“That’s exactly what I was trying to say. I don’t know anything about Irene’s mother and neither does she. Mr. Lang only remembered the name, Annie, and that, as well as Joy, may have been only a nickname.” Judy turned to Peter. “I know how you felt when your parents were a mystery. Well, wouldn’t Irene feel the same way? Her father gave away some family history in his letter, and Irene was more impressed than we know by Emily Grimshaw’s collapse. Remember, I wrote you about it, Peter? She wanted to find out about her mother——”
“Then she did take the poetry,” Pauline put in.
“Yes,” Judy agreed. “I’m afraid she did. It’s a terrible thing not to know the truth about one’s parents, and Irene must have taken the poetry to help her find that horrible house that seems to have swallowed her up.”
“She said she didn’t,” Dale maintained.
Judy felt suddenly ashamed that his trust in Irene should be greater than hers. But if, distrusting her, Judy found her, then she could be glad of her disbelief.
“There is another possibility,” she ventured and made her voice sound more hopeful than she felt. “There is the possibility that Irene may be safe in the poet’s house.”
“That sounds more plausible,” Dale agreed, “but you said the house was empty.”
“I said it looked empty, except for that unearthly thing in the tower. But, now that I think of it, something alive must have been there to pull the shades. Do you suppose,” Judy asked in a tremulous whisper, “that somebody could be locked there like Joy Holiday was when she vanished?”
“It sounds like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? But not,” Peter added gravely, “if Irene is in the tower. Judy, we must do something—and do it quickly.”
It did not take him long to decide what that something would be. “We’ll get a policeman to go with us,” he declared. “The police have a right to force their way into a house if nobody answers.”