Mary Louise Solves a Mystery

A spirited young woman from a comfortable background becomes drawn into the life of an anxious eleven-year-old girl whose family has been forced into unfamiliar and straitened circumstances. Through observation, interviews, and daring errands she unravels a web of secrets involving the girl's father, missing valuables, and menacing strangers, following threads from genteel parlors to modest studios and boarding places. The plot balances domestic detail and amateur detection as alliances form, schemes are exposed, and a pragmatic settlement is reached that restores protection and some measure of security to the child.