The Third Girl Detective

by Margaret Sutton

  It took a little while for the girls and boys to think up their favorite flower, study, ambition and friend of the other sex, and some of the more easily embarrassed omitted the last requirement, though Jean told them that it was “very dangerous” to do so. There was much chuckling and joking while all this was being done, but Number One was ready before long. Then Jean drew aside the two curtains that were directly in front and disclosed a low chair, behind which stood the “Guardian” of the cave, her face concealed by a long veil of yellow cheese-cloth, the same material as that in the girls’ costumes.

  The swinging door, cut irregularly, and the mortar board around it had been painted in gray and black to represent rocks over quite a surface not hidden by gray draperies. These were fastened to the board, and also covered what was really an old stove pipe, whose end protruded, but was carefully pasted over outside, and inside for a short distance, with more “gray rocks,” in heavy paper.

  “After the Guardian has retired into the cave to carry your message to the sibyl, you will take your turn in sitting in this chair, to listen to your fates. Through this long tube of natural rock the oracle will be declared!”

  Jean did not try to keep her face straight as she made this dignified speech, and the boys and girls had all sorts of funny comments to make while she handed the slips to the priestess of the yellow veil, or motioned to them to do so. Then she drew the curtains together again, while the Guardian entered the cave, as she explained.

  “These slips will be all mixed up, of course, and the great sibyl will not know who is Number One or Number Two when she receives these slips. I do not myself know in what order you will be summoned.”

  Again Jean drew aside the long curtains. A hoarse whisper issued from the stove-pipe. “The oracle is ready. Let Number Thirty enter.”

  This happened to be Jimmy, who sat in the little chair none too comfortably, and had trouble to draw up his knees sufficiently for them to be concealed behind the curtains when Jean drew them in front of him. “Say, Jean, can’t a fellow have any air to breathe?” he asked.

  “Plenty coming from the cave,” she replied. “The S. P. string quartette will now render a number while the oracle speaks these secret fates.”

  Attention was diverted from the oracle while the “string” quartette was found to consist of Bess with her ukelele, Fran with her guitar, Phoebe with an old banjo, on which she only pretended to play, and Nan with a comb! But ukelele, guitar and Nan’s comb, together with the laughter of the guests, made so much noise that Jimmy stuck his head out from behind the curtains. “Say, the oracle says she can’t make me hear with all that noise.” Jimmy was evidently enjoying himself, if he had been a little hesitant about being the first victim.

  The music grew softer immediately, but it was impossible to curb the chatter, and, indeed, if there were any privacy to the fortunes, some distraction outside was necessary.

  After the first the fortunes were rapidly told, but in spite of the whispered messages, the boys guessed pretty well who was the chief sibyl, Leigh. It had to be either Leigh or Molly, for there were Jean and the “string” quartette right before them.

  “She’s right in that cabinet,” said Danny, coming out with a grin.

  “No, she isn’t,” said Jean. “Don’t you know that sibyls only speak from a great distance in some shrine or other?”

  “But you wouldn’t say that this is one, would you, to be honest?”

  “Well, I’m not saying; only she isn’t in this room.”

  Leigh was enjoying herself. She had learned to tell clever fortunes and with the concealment her shyness disappeared. It was not necessary for her to have the slips, prepared with such care, for her “fortunes” had been prepared beforehand with a good knowledge of each girl’s and boy’s history, likes and dislikes. She was stationed just outside the double windows, upon the tiny balcony there. The movable front of the “cabinet” or “cave” extended sufficiently to allow the other end of the stove-pipe to connect with Leigh and the balcony. Had any of the boys gone out through the windows, they would have seen how it was managed. But the couch on which the players sat had been placed in front of the windows for the occasion, and until the time to admit the guests the door of the sanctum sanctorum had been locked. Molly, who could see each occupant of the little chair, through a cleverly arranged peep-hole, scribbled the name on a bit of paper and passed it to Leigh, who read it by a flashlight. But it was a long time before any of the boys knew how it had been managed.

  After all the fortunes had been told, except those of the seven sibyls, the company was invited out into the real attic stretches for games. While Jean was starting these, Molly came from the cave, locked the door on the inside and then admitted Leigh, who had been afraid someone would see her if she climbed through the lighted windows. In darkness Molly received her, and when they left the room they locked the door behind them lest any investigator should discover their secret.

  There was plenty of room for the usual games played at their parties and after two or three, Jean, who had not forgotten the request of the S. P.’s to the Wizards, clapped her hands together for quiet and said with a deep bow to Jimmy, “We have with us tonight the secret society known as the Black Wizards and we have hoped that they would give us something far better than anything the S. P.’s can think up. The Black Wizards, ladies and gentlemen!”

  Great clapping of hands came from the ladies of the company, but Jimmy, Grand Wizard of Wizards, had always thought that what the younger boys had prepared to do was “too dumb.” He wasn’t going to have them show themselves less smart than those cute S. P.’s.

  “Madame president, or leader of the Sibyl Priestesses,” and Jimmy emphasized that, “we greatly regret that after all this fine entertainment the Black Wizards cannot now respond. In other words, kids, we haven’t our stuff with us and can’t handle it in a strange attic! But we hope to have a celebration some day, in our own quarters, where we may show you what Black Magic can do!”

  “Wow!” said Billy, who knew that Jimmy had made up the expression Black Magic on the spot. But the boys were much relieved at being let off from the stunt which they had prepared without any inspiration except that of dire warnings from the seniors.

  And all this time that boys and girls in the little town were manufacturing mystery, less than fifty miles away, a young girl was living it.

  CHAPTER IX

  MORE IDEAS AND A WIZARD MYSTERY

  The S. P. Attic Party was voted a success. The girls were tired but happy over it, for their guests had so obviously enjoyed themselves. There were so many echoes of it that it was hard to settle down to lessons on Monday. Phoebe was sitting with Leigh on an iron bench in the school grounds that afternoon, soon after they had been dismissed, when Danny, or Dan, as he preferred to be called, came by with Raleigh Warner and stopped to talk.

  “I have an idea, Phoebe, if you will believe such a thing possible,” said Dan. “Could you let me borrow some of the cartoons you and Molly drew for your show Saturday?”

  “Our show!”

  “Well, your art gallery, then. I mean the ones about school, that good one of the principal, and the funny one Molly called ‘What May Happen Soon’.”

  “Mercy, which one was that? I’ve forgotten.”

  “The one where Miss James is driving the ponies out of the Cicero class and they’re kicking up their heels, and some of the boys, the riders, I suppose, are flat on the floor.”

  “Yes, Dan, and that is a good one where Billy is pulling his father’s Ford out of the mud-hole where he got stuck, and the one where the bob-sled is and Fran looking at her ruined hat.” Raleigh was adding this.

  “I see,” said Phoebe. “You just want to borrow them?”

  “That is all—now. How soon could we find out whether the girls will let us have them or not?”

  “Oh, pretty soon. I’ll call up Jean
as soon as I get home. Suppose you call me up about supper time. I’ll know by then. Of course, you will be careful of our masterpieces?”

  “I’ll treat them like glass, honest. I just want to show them to somebody now.”

  “All right. I’m willing, if Molly is and if Jean has no objection.”

  As no one objected to lending pictures to the boys, the following day saw Dan and “Rall” conferring with Jimmy Standish, and later with no less a person than the editor himself, in the editorial sanctum, a very ordinary but busy office.

  “Why, yes,” said Mr. Standish, “we could print it for you at a very moderate price, but who will pay for the job? We are not running on exactly a missionary basis.”

  “No, sir. We will pay for it out of our own pockets, unless it is more than we can handle, and soon the subscribers will pay for it.”

  “You are more sure of your subscribers than we are,” said the editor, with a smile. “Let’s see the pictures.”

  Dan unwrapped Molly’s and Phoebe’s drawings.

  “Clever stuff,” said the editor, with another smile. “Yes, for a school paper such outlines will do very well. Send the girls in to see me some time. I can give them a hint or two. My advice is to make your paper snappy and short. Begin with two rather small pages or even one sheet. If you want to enlarge it you can. Get your stuff together and hand it to Jimmy to make ready for you. I’m making an editor out of Jimmy as soon as he learns a few more things—”

  “About printing, and the composing room, and reporting, and everything else,” added Jimmy, who came in at this moment. “But Dan has a good idea about a school paper, Dad, and I think it will go with the kids. We’ll try ’em out on the first numbers. I’m to write the first editorials, Dad, so if there is anything you want to get across on school matters, let me know.”

  “All right, Jimmy. There are a whole lot of things I’d like to ‘get across’ in this town, boys, but you don’t dare wake ’em up too soon when they’re walking in their sleep.”

  “Gee, isn’t Jimmy’s dad smart?” asked Dan, as the boys left the office. “That was a hot one about this town’s walking in its sleep.”

  “We’d better keep it under our hats, too, boy. He said more than he meant to. Did you see Jimmy making eyes at him?”

  The girls, meantime, were in the dark in regard to why the two boys wanted the drawings. They were more concerned, however, about having missed a day’s hiking, when they heard what Miss Haynes had seen, in spite of the bad, windy morning. Wednesday morning they were to meet at four o’clock, with their breakfasts in their pockets, and hike till schooltime. May was going and with it the spring migration of birds; Miss Haynes would be going away after school closed, the first week in June, and there would be no one to make them sure about what they saw.

  “Oh, but you must learn to make yourselves sure,” she told them, when Jean said as much to her. “You will miss some things; everybody does; but you’ll learn twice as much on your own initiative!”

  This hike was to be “on their own,” then, for even Miss Haynes could not manage a hike before school. And curiously enough, it was because of their early rising that the S. P.’s surprised a venture of the Black Wizards, which it was quite plainly to be seen that they had hoped to keep a secret.

  It was great fun to be starting off together in the early morning. They would not even make a fire for wieners or bacon. This was strictly a cold breakfast. As they went they munched sandwiches and tossed crumbs and cold banana skins “to the birds,” they said. Judge Gordon had bought Jean some glasses as good as those of Miss Haynes and these she shared with the rest, for who could see the markings on a warbler or a vireo up in the high treetops without a strong pair of lenses?

  The bushes and trees along the river road seemed best for finding warblers. Accordingly they were tramping along that road, still as mice, behind this bush or that, moving quietly, singly or by twos or threes, when they heard a shout and a big truck shot by. It was loaded with lumber and the shouting came from several boys of the Black Wizard combination who were either perched on the boards or sitting in the driver’s seat in front.

  Whether they had seen the girls or not was a doubtful matter. Jean came out from behind a tree against which she had been braced in trying to look almost over her head. “Say, every warbler will take to cover after that noise! Who was it?”

  “Oh, Jean! Didn’t you see them? They were the Black Wizards on a load of lumber, and why should they get up so early if they didn’t want to get out of town before we should see them?”

  “You flatter the S. P.’s, Fran. But I shouldn’t wonder if they are doing something.”

  “It does look that way, Jean,” said Molly, laughing at Jean’s blank look. “But maybe that wasn’t their lumber.”

  “And again, maybe it was,” remarked Bess.

  “Jimmy was in bed when I left,” thoughtfully Nan added. “And I hadn’t happened to say anything about our trip. I forgot it at supper, just told Mother when we were doing the dishes and I fixed something ready to take for my breakfast. I’ll warn Mother not to say anything, unless she has already. I don’t believe they saw us, and it is surely not for us to make any comments on where they were going.” Nan’s face wore a comically sober look.

  “Far be it,” said Leigh. “But where could they be taking it?”

  “All of us have a suspicion, of course. Girls, they could even reach Lake Michigan, unload and be back for school!”

  “Nonsense. Danny Pierce’s father has a farm on our little lake. Probably Mr. Pierce wanted Danny to bring out some lumber this morning while he could.” So concluded Jean.

  “Yes, but what were all those Black Wizards doing with Danny? Danny was driving, but you couldn’t get Rall out of bed with anything short of an earthquake for any helping Danny with a job like that!”

  “Yes, Rall is always a late riser, I’ve heard the boys say, poking fun at him. Maybe you’re right, Nan. Of course we want to go camping so much ourselves that our first thought is—what it is. Oh, wouldn’t it be great fun if our folks would let us go somewhere? A tent would be good enough for me! But it’s hopeless unless we can get some one to chaperon us. Mother won’t hear of anything else.”

  “We might camp in our back yards.”

  “Yes, we could,” said Molly, and meant it. “But when Grace gets home, I’m going to begin talking S. P. to her. She will be dead tired, and perhaps the woods will look good to her. We’ll do all the work.”

  “Oh, Molly! They’d let us go with Grace!”

  “I think so, Jean.”

  “Father has a piece of woods on Lake Michigan, or very near it,” offered Leigh. “I heard him say that he had sold a piece of it off not long ago. I never saw it, but it’s quite wild, Mother said. He always meant to build two or three cottages there, one for us, but he never has.”

  “I feel my brain expanding, girls,” soberly said Jean. “Find out, if it is permissible, to whom your father sold that land. Also please ask him if it has water and is free from wild animals!”

  Leigh laughingly said that she would make every inquiry suggested except the last. “There isn’t a bear left in the state except ‘way in the north.”

  “Who knows, girls?”

  “Nevertheless, Jean and Leigh,” said Nan, “I don’t believe that the boys would build on Michigan. More likely, if they are not close, they’ve gone on to what we call Lake Baldy because of all the eagles around there. The boys like that lake because there is such grand fishing there and more room to row and get around. I’ve heard Jimmy say so.”

  “Time will tell who is right,” said Bess. “Come on; the scare is over. Let’s go on to where all those trees are with such tiny foliage. They are just likely to be full of warblers.”

  CHAPTER X

  A LONELY GIRL

  The forlorn, tumble-down place of the Kleins was
on what had once been its own private road, the road that led into a large, well-kept farm of thrifty German immigrants. But this was long ago. A worthless son and a still more worthless grandson had scattered the holdings. The woodland and nearly all of the farm besides had been sold off for debts and living. All that was left numbered a few acres and those badly kept in the intervals of Jacob Klein’s drinking.

  Mrs. Klein, Jacob’s wife, was almost as far from German thrift and ideas of cleanliness as her husband, though, if some one else did the work, she was capable of having things done. And it was the girl known as Greta Klein that did them, for Greta did not even go to school. The district was thinly populated, or had been until people began to build cottages on the farther end of the lake. No one took an interest in these unattractive people and though it was quite probable that a school census had been taken and a visitor had called, possibly more than once, so far as Greta might have known, no one summoned her to school, no one passed that way to go to school, and Greta had never seen the quite distant spot where learning was the central idea.

  As the speech of the family was German, Greta spoke their poor dialect of that language, though she had recently found an old German Bible, of her great-grandmother’s, she supposed, in an ancient trunk which was in the queer little attic. But aside from this and a few papers, the trunk was empty, for everything which could possibly be used in the way of clothing had long since been put into use. But after the Bible was found, Greta’s German improved.