STUDYING THE MYSTERY.
Is there any wonder that Marion Stanlock, after reading letter No. 2
was seriously in doubt as to whether No. 1 was from the Scouts who had
promised another surprise for the Camp Fire Girls in the near future?
Judge for yourself--here is No. 1:
Something Doing Soon
Look Out
SOMETHING DOING SOON
LOOK OUT
=SOMETHING DOING SOON
LOOK OUT!=
That was all. The second letter read thus:
"Miss Stanlock: This is to serve you with warning not to take your
friends with you to Hollyhill this vacation to work among the poor
families of the striking miners. We know that move of yours is
inspired by the rankest hypocrisy, that you have no genuine desire to
do anything for our starving families. This move of yours, we know,
was planned by that villainous father of yours to cloud the big issue
of our fight. If you do carry out your plans, some of you are liable
to get hurt, and it need not surprise anybody if some of you never get
back to Westmoreland alive.
Go Slow! Be Careful! Look Out!"
Marion was not easily panic-stricken, but it is of the nature of a
truism to say that this letter applied the severest test to her
nerves. That the writer was in deep earnest she had no reason to
doubt. She had read of so many crimes preceded by threatening letters
of this sort that the suggestion did not come to her to regard this
one lightly. Although there was no common basis for comparing the
handwriting of the two missives, one being lettered in Roman capitals
and the other in ordinary script, nevertheless she quickly dismissed
the first suspicion that letter No. 1 was written by Clifford Long or
some other Scout of Spring Lake academy. Both ended with the words
"Look Out." Plainly this was a result of carelessness on the part of
the writer. Evidently he had planned to cause her to believe that the
two letters were written by different persons, for he had taken the
pains of differentiating the superscriptions on the envelopes as well
as the contents within.
But now the question was, What should she do? It was no more than fair
and just for her to inform the girls what they might expect if they
attempted to carry out their original plan, but what method should she
pursue to convey to them this information? She might go at the matter
bluntly and create something of a panic; then again she might so
handle it that the best possible result could be obtained in a quiet
and orderly manner.
Marion felt in this crisis that a great responsibility rested on her
to handle the problem with all the skill and intelligence at her
command. She longed for the counsel of an older and more experienced
head, but there was none present, except Miss Ladd, the Guardian of
the Fire, to whom she might go with her story. The latter, though she
came well within the requirements of the national board to fill the
position which she held, was nevertheless a young woman in the
sensitive sense of the phrase and could hardly be expected to give the
best of executive advice under the circumstances. Marion realized that
it was her duty to exhibit to Miss Ladd the letters she had received,
but if she did this at once, the act would amount to turning the whole
matter over to her and relinquishing the initiative herself, she
reasoned.
Marion was naturally aggressive, and she was not favorably impressed
with the idea of leaving the affair in the hands of another unless
that person were peculiarly fitted to handle it. As she sat studying
over the problem she suddenly became conscious of the presence of
another person close beside her, and looking up she saw Helen Nash,
with an expression of startled intelligence in her eyes. Apparently
her attention had been attracted by the crude drawing of a skull and
cross-bones at the close of the letter lying open in her lap.
"I beg your pardon, Marion," said Helen with an evident effort at
self-control. "I didn't mean to intrude. I hope you'll forgive me for
something quite unintentional."
"Certainly, Helen," Marion replied generously, "and since a chance
look has informed you of the nature of these letters and I want to
talk this affair over with somebody, I think I may as well talk it
over with you. Let's go down to the other end of the car where we
aren't likely to be disturbed."
Accordingly they moved up to the front of the car where they took
possession of two chairs and soon were so deeply absorbed in the
problem at hand as to excite the wonder and curiosity of the other
Camp Fire Girls.
Marion handed the two anonymous letters to her friend without
introductory remark, and the latter read them. As Marion watched the
expression on the reader's face, she was forced to admit to herself
that right then, under those seemingly impersonal circumstances,
Helen's habitual strangeness of manner was more pronounced than she
had ever before known it to be. This girl of impenetrable secrecy read
the letters, seemingly with an abstraction amounting almost to
inattention, while physically she appeared to shrink from something
that to her alone was visible and real.
As she finished reading, Helen looked up at her friend and the gaze of
penetrating curiosity that she saw in Marion's eyes caused her to
blush with confusion. Unable to meet her friend's gaze steadily, she
shifted her eyes toward the most uninteresting part of the car, the
floor, and said:
"That looks like a dangerous letter. It ought to be turned over to the
police as soon as possible."
"Both of them, don't you think?" Marion inquired.
"Why? I don't see anything in this shorter one. My guess would be that
it was written by your cousin or one of his friends."
"But do you notice the way they both end?--the same words," Marion
insisted.
"Yes, I noticed that," Helen replied slowly. But that is such a
common, ordinary expression, almost like 'a,' 'an,' or 'the,' that it
doesn't mean much to me here. Where are the letters postmarked?"
"Both in Westmoreland."
"That's something in favor of your suspicion that both letters were
written by the same person," Helen admitted. "Still it doesn't
convince me. You wouldn't expect the Spring Lake boys to mail a letter
like the shorter one at Spring Lake, would you? That would stamp its
identity right away."
"You are sure those letters were written by different persons?" Marion
inquired curiously.
"I don't think it makes any difference whether they were or not,"
Helen answered more decisively than she had spoken before. "It is in
that skull-and-cross-bones letter that you are most interested. I
think you can disregard the other entirely. I would say this,
however, that if both were written by one person, you have less to
fear than if the shorter one was written by your cousin or one of his
friends."
"Why?"
"Because if one person wrote both of them, he is probably suffering
from softening of the brain. But if the person who wrote the longer
one did not write the shorter one, there is more likelihood that he
means business and will attempt to carry out his threat."
"I never realized that you were such a Sherlock Holmes," Marion
exclaimed enthusiastically, while the suggestion came to her that
perhaps a genius for this sort of thing accounted for her friend's
peculiarities. "You ought to be a detective for a department store to
catch shoplifters."
"Thanks, Marion, for the compliment, but I am not inclined that way.
I'd rather do something in this case to keep our vacation plans from
ending in trouble."
"I was looking for someone who could advise me," Marion said; "and I
am now convinced that you are just the person I was looking for. What
do you think I ought to do, Helen?"
"All the girls ought to know about this letter," Helen replied. "But
you can't go to them and blurt out anything so sensational. We must
break the news gently, as they say in melodrama. I wish we hadn't
come."
"So do I," Marion replied, but with just a suggestion of
disappointment in her voice.
"Not that I am afraid of getting hurt," Helen added hastily, realizing
the suspicion of cowardice that might rest against her. "Still, if my
advice had been asked, I would have argued against this very dangerous
vacation scheme of yours."
"Why?" inquired Marion in a tone of disappointment.
"Because of the very situation complained of in that
skull-and-cross-bones letter. I hope I don't hurt your feelings,
Marion, but it is very natural for some of these rough miners to
suspect that your plan was cooked up by your father to pull the wool
over their eyes, and to regard you as a tool employed by him to put
the scheme into operation."
"Some of the girls' parents raised the objection that there might be
danger in a mining district during a strike, but none of them
suggested anything of this sort," Marion remarked with humble anxiety.
"I explained to them that there could hardly be any danger even if the
strikers should get ugly, as the mines are some distance from where we
live and any violence on the part of the miners would surely be
committed at the scene of their labors. This seemed to satisfy them.
Most of the miners live at the south end of the town or along the
electric line running from Hollyhill to the mines."
"That doesn't make much difference if the miners once get it into
their heads that the girls are being used to put over a confidence
game on them," Helen argued authoritatively. "Miners are peculiar
people, especially if they are lead by radical leaders of aggressive
purpose. They believe that they are a badly misused set, turning out
the wealth of the wealthy, who repay them by holding them in contempt,
keeping their wages down to a minimum and pressing them into social
and political subjection."
"Where did you learn all that, Helen?" Marion asked wonderingly. "You
are not even studying sociology at school. You talk like a person of
experience."
"My father was a miner," Helen began. Then she stopped, and Marion saw
from the expression in her eyes and the twitch of her mouth that a big
lump in her throat had interrupted her explanation. She seemed to be
making an effort to continue, but was unable to do so.
"Never mind, Helen," said Marion, taking her hand tenderly in her own.
"I am more convinced than ever that I found just the right person to
advise me when I laid this matter before you. We will try to work this
problem out together. Meanwhile we must take Miss Ladd into our
confidence. Why, here she is now."
* * * * *