Chapter VIII: An Impossible Discovery

“Horace! Honey! Come over here. I want to show you something.”

They were out of the car now, coming as fast as they could in answer to Judy’s call. When they were near enough to be heard, Horace asked, “Did you see the beavers?” and Honey answered excitedly, “Yes! We saw them just as plain as plain. Their funny, humped backs and broad, flat tails—”

“Did you see what they were carrying?” Judy interrupted.

Honey looked at Horace. “Did you?”

“A stick, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t think so,” Judy answered. “I think it was a chair rung. And Horace, I saw something else.”

“It was a face in the pond,” Holly put in. “A lady’s face.”

“Oh!” gasped Honey.

“It wasn’t what you’re thinking,” Judy told her, “but it was every bit as uncanny. I could hardly believe it myself. Horace, look!”

She turned to show him what she had discovered in the beaver dam, but the headlights of the car were no longer shining on it.

“It’s gone!” gasped Holly. “Judy, it _was_ a ghost!”

“No, it was there. I’m sure of it,” Judy declared. “It was the leg of that lady table Dad used to have in his reception room.”

“In Roulsville?” Horace questioned.

“Yes, before the flood. I think it must have washed down here some way. The beavers do use pieces of furniture in their dam building. I thought so when I first saw it, and now I’m sure of it. Horace, that _was_ the lady table,” Judy insisted. “That face I remember so well was looking right at me. It was weird and a little bit frightening, but I’m sure of what I saw.”

“Well, I’m not,” declared Horace. “It’s the most impossible thing I ever heard of. Furniture couldn’t wash _upstream_ all the way from Roulsville. This is a different stream, anyway. I believe it flows into the Genessee.”

“Meta Hanley said it did,” Holly put in.

“Who’s Meta Hanley?” asked Honey.

“The matron of an orphanage—”

“The one where we stopped,” Horace interrupted. “We missed the turn and stopped there for directions. A woman was just driving up in a green car.”

“She didn’t have your typewriter, Holly,” Honey added. “She had her car loaded with apples for the orphans.”

“That was Miss Hanley all right.”

“She calls her car the Beetle, too. Did she tell you she’d brought us here?” asked Judy.

“Yes, she directed us to the woods road. She said it would be quicker and that it would save you that long walk through the woods after dark.”

“But Horace, what about our Beetle?” Judy wanted to know. “We’ll have to leave it parked where it is all night if we go back with you.”

“Why not?” Judy’s brother asked. “It wouldn’t be the first time. You’ll be coming back here to investigate what you saw and, unless I miss my guess, you’ll find you’re all wrong about any of our furniture from Roulsville being built into that beaver dam. We gave it up as lost six years ago.”

“Maybe you and Dad and Mother did, but I didn’t,” Judy retorted. “I never give up—”

“Boy, she’s right there,” Horace interrupted with a meaning look in Honey’s direction. “You and I both know it. Once Judy latches onto a mystery she never gives up until she has all the answers.”

“Please, Judy,” begged Holly, “don’t try to find all the answers tonight. If that was your lady table it will still be there in the morning. It won’t look so spooky by daylight.”

“It will to me,” declared Judy. “I’ll never forget that face in the pond. Couldn’t you turn your car so the light will shine on it again, Horace?”

“Nope,” he replied stubbornly. “The car’s turned in the direction of home, and that’s where we’re heading.”

“Good!” Holly said. “I’ve had enough of hiding in those creepy ferns and watching beavers. Besides, I’m starved. Judy and I haven’t had anything to eat since lunch.”

“We’ve had a couple of apples,” Judy reminded her. “The Jewell sisters gave them to us. They gave Miss Hanley all those apples she had in her car, and they’ve been taking turns helping out at the orphanage,” she told Horace. “Did you and Honey see any of the orphans?”

“Just their faces looking out the orphanage windows,” he answered, “but we were asked to keep watch for one of them, a boy about ten who likes to visit the beavers.”

“That’s Danny,” Judy said. “Miss Hanley told us about him.”

“I hope he’s back,” declared Horace. “That lady who was minding the children said he’d been missing since early morning. She seemed quite worried.”

“We can watch for him on the way home, can’t we? Come on, Judy,” urged Holly. “You can come back here tomorrow and find your lady or whatever that was in the pond.”

Honey shivered. “I agree with Holly. Let’s go, Horace. It’s too dark to look for anything tonight.”

“Right,” he agreed, “but I’ll be back here first thing in the morning. What about you, Sis?”

“I’ll be with you. I wish Peter could come, too. Did you hear from him at all?” Judy asked.

Horace said he hadn’t heard but he felt sure Peter had received Judy’s message. “He’s probably out tailing suspects,” he added. “He is assigned to help round up the Joe Mott gang, isn’t he?”

“He doesn’t discuss his assignments,” Judy answered. Her brother was altogether too curious. He knew Peter’s work was confidential. She could understand Horace’s interest, though. His face was no longer swollen from the beating he had received from the Joe Mott gang, but there was still a small scar over his eyebrow. He had interrupted a robbery and probably was lucky that Joe Mott’s boys had given him no more than a beating. Joe was in prison, but some unknown gang leader apparently was taking his place. Peter had promised Horace the story as soon as it broke, but the investigation had to be conducted in secret.

“Are you coming, Judy?” Holly asked when Judy still stood there beside the stump where she had placed her camera.

“I thought we might wait just a little longer for Peter,” she protested. “He won’t know about the woods road. He’ll be walking over from the Jewell place and he’ll have his searchlight with him—”

“I get it,” Horace interrupted. “You intend to ask Peter to help you investigate this impossible discovery of yours. If the beavers have stolen furniture and transported it across state lines he might make a federal case out of it.”

“Don’t joke, Horace,” Judy scolded him. But she couldn’t help laughing.

All the way home Horace, Honey, and even Holly treated her discovery as a joke. Peter wouldn’t. She knew that. She could tell him not only what she had seen, but how she felt. That was one of the wonderful things about Peter. When Judy talked, he really listened.

“Are we going to stop for something to eat?” Holly asked presently.

“Hamburgers in Farringdon,” Judy suggested, “but let’s make it fast. I want to get home.”

“I was going to ask you over to the apartment—” Honey began.

“Some other time. Your grandparents will be sleeping. It’s so late even the hamburger places will be closed if we don’t hurry,” Horace told her.

“You’re right. It is late,” Judy agreed a few minutes later as Horace drove into Farringdon. She could see the illuminated face of the courthouse clock. The hands pointed to eleven. An hour more and it would be midnight. Surely Peter would be waiting for her at home.

“Maybe I ought to call the Jewell sisters,” Judy suggested when they were in the restaurant in Farringdon, having their late snack. “I could telephone from here and find out if Peter came by there. I did tell him to meet us at the beaver dam.”

“He wouldn’t expect to find us there so late,” Horace objected.

“Do the Jewell sisters have a telephone?” Honey asked. “They didn’t have one when we were there before.”

“They’ve made a lot of changes, but I guess it would disturb them if we called them so late. They’d be sleeping, and the phone would scare them half out of their wits, that is,” Judy amended, “if they do have a phone now.”

“Want to ride along with me to Dry Brook Hollow?” Horace asked Honey as they were leaving the restaurant.

Honey shook her head. “Not tonight, Horace. Take me home, please. I have to be at work tomorrow, remember? And those designs I’m doing take concentration. I can’t let myself fall asleep over them.”

Holly watched as Horace gave Honey a quick good-night kiss at the door of the apartment building where she lived with her grandparents. “Let’s move into the front seat,” she suggested to Judy. A little later, cuddled in between Judy and Horace, she almost purred with contentment.

“Another complication,” thought Judy. “Holly thinks she’s in love with Horace when he and Honey are practically engaged.” Aloud she said, “It’s too bad Honey didn’t come with us. You’ll be driving back alone.”

“That’s all right,” Horace agreed cheerfully, “I like my own company, especially when I have a lot to think about. I may have made a joke of it, Sis, but I’m just as puzzled as you are. If that is your lady back there in the pond, how did the beavers get hold of her, and where is the rest of the table?”