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

by Julia K. Duncan

  Out of all this drab scene one figure stood bright and colorful, a dark-eyed maiden dressed in all the many-hued garments of a gypsy. Jeanne went straight to her.

  “Want a fortune told?” The girl’s eyes gleamed. “Step inside. Read your palm. Tell your fortune with cards. Perhaps today is not so good.” She looked at Jeanne’s purposely drab costume. “Tomorrow may be better—much better. You shall see. Step right inside.”

  Jeanne stepped inside. The place she entered was blue with cigaret smoke. Idling about the large room, on couches and rugs were a half dozen girls dressed, as this other one, in bright costumes. At the back of the room was a booth, inside the booth a small table and a chair.

  Instantly Jeanne found herself ill at ease in these surroundings. She had seen much of gypsy life, but this—somehow a guardian gnome seemed to whisper a warning in her ear.

  Turning, she said a few words. She spoke in a strange tongue—the lingo of her own gypsy people. The girl she addressed stared at her blankly. Turning about, she repeated the words in a louder tone. Every girl in the room must have heard. Not one replied.

  “You are not gypsies!” Jeanne exclaimed, stamping her foot. “You do not know the gypsy language.”

  “Not gypsies! Not gypsies!” The swarm of girls were up and screaming like a flock of angry bluejays. “We are gypsies! We are gypsies!”

  “Well,” said Jeanne, backing toward the door, “you don’t seem much like gypsies. You should be able to speak the language—”

  “Paveoe, our mistress, she speaks that silly nonsense!” one of the girls exclaimed. “Come when she is here and you shall hear it by the hour.”

  “And does she run this place?” Jeanne asked. She was now at the door and breathing more easily.

  “Y-yes,” the girl said slowly, “Paveoe is the woman who runs this place.”

  “I’ll be back.” Jeanne opened the door, closed it quietly and was gone.

  “I wonder if this Paveoe is the woman I am looking for,” she whispered to herself. “Perhaps she has the money. Perhaps that is why she is not here.”

  As she crowded through the ragged, jostling and quite merry throng on Maxwell Street, Jeanne found her heart filled with misgivings. A spirit of prophecy belonging to gypsy people alone seemed to tell her that this woman, Paveoe, was bad, that they should meet, and then—. At that point the spirit of prophecy failed her.

  Meanwhile, in Frances Ward’s office the mystery girl, June Travis, was saying:

  “No, I do not remember my father—that is, hardly at all. And yet, it seems so strange I recognized him instantly when I saw him in—in the crystal ball! And the girl who was with him—it was I.” June broke off to stare out of the window and down at the slow-moving river.

  Florence wanted to say, “Yes, yes, she was in the crystal ball. I saw her. It could have been no other.” She opened her mouth to speak; but no sound came out. She had recalled that she was there to listen and not to talk. “But what a story this promises to be!” she thought to herself. Then, with a sudden start she began taking notes.

  “June Travis. Plenty of money. Much money when she is sixteen,” she wrote. “Money—” her pencil stopped. She had thought of the poor widow with four hundred dollars and the gypsy fortune tellers. “Wolves,” she thought, “human wolves, they are everywhere.” Once again her pencil glided across the paper.

  “It does seem a little extraordinary.” Frances Ward was speaking slowly, thoughtfully. She was facing June Travis, still smiling. “Strange indeed that you should see yourself as you were more than ten years ago, and that you should recognize your father.”

  “It was a beautiful room.” A look of rapture stole over the girl’s face. “A very beautiful room. Books, a fireplace, everything. Just the sort of place my father must have had to live in—for he must be rich. If he wasn’t, how could he leave me all that money?

  “And he was to come back.” Her tone became eager. “He will come back. Madame Zaran, that’s the crystal-gazer, says she’s sure he will come back. She’s told me wonderful things. I am to travel—California, the Orient, Europe, around the world.

  “But father—” her voice dropped. “She says she can’t get through to father. That will take money, much money. And very soon I shall have much money. Only—” she shuddered. “Somehow that makes me afraid.”

  “Yes.” Frances Ward nodded her wise old head. “You must not forget to be afraid, and to be very, very careful. I should like to meet this wonderful Madame Zaran.”

  “You shall meet her!” the girl exclaimed. “But, Mrs. Ward, you are so kind! You have helped so many. Can’t you help me find my father?” Her voice rose on a high note of appeal.

  “Yes.” Frances Ward spoke with all the gentleness of a mother. “Yes, I think perhaps I can. But first you must do everything possible for yourself. Where is your money kept?”

  “In a great bank.”

  “Good!” Frances Ward’s face lighted. “What do they tell you of your father?”

  “Nothing.” The girl’s face fell. “The man my father left the money with at the bank is dead. The others know that the money is for me and how it is to be given out.”

  “And you live—”

  “At a very fine home for girls, only a few girls, twelve girls, all very nice.”

  “And what does the person in charge tell you of your father?”

  “Nothing—nothing at all. I was brought there by a woman who was not my mother, a little old gray-haired woman who said I was to be kept there. She gave them some money. She told them where the other money was. Then she went away.”

  “Strange,” Frances Ward murmured softly, “very, very strange. But, my child!” Her tone changed. “You may be able to be your own best helper. You were not a baby when your father left you. Under favorable conditions you might be able to think back, back, back to those days, to recall perhaps rooms, houses, faces. You might describe them so accurately that they could be found. And, finding them, we might come upon someone who knew your father and who knows where he has gone.”

  “Oh, if only I could!” The girl clasped and unclasped her hands. “If only I could!”

  “That,” said Mrs. Ward, “may take considerable time, but I feel that it is a surer and—” she hesitated, “perhaps a safer way than some others might be.

  “My dear,” she laid a hand gently on June’s arm, “you will not go to that place at night?”

  “Oh, no!” June’s eyes opened wide. “We are never allowed to go anywhere after dark unless Mrs. Maver, our matron, is with us.”

  “That’s good.” The frown on the aged woman’s face was replaced by a smile.

  “Florence!” She turned half about in her chair. “You should know June Travis. I feel sure you might aid her. Perhaps you’d like to take her out for a cup of something hot. What do young ladies drink? Nothing strong, I hope.” She laughed.

  “Not I!” Florence replied, “I’m always in training.”

  “Which every girl should be,” Frances Ward replied promptly.

  “My dear,” she put out a hand to June, “I have a ‘dead-line’ to make. You wouldn’t know about that, but it’s just a column that must be in the paper a half hour from now. You will come back, won’t you?”

  “Yes, I will,” said June. “Thank you. I feel so much better a—about everything now.”

  “That,” said Florence as the two girls walked down the corridor, “is ‘Everybody’s Grandmother.’ She’s truly wonderful. She knows so much about everything.”

  “And,” she added aside to herself, “she knows just how much to say. If she had told this girl I was engaged in the business of hunting fortune tellers, that would have spoiled everything. But she didn’t. She didn’t.”

  “Have you visited fortune telling studios before?” she asked the bright-eyed June as they sipped a hot cup of some strange bitter drink Florence found in a narrow little hole-in-the-wall place.

  “Oh, yes, often!” The girl’s eyes shone. �
�I’m afraid I’ve become quite a fan. And they do tell you such strange things. Honestly,” her voice dropped, “Madame Zaran told me things that happened weeks ago and that only I knew about—or at least only one or two other girls.

  “But this—” her voice and her face sobered. “This is different. This is what Polly, one of our girls, would call ‘very tremendous.’ Think of seeing yourself and your own father just as you were years and years ago!”

  “Yes,” Florence agreed without hypocrisy, “it is tremendous.”

  “But it costs so much!” June sighed. “Don’t you tell a soul—” her voice dropped to a whisper, “I saved and saved from my allowance until I had it all—two hundred dollars!”

  “Two hundred dollars! Did they charge you that for gazing into the crystal? Why, they—”

  Florence did not finish. She was trying to think how much those people would charge for their next revelation when, perhaps, this girl had come into possession of much money.

  As she looked at the young and slender girl before her, a big-sister feeling came sweeping over her. “We—” she placed her large, strong hand over June’s slender one, “we’re going to stick together, aren’t we?”

  “If—if you wish it,” the other girl replied hesitatingly.

  “And now—” she rose from her chair. “I must go. There’s a wonderful woman on the south side. Everyone says she’s marvelous. She’s a fortune teller too, a voodoo priestess, black, you know.”

  “From Africa?”

  “No. Haiti. She tells such marvelous fortunes. Her name is Marianna Christophe. She’s a descendant of a black emperor. And she has a black goat with golden horns.”

  “Perhaps,” Florence laughed, “she borrowed the goat from the gypsy girl in a book I once read. What’s the address? I must have her tell my fortune.”

  “It’s 3528 Duncan Street. I wish—” the girl hesitated. “I wish you were going now.” She shuddered a little. “She’s black, a voodoo priestess. She has a black goat with golden horns. I’m always a little scared of black things.”

  “Say!” Florence exclaimed, seized by a sudden inspiration, “why don’t you wait until tomorrow, then I can go with you to see this voodoo priestess?”

  “I—I’d love it.” The girl’s face brightened.

  “She’s beautiful, this June Travis,” Florence told herself, “beautiful in a peculiar way, fluffy hair that is not quite red, a round face and deeply dimpled cheeks. Who could fail to love her and want to protect her?”

  “Let me see,” she said, speaking half to the girl, half to herself, “No, I can’t go tomorrow. How will the day after do?”

  “That will be fine.”

  “You’ll meet me here at this same hour?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll be going.” Florence held out a hand. “Goodbye and good luck. I have a feeling,” she added as a sort of afterthought, “that we are going to do a lot of exploring together, you and I.”

  As she hurried toward Sandy’s glass box Florence repeated, “An awful lot.” At that, she had not the faintest notion what a truly awful lot that would be.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE BRIGHT SHAWL

  When Jeanne left that place of many gypsies who were not gypsies, she quickly lost herself in the throng that ever jams the narrow sidewalks on Maxwell Street. She was glad, for the moment, to be away from that place. It somehow frightened her. But she would go back; this she knew. When one is looking for a certain person, one looks into many faces, to at last exclaim, “This is the one!” Jeanne was looking for a certain thieving gypsy woman. She must look into many gypsy faces.

  But now, pushed this way, then that by the throng, she listened with deaf ears, as she had often done before, to the many strange cries and entreaties about her. “Lady, buy this! Buy this and wear diamonds.” “Shoe strings, five cents a dozen! Shoe strings!” “Nize ripe bananas!” “Here, lady, look! Look! A fine coat with Persian lamb collar, only seventeen dollars!” The cries increased as she passed through the thick of it. Then they began to quiet down.

  As she looked ahead, Jeanne spied a crowd thicker than all the rest. It centered about a rough board stand. Since she was a small child Jeanne had been unable to resist crowds. She pressed forward until she was in the thick of this one.

  Just then a man mounted to the platform, took up a microphone and began to speak. His voice carried far.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “there is to be conducted on this platform a dancing contest. It is open to gypsy dancing girls only. Let me repeat, gypsy dancing girls.”

  Gypsy dancing girls! Jeanne’s heart bounded. It had been a long time since she danced in public. But always, as long as she could remember, she had danced. By the roadsides of France, on the streets of gay Paris, in the Paris Opera, in light opera in America she had danced her way, almost to fame.

  “And now to think of dancing on this street, before this crowd! Why should I think of it?” Yet she had thought of it, and the thought would not quiet down. Once a gypsy, always a gypsy. Once a dancer, always a dancer. And yet—she would wait.

  “Where are the gypsy dancers?” Jeanne asked a slender girl in a bright shawl who was packed in close beside her.

  There were gypsy dancers enough, Jeanne saw this at once. They came on, one at a time. A four-piece orchestra played for them. Some were bright and well-dressed, some ragged and sad. Some brought their own music and flashed their tambourines in wild abandon. Some danced to the music that was offered and did very badly indeed. “None,” Jeanne thought, “are very good. And yet—”

  Of a sudden she began to wonder what the purpose of it all might be. Then she caught the gleam of a movie camera lens half-hidden behind an awning. “They’ll be in the movies,” she thought. This did not thrill her. To be in movies of this sort, she knew too well, was no great honor.

  And yet, as she stood there listening to the mad rhythm of saxophone, violin, oboe and trap-drums, her feet would not stand still. It was provoking. She wished she might move away, but could not. She seemed to have lost her will power.

  Then she once more became conscious of the slender girl in the bright shawl.

  “The prize is twenty-five dollars,” the girl was saying in a low tone. “How grand to have that much money all at one time!”

  Jeanne stared at her with fresh interest. As she made some manner of reply, she found herself, without willing it, dropping into the curious lingo that is gypsy speech. To her surprise, she heard the girl answer in that same lingo.

  “So you are a gypsy,” she said. “And you dance.” She could see the child’s slim body sway to the rhythm of the music. “Why do you not try for the prize?”

  “I would love to,” the girl murmured. “God knows we need the money! And I could beat them, beat them blind, if only—”

  “If only what?” Jeanne breathed.

  “If only I did not have a bad knee. But now, for me to dance is impossible.”

  At that moment Jeanne became conscious of a coarse-featured, dark-faced woman who was pushing forward a young girl. She recognized the girl on the instant. She was one of those girls who, but half an hour before, had insisted they were gypsies, but who could not speak the gypsy language.

  “Yes,” the woman was saying, “yes, she can dance, and she is a gypsy. Try her. You shall see. She dances better than these. Bah!” She scowled. “Much better than these.”

  “I do not believe she is a gypsy,” Jeanne whispered to the girl beside her.

  “She is not a gypsy,” the lame girl said soberly. “But if we tell—ah, then, look out! She is a bad one, that black-faced woman.”

  “So we shall be very wise and keep silent.” Jeanne pressed the girl’s arm. How slender it was! Jeanne’s heart reproached her. She could win that dance contest in this girl’s stead. And yet, she still held back.

  The girl, pushed forward by the dark-faced woman, was now on the platform. She danced, Jeanne was forced to admit, very well, much
better indeed than any of the others. The crowd saw and applauded.

  “She is a good dancer,” Jeanne thought, “very good. And yet she is sailing under false colors. She is not a gypsy. Still,” she wondered, “am I right? Do all American gypsies know the gypsy tongue?” She could not tell. And still, her feet were moving restlessly. Not she, but her feet wished to dance.

  And then, with the suddenness of the sun escaping from a cloud, came great joy to Jeanne. A powerful arm encircled her waist and a gruff voice said:

  “Tiens! It is my Jeanne!”

  It was Bihari, Bihari, Jeanne’s gypsy step-father! She had supposed him to be in France.

  “Bihari!” she cried, enraptured. “You here?”

  “Yes, my child.”

  “But why?”

  “Does it matter now?” Bihari’s tone was full of serious joy. “All that matters now is that you must dance. You are a gypsy. We are all gypsies, all but that one, the one who, without your dancing, will win. She is an impostor. She is no gypsy. This I know. Come, my Jeanne! You must dance!”

  “Here!” Jeanne sprang forward, at the same time dragging the bright shawl from the slender girl’s shoulders. “Here! I, too, am a gypsy! I, too, will dance.”

  “She a gypsy?” The dark-faced one’s cheeks purpled with anger. “She is no gypsy! Did I not this moment see her drag the shawl from this girl’s shoulders?” She lifted a heavy hand as if to strike the little French girl. That instant a hand that was like a vice closed upon her uplifted arm.

  “Put that arm down or I will break it off at the elbow!” It was the powerful Bihari.

  The woman’s cheek blanched. Her hand dropped. She shrank back into the crowd.

  “She is a gypsy,” Bihari said quietly to the man on the platform. “I am her step-father. She traveled in my caravan. I will vouch for her. And she can dance—you shall see.”

  Perhaps Bihari, the gypsy smithy, was not unknown to the man on the stand. At any rate, Jeanne had her chance.

  She had not forgotten her own bright gypsy shawl of days gone by, nor the prizes she had won while it waved and waved about her slim figure. Now, in this fantastic setting, it all came back to her.