The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Mildred A. Wirt

  “Yes,” was the reply.

  “We don’t want to worry her sister needlessly. There really is no cause for that, but we’ve been delayed at the Orange Hills Inn because Gwendolyn Vandergrift, who isn’t as strong as she thought, has found riding in the tallyho too hard. She’s got grit, that girl has! Never complained, but kept up as long as she could that she need not trouble anyone until she just keeled over and fainted. She’s better now, and Phyllis thought that if you would come over after her with that little runabout of yours, made comfortable with blankets and pillows, it wouldn’t be as hard for Miss Vandergrift as this old tallyho of mine. Mrs. Buscom, the innkeeper’s wife, will look out for her, and so, if you are coming, we’ll start along, as I want to make the steep grade with this lumbering vehicle of mine before dark.”

  “Sure thing, I’ll get there all right. I’ll take a short cut through the hills, so you won’t pass me, but don’t be alarmed. I’ll probably get back here in The Whizz as soon as you do in the tallyho, so I won’t say anything to her sister, Roberta, as yet. So long.”

  Again Ralph was acting on impulse. His first desire had been to take Bobs with him, but if he did there would not be room to make the invalid sister comfortable on the return trip, and, moreover, it wouldn’t be fair to Dick.

  His dad wouldn’t arrive with the big car until five-thirty, and so The Whizz would have to do. Sending word out to the group on the lawn that the tallyho had been delayed but would soon arrive, Ralph donned his leather coat, cap and goggles and made his way out through a back entrance and down to the garage. Soon thereafter he was speeding over a country road which led among the hills and was a short cut of many miles to the Inn. He broke the speed limit whenever the dirt road was smooth enough to permit him to do so, but, although he frightened many a flock of birds from the hedges, no one arose from the wayside tangle to bid him go more slowly.

  When at last he drew up at the Inn, the kind Mrs. Buscom appeared and smilingly informed him that the young lady was quite rested and that the tallyho had been gone for half an hour. She was about to lead the way into the dim, old-fashioned parlor of the Inn when new arrivals delayed her, and so Ralph went in alone.

  The blinds in the old-fashioned parlor of the Inn were drawn, and, having come in from the dazzling sunshine, Ralph at first could scarcely see, but a girl, who had been seated in a haircloth rocker, arose and advanced toward him. She wore a rose-colored linen hat and dress. For a moment the lad paused and stared as though at an apparition.

  “Bobs!” he ejaculated. Then he laughed as he extended his hand. “Miss Vandergrift, honestly, just for a second I thought that I was seeing a vision. I had quite forgotten that you and your sister so closely resemble each other, though, to be sure, you are taller than Bobs; but pardon me for not introducing myself. I am Ralph Cory, of whom, perhaps, you have heard.”

  “And I am Gwendolyn Vandergrift, of whom I am sure that you have heard, else you would not have come for me,” the girl smiled; and, to his amazement, Ralph found that his heart was pounding like a trip-hammer. “If you are sure that you are rested, Miss Vandergrift,” he said, “we will start back at once. I’ve brought soft pillows galore, and a jolly soft lap robe. I do hope you’ll be comfortable.”

  On the porch of the Inn, Gwen turned and, holding out a frail hand, she said to the kindly woman: “Thank you, Mrs. Buscom, for having taken such good care of me. I shall stop again on our way back to town.”

  The bustling little woman helped arrange the pillows and tucked in the blanket. Then to Ralph she said as the machinery started: “Do take care of the pretty dear. It’s like a flower she is, and ought to be sheltered from the rough winds of the world.”

  “I’ll do that little thing, Mrs. Buscom. Good-bye. Wish us luck!”

  Ralph drove slowly at first, but Gwen said, “I’m so well packed in pillows, Mr. Cory, it won’t jar me in the least if you go faster.” And so the speed increased. It was late afternoon and the highway was deserted. “I’d like to overtake the tallyho,” Ralph remarked. “If I thought you wouldn’t mind the pace we’d have to hit.”

  Gwendolyn smiled up trustingly. “I have perfect faith in your driving,” she said. “I know you will take care of me.”

  Ralph, looking into the face of the girl at his side, again had the strange feeling that it was Bobs, only different, and—Oh, what was the matter with him, anyway? Was it possible that he liked the difference?

  Bobs had always been a frank comrade, more like another boy, when he came to think of it, but this girl, who was equally beautiful, was depending upon him to take good care of her.

  A fifteen-minute spurt brought them to the top of a hill and in the valley below they saw the tallyho.

  Ralph stopped a brief moment on the plateau, leaped out to be sure that The Whizz was in perfect condition, and then anxiously inquired, “Are you sure you’re game? Loop the loop won’t be in it.”

  Gwen nodded. “I’ll like it,” she assured him. The color had mounted to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. “All right! Hold fast! Here goes!” Then The Whizz went like a red streak down that hill on which, as Ralph had observed from the top, there was nothing to impede their progress.

  They overtook the tallyho and slowed up that they need not startle the horses. They had reached the outer boundaries of the Caldwaller-Cory estate.

  “Suppose I get back in the tallyho with the others,” Gwen said, “then Bobs won’t know that I had a fainting spell. If she knew it, she would feel that she ought to take me right home, and I don’t want to go.” Her smile at Ralph seemed to imply that he was her fellow-conspirator.

  “I’m not going to let you go,” he heard himself saying.

  So the change was made. Ralph turned The Whizz into a rear entrance, used only by delivery autos, and in that way reached the garage.

  He had asked Jack Beardsley to give him time to get out on the lawn before he arrived, and so the three, who were still seated around a tea table under a spreading oak, saw Ralph coming from the house at the same time that the tallyho entered the front gate.

  They little dreamed of all that had happened.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  TRAGIC HOURS

  And now while these young people are having a care-free, happy time in the beautiful Orange Hill country, let us return to the East Side that is sweltering in the heat of late June.

  It was nine o’clock at night and the air was still breathlessly stifling. The playground that edged the East River was thronged with neighboring folk who had brought what portable bedding they had and who planned sleeping upon the ground out-of-doors to catch some possible breeze from over the water.

  Many of these people were residents of the rickety tenement across from the model apartments, but one there was who had been unable to leave the small, hot room that she called home, and that one was Mrs. Wilovich.

  She was not alone, nor had she been, for all that day Lena May had been at her bedside.

  “She cannot last the night out,” the visiting district nurse had said. “Hastn’t she any own folks to stay with her till it’s all over?”

  “I shall stay,” little Lena May had replied.

  “You? Do you think you ought? You’re a mere girl. Aren’t there some women in this house who’d do that much for a neighbor?”

  “I am seventeen,” was the quiet reply, “and Mrs. Wilovich would rather have me. She never made friends among the neighbors.”

  “Well, as you wish,” the busy nurse had said. “I have many more places to visit this evening, so I can’t stay; and, anyway, there’s nothing to do but to let her—”

  “Hush, please, don’t say it. Little Tony might hear,” Lena May had implored in a whisper as she glanced at the child curled up on the floor as though he were asleep.

  When the nurse was gone, Dean Wiggin appeared in the open doorway, as he had many times that day and evening. Nell had been called to the country to see about the small farm which their foster-father had bequeathed them, or she
would have been with Lena May. Gloria had left at eight to take her evening classes at the Settlement, and had promised to return at ten and remain with her sister until the end.

  The giant of a lad, with his helpless arm that was always held in one position as it had been in slings so long ago, glanced first at the woman in the bed, and then at the girl who advanced to him.

  “Can’t I stay now?” he spoke softly. “I’ve closed the shop and the office. Isn’t there anything that I can do to help?”

  “No, Dean, I don’t need you, and there isn’t room; but I do wish that you would take Tony out of doors. It is stifling here.”

  The little fellow seemed to hear his name. He rose and went to Dean. The lad lifted Tony with his strong right arm. “I’ll take him down to the docks a while,” he told the girl. “Put a light in the window if you want me.”

  Lena May said that she would. Then for a time the young girl stood in the open window watching the moving lights out on the river. At last she turned back and glanced at the bed. The mother lay so quiet and so white that Lena May believed that she had passed into the land where there is no sweltering, crowded East Side. She was right. The tired soul had taken its flight. The girl was about to place the lamp in the window to recall Dean when she paused and listened. What a strange roaring sound she heard, and how intensely hot it was becoming. In another moment there was a wild cry of “Fire! Fire!” from the playground.

  Lena May sprang to the open door. She knew there was but one fire escape and that at the extreme rear of the long, dark hallway. That very day she had noticed that it was piled high with rubbish. Then she must make her escape by the narrow, rickety front stairs. Down the top flight she ran, only to find that the flight beneath her was a seething mass of flame.

  She darted back into the small room and closed the door. Then she ran to the open window and called for help, but the roaring of the flames drowned her voice. However, she was seen, and several firemen ran forward with a ladder, but a rear wall crashed in and they leaped back.

  At that moment a lad darted up and pushed his way through the crowd. “Put the ladder up to that window,” he commanded, pointing to where Lena May, pale and quiet, was still standing.

  “By heck, we won’t! It’s sure death to climb up there. The wall’s rocking even now. Stand back, everybody,” the chief shouted; but one there was who did not obey. With superhuman effort he lifted the ladder. Several men seeing that he was determined helped him place it, then ran back, and left the lad to scale it alone. Never before had Dean so regretted his useless arm.

  “God, give me strength!” he cried; then mounted the ladder. He could feel it sway. Flames leaped from the windows as he passed. He caught at the rounds with his left hand as well as his right, and up, up he went. The girl leaned far out. “Drop down. Hold to the window sill! I’ll catch you,” the lad called. Lena May did as she was told, and, clinging to the top round with his left hand, Dean clasped the girl’s waist with his strong right arm and climbed down as fast as he could go. He did not realize that he was using his left arm. He had to, it was a matter of life and death. A pain like that made by a hot branding iron shot through his shoulder, but even this he did not know.

  Firemen rushed forward and took the girl from him, and none too soon, for with a terrific roar the fire burst through the roof, which caved in; then the wall tottered and crashed down about them.

  “Where’s that boy? The one that went up the ladder?” people were asking on all sides. Where was he, indeed?

  CHAPTER XXX

  A HERO REWARDED

  A week later Lena May was in the sunny kitchen of the Pensinger mansion making broth. A curly-headed three-year-old boy was sitting on the floor playing contentedly with his toys. He had been told that his mother had gone to a beautiful country where she would be well and happy and that some day he would see her again.

  “Muvver likes Tony to stay wiv you, Auntie May,” he prattled as the girl stooped to kiss him. Then, as he suddenly reached up his chubby arms, he added: “Tony likes to stay wiv you.”

  “There, now, the broth’s ready and Tony may help Auntie May,” she told him. The little fellow was given a plate of crackers and the girl followed with a bowl of steaming refreshment. They went to Bobs’ room, where a lad was lying in bed.

  Once again Dean Wiggin had fought a fire for the sake of a friend, but this time had undone the harm that had been done in the long ago. Even the surgeon who had been called in declared that the way the lad had wrenched his arm free and had actually used it was little less than a miracle; but, all through the ages, people who with a high purpose have called upon God for help, have received it, and that help has been named a miracle.

  “See, Lena May,” the lad said as he stretched out his left arm, “it moves, doesn’t it? Stiffly, perhaps, but I must keep it going, the doctor told me.” Then he drew himself into a sitting position and the girl raised the pillows to make him comfortable.

  He smiled at her beamingly as he said: “Another bit of good news is that tomorrow I may get up. Just because one wall of a burning tenement fell on me is no reason why I should remain in bed longer than one week and be waited upon.”

  “You surely had a wonderful escape, Dean,” the girl said as she gave him the broth. “Just by chance the firemen instantly turned the water where you had fallen and so you weren’t burned.”

  “Nor drowned,” the lad said merrily, “just knocked senseless.” Then, after a moment’s pause, he continued: “I want to be up and about before Nell returns. She will be in about noon tomorrow. Unless it got into the New England papers, which isn’t likely, she won’t know a thing about it. I don’t want her to hear of it before I tell her. She would imagine all sorts of things that aren’t true, and be needlessly worried.”

  “How glad your sister will be when she finds that the use of your arm has been restored to you.” Lena May sat by the bedside holding Tony on her lap.

  “Won’t she?” Dean’s upward glance was radiant. “No longer will I have to follow the profession of old book-seller. I want to do something that will keep that arm constantly busy.”

  “What, Dean, have you thought?”

  “Yes, indeed. You won’t think it a very wonderful ambition. I want to be a farmer. I don’t like this crowded city. I feel as though I can’t breathe. When I am lying here alone, I keep thinking of the New England farm where my boyhood was spent, and I long to really work in that rocky soil, standing up now and then to breathe deep of that sparkling air and to gaze at that wide view over the meadow-lands, and the shining, curving silver ribbon, that is really a river, to the distant mountains. Lena May, how I wish you could see it with me.”

  “I am sure that I would love it,” the girl said, then, rising, she added: “Here comes Gloria and Mr. Hardinian. They are going to hear some Hungarian music tonight, and I promised to have an early supper for them. Tony may stay with you. I am sure he would like to hear a story about the little wild creatures who live on your farm.”

  But, when the girl was gone, the little fellow accommodatingly curled up by Dean’s side and went to sleep, and so the lad’s thoughts were left free to dream of a wonderful something that might happen some day on that far-away New England farm.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  FOUR ROMANCES

  Time—Two weeks later.

  Place—Kitchen of the Pensinger mansion.

  Characters—Gloria, Gwendolyn, Roberta, Lena May and little Tony.

  “Haven’t things been happening with a whirl of late?” Bobs exclaimed as she passed a plate of hot muffins. “I feel dizzy, honestly I do! I’m so proud of Dick,” she added as she sank into her own place at the table.

  “All of his own accord he told me that he’s going back for one more year at law school and then he and Ralph are going to hang out a shingle for themselves. They’re going to start a new firm and be partners. Judge Caldwaller-Cory thinks that his son must be crazy, when he is already a junior member of an old and well estab
lished firm. They got the idea from Arden Wentworth, I suppose. He has made good by himself, and the plan rather appeals to Dick and Ralph.”

  “They’re great pals, aren’t they, these two? Brothers couldn’t care more for each other, I do believe,” Lena May said, as she buttered a muffin for her little charge.

  “And to think that they are to marry sisters in the dim and distant future. That ought to cement the brotherly ties even closer than ever,” Gloria remarked, as she smiled at Gwendolyn, who, wind-browned and sun-rosy, looked as though she had never been ill.

  “Gwen, you and Ralph fell in love rather suddenly, didn’t you?” Lena May inquired.

  “Maybe so,” her sister replied. “Ralph says that he has always felt sure that he would know the girl who was meant for him the very moment that he saw her, and he insists that he loved me the minute he met me at Orange Hills Inn.”

  Roberta leaned over and placed her hand on that of her sister. “I’m so glad,” she said, “for I do believe that Ralph is almost as fine a chap as my Dick, and that is saying a great deal; and to think that if it hadn’t been for the Pensinger mystery, we might never have met him.”

  “By the way,” Gloria remarked, “what has become of the Pensinger mystery?”

  Roberta laughed as she arose to replenish the muffin plate from the oven. “I’m afraid it is destined to always remain a mystery. Ralph and I followed every clue we could possibly think of. It’s a shame, isn’t it, not to have this old place owned by someone, to say nothing of the money.”

  After a moment’s silence, Gloria asked: “Lena May, was there any news of general interest in Dean’s letter this morning?”

  Their youngest sister smiled brightly. “Oh, yes, indeed. He was so glad to get back to that New England farm where he can breathe. He said that there are wonderful possibilities in the old house and that he is going to begin work on it at once. He hopes that by the time I am eighteen, it will look like a real home; but there was another item in the letter that I am sure you will all be glad to hear. His group of nature poems has been accepted by a magazine called The New England Homestead, and the check they sent seems like a real fortune to Dean. The best of it is, they have asked for more.”