The Mystery of the Missing Heiress (13 page)

“Yeah.” Mart grinned. “I think she and Mr. Ly-tell are sorta—”

“Of course they like one another,” Honey said, bristling, “and they have for a long time. What of it?”

“Not a thing. Not a thing,” Mart said airily. “If she doesn’t mind how cranky he gets and thinks he s the Apollo Belvedere, it’s okay with me. I say it’s okay.”

“Boy, I’ll never forget how he was so patient with me when I wanted to buy my jalopy,” Brian said.

Mr. Lytell is an oddball,” Mart said, tongue in cheek, “but he’s all heart. He’s all heart!”

Trixie wrote “hamburger” and repeated it out loud. Then she went on. “Pickles. Potato Chips. Lemonade mix.”

“Cokes!” Mart said. “Say, why do we buy all this stuff? Moms always has the freezer full of hamburger, don’t you, Moms?”

“Of course I do,” Mrs. Belden said as she came into the kitchen. “I’ll fix a salad and bake a cake. Anyone want baked beans?”

“Nix on the hamburger,” Jim said, “and pickles, potato chips, and other stuff. This is a Bob-White party, and we’ll use our funds. It’s okay on the cake, though, Mrs. Belden.”

“I'll fix the salad, too, and the baked beans,” Mrs. Belden said, laughing. “You’ll want to invite Juliana, won’t you?”

“Sure!” Brian said heartily. “We’ll stop at Mrs. Vanderpoel’s house when we go to the store. I sure hope she’s heard something from Holland.”

When they stopped, Juliana said yes, she’d love to go to the party, and no, she hadn’t heard anything from The Hague. “Time’s getting shorter and shorter, too.” Her voice sharpened.

“Oh, well, don’t fret,” Mrs. Vanderpoel told her. “It’ll come in time for you to join your friends, I know. I wish there was something I could send for the party. There’re cookies, of course. Janie does like my cookies. I’ll send some with Juliana when she goes.”

“Where next?” Jim asked as he backed out of the drive.

“The record shop,” Mart said. “There’s one I’ve got to have. The Kelpies—they’re English. They have a flamenco guitarist who’s something.”

“We want dance records, mostly,” Trixie said. “Just who dances the flamenco? Oh, figure that one out yourself. Honey and Di and I have to list the treasures to be found in the hunt. Let’s have suggestions.”

“ ‘Eye of newt’ and ‘toe of frog,’ ” Mart sang out.

“ ‘Wool of bat’ and ‘tongue of dog,’ ” Jim put in.

Laughter from the backseat rewarded them as the car moved on to Sleepyside.

“If it’s that good!” Mart snorted.

“It is!” Honey insisted as Trixie added “candy wrapper” to a growing list: light bulb, horseshoe, fresh egg, yellow rose, old glove, five green mulberries, apple core, dog bone.

At a little after six, Miss Trask let Bobby and Janie out at the drive, with Reddy bounding after them.

“I heard a record going way down the road!” Bobby cried. Then the little boy’s eyes grew big as he glanced from lanterns to red-checked cloth on the picnic table. “Who’s having a party?”

“Surprise for Janie!” the Bob-Whites called.

They joined hands with Juliana in a circle around her. “Surprise for Janie!”

Janie, confused for a moment, suddenly clapped her hands, eyes dancing. “This is fun!”

“You stay, too, won’t you, Miss Trask?” Trixie asked.

The slender, gray-haired woman demurred, then, as the boys shouted, “Yeah, Miss Trask! Yeah, Miss Trask!” she weakened and busied herself helping Mrs. Belden in the kitchen.

It wasn’t long till Mr. Belden called from the barbecue, “Soup’s on!” and there was a rush for the picnic table.

The mound of hamburgers disappeared to the accompaniment of laughter, jokes, and teasing. Casseroles were scraped to the last bite, and cake and cookies disappeared.

The sun dropped in the western sky. Even Reddy stopped begging for handouts, and the Bob-Whites and their guests, groaning, pushed back from the table.

The treasure hunt started. Brian, the leader, read off the list of treasures. “Everyone is to go by himself—no teamwork. The first one back with the whole list—the entire list—gets a pocket transistor, gift of Diana’s father, and it’s a honey. Now, scram!”

“Reddy goes with me,” Bobby said. “I know where every one of those things is... I think. Janie, you go round the barn that way. The mulberry tree’s there. Juliana, you go through the orchard and you’ll get an apple core. Want me to tell you more?”

“Just find your own treasures, Bobby. It’ll keep you busy enough,” Brian said as he disappeared into the shrubbery.

The big boys raced up Glen Road. On the vast Wheeler estate, they were bound to find the treasures in record time.

For a while all was quiet, except for the sound of quick running feet, an occasional shout of triumph, or the distant barking of a dog.

Trixie, in her mother s garden to add the yellow rose to her collection, heard a car stop on the road below her home.
That’s funny,
thought Trixie, instantly alert.
Why would a car stop on this stretch of Glen Road? No houses, except the ruins of Ten Acres. If they were our visitors, they’d use our driveway. I wonder.
... Then, with a mental shrug, she turned back to the roses. Suddenly she heard Reddy’s sharp bark, closely followed by Bobby’s frightened cry: “Trixie!”

For a split second, she froze; then she darted toward the house.

Immediately Bob-Whites, running from every direction, converged on the patio.

Trixie was the first to reach Bobby.

“I dropped my sack with my treasures,” he howled. “And I broked my egg!” He held up a dripping paper bag. “It’s awful sticky.”

Reddy growled low in his throat.

“What happened to make you call for Trixie?” his father asked.

“It was that man... that man in a car...

“I heard a car stop down the road,” Trixie said. “What did the man do?” she asked Bobby.

“He had a growly voice,” Bobby said. “Worse than Reddy’s, ’n he said... he said—”

“Yes. Go on!” his father prodded.

“He said did I know where Mrs. Vanderpoel lived,” Bobby whimpered.

“Is that all, for pete’s sake?” Mart asked.

“Did you tell the man where she lived?” Mrs. Belden asked. “Brian, you and Jim go and see if the car is still there. It does seem to me a simple question to ask.”

“What did I say about the Belden family making a big production over nothing?” Mart asked when the other boys came back and reported no car on Glen Road.

“It’s not... exactly... nothing,” Trixie said thoughtfully. “It’s a little odd.”

“What’s odd about a man asking a simple direction?” Mart asked.

“Just this,” Trixie answered. “All the lights were on at our house. If he really wanted to know where Mrs. Vanderpoel lived, why didn’t he stop here and ask?”

“Maybe that’s just the reason. Maybe he thought it was a party,” Mart said. “Maybe he didn’t want to get out of his car when a dog growled at him. Maybe half a dozen things. One sure thing, there was nothing mysterious about it, Trixie. The treasure hunt is all shot now. I vote we give the transistor radio to Janie.”

“To remember the treasure hunt that didn’t click.” Honey giggled. “I’d like her to have it, anyway.”

“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” the Bob-Whites agreed. Miss Trask placed the radio in Janie’s lap. Janie, protesting but delighted, examined the little set enthusiastically.

“How about getting your guitar, Mart?” Diana begged. “We can have a hootenanny all our own. Didn’t you say Janie taught you an English ballad? Will you sing it for us, Janie? Is everyone here?” Trixie gazed around the picnic table, where they had all gathered. “Where’s Juliana?”

“She went through the apple orchard, where I told her,” Bobby said. “I thought she could get the apple core there. There she comes now.”

“Why all the excitement?” Jim’s cousin asked, dropping down on the bench near him. “All I found was an apple. Maybe Bobby will eat it down to the core for me.”

“Didn’t you hear him yelling?” Mart asked, and handed his guitar to Janie. “He broke up the treasure hunt.”

“It was someone asking the way to Mrs. Vanderpoel’s house. It was nothing. Bobby got a little excited,” Brian said.

“All that fuss about someone asking a direction?” Juliana asked. “It doesn’t take much to upset Bobby.”

“Do
sing your song, Janie. Mart said it was a lovely ballad,” Trixie urged. She thought,
If you knew it was “all that fuss,” you must have heard it. Did you hear it and pretend you didn’t? If so, why? It’s odd, no matter what Mart says.

Janie twanged a few chords and in a low voice sang plaintively:

“In Camelot, where Arthur died,

The mist hangs low and cold.

In fading light, Round Table Knights

Are ghosts, who once were bold.

For nothing’s left of that dear age

Of grace and chivalry,

Save wild wind racing through the crags

In mournful threnody.

Alas!

The wild wind races through the crags

In mournful threnody.”

“Ugh! That’s not only sad; it’s grisly, too,” Juliana said, shuddering.

“Most English ballads are sad. They run to minor chords. They’re neat!” Mart said.

“Maybe English ballads have to be sad,” Juliana insisted, “but for a ‘cheer-up’ party....”

“She has a point there,” Jim agreed. “Mart, how about that Catskill song we sang on the towboat on the Mississippi?”

“Okay, if you’ll all sing along.” Mart ran through a verse of chords, then sang out lustily:

“We’ll sing you a song of the Catskills, oh,

A song of the mountain men, oh.

“Rip Van Winkle, on a stormy night,

Left his wife and went up to the height

Of the Catskill range, where Hudson’s men

Played ninepins merrily, but when

They gave him a drink, he drank so deep

It sent him into a twenty-year sleep.

“We’ll sing you a song of the Catskills, oh,

A song of the mountain men, oh.

“When Rip awakened, he yawned and said, ‘Twenty years?’ then rubbed his head,

Took up his stick and called his dog,

Set off for town in the morning fog,

Singing:

“ “Now, many a man’s been twenty years wed, And many a man’s been twenty years dead,

I’ll take the second, you take the first,

Of all man’s troubles, a wife’s the worst.’

“We’ve sung you a song of the Catskills, oh,

A song of the mountain men, oh.”

“All together, now,” Brian said, clapping and laughing, “another chorus!”

“We’ve sung you a song of the Catskills, oh,

A song of the mountain men, oh.”

Trixie, swinging her arms in rhythm, noticed suddenly that Janie wasn’t singing with them, not even humming the tune. A strange expression had crept over her face.

“Play it again, please!” Janie begged Mart when the singing had stopped. “It almost seemed... it was when I was in college....”

Juliana jumped to her feet. “It’s all too utterly morbid! Gruesome! I’m going home. I had no idea of the time. Cousin Jim, will you take me to Mrs. Vanderpoel’s house?”

She’s done it again,
Trixie thought.
She’s broken the spell. Why does she always interrupt when Janie is about to remember? Does she do it on purpose? That’s too fantastic! But—

Jim left with Juliana.

Mart put some dance records on the player.

“Dibs on dancing with Janie!” Brian shouted and swung her out into the center of the patio.

Soon Mart and Diana and Trixie and Dan followed, arms and legs flying, shouting to the beat and melody as the disk whirled. Reddy, yipping joyfully, ran in and out among the dancers, Bobby in close pursuit.

The frenzy and tempo increased as record followed record.

Where can Jim be?
Trixie thought.
What’s keeping him so long?

As though in answer to her question, the lights of the station wagon shone across the patio.

Jim came running across the lawn, and the dancing stopped.

“A car was parked at Mrs. Vanderpoels when I got there,” he burst out. “A green Buick.”

“That was the growly man who told me where did Mrs. Vanderpoel live,” Bobby said.