“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind repeating it for the benefit of my daughter and her friends,” suggested Terry’s mother.
“Not at all. I’ll put my cards on the table, so to speak, and you can judge how much you want to tell me. This Melissa Clayton, according to the case as it comes to me, has an elderly aunt, her mother’s sister, who is quite wealthy. This aunt, a widow named Mrs. Lulu Benlon, has for a long time wanted to befriend this girl, but Melissa’s father refuses to let anything be done for her.”
“Just like him!” murmured Arden.
“I heard something like that in the village,” went on Emma Tash. “But we’ll come to him later. Anyhow, the firm I am with has been hired to see if something can’t be done now. It seems that several times, in years past, Mrs. Benlon tried to do something for Melissa but was prevented. After being turned down more than once, she gave up. Now Mrs. Benlon is ailing. She’s afraid she is going to die soon, but before that she wants to make another effort to help Melissa.”
“Couldn’t she leave her money in a will?” asked Sim.
“Yes, that was talked of, but Mrs. Benlon is queer,” said Emma Tash. “She wants to be sure Melissa will get the benefit of her help, and if she left her money there is no telling that Melissa would ever get it. Mrs. Benlon, it seems, wants the satisfaction of knowing, herself, that what she does will really benefit the girl.”
“She’s probably wise there,” said Mrs. Landry.
“Yes, I guess so,” the detective investigator admitted. “So that’s why I’m here. Mrs. Benlon has offered to take Melissa out of what, from all accounts, is a poor sort of a home and give her a good one—even send her to school to be educated. But Mrs. Benlon doesn’t want George Clayton to have anything of her bounty. It seems that he wasn’t kind to his wife, who was Mrs. Benlon’s younger sister.
“As I get the story, it was a sort of runaway match; marry in haste and repent all the rest of your life. Anyhow, Melissa’s mother died soon after the girl’s birth, and she had been brought up in a hand-to-mouth sort of way ever since, according to Mrs. Benlon. But if it can be brought about there is a happier time ahead for Melissa. Now that you know what I want, will you help me?”
“Yes!” exclaimed Arden, and her chums nodded in agreement.