Читать книгу The Secret of the Red Scarf - Elizabeth Mildred Duffield Ward - Страница 3

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“The scarf is gorgeous!”

Wilma Worth stood looking over the shoulder of Kay Tracey in the Art Room of Carmont High School. The attractive chestnut-haired girl had just completed stencilling a bright red silk square with an intricate design of birds and flowers.

“Are you going to wear it to the masquerade?” Wilma asked.

“Yes, I am,” Kay replied.

She held up a magazine and pointed to the cover. On it was pictured a lovely girl dressed in a gay Romany costume.

“I copied the design for my scarf from the one this model’s wearing—in fact, when I saw the picture, it gave me the idea of masquerading as a gypsy.”

“Will you tell fortunes?” Wilma teased.

“That would be too tame for Kay,” said another girl, who was standing at a nearby easel.

She was Betty Worth, Wilma’s twin. The two girls neither looked alike nor had similar dispositions. Betty was blond and vivacious, her sister dark-haired and dreamy looking.

“Oh I don’t know,” Wilma said, a faraway expression in her eyes. “Telling the future is like having a preview of something.”

“Kay,” said the more practical Betty, “you ought to go dressed as a sleuth and carry a magnifying glass.”

Kay laughed merrily, her brown eyes dancing. “Just how does a sleuth dress?”

Betty admitted she was stumped. It was easy to figure out how a male sleuth might dress, but she was undecided as to what a high school girl would wear to play the part.

“Just the same, I’m sure you’ll run into some mystery at that masquerade,” was Betty’s opinion.

Wilma smiled. “Kay won’t wait, I prophesy,” she said. “The masquerade’s over a week off and Kay Tracey never went five days without bumping into a mystery——”

The bell sounded and the three girls put their art work aside and started for the next class. Unnoticed by them, an unpleasant looking girl darted from an alcove in the Art Room. The thinness of her face was accentuated by a sharp nose and eyes that were rather small. She wore a continuous sneer on her lips.

“So Kay Tracey’s going to the masquerade as a gypsy,” Ethel Eaton mused. A gleam of malicious mischief came into her eyes. “Well, I’ll just spike that for her!”

Ethel was intensely jealous of the popular Kay and the Worth twins. At times Ethel fancied herself to be as clever a detective as Kay, and had upon several occasions nearly ruined plans which Kay had made for solving mysteries.

As Ethel walked down the hall, the other three girls ahead of her were still discussing what they would wear to the masquerade.

“You’ll look lovely as a shepherdess,” Kay said to Wilma. “You might win one of the prizes.”

“I hear there are to be several awards, plus a grand prize,” said Betty.

“Do you know what it is?” Wilma asked.

Betty said the first prize was to be two tickets for a five-day cruise. This announcement had made the charity masquerade a sellout. A large number of people of all ages from Carmont and also the small suburb of Brantwood where the girls lived planned to attend.

“What are you going to wear, Betty?” Kay asked.

Wilma answered for her. “If there’s a prize for a girl whose boy’s costume fools everybody, Betty will get it. She’s wearing a green habit and will be one of Robin Hood’s merry men.”

“You can do it with that slim figure of yours, Betty,” Kay remarked with a smile.

The girls entered English class and thoughts of the masquerade were put from their minds. But as soon as school was over, the conversation continued. Kay went back to the Art Room for her scarf, then the three started for home. Usually they commuted by train, but today Kay had borrowed a car from her cousin Bill, a young lawyer who lived with the girl and her widowed mother.

“I have an errand to do for Mother at a farmhouse out of town,” Kay told the twins, as they climbed into the convertible beside her. “We’ll go the long way around to Brantwood.”

It was a beautiful spring day and the girls enjoyed watching the bursting buds and little rivulets running down the hillsides. Beyond the city limits of Carmont fields of winter wheat were bright green and here and there farmers could be seen at work with tractors getting ready for an early planting.

Kay stopped at a rambling ranch house to pick up a handmade coverlet which her mother was going to sell at a church bazaar. Then the girl headed toward Brantwood.

“Let’s go through the woods along the Whitestone River. I just love the woods in spring,” Wilma begged.

“We’ll probably get stuck in the mud,” said Betty practically.

“We’ll try it anyway,” Kay agreed, and in a few minutes turned into the narrow woods road.

They had gone about a quarter of a mile when they noticed a mud-splattered jalopy parked facing them almost in the center of the road. To pass it, Kay would have to go far down into a ditch. As she frowned, wondering if she could make it, Betty burst out:

“That’s a fine place for a person to park. Give him your horn, Kay.”

The girl did sound her horn, but there was no response from the other car. “I guess no one’s in it,” she said, slowing down.

Kay stopped just in front of the other automobile and tooted again. Still no one came.

“I’ll get out and move the car if the key’s in it,” said Betty, opening the door and climbing out.

She hurried forward and in a moment cried out, “There’s a boy asleep in here! Wake up!” she demanded.

But the figure huddled on the seat did not awaken. Betty’s heart began to thump.

“Kay! Wilma!” she shouted fearfully. “Come here quick!”

The other two girls jumped out of the convertible and ran to see what the trouble was. On the front seat lay a tall, blond-haired youth of about eighteen. He wore a tan jacket and blue corduroy trousers. His eyes were closed and he was breathing heavily.

“He’s unconscious,” Kay said. “Either that boy’s very ill or he’s been injured.”

As the twins looked on in awe, Kay examined the youth’s head and discovered a bad bruise at the nape of his neck. She tried a little first aid on him, but when this made no impression, the girl announced that the youth should be taken to a doctor immediately.

“Let’s find out who he is,” Betty suggested. “Maybe we ought to take him home.”

The three girls searched the young man’s pockets. They were empty. Betty next tackled the glove compartment of the car but it too was empty.

“This is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Wilma.

“There’s no question but that the poor fellow was attacked,” Kay stated. “Whoever did it probably robbed him and removed all the evidence.”

“Look!” Betty cried suddenly, going around to the rear of the jalopy, “even the license plates are gone.”

Gently the three girls lifted the unconscious form to the rear seat of Bill’s convertible. Betty, having discovered that the key was still in the ignition lock of the jalopy, moved the car out of the way. Then she jumped in beside Wilma and Kay drove off.

“Are you going to take him to a doctor or the hospital?” Wilma asked.

“I’ve decided to take him to my house,” Kay replied.

“Your house? Why?” the twins asked together.

Kay said she felt sure there was more to this than just the necessity of bringing the youth out of his unconscious state. He looked so young and pathetic she had a great desire to help him. Then she blushed self-consciously.

“There I go again, wanting to solve a mystery. But anyway, my house is closer than either a doctor or the hospital.”

They reached it in a few minutes and carried the young man inside. Mrs. Tracey, Kay’s pretty, sweet-faced mother, came down the stairs at once and looked at her daughter questioningly. Quickly Kay explained and then dashed to the telephone to call Dr. Rolfe.

Mrs. Tracey did not wait for the physician’s arrival before working on the patient herself. She immediately went for a first-aid kit and began to administer to the youth on the sofa. But her efforts to restore him to consciousness failed also.

“Here comes the doctor,” said Wilma, who was looking out a front window.

The physician hurried into the house and began his work at once. Mrs. Tracey and the girls were fascinated by his manipulations on the youth’s neck and back as well as the pungent restorative which he held to the nostrils of the patient. In a few moments the young man’s eyelids flickered and a few seconds later he opened his eyes wide. They were brown like her own, Kay noticed, and had a frank, honest expression. He stared first at the doctor and then at Mrs. Tracey.

“Take it easy, son,” the doctor advised kindly. “You’ll be all right in a little while.”

The youth did not reply. His eyes wandered first to Wilma, then to Betty, and a puzzled frown crossed his face. He closed his eyes for nearly a minute, while the onlookers stood by silently.

When he opened them again, the boy turned his head slightly, so that he was looking directly at Kay, whom he had not noticed before. Suddenly he raised up on the couch, smiled broadly, and reached out his arms toward the girl.

“Sis! Sis!” he cried. “At last I’ve found you!”