The Third Girl Detective

by Margaret Sutton

  Rising from her place, she moved back to where the dark-faced one rode. She seemed fast asleep. But was this only a pose? She could not tell. Someone forward beckoned to her. Routine duties were resumed.

  The hours passed quietly. At five o’clock they were over the Rockies. Marvelous moment! The golden sun was sinking over the distant prairies. The mountains, half white with snow, half green with forests, lay beneath them. They were beyond the timber line.

  Suddenly the co-pilot’s light blinked at the back of the cabin.

  “Signaling for me. I wonder why.” She moved swiftly forward.

  “A storm roaring up the mountains from the west.” Mark Morris, the young co-pilot, spoke in short jerky sentences. “Going down here. Landing field of a sort. Laid out on the plateau. Hunting lodge below. No real danger. Get straps hooked up. Usual stuff.”

  Rosemary understood. She passed swiftly along the aisle. A word, a whisper, a smile, that quiet, care-free air of hers did the work.

  “Forced landing. What of that?” This was what the passengers read in her face.

  What indeed? They swooped downward, bumped with something of a shock, bumped more lightly, glided forward, then came to a standstill.

  The tall dark woman sprang to her feet, threw open the door, then swung herself down. She was wearing low shoes and sheer silk stockings. She landed squarely in eighteen inches of snow.

  “Wait!” Rosemary cried in dismay. “Give her a hand up, some of you men. I’ll fix you all up right away.”

  There were, of course, neither high boots nor leggings in the airplane cabin, but Rosemary was equal to the occasion. Tearing up a blanket, she was soon busy fashioning moccasins for the ladies.

  “Tie these cords about the bottoms of your trousers,” she said to the men. “Yes, we’ll go down to the hunting lodge. Be three or four hours anyway.”

  “Where’s the trail?” She spoke now to the young co-pilot.

  “See that big rock?”

  “Yes.”

  “Blazed trail starts there. Easy to follow. About half a mile. Fine place. Been there three times. Big fireplace. Bacon and other things to eat. You’ll enjoy your stay,” he chuckled.

  “All airways are beaten trails to our pilots,” Rosemary murmured.

  A cold wind came sweeping up the mountain. Sharp bits of snow cut at their cheeks. They were impatient to make a start when, as before, the dark-faced lady held them up.

  “My bag!” she exclaimed. “I must have it!”

  “Safe enough here,” said Mark. “All locked up. We’re staying, the pilot and I.”

  “But I insist!” She stamped the ground impatiently.

  Five minutes of chilling delay, and she had it. Nor would she relinquish its care to the most courteous traveling man. She plunged through the snow with it banging at her side.

  “Queer about that bag,” Rosemary murmured to Danby Force, who marched at her side.

  To her surprise he shot her a strange—perhaps, she thought, a startled look.

  “As if I had discovered some secret,” she thought to herself. “Well, I haven’t—not yet.”

  After floundering through the snow for some distance, they came at last to a spot where a trail wound down the mountainside. Ten minutes of following this trail brought them to a long, low, broad-roofed building that, in the gathering darkness, seemed gloomy and forbidding.

  “Fine place for a murder,” Danby Force whispered to Rosemary.

  “Don’t say that!” She shuddered.

  Stamping their feet on the broad veranda, they pushed the door open and entered. Danby Force struck a match. Directly before him, at the opposite side of the room, was a fire all laid in a broad fireplace. The young man’s second match set a mellow glow of light from the dancing flames searching out every dark corner. For the time at least, the place lost its forbidding aspect. Indeed it might well have been the banquet hall of some ancient British hunting lodge, of long ago.

  Nor was the banquet lacking. Rosemary Sample was from Kansas. And in Kansas mothers teach their daughters to cook. Fragrant coffee, crisp bacon, candied sweet potatoes, plum pudding from a can, steamed to a delicious fineness—this was the repast she prepared for the guests of her trans-continental airplane.

  All thoughts of the dark-faced lady’s mysterious bag, of Danby Force’s urgent need, and of the gypsies’ fortune telling were forgotten in the merriment that followed. One of the college youths, who had slept all the day, discovered an ancient accordion and at once began playing delirious music. The rough floor was cleared and all joined in a wild dance—all but the dark-faced one who sat gloomily in a corner.

  From time to time as the music died away, Rosemary listened for the sounds that came down the chimney. There was a whistle and a moan, the sighing of evergreen trees and then a rushing roar as if a giant were blowing across a mammoth bottle.

  “Be here all night,” she said to Danby Force at last.

  “Guess so. Fine place for a murder.” He smiled at her in a curious way as he repeated that weird remark of a few hours before.

  “Strange place for a—” Rosemary could not make her lips form that remaining word as, two hours later, staring into the dark, she whispered that line. She was in the bunk room at the back of the lodge. The women of the company were all sleeping there. The men had cots before the fire in the main room.

  The dark lady had dragged her traveling bag into the farthest corner and had crept beneath her blankets after very little undressing. A very strange person, this dark lady. Rosemary did not exactly like her, but found in her a certain fascination. Even now, as she turned her face toward that corner, she fancied that she could see her eyes shining like a cat’s eyes in the dark. Pure fancy, she knew, but disturbing for all that.

  Just when she fell asleep she never quite knew. She was always definite about the time of waking—it was just at the break of dawn. She was startled out of deep sleep by a sudden piercing scream. Instantly Danby Force’s words came to her. “Fine place for a murder.” But there had been no murder.

  CHAPTER II

  THE VANISHING BAG

  “My bag! It is gone! My traveling bag! It has been stolen!” The young stewardess knew on the instant that the dark-faced lady was the one who was screaming. That the bag was truly missing she did not doubt.

  “Well, it’s happened,” she thought to herself as she tumbled from her bunk.

  What she said to the dark-faced lady was done in a more official manner:

  “I’m sure it can’t be far away. Someone has moved it by mistake. We’ll dress, then we will have a look.” Her tone was calm enough, though her heart was not.

  They did dress and they did have a look—several looks, but all to no avail.

  To Rosemary this was distressing. The whole affair had gone off so extremely well until now. Of course no one had wished to be delayed on the journey, but the evening in the lodge had been a delightful one. She had planned waffles with real maple syrup and coffee for breakfast. And now came this. It was disheartening.

  Here in the gloom of early morning was the dark-faced woman claiming that her traveling bag had been taken. And who, in the end, could doubt it? It surely was not to be seen in the bunk room. Everything was turned over there except the dark one’s bunk which had been made up. And of course in a bunk flat as a pancake one does not look for a sizable traveling bag stuffed with all manner of things.

  It was not in the large outer room either. When they went outside to see if some person might have crept in and taken it, or, as the dark-faced one insisted, “crept out to hide it” there was the clean white snow with never a track save the half-buried one of Mark Morris coming to report on the progress of the storm some hours before.

  “It’s the strangest thing!” said Rosemary, for once finding herself quite out of bounds. “It can’t have gotten away. It just can’t
!”

  “I insist that every person in the place be searched!” the dark woman demanded.

  “What! Search our pockets for a traveling bag?” A rotund drummer roared with laughter.

  “Not for the bag, but for the valuable papers I carried. The bag, more than likely, has been burned in the fireplace.”

  “Absurd!” exclaimed one of the middle-aged ladies. “Leather creates a terrible odor when burned.”

  “Who said it was leather?” snapped the inquisitor. “It was, I believe, fiber.”

  In the end, for the good of her company’s reputation, Rosemary persuaded them to submit to a search of a sort. The men emptied their pockets, then turned them inside out. The dark-faced woman went over the other women with hands that suggested they might have been used for that same purpose often, so deft, precise and cat-like were her motions.

  It was while the men were going through their part of the performance that the young stewardess noticed a curious thing. The woman watched them all with what appeared to be slight interest until it came the turn of Danby Force who had paid so high a price for his reservation on this plane. Then it seemed to the girl that veritable sparks of fire shot from the black eyes of the woman. That she took in every detail was evident. That a look of grim satisfaction, seeming to say, “Ah ha! It is as I thought!” settled on the woman’s face at that moment, the girl could not for a moment doubt.

  “But why?” she asked herself. “Why?”

  To this question she could form no sensible answer for, as in all other cases, the woman said in a low tone: “None of these are mine.”

  Just then the airplane pilot came in to tell them that the storm was at an end and they might resume their journey. In the rush of preparation, the hurried brewing of coffee, the hasty eating of a rather meager breakfast, the dark-faced woman and her vanished traveling bag were pretty much forgotten.

  When at last the travelers were on their way, walking single-file up the steep incline, Rosemary found herself standing quite unexpectedly beside the strange young man, Danby Force.

  “Wonderful place, this lodge!” he was saying. “Wouldn’t mind coming up here for a week sometime.”

  “Nor I!” Rosemary spoke with unfeigned enthusiasm. And who would not? They were standing on a broad ledge. Above them, seeming to melt into the fleecy clouds, was the mountain’s snowy peak. Below, a sheer drop of a thousand feet, was a very narrow valley all covered with the dark green of pine, spruce, cedar and tamarack. The air was rich with the fragrance of the forest.

  “One of the high officials in our company is a member,” Rosemary said, nodding back at the lodge. “That’s why we are free to use it.”

  “I fancy I shall be coming back.” The young man spoke slowly. He looked her squarely in the eyes. Then turning, he followed swiftly after the others.

  “What did he mean by that?” Rosemary asked herself. A strange thought leaped unbidden into her mind. “Supposing the young man took the missing bag and hid it somewhere about the place?

  “Nonsense!” she whispered. “Where could he have hidden it? No one had been outside, absolutely no one. And if he did take it, surely he would not tell me he hoped to return.”

  Then a strange fact struck her—the look on this young man’s face had changed. When she first saw him he had the appearance of one who had gone through much, who was still haunted by the thought of some great loss. Now his face was as bland and cheerful as an early spring morning.

  “What am I to make of that?” she asked herself.

  The answer in the end appeared simple enough, “One good night’s sleep.” This, she knew full well, was capable of working wonders on a young and buoyant spirit.

  It is strange the manner in which a single incident may change the whole course of thought for an entire group. As they resumed their journey to Salt Lake City, no one in the plane discussed economic conditions or child welfare. No one read. No one wrote or figured. When they spoke it was in low tones just above the roar of the motors. And Rosemary, though she heard never a word, knew they talked of the dark-faced woman and her missing bag. “And those who do not talk are thinking of it,” she told herself. “And it is strange! What can have become of that bag?”

  As if reading her thoughts, Danby Force leaned across the aisle to say in a low distinct tone: “I fancy Santa Claus must have come down that broad chimney and carried it off.”

  Those were the only words spoken to her until they were nearing their destination. Then that strange young man leaned over once more to say:

  “Curious sort of job you’ve got here! Necessary enough, though. And you fit in very well, I can see that. I am no end grateful for what you did back there in Chicago. You saved the situation for me, you surely did! Hope I may travel with you often. This is my first trip by air, but not the last—you may be assured of that. I enjoy being carried along by this—this invisible power.” He chuckled. “And I—I like the company, if you don’t mind my saying it.”

  “Not in the least. I’ve enjoyed knowing you.” Rosemary was vexed at herself for saying so trite a thing. Truth was, her mind was still filled with that missing bag. That the dark-faced woman would report the loss to the office and that there would be no end of fuss about it, she did not doubt.

  “I—I’d like to know you better,” she added as a kind of after-thought, as she favored Danby Force with a smile.

  “You will,” he prophesied, “Oh yes, I am sure you will.”

  “And if I don’t,” she told herself a moment later, “I shan’t know much except that he says his name is Danby Force and that he fancies, at least, that he can be of service to a few thousand people. Well—” she sighed, “that’s really something, if it’s not pure fancy.”

  The landing field at Salt Lake City seemed hot after their rapid gliding down from the lands of perpetual snow. In spite of this, Rosemary Sample breathed a sigh of relief. Her journey was over. From this point the party would break up. She would rest for a few hours, then go soaring back to home base where she was to have two whole days to herself.

  “Guess we’d better stick around for a bit,” suggested the pilot. “That woman will be putting in a complaint. We’ll have to tell what we know.

  “For that matter, though,” he added, “I can’t see that we have much responsibility in the matter. She refused to leave the bag locked in the plane where it would have been safe. Took the matter in her own hands. The bag was in her possession when it disappeared. So—o!” He smiled. “That about lets us out. We—

  “Look there!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Even the gypsies are taking to the air.”

  At that moment a stout dark-faced woman, wearing the typical gypsy garb, broad, bright-colored skirt and dazzling silk scarf tied about her head, was alighting from a small cabin-type monoplane. The plane was like a huge dragon fly. It had a bottle-green body and silver wings that glistened like glass in the sun.

  The stout, dark woman was followed by a girl of some eight years. And after her, in a pilot’s garb, came a golden-haired girl who did not look a day over eighteen.

  “It’s strange!” Rosemary’s tone expressed her surprise. “I saw those same people in Chicago, just before we took off. And now, here they are right with us.”

  “Not so strange,” replied the pilot. “That giant bug of hers may be quite speedy. They probably took off later than we did and just in time to miss the storm.

  “But look!” he exclaimed, “If that sort of thing is allowed to go on, what is to come of this bright new thing we call aviation? There’ll be a crack-up every day in the week. The papers will be full of them and no one will dare to travel by air. And all that because of rank amateurs and lax regulations. I’m starting an investigation right now.”

  “Nice plane you have,” he said to the golden-haired girl.

  “Oh yes, but perhaps a little too small.” The girl spoke with a p
leasing foreign accent.

  “You’re not a gypsy?” The veteran pilot smiled in spite of himself.

  “But no.” The girl smiled back. “Not entirely. I am French. People call me Petite Jeanne. I was adopted by gypsies in France. Oh so good, Christian gypsies! This lady is Mrs. Bihari, my foster mother.”

  “I suppose,” said Mark with a laugh, “that you traded a flivver for an automobile, the auto for a better one, the better one for a poor airplane, the poor plane for a good one?”

  “But no!” The golden-haired girl frowned. “A year ago my own people were found in France. I had inherited property. This is my very own plane. And see!” She held out a paper. “This is my license to fly.”

  “Mind if I take your ship up for a little spin?” Mark said bluntly.

  “But no.” The girl spoke slowly. “That is, if I may go, and if she will go with us.” She nodded her head toward Rosemary.

  Rosemary had little desire to fly in a small plane. She had always traveled in the magnificent big bi-motored transportation planes which, she believed, were safe as walking. She had it on the tip of her tongue to refuse, when the girl cast her an appealing look that she could not well disregard.

  “Yes,” she said, “yes, surely I will go.”

  Three minutes later they were in the air. Ten minutes later, with a sigh of relief Rosemary found her feet once more on the solid earth.

  “You’d be surprised!” Mark whispered enthusiastically. “Never saw a better equipped plane, nor one in finer condition. That motor is a joy! The radio is perfect. Everything, just everything. If all the amateurs were as careful this world of the air would be one great big joy.”

  “Wonderful little plane!” he exclaimed, gripping the little French girl’s hand. “And how wonderfully cared for!”

  “But why not?” The girl showed all her white teeth in a smile. “We gypsy people have a saying, ‘Life is God’s most beautiful gift to man.’ This is true, I am sure. Then why should anyone do less than the very best that he might keep that gift?”