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

by Julia K. Duncan

  “I’m not so sure about that,” said the student. His tone was serious. “I have a feeling that you are in some sort of real danger. I am surprised, now that I recall it, that I did not see the elephant, or whatever he symbolized, coming down that rope after you. You—you wouldn’t like to tell me?” He hesitated.

  “N-not now.” Florence slid from her stool. “Perhaps some other time.”

  “O. K. Fine! I’m greatly interested.”

  “So—so am I.” These words slipped unbidden from her lips.

  “Here’s my card.” He thrust a square of pasteboard in her hand.

  “Thanks for the pie!” They were at the door.

  “Oh, that’s more than all right. Remember—” his hand was on her arm for an instant. “Don’t forget, if you need me to interpret a dream, or for—for—”

  “Another piece of pie,” she laughed.

  “Sure! Just anything,” he laughed back, “just give me a ring.”

  “By the way!” Florence said with sudden impulse, “there is something. Can you help people recall, make them think back, back into their past until they at last remember something that may be of great help to them?”

  “I’ve done it at times quite successfully.”

  “Then I’d like to arrange something, perhaps for tomorrow or the next day. I—I’ll give you a ring.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  “Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye.”

  He was gone. Florence felt better. In this great city she had found one more substantial friend. In times like these friendships counted for a great deal.

  There come periods in all our lives when life moves so swiftly that things which, perhaps, should be done are left undone. It had been so with Florence. As, a short time later, she found time for repose in the studio under the eaves of a skyscraper, she wondered if she should not have called the police and had that tenth story haunt of Madame Zaran and the Professor raided.

  “And after that—what?” she asked herself. To this question she found no answer. The police might tell her she had been seized with a plain case of jitters. Truth was, not a person in that room had touched her. Madame Zaran had indulged in a fit of passion—that was about all.

  “Besides—” she settled back in her chair. “It is not yet time. There are things I want to know. How was it that I saw real moving figures in that crystal ball? How much of Madame Zaran’s work is pure show? How much is real? I must know. And, meantime, I must do what I can for June Travis.” With that she went away to the land of dreams.

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE SECRET OF LOST LAKE

  Jeanne toiled laboriously up the side of Greenstone Ridge on Isle Royale. From time to time she paused to regain her breath, to drink in the cool clean winter air, and to revel in the glorious contrasts of the white that was snow and the dark green that was spruce, fir and balsam.

  She was on Isle Royale. More than once she had been obliged to pinch herself to make sure of that.

  “Airplanes are so sudden, so wonderful!” she had said to Sandy. “Now we are in Chicago; now we are in Duluth; and now we are on Isle Royale.”

  Their trip north had been just like that, a short whirring flight, and there they were coming down upon Isle Royale. Landing on skiis, they had taxied almost to the door of the low fisherman’s cabin which was to be their temporary home.

  Here Sandy was to study wild life, find out all he could about trapping wild moose and send interesting stories out over the short-wave radio. Here Jeanne was to wander at will over the great white wilderness. And this was exactly what she was doing now.

  “What a world!” she breathed. “What a glorious world God has given us!” Her gaze swept a magic wilderness.

  Her heart leaped anew as she thought of the chance circumstances that had brought her to this “Magic Isle” sixty miles from the Michigan mainland in winter.

  “I am going to like Vivian,” she told herself. “I am sure she is quite grand.” She paused a moment to consider. Vivian was the fisherman’s daughter. Her hands were rough, her face was tanned brown. Her clothing of coarse material was stoutly made to stand many storms. Jeanne was dressed at this moment in a sweater of bright red. It was wool, soft as eiderdown. Her dark blue knickers were of the latest cloth and pattern. Miss Mabee had outfitted her in this lavish manner.

  “Vivian and I shall be the finest friends in all the world!” she exclaimed.

  With that, she squared her slender shoulders, threw back her thick golden hair, drew her wool cap down tight, then went struggling toward her goal.

  Twenty minutes later a cry of pure joy escaped her lips. “How wonderful! How perfectly gorgeous!

  “And yet—” her voice dropped. “How strange! They did not tell me there was a lake on the other side, a gem of a lake hidden away beneath the ridges. I—I doubt if they knew. How little some people know about the places near their own homes!

  “I—I’ll give it a name!” she cried, seized by a sudden inspiration. “It shall be called ‘Lost Lake.’ Lost Lake,” she murmured. As she looked down upon it, it seemed a mirror set in a frame of darkest green.

  “Hemlock turned to pitchy black

  Against the whiteness at their back.”

  “My Lost Lake,” she whispered, “I must see it closer.”

  Little did she dream that this simple decision would result in mysteries and adventures such as she had seldom before known.

  “How wonderful it all is!” she exclaimed again, as at last her feet rested on the glistening surface of the little lost lake.

  She went shuffling across the dark, deeply frozen surface. The first spell of severe weather of that autumn had come with a period of dead calm. All the small lakes of the island had frozen over smooth as glass. And now, though the ice was more than a foot thick, it was possible while gliding across it to catch sight of dull gray rocks and deep yawning shadows where the water was deep.

  Only the day before on Long Lake, which was close to Vivian’s home, Jeanne and her friend had thrown themselves flat down on the ice, shaded their eyes and peered into the shadowy depth below. They had found it a fascinating adventure into the great unknown. In places, standing like a miniature forest, tall, heavy-leafed pikeweeds greeted their eyes. Among these, like giant dirigibles moored to the tree-tops, long black pickerel lay. Waving their fins gently to and fro, they stared up with great round eyes. Here, too, at times they saw whole schools of yellow perch and wall-eyes. Once, too, they caught sight of a scaly monster more than six feet long. He was so huge and ugly, they shuddered at sight of him. Vivian had decided he must be a sturgeon and marveled at his presence in these waters.

  Recalling all this, Jeanne now slipped the snowshoes from off her feet and, throwing herself flat on the ice, began her own little exploring expedition beneath the surface of her own private lake.

  She had just sighted a school of tiny perch when a strange and apparently impossible sight caught her gaze. Faint, but quite unmistakable, there came to her mental vision a circle of gold, and within that circle these letters and figures: D.X.123.

  One moment it was there. The next it was blotted out by the passing of that school of small fish. When the fish had passed, the vision too was gone.

  “I didn’t see it at all,” she told herself. “It was just a picture flashed on the walls of my memory—something I saw long ago. It is like the markings on an airplane—the plane’s number. But it really wasn’t there at all.

  “I have it!” she exclaimed. “That must be the number on the airplane that carried us here. I’ll look and see when I get back.”

  She straightened up to look about her. As she did so, she realized that the sun had gone under a cloud. Disquieting thought, this may have been the reason for the vanishing picture in the depths below.

  “The fish hid it. Then the sun went under that cloud. I must look again.” She settled down to await the passing of that cloud.

  “What if I see it again?” she thought.
“Shall I tell the others? Will they believe me? Probably not. Laugh at me, tell me I’ve been seeing things.

  “I know what I’ll do!” She came to a sudden decision. “I’ll bring Vivian up here and have her look. I’ll not tell her a thing, but just have her look. Then if she sees it I’ll know—”

  But the sun was out from behind the cloud—time to look again.

  Her heart was beating painfully from excitement as she shaded her eyes once more.

  For a time she could make out nothing but rocks and deep shadows. Then the school of small fish circled back.

  “Have to wait.” She heaved a sigh almost of relief.

  But now something startled the perch. They went scurrying away. And there, just as it had been before, was the circle and that mysterious sign: D.X.123.

  Ten seconds more it lingered. Then, as before, it vanished. Once again the bright light had faded. This time a large cloud was over the sun. It would take an hour, perhaps two, for it to pass.

  “I must go back,” she sighed. Slipping on her snowshoes, she turned about to make her way laboriously up the ridge.

  As she struggled on, climbing a rocky ridge here, battling her way through a thick cluster of balsams there, then out upon a level, barren space, a strange feeling came over her, a feeling she could not at all explain. It was as if someone were trying to whisper into her ear a startling and mysterious truth. She listened in vain for the whisper. It did not come. And yet, as she once more began the upward climb it was with a feeling, almost a conviction, that all she had done in the last few days—the flight to Isle Royale, her hours about the cabin stove, the climb up this ridge, her discovery of Lost Lake and that mysterious D.X.123—was somehow a part of that which she had left behind with Florence in Chicago.

  “I can’t see how it could be,” she murmured, “yet somehow I feel this is true.”

  That same evening in Miss Mabee’s studio an interesting experiment was in progress. Made desperate by her terrifying experiences in that tenth floor “retreat” of Madame Zaran and Professor Alcapar, and quite convinced that the beautiful June Travis was in great danger, Florence had resolved to use every possible means to discover the whereabouts of June’s father and bring him back.

  “Gone ten years!” Doubt whispered to her, “He’s dead; he must be.” Yet faith would not allow her to believe this.

  She had put herself in touch with June’s home and had secured permission to invite her to the studio. When June arrived, she found not only Florence, but the young psychologist, Rodney Angel, and Tum Morrow. Tum had his violin.

  “The point is,” the psychologist launched at once into the business at hand, “you, June Travis, wish to find your father. If you can recall some of your surroundings while you were with him, we may be able to locate those surroundings, and through them some friend who may know at least which way he went.

  “Now,” he said in a tone of perfect ease, “we are here together, four friends in this beautiful studio. Our friend Tum is going to give us some music. Do you like waltz time?”

  “I adore it.”

  “Waltz time,” he nodded to Tum.

  “While he plays,” he went on, “we shall sit before the open fire, and that should remind you of Christmas, stockings and all that. I’m going to ask you to think back as far as you can, Christmas by Christmas. That should not be hard. Perhaps last Christmas was a glad one because all your friends were present, the one before that sad because some treasured one was gone. Think back, back, back, and let us see if we cannot at last arrive at the last one you spent with your father.”

  “Oh!” The look on June’s face became animated. “I—I’ll try hard.”

  “Not too hard. Just let your thoughts flow back, like a stream. Now, Tum, the music.”

  For ten minutes there was no sound save the sweet, melodious voice of Tum’s violin.

  “Now,” whispered the psychologist, “think! Last Christmas? Was it glad or sad?”

  “Glad.”

  “And the one before?”

  “Glad.”

  “And the one before that?”

  “Sad.”

  So they went on back through the years until with some hesitation the girl said once more, “Sad.”

  “Why?” the psychologist asked quickly.

  “I wanted a doll. I had always had a new doll for Christmas. The lady gave me no doll.”

  “But who always gave you a doll at Christmas?” In the young psychologist’s eye shone a strange light.

  “A man, a short, jolly man.”

  “And the last doll he gave you had golden hair?” He leaned forward eagerly.

  “No. The hair was brown. The doll’s eyes opened and shut.”

  “So you opened its eyes and said, ‘See the fire!’”

  “No. I took the doll to the window and said, ‘See the tower.’”

  “What sort of tower?” The air of the room grew tense, yet the girl did not know it.

  “A brownstone tower. A round tower with a round flat roof of stone. There was a bell in the tower that rang and rang on Christmas Eve.”

  “Could you draw it?” He pressed pencil and paper into her hand. She made a crude drawing, then held it up to him.

  “It will do,” he breathed. “Now, one more question. What kind of a house was it you lived in then?”

  “A red brick house—square and a little ugly.”

  “Fine! Wonderful!” Rodney Angel relaxed. “I know that tower. There is only one such in all Chicago-land. It was built before the Civil War. It is a college tower. I doubt if there is more than one red brick house within sight of it. If there is not, then that is where you lived. And if you lived there, we will be able to find someone who knew that short, stout, jolly man who was your father.”

  “My father!” the girl cried, “No! It can’t be! He is tall, slim and dignified.”

  “Do you know that to be a fact?” The young man stared.

  “I saw him in the crystal ball.”

  “Oh!” Rodney heaved a sigh of relief. “Well, perhaps your father is subject to change without notice. We shall see.

  “And now—” he turned a smiling face to Florence. “How about another cup of coffee and just another piece of pie, or perhaps two?”

  “To think!” June looked at the young psychologist with unconcealed admiration. “You helped me do what I have never been able to do before. You made me think back to those days when I was with my father!”

  “Some day,” Rodney said thoughtfully, “people will begin to understand the working of their own minds. And what a grand day that will be!

  “In the meantime,” he smiled a bright smile, “if you girls have had any dreams you don’t quite understand, bring them to little old Rodney. He’ll do his best to unravel them.

  “Now,” he sighed, “how about the pie?”

  CHAPTER XVII

  FROM OUT THE PAST

  In the meantime, Jeanne, having returned from her little voyage of discovery on Isle Royale, was learning something of life as it went forward at Chippewa Harbor. Here, on the shores of a little cove, Holgar Carlson, a sturdy Scandinavian fisherman, had his home. There were four children; two girls, Violet and Vivian, about the same age as Jeanne, and two small boys. From November until April no boats visit the island. It would be difficult to picture a more completely isolated spot. And yet Violet and Vivian, who were to be Jeanne’s companions, were never lonesome. They had their duties and their special interests which kept them quite fully employed. And, had they but known it, the coming of Jeanne meant mystery and unusual discoveries.

  “Discovery.” Ah, yes, to Vivian, the younger and more active of the two sisters, this was one grand word. On this unusual island she had made many a discovery.

  “This,” she was saying to Jeanne with the air of one about to display rich treasures, “is our curiosity shop. Not everyone who comes to Chippewa Harbor gets a peek in here.”

  After removing a heavy padlock she swung wide a massive do
or of varnished logs.

  “You see,” she explained as Jeanne’s eyes wandered from one article to another displayed on the shelves of the narrow room, “each article here has something to do with the history of Isle Royale.”

  “Only look!” Jeanne exclaimed. “Arrowheads and spear points of copper! A gun—such an old looking one! A pistol, too, and a brass cannon. Some very queer axes! Did you find them all by yourself?” she asked in surprise.

  “Oh, my, no!” Vivian laughed. “They come from all over the island. Fishermen are constantly finding things. Some were found where long lost villages have been, or around deserted mines. Then, too, some were taken up in nets.”

  “In nets?” Jeanne’s voice showed astonishment.

  “You’d be surprised!” Vivian’s face glowed. She had something truly interesting to tell.

  “We set our nets close to the lake bottom. Sometimes the water is deep, sometimes shallow, but always the net is on the bottom. Storms come and bring things rolling in. The waves work heavy objects over our nets. If a net is strong enough, when it is lifted, up they come.

  “And not so easily either!” she amended. “Sometimes it takes a lot of pulling and hauling. Not so fine when it’s freezing on shore and snow is blowing in your eyes. If you get a log in your net, all water soaked, and so long you never see both ends of it if you work for an hour, then the net slips from your half-frozen fingers, and it’s just too bad! The net is gone forever.

  “Look.” She put a hand on some hard mass that rested on the lower shelf. “We brought that up in our net.”

  “What is it?” Jeanne asked.

  “Lift it.” Vivian smiled.

  Lightly Jeanne grasped it. Then she let out a low exclamation. “Whew! How heavy!”

  “Eighty pounds,” said Vivian, not without a show of pride. “Solid copper.

  “You see,” she went on, allowing her eyes to sweep the place, “it is just this that has made me realize that history and geography are not just dull things to be studied and forgotten. When father brought in that mass of copper, I wanted to know all about it, how it got there and all that.