“It certainly looked like the leg of our lady table,” declared Judy, “but I won’t be really sure until I see it by daylight. Horace wouldn’t believe me, either, but he did agree to go back there with me tomorrow. I wish you could come with us, Peter. There’s an orphanage just over the hill, and if that boy is still missing—”
“What boy?” asked Peter. “You didn’t tell me anything about a missing boy.”
“His name is Danny. That’s all I know. We were asked to watch for him on our way home.”
“I’ll check and see if he returned. Unofficially, of course. I’ll be in the neighborhood.”
“So will I,” declared Judy.
Peter advised her to wait until another day when he could go with her, but she promised to be careful.
“I won’t fall in the pond, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” she told him. “I’ll just walk out there on the beaver dam and make sure of what I saw.”
Finally Peter was persuaded. In the morning he drove Judy to Farringdon. She was in the Post Office looking at the faces of the men wanted by the FBI when Horace walked in and greeted her.
“I thought I’d find you here,” he remarked dryly. “See anyone you know?”
“Of course not,” Judy replied with a laugh. “It’s Peter’s job to hunt for these men, not mine.”
“But you would like to help him find them, wouldn’t you, Sis?”
“Well, that depends.” Judy studied the row of faces for a moment, memorizing every feature. Then she pointed to one of three who were wanted for flight to avoid prosecution. “He doesn’t look like a criminal, does he?” she asked.
“None of them do,” declared Horace. “They make it their business not to look like criminals. They don’t want to be caught.”
“They will be.” Judy had boundless faith in Peter and his associates. “The FBI will find them. Look at that artist who works with Honey. He doesn’t know it, but he’s being watched every minute in the hope that he will try and communicate with others of his gang who are still at large. He will, too. Peter says there’s a pattern of behavior most criminals follow. He wasn’t sure we ought to go back to the beaver dam.”
“Why on earth not?” Horace asked in bewilderment.
“He says it may be dangerous. That furniture wasn’t carried all the way from Roulsville by beavers,” declared Judy. “There was some looting after the flood, and I think that’s how the lady table came to be there.”
“I don’t get it,” Horace said.
“Neither do I,” Judy admitted, “but Peter wants you to check with him before you print anything. I may have some pictures for you, too.”
“I doubt it,” Horace answered. “You were too late to snap those beavers we saw.”
“But I had my camera focused on the pond, and I did snap quite a few pictures in the dark. Holly is taking the film to Roulsville today. Tomorrow we’ll see what kind of pictures I took,” Judy promised as she followed her brother out to the street where his coffee-colored convertible was waiting.
A ride in Horace’s car was always exciting. He had the top down so that they seemed to be racing the wind. In almost no time they were passing the sheared-off house where Mr. Sammis bought and sold antiques.
“Some of the furniture in his shop had been left out in the rain,” Judy remembered. “Anyway, he claimed it had, but I’m beginning to wonder. He had a green car in his driveway, but he said it had been parked there all day and, Horace, he accused me of breaking a table that he knocked over himself.”
“Pleasant sort, wasn’t he? Naturally, you didn’t find Holly’s typewriter?”
“No, but that doesn’t prove it wasn’t hidden away somewhere. The shop was so crowded he wouldn’t accept anything more. We left him quarreling with a man named John Beer. Anyway, that was the name lettered on his truck,” Judy finished.
The conversation turned to rivers as they crossed the watershed. Judy was convinced, by now, that the lady table couldn’t have been carried this far north by the flood. She shivered when she thought of that patient face in the water. Would it still be there, or had she only imagined she saw a face?
“Well, here we are,” Horace announced.
Judy had been so absorbed in her own thoughts that she hadn’t noticed the orphanage as they passed it. They had come to the end of the road.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, looking about her in surprise. There was the house with the boarded-up windows, just as Meta Hanley had described it.
Horace fell headlong into the pond!
“These trees sort of block our way,” Horace remarked as the car squeezed through a narrow space between two evergreens that rained prickly needles. More trees were missed by inches. They reached the beaver dam in a surprisingly short time. Judy was out of the car first.
“Now you’ll see,” she called over her shoulder. “Right here is where we saw the beavers last night, and there!” She pointed, and Horace whistled in surprise.
“Whew-ee!” he breathed. “She’s there all right, and she is the same lady. That beaver dam looks solid. I think, if we go out there together, we can pull her out of the water. You hold me, and I’ll pull.”
“I promised Peter I wouldn’t—” Judy started to object. But Horace was already walking out on the beaver dam.
“We’ve got to do it, Sis. We can’t leave the poor damsel in distress. Just hold me so I won’t fall in.”
There was no stopping him, Judy thought, but he could wait until she had brushed the needles out of her hair.
“Wait!”
Judy turned her head in surprise. She hadn’t spoken. At first she couldn’t tell where the voice came from.
“Don’t touch that lady!” the voice warned again.
It sounded as if the trees themselves were warning Horace. He was so startled that he lost his balance and fell headlong into the pond.
CHAPTER X
“My Name Is Danny”
“Horace! Horace! What happened?” cried Judy as her brother’s head appeared above the surface of the water. “Who was that talking? Are you all right?”
“If you call being half drowned in a muddy pond all right, I guess I am,” he replied, answering her last question first. The others weren’t so easy to answer.
“I—I’m sorry,” she faltered, not knowing what else to say.
“You should be,” he spluttered. “When did you learn how to throw your voice?”
“I didn’t. That wasn’t—”
“Who was it then?” he interrupted.
“I don’t know. It sounded like a small boy.”
“A wood sprite, no doubt. Don’t think up any more fairy stories. Just get me the car blanket before I catch my death—”
Judy burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. When Horace was out on the bank draped in the car blanket he looked even funnier. But someone else was laughing, too! Judy whirled around just as a small figure let himself down from one of the trees.
“You!” she exclaimed, grabbing the “wood sprite” by the arm before he could elude her again. “It was you who called to my brother and made him fall. Who are you, anyway?”
“My name is Danny,” he replied in the same voice that had startled them from the tree.
Judy and Horace looked at each other as much as to say, “We might have known it.” What they really said was, “What are you doing here?”
“Watching the beavers,” he replied. “I always watch the beavers. I had to stop you from taking that lady stick. You’d bust up the whole dam.”
“That lady stick,” Horace said sternly, “is a leg off our table. I’d like to know where the beavers got it.”
“They dragged it here. They drag lots of stuff here and build their dam real solid. I’m not going to let anyone bust it up,” declared Danny.
“What are you, a watchman for the beavers?” asked Judy. “The people at the orphanage were worried about you. Have you been watching the beavers all night?”
“Sort of,” he replied, hanging his head.
His face was so dirty Judy could hardly tell what sort of complexion he had, but his eyes were blue. His hair, like her own, was full of the prickly stuff the evergreens shed. She looked from him to Horace wrapped in his blanket and trying to sound fierce as he scolded the boy. He kept his eyes to the ground most of the time, not answering Horace’s questions.
“It’s no use,” Judy told her brother. “We may as well take him home.”
“No,” the boy protested, “not to the orphanage. Home’s over there.” He waved a grubby hand in the direction of the boarded-up house. “We used to live there when my mother was alive, and my father said we’d go back and live there again. He p-promised.”
“Where is your father?” Judy asked gently. She had supposed both the boy’s parents were dead.
“I d-don’t know.” Danny gulped. “He went away and left me at the orphanage, but he said he’d come back. He promised me he’d come back before the summer was over so I have to be at the house waiting for him.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” Horace told him. “You have to be at the orphanage waiting for him because that’s where he left you, and that’s where we’re taking you right now.”
Danny gave in at last. He was willing to ride back to the orphanage with Judy and Horace if they would promise not to touch the lady in the beaver dam. Horace hesitated.
“We may as well promise. Danny is right,” declared Judy. “It might break up the dam if we removed it, and what good is the table leg, anyway, without the table?”
At the orphans’ home, a square brick building that looked more like an institution than a home, Horace waited in the car while Judy went in with Danny.
“We found him at the beaver dam. He was there all night,” she explained to the worried matron. “He said he had to watch the beavers.”
“But we were there looking for him,” Meta Hanley protested. “I called the police, and they searched all around with flashlights. I can’t understand it, but thank you, anyway. You don’t know how you worried us,” she added, turning to Danny. “I called the FBI this morning.”
“But I wasn’t kidnapped,” the boy protested.
“I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t know what to think. I know you like to watch the beavers, but you never did anything like this before. I still can’t understand why you stayed out all night.”
“I had to,” Danny insisted.
“But why?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you. I hope—the FBI, they’ll ask a lot of questions.”
“And you don’t want to answer them? Is that it, Danny?”
The matron’s voice was gentle. Her love for this boy, no matter what he did, was apparent.
“I’ll tell them everything is all right now. Just leave it to me,” Judy began. “If I see their car on the way here I’ll stop it and tell them—”
“Will you know an FBI car?” the matron asked anxiously.
Judy smiled. “Yes, I’ll know it.”
She didn’t say that her husband might be one of the agents in it. Usually they worked in pairs and rode in an official car equipped with a two-way radio.
Looking back, as she left the orphanage, Judy could see a group of children who had stopped their play to watch her. She called out a brief greeting and hurried on. A strange feeling had taken possession of her. She felt she had cheated Peter out of an interesting assignment. Was that his official car pulling up to the side of the road? It was. He and another agent stepped out.
“Oh, Peter! I’ve gone and done it again,” she told him penitently. “We just brought Danny home.”
“That’s great!” he exclaimed. “Where was he all night?”
“At the beaver dam.”
Judy would have said more, but the other agent broke in with, “We’d better question him, anyway,” and Peter agreed.
“I hope he tells you more than he did us,” Judy called after them as they started up the walk toward the orphanage.
Afterwards she wondered why Peter hadn’t asked her about the lady table leg. Neither of the two agents had questioned Horace. It was probably just as well. He was in a hurry to get home and let her drive while he sat and shivered.
“Peter can have those beavers for all I care. One dip in their pond was enough for me,” he complained from within the folds of his blanket.
“It’s a funny thing,” Judy told him, “but the matron says the police helped her look for Danny at the beaver dam. I told Peter he was there all night, but maybe he wasn’t.”
“His answer, as I remember it, was ‘sort of,’” Horace reported.
“If that house weren’t all boarded up I’d think he stayed there. He says he used to live there, and Miss Hanley says she knew the man who lived there years ago. Could it be Danny’s father?” Judy wondered. “Could that be why she’s so fond of Danny?”
“Sounds reasonable,” Horace commented.
But, to Judy, it was more than reasonable, it was romantic. She looked forward to discussing it with Peter. He had a way with small boys. Perhaps Danny would confide in him. Judy wondered about Danny’s mother. Why had his father deserted Meta Hanley to marry her? And where was he now?
Judy was still puzzling over these questions when she and Horace arrived in Farringdon. She drove straight to the Bolton home on Grove Street. They had gone back to the beaver dam, she told her mother, and Horace had accidentally fallen in the pond. Nothing was said about the leg of the lady table.
After a hot lunch, with Mrs. Bolton hovering over both of them, Judy left for her home in Dry Brook Hollow, and Horace returned to the newspaper office.
“There’s a story there,” he insisted as they parted. “That boy wasn’t telling us everything he knew.”
CHAPTER XI
A Born Crusader
Judy agreed with her brother. Instead of solving everything, their trip had only deepened the mystery. It was hard for her to concentrate on other things such as the library exhibit. At home, as she sorted the school cards and mementos for September, she pondered over everything that had happened that day and the day before.
First there had been the stolen typewriter. What happened to it and whether or not it really had been stolen remained a mystery. The green car Horace had seen racing through Farringdon wasn’t much of a clue since he hadn’t noticed the license number. He did seem to recollect a couple of sixes in it, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Meta Hanley’s car was green, and her license number started with two sixes,” thought Judy.
It was ridiculous to suppose that Miss Hanley or one of her orphans had stolen Holly’s typewriter. And yet Judy had seen Horace making a note of her license number. He made notes of everything. Even before he became a reporter he had always kept a notebook for his own amusement.
“I ought to keep a notebook or a diary or something,” Judy told herself.
She did jot things down on little pieces of paper. An old sales slip had been used to record the license number of that other green car parked alongside Hugh Sammis’ used-furniture shop. Remembering how unfair he had been, Judy decided to call up her father and ask about him. It was Mrs. Bolton who answered the telephone.
“Mother,” Judy asked over the wire, “does Dad have a patient named Hugh Sammis?”
“The used-furniture dealer? His wife is your father’s patient,” Mrs. Bolton said. “She fell on the ice last winter and broke her hip.”
“Does she still use crutches?” asked Judy, thinking of the noises she had heard upstairs in the shop.
“I believe she does. It takes time for bones to knit.”
“Does he owe Dad money?”
“Yes, but your father is willing to wait.”
Judy sighed. “Poor Dad! He always is. If he doesn’t get paid at all I’m afraid it will be my fault. I should have told you about this when we were there, Mother. Mr. Sammis accused me of breaking a table. He says he won’t pay Dad until I give him twenty dollars. I objected because he really broke the table himself. Then he went up to twenty-five.”
“That’s like him.” Mrs. Bolton’s voice was bitter. “I don’t think he intends to pay, anyway. That was just an excuse.”
“Will you tell Dad?”
“Do you think we should?” Judy’s mother asked. “He has so many worries. Probably he’ll just cross off what Mr. Sammis owes as a bad debt. If he hadn’t found that excuse he would have found some other.”
“But that isn’t fair!”
“Judy girl,” her mother said gently, “when you’ve lived as long as I have you will realize that a great many things in this world aren’t fair. You can’t right all the wrongs.”
“I know, Motherkins, but I can try to right a few of them, can’t I?” Judy asked.
Mrs. Bolton gave up. Judy was a born crusader, she said, but there was pride in her voice. She wouldn’t have had it any other way.
They talked for a few more minutes, and then Judy went back to the work of sorting and arranging the things she had collected. Blackberry insisted on helping. There was a faded ribbon dangling from the souvenir booklet she had picked up in Hugh Sammis’ shop. Ribbons always tempted him.
“Stop it, Blackberry!” Judy chided him. “You’re not a kitten any more. Books are to read, not to play with.”
Blackberry turned one of the pages with his paw, and Judy began to laugh. He acted just as if he had understood her. She was still laughing when Peter came in at six o’clock.
“Look at Blackberry!” she pointed out. “He thinks he can read that old souvenir booklet I bought for the library exhibit.”
“So he does,” chuckled Peter. “It must be quite a story if a cat can read it. Of Mice and Men—”
“It isn’t a story,” Judy interrupted, laughing. “It’s just a list of names.”
“I see it is.”
Peter read the list and then began questioning Judy. She had wanted to tell him about Hugh Sammis and his queer, sheared-off house. Now she found herself coming to some odd conclusions.
“Peter,” she asked as she hurried to prepare dinner, “do you think he could have been one of the men who did the looting in Roulsville after the flood?”
“Hugh Sammis? I don’t think so,” Peter replied soberly. “He didn’t live in this part of the country then. That house belonged to a family by the name of Truitt.”
“Donna Truitt’s family?”
“I think so. They weren’t as well off then as they are now. Sammis moved in and set up his shop right after the road was widened.”
“Then he was lying!”
Peter looked interested.
“About what?”
“About some furniture that was warped as if it had been in the water. He said—”
Judy paused, trying to remember exactly what the used-furniture dealer had said. He certainly had led her to believe that his house had been sheared in half to make room for the road. But if he had purchased the shop just recently, that couldn’t be true.
“What he said about the furniture couldn’t be true, either,” Judy concluded after telling Peter as much of the conversation as she could remember. “And if it wasn’t left out in the rain it could be furniture damaged in the flood six years ago, couldn’t it?”
“I suppose it could,” Peter admitted.
Judy wanted to ask him about the lady table, but she waited until evening, hoping he would mention it first. Meantime she told him everything that had happened up to the time Danny appeared and warned Horace not to break up the dam.
“You see, Peter,” she ended her story, “Danny was afraid if Horace pulled out that table leg—”
“What table leg?” Peter questioned just as if she hadn’t told him anything.
“The one from our table. You know, with the four ladies holding up the marble top. One of them was in the water. Didn’t you see her?”
“You said you weren’t really sure—”
“Now I am,” she interrupted excitedly. “Horace and I both saw her this morning. Ask him if you don’t believe me, Peter.”
“I believe you, Angel,” he said. “Now I think I understand why Danny had to watch the beaver dam. The table leg must have been removed after you and Horace took him back to the orphanage, and before we got there. We looked, and I’m certain there was no table leg built into that dam. The water had broken through in one place, and we could see plenty of ripples. The beavers were probably working to repair the damage. I told Hank Lawton—”
“The other agent?”
“Yes, he’s new to the territory. Unmarried and willing to date young ladies who will talk.”
“Peter, you don’t mean Honey?”
“No,” he replied mysteriously, “we have another young lady in mind. Donna Truitt, to be specific. Naturally, she won’t know she’s being of any help. It will take time to put together all the pieces of this puzzle, but you’ve supplied quite a few. Have you read the names in this souvenir booklet?”
“I read Hugh Sammis’ name. He was a boy then.”
“So was Joe Mott.”
“The gangster!” Judy exclaimed, snatching the booklet away from Blackberry.
The name, Arthur Joseph Mott, had escaped her notice. Apparently he had dropped the Arthur. But if he and Hugh Sammis had gone to school together they certainly knew each other.
“They were first grade pupils then,” Peter reminded her. “Do you know where all your first grade classmates are?”
“Not half of them,” Judy replied, shaking her head. “I thought not. Well, if Sammis isn’t involved in anything dishonest,” Peter remarked, “he should be willing to answer a few questions.”
CHAPTER XII
At the Library
The next morning, Judy was at Holly’s door soon after Peter left with Hank Lawton in the official FBI car. The library exhibit was ready, and she hoped her pictures would be ready, too.
“Want to come with me to Roulsville?” she asked Holly the minute the door was opened. Ruth, as usual, was busy with the baby. He was walking now, and making noises that sounded like words.
“Do I!” the younger girl exclaimed. “But wait, I have some more stuff for the exhibit. May I help arrange it in the glass case?”
“Of course. Bring your sweater. It’s a little chilly this morning,” Judy said, “and tell your sister you’re off for the day.”
“You deserve to be after staying home with Bobby all day yesterday. Don’t forget your letter,” Ruth advised as Holly hurried off.
“It’s to my other sister. The letter, I mean,” Holly explained. “I asked about my typewriter. I know Doris didn’t take it, but I felt better asking. It’s funny, but I feel closer to my sisters when they’re away and I just write letters. That’s the way it was for so many years.”
“I know.” Holly and her sisters had been separated after their parents died, each living with a different relative. It would take time for them to become fully acquainted with each other. “You don’t feel closer to me when I’m away, do you?” Judy asked to change the subject into more cheerful channels.
Holly giggled. “Of course not. I feel closer to you when I’m helping you solve a mystery. Did you find out about that thing you saw in the pond?”
They were walking along the shortcut between her house and Judy’s. A chill was in the air. Judy shivered.
“You mean the lady table leg? What about it?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. But I can see you didn’t find out very much,” Holly concluded.
“No, I’m afraid I didn’t,” admitted Judy, “but Peter intends to question Hugh Sammis today. He may find out a great deal. He went with another agent in an official car and left the Beetle for me. Put your things in it, and I’ll get mine. Then, on the way to Roulsville, I’ll tell you all about it.”
First she told Holly about the lady table leg and how it had vanished by the time Peter got to the dam. “It’s a funny thing,” she continued, “but Horace and I both saw it. He was going to pull it out of the water, and then Danny warned him not to touch it.”
“Who’s Danny?” Holly asked. “Do I know him?”
“You’ve heard about him,” Judy reminded her. “He’s the orphan Meta Hanley told us about. Remember?”
“Now I do,” Holly answered. “She said he liked to watch the beavers. Was he there at the beaver dam?”
“He certainly was. When we first heard him Horace thought I was throwing my voice. Imagine! Then he jumped down from a tree where he was hiding and told us who he was. Horace called him a wood sprite. He’s such a strange little boy.”
“Everything you’ve told me so far is pretty strange,” agreed Holly. “Did you take him back to the orphanage?”
“Under protest. He wanted to stay and play watchman for the beavers.”
Holly laughed. Then she saw that Judy was serious and asked, “Why would he want to do that?”
“He had a reason,” Judy replied, “because someone must have removed that table leg minutes after we left. When Peter looked for it he found a broken place in the beaver dam and no lady—”
“It was an apparition,” declared Holly. “I don’t believe it was there in the first place. Horace is right. It couldn’t have washed down from the Roulsville flood.”
“But Horace saw it, too,” Judy objected.
“Are you sure?” Holly was not convinced. “Imagination plays strange tricks on people.”
Judy knew that. Often, passing the broken dam in the valley above Roulsville, she seemed to see the devastated town as she saw it right after the flood. Today a mist hung over the valley. It was raining by the time they reached Roulsville. Judy spread a newspaper over the box containing the things for the exhibit and, together, she and Holly dashed through the rain into the library.
Maud Wheatley, the librarian who had rented Judy’s house earlier in the summer, looked a little startled. Then she saw it wasn’t noisy children rushing into the library, and her expression changed.
“Oh, it’s you, Judy, and your friend, Holly Potter. Put the things right down here on the table,” she directed. “The case is empty. You may arrange them any way you wish.”
Holly was a real help with her artistic ideas. The souvenir booklet and the old textbooks were arranged toward the back of the case with the smaller Reward of Merit cards scattered in front. Judy had brought a ball of yarn and a long needle to go with the sewing cards, and Holly had contributed her great grandmother’s sampler in its antique frame.
“It will be safe here, won’t it?” she asked anxiously when they were ready to leave.
“Perfectly safe. The case will be locked. This is a beautiful exhibit,” the librarian declared. “I knew those treasures in your attic would make a fine display, Judy, but this is even better than I expected. It amazes me that a young girl like you should be so interested in family keepsakes.”
“It may be because we lost so many family keepsakes in the flood. Everything went except what few things we had stored at Grandma’s,” Judy told her. “Your home was washed away, too, wasn’t it?”
“Only the porch. It’s still known as the Pringle house,” she replied, “although no Pringles live there any more. When we went back after the flood the rooms were empty of everything valuable. I remember how bare the mantel looked without the old pine clock and the chalkware lambs—”
“The chalkware lambs?” Judy questioned.
“Yes, do you remember them?”
“I don’t think I ever visited your family when you lived in that house,” Judy admitted, “but I did see some chalkware lambs in a shop up in North Farringdon.”
“They’re not uncommon. Whoever looted the house left us nothing but a few chairs, a bare table, and a kitchen stove. And the piano, but that was water-soaked and ruined. We sold the house and rented a furnished apartment in New York. My brother was married that year, so there was just Mother and me. She died soon afterwards. Losing everything was just too much for her,” the librarian finished.
“You never found out who did all that looting, did you?” Judy asked.
She knew the answer. It seemed to distress Mrs. Wheatley to talk about her former home. Like many of the people who used to live in Roulsville, she had moved away only to come back.
“We’re buying one of the new houses and gradually furnishing it with antiques,” she confided. “Bob can’t understand why I want them, but I guess I treasure old things for the same reason you do, Judy. Thank you for sharing your treasures with the children who come to the library. You, too, Holly. The sampler is yours, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it belonged to my great grandmother, Felicity Kane. Judy helped me find out who she was. I can help her with the October exhibit, too,” Holly offered. “There’s a map of the world among my uncle’s things. It’s the way people imagined it in the time of Columbus with pictures of sea monsters near what they thought was the edge of the world.”
“Lovely! Lovely!” Mrs. Wheatley exclaimed. “We’ve come a long way since then, haven’t we?”
“Full circle,” Holly said. “Then we were afraid of sea monsters. Now it’s each other.”
When the girls were outside the library Judy asked, “Why did you say we’re afraid of each other?”
“Because we are,” Holly answered. “I don’t mean you and me, of course. We’re friends. But you know yourself there are people who live by stealing and cheating and misrepresenting what they have to sell. Take that Mr. Sammis with his chalkware lambs. Where do you think he got them?”
“I’ve been wondering about that,” Judy admitted.
“Do you think some of that stuff in his shop could have been loot from the Roulsville flood?”
“Possibly. Though I should think he would have sold it all by now,” Judy added, “unless he waited for fear of being caught.”
“Maybe he’s waiting to sell my typewriter, too. Oh, Judy! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you and I could discover what he’s up to?” Holly exclaimed, fairly skipping in her excitement.
They were on their way to pick up the films. It had stopped raining, but there was still a chill in the air. Summer was ending as it had begun, with Judy on the trail of another mystery. Would the pictures she had taken help solve it, or would they add more pieces to the puzzle? Judy knew the answer the moment she opened the yellow envelope that said, “Here are your color prints.”
“Holly!” she exclaimed, nearly dropping the pictures as she held them out for her friend to see. “I thought I was photographing beavers in the dark, but look what I took!”
CHAPTER XIII
What the Pictures Revealed
“What is it?” asked Holly, taking the pictures from Judy’s hand and flipping through them. “I see you didn’t snap any beavers, just the dam and those creepy ferns and a few ripples—but what’s this?”
“You tell me what it is,” Judy replied in a bewildered voice as Holly stared at the last picture in the folder.
It had been taken in the dark. Judy had expected some surprises, but not anything like this. Neither she nor Holly had the faintest notion that they were being watched by anything but beavers. They hadn’t yet seen the table leg and yet, somehow, Judy had photographed the lady’s head so that it looked as if it had a shadowy body.
“But it’s a man’s body,” Holly objected, studying the picture more closely.
“I know. The first thing I saw was that lady’s face and it—it sort of startled me,” Judy confessed, “but now I think I can explain it.”
“You can?”
Holly seemed to think the picture was beyond explanation, and no wonder! But, peering toward the camera, was another face that Judy instantly recognized.
“That’s Danny there in the ferns,” she pointed out. “He and that—that man—”
“You mean that apparition?”
“No, it must be a man, but his face is behind that lady face as if he were wearing a mask. I started to say that he and Danny must have been there all the time I was trying to photograph beavers in the dark. Remember the noises we heard?”
Holly shivered. “I remember. Now I’m twice as scared. You can see the beaver dam right through the beavers. They don’t seem real.”
“Danny was real enough,” Judy insisted. “I told you he had a reason for watching the beaver dam, and this picture proves it. I must have taken another picture on top of it to create this curious effect of the lady’s face, but at least it will prove to Peter that the lady table leg was there.”
Holly turned the picture sideways. “I see what you mean, but it’s still spooky. You have a reputation for explaining ghosts, Judy, but this is the first time you ever took a picture of one. Danny must have known the man was there.”
“I’m sure he did,” Judy agreed. “When Horace and I questioned him he said he had to watch the beavers, but afterwards he claimed he was waiting for his father.”
“His father?” gasped Holly. “I thought he was an orphan.”
“So did I,” Judy admitted. “Now I don’t know what to think. This ghost in the picture may be the man Meta Hanley was going to marry.”
“George?”
“She did say his name was George, didn’t she? They were going to live in that house with the boarded-up windows,” Judy remembered, “and that’s where Danny said he used to live before his mother died. Afterwards, he claims, his father closed up the house and left him at the orphanage.”
“But that’s fantastic!” Holly exclaimed. “Did he know Meta Hanley was the matron?”
“I think he must have known it,” Judy replied thoughtfully as she put the folder of pictures in her pocketbook. “I want to show them to Peter before anyone else sees them,” she explained to Holly as they headed for home.
On the way they talked of the old romance and what might have happened. But it was all supposition. They weren’t sure of anything. They weren’t even sure Danny’s father was still alive.
“People don’t always tell children the truth about such things,” Judy commented gravely.
“Sometimes it’s better—”
“Not to tell the truth? I don’t think so,” Judy declared. “Some things are hard to face, but it’s better to face them. I remember when the Roulsville dam broke. Grandma fainted when she heard it. But I ran all the way to Roulsville to find out what really happened. I had to know. And it wasn’t half as bad as it could have been. We lost our homes, but we had each other, and now it begins to look as if we might recover a few of our belongings as well.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” agreed Holly. “I’d be so happy for you, Judy. It was just the other way around with me. We kept our precious old things but lost the people.”
“You have your sisters,” Judy reminded her.
“Yes, and I’m an aunt.” Holly smiled at the thought. “Bobby’s a lot of fun when I have him all to myself. He was pretending clothespins were people the other day and putting them to sleep under a blanket. I’m baby-sitting again tomorrow. What will you be doing?”
“Housework, I suppose. I’ve let it go.”
The prospect of spending a whole day cleaning house did not appeal to Judy. She brought out the vacuum cleaner as soon as Holly left and started on the living room. Blackberry glared at her through the window. He had been shut outside all the time Judy and Holly were arranging the library exhibit, and now his heartless mistress was making the house horrible with noise. The telephone rang, and Judy shut off the vacuum cleaner to answer it.
“Where have you been all day?” Horace’s voice came over the wire. “I have news—”
“You always have,” Judy interrupted teasingly.
“But this is important. The police traced the license number of that green car, and they’re sure it’s Meta Hanley’s car we saw racing through Farringdon right after Holly’s typewriter was stolen.”
“It couldn’t have been,” Judy protested. “Her car was parked in front of the Jewell sisters’ house all day while they were picking apples.”
“Where’s the orchard?” Horace wanted to know.
Judy couldn’t remember seeing any orchard. Perhaps it was just over the hill. Could the thief have borrowed Meta Hanley’s car and returned it before the three women had finished picking apples? Horace thought it was quite likely. He asked how the pictures came out.
“You’ll have to see them to believe it,” Judy told him, “but Peter gets the first look. ’Bye, Horace.”
Judy put away the vacuum cleaner and started cooking dinner. The lamb pot pie was ready just as Peter arrived home.
Blackberry came in with him. Both of them looked hungry. Judy greeted Peter and handed him the pictures.
“See what you think of them,” was all she said.
Dinner was eaten in comparative silence. Judy was bursting with curiosity, but she wanted Peter to be the first to comment on the amazing picture she had taken.
“The crust,” he finally said, taking another helping of the lamb pie, “makes it difficult for me to tell exactly what I’m eating.”
“And what does that mean?” asked Judy.
“Well, it’s the same way with that picture you took. With one face on top of the other, it’s hard to tell just who was at the beaver dam.”
“Danny was, and that is the lady table leg. I told you it was there, but that other face is hidden. I’m sorry,” Judy said.
“No need to be. Whoever it is,” declared Peter, “it answers a question that has been in my mind ever since we talked with Danny. He wasn’t alone at the beaver dam all night. Someone was with him.”
“Do you think he’ll tell you who it was?”
“He may. I’ll question him later,” Peter decided. “First I’d like to find out if anything more has been taken from the beaver dam. I’m convinced he was watching it for fear someone would break it up.”
“I agree with you,” declared Judy, “but in the picture Danny is watching the man, not the beaver dam. See the way he’s crouched among the ferns. The man, whoever he is, may not have known he was there. I thought at first it might be his father, but it was after this picture was taken that he said he had to wait for his father, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t have said that if they had already met each other.”