CHAPTER XI On the Train
“I guess we’ll just have to go home and forget Clarissa,” Pauline saidfinally after they had searched the whole theater and questionedeverybody—technicians as well as actors who were still there in thecast. Some had already left, but those who remained could tell themnothing.
“She fainted before,” Judy remembered.
Irene heard, for the first time, how Clarissa had looked into a mirrorand seen no reflection. “And then,” Flo went on telling her, “somethingwent wrong with that closed circuit TV set where we were supposed to seeour pictures, and she didn’t show. That was when she fainted. We tookher to the first aid room and then went back and finished our tour. TheTV set was all right. All the rest of us showed. We forgot to ask theguide if she knew what went wrong with it. Clarissa wouldn’t go backthere. She was afraid.”
“Of what?” asked Irene.
“That she wasn’t real, I guess. I’m beginning to be afraid of itmyself,” Flo admitted. “The doorman said nobody left the show early, andnobody left by the stage entrance except a few people who were in thecast.”
“Francine Dow was one of them, wasn’t she? What about her aunt?” askedJudy. “You said she left with her.”
“That’s right. I forgot about her,” Irene admitted. “She left by thestage entrance, too. I know what you’re thinking, Judy, but she was anold lady. Well, anyway, middle-aged. She was a plump, motherly lookingwoman with gray hair. I noticed her earlier in the studio audience.”
“When Clarissa was still there?”
“Yes, it was before the show went on the air. I guess Francine hadplanned to meet her aunt afterwards and go home with her. They probablyleft in a hurry because Francine wasn’t feeling well and wanted to avoidmeeting people. I heard her aunt say something about a week end in thecountry. We could find out where they went and question them, I suppose,but I’m sure it wouldn’t do any good.”
“It might,” Judy said hopefully. “They might have seen Clarissa.”
“I doubt it,” Pauline replied. “If she deliberately ran off with themoney we lent her, she would have made sure she wasn’t seen. Obviously,that’s what happened.”
It did seem obvious.
“We never should have trusted her in the first place,” Pauline went on.“That story she told must have been part of her plan to trick us andmake us sorry for her. It isn’t possible for a girl to look in a mirrorand see no reflection. Things like that only happen in ghost stories.”
“This is a ghost story,” Flo said in an awed tone, “only it’s happeningto us. Maybe she wasn’t real. She didn’t show—”
Pauline turned to her friend. “Flo, you aren’t going to believe—?” shebegan.
But Irene cut in, “In phantoms? Of course she isn’t. What’s your theory,Judy? You always come up with something.”
“I will,” Judy promised. “Just give me time. It would help if we knewexactly when she disappeared.”
“Wasn’t it just about the time that misty haze covered the set?” Floquestioned. “What was it, anyway, some new kind of vapor to make peoplevanish?” she asked nervously.
“It was only steam,” Irene reassured her. “I couldn’t see what was goingon backstage from where I was standing, but I had a good view of thatsteam kettle. There was nothing unnatural about it.”
“No?” Flo sounded dubious. “Maybe not, but there was something strangeabout Clarissa. Vanishing like that—it’s utterly fantastic!”
“I have a few fantastic theories of my own,” Judy admitted. “If she’dhad time to use that golden hair wash—”
“What do you think’s in it? Vanishing cream?” Pauline was laughing. Hertheory was really the only sensible one, Judy decided. She was eager totalk it over with Peter. He knew so much more about the workings of thecriminal mind than she did. There were patterns of behavior. WouldClarissa’s behavior fit one of them? Somehow Judy doubted it.
“I suppose we shouldn’t have trusted her,” she said at last. “Herinnocent appearance didn’t fool the cashier in the restaurant. But I’mnot sorry if it fooled us. Peter might not agree with me, but I believein trusting people. Clarissa may be involved in some sort of confidencegame. And yet, somehow, I believe she is a friend. I mean a real one.”
“You’re a real friend to her, Judy.” Irene shook her head. “It’s beyondme. I suppose she’ll go home, wherever her home is, and we’ll never seeher again. It was an experience, anyway.”
Judy found she couldn’t dismiss it that lightly. Too many experienceshad crowded in to make her vacation in New York not at all what she hadanticipated. First there had been her discovery that Tower House was nolonger standing. It appeared to have vanished but, in reality, it hadonly been torn down to make room for a new apartment building. Irene andDale were now living in a more modern house farther out on Long Island.
Weird things had happened in Tower House as they had in Judy’s own homeboth before and after her marriage to Peter Dobbs. She would neverforget the time she saw the transparent figure floating about in hergarden. Blackberry, her cat, had provided the clue to that mystery aswell as to the latest one she and Peter had solved. Always there hadbeen a solution. The only real ghosts, Judy had discovered, were suchthings as suspicion and fear. Some fear could be haunting Clarissa.
“She must be somewhere,” Judy said as they left the theater. They took ataxi, not without misgivings.
“Don’t ask the driver to hurry,” Flo warned them. “The streets are stillslippery. Remember what happened to the woman with the red hair.”
“Like mine,” Judy recalled thoughtfully, “only not as natural looking.We don’t know what happened to her. I’d like to meet her and ask her afew questions. I wonder if she has regained consciousness.”
“I’ll call the hospital tomorrow and find out,” Pauline promised. “Dropme off first, please,” she told the driver. “Then the others want todrive on to Penn Station.”
“That’s where we take the Long Island Railroad,” Irene explained. “Flogoes home by train, too, but on a different line.”
Judy found the railroad station confusing. People were hurrying this wayand that. There was an upper level and a lower level and ever so manyturns before they reached a crowded section of the station where Flobade them good-by and left them to join another line of people. Itseemed to Judy that half the city must be commuting to Long Island bytrain.
“I like to watch all the different faces, don’t you?” she whispered toIrene. “Clarissa could be in this crowd—”
Presently a man in uniform opened a gate, and the crowd surged through.Judy and Irene found seats on the train, but not together. A man,concealed by his open newspaper, occupied the place next to the window.All the seats were soon filled, and the train started on its way. Irene,who was sitting just behind Judy, tapped her shoulder.
“We can’t talk much. The train is making too much noise,” she said abovethe creaks and rattles.
“That’s all right. I’m a little tired, anyway,” Judy confessed. “It’sbeen a long day.”
“Why don’t you lean back and close your eyes?” Irene suggested. “I will,too. It’s an hour’s ride—” A yawn came, interrupting the sentence.
“I won’t sleep,” Judy told herself when she saw that Irene was resting.“I’ll have to keep my eyes open to watch for our station.”
The conductor, she discovered a little later, was calling the stations.She roused herself to listen, dozing between stops. But it was only herconscious mind that slept. The thoughts she could control were at rest,but other thoughts came unbidden. _My hair is dull. My hair is drab._But those were Clarissa’s thoughts! They rushed on with the train._Dull! Drab! Dull! Drab!_—faster and faster.
As the unwanted thoughts pounded in Judy’s head the train swayed, firstthis way and then that way. A frail old lady making her way down theaisle changed suddenly to a young girl with golden hair. Judy stared ather. Then she look
ed at the girl sitting beside her and saw that she,too, had golden hair. Her face was blank like the face of adepartment-store dummy. _It was a man before! He had been reading anewspaper!_ How had the strange transformation taken place? Had ithappened this way to Clarissa?
Behind Judy sat another girl with a blank face and golden hair. Anotherone was in front and still another across the aisle. The train, movingbackwards now, seemed full of golden-haired girls with identical faces.Judy’s thoughts, too, were moving in a reverse direction. Now she was atthe station backing through the gates. All the golden-haired peoplesurged forward, pressing closer and closer until she could scarcelybreathe. She tried to call to them in protest. At last, as if from agreat distance, she heard her own voice whispering Irene’s name. Shetried desperately to speak louder and presently the cry came.
“Irene!”
With that she swayed and would have fallen sideways if the man with thenewspaper hadn’t caught her. Irene was at her side. Unaccountably, theywere back in the train.
“How—where—what?” Judy stammered. She was awake now, but the feelingthat a crowd of golden-haired people were suffocating her stilllingered.
“What happened? Where are we?” she managed to ask.