The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Mildred A. Wirt

  “Oh!” Sim and Terry exclaimed in unison. “What did he say?”

  “‘Leaving at once for Oceanedge,’” quoted Arden.

  “How wonderful!” Terry almost shouted. “Then he was some relative of poor Dimitri?”

  “It looks that way,” admitted Arden. “Wait, we must pay that dollar and a quarter,” she said quickly, for Sim and Terry evinced a desire to hasten away. They made up the money, though it rather taxed their purses after the beauty parlor treatment. But they didn’t mind in the least.

  “Now let’s go and tell your mother, Terry,” suggested Sim.

  They started out of the drug store and almost bowled over Melissa Clayton, who was on the point of entering.

  “Oh, Melissa, how are you?” Sim asked. “We haven’t seen you for a long time.”

  “I’m all right,” the girl replied noncommittally.

  “Weren’t sick, were you?” Arden asked.

  “No, just a cold,” Melissa replied.

  “All better?” Terry inquired. They were anxious to be on their way, yet they could not pass by the poor child for whom they had so much sympathy.

  “What a pretty pin,” Arden remarked next, looking at a stick pin with a deep red stone which Melissa had thrust through the collar of an old middy blouse. “Where did you get it?”

  Sim and Terry pressed closer; they could tell from Arden’s tone that this was no idle question, and as they looked they started, for the pin, a man’s, they had all seen Dimitri wearing the day of the little tea party.

  CHAPTER XXII

  The Policewoman

  “I found it,” Melissa replied without hesitating.

  “How lucky! Where?” Arden continued.

  “On the beach,” Melissa went on. Then she pushed past the girls and entered the store.

  Arden did not question her further, fearing to make the girl suspicious. But on the way home the three discussed the remarkable coincidence.

  “Now, where on earth could Melissa have found that pin?” Sim asked. “Of course, it belonged to Dimitri, and I don’t for a minute believe she found it on the beach.”

  “Nor I,” Arden agreed. “My guess is that, if she found it at all, she found it on the houseboat. And that means she was there before we were, because we went over it pretty thoroughly by ourselves, and the chief didn’t miss anything when he came with us.”

  “I suppose we ought to ask if he found out anything, just to keep up appearances,” Terry suggested. “What do you think, girls?”

  “Oh, of course, it would never do to let him think we had forgotten about him. We can stop in now and ask how the case is coming,” Arden replied. “But we don’t need to mention the telegram.”

  The chief, when they pulled up by the garage, crawled out from under a car. With a comical show of secrecy he came toward them, glancing over his shoulder as he came.

  “I ain’t had a chance to do nothing yet,” he said, wiping some grease off his hands. “My car broke down. But I’m a-studyin’ it, and I’ll let you know this afternoon. You heard anything?”

  Arden hesitated before replying. After all, she had heard nothing. That they had an answer to their telegram was just a bit of luck, and she thought it just as well if the chief did not know of it.

  “No,” she answered. “We haven’t heard a thing.”

  “Well, don’t worry,” Reilly said, smiling. “Remember, a murderer always returns to the scene of his crime.”

  “And you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” Sim flung back at him. He did so annoy her! Imagine “studyin’ it.” What good would that do, and what nonsense was that about a murderer?

  “That’s right!” chuckled Reilly. “You know, young ladies, the whole trouble with cases of this kind is haste. Haste is what gums things up. Go slowly, and you have much better results. You ain’t told anyone in town, have you? These here people are powerful talkers.”

  “Not a soul, Mr. Reilly,” Arden assured him.

  “You keep on studying it and let us know when you learn something, will you?” suggested Sim.

  “’Deed I will, and I’ll have some news soon, sure. In the meantime don’t forget. Look before you leap,” the chief said, smiling.

  “Yes,” Sim said as the car pulled away, “that’s good advice, and ‘he who hesitates is lost’ is good, too.”

  Reilly looked after them with a puzzled expression on his face. Was that little snip making fun of him? Then he shrugged and crawled back under the car he was trying to fix.

  “Sim, you cheerful idiot, were you trying to make him mad?” Terry asked as they drove home.

  “No, but he annoyed me so I couldn’t help it. I don’t believe he’ll be a bit of good. I know more about mysteries than he does.”

  “But it wouldn’t do to antagonize him. After all, he’s the strong arm of the law down here,” Arden reminded her.

  “Not such a very strong arm, in my opinion,” Sim answered, and she slipped deeper down in the car seat.

  “Oh, well, don’t let’s argue,” Terry soothed. “We’ve got too much to think about now.”

  Sim was instantly alert again. “I remember distinctly seeing that pin in Dimitri’s tie the day he showed us the snuffbox. Melissa knows more than we think,” she said.

  “We don’t know very much when you come right down to it,” Arden reminded her. “If a real detective questioned us, there’s very little we could tell him.”

  “How long will it take that Serge Uzlov to get down?” Sim asked of no one in particular. “I wish he’d take a plane.”

  “There’s no place here at Marshlands for a plane to alight,” Terry answered. “Unless he took a seaplane and landed on the bay. Think what excitement that would cause!”

  “I suppose so,” Sim admitted as they turned in the driveway. “We’ll just have to wait. I won’t have a fingernail left by evening. I chewed them nearly all off waiting for that phone call.”

  Terry whistled for her mother. At the sound of that shrill call, Mrs. Landry, try as she did to appear rather uninterested in the whole baffling case, came out of the house quickly and listened with great interest to the story of the message.

  “And, Mother,” Terry finished, “as we left the store we met Melissa coming in, and she was wearing a tie pin of Dimitri’s. What do you think of that?”

  “Did you say anything about it?” Mrs. Landry asked.

  “We didn’t let her know we recognized it, and she said she found it on the beach,” Terry answered.

  “Perhaps she did. Surely you don’t think Melissa had anything to do with all this?” Mrs. Landry questioned.

  “That’s just it. We don’t know who had anything to do with it,” Terry moaned.

  “Well,” Sim stated firmly, “I’ll feel better when that man from New York gets here. I’ll bet he knows something.”

  The others had nothing to say to that, and they all went indoors for luncheon.

  The meal was nearly finished when there was a knock at the front door. Bells in seashore cottages never seem to ring. They may at the beginning of the season, but almost always, before it ends, there appears over the push button a little note stating: “Please knock.”

  Now, in answer to that invitation, a knock sounded.

  “I’ll go,” said Ida, who had just brought in the dessert.

  The three girls glanced eagerly at one another.

  Was it Serge?

  But in another moment they knew it was not, for they heard the murmuring of a woman’s voice talking to the maid. Presently Ida came back, a frightened look on her face, to announce:

  “It’s a policewoman.”

  “A policewoman!” exclaimed Mrs. Landry. “Are you sure, Ida?”

  “Oh, yes’m. I’ve seen ’em in New York. They all dress the same, and they have a queer look on their face, and they wear heavy shoes. It’s a policewoman all right.”

  “But what does she want?” Terry asked.

  “Melissa Clayton,” said Ida.
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br />   “Oh!” murmured Arden. “If they arrest that poor child—”

  “Perhaps we’d better have this policewoman in,” suggested Mrs. Landry.

  “Oh, yes!” said Sim. “We’ve got to find out about this. Perhaps she may know something about Dimitri.”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  On the Water Trail

  Mrs. Landry told Ida to invite the visitor to sit on the front porch while the dessert was being eaten.

  “If I asked her into the front room she would probably hear what you girls talk about,” said Terry’s mother, “and you are sure to talk, I know.”

  “You can’t blame us in these circumstances,” said Sim.

  “No, I can’t.” Mrs. Landry smiled understandingly. “But why should a policewoman come here for this child?”

  “We’re going to find out very soon,” declared Arden.

  The dessert was eaten in record time, and then, after a whispered conference, it was decided that Mrs. Landry should first interview the caller alone and, if necessary, call in the girls.

  “Though, if she wants us to help her catch poor Melissa, what shall we do?” whispered Terry.

  “We won’t tell her a thing,” decided Sim. “Why should we make more trouble for the poor child?”

  “Even if she took Dimitri’s pin?” suggested Arden.

  “We don’t know that she took it—we don’t even know, for sure, that it is his pin,” said Terry while her mother went out on the porch. “We couldn’t prove it in court.”

  “I suppose not,” agreed Arden. “Though I, myself, believe it is his. Now, be careful,” she warned. “Don’t let on that we know anything about Melissa, or have just seen her, unless we have to.”

  The others agreed to this. They could hear the murmuring talk between Mrs. Landry and the caller. Presently Terry’s mother came into the dining room, where the girls were still sitting, to say:

  “It isn’t anything to worry about. Good news, rather than bad.”

  “About Dimitri?” asked Arden eagerly.

  “No. It’s all Melissa. You had better hear this woman’s story. She doesn’t want to arrest the poor child, so you can talk freely to her. And she isn’t a policewoman. She is from a private detective agency, though.”

  “It’s almost as bad,” said Terry. “Why is a detective agency interested in Melissa?”

  “You had better hear the whole story,” suggested Mrs. Landry. “Come, and I will introduce you.”

  The three girls trailed after her out to the porch. The woman was as Ida had described her. She looked determined and efficient but not unkind, nor like one who would, as Arden remarked later, “hound a poor girl to death.”

  “This is my daughter,” said Mrs. Landry, presenting Terry, “and her two college chums who are spending the summer with her. Miss Blake and Miss Westover.”

  “Pleased to meet you. I’m Emma Tash, and I’m from the Torrance Private Detective Agency in New York. I was sent down here by my chief to find out something about a girl named Melissa Clayton. As we always do in these cases, we make some inquiries of friends and neighbors before going directly to the parties themselves.

  “I stopped in the village, and I found out that you people are friendly with this girl. Do you mind telling me something about her?”

  “With the understanding,” put in Mrs. Landry, “that there is no harm intended to Melissa.”

  “Oh, now,” Emma Tash was quick to say, “I told you that at the start.”

  “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind repeating it for the benefit of my daughter and her friends,” suggested Terry’s mother.

  “Not at all. I’ll put my cards on the table, so to speak, and you can judge how much you want to tell me. This Melissa Clayton, according to the case as it comes to me, has an elderly aunt, her mother’s sister, who is quite wealthy. This aunt, a widow named Mrs. Lulu Benlon, has for a long time wanted to befriend this girl, but Melissa’s father refuses to let anything be done for her.”

  “Just like him!” murmured Arden.

  “I heard something like that in the village,” went on Emma Tash. “But we’ll come to him later. Anyhow, the firm I am with has been hired to see if something can’t be done now. It seems that several times, in years past, Mrs. Benlon tried to do something for Melissa but was prevented. After being turned down more than once, she gave up. Now Mrs. Benlon is ailing. She’s afraid she is going to die soon, but before that she wants to make another effort to help Melissa.”

  “Couldn’t she leave her money in a will?” asked Sim.

  “Yes, that was talked of, but Mrs. Benlon is queer,” said Emma Tash. “She wants to be sure Melissa will get the benefit of her help, and if she left her money there is no telling that Melissa would ever get it. Mrs. Benlon, it seems, wants the satisfaction of knowing, herself, that what she does will really benefit the girl.”

  “She’s probably wise there,” said Mrs. Landry.

  “Yes, I guess so,” the detective investigator admitted. “So that’s why I’m here. Mrs. Benlon has offered to take Melissa out of what, from all accounts, is a poor sort of a home and give her a good one—even send her to school to be educated. But Mrs. Benlon doesn’t want George Clayton to have anything of her bounty. It seems that he wasn’t kind to his wife, who was Mrs. Benlon’s younger sister.

  “As I get the story, it was a sort of runaway match; marry in haste and repent all the rest of your life. Anyhow, Melissa’s mother died soon after the girl’s birth, and she had been brought up in a hand-to-mouth sort of way ever since, according to Mrs. Benlon. But if it can be brought about there is a happier time ahead for Melissa. Now that you know what I want, will you help me?”

  “Yes!” exclaimed Arden, and her chums nodded in agreement.

  “What do you want us to do?” asked Terry.

  “Tell me all you can about this girl and her father and, if you can, suggest how I can best get in communication with them,” said Emma Tash.

  “That last part isn’t going to be easy,” said Terry. “George Clayton is a queer man; ugly too, I’m afraid.”

  “That bears out what I have heard,” said the investigator. “But there must be some way. Perhaps you can help me. But first tell me all you can—that is, all you want me to know.”

  This last clause was a saving one for the girls. They felt, under it, that they need not mention the pin nor any possible connection Melissa might have with the houseboat. Dimitri Uzlov need not be brought in, nor the fact that he was not to be found. The girls could still keep to themselves, as far as Emma Tash was concerned, the secret of the man missing at Marshlands.

  With this in mind, Terry, Arden, and Sim, by turns, assisted with a word from Mrs. Landry now and then, told about Melissa Clayton and her father.

  “They live in a sort of shack on the edge of the bay, not far from the marsh,” said Terry. “You can get to it by a long winding road out of the village, but the best way is to go by boat.”

  “Then I’ll go that way,” said the woman detective determinedly.

  “I don’t believe you’ll get very close to the Clayton shack if you approach openly by boat,” said Terry. “George Clayton is a suspicious man, and if he’s home he’ll probably order you off his premises.”

  “He may not be home,” said Emma Tash. “If he isn’t, so much the better. I can talk to Melissa alone. She ought to be old enough to make up her mind to leave her poverty for a better home with her aunt.”

  “That’s just it,” said Arden. “I think Melissa is rather simple-minded, to state it gently. Do you think you would be justified in inducing that sort of a person to do something her father would oppose?”

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t do that for anything,” was the quick answer. “If I find her that kind of a girl I will report back to my office and we’ll get legal advice. But Mrs. Benlon thinks she owes a duty to her niece, and she wants to carry it out as soon as she can.”

  “Here’s an idea,” said Sim suddenly. “What about going crabbing?�
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  “Going crabbing!” exclaimed Arden, not seeing the relevancy of the remark. “What in the world for?”

  “We have to take the water trail to the Clayton shack,” went on Sim. “Now, if we pretend to be crabbing we can gradually work our way toward it without exciting suspicion. Melissa may be outside or even out in a boat herself, crabbing or fishing. Her father may be out lifting his lobster pots. In that case Miss Tash can see the girl and talk with her. Melissa won’t be afraid if she sees us.”

  “Say, that’s a good idea!” declared Terry.

  “But you know,” said Arden, “we have to wait here for—”

  She did not finish, though her chums knew whom she meant.

  “Oh, I don’t want to take you away,” Emma Tash hastened to assure the girls. “I could go by myself.”

  “I think it would be better if some of the girls went with you,” suggested Mrs. Landry. “Melissa would feel much more confidence.”

  “I suppose she would, as I’m a stranger to her. But I hate to be a bother.”

  “No bother at all,” said Terry. “One of us can go with you, and the rest of us can stay here to receive our expected visitor. He may not come after all,” she added.

  “Oh, I think he will,” said Arden.

  “Then you two stay here,” suggested Terry quickly. “I will go in our boat with this lady. We’ll do some crabbing. It will be the best way.”

  “And if our friend comes,” said Sim, “we’ll hold him until you get back, Terry.”

  “Yes, do that.”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  The Man Arrives

  Emma Tash was a very efficient woman. No sooner had the crabbing plan of approaching the Clayton shack been decided upon than she lifted up a small black bag which she had set beside her chair.

  “If we are going crabbing,” she said with a smile, “I have my disguise in here.”

  “Disguise!” repeated the girls in a chorus.

  Truly things were developing fast at Marshlands.

  A detective woman!

  A disguise!

  Arden’s eyes sparkled.

  “It isn’t much of a disguise,” went on Emma Tash. “We women investigators don’t go in much for that sort of thing. Some of our men do, though. But when I knew I had to come down to the seashore, naturally I thought of bathing, fishing, or crabbing.