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

by Julia K. Duncan

  She sped across the hall to the desk, followed by her two faithful shadows, who were determined to stand loyally by.

  “Well, I swan, if it isn’t Betty!” ejaculated the farmer when he caught sight of her.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  BOB IS CLEARED

  “Betty, you stay out of this,” commanded Bob sternly. “If there’s going to be a scene, two actors will be a-plenty. You go away and take the girls with you.”

  The clerk who had been regarding them curiously over his ledger now took a hand.

  “If this argument is likely to be prolonged,” he suggested sarcastically, “I’d advise you either to go up to your room, Mr. Peabody, or into that card room there. That’s deserted in the day time.”

  “Yes, come on in here,” said Betty, anxious to get away from the gaze of the other guests. She led the way into the card room which opened off the lobby and was preferable to making a public journey in the elevator. “Close the door, Louise.”

  Mr. Peabody kept his hold on Bob’s collar and from time to time he shook him vigorously, whether with the idea of shaking the stubbornness out of him or merely to indicate that he held the whip hand, Betty was undecided.

  “You can let go of Bob,” she said heatedly, as soon as they were in the room with the door shut. “He isn’t going to run away.”

  “I’ll see that he doesn’t,” was the grim reply. “You hand over that deed, young man, or I’ll call a policeman in two minutes.”

  “I tell you I haven’t got it!” protested Bob desperately. “I never saw the thing. What would I be doing with a paper of yours? I haven’t got it, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Of course he hasn’t!” For the life of her Betty could not keep still, though perhaps caution dictated that she hold her tongue. “I know he hasn’t that deed, Mr. Peabody. And having him arrested won’t give you what he hasn’t got.”

  “How do you know he hasn’t got it?” demanded the farmer. “Deeds don’t walk off and hide themselves, young lady. Bob happens to know why I want that deed. And if he doesn’t produce it, and that mighty quick, he’ll find himself where they can shake the truth out of him with no fooling.”

  Bobby sprang to her feet from the leather chair where she had curled up to listen to the proceedings.

  “I’ll telephone my father,” she cried. “He’ll help Bob to sue you for false arrest. If you have some one arrested and it is found he didn’t do what you said he did, he can sue you for damages. I’ve heard my father say so. Don’t you care, Bob, Daddy will find a way to beat this horrid old man.”

  An unpleasant smile spread over the mean, shriveled face.

  “Is that so?” queried Joseph Peabody. “Well, I don’t know who you are, Miss, but you need a lesson on how to keep a civil tongue in your head. All the fine friends Mister Bob has picked up in Washington won’t stand by him long when they find out he’s a poorhouse rat and a runaway at that. There’ll be some explaining for you to do before the almshouse authorities are satisfied, young man.”

  Betty’s anger flamed as the familiar odious phrase fell from the farmer’s lips, and added to her anger was the crystallized fear that had been haunting her for weeks. She did not know whether Bob could really be returned to the poor-house or whether it was another trick of Peabody’s, but she feared the worst and dreaded it.

  “You try to return Bob to the poorhouse!” she cried, her cheeks blazing, her hands clenched. She took a step toward Peabody and he fell back, dragging Bob with him so that a chair stood between them and the furious girl. “You try to return Bob to the poorhouse, and I’ll tell every one what I know about that deed,” flared Betty. “I know all about the Warren lots and the kind of sale you forced through. You—you—” to her distress and amazement, Betty burst into tears.

  “Don’t cry, dear,” whispered Bobby, putting her arm around her. “Daddy won’t let them do anything to Bob. You see if he does.”

  Joseph Peabody was apparently impervious to verbal assaults and tears.

  “Once more I ask you,” he shook Bob violently, “are you going to hand over that paper? Yes, or no?”

  “I tell you I haven’t got it,” said Bob doggedly. “Shaking my teeth out won’t help me get a paper I never saw in my life. As for having me arrested, you keep up this racket much longer and the hotel authorities will send for the police on their own responsibility.”

  Peabody picked up his hat.

  “All right, you come along with me,” he said sourly. “You won’t go before a soft-headed police recorder this time, either. You’ll find out what it means to face a real judge.”

  He was marching Bob toward the door when a sharp rap sounded. Louise, nearest the door, had the presence of mind to open it. A bellboy stood there with a telegram on a tray.

  “Telegram for Mr. Joseph Peabody,” he announced impassively, his alert eyes darting about the room from which such angry voices had been coming for the last quarter of an hour.

  “All right—give it here.” The farmer snatched the yellow envelope and shut the door in the boy’s face without making a motion to tip him.

  His back against the door, to prevent Bob’s escape, Joseph Peabody slit the envelope and read the message. The others saw his jaw drop and a slow, painful flush creep over his face and neck.

  “I’m called back to Bramble Farm right away,” he mumbled, refusing to meet their gaze. “Being hurried, and having so much to tend to, I’m willing to drop the matter of having you arrested, Bob. But let this be a lesson to you, to hoe a straight row.”

  Bob stared at the man stupidly, frankly bewildered. But Betty’s quick wit solved the sudden change of front. She had seen how quickly Peabody folded up the telegram when he had read it.

  “Isn’t that a message from Mrs. Peabody?” she demanded crisply. “And doesn’t she say she’s found the deed? Where was it—in one of your coat pockets?”

  The farmer was taken by surprise, and the truth was shocked out of him.

  “She’s found it under the seat in the old market wagon,” he blurted. “I recollect I put it there for safe-keeping, meaning to take it over to the deposit box the next day. Well, I’ve wasted more time an’ money in Washington than I like to think of. Got to go home and make up for it.”

  Without another word or glance, without the shadow of an apology to Bob, he swung out of the room and strode over to the desk. In a moment they heard his harsh voice demanding the amount of his bill.

  Bob looked at Betty, who stared back. Louise and Bobby were equally silent. Then Betty snickered, and the tension was broken. Peal after peal of laughter rang out, and they dropped helplessly into chairs and laughed till they could laugh no longer.

  “Oh, dear!” Betty sat up, wiping her eyes. “Did you ever see anything like that? He never said good-by, or admitted that he’d made a mistake, or—or anything! What do you suppose people in the hotel must think of him?”

  That reminded Bobby of the girl they had come to see and who was really responsible for their visit to the hotel.

  “The first kind thing Ruth Royal ever did for me,” she declared frankly. “I wouldn’t have missed seeing Mr. Peabody for worlds.”

  “How did you ever happen to come here, Bob?” asked Betty, who had been wondering about this ever since she had seen Bob walk right into the one man he most wished to avoid.

  “I brought a letter from Mr. Derby for one of the guests stopping here,” explained Bob. “That reminds me, I haven’t delivered it yet. Peabody threw me off the track. I’ll turn it in, and then I’ll have to hurry back to the office; they’ll think I’ve been run over for sure.”

  He went off, promising again to see them on Saturday, and the girls, feeling too upset to settle down to the quietness of a motion picture house, went out to walk up and down in the sunshine of Pennsylvania Avenue until it was time to meet Mr. Littell and Libbie and Esther.

  Of course they had much to tell them, and Mr. Littell in particular was a most appreciative listener. He w
as genuinely fond of Bob and interested in him, and he got quite purple with wrath when he learned of the indignity he had suffered at the hands of the ill-bred farmer.

  “Then he went off and never had the grace to ask the lad’s pardon!” sputtered the builder when Betty reached the end of her recital. “I wish I had him by the collar—just for three minutes. Perhaps I wouldn’t drive a little of the fear of justice into his narrow mind!”

  They had lingered over their ice-cream, and although Carter drove at a good speed, they found that unless they hurried they would be late for dinner. It was one of Mrs. Littell’s few unbreakable rules that the girls must change into simple, light frocks for the evening meal, and they went directly upstairs to take off their street clothes.

  When they came down dinner had been announced and they went directly to the table. They had so much to tell Mrs. Littell and she was so interested that it was not until they were leaving the table that she remembered what she had meant to ask Betty as soon as the girl came in.

  “Betty, darling,” she said comfortably, “you found your letter on the hall table all right, didn’t you?”

  “Why, I never thought to look for mail,” returned Betty in surprise. “No, Mrs. Littell, I didn’t stop in the hall. Was there a letter for me?”

  Mrs. Littell nodded and swept her family across the hall into the living-room, saying something to her husband in a low voice. Betty hurried to the console table where the mail was always laid on a beaten silver tray. The solitary letter lying there was addressed to her. And the postmark, she saw as she picked it up, was a town in Oklahoma!

  CHAPTER XXV

  FUTURE PLANS

  Betty’s first impulse was to run up to her room and close the door. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed and tore open the envelope eagerly. She read the half dozen closely written sheets through twice, thrust them back into the envelope, and ran down to tell the Littells the good news.

  “I’ve heard from Uncle Dick!” she cried radiantly, facing them as they turned at her entrance. Betty’s vivid personality often betrayed her mood without a word, and tonight she was vibrant with happiness so that she fairly glowed. “He has just got back to Flame City, where he found the telegram and my letters. And he wants me to come out to him, as he expects to be there for the next few months. He’s been on a long prospecting trip, and he can’t get East till his company sends out another representative. You may read the letter!”

  She thrust it into Mr. Littell’s hands and buried her head on Mrs. Littell’s broad shoulder.

  “I’m so happy!” she choked, while the motherly hands smoothed her hair understandingly.

  “It’s been so long, and I was afraid he might have died—like my mother. I don’t think I could stand it if Uncle Dick should die—he’s the only one who belongs to me.”

  “Why, Betty, child!” Mrs. Littell gathered her into her lap and rocked her gently as though she had been a little child. “You’re nervous and unstrung. We ought to have taken better care of you and not let this waiting wear you out so.”

  “If you’re going to cry, Betty, so’ll I,” promised Bobby, putting an awkward arm around Betty’s neck. Bobby was as undemonstrative as a boy and rarely kissed any one. “What in the wide world are we going to do without you?”

  Betty sat up and pushed the damp hair from her forehead. The four girls were regarding her dolorously.

  “I won’t stay forever,” she assured them. “Uncle Dick doesn’t intend to live out there, you know. The company he represents will likely send him East this very winter.”

  “Well, that’s a mighty interesting letter,” commented Mr. Littell, folding up the missive and returning it to Betty. “Though you’re going to leave a hole in this household, Sister, when you set sail. You see, he’s been out of sight and hearing of trains and post-offices for a long time. I’d like to be able to lose myself in the desert or a wilderness for a month or two. Think of having no telephone bell to answer!”

  The next morning a letter came to Mr. Littell from Mr. Gordon, thanking him warmly for his kindness to Betty, containing the assurance of the writer’s lasting gratitude, and asking him if he and his wife would oversee her preparations for the journey, help her engage a berth, and start her on her way. A generous check was enclosed, and Mrs. Littell and the girls immediately set about helping Betty do the necessary shopping, while Mr. Littell engaged her reservations on the Western Limited. She had decided to leave the following Wednesday, and when Bob came out to spend the week-end, he immediately announced his intention of going too.

  “I figure out Flame City is the nearest station to my aunt’s old place. I have enough money saved now, and there’s no reason why I should stay on here. Hurrah for Oklahoma!”

  The preparations went forward merrily after that, and Wednesday found Betty on the Western Limited, bound for Flame City. What happened to her there and her experience in the great oil fields will be told in another volume to be called, “Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil; or, The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune.”

  Bobby insisted that they make the week-end at Fairfields a farewell celebration to be remembered, and the six young people managed to get the maximum of enjoyment out of every hour. Bob had been brought out to Saturday luncheon, and as soon as he had heard about the Oklahoma trip and announced his own plans, Louise insisted that Betty was to have a lesson in riding.

  “Of course you’ll want to ride out West,” she said. “They all do in pictures. Come on out to the barn, and we’ll get the ponies out.”

  A stable boy brought out a gentle, coal-black pony, and Betty mounted him trustingly.

  “Why, it’s lovely!” cried Betty, enjoying the sensation to the full. “He goes like a rocking chair, bless his heart! I’m sure I can learn to ride.”

  “Of course you can!” Bobby encouraged her swiftly. “You must try him at a slow canter in a minute. Here comes Esther with the camera.”

  A picture of Betty was taken, and then the lesson was resumed. At the close of the afternoon Bobby announced that Betty was in a fair way to become a good horsewoman.

  Mr. and Mrs. Littell took them into Washington to the theater that night, and to make up the hours of lost sleep all the young people slept late the next morning.

  Instead of going into Washington to church, they all went to the little country church that Mrs. Littell attended and loved, and after the service they spent a quiet, pleasant day about the house and grounds of Fairfields.

  That evening the five girls and Bob gathered on the spacious white steps of the house to watch the beautiful Virginia sunset.

  “Let’s promise each other,” suggested Betty, her pretty face serious and thoughtful, “to meet five years from now, wherever we may be, and compare notes. We’ll be almost grown up then and know what we’re going to be.”

  “No matter how often we meet, or how seldom, five years from today we’ll promise to come together,” agreed Bobby. “Here’s my seal.”

  She put out her hand and the hands of the six interlocked in a tower.

  “To our close friendship,” murmured Betty, as they unclasped.

  Then, the sun having set, they went into the glow and welcome of the lighted lamps.

  THE ADVENTURE GIRLS AT THE K BAR O, by Clair Blank

  CHAPTER I

  Arrival

  The thing that went under the name of automobile wheezed into the ranchyard and rattled to a halt. With creaks and groans in every joint the car discharged its six very dusty, very weary occupants.

  At the same time, the screen door of the ranch house banged shut and a flying figure descended on the new arrivals.

  “Oh, Gale, but I’m glad to see you,” the girl from the ranch house declared hugging the foremost one of the visitors.

  Gale Howard returned the hug with equal warmth. The two were cousins, and Gale and her friends, The Adventure Girls, had traveled West to spend the summer on the K Bar O Ranch, owned by Gale’s uncle.

  “But don’t tell me
you traveled all the way West in that!” Virginia Wilson murmured aghast, when the introductions and first greetings were over.

  “We wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale,” declared Carol Carter. “I never knew a car that had so many bumps in it.”

  “We came West to Phoenix on the train,” Gale explained. “It was there we bought the car and drove up here.”

  “You wouldn’t think we bought it second hand, would you?” Janet Gordon murmured.

  “No,” Phyllis Elton agreed with a twinkle in her eyes. “It looks as though we made it ourselves.”

  The last two of the new arrivals, Madge Reynolds and Valerie Wallace, who had been busy unstrapping luggage and tumbling bags onto the ground, turned now to the ranch girl.

  “What shall we do with our stuff?” Madge asked.

  “I suppose you will want to change from your traveling suits,” Virginia suggested, “so just bring along what you want now. Leave the rest here. Tom can bring it in later.”

  Tom was her elder brother and as the girls walked toward the ranch house he crossed the yard from the corral. Behind him came Gale’s uncle. Virginia called her mother and more greetings and introductions followed.

  “But how did you manage to leave home without a chaperon?” Virginia asked from her position on the bed in the room shared by Gale and Valerie.

  “It was all we could do to get away without one,” a laughing voice in the adjoining room declared, and Janet appeared on the threshold.

  “Finally our parents decided that Gale and Valerie, being the only sane and level-headed ones among us, could be trusted to see that we behaved properly,” Carol added, hanging over Janet’s shoulder.

  “That shows how much they really know Gale and Valerie,” added Janet mischievously. “If they had any sense at all, they would have appointed me guardian angel of the troupe.”

  “Then we would never have gotten this far,” Valerie declared, struggling to pull on a brown riding boot.

  “Yes, Virginia,” Gale laughed, “when we did let Janet drive for a little while, she ran us into a ditch, went the wrong way on a one way street in a little town below here, talked back to a policeman and nearly landed us all in jail.”