Seated on a moss-covered rock a stone’s throw from the mysterious lodge, she tucked her violin under her chin and played as she had never done before. The tunes that crept out from that evergreen forest, like songs from the heart, were old as life itself, yet known and loved by every generation. She played one of those sweet, melodious songs of twilight, written as only an inspired artist can compose, then rested with bow poised, waiting. From away on the hill across the narrow lake the notes came back to her.
Not an echo, but the crystal clear notes of a second violin, played as only one musician could play them, Percy O’Hara.
Once again she played the slow, dreamy refrain. And, as before, it came drifting back to her.
Inside the lodge Florence, listening, caught the rise and fall of that song and thought it must come from another world.
But strange events were passing. Before her in a great cushioned chair sat a boy of fourteen. His attractive face was as white as death.
“Think!” The little doctor, looking into the boy’s face, spoke softly. “Think, think back, back, back. What frightens you? Why do you cry out? Think back.”
He leaned forward. Through the open window floated the entrancing music. Florence, understanding the meaning and the terrible import of it all, scarcely breathed, yet her lips moved in prayer.
“Think!” the doctor repeated. “Think back. Now you are twelve, skating, playing football, wandering through the forest. Do you see anything that terrifies you?”
No answer.
“Now you are ten.” The doctor’s words came in a whisper. “You are on roller skates. You are at home by the fire. You speed in an automobile. Are you terribly afraid?”
Still no answer. Still the music, now faint, now strong, came floating through the open window.
“Now you are six.” The doctor’s eyes shone. “You are by the fireside. You are in your own small room. It is night. Does—”
Of a sudden there came a scream so piercing that Florence leaped to her feet. It was the boy. His face was distorted by an agony of fear.
“What? What is it?” The doctor was bending over the boy. “What frightens you?”
“The dog!” the boy cried. “The big shaggy dog! Don’t let him in! He will bite me!”
“No! No! You are mistaken. That is a kind dog. He will not bite you. He has never harmed any one. You must learn to love the good old shaggy fellow.”
The lines of distortion began to disappear from the boy’s face. There was a question and a gleam of hope in his eyes.
Through the window, borne on the breeze, there floated the notes of a song,
“Silent night, silent night,
Lovely and bright—”
“He is kind,” the boy murmured. “He will not bite.” The look on his face was growing peaceful. He leaned back in his chair and was soon lost in quiet slumber.
“You see,” the doctor murmured low as they tiptoed from the room, “God, with our help, is working a cure. Tomorrow we will repeat this. By that time the demon of fear will have left him.”
“And it was his scream we heard,” Florence said softly.
“It was his scream,” the father of the boy, the rich Mr. Van Zandt, replied. “It is a form of hysteria brought on by fright. He has suffered long, and we have suffered with him. We hoped this secluded spot might help. It did no good. When the illusion came he was seized with terror. He screamed. But now, thanks to this good doctor and the mystery of music, we may hope for a complete cure.”
“These cases,” the doctor said, assuming a professional air, “are strange, but not uncommon. At some time in the patient’s past he has been terribly frightened. His outer self may have forgotten; his deep, inner self has not. When conditions arise that suggest this fright, it reoccurs.
“If we can still his mind, then cause him to think back, back, back to that time of great fright, we may be able to reassure his inner self, and the hysteria vanishes.
“We hope to banish this terrifying dog, who in reality could not have been vicious at all, then our work will be done.”
“That,” said Greta some time later as she sat in the boat near to the lodge, “is one of the strangest things I have ever known.”
“Our minds are strange,” said Florence as she rowed slowly toward the shore nearest their home on the ridge. “But that,” she murmured after a time, “that which we witnessed today is no less than musical enchantment.”
CHAPTER XXIV
THE LITTLE BLACK TRAMP
It was evening of the following day. The fire on that big flat rock burned brightly. Florence and Greta sat sipping hot chocolate from paper cups. For a full half hour, while twilight faded into night, neither spoke.
It was Greta who broke the silence. “Florence,” she said soberly, “life is strange.”
“Yes,” Florence agreed.
“Here we are on Greenstone Ridge,” the dark-eyed girl went on. “We came here to explore and to—to search out the secrets of the phantom. We found the phantom. We solved the mystery. And yet—”
“The phantom is more mysterious than before.” Florence smiled a dreamy smile.
“Yes,” Greta replied quickly, “he is! And perhaps we shall never delve more deeply into this mystery. We have not seen him since that night when, like knights of old, we marched down upon that mysterious cabin by the lake.”
“We have heard his music but have not seen him, your strange Percy O’Hara,” Florence said quietly.
This was exactly true. When the strange little doctor had suggested that they assist him in his marvelous cure of that boy afflicted with mental terror, Percy O’Hara had agreed at once, but had suggested that Greta should furnish the music close at hand and that his should be little more than an echo. This arranged, he had slipped away into the night. Since then they had heard him twice, had seen him not at all.
“Why?” Greta whispered to herself. “Why?” There came no answer.
“Florence,” she said, springing to her feet, “our work here is done. Doctor Prince has told us that our assistance is no longer needed. As for the phan—phantom, Percy O’Hara, we have no right to pry into his affairs. I—I’d like to go down to the camping ground by Duncan’s Bay.” She seemed ready to weep.
“Tonight?” Florence rose slowly to her feet.
“Tonight.”
“All right.” The big girl began stuffing things into her bag. “We’ll be away in a jiffy.”
A half hour later two dark figures, guided only by a flashlight, made their way over the long moose trail leading along the ridge, thence down to the shores of a dark and silent bay. And all the time Greta was thinking of Percy O’Hara, who had charmed thousands upon thousands with his matchless music, hiding away there on the ridge. Once she whispered, “Green eyes, a hundred pairs of green eyes.”
As they neared the shores of the bay, however, her thoughts returned to her good friend Jeanne and their home, the wreck of the old Pilgrim. Once she whispered low, “A barrel of gold.”
Had you chanced to look down upon that narrow stretch of level land on the shores of Duncan’s Bay later that night, you might have spied, hidden away in a shadowy corner, a small tent. Beneath that tent two girls slept, Florence and Greta. For them Greenstone Ridge had become a memory.
They were up at dawn. Their boat, hidden deep among some scrub spruce trees, awaited them. So did a bright and shimmering lake. And beyond this, dark and silent, was their home, the wreck.
“Perhaps Jeanne has come back,” said Florence. “We will row over at once.”
They had covered half the distance to the wreck and were watching eagerly for some sign of life on its sloping decks, when Greta, whose gaze had strayed away to the left, cried out quite suddenly, “Look, Florence! What is that over there?”
Shading her eyes, Florence followed the younger girl’s gaze, then said with a slow tone of assurance, “It’s a boat, a small black boat adrift. Some ship, or perhaps only a schooner, has lost her lifeboat. We’
ll take it in tow, tie it up over at the wreck.”
The small black boat was soon tied behind their own. Florence’s strong arms did double duty as she covered the remaining distance to the wreck.
Greta had climbed on board the wreck, Florence had finished tying up her own boat and was giving her attention to the small black tramp, when she noted something of mild interest. In the bottom of that boat was water two or three inches deep, from a rain, perhaps. Floating on the surface of that water was a small square of paper.
“Might give some clue,” she thought as she put out a hand.
Once she had spread the paper on the boat’s seat, her lips parted in surprise.
“Greta!” she cried, “Greta! Come here. See what I have found!”
When Greta arrived all she saw was a sheet of water-soaked paper. In the center of that paper, done with a purple pencil, badly blurred but still quite easily read, were four words:
“A BARREL OF GOLD.”
“Isn’t that strange!” Florence exclaimed. “Here we’ve been dreaming in a silly sort of way about a barrel of gold. And now, here it is, all written out by a stranger!”
“Perhaps Jeanne wrote it,” Greta suggested.
“She can’t have. It’s not her writing. And look!” Florence studied the paper more closely. “There are two lines drawn under those words as if some other words had been crossed out and these inserted. And that—” she straightened up, “that is exactly what happened. There are faint traces of pencil marks all over the paper. The water has about washed them away. Perhaps when the paper is dry we can read the entire message.”
Placing the paper carefully on her outspread hand, she carried it to the deck, then smoothed it out on a board in the sun.
“Jeanne is not here,” Greta said quietly. “She’s not been here. Everything is just as we left it, except—” she hesitated.
“Except what?” Florence stared.
“I can’t be sure, but I think there are fresh marks of a black schooner that has been tied up alongside this wreck. Come and see.”
“Can’t be any doubt of it,” Florence agreed a few moments later. “The black schooner, it’s been here again, Greta! Greta!” She gripped the slender girl’s arm. “Do you suppose there could have been a barrel of gold hidden on this wreck? And have they carried it away?
“Of course not!” she exploded, answering her own question. “There are three or four barrels of oil in the hold. That was all they left. Swen told us that, and he should know.”
CHAPTER XXV
FATHER SUPERIOR TAKES A HAND
The paper taken from the Little Black Tramp, as Florence had named the derelict, proved a disappointment. Though there was still some suggestion of writing remaining on its surface after it was dry, not one word could be read. Only those four words, brighter than ever, stood out clear and strong, “A BARREL OF GOLD.”
Without the sprightly Jeanne about, the wreck seemed a lonely place. “What do you say we row back to the camping ground and dig for treasure?” Florence suggested after their midday siesta. “We can stay all night if the wind blows up.”
“Dig for treasure? Florence, you’re still thinking of that barrel of gold!” Greta exclaimed. “You’ll not find it there. It’s on this old ship. You wait and see!”
Greta was glad enough to go. She hoped, for one thing, that she might catch again the tuneful notes of that phantom violin. “Shall I ever know?” she asked herself. “Why does he hide away there on Greenstone Ridge? Percy O’Hara,” she whispered. She closed her eyes to see again that tangled mass of gray hair, those frank, smiling young eyes. “Percy O’Hara. How much good he could be doing! How he can charm the world’s cares away! And how this poor old world needs that these days!
“And he could help those who are struggling up. He could teach—” she dared not continue, dared not hope that sometime, somewhere, this matchless musician might take her bow gently from her hand as he said with that marvelous smile, “No, my child. Not that way. See! Listen!”
“If only it might be!” she sighed. Yes, she wanted to go ashore, longed to climb all the way up Greenstone Ridge. But this last she was resolved never to do. “He said he would come,” she whispered. “He will not fail.”
At ten that night Greta slept soundly beneath the tent on the camping grounds. Having listened in vain for the faintest tremor of music on the air, she had surrendered at last to the call of dreamland.
Florence, too, was beneath the blankets, but she did not sleep. The strange discovery of that day was still on her mind. “Barrel of gold,” she repeated more than once.
Her treasure hunt that afternoon had been singularly unsuccessful. She had not found so much as a flint arrowhead or a copper penny.
“Big piece of nonsense!” she told herself. “And yet—”
A half hour later, having dragged on shoes, knickers, and sweater, she was digging once more on the camping ground, digging for gold. Such are the strange, unfathomable ways of youth.
She had stirred up their campfire and was digging with the aid of its light. As she labored her sturdy figure cast odd, fantastic shadows on the dark forest at her back.
* * * *
At the same hour Jeanne returned to the wreck. She came with her gypsy friends on the Ship of Joy. For once in his life Bihari was in a great rush. His journey round the island had been completed. There was in the air some deep prophecy of storm. Being one of those who live their lives beneath the blue dome of heaven, he felt rather than saw this.
“They are here!” Jeanne cried in great joy as they neared the wreck of the old Pilgrim. “Florence and Greta are here!”
“But there is no light,” someone protested.
“They are dreaming in some corner of the ship, or perhaps they are asleep,” Jeanne insisted. “They must be here, for—see! There is their boat. We have but one boat. They could not well be away.”
Climbing to the deck, the little French girl bade her gypsy friends a fond farewell, then from her favorite spot on the deck watched the lights of Bihari’s boat grow dim in the distance. Then she set about the task of finding her friends. This, as you know well enough, was to be a hard task. They were not there.
The explanation is simple enough. Having tried out the Little Black Tramp and found it easy to row, Florence had chosen to go ashore in it and to leave her own boat tied up to the wreck. So here it was and here was the little French girl alone on the Pilgrim. It was night, and she had not forgotten Bihari’s warning: “There comes a great storm.”
* * * *
On the camping ground, lighted by the campfire’s flickering glow, Florence dug steadily on. “Not that I expect to find anything,” she told herself. “I’m just wearing down my mental resistance to sleep. Pretty soon I’ll drop this old spade and creep beneath the blankets. I’ll—”
She broke short off. Strange sounds were reaching her ears; at least they were strange for this place. Music, the tones of a violin, came to her. Clear and distinct they were.
“Can’t be far,” she told herself. She thought of Percy O’Hara, the “Phantom.”
“Air’s strange tonight,” she told herself.
“Perhaps he’s still away up there. Sound carries a long way at times.”
Once again her spade cut deep in the sand. But now her heart skipped a beat. She had struck some solid object.
“Only a rock or a log buried by a storm centuries ago,” she told herself. “And yet—” she was digging fiercely now. Like a dog close to a ground squirrel’s nest, she made the dirt fly.
The thing she had found was not a rock. “Not hard enough for that,” she told herself. “A log? Well, perhaps. But it—it’s—”
She ceased digging. Seizing a firebrand, she fanned it into flame, then held it low in the hole she had dug. Next instant she was all but bowled over with astonishment.
“It is a barrel!” she breathed. “Or, at least a keg. And it has heavy copper hoops. It—”
But at this insta
nt a light shone full upon her face. It was there for only an instant, but long enough to give her warning. Seizing her spade, she had half filled the hole when a small boat came around the point.
* * * *
At that hour too there were strange doings on the wreck. The mysterious black schooner had returned. Only chance had prevented the men on the schooner from seeing the light that shone from Jeanne’s cabin, to which she had retired in uneasy solitude. They approached the wreck from the other side.
The first suggestion of their presence came to Jeanne as a slight bump ran through the stout old hull.
“A—a boat!” she breathed. Instantly her light was out. A moment had not elapsed before, wrapped in a long dark coat, she crept out on the deck.
Once outside, she stood there, silent, intent, ready to flee, listening.
“Chains,” she whispered at last, “I hear them. That’s what they had on that black schooner that other night. They mean to lift something with chains. I’ll creep along the deck to that box where life preservers were kept. Have a look at these men from there. They won’t see me. I’ll be in the shadows.”
She crept along in the deep shadows.
“Here—here’s the place.” She drew up behind a large box painted white.
After a brief rest to quiet the wild beating of her heart, she crept forward.
“There!” she whispered. “I can see them plainly from here. There’s the man in the diving rig again. He is just going over the side. Taking a chain with him. I can hear it rattle. Chain’s fast to a light cable. They’re going to try lifting something from below, that’s certain.”
The diver disappeared beneath black waters. Two other men stood at attention. The girl held her breath and waited. She tried to picture to herself the inside of the ship beneath the water.
“Cabins where people have slept. Fishes swimming there and big old crawfish crawling over the berths. Deck slippery with slime, and the hold where all the freight was stored dark as a dungeon. You’d think—”
She did not finish. From the distance had come a strange sound. A rushing as of a mighty wind. “But there’s no wind!”
The sound increased in volume until it was like the roar of a storm. Then, of a sudden, a great swell struck the ship. It set the old wreck shuddering from stem to stern. It picked up the black schooner and, tossing it high, landed it half upon the dry deck of the ship and half upon the water. It keeled over on one side, reeled like a drunken man, seemed about to turn square over, then sliding off the deck, went gliding away.
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 132