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

by Julia K. Duncan

  “I hope you will need me, Miss Jordan.” Gretchen was taking Janet’s frocks from the wardrobe trunk.

  “And I hope I shan’t!” said Dorothy, and she disappeared into the bathroom.

  CHAPTER XII

  TESTS

  Dorothy came down the wide staircase a few minutes before eleven-thirty. She wore a dark blue morning frock of her cousin’s, its simplicity relieved only by the soft white collar and deep cuffs. Except for being rather tight across the shoulders it fitted her as though she had been poured into it. She had selected this dress because she knew it was just the sort of thing a new secretary would be expected to wear.

  She crossed the broad hall to the open door of the library, and there found Mrs. Lawson standing before a window staring into the storm. Although Dorothy’s footsteps made practically no sound on the thick pile of the handsome Bokhara rug, the woman turned like a flash at her entrance.

  “Oh, good morning, Janet.” The frown on her face gave way to a pleasant smile. “I hope you were comfortable last night. Did you sleep well?”

  “I dropped off as soon as my head touched the pillow,” she answered, taking Mrs. Lawson’s outstretched hand. Dorothy did not believe in telling a lie unless it was in a good cause; but when necessary, she invariably made the lie a good one.

  “I hope the storm didn’t wake you,” smiled Laura, holding Dorothy’s hand.

  Dorothy did not reply at once. Two long fingers were lightly pressing her wrist, and she saw that Mrs. Lawson’s eyes had strayed to the grandfather’s clock in the corner of the room. “Test number one,” she said to herself. “Mrs. du Val, alias Lawson is counting my pulse. Well, I’ve got a clear conscience, perhaps I can give her a shock.” She drew her hand away and answered the woman’s question in her normal voice. “Oh, the storm! No, I never heard it, Mrs. Lawson. If that hot lemonade had been drugged, I couldn’t have slept any sounder!”

  “What makes you say that?” snapped her employer, and beneath the velvet tone, Dorothy sensed the ring of steel.

  She dropped her eyes, and turning toward the open hearth, held out her hands to the crackling blaze. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said sweetly and like the clever little strategist that she was, opened her own offensive in the enemy’s territory. “I have the bad habit of occasionally walking in my sleep, Mrs. Lawson—and especially when I spend the night in a strange bed. Perhaps it’s nervousness—I don’t know.”

  Mrs. Lawson threw her a sharp glance. “Sit down, Janet,” she suggested, pointing to a chair near the fire, and taking one herself across the hearth. “You’re—I mean, you don’t seem to be at all nervous this morning.”

  “Good old pulse!” thought Dorothy. Then aloud—“No, I feel splendidly, thank you. But, you see, I didn’t walk in my sleep last night.”

  “But surely you can’t tell when you do it!”

  “Oh, yes, I can.” Dorothy’s manner and tone were those of the simple schoolgirl proud of an unusual accomplishment.

  “You don’t expect me to believe that you know what you’re doing when you walk in your sleep, Janet. That’s impossible!”

  “Not while I’m sleepwalking, Mrs. Lawson. That wasn’t what I said—but when I have been sleepwalking—there’s a difference, you see?”

  “Well?” The lady of the house objected to being contradicted and took no trouble to hide it.

  “It’s really very simple,” explained Dorothy, painstakingly, as though she were speaking to a rather stupid child. “I found out how to do it. You see, I’ve been walking in my sleep ever since I was a little thing. When I get in bed at night I leave my slippers on the floor beside it pointed outward—away from the bed. We all leave them that way, I guess. It’s the natural thing to do.”

  “But what have slippers got to do with it?” Laura was becoming impatient.

  “Everything, so far as I’m concerned, Mrs. Lawson. When I’ve been walking at night, I always find them in the morning beside the bed, but pointing toward it. I evidently slip them off before I get back into bed, and—”

  “I’m beginning to think you are quite a clever girl, Janet.”

  “Oh, thank you,” said Dorothy with a guilelessness that was sheer camouflage. “Has anybody been saying I’m stupid? I’ve always stood high in my classes at school.”

  “Oh, not stupid, child—but nervous—perhaps a little unbalanced, especially this past week.”

  Dorothy raised her heavy lashes and looked Mrs. Lawson squarely in the face. This might be a test she was undergoing and it probably was; but here was a heaven sent chance to stir up discord in the enemy’s camp. She must work up to it gradually.

  “I know that I was nervous and upset past all endurance.” She leaned forward, her hands on the arms of the chair. “How would you like your father to lock you in your bedroom for a week, without ever coming to see you, or giving you any explanation for such outrageous treatment? Am I a child to be handled like that? To be shipped up here to strangers, whether I wanted to go or not? How would you feel about it, Mrs. Lawson, if you were me? Don’t say you would submit to it sitting down.”

  “But I am taking you on as my secretary,” the lady hedged. “Offering you a good position for which you’ll be paid twenty dollars a week. That’s not to be thought of lightly, especially in these times.”

  “But it doesn’t seem to strike you that I might like to have something to say about it,” Dorothy replied calmly. “As for the salary—that’s no inducement. My mother left me five thousand a year. I came into the income on my last birthday, so you see I have nearly a hundred dollars a week, whether I work or not.”

  “I didn’t know that, of course,” Mrs. Lawson admitted and none too graciously. “Your father wants you to be here while he’s away. I hope you aren’t going to be difficult, Janet.”

  “I hope not, Mrs. Lawson. I shall be glad to stay here for a while and do the work you’d planned for me; but if I do, it must be as a guest and not as a paid dependant.”

  “But you are a guest, Janet.”

  “I shall not accept a salary, Mrs. Lawson.”

  “Very well, my dear, if you wish it that way.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “To get back to our former topic,” Mrs. Lawson said, and lit a cigarette. “I can understand that your father’s conduct in confining you to your room might be exasperating—but why should it make you nervous? And my husband tells me that when he visited you in your room you acted as though you were in deadly fear of something or somebody every time he saw you. What was the trouble, Janet? Was anything worrying you?”

  “Yes, there was, Mrs. Lawson.”

  Dorothy looked down at the andirons, and her hands on the chair arms twisted embarrassedly. From the corner of her eye she saw a smile of satisfaction light up the older woman’s face. She knew she was playing with fire and that Mrs. Lawson was watching her as a hawk watches its defenseless prey before it strikes. But all unknown to her inquisitor, Dorothy had been leading her into this trap as a move forward in her own game. Genuine dislike for the woman as well as a mischievous impulse on her part drew her to make the scene as dramatic and convincing as possible.

  “Yes—I—I—was afraid,” she went on, dragging out the words slowly.

  “Then don’t you think you’d better tell me about it, Janet? I’m nearly old enough to be your mother. Let me take your mother’s place, dear. Give me your confidence. I feel sure I’ll be able to help you, child.”

  This reference to Janet’s dead mother by a woman who was the vilest kind of a hypocrite swept away Dorothy’s last compunction. She herself was going to commit justifiable libel. Mrs. Lawson, on the other hand, was attempting to lead Janet Jordan into a confession of shamming sleep at the fateful meeting a week ago. And such a confession meant a sentence of death from this beautiful siren who gazed at her so winningly, who puffed a cigarette so nonchalantly while she waited for an unsuspecting girl to commit herself.

  “Well, I don’t know—I can’t help hes
itating to tell you, Mrs. Lawson,” Dorothy began timidly.

  “There’s no need to be afraid of anything,” replied the woman, only half veiling the sneer that went with the words.

  “Oh, but you see, there is, Mrs. Lawson!” Dorothy’s manner was still indecisive. “I don’t want—in fact, I hate awfully to hurt you this way.”

  “Hurt me!” Mrs. Lawson’s cigarette snapped into the fireplace like a miniature comet. “Hurt me, child? What in the wide world are you talking about?”

  “Just what I say, Mrs. Lawson.”

  Mrs. Lawson sniffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Janet. Out with it now. What did you fear when you were locked in your room?”

  “Your husband, Mrs. Lawson.”

  “My husband!”

  “Yes.”

  “But—why—I don’t believe you.”

  “Oh, very well. You asked the question, I was trying to answer it, that’s all.”

  Mrs. Lawson bit her lip. She was furious. “As long as you’ve said what you have, you’d better go on with it,” she said acidly.

  “There isn’t any more,” returned Dorothy. “That’s all there is.”

  “But surely he must have given you reasons for your assertion.” Mrs. Lawson had walked beautifully into Dorothy’s trap. Her own plan to snare an unsuspecting girl had been blotted out by the shadow of the Green Goddess, Jealousy. “Tell me what my husband did or said to make you fear him, and tell me at once.”

  “It wasn’t what he did, Mrs. Lawson—it was the way he looked.”

  “What do you mean—the way he looked?”

  Dorothy had thrust a painful knife into the mental cosmos of her adversary. Now she deliberately turned it in the wound. “Very probably,” she said quietly, looking her straight in the eyes, “you can remember how Mr. Lawson looked when he first made love to you. I don’t want to be made love to, and I don’t like him, Mrs. Lawson.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I told him to leave me—and when he would not go, I simply walked into my bathroom and locked the door.”

  “But what happened the next time he came? Martin went in to see you every day, didn’t he?”

  “He did. But he talked to me through the bathroom door. Just as soon as I heard the key turn in the lock I’d hop in there.”

  The man she had been talking about must have been listening just outside in the hall, for now he strode into the room and up to Dorothy. “That,” he said menacingly, “is a deliberate lie, Miss Janet Jordan!”

  CHAPTER XIII

  WINNITE

  Dorothy looked up and smiled carelessly at the man. “You’re very polite, Mr. Lawson. Perhaps it isn’t my place to say it to a man old enough to be my father—but eavesdroppers rarely hear good of themselves.”

  Martin Lawson, who prided himself upon his youthful appearance, grew angrier than ever. “I—I won’t stand for such outrageous libel,” he thundered. “I’ve always treated you as though you were my own—well, daughter, if you like.”

  “I don’t like it, Mr. Lawson—but that doesn’t make any difference,” Dorothy’s tone was one of pained acceptance. “If you listened long enough, you will know that I didn’t bring this matter up myself. Mrs. Lawson was asking questions and I was trying to answer them, that’s all. If you prefer it, I’ll say that it was the wind whistling outside the windows that made me afraid.” She looked over at Mrs. Lawson, who was watching them through half shut eyes, as though to say, “—you understand, of course—anything for peace.”

  Martin Lawson intercepted the glance and became even more furious, if that were possible. “You—you little viper!” he snarled. “Laura, don’t you believe a word of it. The whole thing’s her own invention—a pack of lies!”

  “A silly schoolgirl fancy, if you like, Martin.” Laura Lawson’s tone was expressionless. “But I can understand it just the same. Yes, I can understand it.”

  “What do you mean—you understand it?”

  “I was a girl once myself,” she replied in the same colorless tone. “And then, you see, I know you very, very well.”

  “Oh, you do, do you?”

  “He’s off again,” sighed Dorothy, but quite to herself.

  “And you have the nerve to insinuate—?” the angry man went on, beside himself with rage. “You know as well as I do, Laura, that this girl was afraid because of what she saw and heard at the meeting. She—”

  “That will be quite enough, Martin.” His wife interrupted him sharply. “And what is more—you probably have not noticed that since Janet has been here and with other people, she is very much herself—and afraid of nothing at all.”

  “What meeting is he talking about, Mrs. Lawson?” Dorothy pointedly ignored the angry husband.

  Mrs. Lawson stood up. “Never mind that now,” she decreed, albeit pleasantly. “Come along with me to my office. I have some typing I’d like you to do for me before luncheon. Martin!” She swung round on her husband. “You will wait here for me. I’ll be back in a few minutes—I want to talk to you.” She slipped her arm through Dorothy’s and drew her from the room.

  Once in the entrance hall, she led her back and under the gallery to a corridor which opened at the right of the broad stairs. Dorothy saw that there were several doors in the right hand wall. Mrs. Lawson stopped at the second of these and opened it.

  They walked in and Dorothy saw that they were in the office. It seemed very businesslike and austere after coming from the luxury of the library and spacious hall. Near the one window stood a broad table desk, and opposite that a typewriter desk. Two steel filing cabinets and three plain chairs completed the room’s furnishings. The walls were hung with framed blueprints and a large-scale map of Fairfield County, Connecticut.

  Mrs. Lawson took some papers from a drawer in the large desk and handed them to Dorothy. “This is in longhand, as you see,” she explained, “please type it, double space, and I’d like to have a carbon copy.” She glanced at a small wrist-watch set with diamonds. “It is just noon now. Luncheon is at one. Do you think you can finish the work by that time?”

  Dorothy glanced at the manuscript. “This won’t make more than four typewritten sheets. I can do it easily in an hour and have time to spare.”

  “Good!” The older woman patted her lightly on the shoulder. “Take your time about it. Do you think you can read my handwriting?”

  “Nothing could be plainer, Mrs. Lawson.” Dorothy smiled back at her.

  “Very well, then. I’ll see you at lunch. The dining room is across the hall from the library.”

  At the door, she stopped and turned as though she had just remembered something.

  “Don’t let what my husband said bother you, Janet.”

  “That’s forgotten already,” Dorothy said easily.

  “Like most men, he flies off the handle when irritated. Pay no attention to it.”

  “I understand.”

  Mrs. Lawson hesitated for the fraction of a second. “By the way, Janet,” she remarked. “When was the last time you walked in your sleep—that you found your slippers pointed toward your bed in the morning?”

  Dorothy pretended to think. “Let me see,” she said slowly. “Yes—it was the night before Daddy locked me in my room! I found that I couldn’t get out in the morning, and naturally, I wanted to know the reason why. I still do, for that matter. Except for some foolishness about my being ill, I’m still waiting for an explanation. As a matter of fact, I was perfectly well. I’m terribly annoyed, of course, and it worries me to think that Daddy should act this way, but so far as my health goes, I’ve never felt better.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, dear. We’ll check up on your father when he returns. I’m your friend, you know. Don’t let the matter prey on your mind.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Lawson. I’ll try to do as you say.” Dorothy thought she was going then, but it seemed that the woman had still another question that she had been holding back.

  “When you are in this somnambulistic state,
” she said, “when you are sleepwalking, I mean, doesn’t it terrify you to awaken and find yourself out of your bed?”

  Dorothy frowned and seemed puzzled. “Perhaps it would,” she admitted. “But then, you see, I can’t remember ever wakening while I was walking during the night. I must sleep very soundly. At school the night watchman or one of the teachers would frequently find me walking about the building. They would lead me back to bed, or just tell me to go there, and I would always obey. Until they told me about it next day, I knew nothing of course. That’s how I got onto the business of the slippers, you see.”

  “Oh, yes. I wondered how you’d been able to check on it. Well, I must trot along now and let you get to work. Until luncheon then, my dear.”

  She was gone at last and Dorothy made a face at the closed door. “Of all the plausible hypocrites I’ve ever met,” she muttered, “you certainly take the well known chocolate cake!”

  She sat down at the typewriter desk, pulled out the machine, and slipped in two sheets of paper and a carbon that she found in one of the drawers. Halfway through a perusal of Mrs. Lawson’s first page, she looked up. The door opened quickly and Mr. Tunbridge came into the room.

  “I’ve just a moment,” he prefaced hurriedly. “They mustn’t find me here. What was the row in the library?”

  Dorothy explained briefly.

  “Fine! Put you through the hoops, eh? I had a good idea she would do something of the kind. You came out of a difficult situation with flying colors, I take it. But be careful about run-ins with Lawson. He’s a slick article—in fact, the two of them are a pair of the slickest articles it’s ever been my misfortune to run across. And they’re going it hammer and tongs in the library right now. I was a bit worried about you, that’s why I took this chance.”

  “When do I get my instructions for tonight?”

  “Late this afternoon, probably. I’ll get them to you somehow.”