CHAPTER XIX
LIKE A FAIRY TALE
Her nerves taxed to the breaking point, Judy gave up searching for theday and went to the office. Emily Grimshaw was not there but she hadleft a message:
_Will be away for a time and leave you in charge._
“Me in charge!” Judy exclaimed. She couldn’t imagine herself conductingEmily Grimshaw’s business sensibly. “I’ll just close up for the day,”she decided in exasperation. Leaving a notice to that effect at thehotel desk, she locked the office and started for Dr. Faulkner’s house.
In the entrance hall she was met by an anxious group of faces. Dale’s,Pauline’s—and Peter’s.
“Judy!” he cried, and then when her only answer was a choked sob,again, “Judy!”
“Oh, Peter! You’ll help?”
“That’s why I’m here. We telephoned _every_where. We thought you’dnever come.”
“Where on earth were you?” Dale asked.
“Hunting for Irene,” Judy explained brokenly. “I—I followed up a clue.I thought I knew where Irene was and I went out there to get her to—tobring her home and surprise you, but she wasn’t there.”
“Wasn’t _where_?”
“Where I thought she was ... the most awful place just off GravesendAvenue out in old Parkville. The—the house has a tower, just like thetower in Sarah Glenn’s poems. It’s burned halfway up and—and—and——”
“And what, Judy? Don’t act so frightened.”
“There was something in the tower,” she blurted out, “somethingyellow——”
“Probably a yellow dog or some such ordinary thing,” Paulineinterrupted.
“Oh, but it wasn’t! I saw it as plainly as anything, and it looked likea woman in a yellow robe, only she was too tall and too thin to bereal. Then I looked again and she was gone but I could still feel herwatching me. It was awful! I didn’t think there could be a tower offlame or a ghost, but there they were!” Judy leaned back against theclosed door and threw both hands outward in a gesture of bewilderment.
“And I always thought I was a practical person. I always trusted my ownhead—and eyes.”
Impulsively, Peter caught her hands in his. His voice was husky. “Istill trust them, Judy. Tell me everything,” he pleaded. “I know youmust have had a good reason for thinking that Irene might be in thisqueer old house. Why did you?”
“Because Irene looks so much like the poet’s daughter, Joy Holiday. Ithought they might be related. Mr. Lang spoke of Irene’s relatives. Hetold her to look them up. But the poet is crazy! Anything might happen!”
“And yet you went there alone!” Peter exclaimed. “Don’t you realizethat whatever happened to Irene might have happened to you?”
“I did realize it—when I got there,” Judy faltered. “I—I guess Iwasn’t very brave to run away, but nobody seemed to live in the house.It looked—empty.”
“Then, of course, Irene couldn’t be there,” Pauline concluded.
“Oh, but they might have moved—_and taken her with them_!” Judy turnedto Peter, a new fear in her eyes. “You know about law. Tell me, ifIrene is related to Sarah Glenn wouldn’t she inherit some of herproperty?”
“That depends upon the will,” he replied. “If she made a will beforeshe went insane——”
“She did!” Judy interrupted. “She willed the property to her daughterand, in the event of her death, it was to go to her brother, JasperCrosby. He’s a crook and a scoundrel,” she declared, “worse thanSlippery McQuirk or any of Vine Thompson’s gang, if I’m any judge ofcharacter. You see, if Irene is related to the poet through JoyHoliday, how convenient it would be for him to have her out of the way?”
“You mean that Joy Holiday might have been Irene’s mother?”
“She couldn’t have been,” Pauline spoke up. “Joy Holiday has been deadfor twenty years.”
“Supposedly! Her mother never did believe the body was hers, and evenEmily Grimshaw says it didn’t look like her.”
“Where’d they get the body?” Peter asked.
“Jasper Crosby went to the morgue and got it. He identified it asJoy’s, and people paid no attention to his sister’s objections becausethey knew she was insane.”
“Then this girl, Joy Holiday, is legally dead. But if we can prove thatthere has been a fraud....”
“What fraud?” Dale questioned. “You don’t mean to tell us that thisJasper Crosby may have falsely identified some unknown girl’s body inorder to inherit his sister’s property?”
“That’s exactly what I was trying to say. I don’t know anything aboutIrene’s mother and neither does she. Mr. Lang only remembered the name,Annie, and that, as well as Joy, may have been only a nickname.” Judyturned to Peter. “I know how you felt when your parents were a mystery.Well, wouldn’t Irene feel the same way? Her father gave away somefamily history in his letter, and Irene was more impressed than we knowby Emily Grimshaw’s collapse. Remember, I wrote you about it, Peter?She wanted to find out about her mother——”
“Then she did take the poetry,” Pauline put in.
“Yes,” Judy agreed. “I’m afraid she did. It’s a terrible thing not toknow the truth about one’s parents, and Irene must have taken thepoetry to help her find that horrible house that seems to haveswallowed her up.”
“She said she didn’t,” Dale maintained.
Judy felt suddenly ashamed that his trust in Irene should be greaterthan hers. But if, distrusting her, Judy found her, then she could beglad of her disbelief.
“There is another possibility,” she ventured and made her voice soundmore hopeful than she felt. “There is the possibility that Irene may besafe in the poet’s house.”
“That sounds more plausible,” Dale agreed, “but you said the house wasempty.”
“I said it _looked_ empty, except for that unearthly thing in thetower. But, now that I think of it, something alive must have beenthere to pull the shades. Do you suppose,” Judy asked in a tremulouswhisper, “that somebody could be locked there like Joy Holiday was whenshe vanished?”
“It sounds like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? But not,” Peter addedgravely, “if Irene is in the tower. Judy, we must do something—and doit quickly.”
It did not take him long to decide what that something would be. “We’llget a policeman to go with us,” he declared. “The police have a rightto force their way into a house if nobody answers.”
“Without a search warrant?” questioned Pauline.
“That’s the dickens of it,” Dale fumed. “There’s sure to be some redtape attached to it and loss of time may mean—loss of Irene. We’ve gotto convince the police that this is a matter of life and death!”
A taxi was the quickest means of getting to the police station. It tookconsiderable explaining, however, to convince officials that the casewas urgent. The fact that the owner of the house was known to be insaneand that Irene might be held there against her will proved to be thestrongest argument in favor of the search warrant they requested. Butit could not be served until the following day.
“You have to go before a magistrate,” Lieutenant Collins explained,“and night warrants are allowed only in cases where persons or propertyare positively known to be in the place to be searched. However, thereare several ways of getting around that. If a felony has beencommitted, as in the present case, we don’t need a warrant.”
“What felony?” Judy asked.
“Great guns!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you call kidnaping a felony? If thegirl’s held there against her will it’s a plain case of kidnaping!”
Judy hadn’t thought of that. Kidnapers and killers were almostsynonymous in her mind and the thought was terrifying.
Lieutenant Collins wasted no further time but called the ParkvillePrecinct, and two policemen were detailed to meet Judy, Pauline, Daleand Peter and accompany them to the house with the crumbling tower.
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