Josie O’Gorman
[Illustration: “Horrid ain’t de word”, said Aunt Mandy--Chapter VIII.]
Josie O’Gorman
By
Edith Van Dyne
Author of
The “Mary Louise” Stories, in which
Josie O’Gorman, the Girl Detective,
was a leading character
[Illustration]
Frontispiece by
Harry W. Armstrong
The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago
_Printed in the United States of America_
_Copyright, 1923
by_
The Reilly & Lee Co.
_All Rights Reserved_
_Josie O’Gorman_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Josie’s Funny Nose 7
II Ursula Tells Her Story 19
III A Rush Order for Dolls 32
IV Lost and Found 45
V Ursula Writes a Letter 54
VI Philip Is Kidnapped 66
VII Josie Visits Louisville 79
VIII Clues from Aunt Mandy 87
IX Josie Finds a Friend 96
X A Visit to Peewee Valley 103
XI Mr. Cheatham Is Unmasked 113
XII In an Old Kentucky Home 124
XIII A Great Christmas Feast 133
XIV A Trap for Mr. Cheatham 143
XV An Anonymous Letter 152
XVI Bob Dulaney’s Chase 164
XVII Josie Makes a Find 175
XVIII The Clue in the Film 185
XIX Philip Is Found 197
XX Miss Fitchet Is Surprised 207
XXI Josie O’Gorman’s Triumph 215
Josie O’Gorman
CHAPTER I
JOSIE’S FUNNY NOSE
Josie O’Gorman’s appearance was one of her greatest assets. To the
general run of young girls who look upon beauty as the one and only
attribute necessary for success in life no doubt this statement would
sound absurd. Certainly there was little in Josie’s appearance that
to the casual observer would have passed muster as an asset. To be
sure her sandy hair was abundant and well kept; her complexion, though
subject to freckles, smooth and clear and milk-white where the sun
could not reach it; her teeth even and pearly; her figure, small but
erect with every muscle under the control of the alert mind of the
girl; her feet--well, her feet the most scornful flapper might have
envied. Even Josie, who was as free from vanity and self-consciousness
as any girl living, had much satisfaction in her feet which were as
smooth and guiltless of imperfections as those of a three-year-old
child.
Those good points mentioned were not, however, Josie’s greatest
assets. The features that gave Josie rank as one of the most astute
female detectives were a pair of colorless, nondescript eyes, that
could at the owner’s will take on an expression of absolute stupidity,
even imbecility; and a nose that could be described best by the word
“blobby.” No wrong-doer, attempting to evade detection, could have
any fear of a person whose eyes resembled those of a codfish. As for
the blobby nose, it was a nose that made a good foundation for any
disguise. Not only did false noses fit on it with ludicrous exactness
but Josie had the faculty of controlling that member and forcing it to
do her bidding in a manner most surprising. From a mere blob she could
wrinkle it into a turned-up nose, or by lifting one nostril and pulling
down her upper lip she could change her countenance so that her best
friends would have difficulty in recognizing her. This power of nose
control was one that she had but recently acquired.
“I always could do things to my eyes,” she said to her dear friend
Mary Louise, Mrs. Danny Dexter, “but I had always considered my nose a
hopeless give-away. I was sure there was not another one like it in all
the world, now that my dear father is dead.”
“How did you happen to discover your power over it?” asked Mary Louise,
who could not help smiling at her friend’s mention of the father’s
nose. The elder O’Gorman had been a famous detective and his shapeless
nose had been almost as famous as its owner.
“It was this way: I blame myself and my sensitive vanity for not
finding out about it long ago,” laughed Josie. “You see I never looked
in a mirror, at least hardly ever. I never liked what I saw there and I
saw no use in mortifying myself. Instead of facing the truth about my
ugly mug I put it behind me.”
“Your face? That was a great feat. Surely you are some juggler!”
Josie grinned.
“Excuse the Irish break. Anyhow, I looked at myself occasionally
only--to see that my hair was parted straight or my hat was not cocked
over one ear. It was after that experience I had in Atlanta getting
even with that arch fiend, Chester Hunt, and bringing the Waller
family together that I sat down in front of a mirror one day and looked
myself squarely in the face. I was very triumphant over having bested
and worsted the handsome Chester; but in spite of my satisfaction
there was a kind of sore spot in my heart, because you see, honey,
after all I’m nothing but a girl and no matter how indifferent I may
seem to things girls have and do I’m not really indifferent at all.
I’m just busy--too busy to brood over the things that can’t be helped.
But somehow Chester Hunt’s remarks sort of hurt me. He did not scruple
to let me know he considered me homely beyond words and he took a
real delight in making me feel that it was hard to believe I could be
the capable person he had decided I was because my appearance was so
against me. I fancy I wouldn’t have minded so much if he himself had
not been so extremely handsome. I give you my word, Mary Louise, he was
one of the most wonderful looking men I ever saw, and there was nothing
in his appearance to give away the black-hearted villainy of him.
Well, as I was saying, I sat down in front of the mirror and looked at
myself, trying to see myself as no doubt the handsome Chester saw me.”
“It’s my nose that is the insurmountable offender!” I exclaimed. “No
wonder he thought me so hideous. I wonder if he’d like me any better if
I had a turned-up nose.”
With that Josie turned up her nose, giving herself such a ridiculous
expression that Mary Louise laughed merrily.
“Well that’s when I found out I could do it. I practiced holding it
like this for minutes at the time. Then I discovered I could take on a
kind of hare-lip look and in fact could do almost anything that I had
a mind to with my despised nose. So you see Chester Hunt has been a
great friend to me, unwittingly however. I fancy he’d like to get even
with me in some way besides making it possible for me to make faces
that disguise my weird beauty. Anyhow, from being a person who used
never to look in a mirror, I spent all of my spare time making faces at
myself in the glass. What do you think of this one? I held it for two
miles the other day and met Captain Lonsdale, who did not recognize me,
although he has known me forever.”
“Oh, Josie, what a face! No wonder poor Captain Charlie didn’t know
you! Who would unless he had been present at the transformation?” Mary
Louise gave Josie an affectionate hug, as she spoke.
The girls were seated in the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, which was an
industry owned and run by Josie O’Gorman and her two associates,
Elizabeth Wright and Irene MacFarlane, and watched over by the guardian
angel, Mary Louise Dexter. In the Higgledy Piggledy Shop one found a
little of everything and the youthful proprietors prided themselves on
never turning down an order, no matter how impossible it might appear.
From a small undertaking it had grown to be a business of goodly
proportions. Elizabeth Wright was the business manager and also looked
after the literary end, writing club papers for the unwary females who
had got themselves in for such things and were powerless to deliver
the goods. She also did a pretty good business in obituary notices,
corrected and typed manuscripts and ran a correspondence course in
the art of scenario writing, passing on the knowledge she had picked
up during the summer she had spent at Columbia University. Many and
varied were the duties of Elizabeth, all of which she performed with
proficiency.
The lame girl, Irene MacFarlane, had charge of all needle work. At the
beginning of the venture Irene had merely been employed by Josie and
Elizabeth, giving a few hours a day to the work, but she had proven
herself so necessary to the establishment that she had been tendered
a full partnership and now every day the brave patient girl wheeled
herself to the shop in her invalid’s chair, which she never left; and
there she sat mending lace or doing the exquisite embroidery for which
the Higgledy Piggledy Shop was famous, or even minding the store when
the other partners were out on business. She managed her chair with
the ease of an expert bicycle rider, never bumping into furniture or
scraping her wheels, but gliding across the floor, weaving her way in
and out, with a positive grace of movement.
The Higgledy Piggledy Shop was on the second floor of an old building.
In the rear was a small electric elevator, entered from the alley.
This had been originally a clumsy dumb-waiter, manipulated by creaking
pulleys and ropes, but had been converted to its present state of
useful beauty by Danny Dexter, who ever strove to serve his darling
Mary Louise and her friends. Irene would enter the small lift from the
rear through a door just large enough to admit her chair. The door was
locked and Irene alone had the key. One touch of a button would send
her to the floor above, where the door would automatically open and
then she would glide into the shop. It always seemed to the girls a
kind of miraculous vision when Irene would so silently appear.
On the day when Josie was showing Mary Louise the control she had
gained over what she had hitherto looked upon as a despised and
useless feature--at least useless as far as the detective business was
concerned in the matter of disguises, although greatly prized as to its
ability to detect tell-tale odors--Irene appeared just in time to get
the full benefit of Josie’s last and most astounding face.
It was a sad face and a sinister one, the left nostril lifted and the
right one compressed; the mouth drawn down at the corners with the
under lip protruding loosely.
Irene greeted the girls gaily but stopped embarrassed.
“I--I--beg your pardon,” she said falteringly. “I thought for a moment
you were Miss O’Gorman.”
Mary Louise laughed delightedly and try as she might Josie could not
hold her expression but broke down in hopeless giggles.
“There now, I must practice a lot or I’ll never be able to fool a
flea,” she declared. “If my risibles get the better of me there is no
use in calling myself a detective.”
Irene looked worried, although she, too, was amused.
“What’s the matter with you, honey?” asked Josie.
“I can’t bear for you to make yourself look that way,” said Irene. “It
does not seem right, somehow, to twist one’s features so far from the
way God has meant them to be. I love your dear face, Josie, and it gave
me an awful turn to see it all out of shape.”
“Bless your dear heart!” exclaimed Josie. “I promise you never to twist
it except in the cause of righteousness, unless it is in practicing. Of
course I must practice a lot to perfect my detective make-up.”
“You make me think of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I only hope making
yourself look so frightful won’t make you sad,” said Irene. “Speaking
of sad looks, I have found a person to conduct our tea room--if you
others like her as much as I do--but she is awfully sad. I don’t blame
her. No doubt she has had her troubles--is still having them, but
she is very industrious. Indeed she has need to be since two little
brothers are entirely dependent on her for support.”
The tea room was one of the Higgledy Piggledy ventures that brought
in more money than any branch of the business, but gave the girls
more trouble than all of the other industries put together. Elizabeth
Wright’s talents did not lie in a domestic direction, Irene because
of her lameness was handicapped, and Josie was too often absent on
detective business to give any time to it. There had been times when
the Higgledy Piggledies had almost determined to abandon the tea room,
but it seemed like flying in the face of Providence to give up the
steady income that accrued from it.
“Tell us about this sad person,” urged Josie.
“Her name is Ursula Ellett and she came from Louisville, Kentucky. She
is well educated and really a lady. She must be about twenty-two, but
she seems much older because she has had so much trouble. She went to
see Uncle Peter Conant on legal business and it was with him that I met
her. Her father died when she was very young and the little brothers,
Ben and Philip, were tiny tots. Her mother married again, then died two
years ago and the stepfather, who is the root of all evil and source
of all woe, wished to put them in charge of a trained nurse, a most
impossible person with whom Ursula refused to live or to allow the
little brothers to live. The stepfather, by some dishonest juggling,
has got possession of the estate which belonged to the Elletts and
refuses to do a thing for Ursula or the boys unless they live with him.
His name is Cheatham, which seems to fit him to a dot.”
“How did she happen to come to Dorfield?” asked Josie.
“Her mother’s people came from here, and while there are none of them
left Ursula felt drawn to the place because of what her mother had told
of her childhood here and the kindly neighbors. The public schools of
Dorfield have a good name and she wants to educate Ben and Philip. She
loves Louisville but could not stay in the same city with Cheatham, who
busied himself making things unpleasant for her.
“I believe she is just the girl we want for the tea room. She has
managed a household, understands servants and serving, and she is
really a fine cook. What do you say to looking her over?”
“Sure, let’s give her the job,” agreed Josie. “Of course Elizabeth must
give her vote before we can settle on it.”
“Certainly, but I’m pretty sure that what our sane Irene says is safe
for the Higgledy Piggledies,” laughed Mary Louise. “I fancy Ursula
Ellett will take charge of the tea room at an early date.”