The Third Girl Detective

by Margaret Sutton

  Saturday morning dawned as a beautiful June day can, clear, bright, fragrant with flowers, musical with bird songs and fairly cool with a fresh breeze from the lakes. “I wish we had planned to do something to-day,” said Jean to her father. “We were so lazy yesterday, after Commencement.”

  “Drive out into the country with me,” said the judge. “I’m leaving about nine o’clock. Your mother’s going with me. Like to take any of the girls along?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. But we can only get five in the back part, three on the back seat.”

  The judge laughed. “You are a great girl. You want the whole seven, I suppose. Why don’t you call up Leigh and ask her if her folks can’t come along? We might make a picnic of it. I’m going to look at a piece of land and I wouldn’t mind having Dudley along.”

  “But doesn’t he have to be at the bank?”

  “Don’t I have to be at my office? Presidents of banks, my dear, aren’t really as necessary to the daily job as cashiers and a few others.”

  “How lucky for them. Why, do I dare suggest anything like a picnic to the Dudleys? And is Mother willing?”

  “Ask her.”

  “I will put up a lunch if Mrs. Dudley will,” said Mrs. Gordon with an expression of amusement that Jean did not understand at the time. In a moment Jean was at the telephone.

  “Why, isn’t that luck for you, Leigh!” Jean was heard exclaiming. “Has just asked you if you wouldn’t like a ride into the country? Well, anybody would on a day like this. Whom do you want to take? Phoebe, I suppose? All right. I’ll get Nan and Molly, then, if you want to take the rest.” Jean flew out of the open front door without stopping to explain, for she knew that her parents could overhear what she said to Leigh.

  Mrs. Gordon was at the telephone herself as soon as Jean had gone. She sent several messages rapidly, but was in the kitchen packing a large basket when Jean returned. “My, you’re taking a lot of things!” Jean exclaimed.

  “With the Dudleys, my dear, I want to have something to offer, you see. It is a good thing I did my baking yesterday.”

  “Why, so you did. When did you ever do that before? I’m glad now that you wouldn’t cut that cake for supper. And I don’t suppose the girls will have a chance to bring much. I told Nan and Molly that I’d take enough for them. Was that all right?”

  “Perfectly. Make a few more cheese sandwiches, Jean, and we’ll soon be ready. I think I’ll put in those cookies, too. We can buy something for Sunday if we’re all eaten out of baked things.” Mrs. Gordon said nothing about the fat meat loaf in the bottom of the basket or the chicken which she had fried while Jean was at Nan’s Friday afternoon. She looked like a little older edition of Jean as she hurried around with flushed cheeks.

  Presently they were all out upon the pretty river road, the Dudley car overtaking them. The girls leaned out to call to each other, as the machines drew abreast for a short distance. “I think we’ll go on to what the youngsters call Baldy for our lunch, Dudley. What do you think?” asked Judge Gordon.

  “You could not find a better place,” Mr. Dudley replied. “Take the lead. I’ll follow.”

  So the two gentlemen were not looking up the “piece of land” at once. The girls were quite satisfied, but wished that they had thought to bring their bathing suits. They crossed the river by the big bridge, took a roundabout route by fairly good roads through the beautiful, undulating country with its frequent pools and tiny lakes. Stretches of woodland or pastures and fields were equally attractive, but at length they came to the thick woods where a road ran in for a little way, then changed from lane to footpath.

  “Isn’t this the grandest woods?” asked Jean, whose favorite adjective was “grand.” The other girls agreed that it was and that it was a shame they could not come more often to this lake. Yet it was too far for an ordinary hike and the machines of the parents were not available, as a rule. These facts were mentioned, and the girls did not notice a lad who viewed the party from a woodsy distance and then noiselessly slipped away to give the word.

  The two fathers carried the two large baskets, while the two mothers and girls brought the light blankets used in the cars in cool weather. These would do to spread upon the ground. Various small articles which had not found room in the basket were distributed. “My, but we’re going to have a big lunch!” cried Nan. “It’s a regular S. P. picnic. I wish my mother and father could ever get away for one. Poor Dad! Always at the office!”

  The girls ran on ahead, as girls do. The mothers and fathers exchanged glances. “It worked out better than I was afraid it would,” said Mrs. Gordon. “Jean doesn’t suspect a thing.”

  “I’m relieved that the secrecy is over, though,” said Mrs. Dudley with a smile. “Now we’ll see how they like it. I hope everybody is here. You took us for a fine ride around, Judge Gordon.”

  “I tried to give everybody time enough, Mrs. Dudley.” The judge looked at his watch. “Just eleven. They’ll be here. I suppose that the boys have been having their scouts out to watch us and report. Jimmy Standish was the only one who had to wait, on Nan’s account, and drive his father and mother.”

  It took probably ten minutes of walking through the woods by the pretty trail before they came to the sloping shores of the lake that stretched its shining ripples so invitingly before them. “Why, Mother!” exclaimed Jean, looking to the left toward a cleared space, “Someone has been building a summer cottage! Oh, it must be the Black Wizards!” For Judge Gordon gave a little whistle and from behind the house the boys came running, Jimmy and Billy in the lead.

  “How do you like the house, Jean?” asked Billy, all grins.

  “Grand! What a beautiful surprise! It will beat our Attic Party to smithereens! Why, this is wonderful of you, to get up a surprise picnic like this. Oh, it’s a cute little cottage. I hope you will take us inside of it.”

  “We certainly will.”

  The other boys were in similar conversation with the other S. P.’s—but here came other folks around the house. The various fathers and mothers! The S. P.’s gasped. The boys had not left them out in celebrating the finishing of their summer camp! All the S. P. parents, all the Black Wizard parents, so far as they could tell in a hasty glance at the group, were there.

  But Judge Gordon was coming to the front and raising his hand. “I think that some explanation is due these surprised girls of ours. They ought to know that their energy and that of our boys has made some of us parents realize what should be done to help them. Among other things we have seen that the outdoor movements are a good thing, properly managed, and we decided to help a little there.

  “Then it happens that both boys and girls have been talking about books, and it made us see that there was not even a proper school library of reference books to say nothing of a library in the town where they could gather for reading. Your little nature library, girls, and the boys’ few books on adventure and history have started more than you knew. Some of us fathers got together the other day. We are all of us, boys and girls and older boys and girls, going to start raising money together next fall, or even before, for a public library; and probably we shall not stop there, with our progressive town paper to back us.” The judge waved his hand at Mr. Standish as he said this.

  “And whether S. P. refers to sugar plums, sweet peas, seraphic peris or a sane purpose and secure partnership, we give them the credit for calling our attention to the needs of our little city. They have shown us Stirring Possibilities and have already assured us some Social Progress! I understand that they are intending to enlarge their club with that purpose. Jean, can you tell us what your club stands for?”

  Jean, absolutely surprised, thought for a moment that she could not say a word. It was dreadful of her father to ask her to make a speech. But while she hesitated, led out from the midst of the girls by Nan, her father said, “No speech, Jean; but you are the president, I believe.” />
  “Yes, sir. Why—some of us a good while ago had been wishing that we knew more about what other girls were doing and something suddenly decided us to have a club. That was all. Then, of course, having started it, we kept on and Miss Haynes helped us find out about a great many things, and we decided to raise money for a library. First it was just our own and then we wondered if we couldn’t do something about a school library. But it is wonderful that all of you are thinking about a town library and all I can say for us girls is that we will help all we can, and make fudge by the—quart, and everything! And thank you for the surprise of this picnic.” Jean’s usually quick mind could think of nothing more to say and she stepped back in some confusion.

  “Just a moment, girls, now that you are getting used to surprises,” said the judge. “I believe that I will ask the editor to tell you whose summer cottage this is—Mr. Standish.”

  Jean gasped again. Now she knew. This was not the Black Wizard shack. The tall judge stepped back and the wiry, slight, editor, Nan’s father, stepped forward from a group. “This should all be very informal,” said he, “as it is a picnic occasion. It seems to fall to me to announce to our girls that the S. P. Club owns this little cottage and that it is a gift from the S. P. fathers and mothers, who have fitted it up very simply. The boys helped build it and I assure you that we all had a time of it to keep it a secret, but I believe that it was done. We hope that it will be a happy surprise to you and that you may have a very good time of it this summer. The boys want me to announce to you that they, too, have a camp about a mile around the lake from here and that after you have looked at your new house, the picnic will be held there.”

  As Mr. Standish closed, Jean looked at her father, who nodded encouragingly. She felt stunned as well as happy to know that this summer camp was theirs, but her mind had been working this time. “Oh,” she began impulsively, “you know how we must feel, Mr. Standish, more like crying for joy! I couldn’t say anything if I weren’t the president and have to. We’ll all be thanking our fathers and mothers separately, and every one of the boys for helping do this. So all I’m saying now is just thank you, everybody!”

  Jean turned to her mother and put her head on that comfortable shoulder for a minute, but a sudden thought made her swallow the lump in her throat and she turned to Nan and the rest of the astonished, ecstatic girls. “Oh, say, girls, let me whisper something to you,” and she whispered to Nan, who nodded and passed the word on to the nearest girl, while Jean told someone else. That message no one but the S. P.’s were ever to know. “Let’s never tell the boys that we knew they were building,” said Jean. It was not much, to be sure, but no unpleasant note of rivalry could ever be struck between the S. P.’s and the Black Wizards!

  The commotion now began. The girls were beckoned into the little house that was theirs by the parents, who wanted to see how they liked it. The boys scattered, some of them taking the baskets and wraps brought by the Dudleys and Gordons. These were carried to the other camp by boat, for a little fleet of row-boats, canoes and one small motor boat was waiting to take the picnickers to where the other “opening” was to be celebrated.

  “Daddy, I forgot to tell them about our motto. And you thought up the best name yet for us, a Social Progress Club.”

  “That daughter, was on the spur of the moment. Was it too much to give you such a big surprise with no warning?”

  “Oh, it is just too wonderful. I can’t tell you how happy I am, and I know the other girls feel the same way. Just look at them!”

  The summer cottage stood facing the path and lane in a measure, but with its back to the lake. It was explained that the road was to be widened, to permit of driving to the house with supplies and that it seemed better to have the front face in that direction. “But your screened sleeping porch is toward the lake,” one of the fathers showed them, “and your main room out upon the water.”

  Neat, trim, painted white, with golden brown storm shutters, and made of boards closely set, the little house justified the girls’ exclamations. It was not plastered inside, but it was tight and snug against ordinary winds. One immense room with a pantry and a large closet opening at one side, and the long sleeping porch across the back, constituted the interior. “That big closet, girls, could be made into a bathroom,” said Mrs. Dudley, “if a water system could be arranged some time. But you will be glad of all the hooks in there, now, and a place for your luggage. Be careful of that coal-oil stove, and the big range will keep you warm in a cold spell. There is money for a little set of dishes and some kitchenware, and we thought that it would be more fun for you to buy it yourselves and fix up the place. Do you like the color the boys painted the floor?”

  The girls liked everything; what fun it was going to be, to buy things for their summer cottage.

  “Notice,” said one mother, “that there are keys and also bolts on all the doors. We feel much safer to have you in a house like this. With Grace here and the boys only a mile away, you ought to be safe. Jimmy said something about rigging up a telephone, and I hope they do it.”

  “To think that our fathers, as well as the boys, drove some of the nails in this!” rather sentimentally said Leigh. “I’d like to stay right out here to-night!”

  “You would find it rather inconvenient, Leigh,” laughed her mother. “We did not like to buy blankets and things and leave them here. There is time enough.”

  So there was. After lingering looks all around, the girls were willing to leave in the boats for the other camp, where they were shown all over the little peninsula which the boys had chosen as a site. The boys’ “Shack,” as they called it was not as smooth as the girls’ and as yet unpainted, but it was well built, for they had had the assistance of carpenters on this as on the other. The main room was more open and the boys would sleep in bunks. “Got lots of windows, you see, and if it rains in, it can’t hurt our floor.”

  “Lookout for what you call your port holes, Billy,” said Nan, to Billy, who had made this remark. “You want to keep the rain from your bunks at least.”

  The picnic was held outdoors, on a slope which overlooked the lake. There were not so many Black Wizard parents as the girls had at first supposed, but most of the sisters had come, and the S. P.’s decided to invite some of them to visit their camp during the weeks there, if Grace were willing. It would be such a shame to keep all that fun to themselves. “We could have them all, in relays, couldn’t we, Jean?” asked Nan.

  “We certainly could, and several are the right age to join the S. P.’s. Daddy just told me that he and Mr. Standish and Mr. Dudley and Mr. Baxter have bought up a lot of the land around this end of the lake, to make it safe and keep it wild for us, and to put up a few more little shacks if we want any more campers. I’m so stunned over it that I don’t know who I am!”

  The girls, in spite of their dazed condition which they claimed, threw themselves into the boys’ celebration heartily and raved as girls are supposed to do over the location and plans. Nor did they forget to be sincere in their thanks for the Wizards’ part in the great surprise. “It was perfectly grand!” cried Jean, with a sandwich in one hand and a chicken wing in the other.

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE S. P.’S DISCOVER GRETA

  Greta wakened to the sound of rain, beating upon the old roof and leaking into her attic. The first drops beat a tattoo within the old tin pan that she kept under the worst leak. What had happened? Oh, yes. She remembered, though her head had stopped aching. It was sore, though, under the bandage. She heard the children downstairs only faintly. Why, they must be up and about, all of the family—and no one had called her. What Greta did not know was that the “horse-doctor” had warned Mrs. Klein in no uncertain words that Greta had had a dangerous fall and must be allowed to rest for fear of serious consequences. “And you know that it might be looked into, how she got it,” he had said, for he thought that he noted suspicious anxiety on her par
t. Jacob Klein’s character was not unknown in these parts.

  With her foot Greta felt that her precious book was safely there. She wondered if she could think of a better place. How soon would she be called? It was so cloudy that she had no way of knowing what time it was. The old clock downstairs did not strike and half the time it did not even go.

  After a little she heard her mother telling the children to go back and coming, lumbering, up the attic stairs. Greta’s big eyes were fixed on her as she came into the low room, complaining in voluble German that it had to be a rainy day and that the doctor had said Greta could not work. She would have the washings to start herself. A cup of coffee and a piece of bread, broken from a loaf, were put down on a chair by the bed.

  Greta expected to be ordered up then, but no, her mother turned to go, telling her to do what the doctor said about the medicine. “He hit you?” she asked, and Greta answered that “he” had.

  Greta could scarcely believe her good fortune. She was not even to take care of the children, poor little things, kept in by the rain. As soon as her mother had gone downstairs, Greta sat up and unpinned the bandage on her head. She was a little dizzy, but she poured some water from her old pitcher into the tin basin which was her lavatory and bathed the cut. She anointed it and tied up her head again, as the doctor had directed, taking a tablet, too, to swallow down with the black coffee. A whole day to herself! A book to read.

  Something was queer. Oh, yes, what they had said. She was not Jacob Klein’s daughter. How had she learned to speak English as well as the summer cottagers did, and better than some of them? Why had her German been “forgotten,” as they had said, when she was so sick with brain fever? She tried to remember those first days, four years before, when she found herself getting strong enough to sit up and then to walk. Mrs. Klein had been kinder then. “Why, I can, too, remember,” she said to herself, as a scene rose before her of herself in a dark woods, frightened and running. Then someone picked her up. Oh, it was coming back! But she grew dizzy again as she sat up in her desire to remember and the excitement of it. She would not think till she was better.