“More secrets!” Judy said, holding up her hands in mock despair. “Haven’t we enough already!”
She still had Mrs. Riker’s problems to solve and they weren’t easy. As they did the dishes together she encouraged the young woman to talk. The truth came out unexpectedly when Mrs. Riker commented that their kitchen used to be almost as nice as Judy’s.
“You’d never think it to look at it now, but when we lived in the caretaker’s cottage on the Riker estate, it was the coziest, warmest little place you ever saw. The boys used to come down whenever Mother made cookies—”
“The boys?” Judy questioned.
“My husband Philip, and his brother Paul. I liked Paul best then,” she continued in a voice that told Judy she had decided to take her into her confidence. “We were children, of course, but I used to think it was Paul I would marry. And then, suddenly, everything changed. After we left the caretaker’s cottage and went to live in the city, it was Philip who wrote to me.”
“But what happened to Paul?” Judy asked.
“I never saw him again,” Helen said, “but Philip came to New York and looked me up. He said he and Paul had quarreled and that he, Philip, had been disinherited. Their money never mattered to me, anyway. I loved them both—”
She stopped, but Judy made no comment. She was afraid of breaking the spell. It was almost as if Helen Riker were reliving her past.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but it’s true!” she declared. “It used to break my heart when they quarreled. Philip was jealous of Paul because their uncle favored him and called Philip a little thief. He did take things to give away. Uncle Paul had so much, Phil thought it didn’t matter. They were only there on a visit, but it was the happiest summer in my whole life. Afterwards—but why talk about it? It’s all in the past and I have the future to think about.”
“Could there be a link?” asked Judy, thinking fast.