But that would be cheating, stealing. No, there was another word for it—plagiarizing. That was it. But Judy had hoped that Dale was too fine a man to stoop to anything like that, even to further the interests of his stories.
“Better to crumble in a tower of flame....”
A line from one of the missing poems, but it did ring true. It was far better that Judy’s plans for both her friends should crumble before the flame that was her passion for finding out the truth.
When she came into the room she had noticed Dale Meredith’s portfolio on top of the radio. It was the same portfolio that he had carried on the bus, the same portfolio that he had taken away with him when he left Emily Grimshaw’s office. Now Judy remembered watching Dale and Irene from the office window as they walked through Madison Square. Irene had carried nothing except her brown hand bag. That was far too small to hold the manuscript. But Dale’s portfolio——Why, even now it bulged with papers that must be inside! Yes, Judy had to face it, Dale Meredith might have taken the poems. They might be inside that very portfolio!
Excusing herself, she went inside. Blackberry followed at her heels.
CHAPTER X
DEDUCTIONS
Torn between a desire to find out what had actually happened and a fear of throwing suspicion upon the man who was Irene’s ideal, Judy stood in the center of the room staring at Dale Meredith’s portfolio. Blackberry sat on the floor at her feet, and the thumping of his tail on the rug played a drumlike march in time to her heartbeats. This was nonsense—just standing there. It was her duty to find out the truth.
She took a quick step forward and reached for the portfolio, accidentally stepping on the cat’s tail. He yowled! Judy almost dropped the papers that she held, caught at them, told in one glance that she had been wrong and was about to put them back when the door slowly opened.