“It’s all strange. A woman with a trunk like that!”
For a moment they stood there, staring down into that dark chasm.
“Tell you what!” exclaimed Tillie at last. “I’ve got an idea!”
Tillie was given to having ideas. Some of them were quite wild, for Tillie was more than half wild herself.
“Let’s steal her trunk!” she cried, clapping her hands.
“That,” said Florence in some disgust, “seems a dumb idea.”
“Not so dumb as you think. Listen. Day before yesterday I brought the lady cop a small bag of balsam tips; you know, the green end of twigs that smell so swell.”
“Yes?”
“She took one sniff of them, then threw up her hands and said, ‘I’d like a trunk full, a whole trunk full to take home to my friends, for making pillows.’
“We’ll steal her trunk and hide it in the woods. We’ll fill it with balsam tips. Turkey Trot and I will bring it back. She’ll drop dead when she sees it. She’ll never know it’s been gone until she sees the balsam tips. Come on. Give me a hand. She’ll be back pretty soon. We’ll just hide it in the brush until we go home. Then we’ll carry it over to your point.”
Florence, though not fully convinced of the wisdom of such high-handed proceedings, was quite carried away by Tillie’s bubbling enthusiasm. In less time than it takes to tell it, the trunk was up from the dark hole and away to the brush, the planks down again, the canvas spread smoothly in place.
They were not a moment too soon. Shaking the rain from her coat, the lady cop came breezing in.
“It’s glorious!” she enthused. “Even in the night and the rain. I hate to leave it all. But I fear I must. Very soon.”
This last remark sent a chill running up Florence’s spine. But she said never a word.
CHAPTER XX
13-13 AND OTHER SIGNS
“Look at this cabin!” The lady cop’s voice was filled with consternation as she spoke. Florence and Tillie could only stand and stare. The lady cop’s room was a wreck. She had gone out before dawn; had been gone an hour, had picked up Florence and Tillie on her way back, and now this!
Florence had never seen such a roomful of confusion. Table upside down, chairs overturned, clothing scattered everywhere, broken glass from the transom overhead, the canvas torn up, a gaping hole where the imitation ship’s hold was; such was the scene upon which she gazed in the utmost astonishment.
“You know,” said Tillie in a tone that was both serious and solemn, “we girls didn’t do that.”
“Of course not, child!” The lady cop laughed in spite of herself. “For all that, I know who did it. And soon enough they shall have their pay.
“I know, too, what it was they wanted. And they—” The lady cop advanced to the center of the room to cast one glance to the void below, “and they got it!”
“Wha—what was it they wanted?” Florence managed to stammer. She knew the answer, but wanted it from the lady cop’s lips.
“My trunk.”
“Your trunk! Why should they want that? It was—” She checked herself in time.
The lady cop gave her a sharp look, but proceeded to answer her question as well as she might.
“The truth is, I don’t know why they wanted that trunk,” she began. “They have wanted it for a long time. Now that they have it, I hope they are satisfied. I can get a tin one down at the store for a few dollars. And it, I hope, will contain no secrets.”
“Secrets!” Florence wished to tell her own secret, that the mysterious trunk was safely locked up in a hunting cabin back in the woods where she and Tillie had carried it through the rain and the dark. She did not quite dare.
“That trunk,” said the lady cop, up-ending a chair and dropping into it, “has been the most spooky thing you ever saw.
“My cousin bought it for me at a police auction sale.”
“A police auction sale!” Tillie stared at her hard.
“Once a year the police department sells all the lost, stolen and unclaimed articles that have come into its keeping. You’d be surprised at the variety of articles sold there; electric drills, oriental rugs, watches, knives, burglars’ tools, suitcases full of silks—everything.
“This trunk was in the sale. It was filled with a lot of worthless clothing. But my cousin bought it for me. It was such an unusual affair. Teakwood, heavy copper, walrus hide. You wouldn’t understand unless you saw it.”
Florence and Tillie exchanged significant glances.
“This cousin of mine is a queer chap,” the lady cop went on. “He’s always trying to break up superstitions. Belongs to a Thirteen Club formed in his academy days. Thirteen fellows lived in a building numbered 1313. Table always set for thirteen, whether they were all there or not. Such things as that.
“Now every year on the thirteenth day of a month, Friday if possible, they have a banquet. Six of the thirteen are dead. Four met violent deaths. Yet they keep it up. Thirteen places set. Seven seats filled. Six vacant.
“Makes you shudder to think of it. But he loves it.
“He bought this trunk because a crook had owned it. That’s supposed to bring bad luck.
“He hadn’t got half way home with it before someone dragged it off the truck. He crowned the fellow with half a brick and retrieved the trunk.
“He took it home. That night he woke up to see it disappearing out of the window. When he fired a shot through the window the trunk paused in its journey and he took it back.
“Then, because I am a policewoman, he presented it to me. And here—here it is not. They got it at last!”
Once more the two girls exchanged glances. They said never a word.
“Queerest part of it all is,” the lady cop concluded, “the thing was chuck empty!
“But come on!” she exclaimed, springing up. “Let’s get this place straightened out. Then we’ll fry some bacon.”
“Shall we tell her?” Tillie asked in a low tone as she and Florence walked down the little dock half an hour later.
“I don’t know. Not just yet.” Florence’s face took on a puzzled look. “If that trunk has such wandering ways, perhaps it’s safer where it is. Does anyone go to that hunting shack?”
“Not this time of year.”
“And no one besides us knows where the trunk is, and we won’t tell.”
“Cross my heart!”
“See you this afternoon,” Tillie added. “We’re going fishing.”
“Are we?”
“You know it! Got to work this forenoon. Can go after dinner. And boy! Will there be fishing!
“You know,” she added with all the wisdom of an old timer, “after a three days’ storm is the very best time to fish. When it is sunny and still, the fish lay round and get lazy; too lazy to eat. A storm stirs ’em up. Watch ’em bite this P. M. So long!” She went skipping away.
CHAPTER XXI
“FISHIN’”
Youth is the time of life when perils, sorrows and battles are soon forgotten; when joy persists, and the anticipation of some fresh thrill is ever uppermost in the mind. As they started on the proposed fishing trip rather late that afternoon, Tillie, to all appearances, had forgotten her battle with the children of a rich city gambler. The splendid black bass they had captured, the memory of the thrill of the chase, was still with her.
“Do you know,” she said to Florence, “I think the other two bass are larger, much larger? Perhaps one is a five pounder.
“We are going to have a grand time!” she enthused. “There are two big muskies lurking in those weeds. I saw them once. They may strike today.”
“You don’t think those hateful people will come back?” Florence wrinkled her brow.
“Guess we gave ’em enough!” Tillie clipped her words short.
“You said they’d ruin you.”
“Mebby they can’t.” Tillie’s strong arms worked fast at the oars.
They arrived at the fishing hole. Once more the conditions we
re ideal. Dark, slaty clouds lay spread across the sky. A slight breeze roughened the surface of the water. Such water as it was! Gray, shadowy water that suggested fish of immense proportions and infinite fighting power.
The whispering rushes, the gurgling water, the bobbing dragon fly, were all there.
“As if we had been gone but an hour,” Florence said, as she dropped the anchor.
“Yes,” replied Tillie, “this old bay changes very little. I climbed up on Gull Rock to steal a gull’s eggs when I was three. And there it stands still. And still the gulls lay their eggs there. Only difference is, I have learned how foolish it is to steal their eggs.”
She baited her hook with a large minnow, drew out her line until thirty feet of it hung loosely coiled in her left hand; then with a deft toss landed the minnow thirty feet from the boat.
“There,” she sighed, “right over there.”
Florence was obliged to satisfy herself with a shorter cast.
“Do you know,” said Tillie, and the sound of her voice glided along like the air of some old song, “this has been my fishing hole ever since I was old enough to paddle the first little tub of a boat I ever owned? But it’s never lost its mystery, this hole hasn’t.
“There have been times when I thought I knew all about it. I’ve skated over it in winter when the ice was like glass. I could see every stone, every stick and log at the bottom. I peered in between every little forest of pikeweed and said, ‘Nope, there’s nothing there.’
“There have been times in summer when the surface of the water was smooth as a looking-glass. Then I peeked around in every little corner down there in the depths of it, and I said, ‘Ah, ha! At last I have you! I know all about you. You’re only a hole full of water with a sandy bottom and a shelving bank. You’re full of weeds and other common things.’
“Just about then the sun goes under a cloud. A little breeze ripples the water. I can’t see a thing. I wait. The rain comes pattering down. I put a shiny minnow or a dark old crawdad on my hook and throw it far out over the edge of the old fishing hole. Pretty soon the line starts stealing away. My reel goes round and round, silent as a whisper. Then of a sudden I jerk. I begin reeling in. A beautiful thing all green and gold leaps from the water. But I have him still.
“‘Ah!’ I cry. ‘A black bass. Where did he come from? The old fishing hole, to be sure.’And right away that old pool with its mysterious blue-green top of rippled, spattered water is as full of mystery as it ever was.”
“Isn’t it wonderful to have such a fishing hole!” Florence enthused.
“Don’t all boys and girls have fishing holes?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“In the cities, of course not. It’s too bad.”
For a time after that they were silent. It was Florence who broke the Sabbath-like stillness of the old fishing hole.
“People,” she mused, “are very much like fishing holes. You have a friend. You are with him a great deal. He tells you all he can about himself. He turns the light of truth upon himself and allows you to gaze into the very depths of his soul. At last you say,‘There is no mystery left in his being. I know it all.’ Then of a sudden, in time of joyous tempest, splendid success or dark storm of disappointment and sorrow, in a moment demanding heroic courage, he shows you in an instant that there are possibilities in his being of which you never dreamed.
“Cities are like that, too,” she went on. “Take the great city I call home. It’s a very plain city where millions toil for their daily bread. I’ve been all over it. I often say to myself, ‘There is no further mystery in this city.’ I have no more than said it than I come upon a Chinatown, a theatre, a court room, some dark place at night where such persons meet as I have never known. Then that old city seems to look up and laugh as it exclaims,‘No mystery!’”
“It must be wonderful to explore such a city!” Tillie’s words were filled with longing.
“Perhaps,” replied Florence, “we can do it together some time.”
A large perch took Florence’s minnow. She reeled him in and threw him in the live-net.
“Probably all I’ll get,” she commented, “but they are fine fried brown in butter.”
“None better.”
Tillie lost her minnow. A second and a third disappeared into that dark expanse.
“Somebody’s stealing my bait.” She selected a very large minnow and hooked it on with meticulous care. Then out into the deep he went to join his comrades.
The manner in which he did this was startling in the extreme. Hardly had he hit the water than Tillie’s reel flew round and round, quite beyond control. With a quick glance toward the sky, she assured herself that some thieving bird had not seized her bait, then she pressed a thumb on her reel as she seized the handle to end its wild flight. Fortunately her line was long and strong. She had the fish under control in another moment.
But to play him, to land him—that was the problem.
“What is he?” Florence asked in an awed whisper.
“Who knows?”
Tillie reeled him in for twenty yards, then let him take the line slowly out.
“Tire him out,” she explained.
This she repeated three times. Then as a look of fixed determination settled on her face she said quite calmly:
“The landing net.”
Florence was ready. Settling her feet firmly, Tillie began to reel in. The manner in which she reeled in that mysterious monster was a thing to marvel at. And he came, foot by foot, yard by yard, fathom by fathom, until a great gaping mouth appeared close to the surface.
“A pike!” Tillie’s voice betrayed her disappointment. “But he’s a darb. We must have him. Get ready. When I give him line, get the net ahead of him.”
Florence obeyed with trembling fingers. She was a second too late. Tillie did not give the powerful fish line. He took it. Grazing the rim of the landing net, he shot away, taking fathoms of line with him.
The process of wearing him out was repeated. Once again he was brought to the side of the boat. This time Tillie gave him very little line. Unfortunately it was not enough. As his head shot toward the landing net, the hook that protruded through his jaw caught on the rim of the net. There was a thundering of water, a whirlpool of white spray, and he was gone.
“Dumb!” exclaimed Tillie, throwing down her rod.
“Lost him!” Florence dropped the net. “But then,” she added, “a pike’s no good except to look at.”
“That’s right,” agreed Tillie. “And we came out here for a big black bass. We’ll have him too!” She baited her hook anew.
An hour passed, and another. The sun hung for a time above the cedars, then slowly sank from sight. The water turned golden, then red, then steel blue. Still they fished on.
The number of fine perch, nine, ten, twelve inches long, which Florence dropped into the live-net, grew and grew. Tillie flung hers overboard in great contempt, as soon as they were hooked, and grumbled because they took her bait.
“Do you know,” said Florence teasingly, “I believe I have five pounds of fish? You have tried all afternoon for a five pounder, and got nothing. In life one should humbly accept that which comes, and hope for bigger things.”
“I wonder.” Tillie studied her face with tired eyes. “I wonder if that’s so, or do you win best if you insist on having only the big things?”
“I suppose,” Florence replied, “that one does that which one’s nature demands. I can’t throw a good perch away. You can’t keep one. It’s a queer old world.”
“It is!” Tillie punctuated her remark with a vigorous overhand throw that landed her minnow far out into the darkening water.
“Watch!” she exclaimed a moment later. “See that line go out! It’s a bass!”
There is nothing sweeter than the swift run of a bass before he turns his minnow and swallows it.
Zing! Tillie snapped the line. “Hooked!” she exclaimed, planting her feet far apart.
The ripples had subsided. The water was like polished steel at the surface. Yet one could see far into those mysterious depths.
“See!” she exclaimed tensely. “I’ve got him! The big one! And how meekly he comes in!”
What she said seemed true. She was reeling in rapidly. At the same time a monster of the lake, such a bass as Florence had never dreamed of, came racing toward the boat.
Three yards, five, he shot forward. Florence stared. The expression on Tillie’s face was a strange thing to see. Hope, joy, triumph vied there with fear, distrust, despair. It was her great chance. She had staked all in the one cast. Was she to win or lose?
During all this time the afterglow of the sun had lighted the water. In an instant, without warning, it faded and near darkness came. Not so soon, however, but that the girls were able to witness a strange sight. With a sudden stop and whirl, the big bass changed course and shot away. But Tillie’s reel? It did not spin. She still reeled in. A steady tug held her line taut. Ten seconds later a beautiful green-tinted bass, weighing perhaps a pound, broke the water and landed with scarcely a struggle in the boat.
What had happened? This little one and the giant companion had fought for the deadly minnow. He had won.
For fully half a minute, while the end of twilight became night, Tillie stood staring at her catch. He had flapped himself loose from the line and lay there in the boat snapping about.
Suddenly she seized him and threw him far into the rushes. Then she dropped into a seat to hide her face in her hands.
Tillie was of the emotional type. Some people are. What of it? Theirs is the privilege to weep or to shout for joy. Tillie wept.
But what was this? Of a sudden their boat gave a lurch that sent Florence sprawling over the stern seat.
What had happened? Her eyes told her in an instant. Her heart went to her throat. A speed boat, with power shut off, had glided upon them unobserved. The now invisible occupants had seized their anchor line, then started their powerful motor. They were now headed for the outermost point of land and the open sea.
“They’ve got us!” Tillie exclaimed. “They’ve got us!”
“Who?” Florence screamed. “In the name of all that’s good, who?”
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 116