The Mystery at Dark Cedars

The Mystery at Dark Cedars
Edith Lavell

Edith Lavell

The Mystery at Dark Cedars

Characters

Mary Louise Gay a girl detective.

Jane Patterson her chum.

Miss Mattie Grant spinster at Dark Cedars.

Elsie Grant orphan, niece of Miss Grant, living at Dark Cedars.

Mrs. Grace Grant sister-in-law to Miss Grant.

family of Mrs. Grace Grant.

John Grant middle-aged bachelor

Harry Grant younger bachelor

Ellen Grant Pearson married daughter

Corinne Pearson granddaughter, girl of nineteen

Hannah and William Groben servants at Dark Cedars.

Mr. Gay, Mrs. Gay, Joseph (Freckles) Gay family of Mary Louise.

Max Miller, Norman Wilder, Hope Dorsey, Bernice Tracey friends of Mary Louise.

Mrs. Abraham Lincoln Jones a colored woman.

Mira a gypsy fortune teller.

Silky Mary Louise’s dog.

CHAPTER I

The House of Mystery

“Be quiet, Silky! What’s the matter with you? You don’t usually bark like common dogs over nothing!”

The brown spaniel stopped under a maple tree and wagged his tail forlornly, looking pleadingly into his mistress’s eyes, as if he were trying to tell her that he wasn’t just making a fuss over nothing.

Mary Louise Gay stooped over and patted his head. She was a pretty girl of sixteen, with dark hair and lovely brown eyes and long lashes that would make an actress envious.

“I see what Silky means!” cried her companion, Jane Patterson who lived next door to Mary Louise and was her inseparable chum. “Look, Mary Lou! Up in the tree. A kitten!”

Both girls gazed up at the leafy branches overhead and spied a tiny black kitten crying piteously. It had climbed up and couldn’t get down.

“I’ll get it,” said Mary Louise.

She swung herself lightly to the lowest branch, chinned herself, and climbed the tree. In another minute she had rescued the kitten with her hands.

“Stretch on your tiptoes, Jane,” she called to her chum, “and see if I can hand it down to you.”

The other girl, who was much shorter and stockier than Mary Louise, did as she was told, but the distance was too great.

“I suppose I’ll have to climb down with her in one hand,” concluded Mary Louise. “That’s not so easy.”

“Drop her over to that branch you swung up by, and I’ll get her from there,” suggested Jane.

A moment later Mary Louise was at her chum’s side, stroking the little black kitten, now purring contentedly in Jane’s arms.

“I wonder whose it is,” she remarked. “There isn’t any house near – ”

“Except old Miss Grant’s.”

Both girls turned and looked at the hill which rose at the right of the lonely road on which they had been walking. The house, a large drab plaster building, was barely visible through the dark cedars that surrounded it on all sides. A high, thick hedge, taller than an average-sized man, gave the place an even greater aspect of gloominess and seclusion.

“Maybe it is Miss Grant’s kitten,” suggested Jane. “Old maids are supposed to like cats, you know.”

Mary Louise’s brown eyes sparkled with anticipation.

“I hope it is!” she exclaimed. “And then we’ll get a look at the inside of that house. Because everybody says it’s supposed to be haunted. Our colored laundress’s little girl was walking past it one evening about dusk, and she heard the most terrible moan. She claims that two eyes, without any head or body, looked out through the hedge at her. She dropped her bundle and ran as fast as she could for home.”

“You don’t really believe there is anything, do you, Mary Lou?”

“I don’t know. There must be something queer about it.”

“Maybe there’s a crazy woman shut up in the tower.”

“You’ve been reading Jane Eyre, haven’t you, Jane? But there isn’t any tower on the Grant house.”

“Well, I guess Miss Grant is crazy enough herself. She dresses in styles of forty years ago. Did you ever see her?”

“Yes, I’ve had a glimpse of her once or twice when I walked past here. She looks like the picture of the old maid on the old-maid cards. It must be awful for that girl who lives with her.”

“What girl?” inquired Jane.

“A niece, I believe. She must be about our age. Her father and mother both died, so she has to live with Miss Grant. They say the old lady treats her terribly – much worse than the two old servants she keeps.”

While this conversation was going on, the two girls, followed by Silky, were walking slowly up the hill towards the big hedge which surrounded the Grant place. Once inside the yard, it was almost like being in a deep, thick woods. Cedar trees completely enclosed the house and grew thick on both sides of the narrow path leading from the gate to the porch. In spite of the fact that it was broad daylight, Jane found herself shuddering. But Mary Louise seemed delighted with the strange, gloomy atmosphere.

“Doesn’t this girl go to high school?” asked Jane. “If she’s about our age – ”