For a moment Vicki wished she had never gotten mixed up in the search for Lucy Rowe. The lawyer looked so cold, so professional, that her own small efforts to find Lucy shrank to absurdity. How impertinent she would appear if Mrs. Bryant happened to tell about Vicki’s search—how difficult it would be to justify to the lawyer her doubts about this girl.

Vicki glanced beseechingly toward the grandmother. Very, very slightly, Mrs. Bryant shook her head. Did that mean she was not going to reveal their secret? Vicki hoped so. She glanced away just in time to hear and answer Mr. Dorn’s “How do you do?”

“Careful, now,” Vicki warned herself. “Don’t say or ask anything which could alert Lucy that I suspect her. And I mustn’t intrude on Mr. Dorn’s territory, particularly since Mr. Bryant has praised him so highly.”

The lawyer seated himself at Marshall Bryant’s right. He was a perfectly correct and formal figure as he accepted a cup of tea from Lucy. She made a little fuss over the young lawyer, and her grandmother teased her about it.

“Well, just think of what Mr. Dorn has done for me!” Lucy answered, laughing. “He’s the one who found me, and I shall always be grateful to him.” She shook her head, remembering. “Last Sunday, this stranger came to me asking to see my family letters and my silver ring. Asking me to identify myself. At first I didn’t know whether to take Mr. Dorn seriously.”

Vicki longed to know if they had met at Pine Top, but she could not afford to ask questions.

Thurman Dorn smiled a little. “I can tell you now, Miss Lucy, that a month earlier I was exasperated at not finding you. And your grandparents”—he turned toward them deferentially—“were exasperated with me. It’s a good thing for all of us that you came back to San Francisco from your vacation. If you hadn’t met me in the lobby of the St. Clair Hotel last Sunday, I believe I would have sent out some sort of alarm for you.”

So they had met last Sunday in San Francisco, Vicki noted. That meant Lucy had come in from Pine Top. Reasonable enough. But why did Lucy give Dorn and the Bryants the impression that her tour with Mrs. Heath was a “vacation”? Vicki wanted to see whether Lucy would mention, in the course of conversation, Mrs. Heath or the Reverend Mr. Hall or Knowlton Graves. Curiously, she did not mention them and Mr. Dorn did not, either. He did talk in detail about his methods of search and the fine co-operation he had received from the San Francisco Post Office and Police Department. Mr. Dorn named persons and places involved in his search—Whitney Decorators, Lucy’s old Telegraph Hill residential address (where he couldn’t find her), a Dr. Alice James who was Lucy’s and Lucy’s mother’s physician. Vicki had not unearthed any of these in the course of her own search in and around San Francisco. Not one of them! This was nightmarish!

“Then who is the girl I traced to Pine Top?” Vicki thought again, in utter bewilderment. “Is this girl the same girl I saw? No, she isn’t. This girl’s hair is very dark brown, sable brown, and that girl’s was almost dark blond.”

Yet, Vicki thought, in tracing Lucy Rowe herself, she had received straightforward answers from Jill Joseph, Mrs. Stacey at the Hotel Alcott, Mr. Hall, Gravy. They obviously were not lying because all their accounts of Lucy Rowe tallied and dovetailed. Vicki could only think:

“Either Mr. Dorn has been misled by this girl who is lying, or—less likely—the lawyer’s lying. Or—more likely—I’ve made some glaring error.”

In fairness to all concerned, she could do only one thing: check back on the facts in San Francisco, this coming week. She must try to keep an open mind. Even so, she felt uneasy about this avowed Lucy and her several lies and evasions. She was startled out of her thoughts when the girl said:

“Mr. Dorn, Miss Barr met a friend of mine in San Francisco. Isn’t that a coincidence?”

“Small world,” he said casually, though he paid attention to Vicki for the first time since he had come in. “Are you in San Francisco often, Miss Barr?”

Vicki noticed that Mrs. Bryant had grown tense. Evading Dorn’s question, she simply said:

“I’m in San Francisco only when my airline sends me there. It isn’t too often.”

“Oh, yes, I remember now,” said Dorn. “You’re a stewardess on—?”

“Federal Airlines,” said Vicki.

Mr. Dorn nodded and lost interest, and started to talk to Marshall Bryant about something else. Vicki half waited for Lucy to ask her a question about Jill Baker or make some further remark about Vicki’s being in San Francisco. But Lucy, too, dropped the subject.

Mr. Bryant, Mr. Dorn, and Lucy went into the next room to discuss some legal papers. Mrs. Bryant came over to Vicki.

“Will you accompany me upstairs, my dear? I want to—ah—show you something of interest.”

A pretext? So that they could talk together privately? Vicki wondered whether the elderly lady shared her doubts as to whether this girl was actually the Bryants’ granddaughter. She did not. Indeed, she told Vicki how happy she was “that Mr. Dorn has found Eleanor’s daughter,” and what a fine girl she considered her to be. “I can see something of Eleanor in her, in little ways.”

“In what ways?” Vicki asked. “Does she look like her mother?”

“N-no, Lucy doesn’t really resemble Eleanor—or Jack Rowe, either. But then I never resembled my parents! No, she reminds me of Eleanor in a certain dignity and reserve which she has, and in—oh—maybe I’m imagining it, but in little mannerisms—

“And Lucy knows so much about our family history,” Mrs. Bryant went on. “It’s gratifying to me, naturally, that she takes such a great interest in the family. It—In fact, it’s—” The lady hesitated. “I almost wonder, considering her youth and the family’s separation, how it’s possible for her to have learned so much family history. In such detail, too.”

Vicki waited for Mrs. Bryant to think further about her doubt, to pay attention to this danger signal. But the elderly lady smiled and said:

“Lucy’s family loyalty accounts for her remarkable knowledge, of course.”

Vicki said nothing, but she did not necessarily agree. The Marshall Bryant family was a prominent one; from time to time newspapers and magazines mentioned their activities and printed photographs; Mr. Bryant’s career was listed in Who’s Who. What was there to prevent a clever, unscrupulous girl from going to the public library in any big city, looking up these facts, and memorizing them?

A question occurred to Vicki: How had this girl, if she was an impostor, discovered that Thurman Dorn was seeking the young heiress to a fortune? She could have found out in a number of ways—something overheard, a newspaper notice inquiring about Lucy Rowe, even a word dropped by Lucy herself. And how had this girl sidetracked Mr. Dorn from finding the true Lucy? Was it more than a coincidence that Dorn had been unable to find Lucy on his first trip to San Francisco? Was it more than a coincidence that another girl named Lucy Rowe had gone away on a job to a lonely place like Pine Top? Vicki shivered.

Mrs. Bryant was saying, “I couldn’t be happier, and I couldn’t be more grateful to Thurman Dorn. He’s done a wonderful thing in reuniting the three of us.” The lady said hastily, “I appreciate the interest you took in this matter, Vicki. I hope you didn’t put yourself to any trouble.”

“Nothing worth mentioning, at least not now, Mrs. Bryant.” How and what could she tell of her own search under the circumstances?

“My husband says Mr. Dorn located Lucy comparatively quickly, after so many years of silence.”

Vicki remembered the questions she wanted to ask. “Mrs. Bryant, about Mr. Dorn’s search—do you happen to recall the exact dates of his first trip to San Francisco?”

“I remember every detail of the search for our granddaughter. Mr. Dorn said he was in San Francisco his first trip from January tenth to twenty-third. His second trip was February twentieth to twenty-second.” Vicki imprinted these dates on her memory. “Don’t you think Mr. Dorn was quick to find Lucy on his second trip? Apparently his efforts on the first trip paid off.”

“Yes, indeed,” Vicki said, trying to keep the doubt out of her voice. “Mrs. Bryant, you—you haven’t told anyone that you wanted me to try to get in touch with Lucy?”

“Oh, no, indeed!” Mrs. Bryant laughed. “Wouldn’t you and I look foolish, now that Lucy is here? I was foolish ever to make such a request of you, I’m afraid. Why don’t we simply forget our little secret?”

Vicki smiled, but she had no intention of dropping her search, not after meeting that dark-haired girl today.

“Vicki, as a matter of sentiment, this morning I took the other silver ring out of the safe here in the house to show you. Come in here with me, won’t you?”

Vicki followed Lucy’s grandmother into an old-fashioned bedroom. From a bureau drawer she took a silver ring, exactly like the one the dark-haired girl wore.

“You see, Vicki? It is unusual. There isn’t another ring like it anywhere except Lucy’s. A jeweler made just the two from his own original design, and then destroyed the pattern. Mr. Bryant had them made when Eleanor was born.”

“It’s lovely, like filigree or lace,” Vicki said.

Mrs. Bryant said she would return the ring to the safe, and suggested they go downstairs.

Mr. Bryant and Mr. Dorn had finished their business, and Lucy had disappeared in order to powder her nose. It was five o’clock. Other guests were beginning to arrive. Although the Bryants urged her to stay, Vicki asked to be excused. She had experienced quite enough for one afternoon.

She returned to the apartment which she shared with several other Federal Airlines stewardesses. Jean Cox was at home, writing letters to her family. She said Charmion Wilson and Dot Crowley had just come in from their Texas run, and were asleep in the front bedroom. Tessa and Celia were working aloft somewhere along the Atlantic seaboard. The stewardesses’ housekeeper, Mrs. Duff, was out visiting friends.

Vicki was glad that the apartment, so often full of guests and parties, was quiet this Sunday. She wanted to be alone for a little while, to write down the names, dates, and addresses she had learned this afternoon at the Bryants’, and to plan her next steps.

It was the following Wednesday, March fourth, before Vicki’s scheduled New York-Chicago-San Francisco flight landed her in San Francisco again. She had fumed at the delay but now she had three days—Thursday, Friday, Saturday—off. “And I’m going to make good use of them!”

She wanted tremendously to fly at once to Pine Top, but it would be foolish to go unprepared, with spotty information. Her first step, obviously, must be to check on the statements she had heard Lucy and Mr. Dorn make on Sunday.

Vicki decided to make full use of the telephone. In her hotel room she collected paper, pencils, the telephone directory, her list of names and addresses, which Dorn and Lucy had mentioned in accounting for Lucy’s recent past. Then Vicki sat down at the telephone.

First she called up Jill Joseph, out in Sutro Heights. When Jill answered, Vicki could hear in the background a babble of children’s voices and dogs barking. She and Vicki exchanged hellos, and then Vicki asked:

“Have you heard from Lucy?”

“No, I haven’t,” Jill Joseph answered. “It’s beginning to worry me. Have you?”

Vicki hesitated. “I’m still trying to get news of her. Tell me again—is her hair light brown or dark brown?”

“Light brown. Lucy calls it dirty blond.”

The alleged Lucy Rowe at the Bryants’ house had dark, sable-brown hair.

“Would Lucy color her hair, do you think?” Vicki asked. “I can’t imagine why she would, its natural color is pretty. She never has tinted it.”

Vicki said she had an even stranger question, and asked Jill Joseph what her maiden name had been.

“Rossiter. Why, for goodness’ sake?”

“Do you know—or does Lucy know—anyone named Jill Baker?” Vicki asked.

“Never heard of Jill Baker. Vicki, all these questions—is something wrong?”

Again Vicki hesitated. “There may be. I’m trying to find out. One more question—did you ever hear from a Mr. Dorn?” Jill had not. “Or from a girl, or anyone else, inquiring about Lucy?”

“No,” said Jill Joseph. “You’re the only one.” Well, that proved nothing. Mr. Dorn’s line of investigation need not have included an old friend whom Lucy now saw only occasionally. “Vicki? If something’s wrong, why don’t you report it to the police?”

“Because I’m not positive anything is wrong. Besides, there’s a delicate situation here.” Vicki was not at liberty to mention the Bryants and their dislike of publicity; if the police stepped in, the newspapers would get wind of the story. Vicki said, “I really don’t think it’s necessary to go to the police. Don’t worry.”

“Well, I am worried. Let me know as soon as you have any news of Lucy, will you, please?”

Vicki promised, said good-by, and hung up.

Would the Scotts be home from their trip by now? According to Jill Joseph, Lucy had lived with Mary Scott and Mrs. Scott. Dorn and Lucy in New York had never mentioned them. Why? Vicki tried the Scotts’ telephone number, which Jill Joseph had given her earlier.

A woman’s voice answered. Vicki introduced herself, and explained that she was trying to locate Lucy Rowe.

“This is Mrs. Scott,” the voice said. “I don’t see why you should have any trouble in locating Lucy, Miss Barr. She has an excellent job with a Mrs. Heath.... Well, no, Mary and I haven’t heard from her.... No, Lucy was not traveling with us, not at any time.”

But Mr. Dorn had told the Bryants that day at luncheon that Lucy was traveling with another girl and the girl’s mother. Had the lawyer lied? Such a minor point to lie about. Or had he honestly misunderstood Lucy’s trip with Mrs. Heath to be a trip with the Scotts? There was no way of knowing. Vicki set aside this question of traveling and tried another.

“Mrs. Scott, did Lucy live with you and your daughter?”

“Yes, she shared our apartment for several months. Then, last January, she moved to the Hotel Alcott for women.”

Last Sunday, when Vicki asked Lucy Rowe where she’d lived in San Francisco, the girl had not mentioned the Scotts and the Hotel Alcott. Instead, she’d talked of living on Telegraph Hill and, one summer, sharing a beach house with three other girls.

“Mrs. Scott,” Vicki asked, “can you give me Lucy’s former address on Telegraph Hill?”

“Why, Lucy never lived on Telegraph Hill, to the best of my knowledge.” No wonder Mr. Dorn had said he couldn’t find Lucy there.

“Did she share a beach house one summer with three other girls?” Vicki asked.

“If she did, Lucy never mentioned it to us. And it isn’t like her to be secretive. I think you must have some wrong information, Miss Barr.”

“I guess I have.” Unless the alleged Lucy’s story of the beach house and living on Telegraph Hill was an out-and-out falsehood. Or unless she was another Lucy Rowe?

“Mrs. Scott, Lucy Rowe isn’t an uncommon name. The Lucy Rowe I’m looking for is the daughter of Eleanor Bryant Rowe and Jack Rowe, both of them deceased.”

“Yes, that’s right. That’s the Lucy we know—the Lucy who stayed with us.”

Then the presumed granddaughter in New York was lying. Vicki sighed. “I’m sorry to have troubled you, Mrs. Scott.”

“Not at all. Any more questions?... Good-by, then, Miss Barr.”

Well, in fairness to Mr. Dorn, he had not mentioned the beach house and Telegraph Hill. The lie was the girl’s.

Vicki consulted her list of names and addresses. She was feeling rather grim about these lies. She decided to check with Whitney Decorators, where the presumed Lucy had said she had been employed.

There was no Whitney Decorators listed in the regular telephone directory, nor in the Classified Advertisements telephone book. Vicki called a professional association of decorators. They had no knowledge of a firm or person named Whitney. Next, Vicki called Information. She waited while the operator looked up the name.

“We have no record of any firm by that name. However, there are several persons named Whitney listed in your regular directory, if you care to call them.”

Vicki did that. Not one of them was a decorator nor even in any allied field. Not one of them had ever heard of a Lucy Rowe.

So that was that. An outright lie! Vicki tried to recall whether Mr. Dorn had been party to this lie. No, as she remembered the talk last Sunday, only Lucy had mentioned Whitney Decorators.

“I suppose,” Vicki thought, “that seeing her silver ring and family letters convinced Mr. Dorn that he had found the right Lucy. How in the world did she come by the ring and other family things, if she’s an impostor? It doesn’t seem possible! Unless she stole them from the true Lucy?”

That was perfectly possible—though Vicki had no way of proving it, as yet.

Dr. Alice James.... Let’s see, it was Dorn who last Sunday had brought up this physician’s name. Vicki remembered how he had made rather a point of telling that Dr. James had been both Lucy’s and Lucy’s mother’s physician.

Vicki had difficulty in locating an address and telephone number for Dr. Alice James, in San Francisco or in any of its suburbs. She used the same methods as in her search for Whitney Decorators, with the same result: there was no record of any Dr. Alice James. No such person existed.

Lucy in New York had lied again. And on this point, Mr. Dorn had lied.

Up to now Vicki had more or less dismissed her doubts about why Dorn’s findings did not tally with hers, by taking the blame for any error upon herself. But now she was brought up short. Mr. Dorn was guilty of a lie about the search for Lucy Rowe!

It struck her as odd that, so far as she had checked today, he had lied only about this one point—about the nonexistent Dr. Alice James. On what other points involving Dorn could she check?

“Well, Mr. Dorn said he met Lucy last Sunday in the lobby of the St. Clair Hotel,” Vicki recalled, “and Mr. Bryant, that first day at lunch, mentioned Dorn’s being at the St. Clair Hotel. I assume Dorn stayed there on his second visit last week, too. Let’s see what a check turns up on that.”

She tried calling the St. Clair Hotel, but the desk would not release any information over the telephone. Vicki powdered her nose, put on her hat and gloves, and went over to the hotel.

She was obliged to see the hotel manager, prove who she was, and state her business (as far as she discreetly could) before she could persuade him to have an assistant look up back records. The assistant, a Mr. Craig, finally told her:

“Mr. Thurman Dorn stayed at this hotel from January twelfth through January twenty-first, and overnight on February twenty-first.”

But these dates did not fully tally with Mrs. Bryant’s statement! According to her, Dorn was in San Francisco, and presumably at this hotel, January tenth to twenty-third, and February twentieth to twenty-second. Two days were unaccounted for at the beginning of his January trip, and two days were unaccounted for at the end of his January trip. Also, two days were unaccounted for on his February trip. Where had Dorn been? At another San Francisco hotel? Not likely, no point to it. At Pine Top? But in January, Lucy and Mrs. Heath had not yet left San Francisco for Pine Top, so Dorn would have had no reason to be there. And in February—on Sunday, February twenty-second—Dorn and Lucy had said they met in this hotel lobby.

Where had Mr. Dorn been on those unaccounted-for days, and what had he been doing? Since he flew from coast to coast, traveling had not eaten up those several extra days. Unless he had made a stopover somewhere en route, and not come directly from New York to San Francisco? But that was sheer speculation.

Vicki walked back toward her own hotel, wondering. A total of six days unaccounted for! A great deal could happen in six days. Especially during the course of an intensive search—That brought another question to mind. Why had neither the presumed Lucy nor Mr. Dorn ever mentioned Mrs. Heath or Graves, the painter, or the Reverend Mr. Hall? Lucy Rowe was closely associated with these three people, yet the Bryants had never been informed of their existence.

“Even if Lucy in New York hadn’t wanted Mr. Dorn to know about these three people,” Vicki thought, “Dorn could have found about them on his own, just as I did.”

Her mistrust of Dorn grew. Either the lawyer had made an inadequate, misleading investigation—or he had discovered the existence of Mrs. Heath, Gravy, Mr. Hall, but was not telling the Bryants about them for some reason. The reason was sadly obvious. Dorn—Dorn and the alleged Lucy together—did not want to give the Bryants the names and addresses of three persons who could help the grandparents find the true Lucy.

“Yet that may not be true at all. I’m only speculating,” Vicki reminded herself. “Before I can believe anything, or say anything to the Bryants, I must get proof—more facts.”

Even more urgent than proof was the need—assuming the Lucy in New York to be an impostor—to find the true Lucy Rowe. Was she the girl seen at Pine Top? If not, who was that light-brown-haired girl? “I promised myself to fly back to Pine Top,” Vicki thought. “It seems the time is now.”

Returning to her hotel room, she picked up the telephone, called Novato Airport, and reserved the Cessna 150 for tomorrow. Perhaps she would discover something of real importance back there in the hills.