The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Julia K. Duncan

  “My Uncle John Trent!” The name came like a flash to Doris. “Why didn’t I think of it before?”

  She took from her pocket the photograph which the Gates twins had given her, and scanned it hopefully. The picture had been taken many years before, when her uncle and the Misses Gates were young. At first glance there did not appear to be the slightest resemblance between the youth of the photograph and Mr. Jay, but the longer Doris studied the face, the more troubled she became.

  “He has the same high forehead,” she compared mentally. “He’s about the same height, too, although Mr. Jay has acquired a stoop to his shoulders. I declare! There’s a marked resemblance! If Mr. Jay were slicked up, he would look the very picture of my uncle!”

  The discovery excited Doris. While she could not bring herself to the point of believing that Mr. Jay and John Trent were the same man, yet there was a growing suspicion in her mind. Now that she had struck a clue, she was determined to run it to earth «

  “I’ll go to Mr. Jay again,” she decided, “and plead with him to tell me everything.”

  She arose from the log and started back toward the old miser’s cabin, but just at that moment Mrs. Mallow opened the door of their own cottage and called to them that supper was ready. Reluctantly Doris turned back.

  “Oh, well, perhaps it will be wise to wait until after supper before trying to talk with him again,” she assured herself. “He was upset when he left me. I’ll give him an opportunity to get over it.” As soon as supper was finished, she explained to the others that she wished to talk with Mr. Jay on rather important business.

  “Never mind the dishes,” Kitty told her. “I’ll do them alone.”

  “I’ll help,” Marshmallow offered. This was a great concession on his part, for if there was one thing more than another that he disliked, it was wiping dishes.

  Dave had gone to the spring to refill the water pails, so Doris set off for the cabin by herself. She was rather glad that the others had not offered to accompany her, for she preferred to speak with the miser alone. She felt that he would be less self-conscious, more willing to tell her the things she wished to know.

  A loud barking attracted her attention as she approached the cabin, causing her to quicken her steps. Coming within sight of the shack she was surprised to see that Mr. Jay’s dog had been tied to the porch, a most unusual procedure, as the hound was usually permitted to wander freely about the camp.

  “That’s queer,” Doris murmured, going over to the dog.

  He gave a low whine at her approach, iand she saw that he had nearly freed himself from the tether. Doris retied the rope, and after quieting the hound, moved toward the door. Again the dog set up a loud barking.

  “What can be wrong?” she thought in some alarm. “That dog seems upset about something, and it isn’t a bit like Mr. Jay to leave him tied up.”

  She knocked on the door. There was no response. After a long wait she was forced to the realization that Mr. Jay was not at home.

  She started to leave, but halfway across the porch looked thoughtfully at the dog and then turned back.

  “Mr. Jay may be inside, too ill to open the door,” Doris told herself. “Perhaps the dog is trying to make me understand.”

  After a slight hesitation she tried the door, and, finding it unlocked, pushed it gently open. Mr. Jay was not there.

  Doris surveyed the room in astonishment. She saw at a glance that the miser had not eaten supper there, yet everything was in confusion. The books had been removed from the wall rack, papers were scattered about the floor, the desk was in disorder.

  Yet the thing which struck Doris most forcibly was that Mr. Jay’s suitcase, which he kept under the bed, was gone. Quickly she crossed the room and opened the closet. It was empty save for a torn shirt and a pair of dirty overalls.

  “He’s packed up and left!” she gasped in amazement. “Oh, why did he do that?”

  Doris felt that the situation was one which called for wiser heads than hers. Leaving the cabin, she ran back to call Mrs. Mallow and the others. On their way to investigate, she told them all that she had learned that afternoon in her talk with the old man.

  “I’m afraid I’ve driven him away,” Doris cried, “though why he should be frightened, is more than I can guess. Oh, dear, it’s so disappointing! Just when I thought the mystery had been solved.”

  “We may be able to find him,” Dave said encouragingly. “Have you searched the cabin for clues?”

  “No, I didn’t want to go through his desk.”

  “It seems to me it would be perfectly all right, considering the circumstances,” Mrs. Mallow declared. “We must try to find Mr. Jay and bring him back. Unless we find some clue in the cabin, we will not have the slightest idea where to look for him.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t skipped out, after all,” Marshmallow commented. “He left his hound.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t intend to return,” Doris insisted. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have taken all of his clothing. He knew we would find his dog and take good care of him.”

  As she spoke, she flung open the door and her friends beheld the disarray of the cabin. Doris crossed over to the desk and began to examine the scattered papers. She saw that nearly everything had been removed, but she hoped that in his haste to depart Mr. Jay had overlooked something of significance.

  To her disappointment the few papers which remained in the pigeonholes were worthless. LThey were mostly advertising folders.

  “I can’t find a thing,” she declared.

  “Nothing here either,” Kitty said. She had been looking through the drawer of the kitchen table. “Just a few scribbled notations on an old envelope.”

  “Let me see it!”

  “It’s worthless,” Kitty insisted, handing it over. “Just a grocery list, I believe.”

  Doris took one look at the envelope and then gave a cry of pleasure.

  “I’m sure this is written in Mr. Jay’s own hand!”

  “I suppose so,” Kitty admitted, wondering what was so exciting about that.

  Light dawned upon her, as Doris brought out the photograph of her uncle.

  “The signature on the back!” she cried.

  Doris turned the photograph over and compared the signature, which her uncle had scrawled there many years before, with the writing on the envelope.

  “They look the same to me!” she exclaimed. “What do the rest of you think?”

  The others had crowded about, eagerly studying the two specimens.

  “Jumping gazelles!” Marshmallow exploded. “They are the same!”

  “That is rather an unusual signature,” Mrs. Mallow suggested. “Very fine.”

  “A bold handwriting,” Dave commented. “The kind I like to see, too.”

  For a full minute the five stared at one another, unable to comprehend the full significance of the discovery. Doris was the first to recover from the shock.

  “Do you understand what this means?” she demanded intently. “My Uncle John Trent isn’t dead!”

  “Then you haven’t any fortune,” Kitty murmured.

  “Oh, what do I care about that, if my uncle is actually alive! I’m just as sure as anything that Mr. Jay is my uncle. How selfish he must have thought me, when I talked about the inheritance.”

  “No one could believe you were selfish,” Dave interposed.

  “Then why did Mr. Jay run away, when I tried to question him? I can’t understand that.”

  “It’s clear he didn’t want his identity known,” Mrs. Mallow said, “but why he should have hidden all these years is beyond me. He didn’t do anything to be ashamed of, did he, Doris?”

  “Nothing that I ever heard about. Of course, that affair with the Misses Gates must have troubled him considerably. Especially if he learned about the death of their father. I suppose if he were sensitive, he might have considered that he was indirectly responsible for the poor man’s death.”

  “Mr. Gates had always been troubl
ed with his heart,” Mrs. Mallow observed. “That quarrel they had wasn’t really the cause of his death.”

  “No,” Doris admitted, “but I imagine my uncle blamed himself for it. Of course, he felt he could never face the Gates twins again after refusing to say which one he loved the better.”

  “It’s all a hopeless muddle,” Kitty sighed.

  The others were inclined to agree with her, but wanted to help Doris.

  “Surely,” argued Marshmallow, “something will turn up to straighten things out. Now that you know Mr. Jay is your uncle, and he is alive, it should be easy to find him.”

  “The trouble is,” interposed Mrs. Mallow, “that you’re not sure”

  “If only we can find Mr. Jay, we may be able to straighten everything out!” Doris declared, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

  “How can we find him, when we haven’t any idea where he went?” Kitty demanded.

  “He may have gone to Cloudy Cove. We’ll get the car out and go there as quickly as we can!”

  To think was to act with Doris, and she turned toward the door. She uttered a cry of astonishment, for there stood Ollie Weiser!

  “I didn’t hear your step on the porch!” she gasped, wondering how much of her affairs the man had overheard.

  “Guess you folks were making too much racket yourselves,” the magician grinned. “Why all the excitement, anyway?”

  “There isn’t any,” Dave retorted coldly, before Doris could answer.

  “I thought I’d throw a little party tonight,” Weiser announced, ignoring Dave’s thrust. “I want to celebrate my victory over that bloated hotel-keeper, you know. How about it, folks?, You’re all invited.”

  “Really, we can’t tonight,” Doris said hastily. “We have Some very important business which must be attended to at once.”

  She glanced suggestively toward the door, but the magician did not take the hint.

  “Business,” he repeated, smiling blandly. “That reminds me of something, Miss Force. How about that act of ours? Have you thought it over?” Dave had endeavored to keep his temper in check, but now it seemed to him that the magician was insulting Doris. Angrily he pushed forward, jerking away from Marshmallow’s restraining hand.

  “Say!” he muttered, eyeing Weiser with undisguised dislike. “Get this straight, will you? Doris isn’t going to have anything to do with any cheap two-for-a-quarter singing and dancing act! The sooner you get that through your head and clear out, the better we’ll all like it!”

  “You call my act cheap?” the magician demanded, standing his ground. “I’ll show you about that! Nobody can talk to me that way and get away with it.”

  He began to strip off his coat, and Dave, undaunted, followed his example. Marshmallow rushed forward and interposed himself between the two.

  “Lay off!” he ordered. “Can’t you see that you’re ruining Doris’s chance of finding her uncle?, You and your silly quarrels make me sick!” Abashed, Dave permitted himself to be hauled away from the battle line, but the magician continued to cast baleful glances upon him.

  “Please don’t quarrel,” Doris begged. “Marshmallow is right. We must all work together or my trip to Cloudy Cove will have been in vain.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dave muttered, extending his hand to Weiser. “It was my fault.”

  The magician hesitated, then accepted it, smiling broadly.

  “No, it was mine. I guess I had my nerve blundering in here.”

  “Now don’t start arguing about whose fault it is,” Marshmallow interrupted brutally. “We must be on our way, or we’ll never find Mr. Jay.”

  “Is that who you are after?” Ollie questioned in surprise.

  “Yes,” Doris informed him quickly, “but we don’t know where he went. It’s of the utmost importance that we find him at once.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me what all the excitement was about?” the magician demanded. “I could have saved you all this mental anguish under which you are now laboring.”

  He struck a pose, enjoying to the full the attention which he commanded.

  “As it happens, I saw your friend, Mr. Jay, not half an hour ago, but by this time I judge he is beyond your reach!”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  The Chase

  “You saw Mr. Jay!” Doris exclaimed. “Where?”

  “In Cloudy Cove,” Ollie Weiser informed her. “He was standing at the corner waiting for the Thor Bay bus, or at least I suppose he was, for he had a suitcase in his hand.”

  “The Thor bus goes straight to the steamship dock, doesn’t it?” Doris demanded tensely.

  The magician assented, adding:

  “There’s a steamship leaving about this time, too. I think it’s due to pull out about seven forty-five.”

  “What time is it now?” Doris asked. “Seven-twenty,” Dave responded, looking at his watch. “If Mr. Jay took that bus, we’ll be too late to catch him. We can’t get to the bay before the steamer leaves.”

  “We have twenty-five minutes!” Doris cried. “We must try to catch him!”

  Still clutching the photograph and the bit of envelope, Doris ran from the cabin, followed by the others. Marshmallow had left his car standing in the open and the young people piled into it.

  “Go on without me,” Mrs. Mallow called, for she had been unable to run as rapidly as the others. “Oh! I hope you make it in time!”

  Marshmallow had taken the wheel, Doris and Dave crowding into the front seat beside him. Kitty and Ollie Weiser, not to be left behind, climbed into the back.

  “I’ll bet the pesky thing won’t start,” Marshmallow muttered as he stepped on the starter.

  For a wonder it did. In spite of its age, the car still had considerable pep, and Marshmallow knew how to make it perform to the best advantage. The engine roared loudly, the fenders rattled, but, had the car boasted a speedometer, it would have disclosed the fact that the state speed law was being broken.

  “Didn’t think the old buggy had it in her!” Marshmallow exclaimed.

  “Do be careful!” Kitty warned. “We don’t want to land in the ditch!”

  At times the car did waver in the road, but, as Marshmallow later boasted, he always managed to keep it between the fence posts. Anxiously, Doris watched the time.

  “How far is it to the dock?” she questioned. “Must be all of fifteen miles,” Weiser told her. “Then we’ll never make it!”

  In a few minutes they came within sight of the bay and followed it southward. The road was congested with motorists who were out for pleasure, and Marshmallow was forced to reduce the speed.

  “This settles it,” he groaned. “Unless that boat is late in leaving the dock, we haven’t a chance.”

  The steamship dock was located on the bay near the city of Ashlow. As they caught a glimpse of the lights, Doris looked again at her watch. It was twenty, minutes to eight!

  “Oh, Marshmallow,” she pleaded, “can’t you go a little faster? We have only five minutes.”

  “This is the best she’ll do,” Marshmallow returned grimly. “We’re going so fast now, I’m afraid everything will fall to pieces.”

  Doris kept her eyes fastened on the dial of Dave’s watch. Just as the car entered the outskirts of Ashlow, she sank back dispiritedly against the cushions.

  “It’s no use,” she said quietly, trying to hide her disappointment. “The time is up.”

  “Maybe we can make it yet,” Marshmallow insisted. “We haven’t heard the steamship whistle.” Even as he spoke, a loud, mournful blast sounded from the direction of the dock.

  “There she goes!” Dave exclaimed. “She’s just pulling out!”

  Doris was too disappointed to offer any comment. She felt that if Mr. Jay succeeded in getting away, she would never be able to locate him again. The mystery would remain forever unsolved.

  A few minutes later Marshmallow found the street leading to the waterfront, but by that time everyone had given up hope. As the car came within sight of the dock
, Doris and her friends saw that the steamship was far out from land.

  “Maybe we can rent a motorboat and overtake her,” Ollie suggested.

  “That’s a mighty good idea,” Dave approved, forgetting his bitterness toward the magician. He sprang from the car and helped the girls to alight.

  The five raced to the waterfront, but could not find a motorboat in the vicinity. As they stood gazing hopelessly after the vanishing steamer, they were so discouraged and heartsick that they did not immediately notice the bus which was standing nearby. Kitty was the first to call attention to it.

  “I’ll question the driver and find out if a man answering Mr. Jay’s description, boarded the steamer,” Doris said rather listlessly.

  She crossed over to the bus, the others at her heels. In response to her question the driver smiled.

  “I reckon that man was one of the passengers, all right, Miss, but he didn’t get on the steamer. We had a breakdown on the road and didn’t pull in here more than three or four minutes ahead of your car. Most of the passengers are over there at the station waiting for the next boat.”

  “What a lucky break!” Dave exclaimed as they all hurried toward the station. “We’ll surely find him now.”

  However, a search of the waiting passengers did not disclose Mr. Jay. At last Doris ventured to ask one of the men if he had seen the old miser.

  “I think he took his baggage and went toward the city,” the stranger informed her politely. “He seemed quite disturbed because he had missed his boat.”

  “We may catch him yet!” Doris declared, thanking the gentleman for the information.

  They all hurried back to the car, but as Marshmallow started the motor, he looked inquiringly at Doris.

  “I haven’t much of an idea in which direction to go,” she admitted in perplexity. “I suppose our best chance is to look for him in the main part of the city.”

  “He may have gone to a restaurant to get something to eat,” Kitty suggested hopefully.

  Five minutes later the car approached the main part of the city, and Marshmallow selected the most important business street. He drove slowly, permitting the others to scan the faces of the pedestrians.