The S. P. Mystery

Copyright MCMXXX THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY The S. P. Mystery

Made in the United States of America

CHAPTER I HOW IT ALL STARTED

Jean Gordon rushed into the house, her face all aglow. There was some fire within which made her eyes bright and the sharp wind, which came from lakes not too far away, gave her rosy cheeks and nipped her nose as well.

Without stopping in the hall to take off her pretty red coat or the close little hat that left little but eyes, nose and mouth to be seen, she opened the door into the dining-room, from which the sound of her mother’s machine could be heard.

“O Mother! May I have the room in the attic for a club room?”

Jean had opened this door a little more decorously and now she closed it more softly than she had opened and closed the front door, whose bang her mother must have heard. With an4 amused smile Mrs. Gordon turned from her work. “Is this my dear hurricane, home from school?”

“It is,” laughed Jean. “Please excuse the front door, Mother. It slipped out of my hand. And I suppose I should not have shouted right out. Good afternoon, fair lady!” A deep courtesy was made in grave exaggeration before Jean ran to her mother and deposited a quick kiss upon her cheek.

“Your apology is accepted, Miss Gordon,” said Jean’s mother, with a pat upon the cold hand which Jean laid upon her chair. “Now, what is it that you want?”

“The attic room for a club,—please, Mother!”

“It is cold up there,” returned Mrs. Gordon, starting to baste the hem of a blouse which she was making for Jean.

“Oh, that is going to be precious!” exclaimed Jean, stopping to look at the garment. “I’ll be all fixed for school now. I don’t see what makes me get so shabby.”

“Nor do I,” said Mrs. Gordon with a comical look. “But clothes will wear out.”

Jean sat on the arm of her mother’s chair to continue the original subject. “There’s a radiator there, isn’t there, Mother? Couldn’t the heat be turned on?”

5 “I suppose so; but that one always turned hard, and it has not been used for a long time. But why the pressing need of a club room and who will clean it?”

Jean laughed. “Ay, there’s the rub! I hope you appreciate my smart remark, Mother. But March is almost time for house-cleaning, isn’t it? Besides, the club members will fix up the room. I promise not to bother you about it. There isn’t much in it. Why couldn’t we have the old chairs that are in the rest of the attic?”

“You could. You may. Tell me about the club. This is something new, isn’t it?”

“Rather; but if you don’t mind, Mother, I’ll tell you more about it tonight. There is a reason why I have to call up the girls right away!”

“Run along, then.” Mrs. Gordon looked after her daughter with a twinkle in the brown eyes that were so much like Jean’s. What new scheme did those children have now?

Jean pulled off her hat and hung it upon the hall rack, but without removing her coat she sat down at the little table near to telephone.

“No, Central, it’s one—O—two—O, please,—yes, X.”

A long pause made Jean tap her feet impatiently while she waited. Why didn’t Central6 ring again? But here came the “hello” Jean wanted. “Hello, Molly. I’m glad that’s you. Can you call up Phoebe and Bess and Fran for me and all of you come right over? There’s something I have to see you about right away. It’s terribly important and I want to get everybody here the first minute possible, or I wouldn’t ask you to telephone. I’ve just got to see you before the party tonight! Oh, good! Thank you so much. Tell them there’s a mystery and that’ll bring ’em. I’m going to get Nan over and start making fudge. Wasn’t it grand that we got out of school so early?”

Molly evidently agreed that it was “grand,” and in a moment the receiver was hung up, Jean hanging up her coat in the interval between calls.

Again Jean was sitting at the small table. “That you, Nan? Since I saw you something has happened and if you want your old Jean vindicated, as ’twere, come on over and help me out. Just walk right in, because I’ll probably be telephoning, or may be, anyhow. We’ll make some fudge before the girls get here. What? Oh, I’ll ‘splain’ when you get here. I’ve a great scheme,—only maybe you won’t like it, of course.”

Nan must have asserted her interest in Jean’s7 schemes, for Jean turned from the telephone with a dimple in one cheek fully evident and a funny quirk in her smile. Nan was her chum in chief, and a girl of some originality. What Jean could not think of, Nan proposed. Between them had some interesting experiences, though usually within the bounds imposed by their very sensible parents.

Next, a number had to be looked up. “I do hate to call the Dudley’s,” Jean was thinking. She stood a moment, thinking, then went on a run through the hall and into the kitchen, neat and clean and orderly. Jean made a dash for the aluminum sauce-pan in which she always made her fudge. Another dash, and she had measured out the sugar, put a cup under the faucet for water, set out another pan, to receive the fudge when done, a bottle of flavoring extract and a big spoon. Then she looked for milk and butter, changing her mind a time or two about the ingredients.

While Jean was in the midst of these hurried proceedings, the kitchen door opened after a short rap and a girl with a blue coat over her head and shoulders came in, though stopping in the door to take off her rubbers. “My, it’s muddy in your back yard, Jean,” said she. “I just took a notion to come over this way, since8 you said fudge. Why aren’t you telephoning?”

The enveloping coat came off as Nan Standish talked, revealing a girl of about Jean’s height, the usual height of girls about fifteen. Nan’s clear eyes were blue and her hair fluffy and yellow. She was as light on her feet as Jean and came dancing over to where Jean stood. “Here, just skeedoodle, Jean Gordon. I’ll start this, while you do whatever else you want to do. I’m dying to know what it’s all about.”

“I’ve only got one more place to telephone, Nan. I’ve decided to use milk instead of water, since there seems to be plenty. So put in one cup to the three cups of sugar, already measured. See? I’ll be back in a minute and tell you all about it, the plan, I mean, not the fudge.”

“Yes, I’ve made fudge with you before. Trot along.”

Jean trotted. “Is this Mrs. Dudley?” she asked, when she had the proper number. “This is Jean Gordon. Would it be too much trouble to ask Leigh to come to the telephone?”

Jean’s tone was very formal now. She did not know Mrs. Dudley very well, and she stood just a little in awe of the Dudley formality as expressed in Leigh. But Phoebe would not enjoy9 a club without Leigh, and Leigh was a girl that any club would be glad to have. To do without Phoebe, too, was not to be thought of!

It was plainly not too much trouble to notify Leigh, for presently she came to talk with Jean. “A little meeting of a few girls, Jean,—to do something about something? That’s very clear!” Leigh’s low laugh came over the wire. “Why the mystery? Yes, of course, I’ll come, and stop for Phoebe, too. Oh, it may be fifteen minutes. I’ll have to tell Mother and get my wraps. I’m terribly curious.”

“Wasn’t that nice, Nan?” asked Jean, in the kitchen again. “Phoebe told me yesterday that Leigh is just shy, being new here this year, you know, and not knowing any of the girls before.”

“We-ell,” Nan replied, with a spoonful of the hot fudge to try it in a glass of cold water, “I do think that the Dudleys think pretty well of themselves, with that big place and all,—but I suppose, for that matter, all of our families do, and Leigh—gracious, Jean, this fudge is ready to come off! Is that the pan of cold water to set this in?”

The fudge cooling before being beaten, our two girls linked arms and ran upstairs to Jean’s room, where with many giggles Jean imparted her news to her friend. “Do you think it was10 so awful, Nan?” she asked. “I feel dreadfully guilty, yet I just did it on the spur of the moment and if you girls only do it, it will be a lot of fun.”

“Of course it will. I’m for it, Jean. Why haven’t we done it before?”

“But how about the name? Do you suppose—?”

“Oh, that will be all right. If I were you I’d tell them all about it. What is a secret society without a secret to keep? Jimmy has been awfully smart about his pin, and if we could keep it quiet about our plans—”

“Especially as we haven’t any,” laughed Jean.

“Yes, but they need not know that. Oh, there’s the doorbell! The girls are coming. I’ll slip down the back stairs and beat that fudge while you let them all in. But don’t do anything till I get there,—please!”

“Not a word, Nan. It shall remain a mystery till you come in. But don’t you want some help beating that fudge?”

“Not necessarily, Jean, but send anybody out you like.”

By this time Jean was at the foot of the front stairs to open the door, and Nan’s quick feet were pattering down the uncarpeted back stairs11 to the kitchen. The Gordon home was almost like her own.

The last girl to be reached by telephone was the first to arrive. Leigh Dudley and Phoebe Wood stood at the Gordon door, giving bright greetings to Jean’s welcoming words. “Come right in,” she cordially urged. “Isn’t this a March wind, though?”

Leigh was taller than Jean, with a vivid color, almost black hair and dark blue eyes. She slipped out of a handsome fur coat, which Jean took from her and put upon a hanger. Phoebe, little and dark and quick, waited upon herself. A wood fire was burning in the living room fireplace and to this the girls betook themselves, warming cold hands.

As Leigh rubbed her hands together in front of the blaze, she said, “I thought at first that you wanted us for something about the party. Phoebe thought it a birthday party. Do you suppose we ought to give a present?”

“No,” replied Jean. “I know that it is not a birthday celebration. Excuse me,—there come Molly with Bess and Fran. Oh, look at Fran’s new hat. Isn’t it darling?”

With this Jean flew to the hall again, while Leigh and Phoebe looked out of the window to behold the “darling” hat, a very cocky felt affair.12 Only girls could have told any difference in the style from those of the other girls. “Isn’t it a shame that Fran had to get a new hat this late in the winter?” asked Phoebe.

“Why did she? They’re wearing straw hats now in some places.”

“Why, don’t you know, on the bob-sled last night Fran’s hat got knocked off and Jimmy Standish stepped right into it and through it! Fran managed to fix it up enough to wear to school this morning. Then at noon Fran went and got a wonderful bargain because it is so late.”

More raw breezes entered with the newcomers, who talked about how the snow had turned to slush and how raw the wind was and how Fran would have her hat for “next fall” if the styles didn’t change. Then Nan came in with a plate of fudge, divided into squares and still hot. “Your mother came out and gave me the plate, Jean,” said she.

The girls ate fudge and toasted their toes by the fire. Molly French was a plump, happy looking girl with a way of looking at one and considering a moment before she spoke. “Molly always thinks twice before she speaks,” said the girls sometimes. But then Molly was “the preacher’s” daughter.

13 Frances Lockhart was as tall as Leigh and very thin. But her features were good and her humor so jolly that even if her clothes usually hung on her, as she herself declared, “Fran” was very popular in her class at school, as well as with other young friends. Bess or Elizabeth Crane had grown up “next door” to Frances, as Nan and Jean had lived. Now both girls were united in an admiration and friendship that bound them to the capable and friendly Molly, whose father was their minister. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the appearance of Bess. Brown hair, hazel eyes, a nose inclined to turn up a trifle and a slight figure as graceful as Fran’s was awkward, were what one would observe as Bess entered the room.

Like so many butterflies settling after uncertain movements, Jean’s guests turned from the closer proximity to the fire and took seats. Four of them bounced on the cushion-covered springs of the big davenport that was placed at an angle where the cozy warmth of the fire reached them. Leigh sank into a big over-stuffed chair. Nan perched on its arm, as she happened to be near with the plate of fudge, just passed again. Jean, now thinking thoughts of new presidents or promoters of clubs, stood14 with her hand on one end of the mantel and surveyed the girls with a smile half embarrassed.

“What’s the great excitement, Jean?” asked practical Molly, tossing back a flaxen bob and leaning forward on the davenport, with her hands around one knee. “What scheme have you and Nan gotten up now?”

Blue eyes and brown eyes exchanged an amused look, though Jean grew rather sober, while Nan spoke up. “I haven’t a thing to do with this one, except to stand by Jean. She’ll explain.”

“All right. Explain and satisfy our curiosity, Jean, or else forever after hold your peace!”

“There must have been a wedding at the parsonage, girls,” suggested Fran. “Were you a witness, Molly?”

“Not this time. Go on, Jean, and tell. I have to get home early and help get supper.”

“All right, Molly. I’m just thinking it out. This is a ‘S. O. S.’ call girls, and if you don’t help me out, I’m disgraced for life, I guess.”

“It is very serious,” remarked Nan, with mock soberness and an air as important as she could manage while still holding the fudge plate, sadly depleted.

CHAPTER II SEVEN S. P.’S

Jean now drew up a straight chair and sat down, facing the others from the other corner of the mantel. Then she began, soberly at first, but frequently displaying her pretty dimple in smiles, chuckles and even grins as her story proceeded.

“It’s this way, girls. We just—simply—have to have a club, and I don’t mean an ordinary club or society, but something different, a secret club!”

“Sakes!” exclaimed Molly, “something like Grace’s sorority at college?”

“No. That wouldn’t be any fun for us. Well, perhaps. But have you noticed how mysterious some of the boys have been lately?”

Several girls said that they had not seen anything unusual. Leigh remarked that she never paid any attention to what they did, except at parties. But Molly remembered that when they were skating recently “a knot of the boys” drew together, talking about something and that16 when she and Bess happened to skate near them, to avoid a rough place in the ice, “the bunch” broke up and skated apart.

“How about Jimmy, Nan?” asked Molly.

“He’s in it, but the first I noticed was his new pin, this morning, though he may have been wearing it before, out of sight. When I asked him about it, he said, ‘Oh nothing. Bottle up your curiosity, Nan’!”

This called forth various comments on brothers and whether the boys’ club was a senior fraternity or not. Jean waited till the opportunity came.

“No, it can’t be a real fraternity,” said she, “for they aren’t allowed. Besides Billy Baxter belongs and he’s only a sophomore, like us. Nobody wants to know, of course, just what boys do; but this time they have gotten up some sort of a secret society and feel so snippy about it that we just ought to do something, too.”

“And be called ‘copy-cats’,” Nan suggested.

“Yes, that’s so,” acknowledged Jean. “But just wait a minute. Perhaps you won’t think that what I did was so terrible, then; for I thought of that, too. Billy, you know, comes home my way from school, and tonight he whistled and called ‘Je-an,’ and caught up with me. Well, in a minute I knew it wasn’t for anything17 else than to show me his new pin and crow over us girls a little. I didn’t know about Jimmy, of course, and there must be several sophomores in it, I’m sure. We’ll have to find out how big a crowd belongs.” A wide grin now almost obscured the dimple in Jean’s cheek.

“Girls, they call themselves ‘The Black Wizards’ and their pin is a most terrible lookin’ snake in a queer W! Billy was full of it, and by a few little innocent questions I got a lot of news! I wasn’t pretending either, when I told him that I was awfully interested, and that it must be fine and lots of fun. I imagine that they must have made it up to wear their pins,—they’d just come,—and not keep everything to themselves any longer.

“So I said, ‘Why isn’t that grand,—just like us girls, only, only we haven’t such a scary sign as a snake, and our pins haven’t come yet!’” With this Jean looked around with an expression like that of the cat after it had eaten the canary.

“Oh, you whopper-teller!” cried Molly. “And did you say it after he told you they wouldn’t keep the fact of their having a club secret any longer?”

“Oh, no! I put that in just now. He just said that the boys had a new club, and told me18 the name and how they had lots of great plans and things like that. What I said wasn’t exactly untrue, for I formed a club of one member then and there, and I felt pretty sure that Nan would help me out, so I could say ‘girls,’—and Billy was gloating so!

“There isn’t a thing in this little town like Girl Scouts or Camp Fire Girls or anything, and nobody to start them. Don’t you think that we ought to have something besides the school societies and the church things, Molly?”

Molly gave Jean a look of amusement. “It would be fun,” she answered.

“It’s a jolly idea,” said Fran decisively. “Go on, Jean. What else did you and Billy say?”

“Of course Billy wouldn’t believe me. ‘You’re just kidding,’ he said. ‘But if we get up a secret club, of course you girls would have to have one, too! What’s the name of yours, if you have one?’ I could see that he was real suspicious, and I didn’t blame him. It did look suspicious!”

Nan almost fell off the arm of Leigh’s chair at this, and the fudge plate tilted precariously. “I should think it did!” she cried.

While the girls laughed, Jean dimpled and rose to take the fudge plate from Nan, passing19 it around once more. Placing the plate upon the mantel, she continued:

“‘It isn’t best to tell our name yet,’ I said to Billy. ‘It’s sort of secret, too’.”

“I should say so!” gasped Leigh.

“Sh-sh,” said Phoebe. “Let Jean tell it.”

“Billy said much the same thing, Leigh,” laughed Jean. “He said, ‘Yes it is!—’cause you haven’t any!’

“‘I’ll tell you the initials,’ I said,—thinking awfully fast, girls! But I couldn’t seem to think of a thing but ‘Busy Bees’ or ‘Happy Hearts’ or something like that. Just then we passed a sign that said ‘S. P. Smith,’ so I tossed my head a little and said, ‘They’re S. P. What do you think of that, now?’ I was getting in deeper and deeper, you see.”

“‘H’m,’ he said, ‘what are you going to do?’

“‘That,’ I said, ‘is sort of a secret, too. You never heard of a secret society that told everything, did you? We may tell our name later, though.’

“‘It won’t be long,’ Billy said.

“‘Now isn’t that mean of you?’ I asked.” Jean lifted her chin and looked sidewise at Leigh as she had doubtless scanned Billy.

“He asked me where our club met and I said, ‘Most anywhere yet, but headquarters is at our20 house.’ Billy didn’t say anything for a minute. Billy is terribly smart, you know, and it looked fishy to him,—naturally! Still, some of us have been meeting occasionally, you know.