Identified
Judy’s list, when she finally had it completed, was as long as Santa’s
list of good boys and girls. That was what she told Peter when she
presented it to him.
“Pauline and Flo helped me. We put in everything we could think of in
the order it all happened. But still I have a feeling there’s something
important that we left out. Irene’s coming this evening,” Judy added
hopefully. “Maybe she has something to add to the list.”
Much later, when Peter was being interviewed by one of the agents from
the New York office and Judy had stepped outside his room for a moment,
she almost bumped into Irene. For a moment they stared at each other.
Then both of them said, in the same breath, “You’re here!”
“Dale’s here, too,” Irene told her. “He’s outside in the waiting room
with little Judy. We’ll take turns minding her so both of us can visit
Peter.”
“You’ll have to wait. He has a visitor. Very confidential,” Judy said,
lowering her voice. “They’re looking over a list that I gave them.
Nobody is allowed in there until they’ve finished exchanging top
secrets.”
“Then I’ll go up and visit Clarissa and find out what happened—”
“Wait, Irene!” Judy stopped her. “I should have told you. That patient
isn’t Clarissa. I don’t know who she is, but you may be able to identify
her. She keeps calling for you.”
Irene looked her disappointment.
“She could be someone who’s seen me on television—someone I don’t know
at all. Doesn’t she know who she is?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Is she out of her head? I’ve never been able to overcome my fear of
people who weren’t—rational,” Irene confessed. “Couldn’t someone else
identify her?”
“She wants you, Irene. She keeps asking for the Golden Girl. She was
hurt on the way to see your show, and the idea seems fixed in her mind.
She may calm down the minute she sees you,” Judy said.
“I hope so.” Irene paused, glancing back toward Peter’s room. His
visitor, portfolio in hand, had just come out. “We can go in now,” she
told Judy. “I’d rather not visit that woman upstairs until I’ve seen
Peter.”
“Wait a moment, Mr. Blake!” Peter called from his room. “Here are a
couple of young ladies I want you to meet. They may have something to
add to that list I just gave you.”
He introduced the man to Judy and Irene. They greeted him cordially, and
then Judy said, “I have nothing to add, Mr. Blake. If anything else
happened I can’t think of it, but Mrs. Meredith may have something for
you. She’s on her way to identify that red-haired woman who was hurt in
the taxicab.”
“I am going up, but I probably won’t know her from Adam,” Irene said.
“From Eve,” Peter corrected her with a boyish grin. “Is Dale here? Maybe
he might have a clue to her identity.”
“If I had somebody to mind the baby in the waiting room, we could both
go up,” Irene began.
“I’ll mind her,” Judy said. “Is it all right, Peter? I won’t be long.”
“Of course it’s all right. I’ll go with you,” Peter surprised Judy by
saying. “I’m supposed to walk around and get used to this cast. It makes
me feel a little top-heavy right now. You’ll have to help me on with my
robe.”
Judy smiled. It was so good to see Peter up and walking. She escorted
him to the waiting room where little Judy had to be stopped from
pouncing on him. The baby stared at the cast and then said sorrowfully,
“Peter all broke.”
“How does she mean that?” asked Dale. “Good to see you so chipper,” he
added, shaking the hand that Peter extended. “I’ve always heard that you
can’t keep a good man down.”
Mr. Blake was introduced and invited to accompany Dale and Irene to the
room in the old building where the red-haired woman was. They left
quietly just as Peter was saying to little Judy, “I guess I must look
something like a broken dolly to you.”
“Baby,” little Judy corrected him. Irene had brought along one of little
Judy’s “babies” to keep her amused.
“A dolly can also be a truck used for television cameras,” Judy
remarked. “You learn a whole new language. A chair becomes a prop, and a
log is no longer something to throw in the fireplace. It’s a complete
record of everything that happens on a station from sign-on in the
morning to sign-off at midnight. I might remember what I forgot to put
on that list if I looked at the station log.”
“Do that,” advised Peter. “There may have been something to make you
dream—”
“On television?” Judy laughed. “I don’t know what it was unless that
witch gave me nightmares.”
“Funny witch!” spoke up little Judy.
“You see,” Judy pointed out, “she was a funny witch. She wasn’t
frightening even to a baby. The whole play was delightful. Did you see
the reviews of it? Nobody seemed to recognize Francine Dow. Little Judy
is holding the doll—excuse me, I mean the baby, that played the part of
Sleeping Beauty during the first part of the show. They also used a film
strip of a real baby.”
“The advertising was on film, too, wasn’t it? That’s one thing you did
omit from your list,” Peter pointed out. “You forgot to list the
commercials you watched.”
“The commercials! Who could list them? There are so many of them.
Anyway, they aren’t important. But maybe they are,” Judy quickly amended
her first statement. “That golden hair wash commercial started us
worrying about our hair. We watched it when we were waiting for the tour
to begin.”
“At Radio City?”
“Yes, but it didn’t originate from there. It was on a local channel. You
know, the same one that features the Golden Girl show. I wish you could
have been there, Peter.”
“Perhaps that’s where I should have been. There are federal controls to
keep advertisers in line. If I had known—”
“Where Mommy Daddy gone?” little Judy interrupted, suddenly realizing
that Dale and Irene were no longer in the room.
“They went to call on a patient,” Judy explained hurriedly. She was
eager to hear the rest of what Peter had started to say, but again the
baby interrupted.
“Wanna see patient!”
“I’m a patient. You’re visiting me,” Peter told her.
“You’re not sick,” she replied. “You’re mended.”
“Beautifully mended,” Peter agreed, kissing the top of her curly head.
“It’s no use, Judy. We’ll have to explore the possibilities another
time.”
Little Judy chattered on. Peter let her examine his cast. “It’s _hard_.
Who did ’at? Scribbles on it,” she observed.
“Autographs,” Peter corrected her.
She tried to say the word and made such a funny _o_ with her mouth that
both Judy and Peter had to laugh. It wasn’t easy for a two-year-old to
say a big word like _autograph_. Any attempt at serious conversation was
abandoned. All three of them were laughing and saying funny words when
Dale and Irene returned. Mr. Blake was with them. They looked so serious
that even little Judy stopped laughing.
“What’s wrong?” Judy asked at once. “Did you know the patient? Is she
all right?”
“She’s—she’s—Oh, Judy! I can’t believe it,” Irene burst out. “She must
have been hurt right after the show.”
“No, Irene. It was during the show.” Judy remembered it distinctly. “We
heard the ambulance siren right after Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger
on the spindle and the witch pronounced the curse.”
“Francine Dow played the part of Sleeping Beauty, didn’t she?” Peter
inquired.
“I certainly thought she did,” Judy began.
“But that’s impossible,” Dale blurted out when Irene could only gasp in
disbelief.
“You see,” Mr. Blake pointed out, “we identified the patient. She’s
better. She knows her own name, and Mrs. Meredith is sure of it. _She is
Francine Dow!_”