“Oh, surely!”
As was natural, perhaps, Terry and Arden were too excited to notice whether or not Sim minded very much being thus left behind. The two hurried down to the rowboat with Tania trotting after them. The dog curled up on the broad stern seat, and Arden sat near her to restrain her if necessary. But there was no need. Tania seemed very much accustomed to boats and hardly stirred.
Terry rowed quickly in the direction of the Merry Jane. From her position Arden could see Dimitri and his somewhat mysterious guest out on the narrow, railed walk that extended all around the house part of the boat. The Russian was obviously waiting for those whom he had summoned by the note on his dog’s collar. The woman Olga was talking to him rapidly, as Terry and Arden could hear. They noticed, as they drew nearer, that her face seemed paler than before, and her eyes were flaming. Dimitri looked quizzically at the approaching boat, and when they pulled alongside he quickly grasped Tania by the collar. The dog was transformed, suddenly, from the dignified white animal who had sat so quietly in the boat, to a raging, snarling beast. Dimitri hustled her on the houseboat and made her secure somewhere inside. He reappeared almost at once and said to Terry and Arden:
“It is most kind of you to do this. I do not like to be such a nuisance, but I promise you it shall not happen again.” The girls thought he seemed too cross even to talk to them.
He motioned to Olga, who jumped lightly into the boat.
“Good-bye, Dimitri,” she said clearly. “You have won this time, but it is not the end, by any means.”
“Au’voir, then, Olga, till we meet again. I hope it will not be—too soon,” he said, totally ignoring all politeness and smiling, the girls thought, bitterly.
“Thank you, comrade,” he said to Terry. “Will you take her back now? She is driving to New York tonight.”
Though he spoke to Terry, his remark almost seemed like an order to the dark woman, an order delivered in such a tone that it would seem foolhardy to overlook it. So Terry nodded her sandy head, and Arden said, “Good-bye,” almost inaudibly. Then they started back once more to Terry’s landing.
When they were out of earshot the woman apparently regained some of her composure; at least, she did not seem so angry.
“You know Dimitri, then?” she asked in an attempt to be pleasant.
“We gave him some candles one night, and he lent us an oar once,” Arden answered. “We don’t see him very often.”
“No, and you won’t,” the woman added. “He is a queer one. Did he ever show you any of his things? Any jewels, maybe?”
“Only some pictures. Why?” Arden asked frankly.
“I just wondered. Of course, he is very fond of his pictures and that dog of his,” she went on. “The largest picture. Did you see it?”
Arden shook her head.
“Oh, well,” Olga shrugged her shoulders and adjusted her silver fox scarf. “He won’t bother you again, I’m sure,” and she smiled to herself.
They reached “Buckingham Palace,” and Olga stepped out. With a perfunctory “thank you” she hurried to her car. There was Melissa Clayton gazing at it in raptures. Running her fingers over the shining fenders and pushing the upholstery to test its softness, Melissa was enchanted.
As Terry and Arden watched, they could see Olga speak to Melissa. The girl answered, her face wreathed in smiles. Then, as Olga spoke again, Melissa hurried around to the side away from the steering wheel and got in the car, shutting the door after her.
Olga, settling herself, started the motor, reversed the car on the narrow sandy road, and turned back the way she had come, with Melissa beside her.
For a moment the girls were speechless.
Melissa going off in the strange woman’s car!
CHAPTER VII
A Noise in the Night
“Well, what do you think of that?” Terry exclaimed as Arden and she, still in the boat at the little dock, watched Melissa get into Olga’s car and drive away.
“Suppose she kidnaps little Melissa?” Arden facetiously suggested. “We must tell Sim. I wonder where she is.”
“Sim! We’re back!” Terry called. “Where are you?”
“Here,” Sim answered from inside the house. “I was writing a letter. Come on up to my room and tell me all about it.”
Arden and Terry, each carrying an oar, almost ran from the dock to the house, and Sim, who could not wait for them to come up to her room, met them at the door.
“Tell me all about it! I’m sure something exciting happened. I can tell by your faces,” Sim exclaimed quickly.
“First, we’ll tell you about the lovers’ quarrel,” Terry joked. “And if they are lovers—”
“They are not,” flatly declared Arden. “More like partners in crime—”
“Hey, there!” warned Sim, “no crime in this. Go ahead, children. What happened?”
“Well, he was mad as hops when we got there,” began Terry.
“And she was, too,” Arden added.
“He practically said he hoped he’d never see her again,” Terry resumed.
“She was positively livid when she got in the boat, and then she calmed down and tried to be nice to us,” Arden took up the tale.
“He called me ‘comrade.’ Wasn’t that sweet?” Terry wanted to know.
“I can’t figure it out at all,” Sim confessed. “And from the window I saw Melissa Clayton get in the gay car—imagine that! Melissa’s been hanging around here all the time you were away. She walked around the house once, and then I saw her peek in the kitchen window.”
“What can she want, I wonder?” Arden mused. “She’s a peculiar girl. Hope she isn’t in any trouble with that sour old dad of hers.”
“Looks to me as though we’ve dropped right into the middle of another mystery,” Terry announced, nodding her head wisely. “Maybe there are always mysteries, but only wise girls really discover them.”
“Oh, Terry!” Sim exclaimed woefully. “I did so want to be lazy this summer. Mysteries are terribly wearing.”
“Well, you can be as lazy as you want to be, but for my part I’m in this mystery up to my ears already, and I find it thrilling,” Terry announced firmly.
Dinner that night was a somewhat hectic meal, for no one had a chance to finish a sentence about the mysterious Olga and the departure of Melissa before someone else would break in with the announcement of a new theory.
Ida, the maid, did her serving wide-eyed with amazement. She was not a girl to be easily frightened, but she possessed a great deal of natural curiosity. Despite Mrs. Landry’s efforts to shift the conversation into other channels, the names Dimitri, Olga, and Melissa popped up constantly.
Eventually the little house was quiet, with its occupants settled down for the night. Sim and Arden in one room and Terry alone in her own.
Sim and Arden literally talked themselves to sleep, but Terry lay awake for a long time listening to the lap of the waves on the shore and the chirp of the crickets and grasshoppers in the sedges.
It seemed as if Terry had just gone to sleep when she was awakened by a sound somewhere in the house. She listened. It was a barely perceptible squeak, as if a window were being pushed up very gently. She started, then sat upright. Yes, there it was again. Then, without waiting for robe or slippers, she jumped out of bed and ran down the short hall to Sim and Arden.
“Arden! Sim!” she called. “Wake up!”
“H-m-m?” grunted Sim sleepily.
“Someone’s trying to get in!” Terry whispered hoarsely.
Arden was awake instantly. “Where, Terry?” she murmured.
“Downstairs, I guess. Sh-h-h! Listen!” Terry put a warning finger to her lips.
Sim was sitting up now, and the three girls were as quiet as statues in the eerie moonlight streaming in the open window.
“There it is again! Did you hear it? Just a tiny squeak,” Terry asked.
“It seems to be coming from the dining room. Had we better call your mother?” Arde
n asked in a low voice.
They listened again, with hearts pounding and eyes questioning. What could it be? Or rather who could it be? Down at Oceanedge it was customary not to lock doors, and windows were usually left wide open. But Mrs. Landry, being city-bred, could never get out of the habit of locking up for the night. Whoever it was, seemed deliberately trying to force up a window, and it sounded as if the hands were slipping on the glass.
“Can you light the downstairs lights from up here, Terry?” asked Arden. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to show them we’re awake?”
“Yes, of course, Arden,” Terry quickly replied. “I should have thought of that before. I’ll turn on the hall lights downstairs and give them an alarm!”
She slipped softly out into the hall and pushed a button. With a little snap the lights flashed on. Then silently the alarmists waited with apprehension. What should the next move be?
The sound was not heard again, and the girls in Sim’s room breathed a little easier.
“Do you think—they’re gone?” Sim whispered.
“I don’t hear anything; do you?” Arden asked.
“S-sh-h-h!” Terry hissed, and she went to the window.
The scene below was flooded with moonlight. The sandy stretch, so clear and unbroken, could not possibly hide a marauder. Terry was hoping to see the intruder make a dash for the safety of the garage shadow.
“Look!” she whispered to the girls. “It’s a woman!”
Arden and Sim dashed to the window just in time to witness the flight of someone, who, they did not know, in the bright moonlight. The figure was oddly distorted both by the light and the height from which they were looking.
“Who?” Arden asked cryptically.
Terry shrugged in reply. The figure ran swiftly and was almost instantly lost to sight in the shadow of the garage.
“There’s nothing we can do now,” Terry remarked. “And there’s no use waking Mother. She’d only worry.”
“Perhaps we had better tell Chief Reilly in the morning,” Arden suggested. “Isn’t it something new, having burglars around here?”
“I never heard of one before. I didn’t think they ever came down here,” Terry remarked. They were still looking out toward the garage.
“But this could hardly have been an ordinary prowler,” Sim reminded them. “We may as well go back to bed. She surely won’t come back, whoever she was.”
“I’ll leave the lights on downstairs. We must try to get some sleep,” Terry said, her stifled yawn entirely agreeing.
“Want to come in here?” invited Arden to Terry, who roomed alone.
“Oh—I don’t know. I’m not afraid,” Terry answered a little ruefully. “But since you suggested it, yes, I guess I will. Move over, Sim.”
After all, three girls might be better than one for almost any midnight alarm.
CHAPTER VIII
Hard to Believe
Smiling to herself in the darkness, Sim pushed over in the twin bed so that Terry could get in. Even at that, neither one would have very much space, and Sim was amused to think that Terry, the trenchant, should feel like spending the rest of the night with her rather than alone in her own bed.
“I’ll see that Rufus Reilly hears about this,” remarked Terry, burrowing under the covers. “The idea of disturbing honest peace-loving people in the middle of the night! What Oceanedge is coming to, I don’t know.”
“Who’s Rufus Reilly?” asked Arden.
“He’s the police force,” Terry replied. “He owns the only garage in the village and Dimitri’s houseboat too.”
“Quite a factor in the life of the community, isn’t he?” Sim murmured sleepily.
“Don’t make fun of him, Sim,” Terry rebuked. “He’s a very important man. He says so himself.”
“Well, I’m going to sleep,” Arden declared, yawning freely. “I want to look my best when I meet the chief.”
The conversation dragged, and feeling secure in the knowledge that the midnight intruder had gone, the girls finally drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, after breakfast, and with Mrs. Landry’s consent, they started for the village to report to Chief Reilly.
Leaving by the front door, they were on their way to the garage at the back when they came face to face with George Clayton, Melissa’s father.
“Good-morning,” he said a little sheepishly. Perhaps he was conscious of his somewhat fishy-scented clothes and muddy hip boots.
“’Morning,” Terry replied, and waited for him to speak again. All the girls felt rather antagonistic toward him, since they had witnessed his treatment of Melissa.
“I wuz wonderin’,” he began again, “that is—have you young ladies seen anythin’ of my daughter Melissa?”
“Why, no. Not since early last evening,” Arden replied. “Why?”
“I wuz a little worried about her. She ain’t been home all night, and I thought maybe—”
“The last time we saw her, she was riding in a green car that some woman who came to see the artist on the houseboat parked here,” Sim volunteered.
George Clayton blinked his eyes rapidly and seemed at a loss for anything to say to that surprising news.
“U-hum-m!” He shook his head. “Melissa ain’t entirely responsible, you know. She’s overly fond of bright things. Like a blue jay. She just can’t resist ’em.”
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Arden. “I do hope nothing happened to her.”
“We were just going to the village to tell Rufus Reilly about a burglar we had around here last night,” Terry explained. “Shall we tell him to look for Melissa?”
“Oh, no, miss, please!” Clayton exclaimed. “He knows all about Melissa. Thinks I ought to send her to some institution. But I can’t bear—to do that,” he concluded rather pathetically.
“Why didn’t you let her keep the bracelet the other day?” Sim asked suddenly. “It was only worth a quarter. Perhaps she ran away because you—”
“I know, miss,” Clayton interrupted, “she possibly told you how mean I was to her. But if I let her keep it she’d follow you around all the time, looking for something else.” After all, perhaps the man was not so mean as they had thought.
“Say!” exclaimed Terry suddenly. “Maybe that was Melissa we heard last night, coming back for the bracelet!”
“It did look like her, I mean her height and all,” agreed Sim. “I’m sure that’s just who it was.”
“She might have done it,” the fisherman admitted reluctantly. “You won’t tell Reilly, will you?”
“If you can keep her away from here so she won’t scare us out of our wits again, we won’t,” Terry agreed. For the girls still believed in their hearts that Melissa was to be pitied and, though he said not, they felt that her father was a hard man to deal with.
“When she comes back I’ll—” Clayton began but never finished, for there was Melissa herself walking toward them along the little path. Her pale pink cotton dress was a mass of wrinkles, and her hair in uncouth disarray. One white string of her sneakers flapped as she walked.
Instantly her father was a changed man. As soon as he saw her he drew himself up to his full height and assumed an aggressive manner.
“Melissa!” he shouted. “Come here!”
“Yes, Pa,” she answered meekly and came slowly forward with one arm held up near her face as though to ward off a blow.
“Where wuz you last night?” he demanded.
“Here, Pa. I slept in the car in the garage,” came the surprising reply.
“Why didn’t you come home?” he shouted at her.
“I was afraid to. The lady took me for such a nice ride, it was late when I got back.” Poor Melissa, thought the girls.
“What lady?” snarled her father.
“I dunno her name. The pretty one with the nice fur. She asked me if I’d like a ride, so I said yes. She gave me a quarter, too.” Melissa held out her tanned hand and showed them the money.
&nbs
p; “Don’t you know any better than to go riding off with strangers?” her father shouted. “And scarin’ these young ladies, who was so nice to you, out of their wits? Wuz you around this house last night?”
“I was just lookin’ in a window. I didn’t mean any harm.” How cruel for a poor girl to be helpless!
“Well, you come along home with me.”
Melissa looked woefully at the surprised girls and started off to follow her father, who went clumping down the path in his hip boots.
“Mr. Clayton,” called Arden after him. “Please don’t punish Melissa; she didn’t do any harm.”
“I’ll take care of Melissa,” he answered shortly, completely forgetting how anxious he had been only a short time before to appear the worried father.
“If you touch her I’ll, I’ll—” Arden said, but he continued on his way, not even listening to her.
“What a horrid old man!” Terry remarked anxiously. “First he shows his concern and then—”
“His teeth,” finished Sim.
CHAPTER IX
The Snuffbox
Several days after their rather unpleasant meeting with Melissa’s father, George Clayton, the three girls were “soaking up the sun” on the beach. Of course, as it developed, there was nothing to report to Chief Reilly. They were quite sure that Melissa had been their erstwhile burglar. More than ever the girls felt Melissa needed a friend. They talked over the situation, trying to piece together the girl’s story and her father’s denial of that part which blamed him. But whether he was entirely fair and just, trying to protect his daughter, or whether his allusions to her “being queer” were merely a pretext to excuse himself, not even Arden the wise ventured to decide. But in the end the opinion was unanimous that Melissa needed friends, and they each and all resolved to do all they could to befriend the strange, wild creature.
But finally the delightfully warm air, the friendly sun, and the inviting ocean drove all such serious thoughts from their minds. What could be more perfect than such a day in such a place for such girls!
The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 180