By the Light of the Study Lamp E-Book

Carolyn Keene

• Herausgeber: Alien Ebooks
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: The Dana Girls Mystery Stories
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 215

Beschreibung

Jean and Louise Dana are given a valuable study lamp by their Uncle Ned. The girls plan to place it in their study room at Starhurst when they return for their sophomore year. But before the girls leave, the lamp is stolen! After the sisters return to Starhurst, they discover the lamp in a secondhand shop and buy it back. Unwittingly, the girls make an enemy of their classmate, Lettie Briggs, not only because the girl had planned to buy the lamp but because the Danas' room is the one Lettie wanted to have at Starhurst.

The Danas are overjoyed when they discover that their friend Evelyn Starr has returned to Starhurst. Evelyn's family once owned Starhurst, but Evelyn and her brother now have very little money, and Evelyn is unsure that she can pay for the tuition. The Danas hope that they can find a way to help Evelyn stay at Starhurst, little realizing that the solution to Evelyn's problem is held within the antique study lamp.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

BY THE LIGHT OF THE STUDY LAMP

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

CHAPTER

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

BY THE LIGHT OF THE STUDY LAMP

CAROLYN KEENE

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 1934, by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc.

CHAPTER

Uncle Ned’s Gift

“Oh, Louise, you haven’t read Uncle Ned’s letter yet! Do stop a minute and listen!”

Louise Dana, a pretty, dark-haired girl of seventeen, paused in the doorway with an armful of paper novelties. The glow of the library lamp shone upon the fair hair and eager face of her sister, Jean, who was curled up in an easy chair with the letter in her hand.

“Please!” begged Jean. “You can sort those novelties for the party later. Come over and listen to the letter.”

“I have a hundred and one things to do, getting things ready for the guests,” said Louise as she dumped the favors on the table, “but after all we don’t hear from Uncle Ned every day in the week. What has the old darling to say for himself?”

“He’s sending us a present!”

“A present!” exclaimed Louise, perching herself on the arm of the chair. “That’s exciting. The old dear is always planning some sort of surprise for us. What is it? When will it be here?”

“Patience, sister! Patience!” laughed Jean. “If you’ll just calm yourself for a few minutes I’ll read you the letter.”

“When will Uncle Ned be home?”

“Tomorrow. The Balaska docked at New York yesterday. Wait—it’s all here in the letter.” Jean glanced up with a smile.

“ ‘My Dear Nieces: Just a few lines to let you know that I am back in the U. S. A. again, the Balaska having docked safely a few hours ago. We had rough weather from Cherbourg out, but the last two days of the voyage were fine. I shall be back in Oak Falls the day after you receive this letter and hope I find you well and ready for school again. We shall miss you around the house, but of course your Aunt Harriet will feel your absence most keenly. An old sea captain like myself, away from home for weeks at a time, can scarcely find a chance to get acquainted with his women folk’——”

Jean giggled.

“Women folk! I feel quite grown-up.”

“——‘but that is my loss more than yours. I picked up a little gift for you in New York today and it is being sent on to you by express. It is an antique lamp and the dealer said it was more valuable than it looks. Hoping you like the present and looking forward to seeing you soon, I remain, Your loving Uncle Ned.’ ”

The girls were pleased and excited.

“A lamp!” exclaimed Louise. “Isn’t that lovely of him. Why, it’s just what we need for our study room at Starhurst!”

“An antique! We’ll be the envy of the school, having an antique lamp in our study.”

Jean and Louise were planning an early return to the Starhurst School for Girls in the near-by town of Penfield, where the coming semester would see them in their sophomore year. The girls were orphans and they lived in the rambling country house of their Uncle Ned Dana, on the outskirts of Oak Falls. As the letter indicated, they saw very little of their bluff, elderly relative, whose duties as captain of the great Atlantic liner Balaska kept him away from home for weeks at a time. The house was in charge of Aunt Harriet, who was Captain Ned’s sister, a good-natured, attractive maiden lady in her middle forties. The presence of two lively young girls in the house, the clumsy diligence of Ben Harrow, the stuttering hired man, and the aggravating stupidity of Cora Appel, the maid, kept life interesting for Aunt Harriet.

“He said it would be sent by express,” said Jean, glancing at the letter again. “I can hardly wait to see it.”

A clamorous knock at the back door sent the sisters scurrying wildly out of the room.

“The expressman!” exclaimed Louise. “I’m sure it can’t be anyone else.”

The newcomer proved to be the expressman. He stood there at the back door with a heavy box under his arm.

“I hope you haven’t banged it around,” said Jean breathlessly.

“No, Miss,” he assured her, grinning. “There’s so many signs on it sayin’ ‘Fragile’ and ‘Handle with Care’ that I’ve been wonderin’ if it holds dynamite.”

He set the box down carefully on the kitchen floor and took his receipt book from his pocket. Louise signed the slip while Jean rummaged through the tool chest in the cupboard for chisel and hammer.

When the expressman went away, whistling cheerily, they carefully opened the box. There was a tremendous amount of excelsior and packing, so that it was some time before Uncle Ned’s gift was finally revealed. Jean, boyish and gay, was dancing with excitement as her sister removed the last layer of newspaper from around the lamp.

“Why, it’s gorgeous!” she gasped, as Louise held up the beautiful ornament.

“I never saw anything so lovely!” exclaimed Louise.

It was, in truth, an exquisite lamp of graceful design and intricate workmanship. When Jean had further explored the box and had located the shade, she held it above the lamp standard, so that they realized the complete beauty of the gift. They could well believe that it was a valuable antique, for it had an appearance of age and solidity. It was not old-fashioned, for the artistry of its design was of the sort that belongs to all time. It had been cunningly modernized by the addition of wiring that fitted it for electricity.

“Dear Uncle Ned!” said Louise softly. “He couldn’t have given us a more beautiful present.”

“I wonder how old it is. Did you ever see such a lovely design as the one on the base——”

At that moment there was a startling interruption.

Crash!

The sound came from the upper part of the house. The loud noise was followed by the tinkle of shattered glass and then by an ear-splitting scream.

“What on earth—!” exclaimed Louise.

Jean was already speeding toward the door.

“It’s Applecore! Perhaps she’s fallen out of a window.”

Louise hastily set down the lamp on the kitchen table and hurried after her sister.

“Applecore” was Jean’s characteristic nick name for buxom, red-cheeked Cora Appel, the maid. The best that could be said for Cora was that she was willing to learn. She was, unfortunately, a clumsy and heavy-handed girl, and it was a dull day in the Dana household if Cora did not manage to fall down the cellar stairway or smash a few plates or otherwise disastrously inform the household that her education was proceeding apace. However, in all the history of the young lady’s service in the Dana home, her activities had never produced such a terrific crash, such a blood-curdling scream as that which now startled the girls.

They hurried madly up the stairs. From a room above they could hear Applecore wailing and sobbing.

“What has happened?” gasped Louise.

“She’s still alive, anyway. I can hear her bawling.”

Jean raced down the upper hall, with Louise at her heels. The girls dashed into the room from which emanated the heart-rending sobs, and there they found the wretched Cora. She was sitting on the floor, completely surrounded by broken glass, with the shattered frame of a wall mirror at her feet.

“Get a doctor!” wailed the frightened maid. “I’m all cut to bits. I’m hurt bad. I think I broke an artery or somethin’—oh, oh—and when I was bein’ so careful with that mirror——”

She raised her nose in the air and began to howl.

Louise made a quick survey of the damage. The mirror was shattered beyond repair, but she was more concerned with Cora’s injuries. Upon examination it was found, however, that the girl had sustained only a few slight cuts from the flying glass.

“I’ll get some bandages and salve,” said Louise, and flew from the room.

“Never mind the bandages,” wept Cora, a forlorn picture as she sat on the floor among the fragments of the mirror. “I don’t want ’em.”

“But you’ve been cut by the glass,” protested Jean as she knelt beside the maid.

“I don’t care,” Cora sniffled. “I want this awful mess cleared up before Miss Harriet comes back. Oh, what she will say to me, I dunno.”

“Never mind. Never mind, Applecore,” soothed Jean. “She won’t scold you. It was an accident, I’m sure.”

“Of course it was an accident,” wept Cora. “You don’t think I go around upsettin’ lookin’-glasses on purpose, do you? I never done such a turrible thing in my whole life before. I’m so sorry I don’t know what to do.”

“Never mind. I think it was not a very valuable mirror anyway. As long as you’re not badly hurt, it doesn’t matter.”

Cora’s eyes were round with amazement.

“Doesn’t matter, Miss Jean!” And then she began to sob again. “Oh, dear me, I break a big mirror and she says it doesn’t matter. Seven years’ bad luck it means, and she says it doesn’t matter. Oh, dear, how will I ever get through the next seven years?”

She sat there, sniffling and dabbing at her eyes with the corner of her apron. Jean wanted to laugh, but at that moment her sister hurried into the room with the bandages and salve. Louise, who was older than Jean, was the more serious of the two and the more efficient in an emergency.

“Now,” she said in a businesslike manner, “hold out your arm, Cora, and we’ll dress those cuts. They aren’t very bad, but they need some attention——”

“Never mind me,” wailed Cora. “I want all this busted glass out of the way before Miss Harriet comes back. She’ll think I’m the clumsiest girl on the face of the earth.”

“Don’t worry about Aunt Harriet. I’ll clear away the wreckage,” promised Jean. “While Louise is on hospital duty, I’ll get the broom and dustpan.”

Jean danced out of the room and skipped lightly down the stairs. Applecore’s concern for the removal of the broken glass appealed to her as laughable, for the maid had no reason to fear the return of Aunt Harriet. That lady was the soul of kindness, and whatever her personal feelings might be about the destruction of the mirror, she would never scold the maid for what was obviously an accident. This Jean knew.

The younger Dana girl went out into the kitchen and took the broom and dustpan from the closet in which they were kept. As she passed the box in which Uncle Ned’s present had arrived, she glanced at the table and then paused in surprise.

The precious study lamp was not there!

Jean was startled. She distinctly remembered seeing Louise set the lamp on the table when Applecore’s scream rang through the house. Not five minutes had passed since then. She ran to the foot of the stairs and called to her sister.

“Louise! Did you move the lamp?”

“The lamp?” Louise called back in surprise. “Why, no.”

“Then where is it?”

“Right on the kitchen table where I left it.”

“But it isn’t, Louise!” cried Jean. “The lamp is gone. My goodness, it must have been stolen.”

“Stolen?”

There was a triumphant wail from Cora Appel.

“Didn’t I tell you? Seven years’ bad luck for this house and it’s startin’ already.”

CHAPTER II

The Secondhand Shop

Louise was downstairs in a moment. The girls ran back into the kitchen. There was the box, there was the packing—but the lamp was gone.

“How could it have disappeared in that time!” exclaimed Louise in bewilderment. “Someone must have walked in here the moment we went upstairs.”

Suddenly they noticed a sound from the road at the side of the house.

“Listen!” said Jean.

They heard the roar of a motor as if a car was just being driven away.

Louise fled madly through the house, flung open the front door, and ran out onto the veranda. She was just in time to see a car vanishing out of the driveway into the main road that passed in front of the Dana home.

Louise was a quick-thinking girl and her first idea was to get the license number of the car. The end of the driveway was only about thirty yards away, so she was able to see the license plate distinctly. The number was firmly imprinted on her mind before the automobile had swung out into the road and disappeared beyond the trees.

Louise turned to find Jean at her side.

“There goes our lamp!” she said grimly.

“And we’re going after it,” decided Jean. “Come on, Lou! We’ll follow that car.”

Jean snatched their coats from a closet and the girls rushed around to the garage at the back of the house, where the family roadster was parked. Hastily they scrambled into it. Louise stepped on the starter, backed the light car into the driveway, swung it around, and then sped toward the main road.

“I took the license number,” she told Jean, “It’s B7953. Even if we don’t catch him now, we’ll find out who owns that car, anyway.”

Once on the highway she stepped on the accelerator and the roadster leaped forward. Jean’s blonde bobbed hair streamed wildly in the wind and she put her hands over it to hold it down firmly. There was no sign of the other car on the road ahead, but it was a winding highway and the fugitive had several minutes’ start.

“What on earth,” exclaimed Jean, “could possess anyone to steal our lamp? The thief must have known about it. Unless he was a tramp——”

“Tramps don’t travel around in automobiles,” Louise pointed out logically as she bore down on the wheel at a sharp curve. “No, it was planned. The man must have followed the express driver and then watched his chance.”

“Why, he may have been looking through the window all the time we were unpacking the lamp!” said Jean. “But I still can’t understand why he would want to steal it.”

“Uncle Ned said it was an antique, and valuable,” said Louise. “Perhaps it’s even more valuable than he thought.”

“We scarcely had time to look at it,” said Jean disconsolately. “Oh, I do hope we get it back. Did you notice how many people were in the car?”

“Just one man, as far as I could see.”

Louise bent forward over the wheel, her eyes fixed on the ribbon of highway ahead. They were approaching the outskirts of Oak Falls. As the roadster sped around a curve, the town came into view, its spires and rooftops rising above the trees along the banks of the river. Then Jean uttered a cry of delight:

“There’s the car! We’re catching up to him, Louise!”

About a quarter of a mile ahead the other car was racing toward the town at headlong speed. Louise let the roadster out as much as she dared. It rocked and swayed as it ate up the highway in pursuit.

The fugitive was a good driver, his car was powerful, and it was evident that he realized he was being chased. He defied all the speed laws as he sped across the big bridge over the Oak River.

Louise groaned.

“He’ll be into the traffic before we can overtake him.”

This, obviously, was the man’s objective. Oak Falls was a busy community, and one of its heaviest traffic arteries was the street leading toward the bridge. Just before the girls reached the river a small automobile swung out of a side road and approached the bridge at a leisurely speed, while at the same time a heavy truck came rumbling out onto the bridge. Louise could not cut in ahead of the other car. She was forced to slow down. Exasperated, the sisters saw the car ahead vanish into the traffic beyond the bridge.

As the truck rumbled by, Louise swung the roadster out and raced ahead of the little car that had held them up. Out on the street beyond the bridge she sped along until they were forced to halt at a stop-light. Away ahead they thought they could see the top of the other car, but they could not be sure, as the traffic was heavier now, being fed by a constant stream of cars and trucks from the side streets. By the time the go-light shone they realized that they had lost the fugitive.

“What dreadful luck!” exclaimed Jean. “We’ll have no chance of finding him now.”

Louise was thoughtful. Her pretty face became serious.

“I don’t know about that. If he followed the expressman out to our place, he must have come from Oak Falls. It’s hardly likely that he’ll go on to some other town. We may run across that car yet.”

“Then we’ll search every street in Oak Falls,” declared Jean with determination.

They drove on, more slowly now because of the traffic, into the business section of the town. The two girls kept a sharp lookout for all parked cars and studied every license plate, but there was no sign of the mysterious “B7953.”

They drove back and forth for some time without result, then pulled up to the curb.

“Let’s leave the roadster here,” suggested Louise finally, “and walk around. I’ll take the streets on one side of the downtown section. You take the others. Perhaps we’ll find the man’s car parked somewhere.”

“Good idea,” Jean agreed, as they clambered out. Jean suggested that they notify the police station, but Louise would not hear of it.

“I like mysteries,” she declared, “and this is something of a mystery. We’ll handle it ourselves. If I find the man who drove that car, I’ll give him a piece of my mind.”

The girls separated to follow out their plan of searching the side streets. Jean was glowing with excitement as she left the busy main thoroughfare and plunged down an ugly, narrow street of cheap stores and warehouses. It was the first unusual adventure the girls had experienced during their vacation, and she was enjoying it to the utmost.

She was puzzled as to the motive for the theft of the study lamp. It was an antique, of course, and Uncle Ned had said it was valuable, yet she knew he was not rich enough to afford a very expensive gift. It had evidently tempted the robber to take extraordinary risks.

“I can’t understand why he should come in broad daylight and steal it from right under our noses,” she said to herself. “He might have waited until night.”

She came out onto a gloomy little street, squalid and wretched in the light of the cloudy October afternoon. There was but one car parked by the curb and as she walked quickly down the sidewalk it seemed to her that the machine was familiar. Jean looked at the dirty license plate.

Then she gasped. It was the car she sought. There was the number—B7953, and unless Louise had made a serious mistake, it was the same car that had sped away from the Dana home not half an hour previously. The automobile was unoccupied.

Jean examined the building before which it was parked, a secondhand shop. It was a dirty, evil-looking, wretched little place that occupied the ground floor of an old brick building. Through the bleary windowpane she saw a miscellaneous assortment of shabby articles, old violins, rusty rifles, tattered books, old-fashioned cameras, pictures that might have been family heirlooms—a display that could be classified instantly as junk. Over the dark doorway a sign creaked in the autumn wind. In crude lettering she saw the name:

“Garbone.”

Mr. Garbone, whoever he was, evidently thought that was enough, for he had dispensed with any advertisement of his place of business, and had even omitted his own initials.

“Well,” said Jean to herself, “that car is parked in front of the store, so the man who drove it must be in the shop. What better place to sell a stolen lamp than in a secondhand shop?”

Without a moment’s hesitation she opened the door and stepped into Mr. Garbone’s shabby and sinister place of business. A bell tinkled overhead as she entered.

The place was very dark, for little light filtered in through the dirty windowpane and Mr. Garbone evidently economized on electricity. When Jean’s eyes became accustomed to the gloom she found herself in a small wilderness of tumbledown chairs, sofas, kitchen tables, and other furniture, while on shelves behind the narrow counter were stacked more of the guns, cameras, watches, and other articles in which Mr. Garbone specialized. She wondered if he ever sold anything. Certainly she did not see a single article in the store that she would have accepted as a gift.

No one answered the tinkling bell, so Jean rapped firmly on the counter. Almost immediately she heard an oily voice:

“Yes, Lady? Is there anything I can do for you today?”

Silently a man had entered from some hidden recess at the back of the shop. He was a stout, swarthy individual with beetling eyebrows, dark eyes that glittered strangely, a nose like a beak, and a thin, cruel mouth. He rubbed his fat hands together as he moved stealthily behind the counter.

“Who is the owner of the car at your door?” asked Jean directly.

The man looked at her for a moment through half-closed eyes. Then he stepped gently to the window and looked out.

“The car at my door?” he murmured. “You wish to know the owner?”

“If you please.”

The stout man rubbed his chin reflectively.

“As a matter of fact, Lady,” he said, his cruel lips turning upward in what was meant to be a smile, “the car is mine. My name is Garbone. Jake Garbone, at your service.”

Jean studied him for a moment. She disliked and distrusted the man at sight.

“Well, Mr. Garbone,” she said, “I’ve come for the lamp you took from our house a little while ago. My name is Jean Dana.”

Mr. Garbone frowned.

“What is this?” he said sharply. “What is this about a lamp? You say I took a lamp from your house?”

“If that is your car, I think you’d better give me an explanation.” Jean’s heart was thumping, but she stood her ground. “Someone entered our home and took a study lamp from the kitchen. The man drove away in a car with license number B7953. That’s the license number of your car.”

Mr. Garbone became violently angry.

“It is a lie!” he shouted. “I have not been out of my store all afternoon. I know nothing about a lamp. I am not a thief. I am an honest business man.”

He came around the counter, advancing silently and menacingly on his rubber-heeled shoes.

“You will apologize to me for this insult,” he rasped. “You come into my store and tell me I am a thief? What proof have you? Do you see this lamp anywhere in my store? Did you see me take it? Did you see me in the car? I tell you, that car has not been out of this street since noon. This is an outrage! I know nothing about it. You are an impudent girl.”

His eyes flamed with wrath. His face was harsh. Jean was momentarily frightened, but she did not quail.

“We followed that car all the way into Oak Falls,” she said flatly.

“Not that car,” stormed Garbone. “I tell you it has been in front of this store all afternoon. You have made a mistake.”

Doubt began to enter Jean’s mind. She wondered if she had not made a ridiculous mistake after all in coming into this man’s store and openly accusing him of stealing the lamp. Mr. Garbone’s wrath did not seem feigned, and if he did not know anything about her uncle’s gift, she felt that she could not blame him for losing his temper.

“Perhaps,” she thought to herself, “I really ought to apologize.”

At that moment, over Mr. Garbone’s shoulder, she saw something that brought a startled exclamation from her lips. The draperies at the back of the store parted slowly, and for a second there appeared a face. It was the white, sinister face of a woman with deep dark eyes, stringy black hair, and a cruel, painted mouth. She saw the features for but an instant; then they were gone.

Mr. Garbone glared at her and demanded:

“What do you see?”

When he turned and followed the direction of Jean’s frightened gaze, the evil-looking face had disappeared.

CHAPTER III

The Peril of the River

Louise was worried. She had searched through many streets without finding the robber’s car. Now she was back at the Dana roadster, and there was no sign of Jean.

Louise, being of a more serious disposition than her gay, light-hearted sister, was prone to anxiety. She knew that Jean could not get lost in Oak Falls, but she was worried lest some harm had come to her in her search for the thief.

“It was foolish of me to let her go by herself,” she thought.

She crossed the road and went into the part of the town where she had last seen her sister. Then she hesitated. What if Jean returned to the roadster in the meantime and went in search of her? She paused, undecided.