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

by Julia K. Duncan

  Evidently Tum Morrow had seen nothing like this before, for he sat there, mouth wide open, staring. At that moment, so far as he was concerned, tomorrow might at any moment become today. He would never have known the difference.

  When at last Marie Mabee thrust her brushes, handles down, in the top of a jug and said, “There!” Tum Morrow heaved such a prodigious sigh that the artist started, whirled about, stared for an instant, then demanded, “Where did you come from?”

  Before the startled boy could find breath for reply, she exclaimed, “Oh, yes! I remember. Jeanne told me! Come right down! She has a feast all prepared for you.”

  She extended both hands as he reached the foot of the stairs. Tum took the hands. His eyes were only for Jeanne.

  It was a jolly tea they had, Jeanne, the artist, and Tum. Tum’s shyness at being in the presence of a great personage gradually passed away. Quite frankly at last he told his story. His music had been the gift of his mother. A talented woman, she had taught him from the age of three. When she could go no farther, she had employed a great teacher to help him.

  “They called me a prodigy.” He sighed. “I never liked that very much. I played at women’s clubs and all sorts of luncheons and all the ladies clapped their hands. Some of the ladies had kind faces—some of them,” he repeated slowly. “I played only for those who had kind faces.”

  “But now,” he ended rather abruptly, “my teacher is gone. My mother is gone. I am no longer a prodigy, nor am I a grown musician, so—”

  “So you play for the pigeons on the roof!” Jeanne laughed a trifle uncertainly.

  “And for angels,” Tum replied, looking straight into her eyes. Jeanne flushed.

  “What does he mean?” Miss Mabee asked, puzzled.

  “That angels come down from the sky at night,” Jeanne replied teasingly.

  “But Miss Mabee,” she demanded, “what does one do between the time he is a prodigy and when he is a man?”

  “Oh, I—I don’t know.” Miss Mabee stirred her tea thoughtfully. “He just does the best he can, gets around among people and hopes something will happen. And, bye and bye, something does happen. Then all is lovely.

  “Excuse me!” She sprang to her feet. “There’s the phone.”

  “But you?” said Tum, “you, Miss Jeanne, are a famous dancer—you must be.”

  “No.” Jeanne was smiling. “I am only a dancing gypsy. Once, it is true, I danced a light opera. And once, just once—” her eyes shone. “Once I danced in that beautiful Opera House down by the river. That Opera House is closed now. What a pity! I danced in the Juggler of Notre Dame. And the people applauded. Oh, how they did applaud!

  “But a gypsy—” her voice dropped. “With a gypsy it is different. Nothing wonderful lasts with a gypsy. So now—” she laughed a little, low laugh. “Now I’m just a wild dancing bumble bee with invisible wings on my feet.”

  “Are you?” The boy’s eyes shone with a sudden light. “Do you know this?” Taking up his violin, he began to play.

  “What is it?” she demanded, enraptured.

  “They call it ‘Flight of the Bumble Bee.’”

  “Play it again.”

  Tum played it again. Jeanne sat entranced.

  “Encore!” she exclaimed.

  Then, snatching up a thin gauzy shawl of iridescent silk, she went leaping and whirling, flying across the room.

  In the meantime, Miss Mabee, who had returned, stood in a corner fascinated.

  And it was truly worthy of her admiration. As a dancer, when the mood seized her Jeanne could be a spark, a flame, a gaudy, darting humming-bird, and now indeed she was a bee with invisible wings on her feet.

  “That,” exclaimed the artist, “is a tiny masterpiece of music and dancing! It must be preserved. Others must know of it. We shall find a time and place. You shall see, my children.”

  Jeanne flushed with pleasure. Tum was silent, but deep in both their hearts was the conviction that this was one of the truly large moments of their lives.

  CHAPTER IX

  JEANNE PLANS AN ADVENTURE

  The dinner served in Sandy’s honor at the artist’s studio was an occasion long to be remembered. Jeanne had chanced to speak of her gypsy step-father, Bihari.

  “And is he now in America?” Miss Mabee asked with sudden interest.

  “Yes. In Chicago!” Jeanne replied joyously.

  “Then we must have him at our party tonight. Perhaps I might like to paint his picture.”

  “Oh, you are sure to!” Jeanne cried. “There is no one in the world like Bihari.”

  So Bihari was sent for. Tum Morrow too had been invited and, to help the affair along, had volunteered to bring three boon companions, all destitute musicians, and all glad to provide music in exchange for Jeanne’s gypsy-style chicken dinner.

  When the hour arrived all were there; so too were the great steaming platters of chicken with dumplings and gravy. And such a feast as that was! Bihari had persuaded two good cooks of his own race to prepare the feast. And, because of their love for Bihari and Jeanne, they had spared neither time nor labor.

  “That,” said Sandy, as at last the final toast of delicious fruit juice had been drunk, “is the finest feast I have ever known.”

  “And now,” he said to Jeanne, “tell us about this magic isle I am to visit, this Isle Royale.”

  “You?” Jeanne looked at him in surprise. “You are going to Isle Royale? In winter?”

  “Yes. In an airplane.”

  “In an airplane?” The look of surprise and longing on Jeanne’s face was a wonderful thing to behold. Her own Dragonfly was stored away, but never would she forget those golden days when she had gone gliding through the air. Nor would she forget the glorious days she had spent on the shores of the “Magic Isle.”

  “You are going to Isle Royale in an airplane,” she repeated slowly. “Then I shall tell you all about it—but on one condition!”

  “Name it.” Sandy smiled.

  “That you take me with you.”

  A little cry of surprise ran round the room. For a space of seconds Sandy was silent. Then, with a look of sudden decision on his face, he said, “It’s a go!”

  “And now, Jeanne,” Miss Mabee arose, “when our good friend Tum has put another log on the fire and we have all drawn up our chairs, suppose you tell us all about this very wonderful isle.”

  So there, with the lights turned out, with the glow of the fire playing over her bewitching face, Jeanne told them of Isle Royale. She spoke of the deep, dark waters where lake trout gleam like silver; of the rocky shore where at times the waters of old Lake Superior come thundering in, and of the little lakes that lay gleaming among the dark green forests.

  She told of wild moose that come down to the shores at sunset to dip their noses in the bluest of waters, then to lift their antlers high and send a challenge echoing away across the ridges. She told of the bush wolves who answered that challenge, then of the slow settling down of night that turned this whole little world to a pitchy black.

  “And then,” she whispered, “the moon comes rolling like a golden chariot wheel over the ridge to paint a path of gold across those black waters. And you, not to be outdone by a mere moon, touch a match to your campfire and it blazes high to meet the stars.

  “That,” she exclaimed, springing to her feet and executing a wild dance before the fire, “that is summer! What must it be in winter? All those tall spruce trees decorated with snow, all those little lakes gleaming like mirrors. And tracks through the snow—tracks of moose, bush wolves, lynx and beaver, mysterious tracks that wind on and on over the ridge. To think,” she cried, “we are to see all this!

  “But Sandy!” Her mood changed. “You said they were trapping moose. Why should they trap any wild thing? That—why that’s like trapping a gypsy!”

  “Some gypsies should be trapped.” Sandy laughed, seizing her hand teasingly. “But as for the moose of Isle Royale, they have become too numerous for the island. They
are trapping them and taming them a little. In the spring they are to be taken to game sanctuaries on the mainland where there is an abundance of food. But look!” he exclaimed. “We are taking up all the time raving about this island. What about our musicians? Let’s have a tune.”

  His words were greeted with hand-clapping. Tum Morrow and his companions tuned up and for the next half hour the studio walls echoed to many a melody. Some were of today, modern and rhythmical, and some of yesterday with all their tuneful old melodies.

  During this musical interlude Florence, seated in a dark corner, gave herself over to reflections concerning the amusing, mysterious and sometimes threatening events of the days just past.

  “It is all so strange, so intriguing, so rather terrible!” she was thinking to herself. “This Madame Zaran, is she truly a genius at crystal gazing? How could she fail to be? Did I not, myself, see a vision in the crystal ball? And that girl June, who could doubt but that she saw herself as she was when a child, with her father? And yet—” the whole affair was terribly disturbing. They had compelled the girl, a mere child, to pay two hundred dollars for this vision. How much for the next? They had promised to reveal her father’s whereabouts, tell her when he would return. Could they do that? “Ten years!” she whispered. “One is tempted to believe him dead. And yet—”

  Then there was the voodoo priestess, she with the black goat. They were to visit her on the morrow. “And I have an appointment with Madame Zaran too. A busy day!”

  She thought, with a new feeling of alarm, of Jeanne’s experience on that day. “Wish I hadn’t told her of that thieving gypsy fortune teller. Get her into no end of trouble. Dangerous, those gypsies!” Then, at a sudden remembrance, she smiled. It was good that Jeanne had won the dancing contest; good, too, that she had helped that gypsy child of the bright shawl. Jeanne had “cast bread upon the waters.” It would return.

  Then of a sudden as the music stopped, she gave a start. Before her eyes there appeared to float a shadow, a curiously frightening shadow. It was the shadow of a face she had seen on the midnight blue of Madame Zaran’s studio, a face that had somehow reminded her of Satan. “My dear old aunt used to say Satan had a hand in all fortune telling,” she whispered. But then, aunts were almost always old-fashioned and sometimes a little foolish.

  Now the music played so well by Tum Morrow and his companions came to an end. There was instant applause, and Florence was wakened from her disturbing day dream.

  “Can you play one of Liszt’s rhapsodies?” Miss Mabee asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Tum said regretfully, “I have never studied them.”

  “But yes!” Bihari, the gypsy blacksmith, sprang up. “Let me show you! The best one it goes like this. Every gypsy knows it.”

  Taking the violin from Tum Morrow’s hand, he began drawing forth a teasing, bewitching melody. “Come!” he exclaimed, nodding his head at the other musicians. “You know this one. Surely you must!”

  They did. Soon piano, cello, clarinet and violin were doing full justice to this glorious gypsy music written down for the world by a master composer.

  A perfect silence fell over the room. When the violin dropped to a whisper and was heard alone, there was not another sound.

  As for Jeanne, while Bihari played she was far, far away beside a hedge where the grass was green and the midnight blue of the sky was sprinkled with golden stars. Again, with her fellow wanderers she breathed the sweet free air of night, listened to the call of the whippoorwill and the wail of the violin.

  “Wonderful!” Miss Mabee exclaimed as the music ended. “You almost make me want to be a gypsy. And Bihari, you shall make me famous. I shall paint your picture. You shall be seated on your anvil, playing Liszt’s rhapsody to a group of ragged children. In the background shall be a dozen poorly clad women holding their pots and pans to be mended, but all carried away by that glorious music. Ah, what a picture! Shall I have it?”

  “If you wish it,” Bihari replied humbly.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “If you wish.”

  “Done!” the artist exclaimed. “And all the ones with ragged shawls and leaky pans shall be well paid.

  “And now, Tum, my dear boy,” she turned to the boy musician. “You give us a goodnight lullaby, and we shall be off to pleasant dreams.”

  A half hour later Miss Mabee and Florence sat before the fire. Florence had just told of her experience as a crystal-gazer.

  “You were day-dreaming, my dear,” Miss Mabee laughed lightly. “Had you been looking dreamily at a spot of light or a blank wall, you would have seen the same thing. You are fond of the wide out-of-doors and our bits of American wilderness. Day-dreaming is our most wonderful indoor sport. Were it not for our day-dreams, there are many who would go quite mad in these troublous times. But when life is too hard, off we drift on our magic carpet of dreams, and all is well.”

  CHAPTER X

  A VOODOO PRIESTESS

  When Florence and June Travis arrived at the home of Marianna Christophe, the voodoo priestess, next afternoon, they met with a surprise. The surprise was not in the building—it was unpretentious enough, a long, low building with a pink front. The surprise came when they found several large and shiny automobiles parked along the curb before the door.

  “Our visit is off,” Florence sighed. “Must be a funeral or something.”

  “But I have an appointment at four o’clock!” June protested.

  “Oh, well, we’ll see.” Florence lifted an ancient brass knocker and let it fall.

  Instantly the door flew open and a brownish young lady with white and rolling eyes peered out.

  “I have an appointment,” June Travis said timidly.

  “I’ll look.” The brown one vanished, to return almost at once.

  “Yass’m! Jest step right in!” She bowed low. “The priestess will see you, ’zactly at four.”

  The reception room which the girls entered was large. Along one side was a row of comfortable chairs. All but two of the chairs were filled. If one were to judge by their rich attire, these people were the owners of the cars parked outside. They were all women. One was old and one quite young. The others, four in all, were middle-aged.

  “She’s marvelous!” one of the waiting ones said in a half whisper. “The first time I saw her she told me I had a boy who was not yet sixteen and who was more than six feet tall. She said I had been married twice, but that I have no husband now. She said my principal jewels were a necklace of pearls coming down from my grandmother, a diamond bracelet and three diamond rings. All of this is exactly right. And think of it! She had never seen me before! I had not so much as given her my name. Wasn’t that most astonishing?”

  Florence listened in vast surprise. This woman was speaking, beyond doubt, of the voodoo priestess. Could she indeed tell you all about yourself, your innermost secrets? She shuddered. Who could want any stranger to know all that? She looked at June. She, too, had heard. Her face was all alight. “All these people believe in her,” she whispered. “They are much older than I, and must be wiser, and they are rich. Surely she will tell me where my father is, and when he will come back. It—it’s so very little to ask.” There was an appealing note in the girl’s low voice that went straight to Florence’s heart.

  “I have ten dollars left,” June whispered. “Next week I’ll have a little more, and soon a very great deal.”

  “Yes,” Florence thought, “and therein lies your great peril! In such times as these much money is a menace to any innocent and unprotected person. We must find her father, we must indeed! But how? There’s the trouble.”

  Her thoughts were broken in upon by the brown girl of the rolling eyes. “The priestess will see you all now,” she whispered.

  “June,” Florence asked in a low tone, “have you been here before?”

  “Never.” The girl shuddered.

  “And yet,” Florence thought, “they are passing her in ahead of those others! Can it be that this priestess has al
ready heard of this child’s money?” For the first time in her life she began to believe that at least some of these fortune tellers knew everything, even the innermost secrets of one’s heart. The feeling made her uncomfortable.

  The room they entered was weirdly fantastic. Its walls were covered with paper so blue that it seemed black. Over this paper flew a thousand tiny imaginary birds of every hue. The floor was jet black. On a sort of raised platform, in a highly ornamental chair that seemed a throne, sat a very large black woman with deep-set dark eyes. She was dressed in a robe of dark red. As the two girls entered, she was swinging her arms slowly up and down as if to drive away an imaginary swarm of flies, or perhaps ghosts.

  “I am—” June began.

  “No, child. Don’t tell me.” The woman’s tone was melodiously southern. “I’s a priestess, a voodoo priestess. I’s the great, great granddaughter of Cristophe, the Emperor of Haiti.

  “Listen, child!” Her voice dropped. It seemed to Florence that the lights grew dim. “At midnight in the dark of de moon, on de highest mountain in Haiti, dey took me an’ a big black goat, all black. Dey sacrificed de goat in de dark of de moon. But me, honey, me dey made a priestess. To me it is given to ask and to know all things. As I look at you now, I seem to see no father near you, no mother near you, but girls, one, two, three, oh, mebby a dozen. That right?”

  “Yes, I—”

  “Don’t speak, honey. You come to ask where your Daddy is, and I—I am here to tell you. Only—”

  “I—I’ve got ten—”

  “Don’t speak of money, not yet. I—”

  The priestess broke off suddenly. Florence had entered silently, but had fallen back at once into a dark corner. For the first time the priestess became conscious of her presence.

  “Who’s that?” she demanded.

  “Only my friend,” June replied timidly.

  “Well, she can sit over there.” The priestess pointed to the farthest corner.

  When Florence was seated the woman began again her monotonous monologue, but she spoke in such low tones that Florence could catch only a word here and there.