Judy Is Warned
“Having trouble?” a sneering voice inquired.
Judy had managed to prop up the wires and slide under them by herself
without receiving a shock. She was about to hurry on when the dark man
Lorraine feared approached her. It was not hard to pretend that she,
too, had been frightened.
“I—I’m all right now. I—just want to get out of here,” she chattered.
“That fountain back there must be haunted. I heard moans coming from
it.”
“Is that all you heard?”
“That was enough!” declared Judy, not admitting to any curiosity
concerning the moans. “I just want to go—”
“Go, then, and don’t come back!” the man warned. “We don’t want
strangers snooping around here.”
Judy was thankful he thought she was a stranger. Apparently he hadn’t
seen Lois and Lorraine. As she hurried on, Judy kept telling herself
that they wouldn’t leave without her. And yet, when she finally reached
the spot where they had parked the car Lois was in the very act of
driving away.
“Wait!” shouted Judy. “What kind of friends are you to leave me here
after I helped you through the fence? How did you think I would get
home?”
“We didn’t think. Oh, Judy! I’m sorry,” Lois apologized. “Are we being
followed?”
“No, I don’t think so. He went back up the hill, but not before I had a
good look at him. He’s just a man. No horns! He warned me not to come
back.”
“You won’t, will you?”
“I’m considering—”
“There isn’t time to consider now. Hop in, Judy,” Lorraine commanded,
“if you don’t want us to drive off without you. It would serve you just
right for getting us into this.”
Judy hopped in, but she wasn’t happy about leaving. She didn’t like
running away from a mystery.
“I got you into it?” she asked when they were on their way. “From the
way you’ve been acting, Lorraine, you were in serious trouble before I
mentioned the fountain, and I suspect that man back there has something
to do with it. I was only trying to help—”
“Well, don’t try any more. It’s no use.”
“Maybe not,” agreed Judy, and changed the subject. “It gets dark so
quickly, these December evenings,” she observed. “But it’s still early.
See? The lights are still on in the stores,” she added as they drove
into Farringdon.
She had planned to spend the night with her mother and go Christmas
shopping with her early in the morning. Now she was rapidly changing
her plans to include Horace.
“Let me off at the newspaper office,” she said to Lois when they
reached Main and Grove Streets. “Horace may be working late. I don’t
care what you girls say, I have to at least put a notice about this
diamond in the Lost and Found column.”
“I suppose you do,” Lois agreed. “Knowing you, I’m sure you wouldn’t
keep it without advertising for the owner.”
“Do you have to mention where you found it?” Lorraine asked anxiously.
“No, but I do have to go back there. Suppose we’re needed? That moan
sounded as if the—the fountain hurt somewhere—”
“How could a fountain hurt?” asked Lois.
“The same way it could speak, I suppose. If I knew, I wouldn’t be so
eager to explore it. As for your problem, Lorraine,” Judy finished as
Lois stopped the car to let her out, “I think it will solve itself if
you just trust Arthur and put his ring back on your finger.”
“I would if I could,” Lorraine said sadly. “Good-bye, Judy. We both
wish you luck.”
“I’ll need it,” thought Judy as she headed for the _Herald_ Building
just opposite the county courthouse where Peter worked. The resident
agency of the FBI would be located in the new Post Office as soon as it
was completed. The Ace Builders, Arthur’s company, was in charge of
construction.
Judy entered the front office where she received permission to hunt up
Horace somewhere in back. Finally she found him pecking away at his
typewriter and looking immensely dissatisfied with what he had written.
“Hi, sis!” he greeted Judy. “Why so gloomy? You look better in a smile.”
“Thanks, brother of mine,” replied Judy, smiling at him. “I was
thinking gloomy thoughts, I guess. For a girl whose wishes come true, I
ought to know better. Horace, I have something to tell you.”
“I surmised as much. Well, let’s have it!”
Quickly she told him the story of the fountain, adding the information
that their grandparents had been friends of the Brandts.
“That’s where they must have taken you all right,” he agreed, “but what
of it? Why should something that happened five or six years ago worry
you now?”
“It doesn’t—not any more. It’s something that happened today.”
Horace grinned expectantly.
“Let’s have it then. It’s time for all honest people to stop working,
but newspapermen never stop. Things have a way of happening at night.
Is what you have to tell me news, by any chance?”
“Not yet,” she replied, “but I think I’m on the trail of something that
will be. I only hope it doesn’t happen at night, because I want to go
there with you tomorrow morning.”
“Where?” he asked. “Not to that enchanted fountain you were telling me
about? That’s for kids. It has to be some place important if I go on
the newspaper’s time. Not only that, I have to give a reason for going.”
Judy told him several good reasons, adding that she had been warned to
stay away by a mysterious character who seemed to frighten Lorraine.
“He knows Roger Banning and a heavy-set friend of his called Cubby,”
she continued. “They apparently live there. They say the Brandts leased
the estate to them, but I don’t believe it. They said there wasn’t any
fountain, but we found not only a fountain but a diamond in the water.
As Lorraine says, it’s no frozen tear. Take a look at it, Horace!” Judy
untied her handkerchief and exhibited the gem. “There!” she finished.
“Now is it important? Do you think we should advertise?”
“Not yet. Jeepers, what a piece of ice! Think we can find any more of
them scattered around that fountain?”
“We can try. Please go with me,” begged Judy. “You’ll have to think of
some excuse—”
“Tell you what,” Horace decided. “I won’t use this story I have in the
typewriter. It’s supposed to be a writeup for my ‘Meet Your Neighbor’
column, but now I have another neighbor in mind. This week the readers
of the _Farringdon Daily Herald_ will meet George Banning, father of
Roger. He used to be a plumber, but he must have some more lucrative
job now if he can afford to lease the Brandt estate. I’ll just assume
he’s somebody important. Think that will get us in?”
Judy smiled. “I think so. A plumber might be employed by the Brandts to
repair the fountain, but that doesn’t make sense, either, does it? The
fountain was still badly in need of repair.”
On the way home Judy told Horace more about the mysterious fountain and
the moaning cry she had heard.
“Are you sure it wasn’t just a noise in the pipes?” Horace asked
dubiously.
“It wouldn’t say ‘Go away!’ would it?”
“You might have thought it did. The air would come out with a peculiar
sound if someone suddenly turned on the water.”
That, in Horace’s opinion, could account for the “voice” in the
fountain. He expounded his theory later around the dinner table. It had
holes in it, as Judy soon pointed out to her parents. Dr. Bolton was
especially interested in the moan.
“Someone could be in pain. You say you didn’t have time to explore
underneath the fountain?”
“We couldn’t, Dad, with the water turned on. I think there is a place
to go down behind those cupids that hold the pedestal, but the water
shoots right over it. Lorraine acted as if she thought that man she
seems so afraid of was trying to drown us. She and Lois almost drove
off without me.”
“That was unkind of them,” Mrs. Bolton began in the overly sympathetic
tone she sometimes used.
“Oh, Mother! You just don’t understand them,” Judy objected. “They knew
each other long before they met me. Besides, we’re—well, different. We
don’t care about being proper the way a Farringdon-Pett does. Roger
Banning did say a funny thing, though. It was something about Dr.
Bolton’s kids winding up as the patients if Cubby would let them. That
wasn’t just the way he said it. Dad, what do you think he meant?”
“I don’t know,” the doctor admitted, “but I’ll be at the hospital
between eleven and twelve o’clock. Call me there if you need me.
Perhaps you’d better call anyway,” he added. “I’m a little worried
about this haunted fountain, as you call it. I haven’t forgotten the
haunted road. Your ghosts very often need medical care.”
“I see what you mean, Dad.”
Judy had not forgotten the haunted road, either, or her terrifying
experience at the end of it. Now she was deep in a new mystery. The
spirit of the fountain had not called for help, she reminded her
father. The voice had called, “Go away!” She was sure of that.
“Probably it was only one of those boys hiding under the fountain and
trying to frighten you,” Mrs. Bolton said. “They might have known they
would only whet your curiosity. Have you told Peter about it?”
“I haven’t seen him,” replied Judy. “Has he called?”
Judy’s mother said he hadn’t. “Perhaps you’d better call him,” she
added. “Tell him there’s a nice chicken pie I can warm up for him if he
hasn’t had dinner.”
“I think he has, Mother. From the way he spoke I think he had plans for
the whole evening. But I’ll call, anyway.” Judy dialed the number and
soon heard the telephone ringing in her own house in Dry Brook Hollow.
It was right beside the door so that she could hurry in and answer it
if she happened to be outside. Peter had another outside wire in his
den, and there was an extension in their bedroom. Nobody could complain
that it took too long to reach the telephone. After six rings Judy
decided there was nobody at home.
“Peter may be on his way here. If he is, I hope he let Blackberry out
of prison. I think I shut him in the attic by mistake,” confessed Judy.
“He was up there playing with my sewing things.”
“Thinks he’s a kitten, does he?” chuckled the doctor. “I wouldn’t worry
about him if I were you, Judy girl. Cats have a way of taking care of
themselves.”
“Blackberry does. Peter will think the house is haunted if he comes in
and hears him rolling spools around up there. He will investigate the
noise, and Blackberry will be rescued—like that!” Judy finished and
dismissed the matter from her mind.
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