The Third Girl Detective

by Margaret Sutton

  Right now the wind was blowing so hard that it lifted a crumpled ball of paper from Judy’s hand and blew it smack against Marjorie’s face.

  “Fate,” Marjorie said with a giggle, “obviously meant for me to read this before it got burned.”

  Assuming an exaggeratedly serious air, she smoothed out the paper on her knee. Then she gave a little gasp. “Oh, Judy,” she cried. “It’s another anonymous letter. Remember? I told you about the one Phil got? This one was sent to Penny, and I’ll bet she crumpled it up and threw it away without saying anything to anybody.”

  Judy nodded. “Penny’s like that. She wouldn’t pay any attention to a letter she got unless it was signed. What does this one say?”

  “Th-this one,” Marjorie stammered, after reading it quickly, “fr-frightens me.” And she read the crudely printed words out loud:

  MISS ALLEN: YOUR FALL THE OTHER DAY WAS NOT AN ACCIDENT. I PURPOSELY WEAKENED THOSE BOARDS IN THE SHED SO THAT THE FIRST ONE OF YOU WHO LEANED ON THEM WOULD CRASH INTO THE WELL. IF YOU DON’T CLEAR OUT OF THE LODGE SOON, EXPECT WORSE “ACCIDENTS.” I WARNED YOU THAT I MEAN BUSINESS.

  Judy sniffed. “Well, it doesn’t frighten me. From the way you described Penny’s accident, I’m sure it didn’t happen because someone had tampered with the wall of the shed. Even if he had weakened the boards, how could he be sure someone was going to lean on them?”

  “You’re right,” Marjorie admitted, completely over her nervousness. “Penny herself said she was foolish to touch that broken wall.”

  She crumpled the letter and tossed it into the mesh basket. “A crazy person who heard about Penny’s fall wrote that silly letter. Come on. Let’s bring the empty baskets back to Theresa and forget the whole thing.”

  But deep down inside, Marjorie was thinking about the footprint Jimmy had discovered in the dirt under the shed floor. Had it been left there before Penny’s accident, or after it?

  “After it,” she finally decided. “The floor boards were all in place the first time we inspected the shed. The man who came snooping around that night must have left that footprint. He probably meant to sneak back and cover up the hole he made in the floor, but got frightened away for good when Phil and Pat fired those shots in the air.”

  CHAPTER 6

  CLUES IN A BOTTLE

  All during the hot July days that followed Judy and Marjorie did indeed live in bathing suits. Mrs. Powell and Penny tried to make them dress up for dinner, but they compromised by changing into clean shirts and blue jeans.

  “Aren’t we ever going to do anything about the treasure that’s supposed to be buried around here?” Judy asked one day. They had been in swimming and were now lying in the sun on the shore of the lake.

  “I suppose we should do something about it,” Marjorie said lazily. “But it’s been so hot I hate the thought of digging. Helping Pat hoe up his potatoes was about all I could stand.”

  “I’ve still got some blisters,” Judy said with a grin.

  Marjorie raised herself on one elbow and squinted up toward the Lodge. “Penny and Phil don’t think there’s any treasure buried around here any more than there was a ghost haunting the place.”

  “I know they don’t,” Judy said. “But Jimmy, Alf and Brook do. They’ve been acting very mysteriously ever since we got here. They sneak off early in the morning with shovels and things, and I’m sure they don’t spend all their time fixing up their shack.”

  “I know,” Marjorie said thoughtfully. “And it would be simply awful if the boys found the treasure, not us.” She scrambled to her feet. “We’ve got to find it first. Let’s get out of these wet bathing suits before we do anything else. While we’re changing into dungarees we can decide where the best place to start digging is.”

  Ten minutes later the girls left the Lodge by the back door and, armed with shovels, went down to the clearing.

  “Oh, golly,” Marjorie moaned. “I thought this would be a swell place to dig because there’s no grass on the ground here. But just look. There’s the wash hanging out on the line to dry. Mr. Taggart must have just brought it back from the laundry-mat.”

  “Just our luck,” Judy complained. “We’d better not dig anywhere near it. We’d be sure to raise clouds of dust. It hasn’t rained in ages.”

  “I tell you what let’s do instead,” Marjorie suggested. “Let’s go help the boys with their shack. They promised to let us work on it, too. Once it’s finished maybe they’ll go off on that camping trip with Pat. Then we’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”

  “That’s right,” Judy agreed. “If they caught us digging, they’d be sure to make fun of us. They pretend that we’re silly to believe that there’s treasure buried around here, but I happen to know that they believe in it too.”

  When they arrived at the shack, the girls’ offer of help was promptly turned down.

  “Help!” Alf hooted. “Judy, you don’t know which end of a hammer is the head.”

  “Neither does Marjorie,” added Jimmy with a teasing grin. “Scram, you two. We men have work to do.”

  “But you promised,” Marjorie reminded him crossly.

  Jimmy waved her away. “Later, child, later. Right now we’re too busy to teach you the rudiments of carpentry.”

  So Judy and Marjorie wandered forlornly off and returned to the clearing where they had left their shovels. After that they spent a few hours every day aimlessly digging here and there for buried treasure. But it was tiresome work and since they knew the holes had to be filled up, they never dug very deep or very long at any one spot.

  “This is hopeless,” Judy said one day toward the end of July. “What we ought to look for are clues. Maps and things pirates may have left around which will tell us exactly where to dig.”

  “I don’t think there were ever any pirates around here,” Marjorie said dubiously. “Didn’t they always stick pretty close to the seacoasts?”

  “I guess you’re right,” Judy said disconsolately. “But whoever buried the treasure should have left some clues or directions.”

  “Not necessarily,” Marjorie pointed out practically. “He might have buried it in a hurry and then the Indians or somebody might have killed him right afterwards.”

  “I give up.” Judy flung her shovel on the ground. “The boys can find the treasure first for all I care. My hands are so sore I couldn’t paddle a canoe. So let’s go swimming.”

  “All right,” Marjorie agreed. “I do want you to have fun while you’re our guest, Judy,” she added worriedly.

  “Oh, I am,” Judy assured her with a quick smile. “It was my idea to dig for the treasure, not yours. But let’s forget about it for awhile.”

  “Let’s,” Marjorie agreed. “Besides, I haven’t been much of a help to Penny lately. I’m supposed to be assistant hostess, you know, and help her entertain the guests.”

  “Well, I’m a guest,” Judy said with a giggle. “And you’ve entertained me royally.”

  From then on Marjorie spent more time helping Penny and Ann Mary and Theresa.

  By the first of August the boys had made great progress with the shack. Mal, Pat and Phil helped out whenever they could and some of the guests pitched in occasionally. The walls and the roof were now up, the doors and windows were in place and the boys had even spent two nights sleeping there on cots. They were now putting in the finishing touches, and true to their promise they had let Marjorie and Judy help.

  Marjorie, in her enthusiasm over being allowed to put up a shower wall all by herself, had banged her finger with the hammer and the boys had suggested that she and Judy take some time off to recuperate. So Marjorie and Judy were looking for shells down on the beach.

  “Oh, golly,” Judy said in disgust after awhile, “all the nice ones seem to get as far under the rocks as they can.”

  “They certainly do,” Marjorie agreed. “But let’s k
eep looking. We might find some really valuable ones which we could sell to collectors for a lot of money.”

  For the next few minutes they were very busy pushing and shoving at the rocks, upturning some and giving up others that were too heavy to budge.

  Finally they came across one huge stone that seemed to be imbedded in the sand. Marjorie knew that even with Judy’s help she couldn’t move it, and she was just about to crawl by it when she saw something.

  “Judy,” she cried excitedly. “Come here, quickly. Doesn’t it look as though someone had been digging around this rock a little while ago?”

  Judy scrambled to her feet and joined Marjorie. “You’re right,” she said. “Some one has been digging here. I’ll bet whoever it was buried something under that rock.” She flopped down on her knees beside Marjorie and together the girls began to dig frantically with their fingers.

  And then Marjorie’s sharp eyes caught a glimpse of something that glittered in the sunlight. “Diamonds,” she gasped. “Judy, help me. Let’s see if we can’t inch the rock up a little so we can see better. Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was real honest-to-goodness treasure buried here?”

  Judy, tugging at the heavy rock, could only pant, “There. Now we’ve got it!”

  They both fell to digging with renewed vigor, and in another second Marjorie could see that the glittering object was only a dark green glass bottle.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she moaned disappointedly. “And I thought we were at last going to find the buried treasure.” Crossly she yanked the bottle out of the warm sand and raised her arm to toss it into the lake.

  “Wait a minute!” cried Judy, grabbing her arm just in time. “There’s something in that bottle, Marjorie. When you held it up in the sunlight I could see right through the dark green glass.”

  Marjorie held the bottle up again and stared at it. “You’re right, Judy,” she said. “It looks like a piece of paper. Oh, golly, maybe it’s a map which’ll tell us exactly where the treasure is buried!”

  As she talked, Marjorie was prying out the cork with a piece of broken shell.

  “Hurry, hurry,” Judy cried impatiently, hopping up and down. “Now you’ve got it out at last. Turn it upside down and shake it, Marjorie. Oh, oh, it is a piece of paper!”

  The piece of paper was battered and torn, and it had been crumpled into a small ball. Carefully Marjorie smoothed it out, and together they tried to read the smudged words.

  After half an hour of intensive studying they were able to figure out that the scrap was a fragment of a message, and the message had something to do with “the Log Cabin” and “a well that.”

  “Oh, Judy,” Marjorie gasped. “The well must be the one we dug up. If we could only find the other fragment, I’ll bet the two together would tell us where the treasure is buried!”

  “Who do you suppose wrote the message?” Judy asked wonderingly. “And how did it get torn? And how did one half get into this bottle?”

  “I can guess what happened,” Marjorie said, her imagination completely running away with her. “Two men knew about the buried treasure near the old well. They wrote down just where they were supposed to dig. Then they got into a fight when they talked about how they were going to divide the loot. In the tussle, one man got off with one half, and the other put his half in this bottle and buried it here for safekeeping.”

  Judy stared at her in admiration. “You’re wonderful, Marjorie,” she said. “That’s just what happened. Now all we have to do is find the other half.”

  Marjorie’s elfin blue eyes were bright with suppressed laughter. “All?” she demanded sarcastically. “The other half of the message could be anywhere in the world.” She stared thoughtfully down at the scrap. “The two letters ‘tr’ might be part of the word ‘trunk.’ What do you think, Judy?”

  “I think you’re absolutely right,” Judy said emphatically. “Aren’t there some old trunks in the storeroom that you haven’t opened yet? Oh, Marjorie, do you suppose there’s another clue in one of them?”

  “Let’s look anyway,” Marjorie said. “Tuesday when I was helping Ann Mary get the soiled linen ready for Mr. Taggart to take into town, I asked her if you and I couldn’t go through those old trunks some rainy day. And she said we could. She laughed at me and said, ‘You won’t find any treasure there. If you’re smart you’ll search for rare shells down by the lake.’ That’s how I got the idea of trying to find some which rich collectors might buy from us.”

  “Well,” Judy said, “we didn’t find any worth bringing back to the Lodge. Let’s don’t waste any more time looking for rare shells. Let’s go show this clue to the boys.”

  Marjorie hesitated. “Okay, but I’ll bet they just make fun of us. Jimmy won’t even consider that it just might be a clue.”

  “But,” Judy objected, “he’s bound to realize that the message had something to do with the well and the Lodge. Let’s go.”

  Marjorie carefully tucked the torn paper into the pocket of her blue jeans. Then they raced back to the Lodge.

  Out in the shed the girls found that Jimmy, Alf and Brook had finished closing in the shower. They banged on the door and Jimmy called out in a dramatic voice:

  “Who invades our privacy? This is the bachelors’ retreat and we want no women around here!” Marjorie heard him add in a loud whisper: “And especially not dimwit girls!”

  She yelled at the top of her lungs: “Oh, come on out, Jimmy. Quit being so mean to us. We have something important to show you.”

  But Jimmy was adamant. “You quit banging on the door, dopes. We’ll open it when we’re ready and not a minute before.”

  Marjorie turned to Judy. “Try Alf. He’s your brother.”

  “Alf Powell,” Judy screamed. “You’ll be sorry if you don’t come right out. What we have is something really yummy!” She added quietly to Marjorie, “That’ll get him!”

  “Yummy,” they heard both Alf and Brook repeat, and then from Jimmy as he opened the door and stuck his head out:

  “Why didn’t you say you had food in the first place?”

  “Look,” said Marjorie, showing him the piece of paper. “Judy and I found this in a bottle buried in the sand under a big rock on the beach. We think it’s part of a message that has something to do with the buried treasure.”

  “Oh, you dopey kids,” Jimmy said in a very condescending tone of voice. “Your imagination works overtime. It’s fantastic,” he said over his shoulder to Alf and Brook, “what they can think up in their spare time.”

  But Jimmy took the paper from Marjorie, and gave it a contemptuous glance. “What a mess,” he said. “You know perfectly well you rigged this up yourselves, but you can’t fool me.”

  “We didn’t, honest,” Marjorie said, tossing her blonde head. “But if that’s the way you feel about it, give it back to me. Furthermore, if we find any more clues you’ll be the last person in the world we consult.”

  Jimmy tossed it to her with a grin. “Run along, kids. We haven’t time for your monkey business. We’re going for a swim, and then we’re going to get the Bronc ready for our camping trip.” He slammed the door in Marjorie’s face. “Scram. Later, if we men haven’t anything better to do, you can try to fool us with your phony clues.”

  “See?” Marjorie bitterly asked Judy. “That’s a brother for you! If we do find anything in the storage room, let’s not tell a soul!”

  CHAPTER 7

  THE MAP

  Marjorie and Judy entered the Lodge by the back door and found Mr. Taggart in the kitchen with a big bundle of clean laundry.

  “Hello, girls,” he said pleasantly. “Find any buried treasure yet?”

  “No,” Judy replied, “but down on the beach we—”

  Marjorie nudged her and said quickly, “We found a lot of absolutely worthless shells.” She grinned at Ann Mary who came into the kitc
hen then with a bag of soiled linen. “You and your rare specimens! I’ll bet you sent us off on that wild goose chase just to get us out of your hair.”

  Ann Mary laughed. “Maybe I did.” She turned to Mr. Taggart. “I really sent them down to the lake to keep them from digging up the whole place. Pat and Mal worked hard on the vegetable garden behind the cabin, and I’m not going to have the kids ruin it in their search for something which they know perfectly well isn’t there.”

  “That’s right,” the laundry man said with a grin. “A carrot in the hand is worth a diamond in the bush.” He picked up the bag and started for the door.

  “Wait a minute, please,” Ann Mary said. “There’s more upstairs. Sit down and make yourself comfortable while I gather up the bed linen.”

  “Do you want me to do it for you, Ann Mary?” Marjorie asked, hoping the answer would be no.

  “Thank you, no,” Ann Mary said emphatically. “The last time you counted the sheets you counted one of them twice.”

  Marjorie giggled, and the girls followed Ann Mary out into the hall. As she hurried up the stairs to the balcony, Judy said:

  “I wish you’d show me the secret room sometime, Marjorie. I think you’re mean to keep it a secret from me, your very best friend.”

  “Why, of course, I’ll show it to you,” Marjorie cried impulsively. “And there’s no time like the present.” She led the way into the alcove and said, “See those bookshelves? Now watch, while I press this button.”

  Open-mouthed with amazement, Judy watched as the shelves moved aside, revealing a short flight of stairs that led down into a little room.

  “Why, that’s the most marvelous contraption I ever saw,” she said enviously. “I wish we had something like it at home.”

  “We can’t go in,” Marjorie said. “It’s a law we passed at a meeting of the Allen Lodge Board of Directors. Only Phil and Pat can go in. As a matter of fact,” she added thoughtfully, “I guess I shouldn’t have showed you how the door works without first asking their permission.”