The Third Girl Detective

by Margaret Sutton

  “Oh, they’re in the garden, are they? Well, we’ll go around there and give them a surprise, Henry. Doris will simply be bowled over to see her ‘daddy’ here so unexpectedly! And I’m very anxious to meet this Miss Camilla she has talked so much about. Come and show us the way, Genevieve.”

  The baby obediently took her hand and led her around to the back of the house, the gentleman following.

  “But I don’t see any one here!” he exclaimed when they had reached the back. “Aren’t you mistaken, honey?” This to Genevieve.

  “No, they in big hole,” she announced gravely. The remark aroused considerable surprise and amused curiosity.

  “Well, lead us to the ‘big hole,’” commanded Mrs. Craig laughingly. “Big hole, indeed! I’ve been wondering what in the world Doris was up to lately, but I never dreamed she was excavating!”

  Genevieve still gravely led the way through the forest of bean-poles to the edge of the newly sunk depression.

  “What’s all this?” suddenly demanded Mr. Craig. “It looks as if there had been a landslide here. Where are the others, little girl? They’ve probably forsaken this and gone elsewhere.”

  But Genevieve was not to be moved from her original statement. “They in dere!” she insisted, pointing downward. “Dowis called. She say ‘Go find some one.’” The baby’s persistence was not to be questioned.

  Mr. Craig looked grave and his wife grew pale and frightened. “Oh, Henry, what do you suppose can be the matter?” she quavered. “I do believe Genevieve is telling the truth.”

  “There’s something mighty queer about it,” he answered hastily. “I can’t understand how in the world it has come about, but if that child is right, there’s been a landslide or a cave-in of some sort here and Doris and the rest are caught in it. Good heavens! If that’s so, we can’t act too quickly!” and he ran round to the front of the house shouting to the chauffeur, who had remained in the car:

  “There’s been an accident. Drive like mad to the nearest house and get men and ropes and spades—anything to help dig out some people from a cave-in!” The car had shot down the road almost before he had ceased speaking, and he hurried back to the garden.

  The next hour was a period of indescribable suspense and terror to all concerned—all, at least, save Genevieve, who sat placidly on Mrs. Craig’s lap (Mr. Craig had brought out a chair from Miss Camilla’s kitchen) and, thumb in mouth, watched the men furiously hurling the soil in great shovelfuls from the curious “hole.” She could not understand why Mrs. Craig should sob softly, at intervals, under her breath, nor why the strange gentleman should pace back and forth so restlessly and give such sharp, hurried orders. And when he jumped into the hole, with a startled exclamation, and seized the end of a heavy plank, she wondered at the unnecessary excitement.

  It took the united efforts of every man present to move that plank, and when they had forced it aside, Mr. Craig stooped down with a smothered cry.

  And the next thing Genevieve knew, they had lifted out some one and laid her on the ground, inert, lifeless and so covered with dirt and sand as to be scarcely recognizable. But from the light, golden hair, Genevieve knew it to be Doris. Before she knew where she was, Genevieve found herself cascaded from Mrs. Craig’s lap, and that lady bending distractedly over the prostrate form.

  Again the men emerged from the pit, carrying between them another form which they laid beside Doris. And, with a howl of anguish, Genevieve recognized the red-bronze pig-tail of her sister, Sally.

  By the time Miss Camilla had been extricated from the débris as lifeless and inert as the other two, the chauffeur had returned at mad speed from the village, bringing with him a doctor and many strange appliances for resuscitation. A pulmotor was put into immediate action, and another period of heartbreaking suspense ensued.

  It was Doris who first moaned her way back to life and at the physician’s orders was carried back into the house for further ministrations. Sally was the next to show signs of recovery, but over poor Miss Camilla they had to work hard and long, for, in addition to having been almost smothered, her foot had been caught by the falling plank and badly injured. But she came back to consciousness at last, and her first words on opening her eyes were:

  “Do you think we can get that Spode dinner-set out all right?” A remark which greatly bewildered Mr. Craig, who happened to be the only one to hear it!

  * * * *

  “But how on earth did you and Mother happen to be there, Father, just in the nick of time?” marveled Doris from the depths of several pillows with which she was propped up in bed.

  She had been detailing to her parents, at great length, the whole story of Sally and the cave and the tunnel and Miss Camilla and the hazardous treasure-hunt that had ended her adventure. And now it was her turn to be enlightened.

  “Well,” returned her father, smiling whimsically, “it was a good deal like what they call ‘the long arm of coincidence’ in story-books, and yet it was very simple, after all! I’d been disappointed so many times in my plans to get down here to see you and your mother, and at last the chance came, the other day, when I could make at least a flying trip, but I hadn’t even time to let you know I was coming. I arrived at the hotel about lunch-time and gave your mother the surprise of her life by walking in on her unexpectedly. But I was quite disgusted not to find you anywhere about. Your mother told me how you had gone off for the day with your bosom pal, Sally, to visit a mysterious Miss Camilla, and I suggested that we take the car and go to hunt you up. As she was agreeable to the excursion we started forth, inquiring our way as we went. It was a merciful providence that got us there not a moment too soon, and if it hadn’t been for that little cherubic Genevieve we would have been many minutes too late. If it hadn’t been that two or three old planks had been bent over you and protected you from the worst of the earth and débris on top, and also gave you a slight space for air, I don’t believe any of you would have been alive now to tell the tale! So the next time you go treasure-hunting, young lady, kindly allow your useless and insignificant dad to accompany you!” And he gave her ear a playful tweak.

  “Daddy, it was awful—simply awful when that old plank gave way and the earth came sliding down on us!” she confided to him, snuggling down in the arm he had placed around her. “At first we didn’t think it would amount to much. But more and more earth came pouring down and then another plank loosened and Miss Camilla lost her footing and fell, and we couldn’t make our way out past it, either direction, and still the dirt poured in all around us, and Sally and I tried to struggle up through the top, but we couldn’t make any progress. And at last that third plank bent over and shut us in so we couldn’t budge, and Sally and Miss Camilla didn’t answer when I spoke to them, and I knew they’d fainted, and I felt as if I was going to faint too. But I called and called Genevieve and at last she answered me. And after that I didn’t remember anything more!” She shuddered and hid her face in her father’s sleeve. It had been a very horrible experience.

  “Don’t think of it any more, honey. It turned out all right, in the end. Do you know that Sally is around as well as ever, now, and came up to the hotel to inquire for you this morning? She’s as strong as a little ox, that child!”

  “But where is Miss Camilla?” suddenly inquired Doris. “She hurt her foot, didn’t she?”

  “She certainly did, but she insisted on remaining in her own home, and Sally begged her mother to be allowed to stay also with the un-detachable Genevieve, of course, and take care of her and wait on her. So there they are, and there you will proceed in the automobile, this afternoon, if you feel well enough to make the visit.”

  “But what about the treasure?” demanded Doris, her eyes beginning to sparkle.

  “If you refer to the trunks and chests full of articles that Miss Camilla insisted that we continue to excavate from that interesting hole in her garden, you do well to speak of it as �
��treasure’!” answered her father laughingly. “For beside some valuable old family silver and quite rare articles of antique jewelry, she had there a collection of china and porcelain that would send a specialist on that subject into an absolute spasm of joy. I really would not care to predict what it would be worth to any one interested in the subject.

  “And you can tell your friend, Sally, of the adventurous spirit, that she’s got Treasure Island licked a mile (to use a very inelegant expression) and right here on her own native territory, too. I take off my hat to you both. You’ve done better than a couple of boys who have been playing at and hunting for pirates all their youthful days. Henceforth, when I yearn for blood-curdling adventures and hair-breadth escapes, I’ll come to you two to lead the way!”

  But, under all his banter, Doris knew that her father was serious in the deep interest he entertained in her strange adventure and all that it had led to.

  CHAPTER XV

  THE SUMMER’S END

  They sat together in the canoe, each facing the other, Doris in the bow and Sally in the stern. A full, mid-September moon painted its rippling path on the water and picked out in silver every detail of shore and river. The air was full of the heavy scent of the pines, and the only sound was the ceaseless lap-lap of the lazy ripples at the water’s edge. Doris had laid aside her paddle. Chin in hands, she was drinking in the radiance of the lovely scene.

  “I simply cannot realize I am going home tomorrow and must leave all this!” she sighed at last.

  Sally dipped her paddle disconsolately and answered with almost a groan:

  “If it bothers you, how do you suppose it makes me feel?”

  “We have grown close to each other, haven’t we?” mused Doris. “Do you know, I never dreamed I could make so dear a friend in so short a time. I have plenty of acquaintances and good comrades, but usually it takes me years to make a real friend. How did you manage to make me care so much for you, Sally?”

  “‘Just because you’re you’!” laughed Sally, quoting a popular song. “But do you realize, Doris Craig, what a different girl I’ve become since I knew and cared for you?”

  She was indeed a different girl, as Doris had to admit. To begin with, she looked different. The clothes she wore were neat, dainty and appropriate, indicating taste and care both in choosing and wearing them. Her parents were comparatively well-to-do people in the village and could afford to dress her well and give her all that was necessary, within reason. It had been mainly lack of proper care, and the absence of any incentive to seem her best, that was to blame for the original careless Sally. And not only her looks, but her manners and English were now as irreproachable as they had once been provincial and faulty.

  “Why, even my thoughts are different!” she suddenly exclaimed, following aloud the line of thought they had both been unconsciously pursuing. “You’ve given me more that’s worth while to think about, Doris, in these three months, than I ever had before in all my life.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t I that did it,” modestly disclaimed Doris, “but the books I happened to bring along and that you wanted to read. If you hadn’t wanted different things yourself, Sally, I don’t believe you would have changed any, so the credit is all yours.”

  “Do you remember the day you first quoted ‘The Ancient Mariner’ to me?” laughed Doris. “I was so astonished I nearly tumbled out of the boat. It was the lines, ‘We were the first that ever burst into that silent sea,’ wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, they are my favorite lines in it,” replied Sally. “And with all the poems I’ve read and learned since, I love that best, after all.”

  “My favorite is that part, ‘The moving moon went up the sky and nowhere did abide,’” said Doris, “and I guess I love the thing as much as you do.”

  “And Miss Camilla,” added Sally, “says her favorite in it is,

  “‘The selfsame moment I could pray,

  And from my neck so free,

  The Albatross fell off and sank

  Like lead into the sea.’

  She says that’s just the way she felt when we girls made that discovery about her brother’s letter. Her ‘Albatross’ had been the supposed weight of disgrace she had been carrying about all these fifty years.”

  “Oh, Miss Camilla!” sighed Doris ecstatically. “What a darling she is! And what a wonderful, simply wonderful adventure we’ve had, Sally. Sometimes, when I think of it, it seems too incredible to believe. It’s like something you’d read of in a book and say it was probably exaggerated. Did I tell you that my grandfather has decided to purchase her whole collection of porcelains, and the antique jewelry, too?”

  “No,” answered Sally, “but Miss Camilla told me. And I know how she hates to part with them. Even I will feel a little sorry when they’re gone. I’ve washed them and dusted them so often and Miss Camilla has told me so much about them. I’ve even learned how to know them by the strange little marks on the back of them. And I can tell English Spode from Old Worcester, and French Faience from Vincennes Sèvres—and a lot beside. And what’s more, I’ve really come to admire and appreciate them. I never supposed I would.

  “Miss Camilla will miss them a lot, for she’s been so happy with them since they were restored to her. But she says they’re as useless in her life now as a museum of mummies, and she needs the money for other things.”

  “I suppose she will restore the main part of her house and live in it and be very happy and comfortable,” remarked Doris.

  “That’s just where you are entirely mistaken,” answered Sally, with unexpected animation. “Don’t you know what she is going to do with it?”

  “Why, no!” said Doris in surprise. “I hadn’t heard.”

  “Well, she only told me today,” replied Sally, “but it nearly bowled me over. She’s going to put the whole thing into Liberty Bonds, and go on living precisely as she has before. She says she has gotten along that way for nearly fifty years and she guesses she can go on to the end. She says that if her father and brother could sacrifice their safety and their money and their very lives, gladly, as they did when their country was in need, she guesses she oughtn’t to do very much less. If she were younger, she’d go to France right now, and give her life in some capacity, to help out in this horrible struggle. But as she can’t do that, she is willing and delighted to make every other sacrifice within her power. And she’s taken out the bonds in my name and Genevieve’s, because she says she’ll never live to see them mature, and we’re the only chick or child she cares enough about to leave them to. She wanted to leave some to you, too, but your father told her, no. He has already taken out several in your name.”

  Doris was quite overcome by this flood of unexpected information and by the wonderful attitude and generosity of Miss Camilla.

  “I never dreamed of such a thing!” she murmured. “She insisted on giving me the little Sèvres vase, when I bade her good-bye today. I hardly liked to take it, but she said I must, and that it could form the nucleus of a collection of my own, some day when I was older and times were less strenuous. I hardly realized what she meant then, but I do now, after what you’ve told me.”

  “But that isn’t all,” said Sally. “I’ve managed to persuade my father that I’m not learning enough at the village school and probably never will. He was going to take me out of it this year anyway, and when summer came again, have me wait on the ice-cream parlor and candy counter in the pavilion. I just hated the thought. Now I’ve made him promise to send Genevieve and me every day to Miss Camilla to study with her, and he’s going to pay for it just the same as if I were going to a private school. I’m so happy over it, and so is Miss Camilla, only we had hard work persuading her that she must accept any money for it. And even Genevieve is delighted. She has promised to stop sucking her thumb if she can go to Miss Camilla and ‘learn to yead ’bout picters,’ as she says.”

  “It�
�s all turned out as wonderfully as a fairy-tale,” mused Doris as they floated on. “I couldn’t wish a single thing any different. And I think what Miss Camilla has done is—well, it just makes a lump come in my throat even to speak of it. I feel like a selfish wretch beside her. I’m just going to save every penny I have this winter and give it to the Red Cross and work like mad at the knitting and bandage-making. But even that is no real sacrifice. I wish I could do something like she has done. That’s the kind of thing that counts!”

  “We can only do the thing that lies within our power,” said Sally, grasping the true philosophy of the situation, “and if we do all of that, we’re giving the best we can.”

  They drifted on a little further in silence, and then Doris glanced at her wrist-watch by the light of the moon. “We’ve got to go in,” she mourned. “It’s after nine o’clock, and Mother warned me not to stay out later than that. Besides I’ve got to finish packing.”

  They dragged the canoe up onto the shore, and turned it over in the grass. Then they wandered, for a moment, down to the edge of the water.

  “Remember, it isn’t so awfully bad as it seems,” Doris tried to hearten Sally by reminding her. “Father and I are coming down again to stay over Columbus Day, and you and Genevieve are coming to New York to spend the Christmas holidays with us. We’ll be seeing each other right along, at intervals.”

  Sally looked off up the river to where the pointed pines on Slipper Point could be dimly discerned above the wagon bridge. Suddenly her thoughts took a curious twist.

  “How funny—how awfully funny it seems now,” she laughed, “to think we once were planning to dig for pirate treasure—up there!” she nodded toward Slipper Point.

  “Well, we may not have found any pirate loot,” Doris replied, “but you’ll have to admit we discovered treasure of a very different nature—and a good deal more valuable. And, when you come to think of it, we did discover buried treasure, at least Miss Camilla did, and we were nearly buried alive trying to unearth it, and what more of a thrilling adventure could you ask for than that?” But she ended seriously: