The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Mildred A. Wirt

“All right,” Sim assented. “Take him to my car. Come on, Arden. We certainly have run into something all right—whether or not it’s a mystery will develop later. But about you girls?” she asked, looking at Dot and Terry and, incidentally, at Betty.

  “We’ll wait here until you two come back,” Terry suggested.

  “Please come with me and have some tea at our cottage,” invited Betty. “You can wait there.”

  “That will be better,” Arden accepted. As the men started to carry Jim to Sim’s car, she inquired, of no one in particular: “Where did you find him, and is there any explanation of how he got into the cellar?”

  “He was at the bottom of an old ash-chute,” said Mr. Callahan. “It opens into the cellar and connects with that big fireplace on the third floor, in the room next to the one with the closet in—the closet they say Jim disappeared from, only he couldn’t. It’s a very big ash-chute—big enough for a man to slide down. They must have burned whole trees in the old days, in that fireplace. And when the fire was out, instead of carting the ashes downstairs in a hod, they just opened a sort of trapdoor on the bottom of the hearth and dumped the ashes down. Only the trapdoor is rusted away now, and, somehow, Jim must have got into the ash-chute and he slid down to the cellar, bumping his head, cutting himself and knocking himself out on the way. That’s all there is to the mystery. And I’m glad of it.”

  His men looked relieved. One of them said:

  “Then I guess Jim couldn’t have gone into that closet like Nate thought he did. Though he may have gone in there, and have come out without Nate seeing him. Next he went into the fireplace room and, somehow or other, he slipped down the ash-chute.”

  “That’s the way of it,” said Mr. Callahan. “It explains everything, boys, and tomorrow we’ll get on this job and clean it up. The mystery is all solved.”

  “In my eye!” someone muttered.

  “What makes you say that, Nate Waldon?” asked the contractor.

  “Because Jim did disappear right out of the closet. I know it. I didn’t see him disappear, of course, but he didn’t come out and go in the fireplace room.”

  “This is worse and more of it!” sighed the contractor. He looked at the men carefully getting Jim into the rumble seat of Sim’s car and asked: “Well, what do you say happened, Nate?”

  “All I know is I saw Jim go in that closet. I heard a noise. I heard him yell, and when I ran to the closet he wasn’t to be seen. He didn’t slip out into the other room. I was close enough to have seen him if he’d done that. And we didn’t find any holes in the closet. The next we know we find Jim in the cellar. Talk about mysteries being cleared up—this one isn’t; not at all!”

  “Oh, well, don’t let’s talk about it!” begged Mr. Callahan. “All of you report for work tomorrow. We’ll knock off now. And I’m a thousand times obliged to you young ladies for all you’ve done—and are doing,” he added as he saw Arden and Sim getting into the car, while in the rumble seat a man was carefully holding the still unconscious Jim, supporting his head very gently as the car started.

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Sim called to Terry and Dot as they walked, with Betty, toward the little cottage.

  “Don’t hurry,” was the answer. “We’ll be all right. And do all you can for the poor man.”

  “This will be a surprise for Granny,” said Betty as she led the way to the cottage.

  “It must have been a surprise for you,” suggested Terry, “coming upon what you thought was a dead man in the cellar.”

  “Oh, I was scared stiff!” admitted Betty. “And I was so glad when I ran up and saw Arden. I suppose it seems presuming on such a short acquaintance to call you girls by your first names,” she added with a little smile, “but, somehow, I feel as if I had known you a long time.”

  “Of course,” Terry agreed, “we feel that way about you, too.”

  “Excitement makes time pass rapidly,” declaimed Dot. “And there certainly has been a lot of excitement since I arrived here.”

  “Indeed there has been,” Terry agreed.

  At the cottage Granny welcomed them with her usual happy smile but asked at once:

  “What has happened?”

  “How did you know anything had happened?” asked Betty.

  “I can tell by your faces.”

  “Well, I believe we do show something of it,” her granddaughter admitted. “But nothing a cup of your nice tea will not help to straighten out, Granny. You know Terry and Dot?”

  “Oh, yes. And we shall have tea at once. Now tell me.”

  They told her. Granny listened with an enigmatic look on her face, now and then her eyes showing flecks of pity as the wounded man was spoken of.

  “Very strange!” she said at the end. “I can’t understand it. There must be secrets about the Hall I never dreamed of. Perhaps when it is all torn down some of the secrets will come to light.”

  “There is some as will never see the light!” suddenly exclaimed a sharp voice from somewhere back of the hall. A woman, hard featured as to face and with straggling gray hair, suddenly poked her head out. She quite startled the girls, but Betty smiled reassuringly.

  “Oh, Cousin Viney!” murmured Betty, “why do you say such things?” as if dismissing this woman.

  “Did you want anything, my dear?” asked Granny kindly.

  “I only want to tell you that you’re having too many visitors, Hannah Howe!” was the answer. “Too many altogether! You know tea costs money, and so does cream and sugar, though I never use either.”

  “Won’t you sit down with my company, Viney, and have a cup of tea—clear, as you always like it?” invited Granny sincerely.

  “No. I’ve got other things to do. There’s lots of work in this cottage. Not as much as there was in the Hall—but enough!”

  At that she flounced herself out, slamming the door.

  Granny and Betty exchanged glances. So did Dot and Terry: it was their introduction to Viney Tucker. Arden had already met her, as Betty announced. She added:

  “Don’t mind her. She’s Granny’s cousin—just a little odd—though I don’t need to tell you that. But she’s kind and good,” she explained as Mrs. Howe went out to get more hot water. “She thinks the world and all of Granny and of Dick and me. But there is no use denying she is a bit trying at times, and she often embarrasses us when we have company—which isn’t as often as I’d like,” and Betty smiled at her two new friends to make them sure of their welcome.

  “I believe,” she continued, “that Cousin Viney feels and resents, as one has a right in the circumstances, our loss of Sycamore Hall, more than even Granny does. She is a creature always given to solitude and—well, you know how lonely women can be,” she finished.

  “It does seem too bad to have such a wonderful and historic piece of property pass out of the family,” Terry said. “One can hardly blame Miss Viney.”

  “And just to make a national park,” added Dot. “Doesn’t seem altogether right.”

  “Oh, we’re all glad to have Jockey Hollow Park here in Pentville,” Betty was quick to say. “It will put us on the map,” and she laughed prettily. “And of course, if they decide to take in this cottage, which isn’t quite sure, Granny will get something from the state for that. But she would get a lot more money, and so would Cousin Viney and Dick and I, if we could find the papers that prove we are the rightful heirs to the old Hall. As it is, it has reverted to the state. But I believe there is something about holding the estimated value of the place in court for a certain number of years to give us a chance to prove ownership. Only I’m afraid we never can.”

  “No,” chimed in Granny entering the room just then with fresh tea, “I’m afraid we never can. There was a time when I had hope, and I did all I could to hold this man Callahan—who isn’t a bad sort—from proceeding with the demolishing of the Hall. But now I have about given up. Only I don’t dare tell Cousin Viney that,” she added with a little laugh. “She is a die-hard and last-ditcher.
”

  The girls enjoyed their visit, though they were a little anxious about the return of Sim and Arden. After a while they decided they would walk around and wait rather than stay indoors, for the air outside was bracing.

  “Are you going back to look for those books, Betty?” asked Terry as she and Dot took their leave.

  “Not alone!” was the answer, given with a little shrug of her shoulders. Then, pleasantly thanking her, they left.

  Dot and Terry walked on, back toward the Hall. The afternoon was waning. It would soon be dusk. They hoped Arden and Sim would not be too late.

  “What do you think of it all, Dot?” Terry asked.

  “You mean about the queer old lady? Potty, if you ask me.”

  “Oh, yes, a bit eccentric. But I mean about things that have happened here in Jockey Hollow.”

  Dot did not answer for several seconds. Then she said:

  “Terry, I believe there is something mysterious here, but it isn’t ghosts, though that’s what you can call them.”

  Terry wondered what Dot meant.

  CHAPTER XV

  Jim Doesn’t Know

  Sim drove along as fast as she dared, with Arden sitting beside her, both girls wondering, conjecturing, and trying in vain to guess what the answer to the riddle of Jockey Hollow might be.

  Now and then one of the girls, to make sure all was well, would turn to the man in the rumble seat holding his wounded friend in a slanting position against his own dust-begrimed body; and Jim was begrimed, also.

  “Does he seem any better?” Arden asked once.

  “No, miss. Not yet.”

  “He is still alive, isn’t he?” asked Sim, wondering what they should do if the answer were in the negative.

  “Oh, yes, miss, he’s alive. I can feel his heart beating.”

  “That’s good. Is it much farther?”

  “Not much. Take the next left turn, please.”

  Sim did this. Down a country road, lined on each side with bare trees, they saw a small house.

  “There’s the place, miss! That’s where Jim lives,” eagerly called the helping man, who had said his name was Nate Waldon. “I’ll be glad when we get him home. I hope the doctor will come soon.”

  “So do I,” murmured Arden.

  “We certainly do manage to get into the most curious mix-ups,” suggested Sim as she ran the car around the bend and up as close as she could get to the house, which had a drive on one side. There was a barn in the rear, but no evidence that it was used as a garage.

  It was a small house; not unlike, Arden reflected, a picture of the huts used by the soldiers of Washington’s army when it was encamped in Jockey Hollow so many years ago.

  At the sound of the stopping car, evidently something unusual in front of that little house, a young woman, followed by a small girl about five years old, quickly opened the door and looked out. Then, as she evidently caught sight of her husband held in the arms of Nate, she ran out, crying:

  “Oh, Jim! What has happened! Are you hurt? Oh, Jim!”

  Sim and Arden quickly alighted and helped Nate lift the still unconscious Jim out of the rumble seat. It wasn’t easy, for the limp form was heavy.

  “He’s coming to, I think,” said Arden in a low voice to Sim. “I saw his eyelids flutter.”

  “Oh, Jim! Jim!” sobbed his wife. The little girl was also sobbing now. Sim, realizing that Arden knew more about first aid than she did, took charge of the child.

  “He isn’t hurt bad, Mrs. Danton, I’m sure he isn’t,” said Nate with the ready sympathy of one worker for another’s mate. “He just had a sort of a fall and he got bruised a bit and cut up and a hit on the head. But he’ll come around. Mr. Callahan had one of the men telephone for a doctor. Is he here yet?”

  “Not yet. Oh, Jim! Poor Jim!” wailed the excited woman.

  “Now, he’s all right, didn’t I tell you that, Mrs. Danton? Here, pull yourself together. You’ve got to help this young lady and me carry him in and put him to bed and then get ready for the doctor. Now don’t be fainting on us.” Nate took charge promptly.

  “No! No. I won’t faint. But what happened?” Mrs. Danton asked.

  “He just fell down an old ash-chute,” Arden said as she and Nate, with the help of the man’s wife, carried him into the little cottage where Sim, comforting the child, had already preceded them.

  Just how they managed, Sim and Arden never had any clear recollection afterward. But they succeeded in getting poor Jim upon a bed in a room downstairs opening out of a small but very neat little kitchen. Then, when his wife was undressing him, with the help of Nate, while Sim, in the neat kitchen, was telling the little girl a fairy story, Dr. Ramsdell arrived.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked in a bluff hearty voice. He did not know, and had probably not seen before, any of those whom he addressed. But he seemed, as Arden said afterward, “like one of the family.”

  “Oh, doctor, it’s my husband!” faltered Mrs. Danton, again on the verge of tears.

  “Tut! Tut! None of that!” warned Dr. Ramsdell. “We’ll soon be having your husband on his feet again. A little accident, I was told,” he remarked, and his eyes swept in turn Arden and Nate.

  “He had a fall—at the—the ghost house,” Nate answered.

  “Ghost house! What joke is that?” chuckled the physician, quickly taking off his coat and gloves and picking up the black bag he had set down on a chair.

  Out in the kitchen Sim was intoning to the little girl:

  “And when the Prince came riding by in his automobile—”

  “Didn’t he have a horse?” questioned the child, smiling now.

  “No, he was a new sort of Prince—he had a car.”

  “Oh, how queer! A fairy story with an auto. But I like it. Go on, please.”

  Dr. Ramsdell bent over the man on the bed. He felt his pulse, put his hand on the heart, and pulled back the closed eyelids.

  “Why, he’s not badly hurt!” he announced. “My goodness, this is no accident at all! Just a little shock. Here, my man! How are you? Drink this!” He had quickly mixed something in a glass of water that Arden, with ready foresight, had in waiting for him. “That’s better. Now tell me the joke about the ghost house.”

  “It’s Sycamore Hall in Jockey Hollow, where he was working,” Arden supplied.

  “Oh, there. Yes, I know Sycamore Hall. Old Mrs. Howe claims she ought to have it, but the Park Commission thinks differently. But this is the first I’ve heard about ghosts. Never mind them. That’s the joke. Now, let me look you over.”

  It did not take Dr. Ramsdell long to ascertain that Jim Danton was not seriously hurt. He was cut and bruised, he had a very slight concussion of the brain, but no fracture of the skull, and a week’s rest would make him well again, the physician announced.

  “Keep him quiet,” the doctor ordered as he left. But Jim was roused now. He seemed to want to talk. “Let him tell what’s on his mind if he cares to,” the physician suggested as he left, having set out some medicine from his bag and given orders as to its administration.

  And when the doctor had gone Jim falteringly told his story.

  “How did it happen?” asked his wife, having heard Nate’s version.

  “I don’t know, Minnie. I was up in the room with another man—I sort of forget his name—and we were sizing it up—getting ready to rip it apart—”

  “Why, I was there with you,” interrupted Nate.

  “Oh, that’s right—you were.” Jim had to talk very slowly. “Well, I went in the closet to get a crowbar I’d left there.”

  “I saw you go in,” Nate contributed. “But you didn’t come out.”

  “No,” said Jim in a curiously dull voice. “I didn’t come out. All I know is that I reached for my crowbar that was leaning against the closet wall and then, all of a sudden, it felt as though somebody hit me on the head. I fell down, and that’s all I know—until just now.” He sighed gratefully and pressed his wife’s nervous hand.
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  “But what really happened to him? Who hit him?” demanded Mrs. Danton.

  “That’s what nobody knows,” said Nate. “After Jim disappeared, we started looking for him. All but gave up when one of these young ladies found him in the cellar—unconscious.”

  “Neither of us found him,” Arden said. “It was the granddaughter of the woman who claims to own Sycamore Hall—Betty Howe.”

  “Oh, that terrible ghost house!” moaned Jim’s wife. “We heard stories about it before Jim went to work there—stories floating around Jockey Hollow—told by the workmen. A lot of them quit. Then Mr. Callahan—Jim’s worked for him before—sent out word for better men. Jim has been sick, but he decided to go.

  “We needed the money so much. We are so poor—so much in debt.” She had come out of the sick-room and closed the door. Her husband appeared to be sleeping. “And there was a bonus of a hundred dollars for any man who would work a full week, ghost or no ghost. Jim said he would. He tried, but—the ghost got him!”

  She hid her face in her folded arms on the table and sobbed. The little girl looked frightened.

  “Stop!” commanded Arden. “You mustn’t give way like this. Everything is going to be all right. Your husband isn’t badly hurt. He will get well!”

  “But how can we live, meanwhile?” She raised her tear-stained face.

  “I will see Mr. Callahan about that,” said Sim determinedly. “He must carry workmen’s compensation insurance. My father does in his stores. You will be looked after. Now, don’t cry. See, you are frightening Suzanne.” The little girl had told her name.

  “Yes, I must be brave. But, oh, that terrible ghost house. It should be burned down! It almost killed—Jim,” Mrs. Danton sobbed.

  “It will soon be torn down now,” Arden said. “And, really, I don’t believe it’s a ghost house at all. Those are only silly stories. Your husband’s accident is explainable on perfectly natural grounds, I’m sure we’ll find out. Now we must go. But you will need help. Can’t we get some neighbor in?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Johnson—she lives in the next house down the road—she will come in, I think.”

  “I’ll get her,” offered Sim. “You wait here, Arden.”