“Does Mrs. DeLane live here?” Florence asked.
“Yes, that’s my mother, and I am Jane,” said the girl. “No, she isn’t here. She’s out scrubbing. She’ll be back very soon. Won’t you sit down?”
The child was so polite, the place was so neat and clean, that Florence felt as though the sun had suddenly burst through a cloud.
Two younger children were playing at keeping house in a corner. How beautiful and bright they were! Their eyes, their hair, even their simple cotton garments fairly shone.
“And this,” thought Florence, swallowing hard, “is what Margaret DeLane lives for.”
Then suddenly her spirits rose. “Why, this is what we all live for, the little children!” she thought. “We all at times are foolish. Many of us break the law. Few of us who are older deserve a great deal of sympathy. It’s the children, poor little innocent ones, who are too young to do any wrong—they are the ones who suffer.
“And they must not!” she thought with sudden fierceness. “They must not. We must find that gypsy robber and get that money back!”
As if in answer to this fierce resolve, the door opened and in walked Margaret DeLane.
“It was that I wanted to do so much!” the woman all but sobbed as she told her story. “Mrs. Doyle, two doors away, asked a fortune teller how she should invest her money. She said, ‘Buy a house.’ Mrs. Doyle bought a house, one of the worst in the city. Someone wanted the land for what they called ‘slum clearance,’ and Mrs. Doyle doubled her money. So—”
“So you asked a gypsy woman what to do with your money, and she stole it?” Florence sighed. “Well, we’ve got to go and find that gypsy woman and get the money back. It will be difficult. It may be dangerous. Are you ready?”
“Ready?” The weary woman reached for her coat. “But you?” She held back. “Why should you—”
“Oh, that’s part of my job.” Florence forced a laugh. “It’s all in a day’s work. So—come on.”
They were away, but not until Florence had placed upon the walls of her memory a picture of three smiling children’s faces. “These,” she thought, “shall be my inspiration, come what may!”
Their search for the gypsy was rewarded with astonishing speed. Scarcely had they rounded a corner to enter noisy and crowded Maxwell Street than the widow DeLane gripped Florence’s arm to whisper, “There! There she is! That’s her.”
Florence found herself staring at a dark and evil face. The woman was powerfully built. There was about her a suggestion of crouching. “Like some great cat,” Florence thought as a chill ran up her spine.
That the woman resembled a cat in other ways was at once apparent. With feline instinct, she sensed danger without actually seeing it. Standing, with her eyes turned away, she gave a sudden start, wheeled half about, took one startled look, then glided, with all the agility of a cat, through the crowd.
Florence might not be as sly as the gypsy, but she was powerful, and she could stick to a purpose. With the widow close at her heels, she crowded between a thin man and a fat woman, pushed an astonished peddler of roasted chestnuts into the street, hurdled a low rack lined with cheap shoes, knocked over a table piled high with cheap jewelry, to at last arrive panting before a door that had just been closed by the gypsy.
“Locked!” She set her teeth tight. “What’s one lock more or less?” Her stout shoulder hit the door.
Quite taken by surprise by the suddenness of her success in breaking open the door, she lost her balance and tumbled into the room, landing flat on the floor.
She had tumbled before, many, many times. In fact, she could tumble more times per minute than anyone in her gym class. Locks and tumbles were not new to her. She was on her feet and ready for battle in ten split seconds.
The gypsy woman was not slow. The widow had followed Florence into the room. There came a glitter of steel as the gypsy sprang at her.
But not so fast! As the gypsy’s arm swung high, Florence caught it from behind, gave it a sudden wrench that brought forth a groan, then shook it as a dog shakes a rat, until the needle-pointed stiletto gripped in the murderous gypsy’s hand flew high and wide to sink into the heart of a gaudy dancing girl hanging in a frame on the wall.
Whirling about just in time to save herself from the grip of five girls in gypsy costumes who swarmed at her, Florence sprang towards them to scatter them as a turkey might scatter a bevy of pigeons.
Meanwhile the distracted widow had dashed from the room, screaming, “Police! Police!”
Deprived of her deadly weapon, the gypsy woman did what harm she could with tooth and nail. This lasted just long enough for Florence to receive two ugly scratches down her right cheek. Then the dark-faced one found herself lying flat upon her back with one hundred and sixty pounds of Florence seated on her chest.
“Now—now rest easy,” Florence breathed, “un—until the police come.”
“I didn’t take it!” the woman panted. “I didn’t take the money. I—I’ll give it back. Let me up. I’ll get it back for you. I—”
At that moment there was a stir at the door and there stood Officer Patrick Moriarity.
“Oh! So it’s you!” He grinned at Florence. “They told me someone was being killed. But if it’s you doin’ the killin’, it’s O. K. You wouldn’t kill nobody that didn’t need killin’.”
Patrick’s young sisters had attended Florence’s playground classes in the good days that were gone. More often than was really necessary, Patrick had looked in to see how they were getting on.
Now, with a grin, he said, “I’ll just be toddlin’ along.”
“You’ll not!” said Florence in sudden fright. “This woman stole four hundred dollars. You’ve got to do something about it.”
“Only four hundred?” Patrick whistled through his teeth. “Why bother her?
“But then,” he added as a sort of afterthought, “we might take her to the station. She’ll get four years. These gypsies like a nice soft spot in jail.”
The woman let out an unearthly wail, then struggled in vain to free herself.
“She told me,” Florence said quietly, “that if I’d let her up she’d give me the money.”
“She did?” Patrick studied the walls of the room. “Door and both windows right here in front,” he reflected. “I think we might try it out. Let her up, and we’ll see.”
Once on her feet, the woman was not slow in digging deep among the folds of her ample skirts and extracting a roll of bills.
“Let’s see!” Patrick took it from her. “Ten—twenty—forty—” he counted.
“But say!” he ended, “it’s four hundred and ten! How come?”
“The ten is mine,” the gypsy grumbled.
“Fair enough,” said Patrick. “Your man got a car?”
The woman nodded sulkily.
“All right. Now you take this ten and buy gas with it. Turn that old car south and keep it going until the gas is gone. And if I see your face again on Maxwell Street—” He made the sign of handcuffs. “Mostly honest people live on Maxwell Street. You don’t belong here. Scram! Scram!” He gave her a sturdy push.
The woman was gone before Florence could think twice.
Patrick turned to Florence. “And now, when do I sign you up as a lady cop?”
“Never! Oh, never!” Florence fingered her bleeding cheek. “Do—do you think she’s poisonous?”
“No, not very poisonous.” Patrick smiled. “Just a little antiseptic will fix that up, fine an’ dandy. But really,” he added, “you should carry a piece of lead pipe or maybe a gun. You can’t tell what they’ll do to you—you really can’t.”
“I’m staying on the Boulevard from now on.” The big girl’s tone carried little conviction. Truth was, she knew she would do nothing of the sort.
“Well, anyway,” she said to Frances Ward two hours later, “the widow got her money back. I got a story, and those three cute kids will get a fine break for months to come. And after all,” she added s
oberly, “it’s for the children, the little children, I did it. Everything we do is for them.”
“Yes.” Frances Ward wiped her glasses with a shaking hand. “Yes, it is always for the little children.”
CHAPTER XXII
LITTLE LADY IN GRAY
“Read it! Read it aloud!” Vivian Carlson insisted as Jeanne still stood staring at the three magic words, SOME CONSIDERABLE TREASURE, that stood out at the center of the note they had found in the ancient churn.
“Al—alright, I will.” With considerable effort Jeanne pulled herself together. She was all atremble, as who would not be if he had succeeded in unscrewing the fastenings of an ancient churn, lost half a century, to find inside, as it seemed, a message from the dead?
“I, Josiah Grier,” she read in a low, tense voice, “am obliged to leave this cabin on the island. It is the dead of winter. I have but a small boat. However, because wild creatures have consumed my supplies, I must endeavor to reach the mainland. In this churn will be found a sample of such copper as abounds on this island. Be it known to any who open this churn that there is on the island some considerable treasure. It is to be found on the Greenstone Ridge at the far side, in a grotto which may be found by lining up the outstanding rocks off shore with the highest point of the ridge.”
“Some considerable treasure!” Violet breathed softly. “Jewels and gold hidden there by lake pirates perhaps.”
“Or old silver plate smuggled here from Canada,” Jeanne suggested. She loved ancient dishes and silver.
“Probably it’s nothing you’d ever dream of,” said practical Vivian. “A curious sort of treasure I’d guess, for this Josiah Grier, if I guess right, was a queer sort of chap. Think of hiding a piece of copper worth about two dollars and a half in an old churn!”
“What time do you suppose he could have belonged to?” Violet asked thoughtfully. “Was he a trader when the Indians owned the island, or a white copper miner of a later time?”
“Must have had a cow,” Vivian suggested. “Churns go with cows. There were cows here in the copper days. Plenty of grass was planted for them. There is timothy and clover growing wild today, everywhere.”
Needless to say the minds of the three girls were rife with speculation. There in the chilly seclusion of the museum they pledged one another to complete secrecy regarding the whole matter.
They screwed the churn’s top back and replaced everything, leaving the place just as Jeanne had found it that morning when she had gone in to work with kerosene on the rusty fastenings of the old churn.
“We’ll surprise ’em,” Violet whispered.
“Surprise them. Surprise them,” the others echoed.
It was in the midst of the evening conversation about the roaring fire that, for the time at least, all thoughts of treasure were driven from Jeanne’s mind.
“It’s strange about that airplane, D.X.123,” Sandy MacQueen, the reporter, drawled. “I had a sharp reminder of its disappearance only last month. Sad thing it was, and rather haunting. A girl with an appealing face, not sixteen yet I’d say, came into the big room of our newspaper office. Happened I wasn’t busy, so I asked her what she wanted. And what do you suppose it was she wanted?”
“What?” The moose-trapper sat up to listen.
“She said her father had gone way several years ago, when she was too small to remember much about him.”
“What did she have to do with the disappearance of the D.X.123?” the moose-trapper drawled.
“Perhaps nothing,” Sandy replied. “And yet, it is strange. The name of one man who went in that apparently ill-fated plane was John Travis.”
“John—John Travis!” Jeanne exclaimed.
“And you know—” Sandy turned to Jeanne. “That girl Florence got interested in—her name was Travis too.”
“June Travis,” Jeanne agreed.
“Of course,” said Sandy, “it may be a mere coincidence. Yet I sort of feel that he might have been her father.”
“The D.X.123. June Travis,” Jeanne was thinking. “John Travis, D.X.123.” Her mind was in a whirl. Springing to her feet, she seized Vivian by the shoulders. “Come on,” she said in a strange tight little voice, “we’re going for a walk.”
Drawing on their heaviest wraps, the two girls went out into the night. The storm which had been raging all that day had passed. All about them as they walked was whiteness and silence. The stars were a million diamonds set in a cushion of midnight blue.
They took the trail that led across the narrow entrance to the frozen bay. From the shore a half mile away came a ceaseless roar. Lashed into foam by the fury of the storm, the lake’s waters were beating against the barrier of ice that lay before it.
They walked rapidly forward in silence. Jeanne felt that she would burst if she did not talk; yet she said never a word. What she wanted to say was, “Vivian, that girl June Travis is a friend of mine. Her father is dead. We must send a wireless message to her. I saw her father’s airplane at the bottom of that little lost lake. It must have been there for years. He must be dead.”
Strangely enough, she said never a word about the matter. An unseen presence seemed to hover over her, whispering, “Do not say it! Do not say it! It may not be true.”
Was it true? Jeanne could not tell.
At last they came to a spot where they might mount to an icy platform and witness the blind battling of mighty waters against an unbreakable barrier.
The moon came out from behind a cloud. Water was black with night and white with foam. A cavern of ice lay before them. Into this narrow cavern a giant wave rushed. Its black waters were churned into white foam. It rose to stretch out a white hand and to utter a hiss that was like the angry spit of a serpent. In sheer terror Jeanne shrank back.
“It can’t reach us!” Vivian threw back her strong young shoulders and laughed.
“Vivian!” Jeanne suddenly gripped her companion’s arm. “Do you see that ridge?” She pointed away toward the island.
“Yes.”
“Vivian, tomorrow, whether it storms or not, you must go with me to the top of that ridge and down on the other side.”
“To find the treasure told about in the old churn?” Vivian asked.
“Oh, no! No!” Jeanne exclaimed in shocked surprise. “It is something more important than that—far, far more important.
“And yet—” her voice dropped. “I may not tell you about it now, for, after all, it may be just nothing.”
At that, with Vivian lost in a haze of stupefaction, she said with a shudder, “This is too grand—all this beauty of the night, all this surf line power. Come! We must go back.”
And they did go back to the cheery light, the cozy warmth of the fisherman’s home.
In the meantime, in the far-away city Florence was meeting with an experience well calculated to make her believe in witches, fairies, and all manner of fantastic fortune telling as well. She and June Travis had gone to visit the little lady in gray.
Florence had, after a considerable effort, contacted the little lady.
“Come to see me any time tomorrow,” had been the little lady’s invitation.
“Some time tomorrow,” Florence had agreed.
So, ten o’clock next morning found Florence and June Travis in the vicinity of the mysterious little lady’s home.
“It’s strange,” said Florence as they alighted from the car, “that anyone interested in telling fortunes should live in such a rich neighborhood.” She allowed her eyes to take in three magnificent apartment buildings and the smaller homes of pressed brick and rich gray stone that surrounded them.
“But then,” she added, “I suppose she gets a great many wealthy clients, and that’s what really pays. And, of course, she may not be a fortune teller after all.”
“It’s over this way,” June said, paying little heed to her companion’s talk. She was eager to reach the little old lady in gray. Some kind fairy seemed to be whispering in her ear, “This is the one. You have
searched long. You have traveled far. You have met with many disappointments. But here at last you are, face to face with reality.”
“Here! Here it is!” she exclaimed in a low whisper. “Such a cute little cottage, all in gray stone.”
“And no sign on the door.” Florence was puzzled more and more.
June’s fingers trembled as she lifted a heavy knocker and let it down with a bang that was startling.
For a short time there was no sign of life in the place. Then, somewhere inside, a door opened and shut. The outer door opened, and there before them stood the Little Lady in Gray.
She was little—very small indeed, yet not really a midget. She was quite gray. And her dress was as gray as her hair.
“Won’t you come in?” she invited. “I have been expecting you for an hour.”
“That’s strange!” Florence thought with a sudden start. “We didn’t tell her when we’d come—just said sometime today.”
“So you are June Travis!” said the little lady. They had been led into the coziest sitting-room it had ever been Florence’s privilege to see. The little lady looked June up and down, as much as to say, “How you have grown! And how beautiful you are!” She did not say it.
Instead, she pointed to a chair, then to another as she suggested, “If you will kindly sit there, and you there, I shall take this large chair, then we can talk. It is a little large,” she looked at the chair that did indeed appear to have been made for a person three times her size, “but with cushions it can be made very comfortable indeed.”
Florence wondered in a dreamy sort of way why so small a person, who apparently could have anything she wanted, should have chosen so large a chair. She was destined to recall this wondering a long time after, and to wonder still more.
That the little lady was very well off, Florence was bound to conclude. The curtains were of finest lace and the draperies of rich, heavy material. The rugs were oriental. The few objects of art—three vases, four oil paintings and a bronze statue in the corner—had cost a pretty penny; yet all this was so arranged that it appeared to harmonize perfectly with the two swinging cages where four yellow canaries swayed and sang, with the reddish-brown cat that dozed on the narrow hearth, and with the little lady in that big chair. It was strange.
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 146