The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Julia K. Duncan

  The conversation outside went on steadily. Young Bedelle was boasting more and more recklessly.

  “Say, I’m a pretty tough customer myself,” he bragged. “I beat my way out here from Boston after putting over a big deal, but the fellows who were working with me doublecrossed me and took all the money. And say, I rode out part way in my sister’s own airplane, and she doesn’t know it yet.”

  Doris smiled to herself.

  “You may be mistaken about that, Charlie,” she thought. “Just as your vicious companion is mistaken about Moon having the deeds.”

  Her hand stole to the hip pockets of her riding breeches, where the papers she had taken from Moon’s pockets crackled assuringly.

  “There’s just one more thing to worry me,” Doris said to herself. “When Henry Moon doesn’t find his coat he is going to hunt for it, and when he locates it down here, where will Doris Force be?”

  That thought made her decide to forego further eavesdropping and to look around the cave for a hiding place or possible second exit.

  Her eyes, accustomed to the darkness now, showed her that the underground room was partly natural, partly man-made. The ceiling sloped gradually downward, forming a rough right-angled triangle. The parallel walls were about seven feet at their highest, hewn out of the soft shale rock. The entire chamber was about fifteen feet wide and twenty feet long.

  Barrels and boxes, kegs and ropes, a tarpaulin-swathed machine of some kind and many polished lengths of round steel bars were heaped on the floor.

  There was certainly only one way to enter or leave the cave. As she came back to the opening, she noticed the two men still chatting.

  “I wonder whom they were trying to catch,” Doris mused. “Maybe it was Dave. Anyhow, they said there was no use trying to get him, whoever it was, so there is nothing to worry about, except how to get out of here.”

  She crept nearer the opening to listen further.

  “—can’t make a fool out of me,” she heard the stowaway saying. “I guess I’ve proved I can take care of myself. Say, listen! What’s that?”

  “Sounds like an airplane,” the other man said. “It is! There she comes! It’s my sister. Say, I’ll have to ride back to her ranch,” the youthful Bedelle cried.

  “Scared of her, are you?” jeered the man.

  “No!” snarled the youth. “That shows how much smarter I am than you. If I’m to coax her into giving me half the ranch naturally her Charlie boy must pretend to be reformed. Zowie! I hope she doesn’t see me.”

  Doris heard sounds which indicated that the youth was leaving in a hurry. His late companion chuckled to himself several times.

  “The conceited little pup,” she heard the man say. “Won’t we trim his sails for him!”

  Doris heard the airplane roar overhead, and then for a long time silence settled over the trapped girl. Only an occasional sigh or a grunt, or the scrape of a boot against gravel, warned her that the coast was not clear.

  Suddenly Moon’s voice broke the silence.

  “All right, Tracey,” Doris heard. “We might as well run along, too.”

  “All right, Chief!” the bass voice replied.

  Doris crouched back into the shadows as a pebble rattled down from above.

  “I’ll just see that no lights are burning down here,” the late companion of Charlie Bedelle said, and suddenly a huge pair of boots greeted Doris’s eyes.

  The girl threw herself behind a row of kegs, out of sight, but also out of a vision of the man.

  “Hey, Chief, here’s your coat down here,” boomed the man’s voice, uncannily loud in the cave’s narrow quarters. “Everything is all right.” Doris heard him scramble out, and then suddenly the rock was rolled over the hole and the girl was plunged into the most profound darkness she had ever experienced.

  “I wonder if I can ever find the opening in this blackness, and push the rock back,” she wondered.

  She crept over the barrels and groped around.

  “Funny how one can get lost in such a tiny place,” Doris mused, as her fingers touched damp rock or splintery boards.

  “If Dave didn’t see me fall into the hole I’ll have to stay here until morning!” Doris recalled with a start. “And Uncle John is arriving this evening! He must be almost due! What a reception for him—and Mrs. Mallow will worry herself sick.”

  Suddenly Doris stumbled upon the box which served as a poor substitute for stairs to the cave.

  Mounted upon it, she tugged and pushed until her fingertips were sore, but she could not stir the boulder that sealed her in the cave.

  “Suppose the air gives out before morning?” she thought, and for a time her heart thumped wildly with terror. “I mustn’t let myself think of such things.

  “I must do something to keep busy, or else I will lose my mind. I know—I’ll hide these papers under one of the kegs so they will not be found on me if I am discovered in the morning.”

  She took the documents from her pockets, and as she arranged them into a flat, compact parcel her fingers felt a familiar shape.

  It was a paper of matches.

  Just a cheap paper folder, containing waxed paper matches, the kind that tobacconists give away by the millions, but Doris felt the same thrill of delight she would have experienced had she suddenly found Aladdin’s lamp.

  “I’ll make a torch from one of these stiff envelopes so I can see to hide the papers,” she said excitedly.

  The flare of the match almost blinded her, and the little flame was close to her trembling fingers before she could see to ignite the paper torch.

  By the flickering, choking fire Doris pushed and pulled at one of the kegs until she had tilted it far enough to kick the documents beneath it.

  As the heavy barrel thudded back into place Doris saw black lettering stenciled on its top:

  BLASTING POWDER DANGER KEEP AWAY FROM OPEN FLAME

  CHAPTER XXII

  Old Danny’s Grudge

  “It’s getting darker by the minute!”

  Kitty, slouching in her saddle from weariness, looked for the first time without pleasure on the purpling hills, some with their peaks golden in the captured rays of an already vanished sun.

  “I can see that I can’t see as well,” Marshmallow responded paradoxically. “Listen, Kitty. No matter what Ben said, I think you ought to go back to the ranch and tell my mother that one of the horses ran away, or something, just so she won’t worry.”

  “Marshmallow, I—I just couldn’t,” Kitty cried. “She would see right away I was not telling everything. I want to be right here, doing my share to help find Doris.”

  “A fine active share we were given!” Marshmallow snorted.

  “Listen! I hear a car!” Kitty exclaimed. “It is coming from the right direction. It must be Miss Bedelle, or someone from her ranch!”

  “Listen to that motor!” Marshmallow whistled. “Some speed they’re traveling!”

  The approaching car, swaying and bouncing over the rocky road, roared into view. Its headlights were already burning, and Marshmallow recklessly spurred his horse into the middle of the road where the glare shone fully upon him.

  “Stop! Miss Bedelle!” he shouted, raising his hand against the approaching motor. “Miss Bedelle!”

  The automobile skidded to a halt.

  “Who are you?” came a woman’s voice, of a rich sweetness despite the sharp note of anxiety in it.

  “I have a message from Ben Corlies!” Marshmallow called. “We are in trouble.”

  Instead of Miss Bedelle, a man climbed out of the machine.

  “I’ve got ye covered, my lad,” he cried. “Just put up your other hand—and you too, on the other cayuse. Now then, what’s your game?”

  “Who—who are you yourself?” Marshmallow stammered. “Isn’t that Miss Bedelle there?”

  “Yes, it is, and what of it?” the man replied. “Ben Corlies is up the road—I mean, down the canyon—looking for a girl who has been caught by the oil gang,”
Marshmallow explained. “He told us to wait here for you, for Miss Bedelle, I mean, to tell her where he had gone. He said that Ch-Charlie had got away with his car.”

  Miss Bedelle herself came forward at this juncture.

  “I can’t make head nor tail out of what you are trying to say,” she said. “You may put down your hands. I think you are honest. Now, explain to me again.”

  Marshmallow smiled in relief as he lowered his arms.

  “My name is Marshall Mallow,” he said. “That is Miss Norris, over there. She and I and Doris Force and Dave Chamberlin, and my mother, came here in your airplane last week to stop some crooks who had stolen the deeds to all this land. This afternoon we spotted them drilling in a hollow a few miles from where we are now. Doris was creeping down close to them when her horse broke loose and we rode to get help, and now Dave and Ben are trying to rescue Doris.”

  “Where did you say they was drillin’?” demanded Miss Bedelle’s companion, still keeping his revolver pointed at Marshmallow.

  “If you go along this road a little way, you come to a gully that gets deeper and deeper, and then ends up on the side of a big, round hollow,” Kitty explained.

  “I know where that is,” the man said.

  “Danny, we started out to get Charles, but this looks like more important work,” Miss Bedelle said to the man. “Can’t you help rescue the girl?”

  “If that oil feller is mixed up in it, I’ll pitch in just to get even with him,” Danny said, lowering his revolver. “He stampeded that herd of fillies it took us two weeks to round up and separate with his old blasting, he did. And when I told him what I thought of him, he threw a handful of dust in my hoss’s eyes, he did. I aim to get even with that hombre!”

  “Please, Mister,” Marshmallow begged. “Don’t tell us about it. Help us find Doris.”

  “We must hurry,” urged Kitty, “for Doris may have been captured.”

  “A man my age ain’t got no right ridin’ around lookin’ for foolish young girls who ought to stay where they belong and not get mixed up with crooks who ruin good horse-flesh,” Danny retorted. “I aim to get even with that Moon feller, that’s all.”

  “This will be a good way to get square with him,” Kitty suggested.

  “Well, I’m the man who knows how to pay off a score if I do say it myself,” Danny bragged.

  With that, he turned on his high-heeled boots and strode back to the car.

  “Don’t you want to hobble your ponies and ride with us?” Miss Bedelle asked.

  “Isn’t your car just a two-seater?” Marshmallow inquired.

  “Oh, but it will squeeze in more than two,” the opera singer replied.

  Investigation proved, however, that although Kitty could easily be accommodated, there was no chance for Marshmallow to win a seat.

  “You go, Kitty, and I’ll ride along with your pony,” he suggested.

  Kitty was loyal to Marshmallow, however, and said she would ride with him, although every muscle in her body ached because of the unusual exertion.

  “I’ll see you later,” Miss Bedelle called, as she put the powerful car into gear and spurted away.

  The two riders felt a new lonesomeness as the machine vanished around the next curve.

  “For the first time in my life,” Marshmallow moaned, “I regret being a heavyweight. We could all be riding in that car if I were only half my size.

  “Half your size, Marshall Mallow!” Kitty cried. “I wouldn’t look at anyone so little.”

  “Well, that more than makes up for having to stick to horseback,” Marshmallow laughed. “Gee, Kitty, this would be perfect if it wasn’t for the mess we are in. It’s a grand evening, and you and I could ride all by ourselves.”

  “That’s what we are doing as far as I can see,” Kitty retorted, but whether practically or mischievously Marshmallow could not determine.

  To herself Kitty said: “I’m so sore and stiff I’ll never be able to sit down or walk or lie flat for the rest of my life. I’m going to be bowlegged forever from riding this horse!”

  The two jogged along in silence for a while. “Look, there’s a red light,” Kitty cried suddenly. “It looks as if Miss Bedelle’s car has stopped.” The two applied spurs to their ponies and galloped forward.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Doris’s Visitor

  “Blasting powder!”

  Doris cried the words aloud, and ground the flame of her little torch beneath her boots.

  Again in utter darkness, the girl sank to the ground struggling to steady her trembling limbs. Hours seemed to drag by. Actually, scarcely five minutes passed, but to Doris, cut off from the world and unable to see her hand before her face, it seemed as if half the night had gone.

  “It must be like this to be blind,” she thought. “Oh, how glad I am I have my eyesight. I never realized before what it meant to have all one’s faculties.”

  To comfort herself, Doris began to sing.

  Never before, perhaps, had the strains of “Annie Laurie” fallen upon such surroundings—a pitch-black cavern that was also a veritable arsenal of possible destruction, strange setting for the beautiful notes that poured from Doris’s young throat.

  From the old Scottish song she turned to “Home, Sweet Home,” and then choked, surprised to find her cheeks wet with tears. “Big booby!” she reproached herself. “Why choose sad songs?”

  She plunged into the quick-step of an up-to-date dance tune, but she had sung only a few bars, when a reverberating noise cut her off short.

  Suddenly a gleam of light cut through the darkness, and Doris saw that the stone was being moved. She jumped to her feet and retreated as far into the cave as she could.

  Was it Dave? Or one of the crooks?

  The light—was it morning already? To Doris’s eyes, the twilight struggling into the cave was as bright to her unaccustomed eyes as the noon sun.

  Fascinated, the girl watched the opening. A dangling, booted foot appeared all of a sudden, and then a man leaped lightly to the cave floor.

  It was Henry Moon!

  “Hello there, girlie!” he laughed. “I know you are in here. You needn’t hide.”

  A searchlight whipped through the cave like a gleaming sword, and came to rest upon Doris.

  “Oho, so there you are. Very kind of you to wait for me,” the man chortled.

  Doris made no reply.

  “I am an informal sort of fellow,” Moon continued mockingly. “I sure appreciate it when beautiful red-headed ladies come catlling informally.”

  Doris pressed her clenched hands against her pounding heart.

  “I’m sorry my quarters are so crude,” Moon said. “However,—”

  He stooped, and from some recess Doris had not discovered, picked up an electric lantern which he set upon a keg.

  “I heard you singing,” Moon went on. “Won’t you oblige me with a selection? Say that old war-song, for instance, ‘Where do we go from here?’”

  “I think ‘The Prisoner’s Song’ would be more appropriate,” Doris returned. “For me, now— and for you later, Mr. Moon!”

  “So!” Moon hissed, casting aside his mockery. “So that’s what you think will be the sequel, eh?

  “Listen here, you little snip, give me back those papers you took from my coat!”

  “You mean the papers you had your accomplices steal from my uncle!” Doris retorted in icy, level tones.

  “I mean the papers you stole from my coat, and not anything else,” Henry Moon snarled. “Don’t be a fool. I can take them by force if I must.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Doris replied, desperately fencing for time. “I saw you and your workmen drilling down here and I came down to investigate. This property belongs to my relatives, so you have no business to be drilling or even walking on it. Then I fell into this hole, and someone rolled a rock over the top.”

  Moon threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  “I spied you behind the bush,” he sa
id. “I don’t know how you got there, but I noticed you when your horse bolted down the hill. I saw you fall, and I know just how long you have been here. Ha! Ha! Ha!”

  Doris knew she was in a hopeless predicament. Moon saw her lip tremble, and gloated at the girl’s mental torture.

  “Well, you are safe here,” he said. “If I made you give me the papers and let you loose you would make a lot of trouble for me. I think I’ll just let you spend the night here, and tomorrow I’ll have my pals help me decide what we can do with you.” Doris regained her self-control instantly.

  “I would rather be alone,” she retorted.

  “We may kill you,” Moon mus’ed. “Then again we may not, and in that case you may wish we had been merciful with a bullet or two.”

  He picked up the lantern and hooked it to his belt.

  “If you will pardon me, then, I will rejoin my comrades who are waiting for me at the well,” he said mockingly. “I gave them an excuse for returning here but it grows late and I fear me they wish to wash up before supper. Good-night—and pleasant dreams.”

  He leaped to the box and drew himself out of the hole. The rock thudded back into place and again Doris was alone in total darkness.

  Henry Moon had no intention of leaving the scene, however. He was a man so depraved in character, so cruel and heartless, that it gave him delight to torture his captive.

  His two closest cronies, the scar-nosed half-breed who answered to the name of Wolf, and Tracey, the strongest of the trio, would wait patiently in their parked machine until he returned. Moon was sure of that. The men were his unquestioned tools to whom he had taught strict obedience.

  Now he sat on the rock that sealed the cave and brushed off his clothing.

  “What shall I do with that red-head?” he asked himself. “If she disappears it will be mighty bad for me, and if I let her go it will be worse.

  “I wonder if any of her friends were with her and saw her fall into the cave. If they did they turned and ran like yellow curs. But they seem to be a foolhardy crowd. Those boys were in my room at the hotel, sure enough, but how they got back home before me and the sheriff, I don’t know.”

  Furiously the crook denounced the four young folks for bobbing up on the scene of his criminal operations and spoiling his plans. As he schemed to outwit them, it was growing dark among the hills.