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

by Julia K. Duncan

  The girls, warned away before the tree fell, came around to look at it. “Doesn’t it seem a pity to cut any tree down!” Leslie exclaimed.

  “Yes, it does,” Dalton acknowledged, “but you need not be afraid. I appreciate this woods perhaps more than you do, Leslie. But you notice that the trees are all growing too thickly here. I shall cut two more out.” To illustrate, Dalton gave a sharp blow with the ax to one of the trees which he had marked.

  “Have you another ax, Dalton?” Jack inquired. “What is the matter with my taking a hand in this?”

  “Only the fact that your host, Mr. Ives, does not want us to build here,” frankly Dalton replied.

  “What is the matter with him?” asked Jack, not much impressed with the news. He took the ax from Dalton’s hand and applied it to the base of the tree with some skill. Peggy jumped up and down like some little child and clapped her hands.

  Dalton rubbed his hands and stood back to rest a little. Leslie watched Jack with some admiration. They were just beginning to get acquainted with Jack, who was not as talkative as Peggy, but manly and capable. Leslie had an idea that he was not from as wealthy a home as Steeple Rocks, though he seemed to have clothes for all occasions. She was glad that he was related to Peggy and not to Mr. Ives. It would be hard to like anybody that really belonged to Mr. Ives, she thought, though she was conscious that she might not be quite fair to the suave gentleman, so unpleasant had been their relations.

  “Go on, Jack; that was good,” Peggy was saying. “It will be such fun to watch a real log house go up. Didn’t the pioneers always help each other?”

  “I fancy not when a man was building on land belonging to someone else!”

  All of the young people were startled at this new voice which came from behind them, as they faced the tree and Jack. They turned to see a tall, straight man of possibly sixty years, looking coldly upon the scene.

  “Count Herschfeld!” exclaimed Jack.

  Peggy shrugged her shoulders. “I rather think there isn’t anything of the sort here,” said she.

  Dalton tossed aside the ax, which Jack had half unconsciously handed him, and stepped forward. “And who may you be?” he asked quietly, setting his lips firmly as he stopped speaking.

  “Introduce us, Peggy,” sneeringly said the older man.

  Peggy threw back her head and stepped from beside Sarita toward Dalton. “This is Count Herschfeld, Dalton. Count Herschfeld, this is my friend, Dalton Secrest, who is building on his own land! Miss Elizabeth, Count Herschfeld—Miss Leslie and Miss Sarita—” Peggy began to be embarrassed with the number of introductions. She was not very old, and Elizabeth put an arm around her, as she stepped forward in great surprise.

  “Are you visiting at Steeple Rocks, Count Herschfeld?” Elizabeth inquired, starting to put out her hand, then remembering that his first remark had not been friendly. What could it mean? She glanced at the faces around her. Jack, frowning, was leaning against the tree. Sarita and Leslie had drawn together and were looking at the Count with anything but friendly expressions. It seemed as if they were not as surprised as she.

  “You could scarcely call it visiting, Miss Secrest. I conduct Mr. Ives’ business affairs very largely.”

  “I see. Can we do anything for you this morning?”

  “Most certainly; you can order your brother to refrain from cutting any more of Mr. Ives’ trees, and I am sorry to inform you, as Mr. Ives informed you some time ago, that we should like to have you withdraw from these woods.”

  “But they belong to us, Count Herschfeld. There must be some grave mistake on your part. My father purchased this land, which is duly recorded and we hold deed and abstract of title in the usual way. My father was a lawyer, sir, and it is not very likely that he would accept a doubtful title.” Beth’s voice sounded very courteous and sweet, but she was as dignified as she was in the school room.

  “Good old Beth,” whispered Leslie to Sarita. “She knew all about it all the time. We could have saved ourselves all that trouble if we had told her!”

  “But you did it to save her the worry. It’s a joke on us, all the same!”

  What would the Count say next, Leslie thought. He could not have expected them to be so sure of their rights.

  With a sneering smile on his face, Count Herschfeld stood there, bracing himself now with his walking stick. “I have no doubt that you think yourselves within your rights,” began he, but Dalton stepped up to him with a card on which he had been scribbling while Beth talked.

  “Here is the address of our lawyer, Count Herschfeld,” said Dalton. “You may wish to telegraph him. I want to have no trouble over this, but neither do I propose to be hindered. I have looked up the records purposely before beginning to build. We are not harming any one, Count Herschfeld, and we want to be let alone. I hope that we shall not be obliged to seek any protection from the law!” Dalton spoke strongly and meaningly.

  Count Herschfeld lifted his eyebrows at that, but the sneer on his face remained. “I will report what you say to Mr. Ives,” he replied, “also the felling of the trees.”

  “Mean old thing!” Peggy cried, as the Count disappeared through the trees. “Probably he’ll tell about our being here and Jack’s helping! He couldn’t have heard the chopping clear from Steeple Rocks, could he?”

  “No, Peggy,” said Dalton. “Beth, we’ll have to tell you what happened before. It’s a good joke on us. We have spent lots of time and trouble finding out, and here you knew all about the abstract of title and everything.”

  “It was my business to know, Dal. Why didn’t you tell me?” Elizabeth was quite amazed that she had not been informed at first.

  “Mr. Ives came right over, and you were so worn out that we didn’t have the heart to give you anything to worry about. That was all. Write to Jim, Beth, and hurry up his coming!”

  “I’d scarcely like to do that, Dal,”—but Elizabeth was smiling. “Suppose we just go right on, as you have been doing, Dal. We have the right of it. I am surprised that a man of Mr. Ives’ wealth and position should do this. Do you know, Peggy, why he thinks he owns this land?”

  “I don’t think that he thinks he owns it,” replied Peggy, her cheeks red with excitement. “He wants you to go away, and I don’t think that he is very smart about it, either. He might know that you would know what you are about.”

  “Why should he want us to go away, Peggy?” queried the still amazed Elizabeth. “What harm could we do here? Does he want all this woods and country about the bay to himself?”

  “Something like that,” Peggy agreed. “He was fussing at Mother, for ‘bringing so many guests’ to the place, and he said that he came here to get ‘away from civilization.’ Seems to me, though, that he makes a great many trips back into it!”

  “Perhaps he is obliged to,” kindly said Beth. “What is his business, Peggy?”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t drink, if that is what you are thinking. He has wines for those foreigners, friends of his, and the ‘Counts’ that are always coming, but he never takes any to amount to anything.”

  “Oh, Peggy, I never thought of such a thing. Please consider that question unasked!” Beth had not given possible smuggling any thought.

  “I don’t care, Miss Beth. I’m worried myself about all this.”

  “Cheer up, Peggy,” said Jack. “Your dad and these folks will let their lawyers fix it all up, and meanwhile we’ll have all the fun we want.”

  “Unless Dad takes a notion to keep us at home!”

  “Here goes for the other tree,” said Jack, picking up the ax again.

  Leaving the two boys engaged in their task, the rest strolled from the woods to the rocks, where Beth disappeared into the Eyrie, which she was fitting up to her taste. The other girls went down to the launch, the Sea Crest, in which they were soon speeding out upon the bay.

  “Every morning,” said Peggy, “Jack will bring me over, either through the woods or in our launch. I’m going to say a little someth
ing to Mother, so she will avoid the subject with Dad, and perhaps she will help us to come. She sometimes does when Dad is unreasonable.”

  Leslie did not quite know whether she approved of this or not. Any form of deceit was abhorrent to Leslie and she liked Peggy too much to want her concerned in it. The situation at Steeple Rocks did not seem very admirable, to tell the truth.

  CHAPTER X

  THE SECRET

  No more was heard from the Count. Dalton and Jack spent a busy week, working together and becoming very well acquainted. They were of almost the same age with many ideas in common. Jack was intending to enter a university in the autumn and tried to persuade Dalton to enter with him, but Dalton told him that he was the man of the family and while it had been a matter of course to expect a college education while his father lived, it might not be best now. He had that matter to decide. If he went, he would work his way almost entirely.

  The girls had savory lunches for the boys, but they were often out on interesting affairs of their own about which they said little either to Beth, Dalton or Jack. The Sea Crest and the little row boat dubbed the “Swallow” were in frequent use. For the most part the girls wore their bathing suits, with raincoats or heavy coats over them, according to the weather. They swam near the beach, they made trips to the village; they climbed over the rocks, and under Peggy’s leadership they became acquainted with the literal ups and downs of the rocky paths around Steeple Rocks. They talked of secrets and mysteries before the boys, inviting their questions, but Dalton and Jack claimed that if they had anything to tell they would tell it.

  “Oh, you’ll be sorry!” cried Peggy to Dalton, whom she liked very much, it seemed, “when we find out why is Pirates’ Cove or uncover a pirate hoard, or something!”

  “If you find it on our side, Miss, it belongs to us!”

  “Finders keepers, Dal,” laughed Peggy.

  Of the girls Leslie was Peggy’s favorite, but Sarita had no reason to be jealous, since Peggy was too much younger to spoil the old close relation between the older girls. Yet Peggy was a bit of fire and energy and real lovableness to them both, and old enough in her ways to adapt herself to them if they forgot to adapt their plans to Peggy. Through Sarita, Peggy was introduced to the different gulls and other sea birds that flapped or sailed or flew over the bay and in the woods. Leslie knew them too and Peggy was envious, she said, until she found out that looking through Sarita’s good lenses, she, too, could distinguish the differences and learn to identify some of them. The little sandpipers that flew in wheeling flocks or skimmed with rapid feet over the sands were her particular delight.

  Leslie and Sarita wondered what Peggy’s real name might be, if Mr. Ives were only her step-father, but Peggy did not seem inclined to talk about herself and they were too polite to ask. That she had been christened Marguerite, Margaret, or some other more dignified name than Peggy they naturally supposed, but they were puzzled a little, as doubtless mischievous Peggy intended, when she wrote large upon the sand one day at the beach the name Angelina.

  “That, of course, is my real name, and Mother used to call me Angel sometimes till Dad said that it wasn’t very ‘characteristic.’” But Peggy’s pretty lips were parted in what might easily be called an impish grin.

  “Don’t tell whoppers, little girl,” advised Sarita.

  “Thanks. I’m glad you think that ‘Angel’ is appropriate.”

  “Your lightning deductions are something wonderful,” lazily said Leslie, who was lying on the sand in the sun. It was really a hot morning “for once,” as Peggy said, and the girls could safely take their time to their dip. Peggy was telling them about bathing in Florida, and how she loved it. “But I’m glad to be here with you girls now and the peppy days that we usually have here just suit me. How about going around home after a while, letting me have a lunch fixed up and exploring that little cave we found. Perhaps there is a passage to that hole in Pirates’ Cove.”

  “Whoever heard of a hole in a Cove?” Sarita queried.

  “You know what I mean, the hole in the rocks there.”

  Leslie jumped to her feet. “Come on, then. Let’s do something. One more dip and then for camp!”

  Three heads bobbed up and down in the surf as they tossed a big ball, one that Peggy had brought from Florida, from one to another while they swam. By this time they had learned where it was safe for them and where the undertow might be a little too strong. Dalton, who was a strong swimmer, had both inquired and investigated.

  A run and a climb and running again brought them into camp, where they changed to dry garments and started on a hike through the woods toward Steeple Rocks. By this time Leslie and Sarita had become quite familiar with the way. They scarcely liked to appear at the great house there just because they knew that Mr. Ives was away; yet Peggy frankly wanted them, and her mother cordially urged them to come often. She thanked them for making life at the coast so pleasant to Peggy.

  Count Herschfeld was away, too. Peggy said that it was like a different place with him away and openly rejoiced in the absence of “the Kravetz,” as Jack called her, most disrespectfully. Where she had gone Peggy did not know. The pleasant fact was enough for her she told the girls, though not in just those words. Peggy was a great girl to “rattle on,” Sarita said; but Leslie thought that there was always a point to Peggy’s remarks and enjoyed them.

  When they arrived at Steeple Rocks, Peggy ran in to interview the housekeeper, while Leslie and Sarita strolled about the grounds, which by this time were in their prettiest summer garb. In part the gardens were formal, but there were nooks cleverly wild, yet rescued from the uncomfortable features of real wildness. They sat down on a rustic bench near the tennis court and surveyed the arbors, the porches, the solid, handsome house, the mass of Beth’s Cathedral Rocks and their steeple spires, towering behind and above.

  “Grim and mysterious, aren’t they, Sarita?”

  “Yes, Leslie. I rather like the distant view best.”

  “We get advantage of the distance for the outlines.”

  “I wonder if Mr. Ives has built anything into the rock—I mean bored or blasted into it See how closely that wall joins the rock.”

  “That is where Mr. Ives’ library and office are, Peggy said, and I think that she mentioned a safe built into the rock. She said that was why he keeps everybody away from that part of the house.”

  “Oh, he does, does he?”

  “So Peggy said. She says it’s no temptation to her to go near his ‘old office.’”

  Sarita smiled. “Peggy has turned out to be the most enthusiastic member of our ‘triumvirate.’ Do you like her mother?”

  “I don’t know what to think of Mrs. Ives. She is lovely to us and she seems to think a great deal of Peggy, if she does turn her over to other people. Perhaps she has to. Do you remember Mrs. Peacock? She didn’t do a thing but preen her feathers and play bridge and golf till the crash came; then she gathered up her kiddies from various schools and went to work to take care of them.”

  “Yes. It’s hard to tell about the society women.”

  The girls rose as they saw Peggy tripping down the steps with a picnic basket in her hand. They joined her and went toward the path which led around into the rocks. They crossed the path by which they had entered the grounds from their own and the Ives’ woods, crossing also the rocky way with the steps which led down to the dock where the Ives’ yacht was supposed to stay.

  On a narrow ledge to their left they had need to be careful, but it led to a small cave which they had discovered before. It was not like one hollowed out by the action of water, but more like a space in the midst of rocks which some giant had been piling, one upon another. There were cracks and fissures, too, and the retreat was large enough to be interesting.

  “I’ve got sandwiches and doughnuts, pickles, some shrimp salad, and a blueberry pie,” Peggy announced, “and there is some lemonade in the ‘icy-hot.’” She swung the basket to the rocky floor as she spoke and sat d
own beside it.

  “You are all hot with climbing and carrying that basket,” sympathetically said Leslie. “You should have let me carry it part of the way as I wanted to.”

  “It helped me swing around that narrow place,” laughed Peggy. “Besides, let the hostess provide the eats.”

  “Are you hostess?”

  “Isn’t this Steeple Rocks? I know that you are laughing at the lunch, but those were the things I found and they all looked good.”

  “I know by experience, Peggy, that anything from your house is good,” said Leslie. “This isn’t the first time that you have treated us. Hurrah for blueberry pie in Maine! We found a new place for blueberries, Peggy, scrumptious ones.”

  Peggy had saluted when Leslie complimented the Steeple Rocks cooking. Now she changed expression. “Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the—smoke of an English-mun! Isn’t that funny? Don’t you smell cigar smoke, girls?”

  “I believe I do a little, Peggy,” Sarita replied. She was at the opening, and taking a careful step or two she looked over the ledge, her hand on a rocky protuberance for safety’s sake. “Somebody’s going down toward the dock. Perhaps we are getting a whiff from the pipe he is smoking.”

  “Please see who it is, Sarita, if you can without being seen. Mother said that Dad might be home today, and if he is, I want to keep out of sight as much as possible.”

  Leslie, listening, puckered her brows and Peggy saw her.

  “Now Leslie, don’t worry. It isn’t bad of me to keep out of trouble. You just don’t understand, that’s all.” Peggy gave Leslie an engaging look out of frank, affectionate eyes.

  “Little flirt,” laughed Leslie. “She knows, Sarita, that she only has to look at us with ‘them eyes’ to have us melt. Why don’t you try that on Mr. Ives?”

  “You think that I’m just pretending! I don’t like you any mare, Leslie Secrest!” But Peggy was half smiling as she spoke and Leslie did not apologize.