Pauline opened the door and urged him to come in.
“Irene isn’t home yet, and Mr. Meredith was waiting,” she explained. “Did you happen to see her?”
“Well, let me think a minute.” The English servant passed his fingers through his thinning hair. “Indeed, yes, Miss Pauline, I did see her when the post came this morning. She stood hin the vestibule reading a letter.”
“Did she seem worried, as if it were bad news?”
The man shook his head. “Indeed, she seemed quite ’appy over hit. She went out a bit later ’umming a tune, ‘De de-de da de. Da de da. Da de dum’—like that.”
He had given a crude imitation of the first notes of Golden Girl.
“She was very fond of that song,” Dale remarked after Oliver had left. He was helping the girls with their wraps preparatory to calling at the police station.
Again Judy thought about the papers. Could their disappearance and Irene’s, in some way, be connected? She mentioned the possibility to Dale but he thought it unlikely.
“At any rate we know Irene didn’t take them, and when we make our report to the police we had better leave the papers entirely out of it.”
“And the name ‘Joy Holiday’?” Pauline questioned.