The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Mildred A. Wirt

“What’s pleasing you, sister?” He addressed this remark to a slim girl in a faded bathing suit, seated on a rock a hundred feet away.

  “Snowball’s right.” The girl laughed again. “Nothing down there. Nothing at all.”

  The man gave her a quick look, then sprang to his feet. The next instant he was scrambling over the rocks.

  When he arrived at the spot where the girl had been, she was nowhere to be seen. It was as if the lake had swallowed her up; which, perhaps it had.

  Apparently the man believed it had, for he sat down upon the rocks to wait. Ten minutes passed. Not a ripple disturbed the surface.

  He looked toward the windlass and the net. Snowball, too, had vanished.

  “Crooks!” he muttered. “All crooks out here!”

  At that, after picking his way across the breakwater, he took to the stretches of sand and soon disappeared.

  * * * *

  When, later that same day, Petite Jeanne started away, bent on the joyous business of returning a lost cameo to a dear old lady, she expected to come upon no fresh mystery.

  “Certainly,” she said to Florence, who, because of her work, could not accompany her, “in the bright light of day one experiences no thrills.” Surprise came to her all the same.

  She had reached the very street crossing at which she was to alight before she realized that the address the little old lady had given was in Chinatown.

  “Surprise number one,” she murmured. “A white lady living in Chinatown. I can’t be wrong, for just over there is the temple where I saw the magic curtain.” If other evidence were lacking, she had only to glance at the pedestrians on the street. Nine out of every ten were Chinese.

  For a moment she stood quite still upon the curb. Perhaps her experience on that other occasion had inspired an unwarranted fear.

  “For shame!” She stamped her small foot. “This is broad day! Why be afraid?”

  Surprise number two came to her upon arriving at the gate of the place she sought. No dingy tenement this. The cutest little house, set at the back of a tiny square of green grass, flanked a curious rock garden where water sparkled. The whole affair seemed to have been lifted quite complete from some Chinese fairy book.

  “It’s the wrong address.” Her spirits drooped a little.

  But no. One bang at the gong that hung just outside the door, and the little old lady herself was peeping through a narrow crack.

  “Oh! It is you!” she exclaimed, throwing the door wide. “And you have my cameo!”

  “Yes,” Jeanne smiled, “I have your cameo.”

  Because she was French, Jeanne was not at all disturbed by the smothering caress she received from the old lady of this most curious house.

  The next moment she was inside the house and sinking deep in a great heap of silky, downy pillows.

  “But, my friend,” she exclaimed, as soon as she had caught her breath after a glance about the room where only Oriental objects, dragons, curious lanterns, silk banners, and thick mats were to be found, “this is Chinatown, and you are not Oriental!”

  “No, my child. I am not.” The little lady’s eyes sparkled. “But for many years my father was Consul to China. I lived with him and came to know the Chinese people. I learned to love them for their gentleness, their simplicity, their kindness. They loved me too a little, I guess, for after my father died and I came to America, some rich Chinese merchants prepared this little house for me. And here I live.

  “Oh, yes,” she sighed contentedly, “I do some translating for them and other little things, but I do not have a worry. They provide for me.

  “But this!” She pressed the cameo to her lips. “This comes from another time, the long lost, beautiful past when I was a child with my father in Venice. That is why I prize it so. Can you blame me?”

  “No! No!” The little French girl’s tone was deeply earnest. “I cannot. I, too, have lived long in Europe. France, my own beautiful France, was my childhood home.

  “But tell me!” Her tone took on an excited note. “If you know so much of these mysterious Chinese, you can help me. Will you help me? Will you explain something?”

  “If I can, my child. Gladly!”

  “A few days ago,” the little French girl leaned forward eagerly, “I saw the most astonishing curtain. It burned, but was not consumed, like the burning bush.”

  “You saw that?” It seemed that the little lady’s eyes would pop from her head. “You saw that? Where?”

  “Over yonder.” Jeanne waved a hand. “In that Chinese temple.”

  “I—did not—know it—was—here.” The little lady spoke very slowly.

  “Then you have seen it!” In her eagerness Jeanne gripped the arms of her chair hard. “Tell me! What is it? How is it done? Could one borrow it?”

  “Borrow it? My child, you do not know what you are asking!

  “But you—” She lowered her voice to a shrill whisper. “How can you have seen it?”

  Quite excitedly and with many a gesture, the little French girl told of her visit to the Chinese temple on that rainy afternoon.

  “Oh, my child!” The little lady was all but in tears as she finished, tears of excitement and joy. “My dear child! You cannot know what you have done, nor how fortunate you are that you escaped unharmed.”

  “But this is America, not China!” Jeanne’s tone showed her amazement.

  “True, my child. But every great American city is many cities in one. On the streets you are safe. When you pry into the secrets of other people, that is quite another matter.”

  “Secrets!”

  “The Chinese people seem to be simple, kindly, harmless folks. So they are, on the street. But in their private dealings they are the most secretive people in the world.

  “That temple you visited!” It was her turn to lean far forward. “That is more than a temple. It is a place of business, a chamber of commerce and the meeting place of the most powerful secret society the Chinese people have ever known, the Hop Sing Tong.”

  “And that meeting, the magic curtain—” Jeanne’s eyes went wide.

  “That was beyond doubt a secret meeting of the Tong. You came uninvited. Because of the darkness you escaped. You may thank Providence for that! But never, never do that again!”

  “Then,” Jeanne’s tone was full of regret, “then I may never see the magic curtain again.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” The little lady smiled blandly. “Seeing the magic curtain and attending the meeting of a secret society are two different matters. The Chinese people are very kind to me. Some of the richest Chinese merchants—”

  “Oh! Do you think you could arrange it? Do you think I might see it, two or three friends and I?”

  “It might be arranged.”

  “Will you try?”

  “I will do my best.”

  “And if it can be, will you let me know?” Jeanne rose to go.

  “I will let you know.”

  As Jeanne left the room, she found herself walking in a daze.

  “And to think!” she whispered to herself, “that this little old lady and her lost cameo should so soon begin to fit into the marvelous pattern of my life.”

  She had wonderful dreams, had this little French girl. She would see the magic curtain once more. With her on this occasion should be Marjory Dean, the great opera star, and her friend Angelo who wrote operas. When the magic curtain had been seen, an opera should be written around it, an Oriental opera full of mystery; a very short opera to be sure but an opera all the same.

  “And perhaps!” Her feet sped away in a wild fling. “Perhaps I shall have a tiny part in that opera; a very tiny part indeed.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  THEY THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT

  The opera presented that night was Wagner’s Die Valkyre. To Petite Jeanne, the blithesome child of sunshine and song, it seemed a trifle heavy. For all this she was fascinated by the picture of life as it might have been lived long before man began writing his own hist
ory. And never before had she listened to such singing.

  It was in the last great scene that a fresh hope for the future was borne in upon her. In the opera, Brunhilde having, contrary to the wishes of the gods, interceded for her lover Sigmund, she must be punished. She pleads her own cause in vain. At last she asks for a special punishment: that she be allowed to sleep encircled by fire until a hero of her people is found strong enough to rescue her.

  Her wish is granted. Gently the god raises her and kisses her brow. Slowly she sinks upon the rock while tongues of flame leap from the rocks. Moment by moment the flames leap higher until the heroine is lost from sight.

  It was at the very moment when the fires burned fiercest, the orchestra played its most amazing strains, that a great thought came to Jeanne.

  “I will do it!” she cried aloud. “How wonderful that will be! We shall have an opera. The magic curtain; it shall be like this.”

  Then, realizing that there were people close at hand, she clapped a hand to her lips and was silent.

  A moment more and the strains of delectable music died away. Then it was that a man touched Jeanne’s arm.

  “You are French.” The man had an unmistakable accent.

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  “I would like a word with you.”

  “Yes, yes. If you will please wait here.” As Pierre, in a dress suit, Jeanne still had work to do.

  Her head awhirl with her bright new idea, her eyes still seeing red from the fires that guarded Brunhilde, she hurried through with her humble tasks. Little wonder that she had forgotten the little Frenchman with the small beard. She started when he touched her arm.

  “Pardon, my son. May I now have a word with you?”

  She started at that word “son,” but quickly regained her poise.

  “Surely you may.” She was at his command.

  “I am looking,” he began at once, “for a little French girl named Petite Jeanne.”

  “Pet—Petite!” The little French girl did not finish. She was trembling.

  “Ah! Perhaps you know her.”

  “No, no. Ah, yes, yes,” Jeanne answered in wild confusion.

  “You will perhaps tell me where she lives. I have a very important message for her. I came from France to bring it.”

  “From France?” Jeanne was half smothered with excitement. What should she do? Should she say: “I am Petite Jeanne?” Ah, no; she dared not. Then an inspiration came to her.

  “You wish this person’s address? This Petite Jeanne?”

  “If you will,” the man replied politely.

  “Very well. I will write it down.”

  Drawing a small silver pencil from her pocket with trembling fingers, she wrote an address upon the back of a program.

  “There, monsieur. This is it.

  “I think—” She shifted her feet uneasily. “I am sure she works rather late. If you were to call, perhaps in an hour, you might find her there.”

  “So late as this?” The Frenchman raised his eyebrows.

  “I am sure she would not mind.”

  “Very well. I shall try. And a thousand thanks.” He pressed a coin in her unwilling hand. The next moment he had vanished.

  “Gone!” she murmured, sinking into a seat. “Gone! And he had an important message for me! Oh! I must hurry home!”

  Even as she spoke these words she detected a rustle at the back of the box. Having turned quickly about, she was just in time to see someone pass into the narrow aisle. It was the lady in black.

  “I wonder if she heard?” Jeanne’s heart sank.

  As she left the Opera House the little French girl’s spirits were low.

  The lady in black frightened her. “What can she mean, always dogging my footsteps?” she asked herself as she sought the street.

  “And that dark-faced one? I saw him again tonight by the door. Who is he? What can he want?”

  There was a little group of people gathered by the door. As she passed out, she fancied she caught a glimpse of that dark, forbidding face, those evil eyes.

  With a shudder she sped away. She was not pursued.

  At her apartment she quickly changed into her own plain house dress. Having lighted the living-room fire, she waited a little for the return of Florence, who should have been home long before.

  “What can be keeping her?”

  With nervous, uncertain steps, she crossed to her own chamber door. Having entered, she went to the window. Her room was dark. The street below was half dark. A distant lamp cast a dim, swaying light. At first no one was to be seen. Then a single dark figure moved stealthily up the street. The swaying light caused this person to take on the appearance of an acrobat who leaped into the air, then came down like a rubber ball. Even when he paused to look up at the building before him, he seemed to sway like a drunken sailor.

  “That may be the man.” Her pulse quickened.

  A moment more and a car, careering down the street, lighted the man’s face. It did more. It brought into the open for a second another figure, deeper in the shadows.

  “What a strange pair!” she murmured as she shrank back.

  The man least concealed was the dark-faced one with the evil eye. The other man was Jaeger, the detective.

  “But they are not together,” she assured herself. “Jaeger is watching the other, and the dark one is watching me.”

  Even as she said this, a third person came into view.

  Instantly, by his slow stride, his military bearing, she recognized the man.

  “It is he!” She was thrown into a state of tumult. “It is my Frenchman.”

  But what was this? He was on the opposite side of the street, yet he did not cross over, nor so much as glance that way. He marched straight on.

  She wanted to rush down the stairs and call to him; yet she dared not, for were not those sinister figures lurking there?

  To make matters worse, the dark-faced one took to following the Frenchman. Darting from shadow to shadow, he obviously believed himself unobserved. False security. Jaeger was on his trail.

  “What does it all mean?” Jeanne asked herself. “Is this little Frenchman after all but a tool of the police? Does he hope to trap me and secure the pearls—which I do not have? Or is he with that evil one with the desperate eyes? Or is it true that he came but now from France and bears a message for me?”

  Since she could answer none of these questions, she left her room, looked to the fastening of the outer door, then took a seat by the fire. There for a long time she tried to read her fortune in the flames, but succeeded in seeing only a flaming curtain that was not consumed.

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE UNSEEN EYE

  Five days passed. Uneventful days they were for Petite Jeanne; yet each one was charged with possibilities both wonderful and terrible. She saw no more of Marjory Dean. What of her promise? Had she forgotten?

  The little old lady of the cameo she visited once. The Chinese gentleman who might secure for her one more shuddering look at the magic curtain was out of town.

  Never did she enter the opera at night without casting fearful glances about lest she encounter the dark-faced man of the evil eye. He was never there. Where was he? Who was he? What interest could he have in a mere boy usher of the opera? To these questions the little French girl could form no answer.

  There were times when she believed him a gypsy, or at least a descendant of gypsies from France. When she thought of this she shuddered anew. For in France were many enemies of Bihari’s band. And she was one of that band.

  At other times she was able to convince herself that she had seen this dark-faced one at the back of the boxes on that night when the priceless pearls had vanished. Yet how this could be when Jaeger, the detective, and the mysterious lady in black haunted those same shadows, she could not imagine.

  Of late Jaeger was not always there. Perhaps he was engaged in other affairs. It might be that on that very night Jeanne had seen him follow the dark-faced one, he had
made an important arrest. If so, whom had he apprehended, the dark-faced one or the little Frenchman with a military bearing?

  Jeanne could not but believe that the little man from France was honest and sincere, that he truly bore an important message for her.

  “But why then did he not come that night and deliver it?” she said to Florence.

  “Perhaps he lost his way.”

  “Lost his way? How could he? He was here, just across the way.”

  “You say two men followed him?”

  “Yes, yes!”

  “Then he may have been frightened off.”

  “If so, why did he not return?”

  “Who can say?”

  Ah, yes, who could? Certainly no one, for no one knew the full truth, which was that in her excitement Jeanne had mixed her numbers and, instead of presenting him with her own address, had sent him five blocks down the street where, as one must know, he found no little French girl named Petite Jeanne. So here is one matter settled, straight off. But what of the business-like little Frenchman? Did he truly bear a message of importance? If so, what was the message? And where was the man now? Not so easy to answer, these questions.

  Jeanne asked herself these questions and many more during these days when, as Pierre, she served the occupants of the boxes faithfully, at the same time drinking in all the glory and splendor of music, color and drama that is Grand Opera at its best.

  A glimpse now and then of the lady in black lurking in deep shadows never failed to thrill her. Never did she see her face. Not once did there come to her a single intimation of the position she filled at the opera. As she felt that unseen eye upon her, Jeanne experienced a strange sensation. She went hot and cold all over. Then a great calm possessed her.

  “It is the strangest thing!” she exclaimed to Florence one night. “It is like—what would you call it?—a benediction. I am dreadfully afraid; yet I find peace. It is like, shall I say, like seeing God? Should you be afraid of God if you saw Him?”

  “Yes, I think I might,” Florence answered soberly.

  “Yet they say God is Love. Why should one fear Love?”

  “Who knows? Anyway, your friend is not God. She is only a lady in black. Perhaps she is not Love either. Her true name may be Hate.”