The Famous JUDY BOLTON Mystery Stories
By MARGARET SUTTON
THE VANISHING SHADOW
THE HAUNTED ATTIC
THE INVISIBLE CHIMES
SEVEN STRANGE CLUES
THE GHOST PARADE
THE YELLOW PHANTOM
THE MYSTIC BALL
THE VOICE IN THE SUITCASE
THE MYSTERIOUS HALF CAT
THE RIDDLE OF THE DOUBLE RING
THE UNFINISHED HOUSE
THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR
THE NAME ON THE BRACELET
THE CLUE IN THE PATCHWORK QUILT
THE MARK ON THE MIRROR
THE SECRET OF THE BARRED WINDOW
THE RAINBOW RIDDLE
THE LIVING PORTRAIT
THE SECRET OF THE MUSICAL TREE
THE WARNING ON THE WINDOW
THE CLUE OF THE STONE LANTERN
THE SPIRIT OF FOG ISLAND
THE BLACK CAT’S CLUE
THE FORBIDDEN CHEST
THE HAUNTED ROAD
THE CLUE IN THE RUINED CASTLE
THE TRAIL OF THE GREEN DOLL
THE HAUNTED FOUNTAIN
THE CLUE OF THE BROKEN WING
THE PHANTOM FRIEND
THE DISCOVERY AT THE DRAGON’S MOUTH
THE WHISPERED WATCHWORD
THE SECRET QUEST
THE PUZZLE IN THE POND
Reaching in, Judy’s fingers closed on a small, round object.
A Judy Bolton Mystery
THE PUZZLE
IN THE POND
By
Margaret Sutton
Grosset & Dunlap
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
© GROSSET & DUNLAP, INC. 1963
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To the Students
Past, Present and Future
In My Creative Writing Classes
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE I [A Stolen Typewriter] 1 II [Help for Holly] 9 III [A Rude Shopkeeper] 15 IV [A Mysterious Truck] 23 V [Another Green Car] 31 VI [The Woods Road] 37 VII [At the Beaver Dam] 43 VIII [An Impossible Discovery] 50 IX [More Puzzles] 58 X [“My Name Is Danny”] 66 XI [A Born Crusader] 72 XII [At the Library] 79 XIII [What the Pictures Revealed] 86 XIV [Together] 93 XV [A Band of Gold] 100 XVI [Danny’s Confession] 107 XVII [Fire!] 114 XVIII [Questions and Answers] 121 XIX [Homes for the Homeless] 125 XX [Was It All a Mistake?] 132 XXI [The Key to a Mystery] 138 XXII [Promised] 144 XXIII [Identified] 150 XXIV [Discovered] 157 XXV [An Everlasting Thing] 164
The Puzzle in the Pond
CHAPTER I
A Stolen Typewriter
“Here’s something Miss Pringle can use!”
Judy ran her fingers over the tiny, embossed Reward of Merit card as if she couldn’t bear to part with it even for the short time it would be on exhibit at the Roulsville library.
“Mrs. Wheatley is still Miss Pringle to you, isn’t she?” asked Peter Dobbs, smiling at his young wife as she knelt beside the open drawer of the old chest where her grandmother’s keepsakes were stored.
“I do think of her as Miss Pringle,” confessed Judy, “and she probably thinks of me as that noisy Judy Bolton. Prim Miss Pringle is what I used to call her. She left everything in such perfect order, it’s hard for me to believe she and Bob Wheatley lived in our house for two whole months. We won’t ever rent it again, will we, Peter?”
“You’re not asking me to promise we won’t, are you?” he countered. “You know how I feel about promises.”
“You’re right, too,” declared Judy, reaching into the drawer for another one of Grandmother Smeed’s treasured keepsakes. “Here’s a sewing card worked in cross-stitch. It says: ‘Promise Little. Do Much.’ Do you think it would do for the September exhibit?”
“I should think so,” Peter replied thoughtfully. “A maxim like that would do for any time of the year. Does the library plan to exhibit a few of these things each month?”
“Yes, but just for the school year. Miss Pringle—I mean Mrs. Wheatley says she wants me to arrange them in that little glass case near the library door. These reward-of-merit cards used to be given out at school when Grandma was a little girl. The other card was a sewing lesson. ‘Promise little. Do much,’” Judy repeated, “but how much can a person do in a day? Maybe I won’t try to sort all these treasures this morning.”
“You’ve made a good start. I wish I could stay and help you. I always liked treasure hunting,” Peter confessed, “but Uncle Sam expects me to hunt criminals today. We’ll be using an official car, so I’ll leave the Beetle for you to transport your exhibit to the library if you do get it ready. ’Bye, Angel. See you at six.”
“You hope,” Judy added as he bent to kiss her.
Peter’s time was not his own. Working out of the Resident FBI Agency in the Farringdon Post Office, he might be sent anywhere in the territory. His assignment now was to round up the Joe Mott gang. Judy knew that much, although his work was confidential. It was also dangerous. Each time he left the house she breathed a little prayer for his safe return.
“Take care,” was what she usually said, but in her heart the words meant, “Take care of our future. Let all our dreams for our married life in this house come true.”
The house had been willed to Judy by her grandmother, and it was so sturdy and well built that she felt sure it would stand there on the slope overlooking Dry Brook as long as the hills themselves.
Peter had left the stair door open, and soon Judy heard Blackberry padding up to keep her company. He looked around, the way cats will, and then came into the storeroom to see what Judy was doing.
“Hi, Blackberry! You can’t play with these things,” she told him as she continued sorting and arranging the cards that were to be exhibited at the library. The theme for September would be school. She found a few Hallowe’en things and a Columbus Day card which she put aside for October. There were turkeys and prayers of Thanksgiving for November, a pile of Christmas things for December, and a stack of old calendars for January. The stack grew higher and higher.
“I do believe Grandma saved a calendar for every year. This is wonderful,” Judy said to herself. “I’ll find some recent calendars and complete the collection. It will be just perfect for the January exhibit.”
The library was new, and the built-in exhibit cases were still empty. Nearly all the buildings in Roulsville were new since the flood that had swept the valley and started Judy on the trail of her first mystery. Her own home had been swept away, and her father, Dr. Bolton, had been obliged to move to Farringdon where he still lived and practiced. Only her grandmother’s house, two miles above the broken dam, had stayed the same.
“Maybe that’s why I love it,” she thought.
And yet she and Peter had made changes. It was a rambling old farmhouse too big for just the two of them so only the downstairs rooms had been changed. Up here in the attic nothing had been disturbed except by Blackberry as he played with the spools in Judy’s sewing room or searched for mice in the other two rooms where her grandmother’s keepsakes were stored. She liked having him for company as she worked. Attics and black cats seemed to go together.
Judy smiled at this thought. She was so absorbed in what she was doing that at first she didn’t hear the front doorbell ringing downstairs. It rang again more insistently, and she gathered Blackberry in her arms and hurried down the two flights of stairs. It wouldn’t do to leave the cat alone among the things she had collected for the exhibit.
“I can’t trust you,” she told him, “even if you are a famous cat.”
Blackberry wore a life-saving medal on his collar, and just recently he had worked for the government, or so Judy insisted, ridding the Capitol Building of mice. But when she opened the door he fled through it to prowl around outside like any ordinary cat.
The cat startled Holly Potter, Judy’s sixteen-year-old neighbor, who had rung the bell. Obviously she had been running at break-neck speed along the shortcut from her house to Judy’s.
“What took you so long? I thought you’d never answer the bell. Quick!” she urged breathlessly. “Maybe we can still head off that green car! There’s a thief in it. He stole my typewriter!”
“Your typewriter?” gasped Judy.
“Yes, the one you gave me for my birthday. Remember when we traded birthdays so mine wouldn’t come on Christmas? I loved that typewriter, and now—”
“We’ll try and get it back,” Judy reassured her. “Come on, Holly!”
They were off down the road in the Beetle before Holly had finished telling Judy which way the green car went. “Try Farringdon,” she suggested. “You could see it from the top of the hill if it went toward Farringdon, couldn’t you?”
“That would depend on how fast he was going, I should think, but we’ll try it,” Judy promised.
“Quick!” Holly urged breathlessly.
She turned left at the main road and sped up the long slope out of Dry Brook Hollow. At the top of the hill the world seemed to end but, instead of driving on into the sky the way it looked as if she might, Judy drove down again with miles and miles of winding road ahead of her. There wasn’t a green car in sight.
“I’m afraid we’ve lost him,” Judy began.
“But I’m sure he went this way,” Holly insisted. “I would have seen him myself if he’d turned toward Roulsville. You know how our road angles off in that direction. Well, I thought if I raced along the shortcut and we took your road maybe we could head him off if he turned toward Farringdon. I have to get my typewriter back. Can’t you drive a little faster?”
“Not without turning the car over. We’ll pick up speed on the straight road. Then, if we can’t find him, we’ll report the stolen typewriter when we get to Farringdon. Did he take anything else?” Judy asked.
“No, just the typewriter.”
“That’s strange.” Judy couldn’t quite picture a thief running into Holly’s house, grabbing her typewriter, and not touching anything else. She had a rare old paperweight and a brand-new tape recorder in the first-floor room she called her study. Either of these things would have been worth more than her typewriter, to say nothing of the valuables stored in what she had once called her forbidden chest.
“There was nothing strange about it,” declared Holly. “He would have taken more if I hadn’t surprised him and called Ruth. She was busy with the baby and didn’t pay any attention. Doris had just left in her car—”
“That’s it!” Judy interrupted. “The thief probably saw your sister Doris leaving and figured you were all out.”
“Well, we weren’t. I was there, and I saw him run out of the house toward a green car. Please drive faster, Judy! I have to get my typewriter back.”
And suddenly, like rain from a clear blue sky, Holly burst into tears. She was crying over more important things than a stolen typewriter, Judy knew. It wasn’t easy living with a married sister whose whole interest centered on her own husband and baby. Holly’s other sister was on her way to a teaching job at some private school in Maine. The girls’ uncle had died while Judy and Peter were in Washington. Holly said she had never felt more lost and alone.
“First it was my parents and then Uncle David. It’s always this way,” she sobbed. “I told my sisters I wouldn’t dare love them. It’s bad luck for me to love anybody. Even the things I love have to be taken.”
“We’ll find your typewriter,” Judy resolved as she drove on toward Farringdon as fast as safety allowed.
CHAPTER II
Help for Holly
Farringdon was a much larger town than Roulsville. Actually, it was a small city and the county seat of a hilly county in northern Pennsylvania. The courthouse, tall and imposing with its clock tower, stood at the corner of Main and Grove streets. Just opposite was the office of the Farringdon Daily Herald where Judy’s brother Horace worked as a reporter. Farther up Grove Street was Dr. Bolton’s combined home and office.
“Which way shall we turn?” Judy asked when they came to the corner.
Holly shook her head. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Maybe my typewriter wasn’t stolen after all.”
“What?” Judy was so surprised that she nearly hit the curb as they turned the corner. “If we aren’t following a typewriter thief, then what are we doing in Farringdon?”
“We are—I mean we were following that green car, and I think my typewriter is in it. It’s just that I—I mean I haven’t told you everything.”
“I should say you haven’t,” Judy agreed. “Maybe Horace would help us for the sake of the story.”
“I’d be glad to have his help,” declared Holly almost too enthusiastically. “There he is now, walking down Grove Street. Oh dear! Is that Honey with him?”
“It usually is,” replied Judy. “They’re practically engaged, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know. Good things happen to everyone but me,” was Holly’s doleful comment. “I’ll probably be an old maid and live all alone without even a cat for company.”
“That’s up to you, isn’t it?” Judy hailed her brother. He and Peter’s sister came over to the side of the car.
“Holly thinks her typewriter was stolen,” Judy explained. “On top of all the other trouble she’s had, this was just too much. Have you seen a green car?”
“Several of them,” replied Horace. “They’re quite common, or haven’t you noticed? Come to think of it, a green car did roar up Main Street about ten minutes ago. The driver was a boy of about sixteen. Dark hair, striped T-shirt—”
“He’s the one,” Holly interrupted. “Do you think we can still overtake him?”
“We can try,” replied Judy, “but I’m not making any rash promises. Didn’t you just tell me you’re not sure he is the thief? You didn’t actually see him take your typewriter, did you?”
“No, but I did see him running toward that green car, and when I turned around my desk top was empty. Ruth said maybe Doris took it. You know the way sisters are, always borrowing things without asking. But I don’t believe it. Doris knows I need my typewriter. Please drive on, Judy,” Holly pleaded. “We can’t let that boy get away with it.”
“I’m afraid he did get away with it,” Horace told her. “If he did take your typewriter, he must be half-way to Ulysses with it by now.”
“That’s the town where we turned off when we visited the Jewell sisters,” Honey put in, “on our secret quest, didn’t we, Judy?”
“I heard about that. You two girls have all the fun,” Holly complained.
“Fun!” Judy echoed, remembering how frightened she and Honey had been. “If that’s fun—” She shivered, and her voice trailed off into thoughts of their latest mystery.
“We were drenched to the skin and that criminal, Joe Mott, was after us. I’m glad he’s back in prison. I can’t understand it, though,” Honey continued in a puzzled voice. “Aldin Launt, that artist who works at the Dean Studios, was never picked up. He works right near me, and every time he passes my desk I get the shivers. I thought Peter was going to arrest him.”
“So did I,” agreed Judy, “but maybe he’s being watched in the hope he will lead the FBI to the rest of the gang. Peter’s work is so secret that half the time he can’t even discuss it with me.”
“Please don’t discuss it now,” implored Holly. “If we’re going to follow that green car—”
“You’ll never catch him,” Horace predicted, “and how would you get your typewriter back if you did? A couple of girls couldn’t handle a thief, especially if he’s got a gun on him. I don’t suppose you can make a federal case out of it, but couldn’t you report it to the local police? I’ll call them right now if you say the word.”
“What do you think, Judy?” Holly asked.
“I’d do it if I were you, Holly,” she advised.
“Okay, then,” Horace said with a satisfied gleam in his eyes. “Just give me all the details. Then we’ll relax and let the police handle it. Honey and I were on our way to lunch. How about joining us?”
Judy looked up at the courthouse clock. “Oh dear! The morning’s gone. I didn’t think it was lunchtime already. I am hungry. Aren’t you, Holly?”
The younger girl insisted that she couldn’t eat a thing, but once they were inside the restaurant she changed her mind. “I guess I could eat a hamburger,” she conceded.
While Horace went to telephone, the three girls ordered lunch. Holly was still jumpy. She kept tossing her mane of thick brown hair like a restless colt. She wore it perfectly straight in a long pony tail. Judy’s red curls were cut a little shorter than usual, but Honey had let her lovely honey-colored hair grow long to please Horace. Today she wore it loose about her shoulders.
The three girls were very different in appearance, but they had one thing in common. All three of them adored Judy’s brother, Horace Bolton. He was a shy-appearing young man. To look at him, no one would suspect that he had once startled the town of Roulsville out of its complacency by racing through the streets on Judy’s ginger colt and crying out, “The dam is breaking! Run for the hills.”
Thinking back, Judy realized that since Horace had become a hero, he had changed. There wasn’t a note of timidity in his voice as he talked with the police officer who later came in and quietly seated himself at their table. It was Holly who was frightened. “I—I didn’t think they’d send a policeman,” were her first words. “I can’t be sure of anything. Maybe it’s all a big mistake.”
“We’ll take that chance,” the officer replied, smiling as he wrote out his report.
“Tell you what, Judy,” Horace suggested as they were leaving the restaurant. “Why don’t you and Holly drive on a ways? Maybe you’ll see that green car parked somewhere along the road. I’ll finish up a little job I’m doing and tell Mr. Lee this looks like a story. He’ll give me the afternoon off to follow it up.”
“What about you, Honey? Do you have to go back to work?” asked Judy.
“Oh, I guess Mr. Dean would give me the afternoon off if I asked him. I can’t do any work with all that hammering going on anyway. Where shall we meet you?” Honey asked.
“At the beaver dam!” exclaimed Judy, suddenly enthusiastic. “Remember, Honey? Violetta said she’d show it to us. I have my camera in the car. Maybe we could take pictures of the beavers.”
“It’s a date! Violetta is the younger of the two Jewell sisters,” Honey explained to Holly, “though neither of them is young. They’re such dears! They live in one of the oldest houses in this section of Pennsylvania. It’s like stepping back in time just to visit them.”
“I’ll ask them if they have anything for the library exhibit. I have the job of choosing the displays for those new cases in the Roulsville library,” Judy explained. “All right, Horace, we’ll see you and Honey at the beaver dam.”
CHAPTER III
A Rude Shopkeeper
“I hope the beaver dam holds better than that one just above Roulsville,” Holly commented as they started off again. “We have to pass it on the way to school. I remember how it was last term. The boys and girls in the school bus quiet down fast if they happen to glance out the window and see those big pieces of broken concrete. A lot of them lost their homes when that dam broke, just the way you did, Judy. Did you go back afterwards to see if anything could be saved?”
“We went back too late, I guess. We didn’t find much of anything. There’s always some looting after a big disaster like that. People are too interested in making sure all their loved ones are safe to worry about their possessions.” Judy paused. She had been younger than Holly was now when the Bolton family’s home in Roulsville had been swept away in the flood, but it still hurt to think about it.
“Dad had to treat a lot of people for shock,” she continued as they drove past the Post Office, where Peter’s office was, and entered the outskirts of Farringdon. “Our house was turned over and one wall smashed in. I guess the furniture just floated away.”
“It would have to float somewhere, wouldn’t it?” Holly questioned.
“I suppose it would, but we never found it. Grandma wanted us to take some of her things,” Judy remembered, “but we thought it would be better to leave her house the way it was and buy everything new. Of course we couldn’t replace the beautiful fruitwood bench Dad had in his reception room or the lady table. That was a lovely period piece that had been in the Bolton family for generations.”
“What period?” asked Holly, who was something of an expert on antique furniture. She once had lived with a cousin who collected antique glassware.
“Empire, I believe.”
“Empire furniture is valuable. Usually it’s pretty solid, too. Why did you call it the lady table?” Holly wanted to know.
“That’s the name I gave it when I was a little girl. There were ladies carved on the legs. They held the marble table top on their heads. They had such quiet, patient faces.”
Now Judy was thinking back in spite of herself.
It had been exciting, furnishing the so-called Haunted House in Farringdon and exposing its “ghosts.” New furniture had been bought, and a few good antiques had been discovered in out-of-the-way shops. Dr. Bolton’s massive oak desk was one such piece. Judy’s dresser with the secret drawer was another. Buying it all by herself had been a real adventure. Only gradually had she come to realize their loss.
Judy’s thoughts broke off as she suddenly stopped the car. They had been driving through a small town to the north of Farringdon. A dingy row of gray houses lined the road. Some of their porches had been sheared off in order to widen the highway, and some had been made into shops. Judy had noticed one of the signs:
H. SAMMIS
Antiques, Used Furniture Bought and Sold
“And there’s a green car in the driveway!” exclaimed Holly. “Oh, Judy! Luck is with us after all. That boy may be inside right now trying to sell my typewriter!”
“Maybe it’s still in the car. Let’s have a look,” Judy suggested.
She parked the Beetle right behind the green car, blocking the driveway. No one seemed to be around so Judy and Holly carefully examined the interior.
“Empty! He’s probably trying to sell it. Come on inside,” Holly urged, pulling Judy along with her.
“Don’t be in such a hurry. He can’t get out while we’re parked there, and I want to take down his license number! There!” Judy announced when she had it. “Now we’ll go in like any other customers and pretend we want to buy something.”
“A typewriter!” agreed Holly. “We’ll just ask. Then, if we see mine, we’ll call the police.”
Judy shook her head. She didn’t think it would be that easy, but she was willing to go along with Holly just for the adventure. “If we don’t find your typewriter,” she told her, “we may find some old cards for my collection. Anyway, it will do no harm to go in and look around.”
“Look at all the lovely old glassware in the windows,” Holly pointed out as they walked around to the front of the shop. “There’s a blue glass hen just like the one Cousin Cleo has in her collection. And look at those chalkware lambs and that beautiful luster cream pitcher!”
Inside the shop it was hard to move around because of all the old furniture crowded into every inch of floor space. Judy had to move a chair to reach the cream pitcher Holly had admired. Before she could touch it, a voice barked at her.
“Careful there! You’ll have to pay for anything you break.”
“I have no intention of breaking anything,” replied Judy. “I just wanted to see that luster cream pitcher.”
“That’s eighty dollars!”
“Oh dear! I guess I don’t want it then. We really came in to look at typewriters. You do sell typewriters, don’t you?” Judy asked, looking around the shop to see if the driver of the green car had come in.
“New ones,” Holly added. Her typewriter was almost new.
“You came to the wrong place for a new typewriter. We sell anything and everything so long as it’s old.” The shopkeeper, a stout, balding man, looked at the two girls as if he considered them slightly stupid.
“I meant—almost new,” Holly stammered.
“Are you Mr. Sammis? Will you let us see what you have, please?” Judy asked.
He showed them a row of ancient typewriters in the back of the shop. They were all of the same make, and all were equally old and dusty.
“There aren’t any others?” Holly’s voice held disappointment.
“No, that’s all we have.”
His tone of voice plainly told the girls he wished they’d go, but Judy wasn’t ready to leave until she had done a little more exploring.
“I’m collecting old cards and calendars for a library exhibit,” she explained. “Do you have anything I can use?”
“In the box over there. But don’t be all day looking them over. Your car’s parked right in front of mine.”
Mr. Sammis had just seen it through the window.
“Oh, is that your car?” Judy asked innocently. “We saw a boy driving it this morning.”
“Impossible!” he snorted. “It’s been parked right where it is all day.”
Judy and Holly looked at each other. They could have made a mistake. Green cars were common, just as Horace had said. The typewriter wasn’t in the shop, and neither was the boy who had been seen driving a green car. Voices came from the upper floor, but they were indistinct. Then, suddenly, something was dropped with a loud thud. Holly jumped.
“My wife,” Mr. Sammis explained. “She’s always dropping things. Did you find anything you want?”
“Not yet,” Judy replied. She and Holly had been looking through the box of old cards. Near the bottom Judy found a little booklet marked School Souvenir.
“Here’s something for the September exhibit,” she said as she opened it.
“But that’s for the close of school,” Holly objected, reading over her shoulder. The illuminated verse read:
Oh! Swift the time has fled away
As fleeting as the rose
Since school began its opening day
Till now its day of close.
The verse was followed by the name of the teacher and pupils in some long-ago country school. Hugh Sammis was one of the names.
“Is this for sale?” Judy asked, sure he wouldn’t want to part with it.
He laughed, an unpleasant sort of laugh as if he were making fun of her. “It’s junk. I was going to throw it out. You can have it for a quarter.”
“I’ll take it then,” Judy decided. “It’s for the beginning of school, too,” she pointed out as she and Holly made their way back to the front of the shop.
“Careful there!” Mr. Sammis warned again.
It was his own elbow that knocked over the little table with the claw feet, but he looked at Judy as if she had done it. One foot with a claw clutching a glass ball fell to the floor. He picked it up and waved it in Judy’s face.
“Now see what you’ve done,” he charged unreasonably. “I told you you’d have to pay for anything you broke. Young people nowadays are all alike. Careless, blundering fools, the lot of them. Come in here for junk and break up my best furniture! This table is fragile—”
“I can see it is,” Judy interrupted. “The claw fell off because the table leg was already broken. I can see where it’s been glued. The top is warped, too. It looks as if it had been left out in the rain.”
“What if it was? Where else could I leave it when the roadmakers took half my house? I won’t charge you much for it. Only fifteen dollars.”
“Fifteen dollars! What are you talking about, Mr. Sammis? I’ll never pay for a table I didn’t break,” Judy declared with indignation.
“You won’t, eh? We’ll see about that. You’re Dr. Bolton’s daughter, aren’t you? I’ll just send him a bill for twenty dollars,” the shopkeeper announced with a satisfied chuckle. “Then, if he won’t pay his bill, I won’t pay mine.”
“But that isn’t fair!” Judy cried, her gray eyes blazing.
“No? Then I’ll make it twenty-five.”
“Let’s go before he puts the price any higher,” Holly urged, pulling at Judy’s arm.
CHAPTER IV
A Mysterious Truck
“Please, Judy, come on,” Holly begged again as Judy stopped to examine more of the used furniture piled near the front of the shop. The warped and broken table had aroused her curiosity. It seemed as if she had seen it somewhere before, but she couldn’t remember where.
“Somebody had furniture with claw feet like that,” she mused.
An old rocker looked familiar, too. It was in good condition. She was tempted to ask the price and then thought better of it. Mr. Sammis was sure to overcharge her. Then, too, there was always the danger that he might break something else and blame her for it.
“It isn’t fair,” she repeated, more to herself than to Holly, as they left the shop.
A builder’s truck bearing New York license plates drove up just as Judy and Holly got into the Beetle. The driver, a husky man with a tanned face and very light blue eyes, leaned out and called to them.
“Move your car out of there!” he said. “I’ve got heavy stuff in here. Have to park as close to the shop as possible.”
“We’re on our way out,” Judy told him, “but you’ll have to back up a little to give us room.”
“You’ve got room enough.”
He refused to move the huge panel truck. The name John Beer was lettered on the panel with the words Carpenter and Contractor below it. To Judy the truck seemed the size of a moving van. She couldn’t see what was in it but supposed he was hauling building supplies.
“Watch out that side and tell me if I’m backing too close,” she directed Holly.
“It’s pretty close.”
Judy was afraid of bumping up against the shop on the other side. One bump would be enough to spill that whole window full of glassware. Then she would have a bill! But she finally made it.
“We cleared it!” she exclaimed. “Now if anybody knocks over the shop it will be John Beer, not us.”
“He and Hugh Sammis are two of a kind. There! He’s opening the door of the shop. He looks angry. Let’s wait and see what happens,” Holly suggested.
Judy laughed. “I thought you were the one who wanted to leave—Just listen to them!” she exclaimed.
Mr. Sammis was waving his arms and shouting, “You get out of here with that stuff! How can I buy any more when my shop is crowded already? Take it to some junk dealer.”
“But Sam,” the other protested in an equally loud tone of voice, “this is good furniture. I’ve sanded and refinished everything—”
“Well, you can’t move it in here!”
“He may be an old meanie,” Holly commented, “but Mr. Sammis is right. He certainly doesn’t have room for any more furniture.”
“Not unless he has an addition built on his shop. He could certainly use it,” Judy said with a last glance at the sheared-off house as they drove away.
Holly agreed. “He probably makes most of his money charging people for things they don’t break.”
“He may make money that way, but he won’t make friends,” declared Judy. “Do you think he really intends to send Dad a bill for twenty dollars?”
“He’s so mean he might do it. How did he know your name, Judy?”
“Oh, my picture’s been in the paper,” Judy replied airily. Then her face sobered. “He must be one of Dad’s patients. Dad can’t choose them, you know. He just goes where he’s needed and hopes the people will pay.”
Holly shook her head. “Mr. Sammis won’t.”
“I hope he doesn’t owe very much. Maybe he just came to the office.” Judy went on exploring possibilities. “He could have seen my picture there. You know how fathers are, always keeping family pictures around.”
“I know,” Holly agreed, now more interested in the passing scenery than in the unpleasant shopkeeper. She noticed a little stream at the lower side of the road and asked, “Is that the Allegheny River?”
“I guess so,” Judy replied. “It’s getting smaller, isn’t it? The head is just beyond our lot in Gold.”
“Your lot in Gold?”
“Gold is the name of a town,” Judy explained, laughing. “The lot was given to my father in payment of a bill. I used to think it was a gold mine and would make us rich some day. But doctors like Dad never get rich. Some people can’t pay him, and others won’t.”
Judy’s eyes narrowed as she thought again of Mr. Sammis. They drove on for a little while in silence.
“Is this it?” Holly asked suddenly.
Judy, startled out of her thoughts, did not reply until after they had passed the little town.
“Oh, you mean Gold? I think so. If it was you won’t see any more houses for a while,” Judy told her as the car began its long climb to a lonely plateau. “We’ll be on top of the world in a minute.”
“Oh, Judy! We are on top of the world,” exclaimed Holly. “Isn’t this a marvelous view?”
“It certainly is. Three big rivers flow in three directions from this plateau. That’s why it’s called the watershed.”
“I don’t see any water,” Holly observed. “There’s nothing but miles and miles of wooded hills, one after the other.”
“The rivers are off there somewhere. I can’t see them either, but I know this is the watershed. The sky shed water on us the last time we drove through here,” Judy remembered. “We thought we’d never make it to the Jewell place.”
“It’s beautiful today.” Holly was really enjoying the ride. She seemed to have forgotten her disappointment at not finding her typewriter. Now, as they crossed the watershed, she said she was looking forward to visiting the beaver dam.
“Do you think the Jewell sisters will go with us?” she asked.
“They may. If they don’t, I’m sure we can find it. They said it was down the old road that passes their house. The bridge is out, and the road isn’t used any more,” Judy added.
“Then how will we get across?”
“There’s a footbridge. Honey and I crossed on a plank that floated away as soon as we were on the other side. The river was high then.”
“What river?” Holly asked. “You said the Allegheny heads back there.”
She waved her hand toward the wilderness behind them. Ahead were more wooded hills with only now and then a farmhouse and barn with a little cleared land. It was a narrow road with very little traffic going in either direction.
“That’s right,” Judy agreed. “We’ve passed the head of the Allegheny. The other two rivers are the Genessee and some remote branch of the Susquehanna, I think.”
Judy knew where the road to the Jewell place turned off just beyond the next town. They were nearly there when Holly startled her by crying out, “Move over, Judy! That big panel truck is trying to pass!”
“But that’s dangerous on this hill!”
Judy could see the truck in the rear-view mirror. It was the same one that had stopped at the used-furniture shop. Maybe she ought to move over and let it pass.
“We’ll be turning off soon, anyway,” she decided, giving John Beer and his truck plenty of room. “He seems to be in a hurry, doesn’t he?”
“Too much of a hurry,” Holly agreed. “He didn’t have time to unload his truck or do any work. I guess Mr. Sammis won the argument, and he’s taking everything back.”
“Back where?” Judy wondered as the truck sped down the long hill and out of sight.
CHAPTER V
Another Green Car
At the next crossroads Judy came to the gas station where she and Honey had stopped to ask directions when they first visited the Jewell sisters.
“You knew Honey picked up their suitcase by mistake, didn’t you?” she asked Holly. “My, what a complicated mystery that was! We didn’t know exactly what we were looking for, and so we called it a secret quest.”
“This time we know,” Holly declared. “We’re looking for beavers, and Horace and Honey are meeting us at the beaver dam. Maybe Peter could come, too.”
“That would be nice. I’ll telephone him and leave a message,” Judy decided.
She stopped at the gas station, telephoned the resident agency of the FBI in the Farringdon Post Office, and left what she thought was a clear message. After she and Holly were on their way again she wasn’t so sure.
“I told him we’d be at the beaver dam. But will he know where that is?” Judy wondered.
“Do we know?” Holly questioned.
“No,” Judy admitted. “I’m depending on the Jewell sisters to direct us. Horace knows that, but I forgot to tell Peter. Suppose there’s more than one beaver dam!”
“That will cause complications, won’t it?” agreed Holly. “But that’s you, Judy. If you don’t have enough puzzles to solve, you make a few more. Peter knows that. Anyway, a G-man should be able to find a beaver dam.”
“He may enjoy looking for it. I know I will. If we’re lucky we may catch the beavers at work. I’m going to try and get some pictures of them. With a flashbulb it shouldn’t be difficult. You can’t depend on sunlight in the woods.”
“It may be gone by the time we get there. I saw a clock as we drove through that last town,” Holly began. “It’s almost four—”
“Is it?” asked Judy, glancing at her own watch to confirm the time. “Then we won’t have much time to visit. I did want to tell the Jewell sisters about the library exhibit. Their road turns off at the top of this hill.”
Soon they turned off the pavement. The dirt road was in better condition than it had been when Judy first drove along it. A week of dry, sunny weather had helped. Ruts and mud puddles had dried up. Houses looked more easily accessible than they had on that other ride. There were two or three farmhouses set far back from the road and then a long stretch of wilderness before they came to the Jewell place.
“Is this it?” Holly asked as soon as the big house with its square cupola came in view. “It looks—haunted.”
“I thought so too, when I first saw it, and so did Honey,” Judy admitted, “but I don’t believe the Jewell sisters are entertaining any ghosts today.”
“They’re entertaining somebody!” Holly exclaimed as they came nearer. “There’s a green car parked right in front of the house.”
Judy laughed. “I’m afraid you’re seeing green cars everywhere today.”
“Well, look for yourself.”
Holly sounded a little hurt because Judy hadn’t believed her. Judy looked, blinked, and looked again.
“Maybe I’m seeing green cars, too. How would it get there?” she asked in bewilderment. “This road ends at the creek. I know, because Honey and I had to cross on a plank that tipped and nearly spilled us into the water. The creek was high then.”
“Maybe it’s gone down. The car got over there some way,” Holly insisted.
“I know,” Judy agreed, mystified.
She remembered the gorge with the creek at the bottom. The banks were too steep for any car to drive through the water. Before they came to the footbridge that spanned the creek, Judy pointed out the place where the Beetle had sunk into the mud.
“It’s dry now, and the creek isn’t half as high as it was, but I still don’t see how a car could get across it. I don’t see any tire marks, either.”
“Would they show on this dry ground?” Holly asked when they were out of the Beetle.
Judy had parked the car at the end of the road. It did end. There was no doubt of that. It ended at the barn where the Jewell sisters kept their car. Holly peeked in to make sure it was there.
“Thank goodness!” she exclaimed. “It isn’t green. You didn’t tell me they had a car. Do they drive?”
“I don’t know,” replied Judy. “They had a man to drive it for them, but Dorcas said she was going to learn. I don’t know how they get anywhere if she didn’t.”
“Maybe on broomsticks,” Holly suggested.
“They are sort of weird,” Judy agreed, “but they’re quite nice old ladies, really. We’ll ask them whose car that is. Well, here we are. We have to cross on the plank. You aren’t afraid, are you?”
Holly laughed. “I guess if two old ladies can make it, I can. It does feel shaky, though,” she admitted as she started across the narrow footbridge.
“Don’t worry,” Judy told her. “I’m right behind you. If you slip I’ll catch you. There! You’re over. That wasn’t hard, was it?”
Holly didn’t answer. She was staring at the house. There were three women busy with something on the porch. At first Judy couldn’t see what they were doing but, as they came nearer, she could see that they were sorting apples. Violetta was just helping her visitor lift a full basket into the green car when she looked up and saw the girls approaching.
“Good afternoon, Judy!” she called cheerily. “You and Honey are just in time to sample some of our sweet apples.”
“She called me Honey,” Holly whispered. “I’m not. I’m Holly.”
“She’ll soon discover that,” Judy replied cheerfully.
Violetta was coming down the path to meet them. “You picked a good time to come,” she told Judy. “We’ve been out in the orchard picking apples all day. An old friend of ours drove over here this morning—”
“How did she get over?” Judy asked curiously. “There isn’t any bridge across the creek.”
“There’s another way—” Violetta stopped and looked at Holly in surprise.
“But you’re not Honey. Your hair is darker. And where’s your cat, Judy? You promised to bring him the next time you came to visit.”
“I’m sorry I’m not a cat,” Holly said, not meaning to be funny.
They all laughed as the joke was repeated to the other two women, and there were introductions all around. Judy explained that she and Holly had come to see the beaver dam and that they expected Horace and Honey to meet them there. “I didn’t bring Blackberry this time,” she ended, “because when I left the house I didn’t know I’d be coming here.”
“He’s such a good cat,” Violetta said, with a crooning sound in her voice. She had become very fond of Judy’s pet.
“I keep telling Violetta we should have a cat of our own,” Dorcas put in. “Don’t you agree, Meta?”
“Don’t I agree with what?” the third woman asked in a faraway voice. “I’m afraid I wasn’t listening. I was thinking of the Beetle and wondering if I would have any trouble driving it back.”
“Back where?” Holly asked.
Judy said nothing. By now she was completely bewildered. Was the stranger talking about the green car or her own?
CHAPTER VI
The Woods Road
Judy’s unasked question was soon answered. The owner of the green car proved to be the matron of a nearby orphanage. She had been introduced as Miss Hanley, but Judy was soon calling her Meta just as the Jewell sisters did.
“I took the woods road,” she said, smiling at the girls. “It hasn’t been used for several years but, with the weather so dry, I felt sure I could make it. I had to stop the car a couple of times to remove trees the beavers had gnawed down, but the Beetle finally plowed through.”
“The Beetle?” Judy questioned, still a little bewildered. “That’s what we call our car.”
Miss Hanley laughed. She looked younger and prettier when she was laughing and talking. Holly probably would call her middle-aged. Holly considered anybody over thirty middle-aged. Judy guessed Meta Hanley was about thirty-five. She said she had noticed Judy’s car as it came down the hill.
“It’s black, isn’t it?” she asked. “I guess that makes two Beetles, a black one and a green one. Danny named mine. He has names for everything.”
Danny, she told them, was one of the many orphans she mothered.
“They’ll love these apples,” she told the Jewell sisters. “We have a few apple trees, but the apples aren’t ripe yet. The older children help on the farm,” she explained to Judy and Holly. “We raise nearly everything we eat. You should see the family I have at table.”
“I wish we could see them,” Judy told her. “Are visitors allowed at the orphanage?”
“Of course. The children love visitors. They do react differently to them,” she admitted. “Those who want to be adopted put on their best manners. The others run and hide.”
“That’s strange,” Judy said. “Don’t they all want to be adopted?”
“Meta is so good to them,” Violetta put in, “that quite a few of them hope to stay where they are.”
“They can’t, of course,” Dorcas added. “The orphanage is too crowded. If Violetta and I were younger we might consider adopting one of them ourselves.”
“I wish we could help,” Judy said.
“Perhaps you can. We’ve been helping,” Violetta told her. “We’ve been giving Meta a day off now and then. We go to church now that Dorcas is driving, and the women in our church take turns at the orphanage.”
“It’s awfully kind of them,” Meta Hanley said. “Mrs. Alberts is there today. I must be getting back to relieve her. Would you girls like to ride along with me as far as the beaver dam?” she asked. “It is a lonely road, and it does bring back memories.”
“Cherish them,” Dorcas advised in her abrupt way. “Some day memories will be all you have.”
What did Dorcas mean? The remark hurt, Judy could see that. Meta was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Well, I better be going. Perhaps you girls would rather walk, though it’s quite a hike to the beaver dam.”
“Then we’ll come with you,” Judy decided.
“Where is the road?” Holly asked.
A faint path was pointed out. It crossed the open field, and then came a small break in the trees where it entered the woods. The beaver dam was about a mile farther along.
“I’ll drop you off there, but I’m afraid you’ll have to walk back. Walking is good for the constitution,” the matron declared. “I often take the orphans on hikes. They know the country around here as well as I do. Take Danny, for instance. He’s only ten, but he can tell you more about the beavers than I can. He comes down to the pond and sits for hours just watching them. The late afternoon is the best time to see them.”
Judy glanced at her watch. “It is late afternoon, much later than I thought. I hoped Horace or Honey or even Peter would be here by now. But if anyone stops and asks, you’ll direct them to the woods road, won’t you?” she asked the Jewell sisters.
“Of course we will. Stop in and have a bite of supper with us on your way back,” Dorcas invited them.
“All of us?” asked Judy. “I’m afraid that would be an imposition. We’ll stop next time.”
“We’ll be back,” Holly promised. “Judy has been asked to get together a few things for an exhibit at the library. You may have some old cards or calendars—”
“We have plenty of things. Violetta and I were wondering what to do with them. Would you like old Christmas cards, Judy?”
“I’d love them.”
“Then you shall have them,” both sisters assured her in almost the same breath.
“They’re perfect dears, aren’t they?” Holly asked a little later as she and Judy and the matron of the orphanage were bumping along on the woods road in the green Beetle.
“Well, not perfect. Dorcas is a little too abrupt and Violetta a little too timid. I don’t want to be like them,” declared Meta. “I don’t want to grow old with nothing but memories to cherish. They aren’t enough. Of course,” she added after her car had bumped over a rough place where a tree had fallen, “the Jewell sisters have each other.”