Bobs, a Girl Detective

Exultant Bobs could not refrain from waving the dishcloth she still held. “Hurray for us!” she sang out. “Three adventurers starting on they know not what wild escapade. Wait until I change my togs, Glow, and I’ll be with you.” Then, glancing down at her riding habit, “Unless this will do?” she questioned her sister.

“Of course not, dear. We’ll all wear tailored suits.”

It was midmorning when three fashionably attired girls for the first time in their lives ascended to the Third Avenue Elevated, going uptown. At that hour there were few people traveling in that direction and they had a car almost to themselves. As they were whirled past tenements, so close that they could plainly see the shabby furniture in the flats beyond, the younger girls suddenly realized how great was the contrast between the life that was ahead of them and that which they were leaving. The thundering of the trains, the constant rumble of traffic below, the discordant cries of hucksters, reached them through the open windows. “It’s hard to believe that a meadow lark is singing anywhere in the world,” Bobs said, turning to Gloria. “Or that little children are playing in those meadows,” the older girl replied. She was watching the pale, ragged children hanging to railings around fire escapes on a level with the train windows.

“Poor little things!” Lena May’s tone was pitying, “I don’t see how they can do much playing in such cramped, crowded places.”

“I don’t suppose they even know the meaning of the word,” Bobs replied.

They left the train at the station nearest the Seventy-seventh Street Settlement. Since Gloria was to be employed there, she planned starting from that point to search for the nearest suitable dwelling. They found themselves in a motley crowd composed of foreign women and children, who jostled one another in an evident effort to reach the sidewalk where, in two-wheeled carts, venders of all kinds of things salable were calling their wares. “They must sell everything from fish to calico,” Bobs reported after a moment’s inspection from the curbing.

The women, who wore shawls of many colors over their heads and who carried market baskets and babies, were, some of them, Bohemians and others Hungarian. Few words of English were heard by the interested girls. “I see where I have to acquire a new tongue if I am to know what our future neighbors are talking about,” Bobs had just said, when, suddenly, just ahead of them, a thin, sickly woman slipped and would have fallen had not a laboring man who was passing caught her just in time. The grateful woman coughed, her hand pressed to her throat, before she could thank him. The girls saw that she had potatoes in a basket which seemed too heavy for her. The man was apparently asking where she lived; then he assisted her toward a near tenement.

“Well,” Bobs exclaimed, “there is evidently chivalry among working men as well as among idlers.”

At the crossing they were caught in a jam of traffic and pedestrians. Little Lena May clung to Gloria’s arm, looking about as though terrorized at this new and startling experience. When, after some moments’ delay, the opposite sidewalk was reached in safety, Bobs exclaimed gleefully: “Wasn’t that great?” But Lena May had not enjoyed the experience, and it was quite evident to the other two that it was going to be very hard for their sensitive, frail youngest sister to be transplanted from her gardens, where she had spent long, quiet, happy hours, painting the scenes she loved, to this maelstrom of foreign humanity. There was almost a pang of regret in the heart of the girl who had mothered the others when she realized fully, for the first time, what her own choice of a home location might mean to their youngest. Perhaps she had been selfish, because of her own great interest in Settlement Work, to plan to have them all live on the crowded East Side, but her fears were set at rest a moment later when they came upon a group of children, scarcely more than babies, who were playing in a gutter. Lena May’s sweet face brightened and, smiling up at Gloria, she exclaimed: “Aren’t they dears, in spite of the rags and dirt? I’d love to do something for them.”

“I’d like to put them all in a tub of soap-suds and give them a good scrubbing for once in their lives,” the practical Bobs remarked. Then she caught Gloria by the arm, exclaiming, as she nodded toward a crossing, “There goes that chivalrous laboring man. He steps off with too much agility to be a ditch-digger, or anyone who does hard work, doesn’t he, Glow?”

The oldest sister laughed. “Bobs,” she remarked, “I sometimes think that you are a detective by nature. You are always trying to discover by the cut of a man’s hair what his profession may be.”

Bobs’ hazel eyes were merry, though her face was serious. “You’ve hit it, Glow!” she exclaimed. “I was going to keep it a secret a while longer, but I might as well confess, now that the cat is out of the bag.”

“What cat?” Lena May had only heard half of this sentence; she had been so interested in watching the excitement among the children caused by the approach of an organ grinder.

“My chosen profession is the cat,” Bobs informed her, “and I suppose my brain, where it has been hiding, is the bag. I’m going to be a detective.”

Little Lena May was horrified. Detectives meant to her sleuths who visited underground haunts of crooks of all kinds. “I’m sure Gloria will not wish it, will you, Glow?”

Appealingly the soft brown eyes were lifted and met the smiling gaze of the oldest sister. “We are each to do the work for which we are best fitted,” she replied. “You are to be our little housekeeper and that will give you time to go on with your painting. I was just wondering a moment ago if you might not like to put some of these black-eyed Hungarian babies into a picture. If they are clean, they would be unusually beautiful.”

Lena May was interested at once and glanced about for possible subjects, and so for the time being the startling statement of Bobs’ chosen profession was dropped. They were nearing the East River, very close to which stood a large, plain brick building containing many windows. “I believe that is the Settlement House,” Gloria had just said, when Bobs, discovering the name over the door, verified the statement.

A pretty Hungarian girl of about their own age answered their ring and admitted them to a big cheerful clubroom. Another girl was practicing on a piano in a far corner. The three newcomers seated themselves near the door and looked about with great interest. Just beyond were shelves of books. Bobs sauntered over to look at the titles. “It’s a dandy collection for girls,” she reported as she again took her seat.

It was not long before Miss Lovejoy, the matron entered the room and advanced toward them. The three girls rose to greet her.

Miss Lovejoy smilingly held out a hand to the tallest, saying in her pleasant, friendly voice, “I wonder if I am right in believing that you are the Miss Gloria Vandergrift who is coming to assist me.”

“Yes, Miss Lovejoy, I am, and these are my younger sisters, Roberta and little Lena May.” Then she explained: “We haven’t moved into town as yet. I thought best to come over this morning and find a place for us to live; then we will have our trunks sent and our personal possessions.”

“That is a good idea,” the matron said, then asked: “Have you found anything as yet?”

“We thought, since we are strangers in the neighborhood, that you might be able to suggest some place for us,” Gloria told the matron.

After a thoughtful moment Miss Lovejoy replied: “The tenement houses in this immediate neighborhood are most certainly not desirable for one used to comforts. However, on Seventy-eighth Street, there is a new model tenement built by some wealthy women and it is just possible that there may be a vacant flat. You might inquire at the office there. You can take the short-cut path across the playground and it will lead you directly to the model tenement.”

“Thank you, Miss Lovejoy,” Gloria said. “We will let you know the result of our search.”

CHAPTER IV.

A HAUNTED HOUSE

The model tenement which Miss Lovejoy had pointed out to them was soon reached. A door on the ground floor was labeled “Office,” and so Gloria pushed the electric button.

A trim young woman whose long-lashed, dark eyes suggested her nationality, received them, but regretted to have to tell them that every flat in the model tenement was occupied. She looked, with but slightly concealed curiosity, at these three applicants who, as was quite evident, were from other environments.

Gloria glanced about the neat courtyard and up at windows where flowers were blossoming in bright window boxes, then glowingly she turned back to the girl: “It was a splendid thing for those wealthy society women to do, wasn’t it,” she said, “erecting this really handsome yellow brick building in the midst of so much poverty and squalor. It must have a most uplifting effect on the lives of the poor people to be able to live here where everything is so sweet and clean, rather than there,” nodding, as she spoke, at a building across the street which looked gloomy, crumbling, unsafe and unsanitary.

The office attendant spoke with enthusiasm. “No one knows better than I, for I used to live in the other kind of tenement when I was a child, but Miss Lovejoy’s club for factory girls gave me my chance to learn bookkeeping, and now I am agent here. My name is Miss Selenski. Would you like to see the model apartment?”

“Thank you. Indeed we would,” Gloria replied with enthusiasm; then she added, “Miss Selenski, I am Miss Vandergrift, and these are my sisters, Roberta and Lena May. We hope to be your neighbors soon.”

If there was a natural curiosity in the heart of the dark-eyed girl, she said nothing of it, and at once led the way through the neatly tiled halls and soon opened a door admitting them to a small flat of three rooms, which was clean and attractively furnished. The windows, flooded with sunlight, overlooked the East River.

“This is the apartment that we show,” Miss Selenski explained. “The others are just like it, or were, before tenants moved in,” she corrected.

“Say, this is sure cosy! Who lives in this one?” Bobs inquired.

“I do,” Miss Selenski replied, hurrying to add, “But I did not fit it up. The ladies did that. It has all the modern appliances that help to make housekeeping easy, and once every week a teacher comes here to instruct the neighborhood women how to cook, clean and sew; in fact, how to live. And the lessons and demonstrations are given in this apartment.”

When the girls were again in the office, Gloria turned to their new acquaintance, saying, “Do you happen to know of any place around here that is vacant where we might like to live?”

At first Miss Selenski shook her head. Then she added, with a queer little smile, “Not unless you’re willing to live in the old Pensinger mansion.”

Then she went on to explain: “Long, long ago, when New York was little more than a village, and Seventy-eighth Street was country, all along the East River there were, here and there, handsome mansion-like homes and vast grounds. Oh, so different from what it is now! Every once in a while you find one of these old dwellings still standing.

“Some of them house many poor families, but the Pensinger mansion is seldom occupied. If a family is brave enough to move in, before many weeks the ‘for rent’ sign is again at the door. The rent is almost nothing, but – ” the girl hesitated, then went on to say, “Maybe I ought not to tell you the story about the old place if you have any thought of living there.”

“Oh, please tell it! Is it a ghost story?” Bobs begged, and Gloria added, “Yes, do tell it, Miss Selenski. We are none of us afraid of ghosts.”

“Of course you aren’t,” Miss Selenski agreed, “and, for that matter, neither am I. But nearly all of our neighbors are superstitious. Mr. Tenowitz, the grocer at the corner of First and Seventy-ninth has the renting of the place, and he declares that the last tenant rushed into his store early one morning, paid his bill and departed without a word of explanation, but he looked, Mr. Tenowitz told me, as though he had seen a ghost. I don’t think there is anything the matter with the old house,” their informant continued, “except just loneliness.

“Of course, big, barnlike rooms, when they are empty, echo every sound in a mournful manner without supernatural aid.”

“But how did it all start?” Bobs inquired. “Did anything of an unusual nature ever happen there?”

Miss Selenski nodded, and then continued: “The story is that the only daughter of the last of the Pensingers who lived there disappeared one night and was never again seen. Her mother, so the tale goes, wished her to marry an elderly English nobleman, but she loved a poor Hungarian violinist whom she was forbidden to see. Because of her grief, she did many strange things, and one of them was to walk at midnight, dressed all in white, along the brink of the dark swirling river which edged the wide lawn in front of her home. Her white silk shawl was found on the bank one morning and the lovely Marilyn Pensinger was never seen again.

“Her father, however, was convinced that his daughter was not drowned, but that she had married the man she loved and returned with him to his native land, Hungary. So great was his faith in his own theory that, in his will, he stated that the taxes on the old Pensinger mansion should be paid for one hundred years and that it should become the property of any descendant of his daughter, Marilyn, who could be found within that time.

“I believe that will was made about seventy-five years ago and so, you see, there are twenty-five years remaining for an heir to turn up.”

“What will happen if no one claims the old place?” Gloria inquired.

“It is to be sold and the money devoted to charity,” Miss Selenski told them.

“That certainly is an interesting yarn,” Bobs declared; then added gleefully, “I suppose the people around here think that the fair Marilyn returns at midnight, prowling along the shores of the river looking for her white silk shawl.”