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

by Julia K. Duncan

  A few moments later she stopped reading and burst into peals of laughter. “Oh, girls!” she exclaimed after she had checked her mirth a little. “This is rich! Funniest thing I’ve ever heard. The rules say—” She stopped and broke into uncontrollable laughter again.

  Peggy ran over to read the rule that was causing Florence so much amusement. Then she too began to laugh, stopping only long enough to exclaim, “Oh—this is killing!”

  “What’s the joke? What on earth does that say?” Jo Ann demanded.

  Peggy checked her laughter long enough to answer, “It says when a guest—wishes to iron—to call the office, and ironing board—and iron’ll be sent up immediately.”

  Jo Ann’s jaw dropped, as did Miss Prudence’s. Their expressions were so ridiculous that Florence and Peggy continued laughing till the tears rolled down their cheeks.

  After an amazed, “And to think I could’ve had a real iron and board for the asking!” Jo Ann began laughing equally merrily.

  They were all still smiling broadly several minutes later when they went down to the lobby to meet Lucile and her mother, who were waiting for them there.

  The dinner party turned out to be a great success, and the girls did not return to the hotel till almost eleven o’clock.

  “It’s my turn to sleep with Miss Prudence,” Peggy remarked on entering the other girls’ room, “but I’m scared to go in there and wake her up this late. She’d think it an unearthly hour.” She stopped talking and smiled over at the girls. “Aren’t you going to be polite and ask me to sleep with you? You’d better, because I’m going to, invitation or no invitation.”

  With a mock groan Jo Ann looked at the double bed and then at Peggy. “Say, Florence,” she remarked finally, “I feel sorry for ourselves, don’t you?”

  “Put her in the middle where she can take the consequences,” suggested Florence, her eyes twinkling.

  Jo Ann grimaced. “The consequences’ll probably be that you and I’ll be out on the floor before the night’s over.”

  After much subdued giggling and chatter the three girls finally climbed into bed and drifted off to sleep.

  About five o’clock the next morning they were aroused by someone knocking at the door.

  Peggy waked with a start. “Someone knocking! Maybe the hotel’s afire and they’re trying to rouse us!” darted through her mind.

  She flung off the covers, tumbled over the sleeping Jo Ann, and rushed to the door to find an anxious-faced Miss Prudence.

  “Thank goodness you’re here, Peggy,” Miss Prudence exclaimed. “I just woke up and found you weren’t in my room, and I was so alarmed! Are the other girls here?” She snapped on the light and stood blinking at the frightened Florence and Jo Ann, who by this time were sitting up in bed, trying to figure out what had happened.

  “Now that you’re all awake you might as well dress, so we can get an early start,” Miss Prudence announced crisply.

  Jo Ann groaned audibly and sank back in the bed.

  “Isn’t it only about two or three o’clock?” Florence asked hesitatingly.

  “Mercy, no! It’s after five. It takes you girls so long to dress that it’ll be six or half past before you’ll be ready.”

  “Oh, but I’m so—so sleepy!” Peggy yawned. “Five o’clock’s an awful hour to get up.”

  Miss Prudence eyed her severely. “You stayed up too late last night, probably. Just dash some cold water in your face—that’ll wake you.” She added with a whimsical note in her voice, “Perhaps I’d better do it for you—and sprinkle some on Florence and Jo Ann, too.”

  “Oh, have a heart, Miss Prudence!” Jo Ann begged, burrowing her head under the covers.

  Seeing that Miss Prudence was in earnest about the early start and was going to stay there to see that they did get up and dress, Florence and Jo Ann reluctantly slipped out of bed.

  “When we reach the mine, I’m going to sleep and sleep to make up for all this lost time,” Jo Ann murmured to the girls between yawns as she was dressing.

  “Maybe you’ll even sleep through the siesta hour—you couldn’t learn that trick last summer, it seemed,” Peggy replied. “I take to sleeping the way Miss Prudence does to getting up with the chickens. Maybe the tropical heat’ll make her more sleepy-headed down there.”

  Florence smiled. “Here’s hoping it will.”

  CHAPTER V

  THE HIDDEN CAR

  Once they were in the car and on their way, winding along the Rio Grande and breathing in the fresh, invigorating morning air, they felt better about having had to start so early.

  “We’ll make the city early this afternoon, at this rate,” Peggy remarked. “That’ll give us time to do a little sightseeing. I wish we didn’t have to go clear to Laredo before we cross the river. I’m eager to get on Mexican soil right away.”

  “That’s the way with me,” Jo Ann added. “I wish there were a short cut somewhere. It seems as if there ought to be.”

  When, two hours later, they stopped at a filling station in a little town to get some gas, and Jo Ann made this same remark to the service man, he looked puzzled and merely nodded his head. Florence, realizing that he understood little English, began questioning him in Spanish.

  All smiles on hearing his native language, he answered at once, “Sí, there is a bridge you can cross here. They are putting in a new highway across the desert, which joins the main highway from Laredo.”

  “Bien. I think we shall go that way,” Florence replied. “It will save us much time, will it not?”

  “Sí—a little. It is about a hundred kilometers less, that way.”

  Florence smiled. “That is very good.” Now that she was so close to the country where her parents lived she was growing more and more eager to get home.

  “That desert road doesn’t sound good to me,” Miss Prudence put in, shaking her gray head vigorously. “It’s probably impassable. Ask him if it’s any worse than this one. I certainly don’t want to get stranded in the desert.”

  Florence obediently relayed her question.

  “If there isn’t any rain”—the man grinned and shrugged his shoulders—“you can drive through all right.”

  Florence translated to Miss Prudence what he had said and added, “The rainy season doesn’t begin till September. We’re not likely to have rain. Look at the sky!” She gestured to the cloudless expanse of blue above them.

  “It’s so dry and hot now it’s hard to believe it ever rains in this forsaken country.” Miss Prudence hesitated a moment, then went on, “If we’ll save that much distance through this awful country, maybe we’d better try it.”

  “Grand!” ejaculated all three girls together.

  “Ah, how good!” sang out Carlitos in Spanish.

  While Miss Prudence was still pointing out the country’s bad points, Jo Ann followed the man’s directions and turned into the side road leading across the toll bridge. With little difficulty she steered the car down the narrow road, not stopping till they reached the bridge.

  As soon as they had passed over the middle of the bridge, the girls and Carlitos, to Miss Prudence’s evident disapproval, exclaimed joyously, “We’re in Mexico now! Viva Mexico! Viva Mexico!”

  As both Florence and Carlitos spoke Spanish fluently, it did not take them long to answer the questions asked by the customs officials on the Mexican side, and so they were soon permitted to drive on. They had not left the river far behind before the vegetation began to change again to the typical desert varieties, mesquite, chaparral, cacti—especially the prickly pear and many other thorn-bearing kinds.

  Miss Prudence expressed her opinion by saying in a disgusted tone, “Desolation itself. I never saw so much land going to waste.”

  “But just think how fertile and productive the land is after it’s irrigated,” observed Florence.

  Miss Prudence passed over Florence’s comment without a word and went on to scold about the condition of the road. “And that man called this a good road. I�
��d call it a series of gullies. It’s practically impassable. If it should rain—”

  “It won’t, don’t worry,” comforted Florence.

  On account of the many washed-out places in the road, Jo Ann found that she had to drive in low gear frequently. As a result the engine soon became overheated and steam began to pour out in jets from the radiator.

  “Oh, gee!” she ejaculated. “I’ll have to stop now and get some water and put it in the radiator.” She drew her brows together into a frown. “Where’ll I get the water? We haven’t a drop with us. Of all the tenderfeet, I’m the biggest and greenest.”

  “We’ll have to drive all the way back to the river—or maybe we can find a water hole down toward the river. We might walk down that gully a piece and see.” Florence pointed to the deep cut leading toward the river.

  “All right.” Jo Ann drew the car up to one side of the road and stopped.

  “What’s the matter?” Miss Prudence called out anxiously.

  “Nothing except our radiator’s thirsty. I’m going down here and see if I can find some water for it.” She reached down and picked up a tin bucket off the floor. “Who wants to go with me?”

  “I’ll go,” Florence replied.

  After eying the thick thorny vegetation on all sides, Peggy shook her head. “Not I. I’d feel as if I were being electrocuted, walking through all those thorns and stickers.”

  As Jo Ann and Florence were picking their way gingerly along the rocky gully, Jo Ann exclaimed, “Why, look! Here’re some automobile tracks, and here’s one that looks as if it’d been made just recently. I can’t imagine anyone’s being able to get much farther down here.”

  “Nor I.”

  When they had gone several yards farther, Jo Ann noticed that the car tracks led up the sloping left side of the gully. All at once she spied a car hidden behind some bushes up on the edge of the gully.

  “Look, there’s the car!” she exclaimed, low-voiced, pointing to it. “Up there behind that mesquite. Looks as if someone’s tried to hide it there. Something queer about that—suspicious. I’d like to go up and peek inside it.”

  “Well, I for one am not going up to investigate.” Florence caught Jo Ann by the hand and pulled her along as fast as she could through the maze of thorny plants. “You have entirely too much curiosity.”

  “It’s enough to make anyone wonder, to find a car hidden in such a desolate spot. Maybe”—she whispered her next word—“smugglers’ve hidden it there. I’m going up and—”

  “Oh, please don’t—please—” Florence tugged at Jo Ann’s arm, but in vain.

  Jo Ann turned back and started up the slope.

  “Well, if you’re bound to go, I might as well go, too. I’m not going to stay here alone.” After this whispered reply Florence began following her.

  Without speaking another word the two girls climbed on up the slope. Cautiously they peeked through the mesquite and chaparral to see if they could notice anyone in or around the car.

  As soon as they were satisfied that there was no one in sight, Jo Ann made her way up to the old Ford and peered inside, Florence close behind.

  Both girls opened their eyes wide on seeing the quantities of pottery and baskets piled in the back of the car.

  Just as Jo Ann was about to whisper to Florence that she believed the car belonged to smugglers, she suddenly noticed that there was steam jetting out from the radiator. She pointed meaningly to the steam.

  Florence caught the point immediately. Since the engine was still hot the car must have been hidden there only a few minutes before. Without saying a word she indicated to Jo Ann that they must hurry away.

  Jo Ann lingered for one long keen-eyed look at the battered old car and especially at the license tag. She was determined to be able to identify the car if she should see it again. She felt that there was something mysterious about its being hidden there. A moment later she followed Florence back down the slope. Silently they continued on down the gully.

  On noticing a path leading upward a few yards ahead on the left, Jo Ann opened her lips to remark about it. Before she could utter a word, a man’s angry voice floated down, speaking rapidly in Spanish. What was it he was saying? Something about—

  Florence caught hold of her hand in a convulsive clutch, and she turned to see Florence’s eyes dilated in terror.

  Simultaneously a second voice sounded, with an even more angry ring in it.

  “Hurry! Let’s run!” Florence breathed.

  To Florence’s consternation, Jo Ann darted straight up the path. Just before reaching the top she halted and peered cautiously in the direction of the men’s voices, then scurried silently back.

  Together the two ran up the gully, not even halting when thorns tore Florence’s skirt and scratched a red gash in one of Jo Ann’s legs.

  “Those men must’ve said something terrible to scare Florence this way,” Jo Ann thought as she ran. “All I could make out were the words ‘money’ and ‘thief.’”

  On the two rushed, with only a hurried glance backward now and then.

  When at last, panting and puffing, they reached the road, Jo Ann gasped, “What’d—they say?”

  “The first one said—‘he’s a thief—cheating us—I’m going to kill him.’”

  “Wh-ew!” Jo Ann ejaculated while Florence was catching her breath. “The other—what’d he say?”

  “He said, ‘I’ll help—you kill him.’ Then he said—something about some packages weighing more than his enemy had paid them for.”

  “Did he say what was in the packages?”

  “No.”

  “I believe those men are smugglers, don’t you?”

  Florence nodded. “I feel sure they are.”

  “Do you suppose they belong to that gang of smugglers the mystery man was after?”

  “Hard to say.”

  “I believe I’ll know those men if I ever see them again—their car, too.” Jo Ann threw another hasty glance over her shoulder. “We’d better get away from this place soon as possible.”

  “But the engine’s so hot—and we haven’t any water.”

  “Here’s hoping the engine’s cooled off by now.”

  When they reached the car, Jo Ann glanced anxiously to see if the steam were still rising.

  “Thank goodness!” she murmured as she saw there was no sign of misty vapor rising from the radiator. “We’ll get away from this spot in a hurry.”

  When they reached the car, Peggy called out, “We’d decided you’d tumbled into a water hole or the Rio Grande and drowned. What kept you so long?”

  “Er—we—” began Florence.

  Jo Ann broke in hurriedly with, “We couldn’t find any water.”

  “What’ll we do?” Miss Prudence spoke up quickly. “We can’t go on without water, can we?”

  “Yes, the engine’s cooled enough by now.”

  “But it would be the height of folly to start out on a desert road without water.”

  By that time Jo Ann had started the car, but not before both she and Florence had looked anxiously toward the gully.

  “Something happened down in that gully that scared them,” Peggy told herself knowingly on noticing their anxious side glances and the excited expression in their eyes. “As soon as I get them off to themselves, I’m going to find out.”

  CHAPTER VI

  A FAMILIAR FACE

  It was with the keenest relief that Jo Ann managed to start the car and drive away before the men appeared. She was not alone in feeling relieved.

  Florence’s taut body relaxed, and she remarked, in a low tone, “That was a narrow escape. If those men’d seen us, no telling—” She left her sentence unfinished.

  Jo Ann nodded understandingly. Those men would have been more angry than ever if they had known that she and Florence had been listening to them and peeking into their car. It was too bad she and Florence couldn’t have got some water, but she would far rather run the risk of finding water elsewhere than
for those men to have discovered them there.

  Florence seemed to have read her thoughts as she remarked the next moment, “Surely we’ll be able to find some water soon. We’ve just got to get some before we go much farther.”

  The engine soon began to boil again, and Jo Ann was almost in despair. “Now what’ll we do?”

  The next instant Florence cried excitedly, “There’s a water carrier! We can get water from him.”

  “You mean that donkey cart jogging ahead there with the barrel on it?”

  “Yes. The Mexican’s carrying water to some ranch house or village, and maybe we can get him to sell us some.”

  In a flurry of dust Jo Ann stopped the car beside the cart, and Florence called out in Spanish to the old wrinkled water carrier, “Buenos tardes, señor. Will you sell us a little water?”

  At the sound of Florence’s voice the lazy burro promptly stopped, and the man stood peering at them from under his big sombrero.

  “See,” Florence went on, “we need water for our car. Will you sell us some?”

  “Muy bien.” He nodded his head and reached for the bucket Jo Ann was holding out to him.

  “Thank my stars someone knows where to get water in this awful desert!” Miss Prudence exclaimed, feeling relieved at sight of the water. “Do you suppose that is the only way the people have of getting water out here, Florence?”

  “Probably so.”

  “Well, I’d certainly hate to live here! Imagine having to drink that water! And washing dishes and clothes in a thimbleful of water wouldn’t suit me at all, either. I have the whole Atlantic Ocean right at the edge of my home in Massachusetts.”

  Florence smiled at the contrast of life in the desert and on the seacoast.

  After they had filled the radiator and their thermos jug with the precious fluid, they drove off, the girls and Carlitos all calling a smiling “adios” to the water carrier.

  A little later, at the old stone house on the edge of the village, they were halted and their passports examined. As they were waiting for one of the men to look over the papers Carlitos and Florence talked in Spanish to the other man. Jo Ann half smiled to herself as she noticed Miss Prudence’s evident disapproval at seeing Carlitos’s delight on finding someone with whom to speak Spanish.