THE IMMORTAL JOY HOLIDAY
“That’s a good idea of yours,” Dale told Judy just before she left to
go to the office. “Have a nice long talk with Her Majesty and I’ll meet
you at noon to see what she says. In the meantime I’ll make some more
inquiries at the bookstore and of people in the neighborhood.”
“Oh, and you might tell them at the police station that we gave a wrong
description of Irene’s clothes,” Pauline called out to them. She had
just been to the closet for her hat and school books and had discovered
Irene’s brown suit hanging there. Only the yellow dress and jacket were
missing from her wardrobe.
“It was the same yellow dress that she wore to the dance,” Judy
explained.
“And she wore it that day I discovered you in the office,” Dale
remembered. “She certainly looked like the heroine of our popular song
then. Do you suppose there is a chance that _Golden Girl_ was written
for her?”
Both girls laughed. “Dale Meredith! How absurd! It was written twenty
years ago.”
But when Emily Grimshaw heard of Irene’s disappearance and made a
similar suggestion Judy took it more seriously. She strained her ears
to hear every word the agent said as she rocked back and forth in her
swivel chair. Apparently she was talking to herself—something about
the spirit world and Joy’s song over the radio.
“Yes,” she went on in a louder tone, “those poems were written for Joy,
every last one of them, and she sat right on that sofa while I read
_Golden Girl_ aloud. That was twenty years ago. Then all of a sudden I
see her again after I think she’s dead—same starry eyes, same golden
hair, everything the same, even to her dress. Then her mother’s poems
turn up missing——”
“So the poet was Joy Holiday’s mother!” Judy interrupted to exclaim.
“Bless you, yes,” her employer returned. “I thought you knew. She went
stark crazy. Set fire to her own house and tried to burn herself alive.”
“Who did? The poet? How terrible!” Judy cried, starting from her chair.
“Why, it seems impossible that I’ve been correcting a crazy woman’s
verses without even knowing it. Tower of flame, indeed! So that’s what
she meant!”
Emily Grimshaw laughed dryly. “Don’t ask me what she meant! I’m no
authority on crazy people. The asylum’s the place for them, and, if it
weren’t for that mercenary brother of hers, Sarah Glenn would be there
yet. He arranged for her release and managed to get himself appointed
as her guardian. Handles all of her finances, you see, and takes care
of the estate. The poet’s pretty much of a recluse. I haven’t seen her
for years.”
This was beginning to sound more like sense. Hopefully, Judy ventured,
“But you have seen her daughter?”
“Seen her! Seen her!” she cried. “That’s just it. I see her in my
dreams. Ordinarily people don’t see spirits and that’s why it gave me
such a turn the other day. And Joy did come back! Her mother said so in
the last poem she ever wrote. Jasper brought it in only this morning.”
“He did!” Judy exclaimed. “What did you tell him about the missing
poetry?”
“Nothing. And I intend to tell him nothing. If it becomes necessary to
tell anyone we’ll tell the poet herself. Her address is on this
envelope. Keep it, Miss Bolton, you may need it. The poem I mentioned
is on the other side.”
Judy turned it over and read:
LINES TO ONE WHO HAS DRUNK
FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
Death cannot touch the halo of your hair
Though, like a ghost, you disappear at will.
I knew you’d come in answer to my prayer ...
You, gentle sprite, whom love alone can kill ...
She shivered. “Spooky, isn’t it? And,” she added, “like all of her
poems, utterly impossible.”
“Hmmm, you think so—now. But you’ll see. You’ll see.” And the old lady
kept on nodding her head as if the gods had given her an uncanny
second-sight.
As far as Judy was concerned, the conversation closed right there. She
had learned nothing of importance. In fact, she had learned nothing at
all except that her employer believed in spirits. Someone, twenty years
ago, had probably looked like Irene. But that wouldn’t help find Irene
now.
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