Bobs a Girl Detective Read online

  BOBS, A GIRL DETECTIVE

  by

  CAROL NORTON

  The Saalfield Publishing CompanyAkron, Ohio New York

  Copyright MCMXXVIIIBy the Saalfield Publishing Co.Printed in U.S.A.

  BOBS, A GIRL DETECTIVE

  CHAPTER I FOUR GIRLS FACE A PROBLEM

  "Now that the crash is over and the last echo has ceased to reverberatethrough our ancestral halls, the problem before the house is what shallthe family of Vandergrifts do next?"

  "Gloria, I do wish you wouldn't stand there grinning like a Cheshire cat.There certainly is nothing amusing about the whirlwind of a catastrophethat we have just been through and are still in, for that matter."Gwendolyn tapped her bronze-slippered toe impatiently as she sat in aluxuriously upholstered chair in what, until this past week, had been thelibrary in the Long Island home of the proud family of Vandergrifts.

  Gloria, the oldest of the four girls, ceased to smile but the pleasantexpression, which was habitual to the blue eyes, did not entirely vanishas she inquired, "What would you have me do, Gwen? Fret and fume as youare doing? That is no way to readjust your life to new and changedconditions. Face the facts squarely, say I, and then try to find some wayto surmount your difficulties. Now first of all, we ought----"

  The dark, handsome Gwendolyn, whose natural selfishness was plainlyportrayed in a drooping mouth and petulant expression, put her fingers inher ears, saying: "If you are going to preach, I can assure you that I amnot going to listen; so you might as well save your breath until----"

  "Hush. Here comes Lena May in from the garden. Don't let her hear usscrapping. It effects her sensitive soul as discord effects a truemusician."

  Lena May entered through the porch door, her arms filled with blossomingbranches.

  "Look, sisters, aren't apple blossoms even sweeter than usual this year?"the slip of a girl began, then paused and glanced from one face to theother. "Gwen, what is wrong?" she asked anxiously.

  But it was Gloria who replied, "Nothing at all, Pet. That is, nothing'wronger' than usual, if you will permit my lapse of grammar."

  But the dark-eyed sister threw down the book which she had been trying toread, as she exclaimed, "You both know perfectly well than nothing couldbe in more of a muddle than our lives are at the present moment and your'look for the silver lining,' philosophy, Gloria Vandergrift, doesn'thelp _me_ in the least."

  The fawn-like eyes of the frail, youngest sister turned inquiringlytoward the oldest. "Has anything more happened, I mean, anything new?"she asked.

  "Yes, dear, we had a letter from Father's lawyer and he states thanbeyond a doubt our place here on Long Island does not belong to us and,for that matter, it never did really. Grandfather bought it in goodfaith, I am sure, but he did not receive a clear title."

  "Then why doesn't our lawyer clear it up? That's what I'd like to know,"Gwen said, throwing herself petulantly into another position. "Why didFather employ him, if he cannot attend to our legal matters?"

  "But, Gwen, dear, can't you understand?" Gloria began to explain withinfinite patience. "When Father died, leaving four orphaned daughters, weknew that the fortune he had inherited had been lost through unwiseinvestments, but we did think that the income from this vast acreage andthe tenants would be sufficient to permit us to live in about the samecomfortable way that we always have, but now we find that even this placeis not ours and that we are--well, up against it, as Bobs would say."

  "Where is Bobs?" This from Lena May, who was arranging the sprays ofapple blossoms in a large pale-green bowl on a low wicker stand.

  "Look out of yonder window and you will see the object of your inquiry,"Gloria laughed as she pointed toward the park-like grounds where ahoidenish young girl of 17 could be seen riding astride a slenderhigh-spirited black horse with a white star in his forehead.

  "I do wish Roberta wouldn't wear that outlandish costume," Gwendolynbegan, "and what's more I can't see why she wants to be galloping aroundthe country in that fashion when a calamity like this is staring us inthe face."

  The horse had disappeared beyond the shrubbery. The sisters supposed thatthe young rider would go down to the stables and so they were somewhatstartled, a second later, by seeing Bobs vault over the sill of an openwindow and land in their midst.

  Gwendolyn, of course, rebuked her. "Roberta Vandergrift, aren't you evergoing to become ladylike?" she admonished.

  The newcomer was about to retort that she hoped not if Gwen was a sample,but Gloria intervened. "Don't be ladylike, Bobs," she said. "Now, morethan ever, we need a man in the family. But come, let's talk peaceablytogether and decide what we are to do."

  "All right," Roberta tossed her hat to one side and sat tailor-wise onthe floor, adding: "Fire ahead, I'm present."

  "Such language," was what Gwendolyn refrained from saying, but Bobschuckled in wicked glee. She thought it jolly fun to shock "Miss Prunesand Prisms," as she called the sister but one year her senior.

  "Gloria, whatever you suggest, I know will be best," little Lena Maysaid, as she slipped a trusting hand into that of the oldest sister."Now, tell us, what is your plan?"

  The oldest girl was thoughtful for a moment, then said: "Honestly, Idon't know that I have made one very far ahead, but of course we mustleave here. That is the inevitable, and, equally of course, we must findsome way of earning our daily bread."

  "Bread, indeed," sniffed the disdainful Gwendolyn. "You know that I nevereat such a plebian thing as bread."

  "Well, you may work to earn cake if you prefer," Bobs told her, thenleaning forward she added eagerly: "I say, Gloria, it's going to be agreat adventure, isn't it? I've always been so envious of people whoactually earned their own way in the world. It shows there is somethingin them. Anyone can be a parasite, but the person who is worth whileisn't contented to be one. Ever since Kathryn De Laney went to little oldNew York town to take a course in nursing that she might do something bigin the world, I've had the itch to do likewise. Getting up at noon andthen dwaddling away the hours until midnight is all very well for thosewho like it, but not for mine! I've been wishing that something would jarus out of the rut we're in, and I, for one, am glad that it has come."

  "Kathryn De Laney is a disgrace to her family." This, scornfully, fromGwen. "A girl with a million in her own name could hire people to do allthe nursing she wished done without going into dirty, slummy placesherself, and actually waiting on immigrants, the very sight of whom wouldmake me feel ill. I never even permit Hawkins to drive me through thepoorer sections of the city and, if I am obliged to pass through thetenement district, I close the windows that I need not breath thepolluted air; and I also draw the curtains."

  "I've no doubt that you do," Bobs said, eyeing her sister almost coldly."I sometimes wonder where our mother got you, anyway. You haven't oneresemblance to that dear little woman who, when the squalid hamlet downby the sound was burned, opened her home and took them all in. We weretoo small to remember it ourselves, but I've heard Father tell about ittime and again, and he would always end the story by saying, 'My dearestwish is that my four girls each grow up to be just such an angel woman astheir mother was.'"

  "Nor was that all," Lena May put in, a tender light glowing in her softbrown eyes. "Mother herself superintended the rebuilding of the hamletwhich has now grown to be the model town along the sound." Then, lookinglovingly up at the oldest sister, she continued: "I'm glad, Gloria, thatyou are so like our mother. But you haven't as yet told me your plan andI am sure that you must at least have the beginning of one."

  "Well, as I said before, we must leave here and go to work," Gloriareplied. "I suppose the best thing would be for us to go to New York,where so many varieties of endea
vor await us. Mr. Corey thinks that therewill be about one hundred dollars a month for us to live on. That will betwenty-five dollars for each of us, and----"

  "Twenty-five dollars, indeed? I can't even get a hat for that, and Icertainly shall need one to wear to Phyllis De Laney's lawn party on the18th of June if----"

  "But you won't be here then, Gwen, so you might as well not plan toattend," Gloria said seriously. "We are obliged to vacate this place bythe first of June. The Grabbersteins, who claim their ancestors were theoriginal owners, will move in on that day, bag and baggage, and so mysuggestion is that we leave the week previous, that we need not meetthem."

  "Have you thought what you will do to earn money?" Lena May asked Gloria.

  "Yes. Miss Lovejoy of the East Seventy-seventh Street Settlement hasasked me to take charge of the girls' clubs and I have accepted."

  "Gloria Vandergrift; you, a daughter of one of the very oldest familiesin this country, to work, actually work in those dreadful smellingslums."

  Gloria looked almost with pity at the speaker, who, of course, wasGwendolyn, as she said: "Do you realize that being born an aristocrat ismerely an accident? You might have been born in the slums, Gwen, and ifyou had been, wouldn't you be glad to have someone come to you and giveyou a chance?"

  There being no reply, Gloria continued: "I take no credit to myselfbecause I happened to be born in luxury and not in poverty, but we'llhave to postpone this conversation, for our neighbors are evidentlycoming to call."

  Bobs sprang to her feet and leaped to the open window. "Hello there, Phyland Dick! Come around this way and I'll open the porch door."

  Gwendolyn shrugged her shoulders. "Why doesn't Roberta allow Peter toadmit our visitors," she began, but Gloria interrupted: "One excellentreason, perhaps, is that all our servants except the cook left thismorning. You, of course, were still asleep and did not know of theexodus."

  The sharp retort on the tongue of Gwendolyn was not uttered, for PhyllisDe Laney and her big, good-looking brother, Richard, were entering thelibrary.

  "You poor dear girls! Just as soon as I heard the news I came rightover," Phyllis De Laney exclaimed as she sank down in a deep, comfortablechair and looked about at her friends with an expression of frankcuriosity on her doll-pretty face. "However, I told Ma Mere that I knewthere wasn't a word of truth in the scandalous gossip, and so I came tohear how it all started that I may be able to contradict it." Phyllistook a breath and then continued her chatter: "Your maid, Gwen, told myFanchon, and she said that every servant in your employ had beendismissed with two weeks' advance pay; and she said a good deal more thanthat too, which, of course, isn't true. Just listen to this and then tellme if it isn't simply scandalous. That maid declared that you girls aregoing to work, actually work, to earn your own living."

  "I'll say it's true!" Roberta put in, grinning with wicked glee. Her goodpal, Dick, smiled over at her as he remarked with evident amusement: "Youdon't look very miserable about it, Bobs. In fact, quite the contrary,you appear pleased. If the truth were known, I envy you, honestly I do!I'd much rather go to work than go to college. I'm no good at Latin orGreek. If languages are dead, bury them, I say. I'm not a student bynature, so what's the use pretending; but the pater won't hear to it.Just because our grandfather left us each a million, we've got to dwaddleaway our lives spending it. Of course I'm nineteen now, but you waituntil I'm twenty-one years old and see what will happen."

  His sister Phyllis lifted her eyebrows ever so slightly and looked herdisapproval. "In that time you will have changed your mind," sheremarked. Then turning to her particular friend, she added: "But, Gwen,you aren't going to work, are you? Pray, what could you do?"

  Gwendolyn was in no pleasant frame of mind as her sisters well knew, andher reply was most ungraciously given. Curtly she stated that she did notcare to discuss her personal affairs with anyone.

  Phyllis flushed and rose at once, saying coldly: "Indeed? Since when haveyou become so secretive? You always tell me everything you do and so Ihad no reason to suppose that you would object to my friendly inquiry;but you need have no fear, I shall never again intrude upon your privacy.I will bid you all good afternoon and good-bye, for, of course, since youare going to New York to work, I suppose as clerks in the shops, we willnot likely meet again."

  "Aw, I say, Sis, cut it out! What's the big idea, anyway? A friend is afriend, isn't he, whether he wears broadcloth or overalls?" Then as hissister continued to sweep out of the room, the lad crossed to the oldestsister and held out his hand, saying, with sincere boyish sympathy,"Gloria, I'm mighty sorry about this--er--this--well, whatever it is, andplease let me know where you go, and as soon as you're settled I'll runover and play the big brother act, if you'll let me."

  Then, turning to Bobs, he said: "Go riding with me at sunrise tomorrowmorning, will you, like we used to do before I went away to school.There's a lot I want to say, and the day after I'm going to be packed offto the academy again to be tortured for another month; then, thanks be,vacation will let me out of that prison for a while." Roberta hesitated,and Dick urged: "Go on, Bob! Be a sport. Say yes."

  "All right. I'll be at the Twin Oaks, where we've met ever since we werelittle shavers."

  When the door closed behind the departing guests Gloria turned to thesister, who was but one year her junior, and said: "Gwendolyn, I am sorryto say this, but the good of the larger number requires it. If you cannotface the changed conditions cheerfully with us, I shall have to ask youto make your plans independent of us. We three have decided to be braveand courageous, and try to find joy and happiness in whatever may presentitself, just as our mother and father would wish us to do, and just asthey would have done had similar circumstances overtaken them."

  Gwendolyn rose and walked toward the door, but turned to say, "You neednot concern yourselves about me in the least. I shall not go with you toNew York. I shall visit my dear friend Eloise Rochester in Newport, asshe has often begged me to do."

  "An excellent plan, if----" Gloria began, then paused.

  Gwendolyn turned and inquired haughtily, "If what?"

  "If Eloise wants you when she hears that you have neither home norwealth. If I am anything of a character reader, I should say that theinvitation about which you have just told was merely a bait, so to speak,for a return invitation. It is quite evident that Eloise has decided tomarry Richard De Laney's million-dollar inheritance, and since Phylliswill not invite her to their home you, as a next-door neighbor, can beused to advantage."

  "Indeed? Well, luckily Miss Vandergrift, you are _not_ a characterreader, as you will learn in the near future. You three make whateverplans you wish, but do not include me." So saying, Gwendolyn left theroom and a few moments later the three sisters heard her moving about inthe apartment overhead, and they correctly assumed that she was packing,preparatory for her departure to Newport.

  Gloria sighed: "I wonder why Gwen is so unlike our mother and father?"she said.

  "I have it," Bobs cried, whirling about with eyes laughingly aglow."She's a changeling! A discontented nurse girl wished to wreak vengeanceupon Mother for having discharged her, or something like that, and so shestole the child who really was our sister and left this----"

  "Don't, Bobsie!" Lena May protested. "Even if Gwen is selfish, maybe weare to blame. She was ill for so long after Mother died that we couldn'tbear the thought of having two deaths, and so we rather spoiled her. Ibelieve that if we meet her contrariness with love and are very patientwe may find the gold that must be in her nature, since she _is_ ourmother's child."

  "You can do it, if it's do-able, Lena May," Bobs declared. "Now, Gloria,break the glad news! When do we hit the trail for the big town?"

  "I'm going in tomorrow to find a place for us to live. If you girls wish,you may accompany me."

  "Wish? Why, all the king's oxen and all the king's men couldn't keep mefrom going."

  Gloria smiled at her hoidenish sister but refrained from commenting onher language. She was so thankful that there
was only one Gwen in thefamily that she could overlook lesser failings. Bobs was taking themishap that had befallen them as a great adventure, but even she did notdream of the truly exciting adventures that lay before them.