“A cat is good publicity,” the editor, Mr. Lee, had told Horace. “The public gets tired of dog stories. But a cat—well, that’s different. When a cat saves a life that’s really news.”
The life he was talking about was the life of Dick Hartwell. “In another five minutes,” Dr. Bolton was telling the group in the living room, “it would have been too late to save him. I didn’t know you were in the tower, Judy girl, when I hurried past—”
“I’m glad you hurried, Dad,” she told him. “If you’d stopped to help me, Dick would have died, wouldn’t he? I can see why you told Falco he was dead, but why did you say Horace was dead, too? I’ve been meaning to ask you. It was the end of the world for me when I heard it. I tease him and torment him, and we’ve often quarreled with each other. Anything you can do I can do better, that sort of stuff. But I really love my brother.”
“I know you do, Judy girl. I really love that son of mine, too,” Dr. Bolton said. “That’s why I hurried him out of there so fast. ‘Neither of them will do much talking,’ I told that gangster and the woman who was with him. Then I covered the boys’ faces and we rushed them to the ambulance, where a pulmotor was waiting to revive them. Peter was there by then. The police, Dick’s parole officer, and several more Federal agents came soon afterwards. But I was alone at first. It was a ticklish situation.”
“I see. I guess you did what you had to do, the same as I did.”
“That’s right. Maybe you learned your strategy from your old dad. You know how strict I am about the truth. Don’t misunderstand me,” the doctor warned. “I wouldn’t stretch it even a little way unless there was a life at stake. It wasn’t far from the truth, anyway. Horace was unconscious—”
“He doesn’t look it now!”
Judy was through being serious. Her brother was at the table devouring a huge piece of cake that Honey had just cut for him. Peter had a slice nearly as large. The house was full of people as it had been ever since Judy came home. Lois, Lorraine, and Arthur were there. Other friends and neighbors were in and out, glad of a chance to help Judy, although she insisted she was well able to help herself. She could walk with the cast on her foot, but not very gracefully. Everybody had autographed it, even Blackberry with his paw print. The next guest to arrive was Helen Brandt, home early from what had started out to be a winter vacation.
“We came right home as soon as we got Peter’s message,” she explained. “Imagine Stanley letting those criminals move in, and then saying, ‘Every man has his price.’ I don’t believe it, do you, Judy?”
“No, I don’t,” she said. “Peter, come here and meet Helen Brandt. She’ll be interested in hearing about that cache of jewels you found down under the fountain.”