CHAPTER XII

The Game of Secrets

Horace made good time coming home. He was really driving too fast, Judy thought, but she didn’t say anything. She was too busy thinking about the caretaker, who had stood watching them sullenly as they drove away.

“Horace,” she said suddenly, “either that man _was_ involved in the robbery, or else he was away at the time and is trying to keep it secret.”

“It’s no good trying to keep secrets like that,” Honey said. “I tried it once, and it didn’t work. I only got myself tangled in a web of lies. It was when I told the truth that everything came clear.”

“I’m glad you said that,” declared Judy. “I think the truth would solve most of our problems. Don’t you, Mrs. Riker?”

“Nothing,” she replied, “will solve my problems now. I wish I had never come back. At least I could have kept the memory of the place the way it used to be.”

“Was it such a pleasant memory?”

“Well, no,” she admitted. “It was anything but pleasant except for one happy summer. That summer stood out so clearly in my memory that it made me forget all the dreary hours that followed. It all comes back to me now. The house was filled with heavy, carved furniture. There was one chair with snakes curling over the back. You couldn’t sit in it. A statue sat there. You had to be quiet when you went near it. There were so many statues! But I think I remember the quiet most of all. I wasn’t allowed to interrupt if anyone spoke, but nobody ever said anything much except, ‘Don’t touch!’ And there were so many beautiful things I wanted to touch. Now where are they?”

“At least they didn’t go up in smoke when the house burned,” Horace pointed out.

“It is a strange thing,” agreed Judy. “The thieves didn’t know they were saving them. Your uncle should be grateful.”

Mrs. Riker smiled, as if the thought of his gratitude amused her. Then she said, “What really distresses me is the condition of the caretaker’s cottage. You wouldn’t think it to look at it now, but that kitchen was once almost as pleasant as yours, Judy, if I may call you that. Do call me Helen.”

Honey turned around and smiled at Judy, remembering a secret between them. She had been called Helen for a little while before Judy found out that her real name was Grace Dobbs and that she was Peter’s sister.

“You like that name, don’t you?” Honey asked.

“Yes, and I like Helen Riker,” Judy declared warmly. “I think we are going to be good friends.”

“I hope so. I’m like Uncle Paul,” Mrs. Riker admitted. “I need friends as I never needed them before. My husband is dead, as you must have guessed. He was a reckless driver, especially when he was alone. He was killed in an accident.”

“What was that?” asked Horace, cutting down on his speed.

“You heard it. You might take it as a warning,” Judy told him. “You have plenty of time to write up this story. The _Herald_ doesn’t go to press until tomorrow morning. ‘Slow down and live,’ as the road signs say.”

“Thanks, I will,” he replied. “I was just trying to get you home in time for supper.”

“I’ll get supper better if I’m all in one piece. I haven’t decided what we’ll have, but you’re all invited,” Judy told them.

But Horace said he had other plans—which included Honey.

“Anyway,” Judy said, “we want you and the children to stay, Helen.”

Mrs. Riker smiled as if the use of her first name cemented their friendship. She was a beautiful woman when she forgot to be worried and frightened. Judy guessed she was still in her early thirties.

“You must have married very young,” she commented a little later.

“Too young,” Helen Riker replied. “I hadn’t learned to do my own thinking.”

What did she mean? Apparently she still didn’t want to think about her problems, but the children did. Penny seemed bursting with things she wanted to say. They had passed the dam and were just coming to the place where the North Hollow road turned off at an angle, when the little girl suddenly cried out, “Here’s where we were when the bad men went off with Mommy’s pocketbook.”

“Did they go down that road?” asked Horace.

“No,” said Paul. “They drove off down the main road. That’s where we met those kids who are having the magic show. But Wally Brown wasn’t with the kids who found Mom’s pocketbook—”

“Maybe he didn’t want them to look for it! Maybe it was his voice we heard!” exclaimed Judy.

“It’s a good theory and basically sound,” Horace pointed out, “but your timing’s wrong. The voice said ‘Don’t look for it!’ _before_ Mrs. Riker lost her pocketbook—not afterwards. I figure the robbery happened in a matter of minutes after those men left you.”

“I don’t understand it,” Honey put in. “It was in the paper this morning.”

“Horace is talking about the theft of the pocketbook, not the big robbery. But I have a feeling they’re related in some way,” Judy said thoughtfully.

“Maybe one is the uncle of the other,” Horace teased her. “Seriously,” he continued, “I agree that there may be some connection. If this magician had been with them—”

“He isn’t a robber,” Penny interrupted. “I know he isn’t. His magic is real. You’ll see at the magic show. We can go to it, now that we’re coming back to live with you, can’t we, Judy?”

“What’s this?” Horace asked in surprise. “So you’re going to live with Judy, are you? Don’t you think Peter may have something to say about that?”

“He didn’t even know about the tourist sign,” Judy confessed. “We put it up this morning as a sort of a lark. We might have trapped the robbers, but it looks as if we caught the victims instead.”

“You may have caught them both. The robbers who stole my pocketbook asked if I knew where Uncle Paul’s jade collection is,” Mrs. Riker confessed, “but if the house was robbed two days ago, they’d have been there already.”

“That would be a story: ‘THIEVES OVERLOOK VALUABLE JADE COLLECTION,’” Horace commented.

“But did they?” Judy asked. “My theory is that they only overlooked one piece—”

She stopped suddenly, deciding not to mention the tiny green object in her pocket until she had shown it to Peter and discussed the whole thing with him. Quickly she changed the subject to ask, “Could the police have known about the fire when they gave you the news of the robbery, Horace?”

“Who knows?” he replied. “Everybody seems to be playing the game of secrets. The theft of your pocketbook should have been reported, Mrs. Riker. You’re protecting the thieves when you hold back information from the police.”

“Oh dear!” she said, becoming suddenly flustered. “I didn’t mean to do that. I suppose they should know what happened, but please keep my name out of it. I don’t want to become involved. Maybe you could tell them I have my pocketbook back—”

“Empty,” Horace reminded her.

“They didn’t want it,” Penny spoke up. “They only wanted what was inside.”

“What _was_ inside?” asked Judy, hoping her new friend had taken Honey’s little speech about truth-telling to heart.

“Not much,” Mrs. Riker replied quickly. “I only had a few dollars left, just about enough to get us to Uncle Paul’s. There was nothing else of any consequence.”

“No green doll?” Judy wanted to ask. But would Helen Riker admit it? They were nearly home now, but the game of secrets was not over. Even Horace acted as if he knew one.

“What does consequence mean?” Penny was asking.

“The dictionary says it’s the natural result of an act,” Judy began.

She had read the dictionary once in order to win a spelling bee, and often quoted definitions from it.

“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m so confused I don’t know what I mean,” Mrs. Riker confessed. “I didn’t tell those horrible men where anything was. I couldn’t have. I didn’t know!”

“They must have overlooked something or they wouldn’t have stopped you. How did they know who you were?” asked Judy.

“A voice from the trees told them, no doubt,” Horace said dryly.

Her brother was joking, Judy knew. But he had certainly found out something. They were just passing the tree that had “talked,” but there was no voice from it now. The rain had turned to snow which clung to the branches, frosting them with white. The house had a white roof.

“There’s a light inside,” observed Honey as Horace drove up the snowy slope to stop before the door.