Emily Grimshaw often came in late, but as Judy had her own key this affected her work very little. In fact, she usually accomplished more when alone. Thus she was not surprised to find the office vacant when she and Irene arrived.

“It’s every bit as queer as you said it was,” Irene whispered as they unlocked the door and she examined the brass knocker. “She must trust you, Judy.” She smiled into her friend’s honest gray eyes. “And who wouldn’t?”

The girls seated themselves at either end of the long sofa in Emily Grimshaw’s office. With the pile of handwritten poetry between them it was easier to help each other decide into which group certain verses belonged.

“Some of them are rather horrible,” Judy remarked as she hunted through the pile. “I’ll sort out the worst ones, and you can read the others.”

“Oh, no! Let me read the horrible ones,” Irene begged.

Judy laughed. “Everyone to his own notions. I don’t mind, if you feel like giving yourself the shivers.”

There was a long table just back of the sofa, and it came in handy for the completed groups of papers. Judy removed a vase of flowers and a few books and made a clear place for the different piles.

“Golden Girl goes at the top of the list,” she remarked, as she took a yellowed slip of paper in her hand. “Miss Grimshaw says it’s valuable.”

“Is it the song?”

“It is,” Judy replied. “This poet wrote it. Imagine! And then turns to such morbid things as that one I fixed up; you remember, about the tower of flame?”

She broke off suddenly as the telephone on Emily Grimshaw’s desk jangled imperiously.

Both girls were buried in papers, and the telephone rang a second time before Judy was free to answer it.

“The switchboard operator says it’s Dale Meredith!”

She turned away from the mouthpiece and gave out this information in an excited whisper. Irene let a few of the papers slide to the floor.

“Oh, Judy,” she cried, “our scheme did work after all!”

Judy’s answer was a glance of triumph, but her voice over the wire sounded very businesslike.

“Tell him to come up and wait. Miss Grimshaw will be in shortly.”

In the moment before he mounted the stairs Irene had time to smooth her hair and powder her nose. Then she picked up the fallen papers and was about to place them on the table.

“Never mind the work now. I’ll straighten things,” Judy told her. “You just sit there and look pretty when Dale Meredith comes in.”

The handsome young author greeted them with a surprised whistle. “Whoever expected to find you here!” he exclaimed, smiling first at Judy who stood beside the open door and then at Irene. “Why, the place looks like a palace with the princess enthroned on the sofa. What’s happened to Her Royal Highness?”

“You mean Miss Grimshaw?” Judy asked, laughing. “She will be in presently.”

“Not too ‘presently,’ I hope,” Dale replied, seating himself beside Irene. “Before we talk business I want to hear what happened to you girls. I’ve been scolding myself ever since for not finding out your names. The truth of the matter is, I was so dog-goned interested in that Art Shop Robbery——”

“The title of your new book?” Judy ventured, and his nod told her that she had reasoned correctly.

“You see, it was a rush order,” he went on to explain. “There seems to be a big demand for mystery stories. Most people like to imagine themselves as sleuths or big time detectives. I do, myself. The trouble is, there aren’t enough mysteries in real life to supply the demand for plots, and what there are make tales too gruesome to be good reading.”

“You do write gruesome stories then?” Irene asked anxiously.

He studied her face for a moment before he answered. “That depends on your definition of the word. I never make it a point to dwell on the details of a murder. Suffice it to tell under what circumstances the body was found——”

“Don’t talk about it, please! You sound so cold and matter-of-fact, as if you didn’t feel it at all. Your flying stories are so different!”

“They were written from first-hand knowledge,” he explained. “I had a pilot’s license and flew with a friend of mine across the continent. There was story material and plenty of it!” He went on for fifteen minutes discussing his experiences with the girls.

Dale Meredith had a knack of telling stories so that the listeners lived his adventures with him. Judy and Irene sat enthralled. They were both imagining themselves scrambling out of a wrecked plane in their own Allegheny Mountains when the door opened, and in walked Emily Grimshaw! Dale and Judy both greeted her, but when Irene looked up and smiled the old lady started back as if she had seen a ghost. Judy, thinking she must be ill, helped her into a chair.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked solicitously.

“There’s a bottle.” Emily Grimshaw made a gesture with her hand. “Pour me out a bit. I need a stimulant. I must be getting old. Good lord! I must be seeing things!”

She took the glass that Judy held out to her and swallowed the contents in three great gulps, then rubbed her eyes and looked at Irene again.

“Guess the stuff is too strong,” she muttered and slumped in her chair.

Irene clutched Dale’s arm. “She isn’t going to die?” she asked in a panicky whisper.

More than a little bewildered, the young man reassured her and suggested that she wait downstairs in the lobby.

“She seems to have affected Miss Grimshaw strangely,” he explained to Judy later.

“Yes, and Irene can’t stand too much excitement,” she returned. “You didn’t know, but for the past three years she’s been working almost day and night, taking care of her crippled father. She’d be doing it yet if my dad hadn’t arranged to have him cared for in a sanitarium. It’s better for him and better for Irene. Her mother is dead.”

“Poor kid! No wonder she thought something dreadful had happened to Her Majesty.”

Judy had gone for a pitcher of water and stood beside her employer’s chair dampening her handkerchief and rubbing her forehead. That seemed to have little effect, but when Dale attempted to move her to the sofa the old lady promptly opened her eyes and protested violently. She staggered back to her chair and sat there staring at the spot where Irene had sat. Then she sighed heavily. “Old fool that I am—seeing things.”