A Diamond Clue
“A clue, did you say? Now we’re looking for clues,” Lois said with a
laugh as she followed Judy toward what they now felt almost sure was
the broken and deserted fountain.
“It’s a shame, isn’t it?” asked Judy. “It used to be so beautiful.”
“You remember it in the summer,” Lois reminded her again. “Now it’s
winter. Things naturally change with the changing seasons.”
“Not this much,” Judy objected. “It isn’t the same at all. There should
be steps—”
“There are!” Lois interrupted.
Lorraine found them and almost bumped into one of the stone lions
beside them. He seemed to have a startled expression on his face.
“You should have said, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Lion!’” Lois teased her.
“This is the fountain all right,” declared Judy. “Those stone lions
used to have water spurting out of their mouths. Now there’s nothing
but a rusty old water pipe.”
“So that’s what gives Mr. Lion such a startled expression?” Lois cocked
her head to one side and made a face at the statue.
“Is that Mrs. Lion on the other side?” asked Judy. “They look exactly
alike. There should be eight of them guarding the four flights of steps
leading up to the pool. I remember running up and down those steps and
meeting all the lions. Shall we do it again?”
“Let’s!” cried Lois, seizing Judy’s hand.
“Wait!” urged Lorraine. “Stop acting like children. I think there’s
still a little water in the main fountain, and if there is, I intend to
make my wish.”
“So _we’re_ acting like children?”
Lois looked at Judy and giggled, but Lorraine was serious. She walked
sedately up the steps to the circular pool and peered over the edge.
“You can’t wish,” Judy called, “unless you shed a tear. The spirit said
so.”
“The spirit is gone, and so is most of the water,” declared Lois.
“All the better for exploring. I would like to see what’s over there.
Do you think I can make it?” asked Judy.
“You can try,” Lois told her. “We’ll follow you if you don’t get your
feet wet.”
“I won’t. I wore my rubbers. Anyway, there’s a thin coating of ice over
what little water there is left in the pool. I’ll just skate over to
the center fountain and have a look.”
It was not quite as easy as it sounded. Judy had some difficulty
climbing over the edge of the pool and sliding down into its nearly dry
bottom. The ice turned out to be nothing but melting slush from an
earlier snowfall. She waded through it to the smaller circle of cement
immediately surrounding the pedestal which was ornamented with cupids.
At their feet she found a pool that had not been drained. A cap that
looked like the nozzle of a watering pot covered another rusty
waterpipe that seemed to be clogged with dead leaves. Judy peered into
a cave behind the cupids, trying to see what was there.
“What have you found?” called Lois, seeing something in Judy’s hand.
“A sprinkler, I guess. There’s a cave that seems to go down underneath
the fountain. I can’t see anything in it but rusty pipes. Could the
spirit voice have come from there?”
“It seems logical, doesn’t it?”
“You sound like Peter,” laughed Judy. “There’s nothing logical about a
spirit that lives in a fountain. I’m a little disappointed that it’s
all so ordinary, now. Maybe we shouldn’t have come.”
“Let’s go then,” Lorraine suggested. “I can’t wish if there isn’t any
water—”
“There is a little. I don’t know why it wouldn’t work just as well,
especially if you shed a tear.”
“I can’t turn my tears on and off like a faucet,” Lorraine objected.
“Couldn’t we throw in a coin or something?”
“People toss coins in wishing wells. Shall we try it?” asked Lois.
“Come on over and try it if you think it will do any good,” Judy
invited them.
“It does seem a shame to throw perfectly good money away. Would a penny
do?” Lois asked after she had helped Lorraine across. “I suppose you
have to feel enchanted.”
“I did.” Judy stopped and listened. “Do you hear anything? Maybe the
voice will still speak to us if we’re perfectly quiet.”
“Out of a dry fountain? Oh, Judy!” Lorraine cried. “I did so want to
wish. It’s the only thing left to do.”
“Why?” asked Lois.
“That’s what everybody keeps asking,” Lorraine replied in a rush of
sudden emotion. “Why? Why? And I keep asking myself the same question.
Maybe it was silly of me to think I could wish away a problem as
serious as this, but I have to do something. I can’t go on like this,
holding it all back and pretending—”
“Then don’t hold it back. Tell us, dear!” Judy urged her.
“Oh, if only I could! If only I could cry my heart out and tell you
everything!” sobbed Lorraine.
And suddenly, as she leaned over the little pool that was left around
the fountain she did shed a tear that splashed in the water and made
ripples all around the spot where it fell.
“Wish! Wish!” Judy and Lois cried both together.
They were so excited that they heard only part of what Lorraine
whispered into the fountain.
“... it wasn’t Arthur,” the wish ended and then, as the ripples
vanished, Lorraine sobbed, “Oh, but it was! It was! How can I keep on
loving him if I can’t trust him? Judy, could you love Peter if—if you
thought he was a—a _cheat_? Could you?”
“I wouldn’t think it—even with proof. I mean it,” declared Judy. “I’ve
learned my lesson. Once I did doubt him, and then when I found out what
was really happening I was so ashamed. No matter what happened now, I’d
keep on trusting him because I love him, and loving him because I trust
him. The two go together—”
[Illustration: “It looks—like a diamond!” gasped Judy]
Suddenly Judy stopped speaking. She had been idly dabbling her hand in
the pool as she talked. Now she felt something small and hard at the
bottom. “Like a small gravel stone,” she thought as she took it between
her thumb and forefinger to examine it.
“Have you found another clue?” asked Lois. “What is it this time?”
“It looks—like a diamond!” gasped Judy. “But it can’t be. What would a
diamond be doing in an old deserted fountain?”
“It could be a piece of ice,” Lorraine ventured.
“A frozen tear, perhaps,” Lois put in whimsically. “Maybe the tear you
shed, Lorraine, turned into a diamond. Maybe there are more diamonds in
the pool. Maybe we’ll walk home with our hands full—”
“We’ll walk home dripping wet if we aren’t careful! The fountain is
beginning to bubble!” cried Lorraine as she seized her friend’s hand
and pulled her away from the water. Judy stood spellbound watching the
transformation as if a miracle had taken place. Finally Lois expressed
the obvious.
“Someone has turned it on!”
“Someone in the tower,” guessed Judy.
“Or down underneath,” Lorraine whispered. “Judy, I’m scared. This was
planned, somehow. I think we’re being watched!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------