, but that was all I heard. You see what a mistake I almost made! Of course he wants Irene to himself. He won’t be interested in your mystery now—only in Irene’s glorious eyes and her bright hair. I guess she knew what she was doing when she wore that party dress.”
“You wouldn’t feel that way if you knew how little pleasure Irene has had in her life,” Judy said. “My brother is the only boy who ever paid any attention to her, and he never took her out alone.”
“That doesn’t excuse her for dolling up on purpose to attract Dale Meredith.”
“Why, she didn’t even know he was going to come into the office! She dressed up only because it pleased her to look pretty. It pleased me, too,” Judy added warmly. “Do you think they have really gone out together, Pauline?”
“I’m sure of it. And she doesn’t deserve it after scheming to meet him. I’ll never quite forgive her, and you’re a little bit to blame, too. It wasn’t just the thing to go off and find yourself a position when you are really my guest.”
“I suppose it wasn’t,” Judy admitted, feeling sorry for Pauline in spite of the attitude she had taken. She couldn’t be blamed too much. It promised to be another one of these eternal triangles. Judy thought of Peter Dobbs and Arthur Farringdon-Pett at home. They both liked her and were still good friends to each other. She thought of Horace and Honey and Irene. One triangle made straight, only to be converted into another and more puzzling one. Why couldn’t Dale Meredith take out both Pauline and Irene, she wondered. She would even be willing to tag along if it would help. But tonight she would tag along with Pauline and sympathize.
They had hot chocolate and sandwiches in a drug store and called it their dinner. After that they walked uptown as far as Central Park and then back again in time to see the last show at a near-by movie.
“No need to hurry,” Judy said. “Irene is sure to be home late if she and Dale Meredith went out to dance.”
CHAPTER IX
SUSPICIONS
It was twelve o’clock when Judy and Pauline, her head held high, walked into the house. All the lights were on and the radio was going in Pauline’s parlor room, but, as no one was there, they went on through to the roof garden. Irene looked up from the hammock.
“Oh, there you are!” she exclaimed. “Dale and I have been so worried. We couldn’t imagine where you were.”
Pauline noticed the familiar use of his first name and winced. The young author had been sitting beside Irene, and now he rose and stood smiling. Again Pauline felt as if she wanted to run away, but this time it was impossible.
Judy excused their lateness as well as she could without telling them she expected that they would be dancing. Irene soon explained that.
“You missed the most wonderful time,” she said. “Dale was going to take us to a hotel roof garden to dance, but when you didn’t come in we had to wait.”
“You could have left a note,” Pauline replied. “I’m sorry to have spoiled your date.”
“It isn’t spoiled,” Dale returned. “With your consent, we are going tomorrow night.”
“Why with my consent? Irene is old enough to take care of herself.”
“But can’t you see?” he protested. “I want all three of you to come.”
“You can leave me out.”
“Why, Pauline,” Irene exclaimed, “I thought—”
“Never mind what you thought,” Judy interrupted. She knew that Irene had been about to say she thought Pauline wanted to meet interesting people. Then Dale would know she thought him interesting, and that wouldn’t be a very good thing to reveal right then. But Judy spoke more sharply than she realized, and her tone held the smallest hint of suspicion.
Irene’s expressive eyes were dark with reproach. “Judy!” she cried, almost in tears, “Now what have I done to offend you?”
“Nothing, dear. Nothing at all. I’m just tired.”
“You must be tired,” Dale put in. “Who wouldn’t be, after such a hectic day? But why take it out on Irene? She isn’t to blame if Her Majesty makes a grouch of herself.”
“Of course not,” Judy agreed, not quite sure that she spoke the truth. Certainly Irene had had something to do with Emily Grimshaw’s grouch for the old lady had not been herself since the moment she set eyes on the dainty figure in yellow, curled on her sofa in the office that morning.
“You don’t know the half of it,” she went on to explain. “Her Majesty, as you call her, acted queer and talked to herself like a crazy person all day. I didn’t dare speak to her for fear she’d go off in a fit again. She thinks someone, or something, came into the office. Did you ever hear of a person named Joy Holiday?”
“No, never,” Dale replied.
Then Judy turned to Irene. “Did you?”
“You know I didn’t,” she replied in surprise. “Why, Judy, you know everyone I know at home, and I have no friends here except Pauline. Why do you ask?”
“Because Emily Grimshaw thinks someone named Joy Holiday took those poems that were lost.”
“What poems?” asked Pauline.
“The ones Irene and I were reading this morning. Something happened to them. They aren’t anywhere. Of course someone took them, but the strange part of it is, we were the only ones in the office.”
“And you missed them right after Emily Grimshaw had that queer spell and collapsed?” Dale asked.
“Pretty soon afterwards.”
“I thought there was something fishy about that at the time,” he declared, “and I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if the old lady made away with them herself.”
“But why should she? What would be her object in taking poems she expected to publish and then pretending not to know what happened to them?”
“It’s beyond me! Maybe she didn’t. They might have been accidentally brushed off the table when someone passed.”
“In that case they would have been on the floor,” Judy replied.
Dale Meredith was coming to some rapid conclusions, she thought—too rapid to be sincere expressions of his opinion. But what use could a successful young author make of faded manuscripts of melancholy poetry. A plot for a story, perhaps. That was pure inspiration! Those queer old poems might furnish plots for a great many mystery stories if anyone had the patience to figure them out. Ghosts…towers…thrills…shivers…creeps.… Dale Meredith could do it, too. All he needed was a little time to study the originals. The revised poems with corrections and omissions, Judy could see, wouldn’t do half so well.
But that would be cheating, stealing. No, there was another word for it—plagiarizing. That was it. But Judy had hoped that Dale was too fine a man to stoop to anything like that, even to further the interests of his stories.
“Better to crumble in a tower of flame.…”
A line from one of the missing poems, but it did ring true. It was far better that Judy’s plans for both her friends should crumble before the flame that was her passion for finding out the truth.
When she came into the room she had noticed Dale Meredith’s portfolio on top of the radio. It was the same portfolio that he had carried on the bus, the same portfolio that he had taken away with him when he left Emily Grimshaw’s office. Now Judy remembered watching Dale and Irene from the office window as they walked through Madison Square. Irene had carried nothing except her brown hand bag. That was far too small to hold the man
uscript. But Dale’s portfolio—Why, even now it bulged with papers that must be inside! Yes, Judy had to face it, Dale Meredith might have taken the poems. They might be inside that very portfolio!
Excusing herself, she went inside. Blackberry followed at her heels.
CHAPTER X
DEDUCTIONS
Torn between a desire to find out what had actually happened and a fear of throwing suspicion upon the man who was Irene’s ideal, Judy stood in the center of the room staring at Dale Meredith’s portfolio. Blackberry sat on the floor at her feet, and the thumping of his tail on the rug played a drumlike march in time to her heartbeats. This was nonsense—just standing there. It was her duty to find out the truth.
She took a quick step forward and reached for the portfolio, accidentally stepping on the cat’s tail. He yowled! Judy almost dropped the papers that she held, caught at them, told in one glance that she had been wrong and was about to put them back when the door slowly opened.
There was no way out. Dale and the two girls came into the room, stopped and stood speechless. Blackberry looked up at them as though expecting to be commended for sounding the warning.
“That cat’s as good as a watchdog,” Dale broke the silence by saying.
“I suppose I do look something like a burglar,” Judy retorted. “I’m not going to apologize for anything either. I simply had to know.”
“Know what?” Pauline asked.
“She wanted to find out if I took the lost poetry,” Dale explained. “That’s clear enough, and don’t think for a moment that I blame her. Any good detective would have done the same thing. Being a comparative stranger, I am the logical one to suspect. Irene, we all know, is above suspicion.”
“Well then, who did take the papers?” Pauline asked.
Dale only shook his head, refusing to propound any more theories about the affair. Judy turned to him gratefully.
“I felt sure you would be dreadfully mad at me for snooping in your personal belongings,” she said. “It’s nice to have you uphold me in my crude bit of detecting, and I do appreciate it. What puzzles me is this: nobody left the room ahead of you except—”
“Except me,” Irene broke in, “and you may be sure I didn’t take those papers.”
“We’re sure, aren’t we?”
Judy turned to the others and Dale nodded solemnly. It was Pauline who looked a little doubtful.
“What! Don’t you believe in her too?” Judy asked in surprise.
Pauline shrugged. “I suppose so, if she says she didn’t take them.”
“Then we all believe in each other, and it seems that even Emily Grimshaw believes in us,” Judy went on. “It appears that the next thing to do is find out who Joy Holiday is and how she could have entered the office without our knowing.”
“You’re pretty keen on solving this mystery, aren’t you?” Dale inquired.
“It’s just the way I am,” Judy replied. “I couldn’t bear not knowing. And I suspect that this Joy Holiday, whoever she is, had something to do with Miss Grimshaw’s collapse. Maybe tomorrow, if she’s in a pleasant mood, I’ll ask her about it.”
“Go easy,” Dale warned. “I’m beginning to think there’s more to this missing poetry business than may appear on the surface. What were they—very valuable manuscripts?”
“Valuable?” Judy repeated thoughtfully. “Why, I believe they were.”
“There was Golden Girl,” Irene put in. “You said that was valuable. It’s beautiful, too. I read it over and over and over—”
“You’re getting sleepy, Irene. And no wonder!” Pauline looked at her wrist watch a second time to make sure. Then she turned to Dale. “One o’clock! Oh, what a calling down I’ll get from Father if the housekeeper catches sight of you leaving at this hour of the night. Better tiptoe down the back stairs.”
“Okay! How about that roof garden tomorrow night?”
“Not tomorrow night,” Irene pleaded. “I’ll be too tired. Can’t we wait?”
“Saturday, then. How about it, Pauline?”
“I said I wasn’t going.”
“But you must go. We won’t go without her, will we, Irene?”
She shook her bright head and laughed, “Indeed we won’t. Don’t be a goose!”
Did they want her, too, Judy wondered. Then she thought of Emily Grimshaw, and her doubts vanished. She might have something interesting to tell them about Joy Holiday.
CHAPTER XI
WHILE THE ORCHESTRA PLAYED
Saturday night came, and when Dale Meredith called, three visions of loveliness awaited him. Pauline wore peach-colored satin that trailed nearly to the floor. Irene’s new yellow dress with matching slippers of gold was truly appropriate for this occasion, and Judy looked like a sea nymph in a pale shade of green that made people wonder about the color of her eyes.
“It’s going to be a perfect evening,” Irene sighed ecstatically. “Even the moon came out to shine on the roof garden.”
It was all that Dale had described—palms, cut flowers, waiters in long-tailed coats who moved noiselessly between the tables, and a circle of floor for dancing. Colored lights played on the dancers tinting them with rainbows. To her surprise, Dale asked Judy for the first dance.
“Oh, no,” she replied quickly. “Really, I’d rather you danced with the other girls. You see, I can watch the lights while I’m sitting here. When I’m home again I won’t be able to watch lights on a roof garden. And I can always dance.”
Afterwards Judy felt almost sorry she had refused. The orchestra was playing beautifully, magic to any young girl’s feet. Now and then a soloist would sing the number as it was played. Judy listened, at first watching Dale and Irene, then Dale and Pauline as they moved in and out among the crowd of dancers. Finally, not watching anybody, she just sat thinking.
It had been a queer day. Strangely enough, Emily Grimshaw had not once mentioned the missing poetry. She seemed to take it for granted that neither Dale nor Judy were responsible. But she had gone about her work with a harassed expression and a droop to her shoulders that Judy had never noticed before. An opportunity came, and she had asked about Joy Holiday. She had found out something, too, and now as she sat alone at the table she puzzled as how best to tell Dale Meredith. At first she had planned to tell Irene but, on second thought, she had decided that it might be better for Irene not to know some of the things Emily Grimshaw had said.
“You must dance this one,” Dale urged her as the music began again. “Pauline is dancing with a friend of mine who just came in—”
“And I haven’t had a chance to finish this ginger ale,” Irene added.
Dale was curious to hear what she had found out. Judy could tell that as soon as he spoke to her alone.
“Her Majesty’s grouch gone?” he asked.
“A sort of depression has taken its place,” Judy explained as she swung into step. The floor was like glass and shone with their reflections. She could see Irene sitting next to the circle of light, sipping her ginger ale. There was another girl reflected on the floor beside her. Judy pointed it out to Dale—that golden reflection on the polished floor.
Just then the orchestra struck up a new tune. Soon the soloist joined in, singing the latest popular song:
My own golden girl, there is one, only one,
Who has eyes like the stars and hair like the sun.
In your new yellow gown you’re a dream of delight.
You have danced in my heart on bright slippers tonight…
“It sounds as if he meant Irene,” Dale whispered. “She’s a ‘golden girl’ tonight.” He glanced again at her reflection as the orchestra played on:
I’ll enthrone you my queen in a circular tower
Where frost may not blight my most delicate flower.
And from this hour on, you belong all to me
&nb
sp; Though you drown in my love as a bird in the sea.
Irene looked up just as the music stopped. She smiled, and Dale’s eyes smiled back at her.
“Her hair is like the sun,” he said dreamily and half to himself.
“Yes,” Judy replied. “And her dress and slippers are golden. You’d almost think the song was written for her. It must have been written for someone very much like her, and whoever wrote it loved that someone dearly.”
“What was the poet’s name?” Dale asked.
Judy thought a minute. “It was Sarah Glynn—or Glenn. I don’t quite remember. I used to think the song was written by a man until Miss Grimshaw showed me the original manuscript. It’s one of the missing poems, you know.”
“And you didn’t find out a thing about it?”
“Yes, one thing.”
Dale’s face glowed with interest. “You did? What?”
“That Emily Grimshaw believes Irene’s name is Joy Holiday. I can’t convince her otherwise. And she is sure Joy Holiday took the poems. You know it’s ridiculous. Irene isn’t anybody but herself and wouldn’t have any use in the world for the faded old poetry. Besides, she said she didn’t take them, and I believe her.”
“Keep on believing her,” Dale advised as he ushered Judy back to the table. “My own opinion is that your beloved employer has worked a screw loose somewhere in her upper story.”
Judy giggled, partly from excitement. But the thought would be less entertaining when she was catering to the old lady’s whims at the office.
On the way home they discussed the mystery. When questioned, Irene seemed glad to contribute scraps of the missing poetry for the others to puzzle over. It was remarkable how much of it she remembered, and Dale was charmed with the soft tones of her voice as she recited.
When the word “Joy” came up for the fifth time Judy stopped her to exclaim, “That must mean Joy Holiday, the girl Emily Grimshaw thinks took the poetry.”
“Then she must have been ‘Golden Girl,’” Irene said unexpectedly.
Dale turned to her in surprise. “That’s right! We never thought of that. I’m glad to see you so interested in it; I thought at first you weren’t keen on detecting.”
The Third Girl Detective Page 31