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

by Julia K. Duncan

  As the day for the races neared more planes began landing on the Marchton field. Pilots from all over the country brought their entries.

  “It’s going to be the most exciting thing that ever happened in Marchton,” declared Janet.

  “And I wouldn’t miss it for anything!” Madge echoed. “Do you suppose there will be many entries in the parachute jump?”

  A special woman’s amateur parachute jumping contest was announced by a big yellow flag which blew in the breeze above the main hangar.

  “Well, here is one who isn’t going into it,” Valerie declared vigorously and the rest laughed.

  Gale was standing with Bruce while Brent warmed the engine of his Silver Arrow, the black and silver plane.

  “Don’t forget you promised to take me up,” she called.

  He nodded. “Going to fly your father to Quebec tonight. Perhaps we can take you along.”

  Gale shivered in gleeful anticipation. That would be better than a ride merely circling the field.

  “Do you think it is wise to go up with him in that?” Bruce murmured as he walked beside Gale back to town.

  The fall day was sunshiny and cool and they had decided on the walk to rouse a good appetite for dinner.

  “Why not?” Gale asked suspiciously.

  “Well, you don’t know whether the motor is perfect or not,” he said. “Suppose something went wrong. You might crash.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a Weary Willie!” Gale said impatiently. “Brent is one of the best pilots there is. Didn’t he fly that anti-toxin up to Alaska to those Eskimos last year and save hundreds of lives? If he could do that he can take us to Quebec tonight. He can handle his plane perfectly. Besides, he has already tested it.”

  “The race is tomorrow. You might not be back in time,” Bruce added.

  “Oh, yes, we will!” Gale said. “Nothing could make Brent miss that and you know it.”

  “Just the same—” Bruce said uncomfortably.

  They waited until the cloud of dust raised by a passing motor vehicle had died down before they resumed their walk.

  “You see a lot of Brent, don’t you?” Bruce mused. “He takes you to the movies, out here at the airport—”

  “Well?” Gale said with ominous quiet in her voice.

  “It seems funny,” Bruce continued. “And another thing—you are neglecting your studies. If you aren’t careful you won’t pass the college exams and then where will you be?”

  Gale whirled on him suddenly. Her eyes were dark with fury, her cheeks blazed with color.

  “If I flunk it will be my fault and nobody else’s,” she declared angrily. “You don’t have to lecture to me about it either. I’ll do as I please—go where I please and with whom I please!”

  Bruce merely looked at her when she whirled and set off down the road alone.

  Gale was in a temper. Bruce had added the final touch to a smouldering conflagration. He was not the first one to remark on how she was neglecting her studies, but his words had burst the dam of resentment that had been welling up within her. She was angry that he should try to tell her what to do. His patronizing tone had set her aflame with self-justification. She tramped along, her eyes stormy, looking neither to the right nor left. When Bruce stepped quietly into pace beside her she did not look at him.

  Gradually her temper abated somewhat. She could hear a few remaining birds singing in the fields to her right. Birds preparing to fly south before the long months of winter. The last rays of the afternoon sun were warm. She stole a cautious look at Bruce. He was watching the clouds overhead. Clouds like giant white sailboats on an ocean of azure blue. She frowned but this time not at him, at herself. After all she needn’t have snapped at him the way she did. He was only trying to give her some good advice.

  “Bruce—” she began slowly.

  He smiled at her. “I know,” he said, “forget it.”

  The rest of the walk to her home was covered in complete harmony.

  After dinner Gale drove with her father out to the airport. The Silver Arrow was standing in the white light of the field. The searchlight circled slowly. Numerous planes stood near the shelter of the hangars.

  Mr. Howard had to interview a witness for a court case he was presenting. It was important that he do it as soon as possible and when Brent had volunteered to fly him to Quebec Mr. Howard accepted gladly. At first he had refused to consider taking Gale along but his daughter had finally coaxed permission from him.

  Gleefully Gale climbed into the cockpit and squeezed into a tiny corner while her father took his place beside her. Up ahead Brent manipulated the controls. Stubby was at the propeller.

  “Contact!”

  The call was borne back to Gale on the wind. The propeller spun around. Slowly the plane taxied across the field, rising gently in the face of the wind. Once Brent circled the field, the bright lights, people and planes below them like a miniature city, then he streaked away into the north.

  Stubby watched until the bright searchlight could no longer trace them. The blackness of the plane had melted into the blackness of the sky. The mechanic smiled contentedly and made his way to Brent’s private hangar to stand guard over the yellow ship. His boss’ plane had responded to every lightest suggestion of the controls. If everything went as well tomorrow as it had gone in the tests during the last few days there could be no doubt that Brent would win the races and probably sell his patent to the government. So Stubby mused on while he sat in the cockpit of the yellow plane and waited for the return of the Silver Arrow.

  CHAPTER IX

  The Races

  “He flies through the air with the greatest of ease,” sang Carol lustily as she and her friends watched the take-off of a stunt pilot.

  Phyllis sat on the running board of David’s car and looked around.

  “But I don’t see anything of Gale or Brent Stockton,” she observed.

  “They must be here somewhere,” Valerie declared. “Where’s Bruce?”

  “In the hangar probably,” Janet answered. “There is what’s his name—Stubby.”

  “Hi, there,” David called. “Where is Mr. Stockton?”

  Stubby approached them, a worried frown on his face.

  “You don’t look very happy. Has someone smashed the Silver Arrow?” Peter Arnold inquired.

  “The plane is all right, I hope,” Stubby said gloomily.

  “You hope!” the others echoed.

  “Brent hasn’t brought it back yet,” Stubby informed them. “He went off last night with Miss Howard and her father and hasn’t come back yet.”

  “But it is almost time for the races,” Valerie breathed. “Where are they?”

  Stubby shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

  “Will you fly the yellow plane if he doesn’t come back?” Peter asked anxiously.

  “Can you fly it, Stubby?” David put in.

  Stubby regarded him seriously. “I can fly it—license and everything, but it is Brent’s ship and his motor.”

  “But he would want you to take his place if he couldn’t be here,” David assured him. “Come along, we’ll help you roll the ship out onto the field—just in case Brent doesn’t get back in time.”

  The boys and Stubby walked to the hangar while the girls moved leisurely out to the field where a crowd had already gathered about the planes that would in a little while be vying with one another in the clouds.

  “I’m going over to see the other plane Stubby is going to fly,” Phyllis said after a while and departed.

  A few minutes later Janet slipped away from Carol, Madge and Valerie. The three girls were at first unaware of her absence but even when they discovered it they thought nothing of it. Janet often wandered away by herself—in search of something else to hold her interest. They supposed she had gone after Phyllis.

  Over in the central hangar a huge passenger plane was slowly being wheeled out into the open. It was the plane that was to take the women parachute jumpers up the required
number of feet. From there they would jump out and the first one on the ground receive a cash prize. The entrants were slipping into the white, jumper-like suits and parachutes provided by the airport.

  Janet, her parachute bumping her legs as she walked from the hangar into the sunlight, bumped ignominiously into another girl similarly struggling with her equipment.

  “Having—” Janet began and stopped to emit a shout of surprise. “Phyllis! What are you doing in that parachute?”

  “I might ask the same thing of you,” Phyllis laughed. “How come?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you,” Janet said, slipping her arm within her friend’s as they walked to the waiting plane. “It has always been a suppressed desire of mine to jump out of an airplane.” She grinned engagingly at Phyllis. Secretly she was glad of her friend’s presence. It lent her support in the last minutes when she felt her courage weakening. “Do you suppose they will give us a new parachute if this one doesn’t work?”

  Phyllis laughed. “If this one doesn’t work you won’t need another one! Come along, we have to get in.”

  They let most of the other jumpers precede them, getting into the plane. Just before Janet disappeared within she looked out over the crowd. Squarely she caught Valerie’s eye and waved to the girls. She could see the amazement plainly written on their features.

  “Are they surprised,” she laughed nervously to Phyllis. “I’ll bet they never suspected us of doing this!”

  When the door to the plane was closed and the pilot was sending the plane skimming across the ground Janet began to get a reversion of feelings. It had seemed a great idea when she thought of it—this parachute jump. It had been a new and frightfully brave adventure. But now that the jump was only minutes away she began to wish she was with her friends down on the ground looking up.

  She looked at Phyllis who was interestedly peering at the ground below. Phyllis, too, seemed a little paler than usual. Janet touched her friend’s hand. Phyllis’ fingers were like ice.

  Janet swallowed with difficulty and placed her lips close to Phyllis’ ear. “I’m getting scared,” she acknowledged.

  Phyllis agreed with a grin. She could sympathize with Janet most heartily for if she felt as shaky as Phyllis herself did—

  The pilot raised his hand, the signal to his assistant to open the door to the plane. Phyllis pushed Janet into place in the line of jumpers. They had received their instructions on the ground and now anxiously reviewed them in their minds.

  Janet came to the edge and looked out. She shut her eyes and held her breath. The ground was so awf’ly far away, but there were others behind her. She couldn’t stop now. Holding firmly to all the courage she possessed Janet stepped off into space.

  Phyllis was next. As her friend disappeared she stepped quickly to take Janet’s place. She knew if she hesitated she was lost, so immediately stepped out into the clouds. But she had been too soon. She yanked on the ring of her parachute, and the white folds streamed out behind her.

  Phyllis, in her fall, a good distance before she pulled the ripcord, had caught up with Janet and now her parachute became tangled in the folds of her friend’s. The strings wound around each other as each girl tried vainly to pull her respective silken umbrella loose.

  “I’ll bet that is Phyllis and Janet,” Madge said nervously. She could not see the identity of the girls up above the spectators, but something told her that fatality hovered over her friends.

  “Something like that would happen to them,” Carol agreed with a sigh. “Oh, why don’t they do something!”

  Phyllis and Janet were tugging frantically at the strings above them. Finally, when they had about decided there was nothing for them to do but prepare to land with hope for as little injury as possible, Phyllis’ parachute came free and straightened out with a jerk. Thereafter they floated down to the ground easily, with the lightness of birds.

  Phyllis braced her legs to meet the ground rushing up at her. In another minute she was flat on her back and the parachute covering her like a giant blanket. Friendly hands came to her rescue and soon she was upright, stepping from the harness of the parachute.

  “All right, Janet?” Phyllis called anxiously, running to where her friend’s parachute covered a squirming, wriggling figure.

  “I’ll be all right if somebody will take this thing off me,” Janet cried fretfully. “Never,” she declared solemnly as she trudged along beside Phyllis back to the hangar where they divested themselves of their suits, “never will I try that again. Never!”

  “Wasn’t it thrilling?” Phyllis asked eagerly. “I was never so thrilled in my whole life!”

  “I don’t care to experience it again,” Janet said flatly. “When I stepped from the plane out into nothing and went tumbling down toward the ground—I hope I haven’t shortened my life by ten years,” she added.

  “Of all the crazy stunts!” Carol greeted them when they were all together again.

  “I know, I know,” Janet said with a wave of the hand, “you don’t have to say a word.”

  “Whatever possessed you to do it?” Madge demanded.

  “I wondered that myself when I was up there,” Janet murmured. “Just suppose the parachute hadn’t opened!”

  “A fine time to think of that!” Carol laughed. “You didn’t really think you would get the prize, did you?”

  “Well, I considered it,” Janet said diffidently. “By the way, who did get it?”

  It seemed none of the girls knew and the interest in the award died out when Stubby appeared with the information that neither Brent Stockton nor Gale had yet returned.

  “I never thought Gale would miss all this,” Valerie declared.

  “Nor Mr. Stockton,” added Phyllis. “I wonder where they are.”

  “Maybe they eloped,” Carol said brightly hopeful.

  “Do you really think so?” Janet asked eagerly.

  “Of course they didn’t!” Phyllis said shortly. She turned to Stubby. “What are you going to do about the race? It must be something terribly important to keep Mr. Stockton away when this is so important to him.”

  Stubby squinted up at the sun, then at the other planes already warming up on the field. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his greasy overalls.

  “I s’pose I’ll have to fly her,” he said slowly.

  “Here it comes,” Janet cried.

  Bruce, David and Peter with the help of two other mechanics were bringing the yellow plane from the hangar out onto the field. The yellow plane gleamed in the sun like a canary waiting to take wing. Stubby stroked the nickel propeller with almost loving fingers.

  “Warm her up, Stubby!” Bruce urged.

  Stubby disappeared within the hangar and reappeared with helmet and goggles. He climbed into the cockpit. Bruce turned the propeller as he had learned to do for Brent. The engine broke into a roar, the propeller was a silver streak. The wind sent up a cloud of dust as the ship swung about and slowly taxied to the starting line where the other planes were all ready and waiting.

  “Good luck!” Bruce called, but it is doubtful if Stubby heard him even though he waved to the group.

  The planes were off in a burst of noise and wind. Touching the ground ever more lightly they ran the length of the field before rising into the air on the first lap of the race. Around and around they went the length of the field, circling the specially erected towers, soaring over the heads of the people.

  The Adventure Girls and the three boys watched with bated breath. Stubby had taken the lead easily enough after the take-off, but now a red, streamlined plane with a mighty engine and a determined pilot was closing the distance between them. Once Brent’s engine sputtered fitfully, but resumed a smooth evenness after a moment.

  “Stubby can’t handle it like Brent can,” Bruce sighed. “Brent would win easily enough.”

  No one else said anything. They merely watched, not taking their eyes for a minute from those man-made birds speeding beneath the clouds. Only once
did their interest and excitement turn into genuine concern. A black plane suddenly disclosed a spurt of smoke and flame from the motor. The pilot without more ado set his ship down on the ground, unhurt, but definitely out of the race. The other flyers had not even slackened their pace. Such bits of hard luck were common to those in the flying business.

  “Stubby is getting the feel of it now,” David said confidently as slowly and surely the yellow plane resumed the lead of the field.

  No more did Stubby allow the red monoplane to creep up into a challenging position. He was sure of his plane now. The yellow ship was not to be outdone. It streaked away a good half lap in the lead when the checkered flag brought the close of the contest.

  Stubby silently received the congratulations accorded the winner. The motor had proved to stand the test. The plane had come through and defeated all Brent’s enemies. Brent would probably sell his plans to the government. His plane had won—but where was Brent?

  CHAPTER X

  What Happened

  Quebec was a fascinating city to Gale. The old churches and streets, the people, friendly and smiling, all charmed her. She walked beside Brent, feeling as happy as she had ever felt in her life. It had been such a marvelous trip up to Quebec, and they had made it in such a marvelously short time. They were to have a late supper with Mr. Howard before they were to start back to Marchton, late the same night.

  Gale regretted leaving this intriguing city so soon after her arrival, but tomorrow’s air races would be thrilling, too. She mentioned this to Brent and saw his eyes gleam in anticipation at the thought of his plane a possible winner.

  The two young people stopped in a little shop for postcards and souvenirs and lingered too long. When they emerged onto the street again and Brent disclosed his wrist watch they were amazed at the time. Immediately they hurried to the little restaurant where they were to meet Gale’s father.