“No, I want to be there,” Lynn said stubbornly. “Please, Paul. I’m concerned in this, too.”
Paul hesitated. Then he said, “O.K., if you insist, but I still think it might be better if I went alone. Sometimes fellows can straighten things out better, man-to-man, than they can with a girl around. Especially a girl they’ve both been going with.”
“I want to be there when you first meet him,” Lynn insisted. “I don’t want any fighting or anything. Dirk has a terrible temper sometimes.”
Paul gave her a half smile. “Come on then, Little Peacemaker. But there’s not going to be any fighting. I should think Dirk would be pretty glad at this point to have somebody trying to help him.”
“But why are you?” Lynn asked in bewilderment. “You’ve never liked Dirk at all. You called him a ‘tough little smart aleck’ when we talked about him at Christmas time.”
Paul nodded in agreement “And I haven’t changed my opinion. But even a ‘tough little smart aleck’ can get a raw deal. You know him better than I do, and you say he’s innocent. You wouldn’t be saying that unless you really thought so. And if you think so, that’s good enough for me.”
They reached the garage a little before five and parked beside Dirk’s car. They were there waiting for him when he came out after work.
Dirk regarded them with surprise. He nodded at Lynn, and then turned his full gaze upon Paul. “What’s this, a reception committee? What are you doing here, Kingsley? I thought you were at college.”
“I am,” Paul said. “It’s spring vacation. I came home to find Lynn as thin as a toothpick and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and I’m going to try to help her get things straightened out.”
There was a hint of the old sarcasm in Dirk’s voice as he answered. “What do you think you’re going to do—snap your fingers and make everything all right?”
“Of course not, but maybe we can figure out something.”
Paul put a companionable hand on Dirk’s shoulder. “Let’s sit down. Want to make it in my car or yours?”
Dirk was silent a moment. Then he stepped forward and opened the door of his car. “O.K.,” he said, “climb in. It may not be much, Kingsley, but it’s home.”
It was a feeble joke, but it served its purpose. Suddenly, the tension was eased among them. They climbed into the car, Lynn in back and the boys in front.
“Well, here’s the story,” Dirk said. “See what you can make of it.”
It was in substance the same story Lynn had told Paul, with a little more added. Dirk described Brad and told something about his background.
“He’s a couple of years older than I am and has an apartment of his own. He never talks about his folks—I don’t even know if he has any. He doesn’t have a job, but he seems to get along all right. He always has plenty of money for a good time.” Dirk shook his head. “I don’t know why I let myself get mixed up with the guy in the first place, except that he had a car, and I didn’t, and he was always wanting me to help him with it. And he acted like he liked me and really wanted me along. You wouldn’t understand that, Kingsley, always being the head of everything at school—but when you’re not part of things, it can make you feel kind of good, having somebody act like he wants you.”
Paul asked, “Does he have a police record? Do you know if he’s ever been involved in something like this before?”
“I don’t know,” Dirk answered slowly. “Now that I think about it, he might have been. He was always talking about ‘big deals,’ laughing at kids like Ronnie Tinner with his drugstore job after school and hinting about how there were easier ways to make money, if you were smart enough to find them. I never listened to him much. I always figured he was just talking big to impress me.”
They sat in silence a moment. Then Paul asked, “Why don’t we go over there now?”
“Where?”
“To Brad’s apartment. Let’s just walk in and confront him with this thing and see what he has to say.”
“Are you crazy?” Dirk was staring at him. “He’ll laugh in our faces!”
“Maybe so,” Paul said. “Maybe not. We can’t tell till we get there. There are two of us now, you know. Sometimes it’s easier to laugh at one person than at two.”
Dirk said, “It won’t do any good. He probably won’t even let us in the door.”
“Then we’ll walk in.” Paul grinned. “I was captain of the high-school football team, Masters. I think I can push open a door, if I have to. And from what Lynn tells me, you have a pretty good temper yourself. I think with both of us, one on either side of him, Brad Morgan might not think the situation was quite so funny.”
After a moment, Dirk grinned, too. “Maybe he wouldn’t, at that. At least it would be worth a try.” He turned to Paul, and slowly his grin faded. “You’re sure you want to, Kingsley? I mean, there’s no reason why you should have to—”
“Of course, I want to,” Paul answered easily. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. After all, it’s my idea.”
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a set of keys and tossed them to Lynn.
“Drive my car home, will you, Lynn? I’ll ride over to Brad’s apartment with Dirk.”
“But I’m coming, too!” Lynn exclaimed. “I want to be in on this.”
The boys turned toward her with one accord, and there was the same look on both their faces.
Paul said, “I told you before, Lynn, that there are times when it’s better for a girl not to be along. This is one of those times.”
“But—but you might need me for—for something!” Lynn turned beseechingly to Dirk. “You want me to come, don’t you, Dirk? After all—”
But Dirk was already sliding out of the driver’s seat and opening the back door for her.
“Thanks, Princess,” he said, “but Kingsley’s right. You’d better go on home.”
“But—but—” Lynn looked from one boy to the other and realized it was hopeless.
She sighed, took up the keys and got out of Dirk’s car.
15
Lynn fidgeted through dinner that evening, with one ear open for the telephone and the other for the doorbell.
“What’s the matter, Daughter? You’re not eating. Aren’t you feeling well?”
Lynn smiled at her father’s familiar question. It was one thing that came with having a doctor in the family, every time you didn’t gulp down a meal as though you were half starved, you got your temperature taken.
“No,” she said, “I’m just not awfully hungry.”
“Lynn was out for a drive this afternoon,” her mother said pointedly. “Paul came by for her.”
“Paul Kingsley?” Dr. Chambers looked pleased. “Well, is that romance going strong again? Fine, fine! But don’t let excitement take away your appetite, Daughter. Growing girls need energy, you know.”
Dodie, who had been unusually quiet during the meal, entered the conversation. “Did he say anything about the Presentation Ball? It’s tomorrow night, you know.”
“We never got around to the subject,” Lynn told her.
Dodie nodded, understanding. “Well, there’s still time for him to ask you.”
“Yes.”
Lynn thought, the Presentation Ball. She wanted to go; oh, how she wanted to go! It was the one debutante dance that was open to the public, the final big party of the debutante season, and it was supposed to be the grandest party the town had ever known. The debutantes had been practicing every afternoon all week for their grand entrance down the stairs into the ballroom, and Nancy had told her there had even been a special dancing instructor to teach them how to make their curtsies.
“I’m so sore I can hardly move,” Nancy had said, laughing. “It’s like doing calisthenics. You go down—down—down—until your head almost touches the ground, and then you have to come up gracefully, without falling. It’s quite a trick.”
“It sounds effective,” Lynn had agreed. “I hope I’ll be there to see it. I just might, you know. I
mean, if Paul comes home and everything is like it used to be.”
Nancy seemed less hopeful. “Don’t count on it too much. His letter—his saying he wants to help you if he can—that’s swell, of course. But he doesn’t say anything about the Ball, and I happen to know Brenda is counting on going with him. She’s signed him up on the list as her escort and it seems pretty well settled.”
“Well,” Lynn had said, “we’ll see.”
And thinking about it now, she still was not sure how things stood between them. Paul had been wonderful and had seemed genuinely glad to see her. He had apologized for his part in the quarrel and wanted to be friends again. But perhaps that was all he wanted now—to be friends.
Dinner had been over almost an hour when the doorbell finally rang. Lynn, who had been trying to concentrate on the evening paper, was on her feet in an instant and flew to the door to meet Paul.
When she saw him, she gave a gasp of horror. “What’s happened to your hand?”
Paul’s hand was wrapped to the wrist with white adhesive tape.
“Just smashed it up a little.” Paul grinned at her. He looked very pleased with himself. “What an evening! Gosh! Where can we sit and talk?”
Lynn led the way into the living room and sank onto the sofa, drawing Paul down beside her. “The family’s all upstairs, so you can tell me the whole story. I want to hear everything. Start at the beginning.”
“Well,” Paul said, “to start with, of course, we drove over to Brad Morgan’s apartment.”
“What was it like?” Lynn asked. “Was it a shabby place?”
“No, that surprised me. It was a ground floor apartment, in a nice neighborhood. It didn’t look like the sort of place a guy would live in if he didn’t have a job. We parked the car and went up and knocked on the door, but there wasn’t any answer. Then we tried the door, and it was locked, so we were pretty sure Brad wasn’t there.”
“So you waited?” Lynn asked eagerly.
“Yes. But after a few minutes we realized that, if we just stood there in plain sight, Brad Morgan would never come home, so Dirk suggested that we climb in a window and wait inside and really take him by surprise.”
Lynn’s face paled. “But, Paul, that’s breaking and entering! You could be arrested for something like that!”
Paul looked sheepish. “You’re right, it wasn’t a smart thing to do. I guess I was getting kind of carried away by the cops and robbers game. Anyway, I tagged along after Dirk, while he tried the windows, and when he found one that was open, I scrambled in after him and we stationed ourselves on either side of the front door.”
“Weren’t you scared to death?” Lynn asked in awe.
“I was nervous,” Paul admitted, “but I wasn’t exactly what you’d call scared. Not until Dirk remembered the gun.”
“The gun!” Lynn cried in horror. “What gun?”
“We were standing there, waiting for Brad to arrive, when Dirk said, ‘My gosh, I forgot about the pistol!’ It seemed Brad Morgan had a pistol, a thirty-eight revolver. Dirk said he’d seen it lots of times. Brad was proud of it and was always showing it off, and sometimes he carried it around with him. Dirk said he’d never seen Brad use it, and he always thought he just kept it to show off with, but still, it wasn’t too pleasant a thought. Brad walking in with a gun was a little different from Brad just walking in.”
“It certainly was!” Lynn said shakily. “I hope you got out that window again in a hurry!”
“We started to,” Brad said, “and then suddenly Dirk said, ‘He usually keeps the gun in his bureau. Let’s take a look and see if it’s there.’ I didn’t want any part of that. By this time, I was plenty sorry I’d never been dope enough to come inside in the first place. I said, ‘Let’s not go poking around. Let’s just get out and wait in the car.’ I was already swinging my legs out the window when Dirk let out a shout, “Come here, Kingsley! Look what Brad has in his drawer! It’s a whole jewelry store!’”
“What did he mean?” Lynn asked in bewilderment
“Just that. Honestly, Lynn, I never saw anything like it in my whole life! Dirk had pulled open the top drawer of the bureau, looking for the gun, and, instead, he’d found enough jewelry to stock a store—watches, pins, necklaces—piles and piles of them! It was like opening a pirates’ treasure chest. And back behind them was a pile of empty wallets.”
“What did you do then?” Lynn breathed.
“Well, the first thing I did was to pull my legs back in the window and go over to that bureau to get a look for myself. The next thing I did was to say, ‘Let’s call the police.’ Dirk said, ‘We can’t call from here—Brad doesn’t have a telephone.’And then we heard the key turning in the door.”
“Oh, no!” Lynn felt her heart lurch. “Was it Brad?”
Paul nodded. “There wasn’t time to move. We just stood there while the door swung open and Brad came in. He saw Dirk first and said, ‘What the devil are you doing here, Masters?’ And then he saw the drawer open. And then he saw me.”
“The gun—” Lynn began.
“We didn’t take time to think about the gun; we just dove at him, Dirk and I, one from each side. And boy, Lynn, that guy was built like a bull! I’ve played football, but I’ve never tried to tackle anybody like that. He just wouldn’t go down. He threw himself sideways and slammed Dirk against the wall, then started across the room toward the bureau, dragging me right along with him. And then, of course, we knew where the gun was.”
“In the bureau?”
“Yes, otherwise he wouldn’t be headed there in such a hurry. Dirk yelled, ‘You hang onto him, Kingsley, while I get it!’Well, I knew I couldn’t possibly hang onto Brad—it would have been like hanging onto a charging rhino. So I hauled back my fist to sock him, and just then he whirled out of the way and my fist smacked right into the wall.
“That pretty well wrecked one hand, and before I could think to use the other one, Brad gave me one hard sock in the midsection and down I went, flat on the floor. That would have been that if it hadn’t been for Dirk. Brad was hauling back his foot, aiming a kick at my head, when Dirk said, ‘O.K., Brad, if you move again, you’re going to be sorry.’ And there he was, holding the pistol.”
“Thank goodness!” Lynn breathed. She felt weak with relief. “Oh, Paul, thank goodness!”
“Thank goodness is right.” Paul said with a grin. “The gun had been far back in the drawer, behind the wallets. When Brad saw it in Dirk’s hand, he stopped where he was. He said, ‘You wouldn’t use that, Masters.’ And Dirk, (he was shaking like a leaf, with that pistol wobbling back and forth; I don’t think he could have pulled the trigger if his life depended on it) said, ‘Wouldn’t I? After the way you left me to take the blame for taking the Peterson girl’s wallet?’ Brad said, ‘I didn’t like doing that, but it was the only thing I could do. You didn’t have a record—I knew you’d get off light—but I would have gone to jail.’ So Dirk said, ‘You heard him, Kingsley. You can tell the police what he said.’And I dragged myself up off the floor and said, ‘Sure I can.’ So Dirk kept Brad covered while I went next door and phoned the police.”
“Oh, Paul!” Lynn said weakly. “I feel as though I’d been through it all myself. So the police came and arrested Brad?”
“That’s right,” Paul said. “That stuff in the drawer was enough to convict him on half a dozen different counts. There’s been a whole siege of housebreakings lately, and they’re sure that’s where most of that jewelry came from. They have to check it out, of course, but as far as we’re concerned, everything’s settled. Dirk’s cleared of the schoolyard robbery, and, of course, you’re cleared of any connection with it. And it all took less than an hour.”
“An hour!” Lynn exclaimed. “You mean all this happened this afternoon, and you let me worry myself sick all through dinner without even phoning to tell me about it?”
“I’m sorry,” Paul said. “I probably should have called, but there was so much to do. I had to get this ha
nd bandaged up, and then I went over to the Petersons’ and asked Brenda if she was responsible for the way the kids have been treating you.”
“You didn’t expect her to say yes, did you?” Lynn asked.
“She did say yes.”
Lynn stared at him in amazement. “You mean, she actually admitted it?”
“Sure she did. She looked pretty horrified, too, when she heard the real story. She said she’d get on the phone tonight and call every single one of the debutantes and tell them neither you nor Dirk had anything to do with the robbery. That’s nineteen girls she has to call, and each of them will go to school on Monday and tell nineteen others, and if I know the way girls talk, by the end of the day, your reputation is going to be as clean as a whistle.”
“Oh, Paul, thank you!” It was as though the weight of pain and loneliness which had hung over her for three long months was suddenly lifted, and the abruptness of the release left her lightheaded. Lynn felt tears of relief and gratitude filling her eyes. “Oh, Paul—”
“Hey,” he said, “don’t start crying. Everything’s O.K. now. You don’t have to cry.”
He pulled her toward him, and she moved forward, and then his arms were around her and everything was all right—really all right. Lynn took a deep breath and relaxed completely for the first time in months. She thought this is where I belong. I never want to move again. And yet even as she thought it she was drawing back a little, so she could see his face. And what she saw there was what she wanted to see.
“I missed you,” he said huskily.
“And I missed you,” Lynn whispered. “I never missed anybody so much in my whole life.”
Paul still had his arm around her a few minutes later when Ernie came thudding in.
“Don’t mind me, lovebirds. I just live here.”
“Look who’s talking!” Paul said with a grin. “I bet you were pretty darned glad to see your own girl, weren’t you?”
“You’re not kidding.” Ernie grinned back. “In fact, I’m heading for her place right now, to help cart a load of glasses over to the Country Club. The Presentation Ball’s tomorrow.” He paused at the door and then added in a very off-hand manner, “Why don’t the four of us double? The whole town’s invited, you know.”