CHAPTER XVIII Thieves of the Mind
Judy found Pauline’s advice hard to follow.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” she had said when they parted on Sunday.But the words had meant very little. In church, in the restaurant, infront of the bullet-riddled door, on the subway returning to thehospital, and especially on the train going back to Long Island—whereverJudy went a vague worry went with her.
“What’s the matter with me?” she wondered. “Why can’t I clear my headand think straight the way I used to?”
Judy spent a restless night, haunted by the faceless golden-hairedpeople of her dream. Again she was looking for Clarissa. But now she hada clue. They had all dreamed about hair—Pauline, Flo, and herself. Butwhy? If they had been hypnotized as part of a confidence game, Peterought to know about it. The next day Judy told him.
“You’d almost think someone had taken possession of our minds. All threeof us had nightmares. What do you suppose caused them?” she asked whenshe was visiting him in the afternoon.
Peter shook his head. He was sitting up with his shoulder in a cast andfeeling very much better. She hadn’t wanted to tire him the day before.But now it was different. There were a number of things she knew shemustn’t keep from him any longer.
“Nightmares are sometimes caused by something hidden in the subconsciousmind,” he replied. “I’m sure I don’t know what you have hidden there.”
“Oh, Peter! I’m not hiding it on purpose. I feel silly telling you aboutit after all you’ve been through,” Judy burst out impulsively. “Will youforgive me?”
“On one condition,” he told her.
Judy thought he was serious until she saw the twinkle in his eyes.
“And what is that condition?”
“That you tell me more. You told me yesterday that the patient youvisited wasn’t Clarissa, but you didn’t tell me much of anything else.What happened to this phantom friend, as you call her?” Peter askedcuriously. “Begin at the beginning and tell me exactly how you met her.”
“We met her—in a restaurant. We went back there yesterday but didn’tfind out anything.” Judy sighed. It was good to be telling Peter aboutit. She had so much to tell him that she thought she might as well dishit out in small doses. The big surprise would come when she handed himthe post office box number of the thief he had been trailing. But thatcould wait. She told him about church first, and how the minister hadsaid, “Love ye therefore the stranger.”
“It was easy to like Clarissa,” she continued in answer to his firstrequest. “You asked how we met her. Well, the four of us were havinglunch when there was a commotion at the cashier’s desk, and thisstranger—we found out later that her name was Clarissa Valentine. Well,anyway, she claimed that she had given the cashier a twenty-dollar bill.He opened the cash drawer to prove that her bill wasn’t in it, but sheinsisted and we believed her. Was that wrong, Peter?”
“Not at all,” he replied. “I might have believed the girl myself andsuspected the cashier of palming the bill.”
“Then I’m glad we believed her. Not that it makes what happenedafterwards any easier to explain,” Judy added. “Pauline thought she hadtricked us, but that was after she disappeared with the money we lenther. I don’t know how she could have vanished the way she did if itwasn’t a trick. Besides, the things she said—”
“What things?” asked Peter, more interested in the story than Judy hadexpected him to be. “If you can remember exactly what she said it mayhelp us find out what happened to her.”
“Oh dear, no! I’m afraid not. So much happened! This is going to soundunbelievable to you,” cried Judy, “but she said things that made it seemalmost as if she—she didn’t exist. Things like telling us she looked ina mirror once and saw no reflection. And then—you won’t believe this atall, but when we toured Radio City and looked at ourselves ontelevision, all the rest of us showed, but Clarissa was nothing but abig white light closing in until it disappeared just the way shedid—without a trace. We called her a phantom friend for a joke at first,but after that it seemed so real it wasn’t funny any more. Peter, whatdo you think happened?”
“Well, for one thing, a tube probably blew out on the TV set. That wouldcause the picture to close in and disappear. I’ve seen it happen myself,and it is weird—”
“It certainly was that,” Judy agreed. “I suppose a tube could have blownout. We didn’t wait to see what was wrong with the set, because Clarissafainted. She wasn’t faking, either. She was really frightened. We wentback and saw ourselves after the set was fixed, but she wouldn’t go nearit. She said her hair was dull and drab and then we all started sayingit—as if we were hypnotized or something. Was that a trick? Was Clarissaplaying some sort of confidence game?”
“Someone was. I’ll have to look into this myself,” declared Peter. “Itmay tie in with what we found out. There are all kinds of thieves, youknow. That cashier is probably a petty thief and should be reported. Athief like Clarence Lawson plays his confidence game for biggerwinnings. But the most insidious kind, I think, are thieves of the mind.Do you follow me, Angel?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” Judy admitted. “I’ve heard of brain washing,of course. I wish someone would wash those golden-haired people out ofmy brain, so I could stop dreaming about them and think straight. Isthat what you mean?”
“I mean they may have been deliberately put there by the enemies of ourmost precious possession. You know what it is, don’t you? It’s ourfreedom to think our own thoughts.”
“You mean—oh, Peter! I do see what you mean!” cried Judy. “I don’t knowhow it was done, but someone has been doing things to our subconsciousminds—to frighten us—and make us dream. Clarissa was frightened, too.She couldn’t have done it. But who was it, Peter? How do we find out whodid this horrible thing to us?”
“One way,” said Peter, “is to review the facts. Judy, I’m serious. Iwant you to go back over everything that happened Saturday.”
“But we’ve been doing that. We haven’t come up with very many answers,only more questions. You said what happened to Clarissa might tie inwith what you found out. What did you mean?” asked Judy.
“I told you we overheard some plans,” Peter began. “Mind manipulationcould have been part of them. If only we knew the name of the missingactress—”
“Is some actress missing? Maybe Irene knows her,” Judy suggested. “Shecould give you the names of all the people who appeared on her show.There was the witch. She could have cast some sort of hypnotic spellover us, I suppose. Hypnotism is one sort of mind manipulation, isn’tit?”
“Yes, but there are other sorts. There’s a machine, for instance, calledthe tachistoscope. It’s sort of a magic lantern with a high-speedshutter—”
“There were a lot of machines,” Judy interrupted. “The studio floor wasfilled up with them. I tried to remember their names when we were on thetour, but I couldn’t possibly remember them all.”
“What else happened on that tour?” asked Peter. “You haven’t told meeverything.”
“There’s so much to tell. I can’t think of it all at once. Irene invitedFrancine Dow to be her guest star. Did I tell you she didn’t arriveuntil the last minute?” asked Judy. “Then she left hurriedly with heraunt before we had a chance to meet her.”
“Did you meet the aunt?” Peter questioned. “A phony aunt would fit invery nicely with what we already know.”
“What do you know? I can see you’re not free to tell me,” Judy addedwhen Peter was silent. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not free to thinkabout it. These thieves of the mind may invent machines to make medream, but when I’m awake I intend to do my own thinking, and right nowI think Francine Dow may be in danger. She didn’t sing. Irene thoughtshe had a cold. But maybe something else was wrong. I didn’t tell you,but there was an argument in the film storage room. The projectionistwas very angry. I heard him say something might be as dangerous as anatom bom
b. I had no idea what the danger was, but if Francine Dow ismissing—”
Judy stopped. It wasn’t Francine Dow, it was Clarissa Valentine who wasmissing. The two girls, as she remembered them, were somewhat alike. Theabsurd idea came to her that one of them could have been real and theother a changeling. But Peter didn’t want fairy tales. He wanted facts.