The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Mildred A. Wirt

  “Of course, I went—I had nothing else to do. She engaged me at once as her secretary. We went out to Center Square for a few days, and I met a lot of other girls. Two daughters, two nieces, and a couple of friends. We had a good time, but I didn’t do any work, for she had two servants and a chauffeur, and I felt as if I didn’t earn my pay.”

  “Did she give you a salary?” asked Mary Louise.

  “Yes,” replied Margaret. “For the first couple of weeks. But I had to send it to my landlady in Philadelphia. After that, Mrs. Ferguson bought my clothes and paid my hotel bills, but she never gave me any cash.”

  “So you couldn’t get away!” observed Mr. Gay.

  “Exactly. Gradually I began to suspect that there was something crooked about this bunch, and then one day I found the diamond ring which had been stolen from the store: among Mrs. Ferguson’s stuff at Center Square!”

  “What did you do?” demanded Mary Louise.

  “I showed it to her and said I was going to take it right back to the store, and she stood there and laughed at me. She said it would only prove my own guilt!

  “The next day we all went to Washington and stayed in different hotels. Mrs. Ferguson kept me with her, but I soon saw through her tricks. Her girls were all skilled hotel thieves. She tried to teach me the business, as she called it, but I refused to learn. So she made me take charge of the stuff they stole. The girls would bring their loot to her, and she’d send me with it to Center Square. Every once in a while she would dispose of it all to a crooked dealer who asked no questions.”

  “Were you out at Center Square last Sunday, Margaret?” interrupted Mary Louise.

  “Yes. Mrs. Ferguson and I both went. We had intended to get the place ready to spend Christmas there, but for some reason, Mrs. Ferguson got scared. She said that Mary Green talked too much, and she thought we ought to clear out. She made plans to dispose of everything in Baltimore, and then we were all going to sail to Bermuda.… But why did you ask that, Mary Lou?”

  “Because I was in that car that drove up to the house then. I saw you and then Mrs. Ferguson. I wouldn’t have thought of its being you, only Mary Green admitted that she knew you. That made me suspicious.”

  “You disappeared pretty quickly!”

  “Rather,” laughed Mary Louise, and she told the story of being hit over the head by a rock and of catching the young man and having him arrested that very morning.

  “That was clever!” approved her father. “Who was he, Margaret?”

  “A neighborhood bum that Mrs. Ferguson employs to watch the place and keep the people away,” replied the girl.

  “But I’m afraid I interrupted you, Margaret,” apologized Mary Louise. “Please go on with your story.”

  “There isn’t much left to tell. I was too far away from home to run away, without any money, and I hadn’t a single friend I could go to. All the store people thought I was a thief, so I knew there was no use asking their help. I just kept on, from day to day, not knowing how it would ever end and never expecting to see my grandparents or my Riverside friends again. Oh, you can’t imagine how unhappy I have been!”

  She stopped talking, for emotion had overcome her; tears were rolling down her cheeks. Mary Louise laid her hand over Margaret’s reassuringly.

  “It’s all right now, isn’t it, Daddy?” she said. “We’ll take you home to your grandparents.”

  “But I can’t go back to them!” protested the other girl. “How can I tell them what has happened? They’d be disgraced for life.”

  “You can tell them you have been working for a queer woman who wouldn’t allow you to write home,” said Mr. Gay. “A woman whose mind was affected, for that is the truth. There is no doubt that Mrs. Ferguson is the victim of a diseased mind.”

  “Wouldn’t you ever tell on me?” questioned Margaret.

  “No, of course not. It was in no way your fault, child.… And now try to be happy. I think I can find you a job in Herman’s Hardware store, right in Riverside. And you can live with your grandparents. They need you.”

  “It seems almost too good to be true,” breathed the grateful girl.

  Mary Louise turned to her father.

  “Now for your story, Dad,” she begged. “About capturing the thieves.”

  “I think that had better be kept till dinner time,” replied Mr. Gay. “This traffic we’re approaching will require all your attention, Mary Lou. And besides, Mrs. Hilliard will want to hear it too.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Conclusion

  Mary Louise brought the car to a stop at Stoddard House at a quarter to one. Carrying the money and the jewels in her father’s briefcase, and the other articles in the basket, she and Margaret went into the hotel to get ready for dinner while Mr. Gay returned the hired car to the garage.

  “I’ll notify the police that you’re found, Mary Lou,” he said. “Then I’ll call your mother. I think it will be best if she goes over to your grandparents, Margaret, and tells them about you herself. They haven’t a telephone, and I don’t like to frighten elderly people with telegrams.”

  Both girls nodded their approval to these suggestions and hurried into the hotel. Mrs. Hilliard was waiting for Mary Louise with open arms; she loved the young detective like a daughter.

  “Now, run along, girls, and get ready for dinner,” she said finally. “We are going to have one big table, instead of all the little ones in the dining room. With a tree in the center, and place cards, just like a jolly family party.”

  “That’s swell!” exclaimed Mary Louise. “It’ll be real Christmas after all.”

  “And thank you so much for the lovely handkerchiefs, dear,” added the manager. “It was sweet of you to think of me.… That reminds me, you haven’t had your presents yet.”

  “Put them at my place at the table,” suggested Mary Louise. “And I’ll have presents for some of the guests,” she added, with a significant glance at the briefcase and basket.

  When the girls returned to the first floor, after washing their faces and powdering their noses, they found Mr. Gay waiting for them. For a moment he did not see them, so intent was he in the newspaper he was reading.

  “Want to see the gang’s picture?” he asked when Mary Louise came to his side.

  “Oh yes! Please!”

  In spite of the fact that it was Christmas Day, a large photograph of Mrs. Ferguson and her six accomplices occupied much of the front page of this Philadelphia paper. In an inset above the picture of the crooks was Mary Louise’s smiling face!

  “Daddy!” cried the girl in amazement. “Are you responsible for this?”

  “I am,” replied her father proudly. “I want everybody to know that the credit belongs to you, Daughter.”

  Other guests, who had not yet read their newspapers, crowded about Mr. Gay eager for the exciting news. They all remembered Pauline Brooks, and Mary Green; several of them identified the two transients who had stolen the other things from Stoddard House.

  A loud gong sounded from the dining room, and Mrs. Hilliard threw open the doors. The room was beautifully decorated with greens and holly; a long table stretched out before them, covered with a lovely lace cloth and bearing a small Christmas tree as its centerpiece. Bright red ribbons had been stretched from the tree to each guest’s place, adding brilliancy to the spectacle.

  “Hello, Mary Louise!” said a voice behind the young detective, and, turning around, Mary Louise saw Mrs. Weinberger behind her.

  “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Weinberger!” she replied. “It’s nice to see you back here.”

  “I’ve come back to stay,” announced the older woman. “I got lonely at the Bellevue. And Mrs. Macgregor is here too, for Christmas dinner.”

  It was a happy group who finally found their places around the beautiful table and sat down. Mrs. Hilliard was at one end, and Miss Stoddard was honored with the seat at the other end. Mr. Gay was the only man present, but he did not seem in the least embarrassed.

  Mary L
ouise found her pile of presents at her place, and Margaret Detweiler discovered a bunch of violets and a box of candy at hers. Even in his haste, Mr. Gay had remembered the lonely girl.

  The guests ate their oyster cocktails and their mushroom soup before any formal announcement concerning the valuables was made. Then Mrs. Hilliard rose from her chair.

  “As you all know from the papers, our criminals have been caught by Mary Louise Gay and her father, and are now in prison. But even better news than that is coming. I’ll introduce Mr. Gay, whom some of you know already, and he’ll tell you more about it.”

  Everybody clapped as the famous detective stood up.

  “I’m not going to make a speech,” he said, “and keep you waiting for the turkey we’re all looking forward to. I just thought that maybe some of you would enjoy this wonderful dinner even more if you knew that you are going to get everything back again which was stolen. My daughter found all the valuables and the money this morning in Mrs. Ferguson’s house at Center Square, and she will now return them to their rightful owners.”

  As the newspaper had not mentioned anything about the stolen goods, the guests were not prepared for this pleasant surprise. A loud burst of applause greeted Mary Louise as she smilingly rose to her feet and opened the briefcase and drew out the basket from under the table where she had hidden it.

  “I’ll begin at the beginning,” she said. “With the vase and the silverware belonging to Stoddard House.” She carried these articles to Mrs. Hilliard, amid appreciative hand-clapping.

  “Next, Miss Granger’s picture and her fifty dollars,” she continued.

  Tears actually came to the artist’s eyes as she took the painting from Mary Louise’s hands.

  “You keep the fifty dollars, Miss Gay,” she said. “My picture is what I care for most.”

  “No, Miss Granger, no, thank you,” replied the girl solemnly. “I am being paid a salary for my work by Mrs. Hilliard, but I can’t accept rewards for doing my duty.”

  She picked up the watches next: Mrs. Weinberger’s and Mrs. Hilliard’s. The Walder girls would get theirs when they returned from their holidays.

  “And, last of all, Mrs. Macgregor’s diamond earrings and her five hundred dollars,” she concluded, restoring the jewelry and the bills to the delighted woman. “I believe that is all, for I am wearing my own wrist-watch, and I have my purse with its five dollars contents.”

  Loud cheering accompanied the applause which followed. When it had at last quieted down, both Mrs. Weinberger and Mrs. Macgregor tried in vain to give Mary Louise a reward, but she remained firm in her refusal. Then the turkeys were brought to the dining room, and everything else was temporarily forgotten in the enjoyment of Christmas dinner.

  When it was all over, Mr. Gay told Mary Louise to pack her clothing and her presents while he returned the remaining valuables to the Ritz and to the police. “For I hope we can make the three-thirty train,” he explained.

  “But with that change at the Junction, we’d have to wait all night, shouldn’t we, Daddy?” inquired Mary Louise. Anxious as she was to get back to Riverside, she had no desire to spend the night in a cheerless railway station.

  “No,” replied her father. “Because there’s going to be a surprise waiting for you at the Junction.”

  “Max and Norman?” guessed Mary Louise instantly. “You mean that they’ll drive down for us?”

  Mr. Gay nodded. “That isn’t all,” he said.

  Mary Louise did not guess the rest of the answer until the train pulled into the Junction shortly after eight o’clock that night. Then a war whoop that could come from no one else but her small brother greeted her ears, and she knew that her mother must be there too. Yes, and there was her chum, Jane Patterson, grinning at her from the boys’ car! And her little dog, Silky!

  In another minute Mary Louise was clasping her arms around Mrs. Gay and hugging Freckles and Jane and Silky all at once. Max, at her side, had to be content with pressing her arm affectionately.

  Questions, Christmas greetings, words of joy and congratulation poured so fast upon Mary Louise’s ears that she could scarcely understand them.

  “You’re home to stay, darling?” This from her mother.

  “You’ll go to the senior prom with me?” demanded Max.

  “You’re the most famous girl detective in the world!” shouted Norman Wilder.

  “You were a lemon to duck my party, but I’ll give another one just in your honor,” promised Jane.

  “Did you get your salary—your twenty-five bucks?” asked Freckles.

  Mary Louise nodded, smiling, to everything. Then she got into Max’s car beside him, with Jane and Norman in the rumble seat. Mr. Gay took the wheel of his sedan, with his wife beside him; Margaret Detweiler, who was quietly watching everything, sat behind with Freckles.

  The drivers of the two cars did not stop for any food on the way; they sped along as fast as they dared towards Riverside. Old Mr. and Mrs. Detweiler were waiting up for their precious granddaughter, their lost Margaret.

  A little before midnight the cars pulled up in front of the old couple’s home, and everybody in the party went inside for a moment. The greeting between Margaret and her grandparents was touching to see. Even Norman Wilder, who prided himself on being “hard-boiled,” admitted afterwards that the tears came to his eyes.

  Mrs. Gay discreetly drew her own party away, back to her home, where a feast was waiting for the travelers. This, Mary Louise felt, was her real Christmas celebration—with her family and her three dearest friends. Now she could tell her story and listen to the praises which meant so much to her.

  “But the best part of it all,” she concluded, “is that I’m a real professional detective at last!”

  THE MYSTERY STORIES FOR GIRLS SERIES, by Roy Snell

  The prolific Roy J. Snell wrote 76 mystery stories for boy—and 18 for girls. The titles listed below form one of the long-running series competing with Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton, and other similar mystery series.

  COMPETESERIES LIST

  1. Blue Envelope (1922)

  2. Cruise of the O Moo (1922)

  3. Secret Mark (1923)

  4. Purple Flame (1924)

  5. Crimson Thread (1925)

  6. Silent Alarm (1926)

  7. Thirteenth Ring (1927)

  8. Witches Cove (1928)

  9. Gypsy Shawl (1929)

  10. Green Eyes (1930)

  11. Golden Circle (1931)

  12. Magic Curtain (1932)

  13. Hour of Enchantment (1933)

  14. Phantom Violin (1934)

  15. Gypsy Flight (1935)

  16. Crystal Ball (1936)

  17. Ticket To Adventure (1937)

  18. Third Warning (1938)

  THE BLUE ENVELOPE, by Roy Snell

  FOREWORD

  When considering the manuscript of The Blue Envelope my publishers wrote me asking that I offer some sort of proof that the experiences of Marian and Lucile might really have happened to two girls so situated. My answer ran somewhat as follows:

  Alaska, at least the northern part of it, is so far removed from the rest of this old earth that it is almost as distinct from it as is the moon. It’s a good stiff nine-day trip to it by water and you sight land only once in all that nine days. For nine months of winter you are quite shut off from the rest of the world. Your mail comes once a month, letters only, over an eighteen-hundred-mile dog trail; two months and a half for letters to come; the same for the reply to go back. Do you wonder, then, that the Alaskan, when going down to Seattle, does not speak of it as going to Seattle or going down to the States but as “going outside”? Going outside seems to just exactly express it. When you have spent a year in Alaska you feel as if you had truly been inside something for twelve months.

  People who live “inside” of Alaska do not live exactly as they might were they in New England. Conventions for the most part disappear. Life is a struggle for existence and a bit of pleasure now and again. If con
ventions and customs get in the way of these, away with them. And no one in his right senses can blame these people for living that way.

  One question we meet, and probably it should be answered. Would two lone girls do and dare the things that Lucile and Marian did? My only answer must be that girls of their age—girls from “outside” at that—have done them.

  Helen C—, a sixteen-year-old girl, came to Cape Prince of Wales to keep house for her father, who was superintendent of the reindeer herd at that point. She lived there with her father and the natives—no white woman about—for two years. During that time her father often went to the herd, which was grazing some forty miles from the Cape, and stayed for a week or two at a time, marking deer or cutting them out to send to market. Helen stayed at the Cape with the natives. At times, in the spring, unattended by her father, she went walrus hunting with the natives in their thirty-foot, sailing skin-boat and stayed out with them for thirty hours at a time, going ten or twelve miles from land and sailing into the very midst of a school of five hundred or more of walrus. This, of course, was not necessary; just a part of the fun a healthy girl has when she lives in an Eskimo village.

  Beth N—, a girl of nineteen, came to keep house for her brother, the government teacher on Shishmaref Island—a small, sandy island off the shore of Alaska, some seventy-five miles above Cape Prince of Wales. She had not been with her brother long when a sailing schooner anchored off shore. This schooner had on board their winter supply of food. Her brother went on board to superintend the unloading. The work had scarcely begun when a sudden storm tore the schooner from her moorings and sent her whirling southward through the straits.

  For some ten or twelve days Beth was on that barren, sandy island entirely alone. The natives were, at this time of the year, off fishing up one of the rivers of the mainland. She did not have as much as a match to light a fire. She had no sort of notion as to how or when her brother would return. The fact of the matter was that had not her brother had in his possession a note from the captain asking him to come aboard, and had he not known the penalty for not returning a landsman to his port under such conditions, the unprincipled seaman would have carried him to Seattle, leaving Beth to shift for herself. He reached home on a gasoline schooner some ten days after his departure.