“We’ve all had enough initiation for one night,” she said. “I vote that without further ceremony we make Cara a full-fledged member of the club.”
The others unanimously agreed. Cara breathed a deep sigh of relief as she realized that it was all over. Madge and Enid went to the kitchen to dish up ice cream and cake. Everyone was very sweet to Cara, trying to atone for the unpleasant events of the evening. She bore no one a grudge and soon was able to laugh at her own experience.
Before the girls had finished their ice cream, Mr. and Mrs. Brady returned home from the bridge party.
“Remember, not a word about what happened,” Jane warned as footsteps were heard on the porch.
Mr. and Mrs. Brady greeted the girls cordially. Themselves youthful in spirit, they enjoyed the society of young people and never objected when Madge overran the house with her friends. If they noticed that Cara looked pale and slightly ill at ease, they made no mention of it.
A few minutes later the girls departed, gratefully accepting Mr. Brady’s offer to drive them home in his car. Madge had hoped to speak alone with Cara before she left, but the opportunity did not present itself.
“I’ll see her tomorrow at school,” she thought. “I mean to find out more about what happened tonight at the Swenster mansion. Cara isn’t the sort to be frightened over nothing. I’m inclined to think something queer may be going on there.”
Madge had a certain instinct for adventure; her many thrilling experiences were the envy of her friends. Each summer she was privileged to spend many pleasant months at her uncle’s fishing lodge at Loon Lake, Canada. There she had met Jack French, a young forest ranger, who had taken more than an ordinary interest in her. Her friendship for an orphan, Anne Fairaday, had plunged her into a baffling search for a valuable paper. The story of this interesting adventure is related in the first volume of the Madge Sterling series, entitled “The Missing Formula.”
More recently, she had been involved in a strange kidnapping case. Arriving at Cheltham Bay to visit her friend Enid, she had found the Burnett yacht abandoned. In trying to discover what became of Mr. Burnett she was brought into dangerous contact with a fanatical group of Zudi Drum worshipers. This story is recounted in the volume “The Deserted Yacht.”
“I’ve often wondered why the Swenster mansion has been kept boarded up all these years,” Madge reflected as she undressed for bed. “It must have been quite a show place at one time.”