The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Mildred A. Wirt

  “What ails you?” Cara demanded. Then as she noticed a white envelope protruding from her friend’s sweater pocket: “Ha! I’ll bet a cent it’s from that ranger of yours up at Loon Lake! He writes you twice a week, doesn’t he?”

  “He does not!” Madge denied, blushing furiously. “Jack has more important things to do than write letters.”

  “Oh, you needn’t pretend, Madge Sterling. You know you like him. That’s why you’ll not even look at any of the boys here in Claymore.”

  “Certainly I like Jack. Why shouldn’t I? He’s a good friend and—”

  She looked somewhat nettled as Cara burst forth in a gale of exaggerated laughter.

  “All right, laugh! But unless I’m most horribly mistaken I saw you in Rexall’s Drug Store last night lapping up a soda and listening moon-eyed while Fred King gave a running report of last week’s football game. You—who can’t be dragged near the stadium!”

  “I only try to be a polite listener,” Cara said cheerfully. “Let’s call it quits.”

  They smiled, and linking arms, hurried on to the mansion. Miss Swenster was delighted to see them again for she had begun to fear that she had offended them during their last visit.

  “I’m so glad you came,” she greeted them. “After today, everything will be turned topsy-turvy since the furniture must be arranged for the sale.”

  Miss Swenster spoke cheerfully of the approaching auction, but the girls realized that she was hiding her real feelings. In little ways, more by look and gesture than by words, she had disclosed that she disliked to see her old home sold.

  There really was no immediate work to be done save dusting, which Miss Swenster declared unnecessary. However, the girls armed themselves with dust cloths and roamed about over the house.

  “We’ll do more looking than dusting,” Madge assured Miss Swenster. “This may be our last chance to search for the pearls. Wouldn’t it be grand if we found them?”

  “It would be marvelous! But I really have no faith that you’ll locate them. As I said before, I fear you’re searching for something that never existed.”

  “There’s one place we haven’t looked,” Madge said, “and that’s the attic. May we go up there?”

  “Of course. I was cleaning out some of the rubbish today, but the old furniture is still there. The pieces are really worthless and I doubt if I’ll even put them up at the sale.”

  The girls were moving up the stairway, when Miss Swenster called them back.

  “Oh, one thing more. Your prowler has returned. Last night I heard a noise in the garden. I went to the window just in time to see a man hurrying out the back gate.”

  “Weren’t you afraid?” Cara asked.

  Miss Swenster shook her head. “No, only curious. I can’t imagine what he can be after. If I see him again, I shall call the police.”

  After asking a few questions, the girls went on upstairs to the attic. It was a large, roomy affair with only one small window high above their heads.

  “Ug!” Cara emitted as she brushed against a cobweb. “I don’t care for this place.”

  She became more enthusiastic as she noted an interesting array of boxes, old chests, and discarded furniture. It was fun to dig into things. Madge discovered a Paisley shawl which she insisted was a treasure and Cara found a beautiful woven coverlet stored away with old clothing. But there was not so much as a clue to the whereabouts of the Swenster pearls.

  At last, grimy and tired, the girls returned to the living room, bearing their plunder.

  “I had even forgotten I owned such things,” Miss Swenster declared when they showed her the shawl and the coverlet. “My grandmother wove that spread herself. And the shawl was brought over to this country so many years back that I’ve forgotten the exact date. Dear me, how I shall hate to dispose of them.”

  “Must you?” Madge asked.

  “I can’t very well keep them. I have saved out so many treasures now that I’ll not have places to store them. I know! You girls must accept them as gifts! I’ll give Madge the shawl and Cara the coverlet.”

  Miss Swenster refused to listen to their protests. In the end they thanked her profusely for the generous gifts, promising they would take good care of them. Both were proud to own such treasures. They were eager to return home to display their prizes, but first they insisted upon doing the dusting which they had started hours before.

  Miss Swenster again assured them it was unnecessary. Nevertheless, they went about it in business-like fashion, working vigorously. Soon only the study remained.

  “Shall we dust in there?” Madge inquired, not wishing to repeat the mistake previously made.

  “Why, yes, if you like,” Miss Swenster returned with only the slightest hesitation.

  Entering the study, the girls looked with one accord toward the place where John Swenster’s picture had hung. A bright square of wallpaper marked the former spot. Miss Swenster had not replaced the picture.

  “I wonder what she did with it?” Cara whispered.

  Madge shook her head, raising a finger to her lips in mute warning that Miss Swenster could easily hear from the next room.

  They silently went about the dusting, bent upon getting it done as quickly as possible. Cara directed her attention to the bookcases while Madge made an attack upon the paneled mahogany desk. She dusted the top and polished off the curved legs. Then her cloth swept across one of the panels.

  Madge heard a sharp click. To her amazement, the panel dropped down, revealing a small opening!

  CHAPTER X

  The Secret Compartment

  “Well, blow me down!” Madge exclaimed, relapsing into comic-strip slang as she always did when greatly excited. “A spring panel!”

  Cara had rushed to her side and was staring wide-eyed at the secret compartment revealed in the desk.

  “There’s something inside!” she cried. “Oh, I hope it’s the pearls!”

  Madge thrust her hand into the dark opening. Her face brightened as she felt something not unlike a leather jewel case. She brought it to light, holding it up.

  “Oh!” Cara exclaimed in disappointment. “It’s nothing but an old book.”

  “A diary,” Madge corrected. “Well, I guess it was too much to expect that we’d find the pearls. I suppose Miss Swenster knows about this compartment but let’s ask her.”

  They stepped to the door and called. Miss Swenster answered from the kitchen, and later entered the study, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Look what we found in the desk,” Madge said, handing her the diary. “I must have touched a hidden spring when I was dusting. The panel fell down to reveal this.”

  Miss Swenster moved quickly to the desk, her face showing that the information astonished her.

  “I never dreamed there was a secret compartment,” she said. “This desk belonged to Florence Swenster, you know.”

  “Then the diary may have been hers too,” Madge observed.

  Miss Swenster opened the little book and quickly ran through the yellowed pages. The writing was cramped and difficult to read.

  “Yes, this is Florence’s diary, I am sure of it. I have seen her writing on a number of old letters.”

  “I wonder why she hid her diary in such a strange place?” Cara mused.

  “Oh, I imagine it was just a girl’s desire for privacy,” Miss Swenster returned. “Florence was a queer one in a good many ways though. I’m sure she never told anyone about this secret compartment.”

  She bent to examine it again. She closed the panel, hearing it click as it went firmly into place. But try as she would, she could not open it again.

  “I think I can,” Madge offered. “I know about where my hand was when it touched the spring.”

  Miss Swenster stepped aside and Madge moved her hand over the panel exploring its surface. At first she had no better success, then her fingers pressed the spring in just the right manner and the panel popped open.

  “It takes a sideways pressure,�
� she explained.

  Cara and Miss Swenster both experimented until they had learned the secret. In the meantime, Madge had picked up the diary and was studying it curiously.

  “I wonder—could Florence have written anything in here about the pearls?”

  Miss Swenster regarded Madge with frank admiration and approval. At first she had thought the search for the pearls only a useless, amusing whim of the girls. Now she recognized that a sound idea lay behind Madge’s investigation.

  “Why not read the diary?” she asked. “If Florence had any secrets to hide, it’s time they were aired.”

  This suggestion suited the girls admirably. Immediately forgetting their intention to return home early, they dropped down on the black plush settee and were soon lost to the world. Miss Swenster went quietly back to the kitchen.

  It was almost impossible at first to make out the cramped, fine writing. The girls laboriously studied out several paragraphs which were disappointingly trite. Florence had recorded in detail her trips to the dressmakers, visits with relatives and parties attended.

  Madge and Cara were becoming discouraged when they happened upon the first notation concerning the necklace. It read:

  “I attracted unusual attention tonight when I wore the pearls to the Alstone’s ball. How Rose envied me!”

  Cara gave a little squeal of delight and hugged her chum.

  “There’s our proof that the pearls really did exist. The necklace wasn’t a myth as so many folks thought!”

  “I hope she tells what became of it. Read on!”

  For another half hour they delved into the diary, finding little of interest to reward their patience. Then they turned a page and read a brief item disclosing that Florence’s jealousy of her sister was growing more bitter.

  “Rose is very sly,” she had written. “She is ingratiating herself with father, hoping that he will will her the pearls.”

  “She must have had a distorted view of things,” Cara observed. “From all that we’ve heard, Rose wasn’t a bit designing.”

  Madge had turned on ahead in the diary; She gazed at her chum with startled eyes.

  “Why, that’s almost the last notation. See all these blank pages.”

  “Just when it became interesting,” Cara wailed.

  “We’re not quite through. There are a few more paragraphs scattered through the diary.”

  She swiftly turned the pages. Cara leaned closer as they came to one brief sentence. It read:

  “Father died today.”

  For a full minute, the girls stared at the notation, trying to make more of it. Then Cara burst out:

  “Wouldn’t you think she’d have written more about a thing like that? Not a word of his sickness or anything. While she’d fill page after page with drivel.”

  “Perhaps she was too moved about his death.”

  “Maybe,” Cara acknowledged doubtfully. “I’d quicker think she was worrying about the pearls.”

  Before they could read on, Miss Swenster came into the study to say that luncheon was ready. The girls sprang guiltily to their feet, declaring that they could not stay.

  “It’s all right,” their hostess assured them, smiling. “I’ve already telephoned to your homes. And everything is on the table.”

  Miss Swenster was an excellent cook, and Madge and Cara who had healthy, growing appetites, did justice to her fine luncheon. However, they were so excited over the diary that had they eaten bread and milk, they would not have noticed. All during the meal they chattered gaily, telling Miss Swenster everything they had discovered.

  “We scarcely can wait until we read the rest,” Cara laughed. “Oh, I’m just sure Florence will tell what she did with the pearls.”

  Miss Swenster had tried hard not to allow the enthusiasm of her young friends to carry her away, but her cheeks were flushed and her eyes brighter than the girls had even seen them. She fairly beamed as she urged them to second helpings.

  “I’ll not count on the pearls until I see them,” she said. “But, oh! What wouldn’t I do if they should turn up!”

  Cara and Madge glanced at her with curious interest.

  “Just what would you do?” Madge asked.

  “First, I’d reward you girls for finding them! Then I’d call off that sale. I’d get a gardener again and have this place restored to its former condition. Oh, I would do so many things.”

  It was the tone of Miss Swenster’s voice that told Madge and Cara exactly how deep was her feeling for the old mansion. She had arranged her sale with business-like indifference to sentiment, but underneath, it hurt.

  Madge made a silent resolution that she would never give up until the pearls were found. Surely, the old diary would furnish the clue she needed!

  The girls helped with the dishes. The instant they had stacked them away, they hurried back to the study, burying themselves again in the diary.

  “We’re nearly at the end,” Madge warned. “Hold your breath and hope.”

  She turned several blank pages, and then in an awed voice read aloud:

  “‘It was unfair of my father to will the pearls to Rose, though the action did not surprise me greatly. I am determined she never shall wear them! If I cannot have them myself, then I shall hide them where they never will be found.’”

  “Oh!” Cara breathed. “How mean!”

  “Listen!” Madge commanded, reading on: “‘I have taken only old Uncle George into my confidence and he has sworn that he will never tell. Last night, when everyone was abed we hid the pearls in the—’”

  “Go on! Go on!”

  “That’s the end of the page.”

  In her eagerness, Madge fumbled the sheets. At last she managed to get the page turned over, but as she stared down, she uttered a startled gasp.

  “It’s missing! The page that told about the pearls has been torn out!”

  CHAPTER XI

  The Torn Page

  “If that isn’t the last straw!” Cara exclaimed indignantly. She permitted herself one glance at the place where the page had been torn from the diary and sank limply back against the settee. “After keying myself up to hear the grand solution, the whole thing falls flat!”

  “I feel like wilted spinach myself,” Madge admitted. She closed the diary with an impatient snap, placing it on the table. “Well, we’re at the end. The page that was torn out, was the last one.”

  “It would be,” Cara groaned. “Our chance of helping Miss Swenster has gone glimmering.”

  “What do you guess became of the missing page?”

  “Probably Florence tore it out herself and burned it up.”

  Madge agreed that the theory was a likely one. However, she suggested that some other person might have taken the page. The thought left her even more depressed, for in that case, it was likely that whoever had learned the hiding place, had long ago taken the pearls.

  The girls were so thoroughly disheartened that it was some time before they summoned courage to report their failure to Miss Swenster. Her face fell at the news but she tried not to show how keen was her disappointment.

  “At any rate, I owe you both a great deal for your interest in the matter.”

  Before leaving the mansion, Madge asked permission to take the diary home for a few days. In their haste to reach the end, the girls had not read every paragraph but had skipped those that looked uninteresting. Madge had little hope that she would find any new material, but at least thought it would do no harm to reread the diary at her leisure.

  “You never admit defeat, do you?” Cara asked as they walked home together. “As far as I’m concerned, I consider the adventure washed-up.”

  “I haven’t completely given up,” Madge returned. “But I must confess I haven’t a tangible clue.”

  She did not have time to reread the diary that night, and in truth, she rather dreaded the ordal. It was a long tedious task, one that offered slight hope of success. Nevertheless, Madge continued to think of the Swenster pearls and to
wonder if she had not overlooked some hitherto unimportant clue.

  “In the diary Florence said that she had taken old Uncle George Jackson into her confidence. Why didn’t I think to ask Miss Swenster who she meant?”

  This seemed such an oversight that Sunday afternoon she dropped around at the mansion.

  “Uncle George?” Miss Swenster repeated, in response to her question. “Why, he was the old caretaker I told you about. You can’t hope to learn anything from him for he has been dead years and years. In fact, his son is an old man now. Or was the last time I heard. He too may be dead by this time.”

  Madge came to life at this scrap of information. Instantly it flashed through her mind that possibly Uncle George Jackson’s son might know something of the pearls.

  “Can you tell me his name?” she questioned eagerly.

  “Uncle George’s son? Why, it must have been Ross. Yes, that was it. Ross Jackson.”

  Miss Swenster knew very little concerning either the old caretaker or his son. When she had left Claymore eight years before, Ross Jackson had been living in a shack down by the railroad tracks but she did not know what had become of him.

  “I should have looked after him,” she said regretfully. “I always intended to, but I have had very little ready money. Now that he is an old man it must be difficult for him to find work. I wish I could afford to employ him.”

  Madge went away with the avowed intention of discovering what had become of old Uncle Ross Jackson. His name was not in the telephone or city directories. She inquired of any number of persons without success.

  Then Jane Allen came to the rescue. Among others, Madge had asked her if she had ever heard of the old man. At the time, Jane could not help her, but she had inquired of their wash woman and had learned the location of Uncle Ross’ cabin.

  “You’re welcome to the information, but I’d not advise you to be going down there by the tracks alone,” Jane warned. “I can’t imagine what’s gotten into you lately. You’re so quiet and secretive. Always wanting to know such odd things too!”

  Madge did not enlighten her as to what had caused the change, though she was tempted to disclose everything. She knew that Jane and Enid both were somewhat hurt because they felt they were being excluded from something. She must make it up to them later.