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

by Julia K. Duncan

  Then how meat pies, apple pies, cheese and pastry vanished!

  When the feast was over, having borrowed a bright skirt, a broad sash and kerchief, Jeanne led them all in a dance that was wilder, more furious than any they had known for many a day.

  “Come!” they shouted when the dance was over. “We were sad. You have brought us happiness. See!” They pointed to a dark cloud that was a flock of blackbirds flying south. “You must come with us. We will follow these birds in their flight. When winter comes we shall camp where roses bloom all the winter through, where oranges hang like balls of gold among the leaves and the song of spring is ever in the air.”

  Jeanne listened and dreamed. But her good friend Florence? She was not faring so well. Winter was at hand. How could Jeanne leave her in this great dark city alone?

  Just then a strange thing happened. A tall woman of striking appearance came up to the group. She wore a green smock all marked up with red and blue paint. There was a smudge of orange on her cheek, and in her hand a dozen small brushes.

  “See!” She held up an unfinished sketch. It was a picture of Petite Jeanne, Jeanne in her bright costume dancing with the raggedest gypsy of them all. On the face of Jeanne and the ragged child was a look of inspired joy.

  “You are a genius!” Jeanne cried in surprise, “You have painted my picture!” She was overjoyed.

  “I am a painter,” the lady, who was neither young nor old, said. “Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail. But you?” She turned to Jeanne. “Do you know many of these people?”

  “I—” Jeanne laughed. “I am related to them all. Is it not so?” She appealed to her new-found friends.

  “Yes! Yes! To us all,” they cried in a chorus.

  When, a half hour later, Jeanne bade a reluctant farewell to the gypsy clan, it was in the company of the artist. The leader of the gypsies had been presented with a bright new twenty-dollar bill, and Jeanne had made a friend she would not soon forget. What a day! What a happy adventure!

  CHAPTER II

  “JUST NOTHING AT ALL”

  The artist’s name was Marie Mabee. It was in her studio that Florence, on the evening after her strange experience with the crystal ball, found herself seated. It was a marvelous place, that studio. It was a large room. Its polished floor was strewn with all manner of strange Indian rugs. Marie Mabee was American to the tips of her toes. Save for one picture, everything in that room was distinctly American. The spinet desk with chair that matched, the drapes and tapestries, the andirons before the broad open fireplace, the great comfortable upholstered chair, all these were made in America.

  The one cherished bit from the Old World that adorned the room was a picture. It was a masterpiece of the nineteenth century. In that picture the sun shone bright upon a flock of sheep hurrying for shelter from a storm that lay black as night against the rugged hills behind. Trees were bending before a gale, the shepherd’s cloak was flying, every touch told of the approaching storm.

  “It’s all so very real!” Florence thought to herself as she looked at the picture now. “It is like Marie Mabee herself. She too is real. And the things she creates are real. That is why she is such a great success.”

  As if to verify her own conclusion, she looked at a canvas reposing on an easel in the corner. The picture was almost done. It showed Petite Jeanne garbed in a bright gypsy costume, flinging arms wide in a wild gypsy dance. In the background, indistinct but quite real, were wild eager faces, a fiddler, two singing gypsy children, and behind them the night.

  Marie Mabee had determined that by her pictures there should be preserved the memory of much that was passing in American life. The gypsies were passing. One by one they were being swallowed up by great cities. Soon the country would know them no more. She had taken Jeanne into her heart and home because in Jeanne’s heart there lived like a flame the spirit of the gypsies at their best, because Jeanne knew all the gypsies and could bring them to the studio to be posed and painted. She had taken in Florence as well; first, because she was Jeanne’s friend, and second, because, with all others, the moment she came to know her she loved her.

  “It is all very wonderful!” Florence whispered to herself as, after an exciting day, she sank deeper into the great chair by the fire. “How inspiring to live with one who has made a grand success of life, whose pictures are hung in every gallery and coveted by every rich person in the city! And yet,” she sighed contentedly, “how simple and kind she is! Not the least bit high-hat or superior. Wonder if all truly great people are like that? I wonder—”

  She broke short off to listen. A stairway led up from the top of the elevator shaft, one floor below. She did not recognize the tread of the person coming up the stairs. She wondered and shuddered. Somehow she felt that on leaving that room of midnight blue and a crystal ball, she had been followed. Had she? If so, why? She was not long in guessing the reason. Twice in the last few weeks she had whispered a few well-chosen words in the ears of Patrick Moriarity, a bright young policeman who was interested in people, just any kind of people. Patrick had rapped on certain doors and had said his little say. When next Florence passed that way, there was a “For Rent” sign on the door, right where Patrick had rapped.

  “Folded their tents like the Arabs

  And silently stole away,”

  she whispered to herself.

  She wondered in a dreamy sort of way whether those people, while they reluctantly packed a few tricks of their crooked trade, had recalled a large, ruddy-faced girl who had visited them once or twice to have her fortune told, and did they know she was that girl?

  “Fortunes!” she exclaimed. “Fortunes!” Then she laughed a low laugh.

  At once her face sobered. Was it, after all, a laughing matter, this having your fortune told? For some surely it was not. She had seen them seated on hard chairs, waiting. There were lines of sorrow and disappointment on their faces. They had come to ask the crystal-gazer, the palmist, the phrenologist, the reader of cards or stars, to tell their fortune. They wanted terribly to know when the tide of fortune would turn for them, when prosperity would come ebbing back again. And she, Florence, all too often could read in their faces the answer which came to her like the wash of the waves on a sandy shore:

  “Never—never—never.”

  “And what do these tellers of fortunes predict?” she asked herself. She did not know. Only her own fortune she knew well enough. Had she not had it told a half hundred times in the last months?

  “My fortune!” she laughed anew. “What a strange fortune it would be if all they told me came true! A castle, a farm, a city flat, a sea island, a mountain home, a dark man for a husband, a light one for a husband, and one with red hair! Whew! I’d have to be a movie actress to have all that.

  “And yet—” Once again her smile vanished. Was there, after all, in some of it something real? That crystal ball now—the one she had seen that very afternoon. She had been told that visions truly do come to those who gaze into the crystal ball. Had she not seen visions? And that fair-haired girl, had she not seen visions as well?

  Once again her mood changed. What was it this girl had wanted to know? She had said, “My long lost father!” Was her father really lost? Who was her father? She was dressed like a child of the rich. Was she rich? And was she in danger?

  “I must know!” Florence sprang to her feet. “I must go back there. I—”

  Once again she broke short off. There came a sound from without. A key rattled in the lock.

  “Some—someone,” she breathed, starting back, “and he has a key!”

  Her eyes were frantically searching for a place of hiding when the door swung open and a tall lady in a sealskin coat appeared.

  “Oh! Miss Mabee!” Florence exclaimed. “It is you!”

  “Yes. And why not I?” Marie Mabee laughed. “What’s up? How startled you looked!”

  “Nothing—just nothing at all,” Florence said in a calmer tone as she sprang forward to assist her hostes
s with her wraps.

  “Did you see anyone on the stairs?” she asked quietly.

  “No. Why? Have you stolen something?” Miss Mabee laughed. “Are you expecting the police?”

  “No, not that,” Florence laughed in answer. “I’ve only been having my fortune told.”

  “Is that so dangerous?” Miss Mabee arched her brows.

  “Yes, sometimes I’m afraid it is,” Florence replied soberly. “I know of one case where it cost a poor woman four hundred dollars.”

  “How could it?” came in a tone of surprise.

  “She had the money. They told her to leave it with them for luck. The luck was all wrong. They vanished.”

  “But that is an extreme case.”

  “Yes,” Florence replied slowly, “it is extreme. And yet, in days like these, people, who might in happier days be harmless, turn wolf and prey upon the innocent. At least, that’s what Frances Ward says. And she usually knows. She says it is the duty of those who are strong to battle against the wolves.”

  “And so you, my beautiful strong one, are battling the wolves? Good for you!” Marie Mabee gave her sturdy arm an affectionate squeeze. “That’s quite all right. Only,” she laughed, “please let me know when the wolves start coming up the stairs.”

  “I—I’ll try,” Florence replied in a changed tone.

  “And now,” said Marie Mabee, “how about a nice cup of steaming chocolate and some of those rare cakes that just came from that little bakery around the corner?”

  “Grand!” Florence exclaimed. “Here is one person who can always eat and never regret.”

  “Fine!” the artist exclaimed. “It’s wonderful to be strong and be able to glory in it. On with the feast!”

  CHAPTER III

  DANGER TOMORROW

  “Jeanne, one of your friends has stolen four hundred dollars!” Florence exclaimed, springing to her feet as Jeanne, garbed in a plaid coat and with a silver-grey fox fur about her neck, breezed in from the night. She had been to the Symphony concert. Her ears still rang with the final notes of a great concerto. Florence’s startling words burst upon her like a sudden blare of trombones and clash of cymbals all in one.

  “My friend?” she exclaimed in sudden consternation. “One of my friends has stolen all that?”

  “From a poor widow with three small children,” Florence said soberly. Then in a changed, half teasing tone, “Anyway, the paper says the thief was a gypsy, so I suppose she was, and a fortune teller as well.”

  “Oh! A gypsy!” Breathing a sigh of relief, Jeanne threw off her wraps, tossed back her shock of golden hair, then sank into a chair before the burned-out fire where Florence had sat musing for an hour.

  “My dear—” Jeanne placed a long slender hand on Florence’s arm. “Not all gypsies are my friends—only some gypsies. Not all gypsies are good. Some are very, very bad. You should know that. Surely you have not forgotten how those bad ones in France seized me and carried me away to the Alps when I was to dance in the so beautiful Paris Opera!”

  “No,” Florence laughed, “I have not forgotten. All the same, you must help me. Mr. Joslyn—he is our editor, you know—sent down a marked copy of the paper. Above the story of the gypsy fortune teller’s theft he wrote, ‘This is right in your line.’

  “So!” she sighed. “It’s up to me. Until just now I have been a reporter of a sort, rather more entertaining and amusing than serious. But now—” she squared her shoulders. “Now I am to become a sort of reporter-detective, at least for a time.

  “And Jeanne,” she added earnestly, “you must help me, you truly must. You know all the gypsies in the city.”

  “No, not all. But no! No!” Jeanne protested.

  “You know the good ones and the bad ones,” Florence went on, ignoring her denial. “You must help me find this bad one, and, if it is not too late, we must get that money back.

  “How foolish some people are!” Her voice dropped. “Here was a woman with three small children. She collected four hundred dollars from her husband’s estate. She hurries right off to the gypsies because one of them has told her two months before that she is to have money. Money!” She laughed scornfully. “Probably they tell everyone that—makes them feel good.

  “Then she asks them how to invest it so it will become a great deal of money right away, and they say, ‘Leave it with us for luck.’ She goes away. They vanish. And there you are!”

  “Where did this so terrible thing happen?” Jeanne asked.

  “In one of the narrow streets back of Maxwell Street.”

  “Maxwell Street!” Jeanne shuddered. She had been on Maxwell Street; did not wish ever to go again. But now—

  “Ah, well, my good friend,” she sighed, “it is always so. We come into great good fortune. We have marvelous friends. Marvelous things of beauty are all about us. We sigh with joy and bask in the sunshine. And then, bang! Duty says, ‘Go to Maxwell Street. Go where there is dirt and disorder, unhappiness, hatred and poverty.’ We listen to Duty, and we go. Yes, my good friend Florence, tomorrow I shall go.

  “And,” she added mysteriously, “when I am there, even you, if you meet me, will not know me.”

  “You will be careful!” Florence’s brow wrinkled.

  “I shall be careful. And now—” Jeanne rose, then went weaving her way in a slow rhythmic dance toward a narrow metal stairway leading to a balcony. “Now I go to my dreams. Bon nuit!”

  “Good night,” Florence replied as once more her eyes sought the burned-out fire.

  “Strange! Life is strange!” she murmured.

  And life for her had been strange. Perhaps it always would be strange.

  She did not retire at once. The studio, with its broad fireplace, its deep-cushioned chairs and dim lights, was a cozy, dreamy place at night. She wanted to think and dream a while.

  Never in all her event-filled life had Florence been employed in a stranger way than at that moment. She was, you might say, a reporter, or, better perhaps, an investigator, for one of the city’s great daily papers.

  She had walked into the newspaper office one morning, as she had walked into a hundred places, just to ask what there was she might do. She had, by great good fortune, been introduced to Frances Ward, who proved to be the most interesting and inspiring old lady she had ever known.

  “Our paper,” Mrs. Ward had said, “is cutting down on its playground and welfare work. There is—” she had hesitated to peer searchingly into Florence’s face—“there is something I have been thinking of for a considerable time. It’s a thing I can’t do myself.” She laughed a cackling sort of laugh. “I am too old and wise-looking. You are young and fresh and, pardon me, innocent-looking.

  “You wouldn’t mind,” she asked suddenly, “having your fortune told?”

  “Of course not.” Florence stared.

  “Several times a day,” Frances Ward added, “by all sorts of people, those who read the bumps on your head, who study the lines in your palms or the stars you were born under, card-readers, crystal-gazers and all the rest.”

  “That,” Florence said, “sounds exciting.”

  “It won’t be after a while,” Mrs. Ward warned. “All right, we’ll arrange it. You’ll have to find these fortune tellers. We don’t carry their ads. Some have signs in their windows. That is easy. But those are not the best—or perhaps the worst of them. The most successful ones operate more or less in secret. The way you find these is to say to someone, a clerk in a store, a hair-dresser, a check girl in a hotel, ‘Where can I find a good fortune teller?’ She will laugh, like as not, and say, ‘I don’t know.’ Then, ‘Oh, yes! Mary Martensen, the girl who does my nails, told me of a wonderful one. She told her the most astonishing things about herself. And, just think, she’s only been there twice! Wait till I call her up. I’ll get her address for you.’

  “And when you have that address—” Frances Ward settled back in her chair. “You go there and say, ‘So-and-so told me about you.’ You have your fortune told
. Remember as much as you can, the fortune teller’s name, her appearance, the kind of fortune she tells you, the setting of her studio, everything. Then you come here and prepare a story for your column. We’ll call it ‘Looking Into the Future.’”

  “But I—I’m afraid I can’t write stories!” Florence said in sudden dismay.

  “You don’t have to,” Mrs. Ward laughed. “Just tell a reporter all about it and he’ll write it up. It will be a new and popular newspaper feature.

  “Looking Into the Future!” she repeated softly. “If you do your work well, as I know you will, the feature is sure to prove a success from the start.

  “But let me warn you!” Her voice dropped. “You will find it not only interesting and thrilling, but dangerous as well, for some fortune tellers are wolves. They rob the poor people by leading them on and on. These must be exposed. And, though we will conceal your identity as much as possible, there are likely to be times when these people will suspect you. If this—” she looked at Florence earnestly, “if this is too terrifying, now is the time to say so.”

  Florence had not “said so.” She had taken the position. Her column had been popular from the start. And now, as she sat there before the fire in the studio, recalling the words of Frances Ward, “not only interesting, but dangerous,” she repeated that last word, “dangerous.”

  At that moment a tiny spirit seemed to take up the refrain and whisper in her ear, “Dangerous. That is the place! The midnight blue room is for you a place of peril. If you go there tomorrow, you are in for it! You can never turn back until you have found the end of the road which winds on and on, far and far away.”

  “Tomorrow,” she whispered as she rose to fling her strong arms wide, “tomorrow I shall return to that place of midnight blue draperies, and I shall ask someone there to teach me how to read fortunes by gazing into the crystal ball.” There was a new fire in her eye as she mounted the narrow stairs to enter the chamber which the great artist had so graciously set aside for her use.