The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Mildred A. Wirt

  The place was spooky enough in daytime. In truth, day and night were alike in those subterranean passageways which had once led from dungeon to dungeon and from a battery room to one at a farther corner of the massive pile of masonry. No ray of light ever entered there. The walls were damp and clammy as a tomb.

  Still, urged on by mystery and who knows what need of change and excitement, the slender, dark-eyed girl pushed forward down this corridor, round a curve, across a small room which echoed in a hollow way at her every footstep, then round a curve again until with a wildly beating heart she paused on the very spot where Ruth had fired the eventful Roman candle.

  Nor was she to wait long for a thrill. Of a sudden, of all places in that dark, damp and chill passage, a hot breath of air struck her cheek.

  Her face blanched as she sprang backward. It was as if a fiery dragon, inhabiting this forsaken place, had breathed his hot breath upon her.

  Be it said to her credit that, after that one step backward, she held her ground. Lifting a trembling hand, she shot the light of her electric torch before her.

  That which met her gaze brought an exclamation to her lips. Not ten feet before her a square in the floor, some three feet across, tilted upward. Moved by an invisible, silent force, it tilted more and more. A crack had appeared between the floor and the tilting slab. From this crack came the blast of heat that fanned her cheek.

  “The fort is on fire,” she told herself in a moment of wild terror.

  Then, in spite of her fright, she laughed. How could a structure built entirely of stone burn? The thing was absurd; yet there was the heat from that subterranean cavity.

  “There!” She caught her breath again. The heat waves had been cut short off. She looked. The slab of stone was dropping silently down.

  “It—why it’s as if someone lifted it to have a look at me!” she told herself as a fresh tremor shot up her spine.

  She did not doubt for a moment that this conclusion was correct. In spite of this, and in defiance of her trembling limbs that threatened to collapse, she moved forward until she stood upon the very slab that had been lifted.

  “Don’t seem different from the others,” she told herself. “Nothing to mark it.”

  “Well,” she told herself as her eager feet carried her farther and farther from that haunting spot, “I’ve done a little exploring. I’ve made a discovery and had a thrill. That’s quite enough for one day.”

  “Ought to tell someone,” she mused as she sat before the wood fire in the great fireplace of the big summer cottage on the hill that evening. “But then, I wonder if I should? It’s really Ruth’s mystery. She should have a share in its uncovering. I’ll go back tomorrow and see what more I can discover,” she told herself at last.

  Had she but known it, reinforcements were shortly to be on the way. In Don’s room on Monhegan, Ruth, Pearl and Don had just held a consultation. In the end they agreed that they should start for home in the morning.

  A short while after this, Ruth, as she was about to fall asleep, reached a comforting conclusion:

  “Since I saved that girl’s life,” she told herself, “it should square that swordfish affair. I can now spend the swordfish money with a good conscience. I shall have a new punt as soon as I reach Portland Harbor.”

  Don’s boat was a sailing sloop with a “kicker” (a small gasoline motor) to give him a lift when the wind was against him. The day they started for home was unusually calm. Sails bagged and flapped in the gentle breeze. The little motor pop-popped away, doing its best, but they made little progress until toward night, when a brisk breeze came up from the east. Then, setting all sail, and shutting off the motor, they bent to the wind and went gliding along before it.

  There is nothing quite like a seaworthy sail boat, a fair wind and a gently rippling sea. At night, with the sea all black about you and the stars glimmering above, you appear to drift through a faultless sky toward worlds unknown.

  Ruth and Pearl, after their exciting experiences on Monhegan, enjoyed this to the full. Not for long, however, for there was something in the salt sea air and the gently rocking boat which suggested long hours of sleep. So, after wrapping themselves in blankets, with a spare sail for a mattress, they stretched out upon the deck and were soon lost to the world of reality and at home in the land of dreams.

  It was on this same calm day that Betty returned to old Fort Skammel and the scene of the tilting stone floor.

  Just what she expected to see or do, she could not perhaps have told. Driven on by the spirit of adventure, and beckoned forward by the lure of mystery, she just went, that was all.

  As it turned out, she saw that which gave her food for thought during many a long hour.

  Having made her way, with hesitating steps and backward glances, to the spot where Ruth had seen the face-in-the-fire, she threw her light ahead; then, with a quick little “Oh-oo” took an involuntary step backward.

  The square section of stone floor was now tilted to a rakish angle. It appeared stationary. Beneath it was revealed an open space some three feet across.

  As the girl switched off her light and stood there trembling, she realized that a faint unearthly yellow light shone from the half dark space beneath the stone.

  For a full moment, with no sound save the wild beating of her heart to disturb the silence of the place, she stood there motionless.

  Then, seeing that nothing happened, she plucked up courage, and, without turning on her torch, dropped on hands and knees, to creep toward the oblong of yellow light.

  Three times her heart leaped into her mouth. A small stone rolling from beneath her hand wakened low echoes in the place. A stone that gave way beneath her suggested that she might at any moment be plunged into an unknown abyss below. Some sound in the distance, probably made by a rat, all but made her flee. In time she found herself gazing down into the space beneath the tilted floor.

  The sight that met her gaze was worthy of her effort. A small square room lay beneath her and in that room, revealed by the witch-like yellow light, piled on every side and in great squares at the center, were bolts and bolts of richly colored silks and boxes beyond number, all filled, if one were to be guided by the three that had been broken open, with silk dresses, red, blue, orange, green, silver and gold, fit for any princess of old.

  “Oh! Ah!” she said under her breath.

  Then, just as she was beginning to wonder and to plan, there sounded far down some dark corridor heavy footsteps.

  In wild consternation, without again switching on her torch, she sprang away down the narrow passageway. Nor did she draw an easy breath until she was in her punt and half way across the bay.

  Then as she dropped the oars for a second she drank in three long breaths of air to at last release a long drawn “Whew!”

  She had not been in the big summer cottage on the hill five minutes, her brain pulsating from a desire to tell someone of her marvelous discovery, when the rich lady of the house told her of a yachting party to start early next morning.

  “We will be gone three or four days,” she was told. “Pack your bag well, and don’t forget your bathing suit.”

  “Three days! Oh—er—” She came very near letting the cat out of the bag right there, but caught herself just in time.

  “Why! Don’t you want to go?” Her benefactress stared at her in astonishment. “It will be a most marvelous trip, all the way to Booth Bay and perhaps Monhegan, and on Sir Thomas Wright’s eighty-foot yacht. You never saw such a boat, Betty. Never!”

  “Yes, yes, I’d love to go.” Betty’s tone was quite cheerful and sincere now. She had caught that magic name Monhegan.

  “Ruth and Pearl are up there,” she told herself. “It’s a small island. I am sure to see them. I’ll tell Ruth. It’s her secret. Then, when we come back—” She closed her eyes and saw again those piles and piles of shimmering silken dresses.

  “I’d like to try them on, every one,” she told herself with a little gurgle of deligh
t that set the others in the room staring at her.

  But Ruth and Pearl, as you already know, were on their way home.

  CHAPTER XI

  THE WAVERING RED LIGHT

  “Look, Don. What a strange red light.” Pearl, who had been curled like a kitten on the prow of the boat, rose on her elbows to point away to sea.

  “Where?” Don asked.

  “Over by Witches Cove.”

  “Plenty of lights on the sea,” he grumbled. He was tightening the last bolts in the pride of his life, his sloop with a kicker, which he had whimsically named Foolemagin. They had been home from Monhegan a full day now. His motor had gone wrong, and he was repairing it. In a few moments she would be cutting the waters down the bay. He did not wish to be disturbed.

  “But this one acts so strangely,” Pearl persisted. “It sort of wavers up and down, like—like a ship in distress.”

  “Distress! What nonsense!” the boy exclaimed impatiently as he tossed down a hammer and seized a wrench. “There is no sea tonight. A little swell, that’s all. How could a ship go aground on a night like this?”

  “There now!” he sighed at last. “She ought to do for a trial trip.”

  Releasing his boat from the float to which she was anchored, he threw the motor into gear. Purring as sweetly as a cat on the hearth, the motor set the boat gliding through the water.

  “What could be finer?” He dropped back on the circular seat in the stern.

  Indeed, what could? The sea, the night and a boat. Such a boat, too! True, the hull of the Foolemagin had seen much service. But it was strongly built, and Don Bracket knew his business. He had calked her well. And her motor was nearly new. Little wonder that the boy’s heart swelled with joy and pride as the boat, responding to the lightest touch, headed for the open sea.

  The boy had worked hard and long for this prize. In a twelve-foot punt he had rowed hundreds of miles. Setting lobster pots, trapping crabs, digging clams for the summer folks, he had added a dime here, a quarter there, a dollar now and then until there was enough.

  “Now,” he thought, “since Monhegan disappointed me, I’ll get busy here at home. I’ll make a lot more lobster pots. I’ll set them out by Green Island, Witches Cove and the Hue and Cry. I’ll get big ones, five pounders, beauties.”

  In his dreaming he quite forgot the girl who still lay half curled up back of the prow. To one who did not know her, Pearl might have seemed a kitten sort of girl, soft, dreamy and purring. Not so Don. He knew she could swim as strong and far as he, that she could row a punt or drag a lobster pot from the shoals with the best of them.

  She could relax it is true. Everyone should be able to do that. She was relaxed now, staring dreamy eyed into the gathering darkness. But of a sudden she sat bolt upright.

  “Look, Don!” she cried. “Look at the wavering red light. Over by Witches Cove.” They were much nearer now. “It is someone in distress. Must be.”

  Without reply, Don turned the prow of his boat toward the shoals back of Witches Cove, set his motors doing their best, then leaned back to watch with half closed eyes that wavering light.

  “Lights,” said the girl, as if half talking to herself.

  “There are plenty of lights about the bay these days—too many,” said the boy. “Mysterious doings, I’d say. That fellow in the cabin by Witches Cove knows something about it all, I’ll be bound. He may have something to do with this light, decoy or something. But I’ll see.”

  He kept his boat headed squarely for the light.

  The girl did not answer his remarks. They had set her thinking all the same. There had been strange doings about the bay. And not the least mysterious person who might be connected with them was the man who had taken up his abode in the abandoned cabin among the black clump of firs that cast their dark shadows over Witches Cove.

  Many and strange were the thoughts that passed through her mind as they came closer and closer to that dark sea cove about which weird and fantastic tales had been woven.

  There were persons who could not be induced to fish there; no, not even at midday, and now it was night.

  For this girl whose home had always been on Peak’s Island, this cove had always held a charmed fascination. As a small child, listening to the tales of gray witches that rose from its depths in the dark of the moon, she had time and again begged to be taken there.

  As soon as she was old enough to row a punt this far, she had fairly haunted the spot on Saturdays and holidays. The banks of this pool were steep and rocky. There were spots where its depths even at low tide exceeded twenty feet. There were times when the waters were as dark and green as old jade. At such times the movement of the incoming tide seemed caused by some monster disturbed in his slumbers at the pool’s bottom, and the rush of water among the rocks seemed a whispering voice. The very fish she caught there were different. As if touched by the brush of a great artist, they took on fantastic colors—red, deep blue, purple and green. The girl loved the spot. She thrilled now as she neared it.

  It had been on one of her Saturday afternoon fishing trips, not two weeks back, as you may remember, that she had first discovered that someone had taken up his abode on this small rocky and hitherto uninhabited island.

  She fell to thinking now of the two great cats and the little man with the wide-rimmed glasses.

  “There! Right back there!” she said suddenly as the light, swinging clear of the sea, continued to waver backward and forward in a jerky and uncertain manner.

  “I know,” the boy answered. “Be there in a minute. It may be some false alarm. Be ready for a sudden start if I need to make it. If it’s smugglers or booze runners we may have to run for it. They don’t love company too well.”

  The thing they saw as they rounded the reef and stood close in, astonished them much. Lying on her side, with a gash in her side, was a one time smartly rigged sailboat. Holding to the mast, and waving a lantern around which was wound a red cloth, was a boy a year or two younger than Don. Clinging to him for support as the heavy swell lifted and lowered the wreck was a mere slip of a girl.

  “Not a day past twelve,” was Pearl’s mental comment.

  In an instant she recognized them. Yet she could not believe her eyes.

  “It can’t be,” she said in a low tone, more to herself than to Don. “But it is! It’s the girl Ruth saved from the surf at Monhegan, and her brother.”

  The strangest part of all was that the girl at this moment showed no sign of terror. Her black eyes danced, as much as to say, “Well, here is a real lark!”

  “Where’d you come from?” Don asked.

  “Monhegan.”

  “Monhegan!” Don gasped. A girl and a boy in a sailboat coming fifty miles over an open sea. The thing seemed incredible.

  “We didn’t mean to come so far,” said the boy. “Went out for a little lark. Didn’t know much about this boat. Uncle gave her to me a week ago. She got going and I couldn’t head her in, so we just came on down. Some joke, eh?”

  Don didn’t see any joke in it. A fine boat wrecked and all that, but he had to admit that affairs do not look the same to all people.

  “What you going to do?” he asked.

  “Can’t you take us ashore?”

  “Yes. But this boat of yours?”

  “Let her bust up. Don’t care much for sailing. Dad’s getting me a motor launch.”

  “You mean—” Don stared incredulous. True, the sailboat was an old model. For all that, she had been a fast one in her day, and could easily be made seaworthy.

  “Cost thousands,” he thought.

  “Don! Don!” Pearl was tugging at his arm, whispering excitedly in his ear. “Ask them to let us have it. We can fix it up. I want it for my very own.”

  So excited was she that her whisper came near to being a low scream. The strange boy heard, and smiled.

  “If you can save her, she’s yours,” he promised. “Only get us out of this. We’re wet and getting cold.”

  To Don
the thing that the other boy proposed—that the boat, any boat for that matter, should be left to pound its heart out like a robin beating its breast against a cage, seemed a crime little short of murder. To a boy whose ancestors for generations have belonged on the sea, a ship is a living thing.

  “We’ll take you over,” he said shortly. “Get in. Quick.”

  Without further word, the boy and girl climbed aboard.

  By great good fortune Ruth was at the dock when they came in. To her was entrusted the task of conducting the boy and girl to warm quarters where they might find a change of clothing.

  In Ruth’s cottage the boy and girl sat beside the fisher girl in silence, dreamily watching the fire.

  “Do you mean to say,” said Ruth, breaking the silence, “that your sister’s very narrow escape from drowning made no impression upon you, that you are as willing as ever to gamble with your life?”

  “She didn’t drown, did she?” the boy looked at her and laughed. “She had luck. Her time hadn’t come, that’s all. No use making a fuss about that.”

  “Life,” Ruth said quietly, “is a precious possession. No one has a right to think of it lightly.”

  “Life,” said the boy with a toss of the head, “is a joke. We’re here because we’re here and because we are to have a good time. What’s the use of making a fuss?”

  Ruth looked at him but said no more.

  In her own room an hour later she sat looking off at the bay. Her thoughts were sadly mixed. She felt that the plan of life that had always been hers was slipping.

  “Much work, friends, a home and a little pleasure now and then, holidays, and—and—

  “‘Life,’” she quoted thoughtfully, “‘is a joke. Life is a joke. What’s the use of making a fuss?’”

  She took down a box from a what-not in the corner. There was money in the box, the last of the swordfish money. She had bought a punt because it was truly needed. She had meant to spend the remainder for useful things about the house and for fishing tackle which was also very practical.

  But now, “Life is a joke.” She allowed the coins to slip through her fingers like grains of sand.