Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustration.
See 42133-h.htm or 42133-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/42133/pg42133-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42133/42133-h.zip)
[Illustration: _During his absence she went back of the counter._
(frontispiece)]
BOBS, A GIRL DETECTIVE
by
CAROL NORTON
The Saalfield Publishing Company
Akron, Ohio New York
Copyright MCMXXVIII
By 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 reverberate
through our ancestral halls, the problem before the house is what shall
the 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 catastrophe
that we have just been through and are still in, for that matter."
Gwendolyn tapped her bronze-slippered toe impatiently as she sat in a
luxuriously upholstered chair in what, until this past week, had been the
library in the Long Island home of the proud family of Vandergrifts.
Gloria, the oldest of the four girls, ceased to smile but the pleasant
expression, which was habitual to the blue eyes, did not entirely vanish
as she inquired, "What would you have me do, Gwen? Fret and fume as you
are doing? That is no way to readjust your life to new and changed
conditions. Face the facts squarely, say I, and then try to find some way
to surmount your difficulties. Now first of all, we ought----"
The dark, handsome Gwendolyn, whose natural selfishness was plainly
portrayed in a drooping mouth and petulant expression, put her fingers in
her ears, saying: "If you are going to preach, I can assure you that I am
not 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 us
scrapping. It effects her sensitive soul as discord effects a true
musician."
Lena May entered through the porch door, her arms filled with blossoming
branches.
"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 the
other. "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 to
read, as she exclaimed, "You both know perfectly well than nothing could
be in more of a muddle than our lives are at the present moment and your
'look for the silver lining,' philosophy, Gloria Vandergrift, doesn't
help _me_ in the least."
The fawn-like eyes of the frail, youngest sister turned inquiringly
toward 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 than
beyond 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 good
faith, 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 did
Father employ him, if he cannot attend to our legal matters?"
"But, Gwen, dear, can't you understand?" Gloria began to explain with
infinite patience. "When Father died, leaving four orphaned daughters, we
knew that the fortune he had inherited had been lost through unwise
investments, but we did think that the income from this vast acreage and
the tenants would be sufficient to permit us to live in about the same
comfortable way that we always have, but now we find that even this place
is 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 of
apple 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 a
hoidenish young girl of 17 could be seen riding astride a slender
high-spirited black horse with a white star in his forehead.
"I do wish Roberta wouldn't wear that outlandish costume," Gwendolyn
began, "and what's more I can't see why she wants to be galloping around
the country in that fashion when a calamity like this is staring us in
the face."
The horse had disappeared beyond the shrubbery. The sisters supposed that
the young rider would go down to the stables and so they were somewhat
startled, a second later, by seeing Bobs vault over the sill of an open
window and land in their midst.
Gwendolyn, of course, rebuked her. "Roberta Vandergrift, aren't you ever
going 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, more
than ever, we need a man in the family. But come, let's talk peaceably
together and decide what we are to do."
"All right," Roberta tossed her hat to one side and sat tailor-wise on
the floor, adding: "Fire ahead, I'm present."
"Such language," was what Gwendolyn refrained from saying, but Bobs
chuckled in wicked glee. She thought it jolly fun to shock "Miss Prunes
and Prisms," as she called the sister but one year her senior.
"Gloria, whatever you suggest, I know will be best," little Lena May
said, 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, I
don't know that I have made one very far ahead, but of course we must
leave here. That is the inevitable, and, equally of course, we must find
some way of earning our daily bread."
"Bread, indeed," sniffed the disdainful Gwendolyn. "You know that I never
eat such a plebian thing as bread."
"Well, you may work to earn cake if you prefer," Bobs told her, then
leaning forward she added eagerly: "I say, Gloria, it's going to be a
great adventure, isn't it? I've always been so envious of people who
actually earned their own way in the world. It shows there is something
in them. Anyone can be a parasite, but the person who is worth while
isn't contented to be one. Ever since Kathryn De Laney went to little old
New York town to take a course in nursing that she might do something big
in the world, I've had the itch to do likewise. Getting up at noon and
then dwaddling away the hours until midnight is all very well for those
who like it, but not for mine! I've been wishing that something would jar
us 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, from
Gwen. "A girl with a million in her own name could hire people to do all
the nursing she wished done without going into dirty, slummy places
herself, and actually waiting on immigrants, the very sight of whom would
make me feel ill. I never even permit Hawkins to drive me through the
poorer sections of the city and, if I am obliged to pass through the
tenement district, I close the windows that I need not breath the
polluted 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 one
resemblance to that dear little woman who, when the squalid hamlet down
by the sound was burned, opened her home and took them all in. We were
too small to remember it ourselves, but I've heard Father tell about it
time and again, and he would always end the story by saying, 'My dearest
wish is that my four girls each grow up to be just such an angel woman as
their mother was.'"
"Nor was that all," Lena May put in, a tender light glowing in her soft
brown eyes. "Mother herself superintended the rebuilding of the hamlet
which has now grown to be the model town along the sound." Then, looking
lovingly up at the oldest sister, she continued: "I'm glad, Gloria, that
you are so like our mother. But you haven't as yet told me your plan and
I 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," Gloria
replied. "I suppose the best thing would be for us to go to New York,
where so many varieties of endeavor await us. Mr. Corey thinks that there
will be about one hundred dollars a month for us to live on. That will be
twenty-five dollars for each of us, and----"
"Twenty-five dollars, indeed? I can't even get a hat for that, and I
certainly shall need one to wear to Phyllis De Laney's lawn party on the
18th of June if----"
"But you won't be here then, Gwen, so you might as well not plan to
attend," Gloria said seriously. "We are obliged to vacate this place by
the first of June. The Grabbersteins, who claim their ancestors were the
original owners, will move in on that day, bag and baggage, and so my
suggestion is that we leave the week previous, that we need not meet
them."
"Have you thought what you will do to earn money?" Lena May asked Gloria.
"Yes. Miss Lovejoy of the East Seventy-seventh Street Settlement has
asked me to take charge of the girls' clubs and I have accepted."
"Gloria Vandergrift; you, a daughter of one of the very oldest families
in this country, to work, actually work in those dreadful smelling
slums."
Gloria looked almost with pity at the speaker, who, of course, was
Gwendolyn, as she said: "Do you realize that being born an aristocrat is
merely an accident? You might have been born in the slums, Gwen, and if
you had been, wouldn't you be glad to have someone come to you and give
you a chance?"
There being no reply, Gloria continued: "I take no credit to myself
because I happened to be born in luxury and not in poverty, but we'll
have to postpone this conversation, for our neighbors are evidently
coming to call."
Bobs sprang to her feet and leaped to the open window. "Hello there, Phyl
and Dick! Come around this way and I'll open the porch door."
Gwendolyn shrugged her shoulders. "Why doesn't Roberta allow Peter to
admit our visitors," she began, but Gloria interrupted: "One excellent
reason, perhaps, is that all our servants except the cook left this
morning. You, of course, were still asleep and did not know of the
exodus."
The sharp retort on the tongue of Gwendolyn was not uttered, for Phyllis
De Laney and her big, good-looking brother, Richard, were entering the
library.
"You poor dear girls! Just as soon as I heard the news I came right
over," Phyllis De Laney exclaimed as she sank down in a deep, comfortable
chair and looked about at her friends with an expression of frank
curiosity on her doll-pretty face. "However, I told Ma Mere that I knew
there wasn't a word of truth in the scandalous gossip, and so I came to
hear how it all started that I may be able to contradict it." Phyllis
took a breath and then continued her chatter: "Your maid, Gwen, told my
Fanchon, and she said that every servant in your employ had been
dismissed with two weeks' advance pay; and she said a good deal more than
that too, which, of course, isn't true. Just listen to this and then tell
me if it isn't simply scandalous. That maid declared that you girls are
going to work, actually work, to earn your own living."
"I'll say it's true!" Roberta put in, grinning with wicked glee. Her good
pal, Dick, smiled over at her as he remarked with evident amusement: "You
don'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 or
Greek. If languages are dead, bury them, I say. I'm not a student by
nature, 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 dwaddle
away our lives spending it. Of course I'm nineteen now, but you wait
until I'm twenty-one years old and see what will happen."
His sister Phyllis lifted her eyebrows ever so slightly and looked her
disapproval. "In that time you will have changed your mind," she
remarked. 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, and
her reply was most ungraciously given. Curtly she stated that she did not
care to discuss her personal affairs with anyone.
Phyllis flushed and rose at once, saying coldly: "Indeed? Since when have
you become so secretive? You always tell me everything you do and so I
had 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 you
are going to New York to work, I suppose as clerks in the shops, we will
not likely meet again."
"Aw, I say, Sis, cut it out! What's the big idea, anyway? A friend is a
friend, isn't he, whether he wears broadcloth or overalls?" Then as his
sister continued to sweep out of the room, the lad crossed to the oldest
sister and held out his hand, saying, with sincere boyish sympathy,
"Gloria, I'm mighty sorry about this--er--this--well, whatever it is, and
please let me know where you go, and as soon as you're settled I'll run
over and play the big brother act, if you'll let me."
Then, turning to Bobs, he said: "Go riding with me at sunrise tomorrow
morning, 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 off
to 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 were
little shavers."
When the door closed behind the departing guests Gloria turned to the
sister, who was but one year her junior, and said: "Gwendolyn, I am sorry
to say this, but the good of the larger number requires it. If you cannot
face the changed conditions cheerfully with us, I shall have to ask you
to make your plans independent of us. We three have decided to be brave
and courageous, and try to find joy and happiness in whatever may present
itself, just as our mother and father would wish us to do, and just as
they would have done had similar circumstances overtaken them."
Gwendolyn rose and walked toward the door, but turned to say, "You need
not concern yourselves about me in the least. I shall not go with you to
New York. I shall visit my dear friend Eloise Rochester in Newport, as
she 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 nor
wealth. If I am anything of a character reader, I should say that the
invitation 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 to
marry Richard De Laney's million-dollar inheritance, and since Phyllis
will not invite her to their home you, as a next-door neighbor, can be
used to advantage."
"Indeed? Well, luckily Miss Vandergrift, you are _not_ a character
reader, as you will learn in the near future. You three make whatever
plans you wish, but do not include me." So saying, Gwendolyn left the
room and a few moments later the three sisters heard her moving about in
the 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 vengeance
upon Mother for having discharged her, or something like that, and so she
stole the child who really was our sister and left this----"
"Don't, Bobsie!" Lena May protested. "Even if Gwen is selfish, maybe we
are to blame. She was ill for so long after Mother died that we couldn't
bear the thought of having two deaths, and so we rather spoiled her. I
believe that if we meet her contrariness with love and are very patient
we may find the gold that must be in her nature, since she _is_ our
mother'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 me
from going."
Gloria smiled at her hoidenish sister but refrained from commenting on
her language. She was so thankful that there was only one Gwen in the
family that she could overlook lesser failings. Bobs was taking the
mishap that had befallen them as a great adventure, but even she did not
dream of the truly exciting adventures that lay before them.