  That evening Florence received a shock. The night before they had, through no purpose of their own, been thrown for an hour or two into the company of the young recluse who lived in a windowless cabin on a shadowy island. Since this person very evidently wished to be alone, Florence had not expected to see her again. Imagine her surprise, therefore, when, on stepping to the cabin door for a good-night salute to the stars, she found the lady standing there, motionless and somber as any nocturnal shadow, on their own little dock. “I—I beg your pardon,” the mysterious one spoke. “So this is where you live? How very nice! “But I didn’t come to make a call. I came for a favor,” she hastened to assure the astonished Florence. “You were very kind to us last night.” Florence tried to conceal her astonishment. “We will do what we can.” “It is but a little thing. I wish to visit an island across the bay. It is not far. Half an hour’s row. I do not wish to go alone. Will you be so kind as to accompany me?” “What a strange request!” Florence thought. “One would suppose that she feared something. And there is nothing to fear. The island channels are safe and the bay is calm.” “I’d be delighted to go,” she said simply. This did not express the exact truth. There was that about the simple request that frightened her. What made it worse, she had seen, as in a flash of thought, the two pistols hanging over the strange one’s bed. “Very well,” said the mystery lady. “Get your coat. We will go at once.” Since Florence knew that Petite Jeanne was not afraid to be alone as long as her bear was with her, she hurried to the cabin, told Jeanne of her intentions, drew on a warm sweater, and accompanied the strange visitor to her boat. Without a word, the lady of the island pushed her slight craft off, then taking up her oars, headed toward the far side of the bay. “What island?” Florence asked herself. There were four islands; three small, one large. The nearest small one was not inhabited. She and Jeanne had gone there once to enjoy their evening meal. There was a camping place in a narrow clearing at the center. The remainder of the island was heavily forested with birch and cedar. On another small island was a single summer cottage, a rather large and pretentious affair with a dock and boathouse. The large one, stretching away for miles in either direction, was dotted with summer homes. The course of their boat soon suggested to her that they were to visit the small island that held the summer cottage. Yet, even as she reached this conclusion, she was given reasons for doubting it. Their course altered slightly. They were now headed for the end where the growth of cedar and birch reached to the water’s edge and where there was no sign of life. The cottage was many hundred feet from this spot. “When one visits a place by water at night, one goes to the dock,” she told herself. “Where can we be going now?” A rocky shoal extended for some little distance out from the point of the island. The light craft skirted this, then turned abruptly toward shore. A moment later it came to rest on a narrow, sandy beach. “If you will please remain here for a very few moments,” said the lady of the island, “I shall be very grateful to you. Probably nothing will happen. Still, one never can tell. Should you catch a sound of commotion, or perhaps a scream, row away as speedily as possible and notify Deputy Sheriff Osterman at Rainy Creek at once. If I fail to return within the next half hour, do the same.” “Why—er—” Florence’s answer died on her lips. The mysterious one was gone. “Who is she? Why are we here? What does she wish to know?” These and a hundred other haunting questions sped through the girl’s mind as she stood there alone in the dark, waiting, alert, expectant, on tiptoe, listening to the tantalizing lap-lap of water on the sandy shore. A moment passed into eternity, another, and yet another. From somewhere far out over the dim-lit waters there came the haunting, long drawn hoot of a freighter’s foghorn. Something stirred in the bush. She jumped; then chided herself for her needless fear. “Some chipmunk, or a prowling porcupine,” she told herself. A full quarter of an hour had passed. Her nerves were all but at the breaking point, when of a sudden, without a sound, the lady of the island stood beside her. “O. K.,” she said in a low tone. “Let’s go.” They were some distance from the island when at last the lady spoke again. “That,” she said in a very matter-of-fact tone, “is Gamblers’ Island. And I am a lady cop from Chicago.” “A—a lady cop!” Florence stared at her as if she had never seen her before. “A lady policeman,” the other replied quietly. “In other words, a detective. Women now take part in nearly every field of endeavor. Why not in this? They should. Men have found that there are certain branches of the detective service that naturally belong to women. We are answering the challenge. “But listen!” She held up a hand for silence. To their waiting ears came the sound of a haunting refrain. The sound came, not from the island they had just left, but from the other, the supposedly uninhabited one. “They say—” into the lady’s voice there crept a whimsical note, “that this island was once owned by a miser. He disappeared years ago. His cabin burned long since. Perhaps he has returned from another world to thrum a harp, or it may be only a banjo. We must have a look!” She turned the prow of her boat that way and rowed with strength and purpose in the direction from which the sound came. |
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