The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Mildred A. Wirt

  “O, Young Tad,” quavered Hercules, still on his knees, “we shore thought you was gone on that South Ameriky boat. We been a-lookin’ for you so. Mist’ Sher’dan an’ I been down to N’Yawk all day.”

  “You have been looking for me?” asked Dr. Phillips in surprise.

  Hercules, trying to tell the story all at once, became utterly incoherent in his excitement, and Sherry saw that he would have to step in. And so there, in the light from the lamps of the disabled taxicab, with the fitful explosions of the reviving engine drowning out Sherry’s speech every few minutes, Tad Phillips heard the great news that would lift the crushing load of anguish from his heart, and would turn the world once more into a place of laughter, and light, and happiness.

  “It was a miracle, my deciding to stay over for the next boat,” he declared solemnly, a few minutes later, after nearly wringing Sherry’s hand off in an effort to express his joy and gratitude. “It was the hand of Providence, sir, nothing less than the hand of Providence. I had fully made up my mind to go on that boat yesterday; then for no reason at all I suddenly decided to wait until next week before sailing.” His voice sank away into a whisper of awe as he repeated, “It was Providence itself, sir, nothing less than the hand of Providence, that made me change my mind about sailing yesterday.”

  “You may have been inspired by Providence to change your mind about sailing,” rejoined Sherry, “but if it hadn’t been for Katherine, here, we never would have found you, for it never occurred to us that you were still in Philadelphia. It’s all Katherine’s doing—her losing that handbag.”

  “But if I hadn’t eaten those lobster croquettes and gotten sick I wouldn’t have lost the handbag,” said Katherine comically. “It all comes back to the lobster croquettes. Providence and lobster croquettes! What a combination to work miracles!”

  It was a rather dishevelled, but altogether triumphant quartet that arrived at Carver House some few hours later. Katherine’s hair had escaped from its net and hung in straggling wisps over her eyes; her hat had been so completely crushed by its contact with the wheel of the taxi that it was unrecognizable as an article of millinery, and hung, a mere twisted piece of wreckage, in a dejected lump over one ear. Her coat was plastered with dirt from neck to hem, and her gloves were stiff and discolored. One eye was closed in a permanent wink by a black smudge that decorated her forehead and half of her cheek.

  Blissfully unconscious of her startling appearance, she burst into the library, where the household were waiting to welcome the returned wanderers.

  “O Katherine,” cried all the Winnebagos in chorus when they beheld her, “now you look natural again!”

  The tale of Katherine’s adventure, with its astonishing ending, left them all staring and breathless.

  “Katherine surely must have been born under a different sign of the Zodiac than those you see in the ordinary almanacs,” said Nyoda. “There is some special influence of planets guiding her that is denied to ordinary mortals.”

  “Must be the sign of the Lobster, then,” laughed Katherine, gratefully sipping the hot milk Migwan had brought her, and allowing Justice to draw the hatpins from her hat and remove the battered wreck from her head.

  “How’s Sylvia?” asked Sherry.

  “Very much improved,” replied Nyoda, “but her heart is still acting queerly. I don’t know how she is going to stand this excitement.”

  Dr. Phillips agreed with her that he must not appear before Sylvia too suddenly, or the shock might be fatal. Impatient as he was for the recognition to take place, he knew that it would have to be brought about with caution. There was too much at stake to make a misstep now. Nyoda must prepare her gradually, first telling her that her father was alive, and letting her recover from the excitement of that announcement before breaking the news that he was actually in the house.

  The Winnebagos looked at Dr. Phillips with a surprise which it was difficult to conceal. This mild-eyed, white-haired gentleman was utterly different from the picture they had conjured up of the bold intruder who had so determinedly made his entrance into Carver House. They had expected to see a grim-faced, resolute-looking man, and Hinpoha confided afterward that her mental picture had included a pair of pistols sticking out of his pockets. The early portrait of “Tad the Terror,” in Uncle Jasper’s diary, had been slightly misleading in regard to his appearance.

  Nyoda saw Dr. Phillips’ eyes fixed, with a sorrowful expression, upon the portrait of Uncle Jasper above the library fireplace, and she guessed what bitter pangs the breaking up of that friendship had cost him; guessed also, that he had held no such bitter feeling against Jasper Carver as the master of Carver House had held against him, and understanding the characters of the two men, she saw why it was that Sylvia Warrington had preferred the one to the other.

  Over by the fireplace, Justice was teasing Katherine unmercifully about the lobster croquettes, while behind her back the Captain had taken one of the broken feathers from her hat and was tickling Slim with it, who had fallen asleep in his chair. The clock on the stairway chimed four.

  An irrepressible attack of yawning seized the whole party, and with one impulse the Winnebagos began to steal toward the stairway.

  “Well,” said Katherine, with a sigh of deep content, as she went wearily up the stairs leaning on Migwan’s shoulder, “well, this is the end of a perfect day!”

  CHAPTER XXI

  FATHER AND DAUGHTER

  In the morning Sylvia was so much better that Nyoda allowed her to sit up out of bed, and there, sitting beside the wheel chair which was to be the throne of the little princess all her life, she told Sylvia the story of her parentage. For a moment Sylvia sat as if turned to stone; then with a cry of unbelieving ecstasy, she clasped the picture of Sylvia Warrington to her heart.

  “My mother!”

  Nyoda stole out softly and left the two of them together.

  * * * *

  Later on in the afternoon there was a lively bustle of preparation in Sylvia’s room. The great carved armchair that had served as throne on the night of the party had been brought up from the library, and once more covered with its purple velvet draperies. Sylvia, whose romantic fancy had seized eagerly upon the immense dramatic possibilities of the occasion, had insisted upon being arrayed as the princess when her father should come in to see her.

  “The king is coming! The king is coming!” she exclaimed every few moments. “Array me in my most splendid robes, for my royal father, the king, is coming!”

  Thrills of excitement, like little needle pricks, ran up and down her spine; her whole being seemed alight with some wonderful inner radiance, that shone through the flesh and transfigured it with unearthly beauty.

  Nyoda brought the fairy-like white dress and draped it about her, playing the rôle of lady-in-waiting with spirit. Every time she passed before Sylvia she bowed low; she made the Winnebagos stand up in a line and pass in the bracelets from hand to hand; she herself brought in the crown on a cushion, and placed it upon Sylvia’s head with much ceremony.

  “Doesn’t she look like a real royal princess, though!” Migwan exclaimed to Hinpoha in the far end of the room. “I feel actually abashed before her, knowing all the while that it’s only playing.”

  “O, if she could only have been cured!” Hinpoha sighed in answer. “How much jollier it would have been!”

  Migwan echoed the sigh. “Life is very strange,” she said musingly. “Things don’t always come out the way we want them to.”

  “That’s so,” said Hinpoha, beginning to see a great many sober possibilities in life which had never before occurred to her.

  An automobile horn sounded outside. “There’s Sherry now, bringing Dr. Phillips back from their ride,” said Migwan. “They’ll be coming up in a few minutes.”

  The horn sounded again.

  “The royal trumpeter!” cried Sylvia. “Our royal father, the king, approaches!”

  She settled the crown more firmly upon her head, and sat up
very straight on her throne. Her cheeks glowed like roses; her eyes were like great stars. Nyoda watched her keenly for any signs of being overcome with excitement.

  From the hall came the sound of footsteps.

  “His Majesty, the King,” said Nyoda, throwing open the door with a dramatic flourish.

  For a moment Dr. Phillips stood transfixed upon the threshold, overcome by the scene of splendor within.

  Then he held out his arms to her, forgetting that she was paralyzed.

  “Sylvia—daughter!”

  “Father!”

  Then the amazing thing happened. Sylvia rose to her feet, stepped from the throne, and ran across the room into her father’s arms.

  “It happens sometimes,” explained Dr. Phillips a few moments later, when they had all recovered from their first stupefied amazement. “Some great shock, and the paralyzed nerves wake to life again. That is what has taken place here. She is cured.”

  CHAPTER XXII

  ONE MORE TOAST

  “To the Christmas Adventure at Carver House!” proposed Katherine, raising on high her glass of fruit punch.

  New Year’s dinner was over, and they all stood in their places around the table, drinking toast after toast.

  “The Christmas Adventure at Carver House!” echoed the Winnebagos. “The best adventure we’ve had yet. Drink her down!” The toast was drunk with a will.

  Sylvia stood beside her father, her face one big sparkle, while a more subdued, but equally rapturous, gleam shone from the doctor’s eye as he gazed on the adored child from whom he need never more be separated. The Captain stood opposite Hinpoha and gave her a long look as he touched her glass, as if he wished to fix every detail of her in his mind against the separation that was coming on the morrow; Slim also had his eyes turned toward Hinpoha as he clicked glasses with Gladys across the table. Justice gave Katherine’s glass a little nudge as he touched it, to attract her attention, for she had her face turned away from him toward Sylvia; Sahwah’s eye had a far-away look as she matched with Migwan. Nyoda and Sherry beamed impartially upon them all, and Hercules smacked his lips over his glass in the corner by himself. Hercules had abandoned his intention of dying, and announced that he was planning to get himself another goat, because life was too uneventful for a man of his vigor without something to fuss over and take up his time.

  “And it all happened because Katherine forgot Nyoda’s name!” said Sahwah, setting her glass down.

  “I wasn’t born in vain after all!” laughed Katherine, meeting Justice’s eye bent upon her in a close, quizzical scrutiny.

  “Which goes to prove,” said Nyoda, “that everything has its use in this world, even our shortcomings. Let’s celebrate that discovery. We have drunk to the memory of Uncle Jasper Carver and to the memory of Sylvia Warrington; we have drunk to the memory of the man who built Carver House with the secret passage; we have one swallow of punch left. Let’s drink one more toast, not to the memory of Katherine Adams, but to her forgettory!”

  And amid a great shout of laughter the last toast was drunk.