The Policewoman
“I found it,” Melissa replied without hesitating.
“How lucky! Where?” Arden continued.
“On the beach,” Melissa went on. Then she pushed past the girls and
entered the store.
Arden did not question her further, fearing to make the girl suspicious.
But on the way home the three discussed the remarkable coincidence.
“Now, where on earth could Melissa have found that pin?” Sim asked. “Of
course, it belonged to Dimitri, and I don’t for a minute believe she
found it on the beach.”
“Nor I,” Arden agreed. “My guess is that, if she found it at all, she
found it on the houseboat. And that means she was there before we were,
because we went over it pretty thoroughly by ourselves, and the chief
didn’t miss anything when he came with us.”
“I suppose we ought to ask if he found out anything, just to keep up
appearances,” Terry suggested. “What do you think, girls?”
“Oh, of course, it would never do to let him think we had forgotten about
him. We can stop in now and ask how the case is coming,” Arden replied.
“But we don’t need to mention the telegram.”
The chief, when they pulled up by the garage, crawled out from under a
car. With a comical show of secrecy he came toward them, glancing over
his shoulder as he came.
“I ain’t had a chance to do nothing yet,” he said, wiping some grease off
his hands. “My car broke down. But I’m a-studyin’ it, and I’ll let you
know this afternoon. You heard anything?”
Arden hesitated before replying. After all, she had _heard_ nothing. That
they had an answer to their telegram was just a bit of luck, and she
thought it just as well if the chief did not know of it.
“No,” she answered. “We haven’t heard a thing.”
“Well, don’t worry,” Reilly said, smiling. “Remember, a murderer always
returns to the scene of his crime.”
“And you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” Sim flung back at
him. He did so annoy her! Imagine “studyin’ it.” What good would that do,
and what nonsense was that about a murderer?
“That’s right!” chuckled Reilly. “You know, young ladies, the whole
trouble with cases of this kind is haste. Haste is what gums things up.
Go slowly, and you have much better results. You ain’t told anyone in
town, have you? These here people are powerful talkers.”
“Not a soul, Mr. Reilly,” Arden assured him.
“You keep on studying it and let us know when you learn something, will
you?” suggested Sim.
“’Deed I will, and I’ll have some news soon, sure. In the meantime don’t
forget. Look before you leap,” the chief said, smiling.
“Yes,” Sim said as the car pulled away, “that’s good advice, and ‘he who
hesitates is lost’ is good, too.”
Reilly looked after them with a puzzled expression on his face. Was that
little snip making fun of him? Then he shrugged and crawled back under
the car he was trying to fix.
“Sim, you cheerful idiot, were you trying to make him mad?” Terry asked
as they drove home.
“No, but he annoyed me so I couldn’t help it. I don’t believe he’ll be a
bit of good. I know more about mysteries than he does.”
“But it wouldn’t do to antagonize him. After all, he’s the strong arm of
the law down here,” Arden reminded her.
“Not such a very strong arm, in my opinion,” Sim answered, and she
slipped deeper down in the car seat.
“Oh, well, don’t let’s argue,” Terry soothed. “We’ve got too much to
think about now.”
Sim was instantly alert again. “I remember distinctly seeing that pin in
Dimitri’s tie the day he showed us the snuffbox. Melissa knows more than
we think,” she said.
“We don’t know very much when you come right down to it,” Arden reminded
her. “If a real detective questioned us, there’s very little we could
tell him.”
“How long will it take that Serge Uzlov to get down?” Sim asked of no one
in particular. “I wish he’d take a plane.”
“There’s no place here at Marshlands for a plane to alight,” Terry
answered. “Unless he took a seaplane and landed on the bay. Think what
excitement that would cause!”
“I suppose so,” Sim admitted as they turned in the driveway. “We’ll just
have to wait. I won’t have a fingernail left by evening. I chewed them
nearly all off waiting for that phone call.”
Terry whistled for her mother. At the sound of that shrill call, Mrs.
Landry, try as she did to appear rather uninterested in the whole
baffling case, came out of the house quickly and listened with great
interest to the story of the message.
“And, Mother,” Terry finished, “as we left the store we met Melissa
coming in, and she was wearing a tie pin of Dimitri’s. What do you think
of that?”
“Did you say anything about it?” Mrs. Landry asked.
“We didn’t let her know we recognized it, and she said she found it on
the beach,” Terry answered.
“Perhaps she did. Surely you don’t think Melissa had anything to do with
all this?” Mrs. Landry questioned.
“That’s just it. We don’t know _who_ had anything to do with it,” Terry
moaned.
“Well,” Sim stated firmly, “I’ll feel better when that man from New York
gets here. I’ll bet he knows something.”
The others had nothing to say to that, and they all went indoors for
luncheon.
The meal was nearly finished when there was a knock at the front door.
Bells in seashore cottages never seem to ring. They may at the beginning
of the season, but almost always, before it ends, there appears over the
push button a little note stating: “Please knock.”
Now, in answer to that invitation, a knock sounded.
“I’ll go,” said Ida, who had just brought in the dessert.
The three girls glanced eagerly at one another.
Was it Serge?
But in another moment they knew it was not, for they heard the murmuring
of a woman’s voice talking to the maid. Presently Ida came back, a
frightened look on her face, to announce:
“It’s a policewoman.”
“A policewoman!” exclaimed Mrs. Landry. “Are you sure, Ida?”
“Oh, yes’m. I’ve seen ’em in New York. They all dress the same, and they
have a queer look on their face, and they wear heavy shoes. It’s a
policewoman all right.”
“But what does she want?” Terry asked.
“Melissa Clayton,” said Ida.
“Oh!” murmured Arden. “If they arrest that poor child——”
“Perhaps we’d better have this policewoman in,” suggested Mrs. Landry.
“Oh, yes!” said Sim. “We’ve got to find out about this. Perhaps she may
know something about Dimitri.”