“What time is it?” she asked Ellen Plunkett.
“You slept through lunch, and it's nearly suppertime, a quarter past five,” the slight, freckled woman told her. “But you needed every minute of it.”
“I guess I did.”
Ellen sat down on the edge of her bed and said, “I heard you cry out. Are you okay?”
“I was having a nightmare.”
“Those will fade away,” the slim woman said. “Also, I thought you might want to know what your uncle's admitted to.”
She nodded.
“It seems he met Ben and Penny Groves in London, when he and Elaine were there on vacation, saw her in a new stage show. The show, he says, was rotten, but the girl looked so like you that he got the idea for this hoax. Anyway, he'd known about your parents' deaths from the start, and he'd also known about your bout with emotional illness, about your Dr. Recard and everything.”
“How?” Gwyn asked, amazed.
“He read about your parents deaths in the newspapers, despite what he told you,” Mrs. Plunkett said. “And from that time on, he had you followed by a private detective agency. At least, Louis says it was that way.”
“That's absurd!”
“Not particularly,” the slim woman said. “Remember, you had a fortune coming to you, and he was your last living relative. Naturally, the situation gave him ideas, though he couldn't pinpoint a plan of action — not until he saw Penny Nashe. He talked to the Groves, found they were down on their luck, and talked them into taking on the job. Mrs. Groves underwent limited plastic surgery on her face, to make her look even more like you, and then your uncle wrote you that letter.”
“Weren't Fritz and Grace in on it?” Gwyn asked.
“Yes. They're friends of the Groves. I believe Grace is Penny's aunt, or something like that.”
“One other thing,” Gwyn said. “Penny knew things about my childhood that even I'd forgotten.” She explained about the Teckert boy.
“That's easily explained,” Ellen said. “When Mr. Barnaby knew you were having emotional problems, he paid his detectives to raid Dr. Recard's files. They found a copy of your diary there, which you'd given the doctor for study, and they copied it. Penny could have used a wealth of information that you'd written years ago, but which you'd forgotten yourself.”
“But why go to all this trouble?” Gwyn asked.
“Your fortune, as I understand it, would be enough to make a lot of people go to even more trouble. And your uncle was in very bad financial straights, both from high living and bad investments.”
“So it's over now,” Gwyn said, sighing.
“Yes, it is,” Ellen Plunkett said. “But there's a third reason I've come upstairs to see you.” She smiled mischievously. “There's a boy downstairs who wants to talk to you. He says he's treated you rather poorly and that he wants to apologize. But I think he's here for more than that, because he mentioned something about you and him going into Calder to take in a movie.”
“Jack Younger?” she asked.
“That's right.”
“I've got to shower and dress,” Gwyn said. “He probably won't want to wait. I'll need an hour or—” She kicked back the covers and got up so suddenly she startled Ellen Plunkett. “Tell him I'll shower and dress fast and be down in fifteen minutes. If there's one thing I could use now, it's a good movie. I sure hope it's a funny one.”
