THE ONLY ANSWER
And yet Judy felt that no one had heard, that it was all up to her.
Even Dale Meredith seemed not to be helping, and Pauline.... How much
did Pauline care? Neither of them had attempted to follow Judy’s
suggestion that they write down every possible clue. Instead they
talked—talked until midnight, almost—when she was trying so hard to
think.
Then Mary came in. Mary usually came in when Pauline stayed up too
late. The cocoa that she served was a signal for Dale to leave and the
girls to retire.
Pauline drank her cocoa quickly and walked with him to the door. When
it closed behind him she still stood there, her head pressed against
the panels.
“You’re tired,” Judy told her. “I’ll take this cocoa into my room and
let you sleep.”
“Aren’t you going to drink it?”
Judy shook her head. “Not with Irene gone. It would make me sleepy too,
and I’ve simply got to think.”
Alone in her room she tried to turn herself into an abstract thing, a
mental machine that could think without feeling. In her heart she could
not believe Irene had taken the poetry, but in her mind she knew that
it must be so.
Didn’t Irene want the poems because they described a house? Even the
address might have been among the conglomeration of papers. When her
father suggested that she visit relatives in Brooklyn he had described
a house also. Perhaps the two descriptions were the same. Perhaps the
relative she sought was Sarah Glenn! For surely it was more than
coincidence that Irene looked so much like the poet’s daughter, Joy
Holiday. Could she have been an aunt? No, because Sarah Glenn had only
the one child. A distant cousin? Hardly. Then there was only one
conclusion left: Joy Holiday might have been Irene’s own mother!
Could Irene have put two and two together, just as Judy was doing, and
gone to the poet’s house the day she disappeared? No doubt, if she did,
she planned to be back again before either Judy or Pauline returned.
Something had prevented her!
That something might have been Jasper Crosby, cruel, scheming,
mercenary creature that he was. Or it might have been poor, demented
Sarah Glenn. She might have locked Irene in the tower the way she had
once locked her own daughter away from her friends. There was no
telling what a crazy woman might do!
An hour later Judy still sat on her bed, trying to decide what to do.
Her cocoa, on a forgotten corner of the dresser, had crusted over like
cold paste. She rose, walked across the room, tasted the cold drink and
set down the cup. She must come to some decision! Irene might be living
through a nightmare of torture in that horrible house Sarah Glenn had
described in her poems.
In the next room Pauline was sleeping soundly. Judy could wake her, ask
her advice. Downstairs the telephone waited ready to help her. She
could call Lieutenant Collins at the police station and tell her
findings to him. She could telephone Mr. Lang again and ask him more
questions—worry him more. She could call the young author, Dale
Meredith.
Yes, she could call Dale and tell him that the insane poet might be
Irene’s grandmother; that the scheming miser, Jasper Crosby, might be
her uncle and that Irene, herself, had probably stolen the poetry to
help locate them. What a shock that would be to the young author who
had idolized Irene and called her his Golden Girl. Judy hadn’t the
heart to disillusion him although her own spirit was heavy with the
hurt of it all.
She wouldn’t notify the police either. Irene must not be subjected to
an unkind cross fire of questions when, or if, she did return. Judy
would find Irene herself and let her explain. Suppose she had stolen
the poetry? What did it matter? Judy was learning not to expect
perfection in people. She would love Irene all the more, forgiving her.
And if Irene had stolen the poetry she could give it back quietly, and
Judy could explain things to Emily Grimshaw. Dale need never be told.
Judy wouldn’t have done that much to shield herself. She could.... Oh,
now she knew she could stand shock, excitement, tragedy. But it
wouldn’t do to have people blaming Irene.
That night Judy buried her head in the pillows waiting, wide-eyed, for
morning. Morning would tell. She knew that work was slack at the office
and that Emily Grimshaw often did not come in until afternoon. She
would take the morning off and go ... she consulted the bit of paper
with the poet’s latest verse on one side and her address scribbled on
the other. She got up out of bed to take it from her pocketbook and
study it. The street apparently had no name.
_One blk. past Parkville, just off Gravesend Avenue._
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