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.