CHAPTER XVII

More Secrets

They waited until the hymn was over and then tiptoed quietly out of the big Sunday school room. A moment later the quiet was shattered as the children rushed off to their individual classrooms. The Dran boys hurried in through the outside door. They were both out of breath.

“Are we late?” the older boy asked Judy.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Oh dear!” the younger one lamented. “We missed the singing and that’s the best part. We wanted Penny and Paul to come with us, but Peter said their mother would worry—”

“Thank the Lord,” gasped Mrs. Riker.

She looked about ready to faint. The Dran boys stared at her.

“She’s their mother,” Judy explained. “She’s been worried sick. But it’s all right now. We can all be thankful they’re safe. But where were they?”

“At our house,” the boys said matter-of-factly.

“They wanted to sign up for the magic show,” Timothy, the older of the two, explained. “Didn’t they tell you where they were going, Mrs. Riker?”

“No,” she replied rather uncertainly as if she wanted to say more. She looked at Judy, who should have introduced them. In the excitement she had forgotten to do so.

“It’s all right. Peter brought them back and gave us a ride,” Timothy said.

“He didn’t wait for you. I guess he didn’t know you were here,” Barry, the little one, added.

Having explained everything, the Dran boys ran off to their classes which were somewhere in the basement rooms of the church.

“Penny and Paul would have enjoyed this. Maybe I’ll let them come next Sunday,” Helen Riker remarked as they left to walk home.

“Next Sunday?” Judy questioned.

Was Mrs. Riker planning to stay all winter? What were her plans? Judy knew she couldn’t ask her new friend to leave when she didn’t have anywhere to go, or any money, but she hadn’t counted on taking in a whole family.

“If I’m here,” Mrs. Riker replied. “I haven’t decided anything. But at least I have something to be thankful for. The children are all right.”

When they reached Judy’s home they found Penny and Paul helping Peter make pancakes. He had discovered the batter and the griddle ready, and had appointed himself chef in Judy’s absence.

“Pancakes coming up!” he announced. “Pitch right in, everybody. Know where we’re going as soon as we finish, Angel?”

“No, where?” Judy asked.

But before Peter could tell her, Mrs. Riker said what she wanted to know was where the children had been and why they hadn’t told her they were going out.

The answer to the last question was simple enough. She had been asleep when they left.

“It was very early,” Paul explained. “We had to wake everybody up. Mr. Brown didn’t like it, but when we went to Timmy Dran’s house the magician didn’t mind.”

“The magician!” their mother said in shocked surprise.

“Is that where you were?” asked Judy. “I might have known it! Where does this magician live?”

“With Barry and Timothy Dran. He’s the nicest man, just like Daddy, only he isn’t. It’s all right if we go there,” Paul hurried on. “Peter knows him. They got real well acquainted, and we joined the club and Penny has a part in the magic show. She and Anne changed places because now she’s the littlest. Wally said it was all right.”

“I disappear,” Penny announced proudly.

“Not again,” her mother protested.

“It’s all right. I’ll come back.”

Mrs. Riker sighed.

“Well, I hope so. At least you’re safe now. The next time you leave the house you must tell me, so I won’t worry,” she continued. “You know how much I’ve had on my mind.”

“I wish I did,” Judy thought.

“We know. But it’s going to be different now, isn’t it, Penny?” Paul asked.

“Oooh, yes!” she squealed.

“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.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean if one of the presents Philip gave you happened to be in the pocketbook that was stolen—”

Mrs. Riker’s face went white.

“How did you know?” she questioned.

Judy smiled, taking the dish the other had nearly dropped.

“It was just a guess. Your little daughter Penny is like her mother. She isn’t very good at keeping secrets. A green doll would be a green goddess, wouldn’t it? Possibly a jade goddess worth quite a bit to a thief who had the mate—”

“Rama!” Helen gasped. “Paul always said it was bad luck to separate them!”