“Say, you know my name already,” said Jan, as if that were a sign of great cleverness. “Now give me a good one.”
One by one the boys and girls had their fortunes told and left almost all the change which the boys possessed upon the mantel. Then they began to gather up their coats and other articles of wearing apparel, feeling pretty well dried out by the heat from the fireplace. The storm had ceased before the aged grandmother had finished. Rapidly the four covered the distance remaining between this place and that of the Clydes, where they were to have dinner together. Nell promised to let Jannet wear one of her frocks, if necessary, for Jannet had started in such a hurry that she had not realized how odd it might be to eat dinner in her riding clothes.
“I’ll certainly look funny in a dress of yours, Nell—I’d better wear one of your mother’s, or else ride on home. But if you don’t mind I could wear these things; they are dry now.”
“We’ll fix you up some way, Jannet. Don’t worry.”
“Say, Jannet,” soberly said Jan, “may I be your second husband?”
“Second husband!” ejaculated Jannet, a grin beginning to spread her pretty mouth.
“Yep. I wouldn’t want to be the first, because he may die, according to the old gypsy. Of course, I’ll probably marry, and then my wife may have objections to the arrangement.”
“You crazy boy! I believe that you’d make fun about anything! Yes, I’ll ‘consider your application,’ as Miss Hilliard says. But I’m only going to marry somebody very wonderful, and he’ll not dare leave me till I’m as old as Grandma Meer, or whatever her name is.”
“Some outlandish name,” said Nell, “that I’ve heard and forgotten.”
“Chick, she says that she is only going to marry somebody very wonderful. That settles it. It isn’t me. Honestly, Jannet, she read you a pretty good fortune; but some of it was queer. Of course, you know that the whole countryside knows about our ghost, so she could make up anything there.”
“I don’t mind, and I’m going to forget it, Jan. Poor old soul! Are you really going to take her something to-morrow, Nell? I’d like to do something, too, even tobacco!”
“Why, Jannet!” said Jan in falsetto tones, as if representing Jannet’s school, shocked beyond words.
Jannet gave Jan a solemn glance, drawing her mouth down at the corners and rolling her blue eyes. Then, grinning again, she said, “Grandma Meer is too old to reform, Jan. Besides, if it isn’t wicked for Cousin Andy to smoke, it isn’t wicked for Grandma Meer. And she doesn’t have to be a lady.”
This conversation took place on the way from the Clyde barns to the house. The four sauntered along in the highest of spirits, though it was almost too near dinner time, or, more properly here, supper time, for them to linger.
A skirt-and-tunic dress of Nell’s was found possible to arrange for Jannet, and more fun was in prospect when by the telephone it was arranged for Jannet and Jan to stay all night. “And may we have Nell and Chick over tomorrow night, Cousin Di?” Jannet asked sweetly.
“Of course you may. Jan often has Chick. I don’t know how it has happened that we have not had him more this time. You and Nell ought to have great fun in the ‘haunted’ room. I’ll have Paulina cook you something, too.”
“Thank you, Cousin Di.” Turning, after hanging up the receiver, Jannet clasped her hands together in delight, as she communicated the results of her telephoning to the rest. “Oh, we can stay, and Cousin Di was too cordial for words about your coming over tomorrow night, Nell and Chick. Paulina will cook up something and we’ll have a little evening party of it, I guess.”
“Good,” said Jan. “Let’s hope that the ghost will walk.”
“Mercy, no, Jan—not really,” said Jannet.
CHAPTER IX
ANOTHER GHOSTLY VISITATION
That evening, at the Clydes’ country home, Nell called up some of her friends and asked them to drive over for an evening of good times. Perhaps half a dozen girls and boys came, initiating Jannet into the pleasures of country life. It was a new atmosphere to Jannet and she liked it. They were all a little stiff at first, pleasant, but waiting to see what the girl from the city school was like. Soon, however, when Nell and Chick started some games and they found Jannet throwing herself into everything with a real delight, the party waxed merry.
The next morning Jannet and Jan rode home. Jannet heard Jan and Paulina in more than one mild argument as she tried to pack for him and he objected to her packing. “Of course I’m going to take that, P’lina. That is one of the most important things. If you can’t get that in, I’ll tumble the whole mess out and pack it all over myself. What’s the idea? Do you think that you have to do it?”
“Now, Jan, your ma—” but Jannet shut the door to hear no more. She supposed, as she smiled over what she had heard, that some treasure like a bat or a ball glove or mask had been omitted. She was beginning a diary, suggested to her by her mother’s having kept one. But Jannet decided that she would never destroy hers, because it would be such a good history for her children, if she had any.
Jannet spent a good part of the morning in this way, after a good visit with Mrs. Holt. Then Paulina came in to sweep and clean her room. There was another servant to help with this sort of thing, but Paulina, who almost felt that she had part ownership in the place, liked to take care of this old part of the home herself. Paulina was “queer,” Jannet thought. She could not tell what Paulina thought of her, but she rather hoped that Paulina did not hate her, for “Old P’lina” was a family institution, it seemed. She grew older and older in Jannet’s thought, for Paulina’s face was much more lined than Uncle Pieter’s, in spite of the dark hair. Nell said that P’lina must dye her hair, but Jannet knew that Nell was wrong.
Nell and Chick Clyde did not arrive until long after supper and said that they had company at home, unexpected company for supper. But they enjoyed the evening together, Mrs. Holt keeping her promise of the “party,” which meant something good to eat at the proper time.
Jannet wondered if Uncle Pieter would have approved, for they had chicken and biscuits, with other accompaniments, for a first course, and Paulina’s delicious angel food cake with a whipped cream “salad” over it or “by” it, as Jannet put it. Nuts, maraschino cherries and pineapple made this toothsome. But this was Jan’s last evening at home. Sometime the next day he was leaving for school. “Yes, Nell,” said he, “hard-hearted Uncle Pieter is responsible for my leaving; but after all Chick could scarcely get his lessons without me, and it will be fun to see the other boys.”
After the refreshment the boys were restless. It was not far from bedtime and Jan suggested that Chick go with him to the attic den to see his latest invention.
“You might invite us, too, Jan,” said Jannet, with a freedom which she was beginning to feel in this new environment.
“Oh, girls wouldn’t understand, and besides, it doesn’t work yet. I want to get Chick’s ideas about it. Then the attic is where the ghost usually begins, you know.”
“Honestly, Jan, did you ever hear or see anything strange?”
Jan looked mysterious, then laughed. “‘Honestly,’ Jannet, I think most of the noises might be from some ordinary cause. But once I did—oh, well, there are lots of odd sounds and things in an old house. But no ghost has ever come into my attic den so far as I know.”
“I wouldn’t go up there after dark for worlds!” Nell declared.
“Silly!” So her brother commented. “Jan’s den is a real room, at a gable, and used to be a bedroom, Paulina says. There’s a rambling sort of hall, and a door, that Paulina keeps locked, into the rest of the attic, which isn’t all floored, she says. Paulina says ‘Keep Out,’ in large letters, doesn’t she, Jan?”
“Yep,” answered Jan, with a look at Chick which was intended to mystify the girls.
“Maybe P’lina is the ghost, then,” Nell suggested, an
d Jannet thought to herself that it was not impossible.
“I’ll tell P’lina that I want to see if any of my mother’s boxes or trunks are up there, and perhaps she will give me the key!”
“You wouldn’t dare, Jannet!”
“Yes I would, Nell!”
“Much you would,” and Jan’s disbelieving eyes laughed into Jannet’s sparkling ones. “Wait till I come home again anyhow,” he added.
“Perhaps I will, Jan,” his cousin conceded.
The boys said goodnight, leaving the two girls in the quaint old kitchen, where they had made taffy in one of the old kettles, by the express permission of Mrs. Holt, and under her supervision, for Paulina had not wanted to have the “trouble and muss” of a fire here, among the cherished antiques of the kitchen. “Before the weather gets too hot,” meditatively said Jannet, taking a last piece of the sticky but very delicious sweet from one of the pans, “I’d like to have an old-fashioned taffy pull and invite some of the girls and boys that I met at your house, Nell. I’m afraid that Uncle Pieter and Old P’lina might not like it, but perhaps Cousin Di could get permission for me.”
“Perhaps so,” doubtfully answered Nell, “but remember that Chick and Jan leave to-morrow.”
“That’s so. Well, perhaps I’ll be here next winter. I’ve read about the good times in the country in the winter and I almost wish I needn’t go to school.”
“Your uncle intends to keep you here, Jannet. I heard Mother say so.”
Jannet looked inquiringly at Nell, but made no comment. That might not be so nice after all, not to go back to the girls and Miss Hilliard. But Miss Hilliard was her guardian, and she would do the deciding.
Mrs. Holt came hurrying in to say that she had almost forgotten them, and that by all means they must get to bed. With a kind goodnight she left them, and they heard her routing the boys from their attic den. The sound of their descent by the attic stairs could have been heard in Philadelphia, Nell said.
The girls went upstairs by the front staircase, turning to the right with the dark, curving rail of the banisters. To Jannet’s door there was only a step, and Nell looked on along the railing to the front of the upstairs hall. “That front room on this side,” Jannet explained, “belonged to my grandfather and grandmother, and the big chimney, with gorgeous fireplaces, is between their room and what was my mother’s, now mine. There are plenty of other fireplaces, though,” she added, “only this seems to be the biggest chimney. See, my door almost faces the corridor that leads to the new part, where Cousin Di sleeps, and Paulina’s room is right off the back hall, there. Jan’s room is downstairs. He picked it out himself.”
“Chick says that he has a cot in the den upstairs, too.”
“Is that so? I shouldn’t think that he would want to sleep there.”
“Why, Jannet! I thought that you didn’t believe in ghosts!”
“I don’t but just the same—” and Jannet stopped to laugh at herself.
By this time they were in the room, Nell wondering a little at Jannet’s having to unlock the door. But she did not ask her why she kept the door locked, and Jannet did not explain. One thing after another had interfered with her having had an opportunity to open the secret drawer in her desk for a glimpse of the pearls. First she had been expecting Paulina in to clean. Then, after some delay, the cleaning took place. A call, plans with Cousin Di and a long drive with her and Cousin Andy, partly for the sake of errands, completely filled the day till time for the Clydes to come.
But now, as Jannet displayed her room to her guest, placing the little overnight bag, and quietly mentioning her pleasure in having her mother’s room and her mother’s picture, she was anxious to assure herself of her new possession in the desk and felt impatient with herself for not having locked the door against everybody long enough to see that the pearls were safe. Of course they were, though.
What was Nell saying? Oh, yes, she was commenting on the size of the house, admiring it, but telling Jannet the gossip. Some said that her uncle intended to turn it into a summer hotel, and others said that he had expected his daughter’s family to occupy it with him, as well as his son’s. “Andrew was going to be married, if he hadn’t gotten all banged up in the war.”
“Oh—too bad!” exclaimed sympathetic Jannet. “Wouldn’t his sweetheart marry him?”
“More likely he would not let her.”
“Dear me, I’ll never catch up with the why and wherefore of our family. Can you keep a secret, Nell?”
“Try me. Even Chick says that I can.”
Nell had admired the desk before, but Jannet led her to it again.
“I want to show you a secret drawer, Nell, and what I found in it, something wonderful—my mother’s pearls, the ones she has on in the picture!”
Nell leaned over with the greatest interest, while Jannet seated herself in front of her desk, now open, and pressed the spring as she had done before. Out came the drawer, more easily than before—but empty!
Quickly Nell looked into her friend’s face, which was blank with surprise. “Gone!” Jannet exclaimed. “Why, Nell, it’s just as it happened before! Mother lost them, too, or they were stolen from her desk. Oh, who could have done it! Why did I leave them there!”
Jannet dropped her hands in her lap and sat there looking at Nell, who drew up a chair and took one of Jannet’s hands to pat it and try to comfort her.
“I ought not to care so much, perhaps,” said Jannet, almost ready to cry, “but I loved to think that Mother has worn them. I’d think it a dream, but Nell, I put them on my neck and loved to have them there—don’t tell me that I’m quite crazy!” Jannet, smiling, was herself now.
“Of course you are not crazy. I believe that the pearls were there, and where could they have gone? They did not walk off by themselves certainly, and there isn’t another thing in the drawer. Could there be a crack in the bottom?” Nell tapped the delicate wood with her finger.
“Not big enough to lose a big case full of pearls, Nell. Well, it can’t be helped. I’ll examine the desk tomorrow and see if they could have been put in another drawer—or something.” As she spoke, Jannet began to open the little drawers which she knew, while Nell exclaimed over the tiny springs and the skill with which the drawers had been hidden.
But Jannet did not want to make Nell have an unhappy time over her lost pearls. In a few moments she was her philosophical self again. “It can’t be helped, Nell, and as I never did have them before, I can get along without them now. Let’s get to bed. I’m glad that you think the room is pretty and the things nice. I’m wealthy enough in my mother’s things without the pearls. It seems now as if I have been waiting all my life to come to this room!”
It was as they settled down in bed, after putting the windows at the proper height and turning off the light, that Nell happened to think of something. “Jannet, you’ll find your pearls! Didn’t your fortune say that you would lose something and find it again?”
“‘You will find what you look for,’” replied Jannet, in such a good imitation of the old fortune-teller’s cracked tones that Nell laughed and Jannet apologized, saying that she ought not to have made fun of Grandma Meer.
“Poor old soul,” said Nell, drowsily. For a wonder the girls did not lie awake to talk. It had been a full day and soon they were asleep; for Nell was an easy-going girl, not nervous about fancied ghosts in a room as bright and pleasant as this, while Jannet, accustomed to share her room and often her bed with Lina Marcy or some other school-girl, felt it quite natural to have company.
What time it was when Jannet was suddenly wide awake, she did not know. A confused dream, the result, she well knew, of taffy and other good things to eat, was floating away from her. Nell was not stirring the least bit and she could not even hear her breathe. That was odd. Cautiously she turned, sighed, and reached over to touch her friend lightly, when suddenly Nell clutched
Jannet’s hand and reached Jannet’s lips with her other hand to insure silence.
Jannet squeezed Nell’s hand to indicate understanding, but she was a little frightened. What was it? The same old ghost, a burglar, or was Nell only startled at some little sound? Jannet had bolted her door, but it would be possible for some one to climb up on the trellis and climb into the window which opened upon the little balcony, she remembered. That one she had not raised very high and the screen was in.
It was pitch dark. There were no glimmerings of lights outside as in a city. The night was cloudy, without star or moon visible. Quite a breeze was stirring. Perhaps there would be another storm, though there were no flashes of electricity.
“Tap, tap, tap, tap,” she heard. Well, that might be the broken branch that she had noticed hanging against the pergola outside.
Then a weird sound began. Perhaps that was what had wakened Nell. That must be the “Dutch Banshee” that Jan had mentioned. It was indescribable, something like the whistling of the wind, then a little like the hooting of an owl. Was that what Paulina meant, then?
That was a queer, rustling sound. Yes, it did sound like someone lightly coming down a stairway; why, it sounded right in the wall, Jannet thought! Step, step, step, step, slowly. Paulina would be saying “That’s ‘Her!’”
Could it be true that there was something sinister and evil, or something unhappy, that could not rest, that came back to its old home? In the daytime Jannet would not have had these fearful thoughts, but it was eerie, indeed, to lie in a dark room and listen to sounds that she did not understand.
A faint moaning sound began and suddenly stopped with a little choke or gasp.
“Is Chick a ventriloquist?” whispered Jannet.
“No,” replied Nell, “and neither is Jan.”
For a few moments there was no sound at all. Then the “Dutch Banshee” began again. Jannet whispered, “Static—Jan’s radio!”
“No,” whispered Nell. “Keep still!”
The Third Girl Detective Page 7
