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

by Julia K. Duncan

  “What would it be called Pirates’ Cove for,” asked Leslie, “if no pirates ever went there? It isn’t any worse with rocks than lots of other places around here where we go, and I think that the story of a whirlpool or current is all nonsense!”

  “That’s all right, Les,” said Dalton, who was standing by her on the Sea Crest at the time when she made this remark. “Watch your wheel, Sis. There. Turn it that way just a little now. Good girl. But all the same, you keep out of Pirates’ Cove, Leslie. So far as the name is concerned, there are plenty of Pirates’ Coves on this coast. I’ve no doubt. It’s a good name for any rather mysterious place.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Sarita, who was waiting her turn at the wheel, “but that is it. When we have a Pirates’ Cove right at our door, so to speak, why not get some good of it?”

  Dalton laughed at this and said that they would row around into the Ives’ territory “one of these days. We can see all the rocks closer there.”

  “Not I,” firmly said Leslie, not knowing that she would be the first one to go. “It might remind Mr. Ives of our existence, if he should see us. Let’s let well enough alone, folks. When we hear that we have an abstract of title and everything, you can go over to Steeple Rocks, Dal, and tell him so.”

  “I’ll begin to cut down a few trees, then,” said Dalton, with a grin. “That will bring him over fast enough.”

  But their freedom from Mr. Ives was due to another cause, as they found out at once; for when they came back from this trip, they found Peggy Ives at the camp, in animated conversation with Beth. Beth was showing Peggy their camp and she was admiring the convenience of their “bungalow tent,” when Leslie and Sarita appeared in the door.

  “Oh, here is our circus lady,” cried Sarita before she thought. She and Leslie had so dubbed Peggy, but they had not intended to announce it.

  Peggy’s eyes smiled at Sarita, however, as she turned from an examination of the ruffled dressing table. “Is that what you call me! I was quite a performer, wasn’t I? I just came over to tell you how much obliged I am that your brother made me jump before I got to that awful place further on. I came to say ‘thank you’ to him, and then I want you all to come over to Steeple Rocks to have dinner with us.”

  “Thank you, Miss Peggy,” Elizabeth said at once. “I scarcely think that we can do that. You see, we have chiefly camping clothes, and we are not ready for dinner at a home like yours.”

  “Oh, we don’t always dress for dinner. Mother lets me come in to the table in my sport things. She wants to see you. Father had to go away on business the very next day after I fell, and we haven’t seen a thing of him since. I would have been over before, but I did give my ankle a terrible wrench and then I was sick a little, too. Mother said it was‘shock,’ but my nerves are all right!”

  “I’d think that the scare you had would do something to them,” Sarita remarked.

  “It is ever so good of you to ask us over,” Leslie added, glad that Elizabeth had started the ‘regrets,’ “but Beth is right about our clothes, Peggy. You’d better visit us here. We’ll have a beach party and chowder. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “Yes, it would. I’d like to; but still, we want to have you come to Steeple Rocks, too. Where are the clothes you traveled in? You will like my mother. She is nicer than my father, and I am very sure that she will be disappointed if you can not come. She told me to bring you today if you would, and if you had something else that you were doing today, you could come to-morrow. Then she didn’t know whether you had a car, or horses, or anything, if you thought it too far to walk. It’s terribly rough for a car, of course.”

  They were outside, now, sitting upon the various seats that Dalton had provided, from stones, or logs found in the woods.

  “No, we haven’t any car or any horses, but it is not too far for us to walk,” gently said Elizabeth. “I still think, though, that, as Leslie says, it would be better for you to visit us here. Stay to supper with us. Dal is fishing now. Sometimes he gets a big fellow that we can scarcely eat up.”

  “I wouldn’t dare stay this time, thank you. Mother would think that I’d had another accident. Besides, the boy that you saw the other day is with me. He stopped back in the woods on the way over from the road. I’d love to stay, though.” Peggy looked as if she were almost ready to yield, in spite of better judgment.

  “We’ll hurry up the meal,” Leslie suggested. “There comes Dal now. Go and ask your friend to come too. It doesn’t take any time to cook fish on our portable stove, and it will be such fun to have you.”

  “I’d love to see how you do it! Well, I’ll go and call Jack and see what he says.”

  Dalton reached the tent just as the “circus lady” was disappearing into the woods. “‘How now, Malvolio?’” he inquired facetiously. “More communications from the Ives?”

  “Peggy came to say ‘thank you,’ Dal,” Beth replied. “She is a dear little girl—though for that matter, I imagine that she is only a year or so younger than Leslie and Sarita.”

  “She just told me that she is fourteen,” said Leslie, who had walked a little distance with Peggy. “She did it in such a funny way, saying that perhaps we thought her too young to ‘play with us,’ but she would like to know us. Imagine, Dal.” Leslie looked at her brother with a funny smile that Elizabeth, naturally did not understand.

  “Why is that strange?” she asked. “I know that Dal does not like Mr. Ives, from something he said; but why shouldn’t he like Peggy?”

  “There isn’t any reason at all,” Dalton answered. “She did give me a lame shoulder and a few bruises and scratches on our first acquaintance, to be sure, but that was nothing.”

  “This sounds as if your meeting Peggy were in a fight. Dal,” Sarita said, “but hurry up with that fish. Leslie and I will help you clean it, while Beth gets the things ready to cook it.”

  Thus it happened that neither Leslie nor Sarita could offer a fishy hand to Jack Morgan, who came hurrying into camp with Peggy, his blue eyes smiling and his frank face interested, as they could clearly see. He acknowledged the introductions with the manner of a boy used to meeting people, and laughed when Leslie and Sarita displayed their hands, cleaning fish with Dalton over some paper which could be gathered up and burned later.

  “I hated to be hurried away that day when Peggy scared the Ives family nearly to death, but her father and I did not know but she might be seriously hurt after all; and after being shaken up by the ride home, she was glad enough to be taken care of in a hurry, weren’t you, Peggy?”

  “M’m-h’m,” nodded Peggy, watching operations with the fish. “If Dad hadn’t been so cross over nothing, I wouldn’t have minded so much.”

  “He was worried, Peggy,” said Jack. Leslie thought it good of him to make excuses for his handsome but irritable host.

  At once they all liked Jack Morgan. He turned out to be a cousin of Peggy’s, whom Mrs. Ives had invited for the summer at Steeple Rocks. Peggy privately informed Leslie that Jack was worth a dozen of their other guests, most of them friends of her father’s, she said. But almost everyone was grown up, she said, and Peggy had no chums of her own. Sarita and Leslie forthwith invited her to make chums of them, and they were not a little touched at the eagerness with which Peggy accepted the offer.

  The little hurriedly-prepared supper broke any remaining ice. When Jack finally rode off with Peggy, both insisted that there must be a beach party at Steeple Rocks very soon, to which all the camping party would come. Beth thought that it would be very pleasant and accepted for the family, which was just as well; but she did not notice that while the rest commented on the kindness of the invitation, none of them committed themselves about coming.

  “We did that very well, Dal,” Sarita remarked afterwards. “They know that we’d love to come, but if Mr. Ives appears and says anything, they may remember that Beth was the only one who said anything definite about accepting, and even she said ‘if we can.’ I am pretty sure that they are all regul
ar summer folks with money and clothes and style.”

  “It does not sound very well to hear Peggy criticise her father,” Dalton suggested, to the girls’ surprise. They had seen Peggy go up purposely but shyly to Dalton after supper, to say her “thank you,” they supposed, and they had noticed Dalton’s friendly response.

  “I thought of it, too,” said Leslie, “and I am sure that Beth did; but at that, Peggy Ives may have reason to dread her father, even though she should not speak so before strangers. I don’t trust him.”

  Yet it was Leslie, on the very next day, when she was at the beach, alone, who accepted an invitation to enter the Ives’ launch. She was the first one of the Secrest party to land at Steeple Rocks.

  CHAPTER VI

  A “CLOSE-UP” VIEW

  Dalton had gone to the town on the railroad, where he had arranged to have his mail sent for a while, writing to the lawyer again and telling him to direct important letters to the general delivery there for the present. Sarita had a headache and was lying down for the afternoon, looked in upon occasionally by Elizabeth, who was at her usual occupation of sketching or painting. Beth ascribed Sarita’s headache to some cheap candy which the girls had bought at the village and was hoping that a little soreness about Sarita’s throat would not amount to anything.

  Leslie, who had been in the ocean earlier in the day with Elizabeth, was a bit of bright color on the beach in a red frock and sweater to match. She was easily seen from the launch, where figures waved at her and pointed toward the dock, a small one at the end of the town nearest the Secrest headland, as Peggy had begun to call it.

  They were beckoning her to come, Leslie saw; and making a pile of her shells, for gathering them was her latest occupation, she ran toward the little dock. There, before she arrived the pretty launch was bobbing up and down inside the breakwater.

  “Come on for a cruise, Leslie!” called Peggy. “It’s grand this afternoon. We’ll bring you back in time for anything.”

  Jack was out on the rough boards to help Leslie inside of the launch. It was really not necessary to accept or refuse, only to climb in.

  A large, dark woman looked critically at Leslie and Leslie found no sympathy in her eyes when, after she was seated, she met her glance. “Madame Kravetz, this is Leslie Secrest. Madame teaches me, Leslie. Where is Sarita?”

  “She has a headache and Beth is hoping that it doesn’t mean tonsilitis. Sarita wore a thin dress and forgot her sweater when we went out last night, but Beth is dosing her and perhaps it will not amount to anything.” Leslie was wondering a little about Peggy’s governess. She did not look French, and her name was certainly not French. She might be one of those Swiss who are part French and part German. Leslie did not like her expression.

  Jack was running the launch. Out to sea they started; then, after a time, they made for the bay, which was better for launches than the sea, which was growing rough. For a while they cruised around among the fishing boats and a few pretty sail-boats until Peggy directed Jack to head for Steeple Rocks.

  “Take Leslie through the channel, Jack, and show her our little harbor in our own bay.”

  Madam Kravetz started to say something, but closed her thin lips rather tightly instead. Leslie thought that she had been about to make an objection, but she was having too good a time to think much about their chaperon.

  The channel was interesting. Jack was careful between rocks at the entrance, but the distance widened as they proceeded. At their right a narrow islet with high rocks kept the force of the ocean from the channel and other rocks made a breakwater for the Ives’ harbor, “Ives Bay.”

  “People are often afraid when we take them through the channel for the first time,” said Peggy, “especially if they have heard the stories about Pirates’ Cove. But we tell them that the channel is deep and safe even for a boat of fair size, if they veer away a little from the rocks on the Cove side.”

  Peggy nodded toward the rocks at their left over which tossing waters left their spray. “Dad showed Jack where to go and where not to go,” she added. “I just love Steeple Rocks, Leslie, and I wish that you would come here a lot.”

  Leslie saw that Madame Kravetz looked annoyed. She almost turned her back upon the girls and looked out over the boat’s edge with a frown. “These are Beth’s ‘Cathedral Rocks,’” Leslie replied to Peggy. “She loves them, more than any of us. Beth is an artist, you know. But we all love to look at them and I like any rock on the coast. They beat sand for beauty any day, though I will say that for bathing, you may give me a sandy beach.”

  Little waves lapped the shore near the dock where Jack skilfully brought their boat. Leslie felt thrilled, as she confided to Sarita later, to see a pretty sailboat tied there, together with other boats of various sorts. Dear me, they could have everything they wanted, she supposed.

  In response to Leslie’s exclamation over the number of boats, Peggy said that her father had a large yacht, too, that had to be docked in the other bay. “We wondered if that larger dock were not yours,” said Leslie. “I think that you are a very lucky girl, Peggy, to have so much fun.”

  “But after all, Leslie, it’s people that make fun and good times, not things, or even places, though I like to cruise.” Peggy frowned and looked thoughtful, while Leslie wondered again. But now Jack was offering to help the ladies out of the boat.

  “What are you going to do now?” asked Madame Kravetz.

  “Oh, I want to show Leslie all over Steeple Rocks. Jack and I have been intending to explore them more ourselves, but we haven’t had time, with all the company we have had.”

  “No—and you haven’t time now,” coldly said Peggy’s governess. “Your mother will expect to meet your friend, since you have brought her here; and then it will be necessary to see her home before long, if her sister does not worry about what has become of her.”

  “Oh, you always think up such horrid things, Madame K,” rather pettishly Peggy said. “All right, though, for I want Mother to see Leslie.”

  It was quite a climb to reach the top of the headland and then, indeed, they were only at the beginning of the higher mass known as Steeple Rocks. But good steps had been made, with a strong railing, that made the ascent easy to the young people. Madame Kravetz, also, climbed easily.

  When they reached the top of the steps, they walked from the upper platform to a rocky expanse which was evidently the rear of the Steeple Rocks garden, for presently they came among little trees, planted with decorative intent, and Leslie found herself within a formal garden. Flowers were blossoming and Leslie would have liked to linger, had not Peggy hurried her on to show her the house, an immense affair, of how many rooms Leslie could only guess. There were gables and ells and corners and masses of stone. There were chimneys and bay windows and balconies. From the rear they went around to the front, past a porte-cochere, where a big car was standing.

  The entrance was particularly beautiful, Leslie thought, with wide steps and pillars. Great flags of stone made the porch floor. Light wicker chairs stood about and a long wicker couch was piled with pretty cushions in gay colors. “And they don’t want us to have even a log cabin!” Leslie thought, in a moment of resentment.

  But no one could be resentful with Peggy, who was the most hospitable creature imaginable. Jack, too, felt the responsibility of making Leslie have a good time. Peggy took Leslie to her own pretty room first, where both girls made themselves a little more presentable. Leslie was glad that her dress and sweater were respectable, since she was to meet Mrs. Ives. Gathering shells on the beach had not improved the appearance of her hands, which were now washed with Peggy’s pet soap, fragrant and soothing. Then they joined Jack on the porch again, to find him at a little table behind tall glasses of delicious lemonade and a dish of cakes. This was almost better than camping! But never mind. The Secrests, too, would have a house one of these days!

  Through the trees they could see a tennis court where active figures were playing and other people were about.
White, red, blue, orange, all sorts of colors, had a share in the sport costumes. “It’s doubles,” said Peggy. “There, it’s over. Now they will be coming in, I think.”

  In a few minutes small groups, perhaps a dozen people in all, sauntered toward the house, Mrs. Ives hurrying on before the rest. “That’s Mother in the white,” said Peggy, going to the steps to stop her.

  “Oh, Mother, stop a minute, won’t you? Leslie’s here.”

  Mrs. Ives halted and turned toward Leslie and Jack. “Yes, Peggy, if Jack will order some lemonade and cakes for us all. That is what I was hurrying for. So this is Leslie?” She cordially extended a hand to Leslie, who rose and stepped forward to greet her, rather surprised to find her so young, in appearance, at least, with her bobbed hair and youthful dress. Referring to their kindness to Peggy, Mrs. Ives renewed her invitation.

  But Leslie saw that her hostess was not speaking very seriously. “Thank you, Mrs. Ives,” she said. “We were glad to be invited, but there have been things to hinder us (indeed there had), and then, we are scarcely prepared to mingle with your guests. We came to camp, you know.”

  “That will make no difference,” cordially said Mrs. Ives, “but perhaps you will best enjoy the beach party that Peggy is planning. Peggy, you arrange it and have what you want. Excuse me, Miss Leslie, I must go on.”

  Although Leslie felt that Mrs. Ives pleasant cordiality was not assumed, she saw that her mind was wandering toward her older guests during the time of their brief conversation. One of the ladies was waiting for her and both went into the large room which Leslie had noticed as she passed in the hall. Sounds of music presently reached them.