The Third Girl Detective

by Margaret Sutton

  Where two sloppy roads met, on the way from the lake, several of the Black Wizards came along, just ahead of the girls, to enter the main road from the one at an angle to that taken by the S. P.’s. “I wonder where the boys have been,” said Jean to Nan.

  “I wonder what those girls have been doing with Miss Haynes,” said Billy Baxter to his companion. “That’s all the S. P.’s are, a nature club! Seeking, searching, strolling, I’ve got it, the Strolling Pilgrims. Wait till I write that on the blackboard Monday morning!”

  CHAPTER VII

  THE BLACK WIZARDS’ DILEMMA

  How the girls worked that next week! Mere incidentals like lessons would come in to detain them, or hinder them from spending every minute on that precious new “club room,” the Attic Marvel of the Ages, as Judge Gordon called it. “Grecian architecture has had a remarkable reputation, Jean,” said he, and then it dawned upon Jean, who was having history, that Attic with a capital letter meant pertaining to Athens or Attica, or something Grecian. “Oh, you crazy Daddy!” she exclaimed. But to the girls she chuckled over their “Greek art,” as they put up the curtains with the peacock and birds of paradise and twining vines with flowers.

  One of the pieces of furniture “rescued from oblivion” was a small bookcase. That they set up in the sanctum sanctorum and began to fill. Molly brought the tree book and a big botany text of her father’s. Jean put in the zoology text and an old copy of Hooker’s Natural History. Fran’s aunt, who was visiting for a few days, promised to send her a field book of wild flowers. Leigh brought over a book on butterflies and said that her father had promised to duplicate for her whatever Miss Haynes had for birds. “He’s going to write to a big book firm in the East, too, and find out everything there is!” she announced. “My birthday comes in May, and if I want to, I can have books for the club.”

  The Witches’ Caldron would not go so well in the middle of the room because of the electric bulb attachment. It was given a decorated corner, with draperies attached above in such a way that the caldron could be concealed when desired. It was an immense iron kettle, used in days far back for making soft soap, an article of manufacture of which none of these girls had ever heard. But the kettle had belonged to Mrs. Gordon’s family heirlooms and had been brought by her from their former home to this one. Both Judge and Mrs. Gordon were of families in these regions.

  There was an animated discussion about whether they should call themselves witches, or sibyls, when in the performance of initiations and the like. “Sibyl” was more classic. The name, moreover, began with S. But did Sibyls ever have kettles? The judge gave it as his opinion, based on a Latin classic, that they had caves, though he said that the kettle and its contents might be symbolic of the bubblings of the subterranean and volcanic lavas. S. P. might be the Sibyl’s Portent, the Sibyl’s Pit or the Sibyl’s Potion.

  “Thanks for the suggestions, Daddy,” said Jean demurely, “but we are not announcing our name as yet.”

  The spinning wheel and a few other antiquated interesting relics were left as decorative to the wider expanse of attic outside of the room, but the room itself was made cozy. The old grate that belonged in the small fireplace was found among the rest of what the judge called “junk.” Several very good chairs were mended and placed in the sanctum, along with an old-fashioned kettle, which needed only a little soap and water first, then some gay paint, to make it suitable.

  Fran had found in her attic an immense majolica jar in bright colors. This she had brought over in her brother’s Ford coupe, although she had been asked what she was going to do “with that hideous thing.”

  “Never you mind,” Fran replied, as she did it up in thick paper, that the world might not “gaze thereon,” she said.

  The girls, who were working busily, greeted it with shouts. “A prize, Fran—where did you get it?”

  “It was some present, girls, years ago, I believe. Mother gave it to me gladly; but won’t it be just the thing for the Sibyl to drop her wise sayings into? We might touch up the colors a little, or subdue them, just as you like, and with a little drapery it should stand near the kettle, perhaps.”

  “These artistic ideas grow upon us,” laughed Bess. “Would your mother feel very bad if it were broken?”

  “She’d scarcely shed tears of anguish, Bess.”

  What with the different ideas, Orders of Witches, or Sibyls, and the restraint of various limiting circumstances, the girls were a little confused sometimes, but they kept steadily at one purpose, that of making a bright club room for the present and laying quiet plans for a summer of camping together. That idea grew from the first. They talked it over with Miss Haynes, who was pledged to secrecy. She thought that she would not be able to go with them, but the matter was left open. There was too much of school left before them to make final decisions or call the parents into conference.

  Miss Haynes, however, gave the girls the benefit of her books as reference. They took the list of them. Each was going to persuade a parent to buy her one of those they needed at once. For the rest they would earn money in some way. It was not long, then, before upon a little cherry table, whose age and associations the girls scarcely appreciated, the Chapman Handbook of Birds, the Reed field books and the first magazines of Bird Lore had a prominent place. Judge Gordon said that as soon as he recovered from the expenses of having a club room in his house, he might be induced to help out with the S. P. library, and Jean told him that he was a funny daddy but nice.

  But science was not the only interest. The Orders of Sibyls were duly started, as soon as the girls decided between sibyls and witches. As Billy one day enlarged upon the fun the boys had in initiations, and Jean duly repeated all he said, S. P. initiations began. These, after the manner of initiations, were entirely secret, though Judge and Mrs. Gordon often smiled at the squeals of surprised victims, or giggles of the other girls. Not even the president was exempt from initiation, but the girls promised to do things that were “really smart,” not silly tricks to hurt the girls. Nan and Jean were especially good at thinking up impressive ceremonies, with the Sibyls attired in mysterious robes, and Molly, as a minister’s daughter, was acquainted with so many different ways to entertain that the girls said they had only to ask Molly when they wanted a new “stunt.”

  Mrs. Dudley sent over by Leigh a fine copy of Michael Angelo’s Cumaean Sibyl, which they hung in a place of honor upon the club room wall, and Jean hoped that some day she, too, might see the strange Last Judgment and the wonderful figures of prophets and other conceptions of the great artist and sculptor. Leigh was very simple about her advantages and did not seem to feel any superiority, as a girl of less character might have done, because she had seen the original paintings upon wall and ceiling. They made Leigh head of the department of travel and art, though she said that she really didn’t know anything about either. “I just saw what Mother and Father did,” said she, “and some of it I remember, and lots of it I don’t!”

  Time went very rapidly until Jean said that they must get at their Attic Celebration if they were going to have any. Initiations took several lively meetings. Occasionally they had merely a fudge party in the club room, when ideas gave out, or they were tired of decorating and making posters to put up around the attic. As the migration of birds grew more interesting in April, they not only went with Miss Haynes, but had their own private hikes after school, or early in the mornings on Saturday, submitting their lists or their descriptions to her when she was not too busy. Sometimes she was able to take out her science classes, when they looked not only for birds but for everything else in Nature’s great laboratory.

  The earliest flowers had been found. Trees were being listed and their leaves, coming out, noted. Even the frogs were not altogether left in peace, and the Wisconsin pools were investigated. The girls often met the Black Wizards upon their hikes, but that was to be expected, for boys always “tramp around and see things,” as Jea
n Gordon said. “I don’t believe there’s going to be so much crocheting and embroidering or fussing with clothes in our crowd after this, Mother,” said she.

  “It is just as well,” Mrs. Gordon replied, “though you must not forget to learn the gentle art of needlework, and I should think that with your beach parties and hikes you might want to learn cooking as well.”

  “I believe that’s an idea, Mother!” cried Jean. “Suppose you teach me first of all the good things to stew, ’cause we can cook things in kettles already. Maybe there is some book on outdoor cooking, or something we can read up on c—well, I think it’s a good idea anyway,” Jean finished, rather lamely. She was not ready to broach the subject of camping as yet.

  At last they were ready “to-start-to-commence-to-begin,” Bess said, on the invitations. The S. P. with its interests and a few purposes was fully established. The attic was as complete as any place ever is that belongs to girls full of new ideas from time to time. Molly and Phoebe were the artists that made, or at least planned, the posters, as they called the decorative pictures that they made and placed in “strategic positions, whatever that was,” Fran giggled, as she put up a large pasteboard supported picture which expressed Phoebe’s idea of “A Black Wizard Calling Up The Spirit Of Magic.”

  The Black Wizard was a tall, lank figure dressed in flowing black robes and wearing a pointed black hat. He was waving a rather wobbly stick over a smoking fire, out of which rose a spectral shape with a hideous face. A snake coiled about the fire, and another lay at the feet of the wizard.

  “That’s supposed to be the smoke taking shape into the figure of magic, girls,” Phoebe explained. “That’s why you can see the tree through it.”

  “Oh, you’re supposed to see through spirits, aren’t you?” Nan suggested. “It’s very good, Phoebe. You’ll make an artist yet. I don’t think that the Black Wizards will mind being put in a picture, but we can’t help it if they do. They’ve made too much fun of us. Did you see Georgie Atkins writing ‘Stuffed Pigs’ on the board the other day?”

  “That disagreeable little freshman?”

  “Yes. But Danny Pierce saw him and made him rub it out and took the eraser and rubbed it over his head till I know his hair was just full of chalk dust.”

  “The Black Wizards aren’t so bad,” laughed Jean. “They tease us themselves, but some of the boys won’t stand for its going too far. Well, what do you think? Are there enough posters done and can we get out our invitations right off?”

  The decision was that it could be done. Phoebe and Molly made the designs and the other girls drew and painted till their fingers ached, they declared. It was no ordinary affair. There were to be place cards, on which a mysterious Sibyl presided over a steaming kettle, while a large frog gaped widely at one side and a black cat arched a bristling back opposite.

  Sometimes it is more fun to get ready for something than to take part in the actual performance. But the S. P.’s knew that the Attic Party would be a success. It was different from what there had been before. They knew that both boys and girls would be curious about their club room. With a few games and good things to eat, everybody would enjoy it, they felt pretty sure.

  Whom to invite was a problem. The whole high school was not very large, but they had school and class parties sometimes. “Shall we just invite the Black Wizards and let them bring the girls they want?” asked Fran.

  “Some of them might not want to bring any,” suggested Molly.

  “We might not get all the girls we want here,” said Jean.

  “I believe that it is better to invite the girls ourselves, and let the boys take them home if they like,” asserted Bess. “Let’s just have plain, written invitations, since we’re tired of drawing place cards and making pictures, and send them to each one, with a special letter to the Black Wizards asking them to have a stunt.”

  Upon this suggestion the S. P.’s acted. The number and list of guests came next in order. There were only fifteen in the senior class. Of these, four were Black Wizards. It was easy enough to choose four of the senior girls who would be acceptable to these senior boys. “Will the seniors want to come?” asked Leigh, who did not know many of them very well.

  “Oh, yes, I think so, since it is a different party and a compliment to the Black Wizards, in a way,” Jean answered. “If they will not come, it is all right.”

  “Jimmy will want to bring Clare,” said Nan. “He’s in that state when he welcomes any chance to take her anywhere! And here is a place where he can sit by her at a good supper and not have to pay for the eats.”

  “Nan! Well, we want Jimmy and Clare for any reason,” declared Jean, “and Bob Metcalf will bring Lucille Arneson, I’m sure. She’s a peach and sweet to us younger girls. I don’t wonder Bob likes her. Now there are six junior Wizards. Whom shall we have for them?”

  “Wait, Jean. I haven’t got anybody down except those four seniors. We have to have four more.”

  The other four seniors were listed, two senior girls acceptable to the S. P.’s selected. The six junior Black Wizards were discussed and several junior girls added to the list. There was more discussion about the sophomores, their own class friends. Six sophomore boys completed the number of sixteen Black Wizards, but the whole class numbered twenty-five. What should be done?

  “I suggest that we invite all these girls that we want, and if there are more girls than boys it won’t make much difference, for Nan and I at least will have to wait on table, and Molly would help us, I thought. We can have a woman in the kitchen to help, Mother says, but we haven’t any money to have waiters, you know.”

  “I think it will be just the thing to have all of us S. P.’s in our costumes, you know, and waiting on the table and managing everything; indeed, Jean, I don’t see how it could go off well without it, though you ought to sit at the head of the table, starting it off as president.”

  But Jean shook her head. “I think we might have some place fixed for us, a little table, or something, because we want to enjoy the good supper, too. But if you girls are willing to be ‘extras,’ it will give us a chance to have more sophomore girls. The other boys might feel funny to be with so many Black Wizards—don’t you think, and couldn’t we have a sophomore party up here soon, to make everybody feel all right?”

  The girls thought that fitting, for there were boys outside of the Black Wizards whom they liked. They sighed with relief when their list was completed. Eight seniors, twelve juniors and twelve sophomores would be seated at a long table which should run the “length of the house, almost,” where the third floor roof was highest in the center. “Sixteen on each side, girls, and two places on each end for Fran, Bess, Leigh and Phoebe—to keep order,” announced Jean. “You see, after the whole meal is ready to serve, it will only take Molly, Nan and me to do all the waiting necessary.”

  “All right,” said Fran. “We’ll all help prepare the tables beforehand, of course.”

  “I’ll get Jimmy to help fix the long table, if there’s no objection,” said Jean.

  “No objection whatever,” said several of the girls. “Who cares?” asked Fran. “Pledge Billy to secrecy about anything he sees and get him to come over to help you, Jean, if you need him. He’d like the fun, and we’ll not put up our posters anyway until afternoon.”

  No hint of the great celebration had been given, for the girls were pledged to silence. With the exception of Mrs. Gordon not even the parents knew that the girls were planning anything except the completion of their “club room.” In consequence, a number of girls were happily surprised by neat invitations to an Attic Party at the home of Jean Gordon.

  Written by seven different girls, the invitations were not exactly alike, but if Leigh’s was a model of composition and Phoebe’s a wild scribble, as she claimed, they all presented the same facts. It was on Saturday at six o’clock at the home of Jean Gordon that the pleasure of Miss So-and-So�
�s society was requested by the S. P. Club for an Attic Party. Costumes were also suggested, though that was not required.

  With the one invitation to the Black Wizards they took great pains. A small copy of the Black Wizard poster was made into a cover for the invitation. The request that the Wizards offer a “stunt” for the occasion was put as attractively as possible. It was a large square envelope in which Jean handed this invitation to Billy Baxter, with the explanation that the other invitations were being sent through the mail, but that he was entrusted with the care of this one, to be put into the hands of their president or High Wizard or whatever they had.

  “Here is the list of girls we have invited, Billy, and if there is any one that any of the Black Wizards want asked, it will not be too late, if you let me know tomorrow morning. We do want you to do something after dinner, as Leigh calls it. We have supper at our house. But we are going to have a real chicken dinner, though, and we hope that the boys will like it.”

  “Sure we’ll like it,” said Billy, turning over the invitation in his hands. “I don’t know what they’ll think about the stunt, though, especially the senior boys.”

  “Let them out of it, then, and you juniors and sophomores do it. Now, tell me sure, Billy, if I have the list of boys all right. I thought that there might be some that did not wear the pin and we haven’t heard about. They’re all invited, of course, but we have to fix places at the table.”

  Jean showed Billy the list, which was complete, to her relief. “Are you actually going to have a party in an attic, Jean? I thought you had only one big room up there.”

  “We have one big room finished in front, but the whole attic is floored and runs all over the house, so we are going to have one big table and I wish that you would help Jimmy Standish fix it for us, the way they do at the church suppers. Molly said she thought we could borrow the tables they have at their church, if we were careful.”