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

by Julia K. Duncan

  “Look at the time saved,” pointed out Peter. “Suppose your life depended on reaching a certain point at a definite time. What would you do?”

  “Fly,” Janet said, “and maybe I would get there and maybe I wouldn’t.”

  “Did you read the piece in the newspaper the other day about a man who had flown thousands of miles, spent hundreds of hours in the air, and broke his neck by falling down the cellar stairs?” Bruce said. “I’m strong for airplanes.”

  “He should never have gone down the cellar,” Janet smiled.

  “The pilots of the airplanes are just like the old pioneers. They are exploring new worlds in the air,” contributed Phyllis. “People think they are crazy in trying flights to all corners of the world and stratosphere hops. People thought Columbus was crazy, too. Yet where would we be today if it wasn’t for him?”

  “We would probably be living in a tepee and using war paint,” laughed Carol.

  “Perhaps you better forget I said anything,” Janet interrupted. “I don’t think I’ll write my composition tomorrow.”

  “Well,” Phyllis sighed and looked at her watch, “I’ve got to go home.”

  Phyllis’ departure was the signal for the group to break up. As she walked slowly home to the forlorn house on the top of the hill Phyllis’ mind was busy with thoughts of Gale. She entered the house and started up the stairs to her customary retreat for studying before dinner when her Aunt’s voice halted her.

  “Phyllis! Come here!”

  Her heart heavy with misgivings Phyllis made her way reluctantly down the stairs again to the kitchen where her Aunt was. The tone of her Aunt’s voice had been angry and Phyllis was afraid there was another tirade against herself in the offing. Perpetually she lived in dread of her Aunt’s scoldings and punishments. She had done nothing wrong that she knew of, but quite often some little inoffensive act was the signal for her Aunt’s anger to flare up.

  Now as she approached the kitchen door with slow and uneven steps she was afraid. Phyllis stopped on the threshold to watch her Aunt who was tying a bandage around the hand of Minnie, the woman who came in twice a week to help with the cooking and housework.

  “Did you want me, Aunt Melba?”

  “Of course I want you or I wouldn’t have called you. Don’t stand there! Minnie has burned her hand and all the preserving to be done! You’ve got to help.”

  Phyllis opened her lips to tell her Aunt of the difficult history examination on the morrow, one which would require hours of study, but she swallowed the words and went forward. She would have to study tonight after her Aunt was in bed.

  “Come, child! Make yourself useful. Rinse those jars.”

  Phyllis moved like an automaton under her Aunt’s disapproving eyes.

  “Has anything been heard about Gale Howard?” her Aunt asked after a while.

  “No,” Phyllis said in a low voice, “she is still missing.”

  “Hmph! Probably run off for some fun somewhere never thinking of the worry to her parents. She’s a wild one, that girl. I never liked—”

  “She is a fine girl,” Phyllis interrupted hotly. Her Aunt never failed to rouse Phyllis’ resentment when she talked about her friends. “There isn’t a nicer girl in Marchton than Gale Howard. She is a friend of mine, too,” Phyllis finished proudly.

  “I won’t have you associating with that crowd from the high school!” her Aunt said, coldly despotic. “I have told you time and time again. You shall not—”

  “I shall too!” Phyllis said, for once in her young life openly defying her Aunt. “I shall see them whenever I can. You won’t let me have any friends! Even now you want to separate me from them by not sending me to Briarhurst because they are going there.”

  “Phyllis! How dare you speak so? Go to your room!”

  Without another word Phyllis whirled and marched from the kitchen. She mounted the stairs to her room and closed the door behind her. Only for an instant a smile hovered about her lips. There was more than one way of escaping from working in the hot kitchen. Not that she had deliberately, with such an intention, spoken so rashly to her Aunt! Her words had been forced from her. Now she was regretting them with all her heart, but she would not say she was sorry! She wasn’t sorry, and what she had said was true—every word! But it would make life so difficult for her. Her Aunt’s disapproval hung over the house like a dark cloud unnerving Phyllis more at every moment.

  What her Aunt had said about Gale had made Phyllis angry. Gale was her best friend. They would have done anything for each other. More than ever now, when they did not know where Gale was, what had happened to her, or when they would see her again, Phyllis could not let anyone speak slightingly of her.

  It was hard for Phyllis to remember how many hours she and Gale and Valerie and the other girls had spent together when now perhaps Gale was needing them and they didn’t even know it. She knelt by the window and listened to the cool late autumn air rustling the tree branches against the window pane.

  After a while her thoughts returned to the present. She rose and took up her history book. Tomorrow’s examination would mean a lot to her marks and she must be ready for it. But with the worry of Gale, and her recent quarrel with her Aunt fresh in her mind, she found it difficult to concentrate on the book before her.

  CHAPTER XII

  Gale

  Meanwhile in a little, crude French Canadian farmhouse a slight dark haired girl bent over her sewing while a roaring fire in the brick fireplace sent its welcome warmth out into the room.

  To Antoinette Bouchard the winter was the best season of the year. She loved to sit warm and cozy in her brother’s house and listen to the wind sing in the chimney and watch the swirl of snow outside. This storm was the earliest she remembered. It was not yet deep winter, barely winter at all, but the snow was piled high against the house and this morning when François had shoveled a path from the door it had been up to his knees.

  The rocking chair in which she had been swaying gently to and fro creaked suddenly and she looked up in alarm at the figure across the hearth. Her eyes took on a compassionate gleam, her lips curled in a smile, half admiration and half pity. When the other person did not stir, Antoinette resumed her gentle rocking, but her eyes were not now on her sewing and her work lay idle in her lap.

  This other girl was not quite as old as she, Antoinette, and she was so pretty. The reddish brown hair lay in soft curls about the pale, still face. Her eyes were closed, but Antoinette could well remember the hurt, clouded expression of them when they had first looked into hers that morning. She could clearly remember the puzzled look on the girl’s face when she had asked her questions, questions that had remained unanswered.

  It was last night François had brought the girl to their little house. She remembered clearly the tale he had told her of the wrecked airplane, the tree which he had moved to pull the girl from the wreckage, of carrying her the long, long distance through the snow to his home because he did not know where else to take her.

  This morning she and François, when the girl had awakened from a sleep which had at first seemed to refresh her, had asked questions but she had been unable to tell them who she was. The little English that Antoinette knew had been exhausted in an attempt to discover the identity of the girl and from whence she had come.

  The girl had been bewildered, frightened, and they hoped a quiet rest would restore her memory. All day it had been so. She had sat with closed eyes most of the time, but Antoinette guessed that her mind was struggling to remember the details of who she was and what had happened.

  Antoinette sighed and returned to her sewing. This morning François, after he had cut some wood, was to start out on a trip back to the airplane. Perhaps there he could have discovered someone searching for the girl. But he was destined not to go. During his log splitting, the axe had fallen upon his foot, making a nasty wound that would leave him crippled for many days. There was nothing now to do but keep the girl here and try to help her restore
the past that had suddenly been blotted from her mind.

  Antoinette stole a glance at the young girl. She was amazed to see tears stealing down the soft cheeks. Immediately she dropped her sewing and fell upon her knees beside the other girl. She clasped her close and murmured soothing words.

  Gale merely clung tightly to Antoinette while sobs shook her slender body. All day she had been thinking, thinking, trying to remember who and what she was. But it was no use. Her mind was a complete blank. A fog shrouded her memory and it would not lift. Not an inkling of the airplane crash did she remember, or her friends or parents back in Marchton. She knew only that this girl and her big brother were marvelously kind to her. The tenderness of Antoinette had its effect and slowly the sobs subsided, but Gale remained clasped in the little French girl’s arms for a long while afterward. Then Antoinette helped Gale to her feet and led her to the little bed in the other room that had been Antoinette’s for years. Later she went into the third and last room of the log building to sit with her brother.

  “What are we to do, François?” she asked. “The girl is worried—she is afraid.”

  François nodded in quiet agreement. “It is sad. So young, so lovely—perhaps in time she will remember.”

  “We will keep her here, François?” Antoinette pleaded.

  “You wish for a little sister?” her brother asked smilingly. “But of course she will remain here. Where else would she go when she does not remember anything? It would be cruel to send her away.” After a while he spoke again. “If I but had not hurt myself. I might have been able to learn something about her. In town they may know something.”

  Antoinette shook her head. “The snow has blocked the roads. You could not get to the town. We must wait.”

  “She is well otherwise?” François asked.

  “Yes. It is only her mind that is affected. She is so quiet,” Antoinette said. “I know she is worried.”

  François whistled in a low tone to a little bit of fluff curled up in the corner. The dog, a young collie, perked up his ears and trotted obediently over to his master. There he sat while the man stroked his fur.

  “She is sweet,” Antoinette murmured dreamily.

  “But we love Antoinette, eh Toto?”

  The dog licked his master’s fingers in agreement while the girl laughed with pleasure. For years the two had lived here in this house built by François and his father. At first there had been the three of them but now there was but the girl and her brother. François earned enough money by his work in logging camps during certain months of the year to keep the little farm running smoothly. Toto was the very last addition to their mansion and he was the gayest of company for the girl when her brother was away.

  In the other little room Gale sat up in the bed and stared out the small window at the snow. The ground was white in the moonlight, and unbroken save for the path from the door of the cabin. She clasped her knees in her arms and rested her chin on them. Her eyes were dark, like the waters of a bottomless pool. She didn’t cry any more. Her tears were all gone; instead had come a queer sort of fatality. She realized now that no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t remove that gray blanket from her thoughts. It was as if she had never known anything but this day, as if there had never been any yesterdays. She knew nothing beyond the walls of this cabin, and no one but Antoinette and her brother.

  Gale lay back on her pillow and stared up at the darkness. Her heart was heavy and she felt listless. Suppose her memory never came back? With a little sense of comfort she remembered the French girl’s words of earlier that evening.

  “Chérie, you must not weep. A little time and everything will be well again.”

  She must believe that! The thought that somewhere there might be someone looking for her, she not knowing where they were, unable to go to them, made her heart beat longingly.

  Her hand had been hanging over the side of the bed and now something cold and wet was pushed into it. With a little startled cry she pulled away until in the moonlight she saw the form of woolly Toto. In his exploring the household for a warm friendly place to spend the night, he had come into her room. She patted the bed beside her and with difficulty, for his legs were rather short and clumsy yet, he jumped up into her arms and snuggled close.

  In the morning Antoinette found them, the dog still curled in the crook of Gale’s arm, both sound asleep. She smiled to herself and gently lifted the dog to the floor. He let out a protesting grunt at being roused from his delicious slumbers and Gale opened her eyes.

  “Bad Toto!” Antoinette scolded. “Waking Chérie. You are wicked!”

  Toto merely blinked in the sunlight and dabbed carelessly at his paw with his red tongue before hopping up to resume his place in Gale’s arms.

  Antoinette laughed. “He has already fallen in love with you,” she said in uncertain English.

  Gale laid her cheek on the dog’s soft head. She could feel the fast beating of his little heart. She rubbed his ear and he cocked his head in appreciation.

  “I like him,” she said.

  Antoinette smiled. The stranger looked much better this morning. A little color was coming back to the white cheeks and Toto had already succeeded in rousing a smile. Antoinette brought Gale’s breakfast in to her, after which, while Antoinette was out of the room, Gale got up and dressed herself, glad to know she was physically capable of anything. Toto looked on with silent, doggy admiration. Upon slipping her blouse over her head, Gale’s fingers came in contact with a light golden chain upon which hung a small round locket. She turned it over in her fingers and in the bright morning light could barely make out the word engraved on its surface.

  “What is it?” Antoinette had entered unperceived by Gale. Over her shoulder Antoinette looked at the locket. “Ah! Your name—Gale!”

  So it was that Antoinette and her brother learned the name of the stranger. Of course they did not know her last name and save for giving them a name for her the discovery did not help much. Evidently the name meant nothing to the girl herself. It stirred absolutely no familiar memories.

  Days passed, days spent entirely in the little cabin or with Antoinette in the snow outside. They never went far from the house, so it was not strange that word from the outside world did not reach Antoinette or her brother. They could not know, having no radio, receiving no newspaper or visitors, that the girl in their home was the object of a nationwide search. Gale endeared herself to the two in the cabin and worked readily into the scheme of their everyday life. She shared the daily chores with Antoinette and that girl, on her part, was teaching Gale to speak her own familiar language.

  At night was the most difficult time for Gale. During the day she would be busy with Antoinette or playing with Toto. But at night, when she had gone to her room and the others were asleep, she often lay awake thinking, trying to find a thread that would unravel the mystery of her past life. Tonight was one of the nights when she could not sleep.

  Silently she got up and put on her coat. She tiptoed to the door and stepped out into the cold, Canadian night. For a while she stood in the moonlight, then slowly she walked to the group of trees off to the right. The scent of pine was in the air and the wind stirred the branches faintly. She breathed deeply of the cool air and felt the blood tingling to her very fingertips. The silence and friendliness of the night stirred a faint memory of another such night. Somewhere, sometime she had stood exactly so, in the quiet darkness of night. But where or when she did not know.

  She felt keenly alive, standing there in the snow and silence. She knew she was in much better health than that morning when she had first awakened in the little cabin, but it was not alone that. She had learned things during her stay with Antoinette and her brother in their humble home. Subconsciously her mind had stored the value of the simple life they led, of the freshness and cleanness of the life here. Once more standing there she tried to bring the dark past into the light. But it was no use, it only baffled her and gave her that depressed, hopele
ss feeling. Slowly she turned and made her way from the clump of trees back to the little cabin.

  Half way across the clearing a humming noise broke the stillness of the night. She raised her eyes to the stars. An airplane was winging its way across the path of the moon. Gale gave the flying thing no name. She merely stood and watched until it had faded into the west.

  For a moment she almost grasped the remembrance of her flight with Brent. Then the memory was gone and she could not recall it. The clouds had seemed ready to break when she looked at the airplane but now her mind was darker than before.

  She returned slowly to the cabin and to bed but she could not sleep. All night long she thought of the sense of familiarity she had experienced as she watched the airplane. It must be a key to her past, part of the puzzle of her memory, if only she could fit it into the right place! Along toward dawn she fell into a light sleep but she was up at the first sound from Antoinette and all day she tried to connect an airplane with her thoughts. If only she could remember!

  She helped Antoinette with the little housework there was to do, sewed two buttons on her jacket and romped with Toto before luncheon.

  After the midday meal Antoinette proposed that she and Gale walk in to the little town where they could replenish the supply of flour and canned goods that was dwindling rapidly. François was at first reluctant to let his sister make the trip, but she finally coaxed forth his permission.

  In her coat, the same woolly one that had kept her warm in Brent’s airplane, and one of Antoinette’s close-fitting caps over her curls, Gale started out walking briskly between Antoinette and the leaping, frolicking Toto. The two girls talked gayly, Antoinette learning more and more about this girl who had come so strangely into their life.

  It was a good hour’s walk to the little French village where Antoinette and her brother purchased their supplies. There while Antoinette greeted friend after friend and entered little stores to procure their provisions, Gale, with Toto at her heels, went through the little crooked, cobbled stone streets, both of them keenly delighted with the sights. Toto delighted because there were so many little nooks and crannies for him to explore and Gale because every street warranted her a pleasant surprise.