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The Seven Sleuths' Club

The Seven Sleuths' Club

CHAPTER I.
ENTER THE S. S. C

A musical gong, resounding through the corridors of the Sunnyside seminary, was the signal for the opening of doors and the trooping out of girls of all ages, in twos and threes and groups; some with ribboned braids, a few with long curls but most of them with saucy bobs. It was a ten-minute recreation between changing classes. Had it been summer, one and all would have flocked out on the wide green lawns to play a game of toss ball for a few merry moments, or to rest on benches under the great old elms, or to saunter up and down the flower-bordered paths, but, since it was a wild, blustery day in January, the pupils of Miss Demorest’s school for select young ladies contented themselves, some of them with opening the heavy front door and uttering little screams of pretended fear or of sincere delight when a snow-laden gust brushed past them, leaving those nearest with wind-tossed hair.

Six of them, having no curiosity, it would seem, concerning the weather, gathered about the wide fireplace in the library for a few moments of hurried gossip.

“Where’s Merry?” Peggy Pierce asked as she glanced toward the open door that led into the music-room. “She said we were to come in here and wait for her. She’s made a wild and wonderful discovery, she told me in class. If Miss Preens didn’t have eyes in the back of her head, Merry would have told me what it was, but, just as she was starting, around whirled that living skeleton and pointed an accusing bony finger at us as she moaned in that deep, uncanny voice of hers: ‘Miss Marion Lee, one demerit for whispering. Miss Peggy Pierce, one demerit for listening.’ Say, can you beat that?”

“I don’t think she’s human,” Rosamond Wright declared, her iris-blue eyes, round and serious. “Honest, true, I think she has demoniacal powers.”

“That’s too much for me!” laughed little Betty Byrd. “Where do you learn such long words, Rose? I’m still using monosyllables.”

“Sounds like it!” Bertha Angel commented.

“To return to the subject under discussion, where do you suppose the president of the ‘S. S. C.’ is?” Peggy Pierce glanced at her wrist watch, but, as usual, it had stopped running.

“Time, Peg? According to my old reliable there’s just five minutes more of recess and – ” Doris Dreel broke off to exclaim gleefully:

“Here she comes! Here’s Merry!” Then to the girl who, laughing and towsled, appeared in the doorway leading from the corridor, Rosamond cried: “What’s the big idea, Merry? Didn’t you call a fireplace meeting for the very minute after the gong rang, and now it’s time for the next gong and we haven’t heard what you have to tell us.”

But Merry, although she tried to look repentant, was laughing so hard that still another moment was wasted while she made an effort to compose herself. Down on a comfortably upholstered chair she sank, thrusting her feet out toward the blaze. She had laughed herself limp.