The Seven Sleuths' Club

“Hark ye!” Merry exclaimed, lifting a finger of her fur-lined glove. “I hear sleigh bells! Somebody is coming, and if that somebody’s destination happens to be up Willowbend Lane, we’ll beg a ride.”

“What if it’s somebody we don’t know?” little Betty Byrd ventured to inquire, to which Merry “How could it be? Wasn’t I born here, and don’t I know everybody within a million miles?”

“That sounds rather like hyperbole,” Bertha exclaimed.

“Like which?” Doris Drexel teased; then added: “Wouldn’t Miss Preen be pleased to hear her prize pupil rattle off that fine sounding word in – ”

“Ssh! Ssh!” Merry’s hand was on Dory’s arm. “Our victim is now in sight. My, what a swell turnout! Some cutter that, isn’t it?” The six girls had stepped to one side of the road and were watching with interest the approach of a large sleigh which was being drawn at a rapid pace by two big white horses perfectly matched. The driver, as they could discern as it drew nearer, was a young man who was almost hidden in a big brown fur coat and cap, but his eyes were peering out and he was amazed to see a bevy of girls standing by the unbroken lane, so evidently in distress.

Stopping his horses, he snatched off his fur cap and revealed a frank, boyish face that had not been seen in that neighborhood before.

“Young ladies,” he said courteously, “can you direct me to the home of Colonel Wainwright? In the village they told me to follow this road for a mile and then ask someone which turn to take.”

“Oh, yes, we can tell you,” Merry replied. “This lane is a short-cut to the Colonel’s place.”

The lad thanked her and was about to drive on; then he hesitated and turned back.

“Young ladies,” he said, “I have always told my sister never to ride with strangers, but if your destination is in this direction I would be glad to convey you to it. I am Alfred Morrison of Dorchester.”

“Oh,” Merry exclaimed brightly, “my brother, Jack Lee, is acquainted with you, I am sure. He goes to school in the city.”

The boy’s good-looking face plainly showed his pleasure. “Indeed I know old Jack well,” he exclaimed. “We’re doing college prep work together. I planned looking him up as soon as I had finished my business call on the Colonel.”

Feeling sure that their mothers could not object, since the strange boy was so well acquainted with Merry’s brother, they swarmed into the luxurious sleigh, sitting three deep, which but added to their gaiety. The horses were obliged to travel slowly through the drifts, but they soon came to a part of the lane where the wind had blown the snow from the road to be caught at the fences, and then they made better time. In a very few moments the sleigh was turning in between two high stone gate posts, as Merry had directed, and shortly thereafter the six girls were tumbling out under a wide sheltering portico. “We’re terribly grateful to you, Mr. Morrison.” Merry exclaimed. “Maybe we’ll be able to pick you up some time when you’re stranded somewhere.”

The boy laughed good-naturedly. “I hope I won’t have that long to wait before I can see you all again.” He included the group in his smiling glance, then, because the spirited horses were restive, he lifted his fur cap and turned his attention toward the prancing span.

Laughingly the girls climbed up the stone steps and were about to ring the bell when the door was thrown open and their “prettiest member,” as Rose was often called, welcomed them effusively.

“Say, but you missed the time of your young life,” Peggy Pierce informed her as the girls removed their overshoes and leggins in the storm vestibule. “Such a handsome boy as we had to drive us up the lane.”

“O, you don’t have to tell me,” Rose laughingly replied. “I was standing in the drawing-room window watching you from the time you appeared at the foot of the lane. If you had turned back, I should have been simply heart-broken. Mother thinks that I have a cold, and she wouldn’t let Tony drive me to town, and, of course, I can’t use my runabout in weather like this.” Then, when cloaks and caps had been removed and they were gathered about the wide fireplace in Rose’s very own sitting-room, that maiden passed around a five-pound box of chocolates to keep the first part of her promise; then she demanded: “Merry Lee, you haven’t told the others your exciting news yet, have you?”

Bertha Angel answered for their president: “Nary an inkling of it. Truth to tell, we didn’t even ask her. I guess we all thought we’d rather wait until the meeting was called.”

“Oh, I say, let’s cut out formality, for once, can’t we?” Peggy Pierce implored. “Why read the minutes of the last meeting when all we did was entertain the little orphans with a big Christmas tree?”

“All?” Gertrude West lifted her eyebrows questioningly. “I believe, if you left it to the orphans, they would tell you that we did a whole lot to add to their Christmas cheer.”

“Sure thing we did, I’ll acknowledge that, but – ”

“Come to order, if you please!” the president tapped on the arm of her chair, which was upholstered in rose-colored brocade as were the other chairs and the gilt-framed sofa piled high with silken pillows. “We’ll omit reading the minutes, because we really mustn’t stay long. It gets dark so early this month and we’ll have to wade back through the lane. And we won’t call the roll, because, of course, we know that we’re all here, so, since I believe you are properly curious, I will now tell my news-item. I, Marion Margaret Lee, have discovered the meaning of the letters ‘C. D. C.,’ and, what is mere, I now know what the boys do at their secret meetings.”

“Merry, do you really? How ever did you find out? I’ve asked Bob over and over to tell me, but he has always refused and has actually declared that we girls never would know.”

“Well,” their president said, “we do know, at least in part. I hate eavesdropping just as much as anyone, but when Jack himself shut me in the stuffy little room off the library where we store our old magazines and books, and where I had gone to hunt up an article I needed for a composition, how could I help hearing? Two or three of their ‘C. D. C.’ club had come over for a special session, I guess. I was just about to burst out when I heard Jack say, ‘Yes, we’re alone, all right! Sis went to the library, I think, to do some reference work.’ Then, before I really could do anything (I was so wedged in among piles of magazines). Jack had announced: ‘Say, fellows, but I’ve got the keenest Conan Doyle book. Best ever. I call it!’”

Merry paused and looked around the group, her eyes sparkling triumph. For a moment there was silence, then, with a wild Indianish whoop, Peggy, her dark face glowing, cried gleefully: “I tumble!” After glancing about at the others, who were looking rather more puzzled than intelligent, Peg demanded: “Don’t any of you get what Merry is driving at? Bertha, you surely know what the boys mean by their ‘C. D. C.’”

“Of course. How beautifully stupid we are!” Bertha acknowledged. “The Conan Doyle Club! O, wouldn’t the boys rage and tear their hair if they knew we had guessed even that much.”

But, it was quite plain to the group that Merry had still more to divulge.

“Who is Conan Doyle, anyway?” their youngest asked. “What kind of books did he write?”

“My child,” Bertha said condescendingly, “hast never heard of Sherlock Holmes, the great detective?”

“O, of course, I have,” Betty Byrd replied. “Then the boys have a detective club. Is that it, Merry?”

The girl addressed finished eating an especially big oozy chocolate before she noddingly replied: “That’s it, all right. I gathered from the little I heard that each member of that club wants to become a detective when he is of man’s estate, and the thing they do at their club is to take turns making up a mystery and the other boys have to try to solve it.”

“Say, what fun that would be! I wish they would let girls join their club,” Doris Drexel remarked, but Merry put in: “You wouldn’t wish it, young lady, if you knew, as I do, how little they think of our intelligences. One of them, I couldn’t tell which, had written to a lawyer uncle in New York, telling about their club, and in reply their uncle had told about some young woman detective in his employ and how clever she was. At which Jack sniffed: ‘Well, she must be an exception all right. I can’t imagine my sister Merry or any of her crowd solving a mystery, not if the clues were spread out right in front of them.’ Bob laughed at that in his good-natured way and replied that there wasn’t much danger of any one getting a chance to solve a mystery in this little lakeside town where nothing ever happened that was in the least unusual. Then he said: ‘That’s why we have to make up our own mysteries, since we can’t unearth any real ones to practice on.’”

All the while that Merry had been talking, Peg had been sitting on the edge of her chair looking as though she would burst if she didn’t soon get a chance to say what was on her mind. The moment their president paused, she leaped in with: “Girls, I’ve thought of the most scrumbunctious idea! Let’s have a detective club of our own, and let’s find a real mystery to solve and show those boys a thing or two. Won’t they be humiliated, good and proper, when they learn that we, seven mere girls, without intelligence, have solved the greatest mystery that ever occurred in the village of Sunnyside.”

“Hold on, Peg! Your imagination is running away with you. Anyone would think you had already found the mystery to solve. I’m of the opinion that Jack is right, or Bob, whoever said it, that there never is anything mysterious happening in this quiet, sleepy old town, and if there isn’t, how, pray, can we solve it?” Bertha was always logical and practical. Their “balance wheel,” she was sometimes called.

“I bet you I find a mystery.” Peg stood up as though she were going to start right out on the search. “I’ve always been wild about mystery stories; read every one at the library, and I’ll know just how to go about solving one, when it’s found.”

“Sit down, friend sleuth, and tell us your plan. There are possibilities in it, I’ll agree.” Merry smiled up into the olive face of their most energetic member, as she continued reminiscently: “In the beginning we named our club The S. S. C. because we lived in Sunnyside; then we gradually added a second meaning to please our saintly Gertrude – ”

“You’re a tease!” The sweet-faced girl, their minister’s daughter, smiled lovingly at the speaker, who continued as though unconscious of the interruption, “which was ‘Spread Sunshine Club.’ We proceeded to sew for missionary barrels, though heaven help the heathen who had to wear the clothes I made if they care anything about a stylish fit.”

A burst of merry laughter proved that her listeners were recalling some garment made by their president that had not come up to specifications. “Then we decided to center our spreading sunshine efforts on our home orphanage. Shh! Don’t say anything, Trudie! I know we’ve done nobly, and all that, but now I feel about the way Peg does, that if we keep on being so saintly, I’ll be drawn up heavenward before I’ve had a real fling, so what I am going to suggest is that we add a third meaning to our club letters, which shall be – ”

“Oh, Madame President, may I say what?” Peggy was again on the edge of her chair waving a frantic hand as though she were a child in school.

“Sure thing! Shoot!”

“How would ‘Seven Sleuths’ Club’ do for the new meaning?”

“Actually inspired, I should say. Now, all that is left is to find a mystery to solve. Peggy Pierce, I appoint you and your twin friend, Doris Drexel, a committee of two to find a mystery before our next meeting, which is to be held at Bertha Angel’s home one week from today. If, by that time, you have failed, I will appoint – ”

“Fail? Dory and I don’t know the meaning of the word.” that slender maid retorted.

Bertha, who was nearest the window, then exclaimed: “Someone is driving in. Why, if it isn’t that nice Alfred Morrison.”

“Great!” Merry declared. “Now we can get a ride out of the lane. I do believe that is why he is coming.”

And she was right. Rose answered the ring before a maid could appear, and the youth, cap in hand, informed her that he had happened to think that since the young ladies had had no way to get into the lane, perhaps they had no way to get out. Rose replied in her pretty manner that she knew the girls would be glad to go with him. Then she invited him in to have a cup of hot chocolate, which, even then, a maid was passing to the club members, having been told to appear at that particular hour.

Without the least sign of embarrassment the boy joined the girls in the cosy little sitting-room off the big library, and drank a cup of chocolate as though he really enjoyed it. Half an hour later, as the sun was setting, Merry said with apparent solemnity, “We will now adjourn the meeting, which I believe has been most satisfactory, and let me urge each and every one of our members to remember that all that has passed today is most secret and that no matter how the boys of the ‘C. D. C.’ may pry, not an inkling of what has here occurred is to be divulged to them.” Then, twinkling-eyed, she changed her tone to one more natural. “Won’t they have the surprise of their young lives, though, if we do succeed?”

“No ifs!” Peg interjected with determination. “We will!”

CHAPTER IV.

INTERESTING NEWS