The Red Trailer Mystery (7 page)

“And look!” Trixie shouted in excitement as she slipped out of the saddle. “Just look at this pile of branches. They must have been used to camouflage the van so nobody passing by would notice it.”

Honey jumped down beside her. On one side of the clearing, bushy evergreens were heaped high. On closer inspection they discovered folded neatly nearby an old tennis court net.

Honey was completely mystified, but Trixie yelled, “I get it. Don’t you see? They back the van in here and cover it with branches. Then they stretch this net
between the trees facing the road on either side of the clearing. After that all they have to do to hide the van completely is wind more branches through the holes in the net. It makes a perfect screen so nobody would ever guess there was a van parked in this patch of woods.”

“Then,” Honey said slowly, “those two men must be the trailer thieves. They carry away in the van the stuff they steal. Oh, I hate to think of Joeanne’s father being arrested, but we really ought to tell the state troopers just as soon as possible.”

“We can’t do that yet,” Trixie argued. “We’re not sure the driver of the van was Joeanne’s father, and how do we know this really is a hideaway? Let’s come back some other time when the van is hidden here. If we see trailer equipment inside it then we’ll have proof.”

Honey shuddered. “But suppose they catch us spying on them, Trixie? That Jeff is awfully mean-tempered and he has it in for you anyway.”

Trixie shrugged. “I’m not afraid of him, but I am starving. Let’s eat.”

“Not here,” Honey protested, looking over her shoulder. “Those men might come back.”

“All right,” Trixie agreed. “It would be better to ride down to the path where we found the bicycle tracks and have a picnic lunch near there. We might find some more clues to where Jim is.”

As they rode a little way up the Pine Hollow trail again, the dogs came dashing out of the woods. They were both dripping wet and sprayed the girls with water.

“They’ve been in swimming, the lucky dogs.” Trixie laughed. “There must be a brook near here. Let’s try to find it so we can wash up before lunch.”

“But we can’t take the horses through that thick underbrush,” Honey objected. “They might get badly scratched or stumble and go lame. I wouldn’t worry so much if Prince and Peanuts belonged to us, but we’d better not take any chances with rented horses.”

“You’re right.” Trixie sighed. “But I’m just dying to explore in there. Suppose those blue jeans we saw belonged to Jim?”

“I’m sure they didn’t.” Honey handed Trixie a sandwich and unscrewed the top of the Thermos. “Even if he didn’t hear us call, he would have recognized Reddy and known we were near. He wouldn’t run away from us, Trixie.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Trixie said. “Maybe something’s
happened so he feels he has to hide from everyone. We haven’t seen a newspaper since we left home. Suppose a reporter discovered Jim didn’t die in the fire after all? There would be another front-page story about the missing heir, and Jonesy would start looking for Jim again.”

“Oh, golly,” Honey groaned. “I can’t bear to think of anything so awful happening. If Jonesy should find Jim before we do, he’ll beat him and tie him up the way he did the time Jim ran away before.”

“Jim will never let that happen,” Trixie said. “And that’s what worries me. We shouldn’t waste any more time. Let’s ride to Wilson Ranch this afternoon and see if he got a job there.”

Honey glanced up at the sky. “We would never be able to make it before it rains. It’s going to pour any minute. We ought to start for home right away.”

Sure enough, it was already sprinkling when the girls returned their horses to the riding academy, and they had to run all the way to the
Swan
to keep from getting soaked. The rain kept up a steady drumming on the roof of the trailer all day, and the girls were forced to play indoor games and read, but it was hard to control their impatience.

At last Trixie said restlessly, “I can’t stand being
cooped up here any longer. Let’s dash over to the restaurant and play some Ping-Pong before dinner.”

“All right,” Miss Trask agreed. “I’ll take a nap, but wear your slickers and rubbers. If either of you should catch cold it would ruin the trip.”

“We won’t,” Honey assured her. “And please don’t let the dogs follow us. They’ve already brought in so much mud Trixie and I’ll have to spend most of the morning scrubbing the place.”

They raced around the park in their oilskin capes and hoods and sloshed up the steps to the cafeteria veranda. Everybody in Autoville seemed to have gathered inside and out of the clubhouse, and people were waiting in line for the use of the Ping-Pong table.

“Oh dear,” Trixie complained. “There’s nothing to do here either. I wish we could fall asleep and not wake up until it’s time to start looking for Jim tomorrow morning.”

Honey was examining a magazine at the newsstand. “This quiz test looks like fun,” she said. “Let’s find out how smart we are.” She bought two copies of the magazine and Trixie followed her to a quiet corner of the library. “Ready, get set, go,” Honey said. “The one who gets through first and has the most right answers is the smartest.”

Trixie scribbled a few answers in the blank spaces after the questions in the test, but in a short while her thoughts began to wander. “I always get sleepy on rainy days,” she yawned, bored. “Wish I’d stayed back at the
Swan
with Miss Trask and taken a nap.”

“I’m sleepy too,” Honey admitted. “Let’s doze right here in these comfortable chairs. We can finish the quiz later.”

It seemed to Trixie that she had hardly closed her eyes when she was awakened by the sound of whispering on the other side of the thin beaver-board wall that separated the library from one of the back rooms in the cafeteria.

“—abandoned barn,” someone was saying, “on that truck farm. Perfectly safe. Hasn’t been used in years. Doubt if the farmer even remembers it’s there.”

“You’re taking an awful chance,” came a whining whisper. “We were better off where we were.”

Trixie sat up. That voice, she felt sure, belonged to Jeff!

“Don’t be stupid,” the other voice said hoarsely. “Those kids rode into the clearing after we passed them on the highway. If they saw that net and guessed—”

“Those dumb kids!” Jeff snorted. “They wouldn’t suspect anything even if they did happen to notice the
net. What do you think they are, state troopers?”

“I’m taking no chances,” the other man insisted. “They didn’t look dumb to me and you could tell by the way they were riding along, watching the side of the road, they were looking for something.”

“Oh, all right,” Jeff gave in. “But it beats me how you’re going to get to that barn without being seen by the farmer who owns it. That van’s not exactly small, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I keep telling you,” the other man whispered impatiently. “Through the back fields. There’s an old road leading from the orchard to the barn.”

“And fine shape it’ll be in after this rain,” Jeff argued. “We’re sure to get stuck in the mud tonight; but have it your own way. I’ll play along, but it sure gets my goat that a couple of clumsy girls can make us change our plans.”

The two men moved away from the wall, and in a few seconds Trixie saw the silhouette of a bushy-haired man move furtively past the library window. She hurried to the veranda, straining her eyes to get a better glimpse of him. He turned as though he might have heard her tiptoeing after him, and she crouched down hastily behind a bench. Peeking through the slats in the back of the bench, Trixie held her breath as the man
took a few steps in her direction. Then, jamming a battered hat down over his thick, unruly hair, he wheeled and vaulted over the porch railing to disappear in the shadows of the bushes.

It was dark on the veranda, for due to the rain the outside lights had not been turned on, but Trixie had seen enough of the man’s face to feel sure that he was not Joeanne’s father. Hastily she returned to the library and woke Honey to tell her what had happened.

“I can’t be absolutely sure, of course,” she finished, “but he didn’t have that sort of vacant look that the red trailer man had. He didn’t look beaten at all; he had sharp features and narrow eyes and with all that bushy hair he made me think of a fox.”

“Well, Joeanne’s father doesn’t look anything like a fox,” Honey said. “The last time I saw him he reminded me of a great big, sad-eyed dog that didn’t have any home. Even if he did go off and leave Joeanne, I feel sorry for him.”

“Honey!” Trixie gasped. “You’ve hit the nail on the head. That’s just what’s wrong with that family—why they look so vacant, as though they had given up hope. They haven’t any home.”

“They’ve got the red trailer,” Honey began and then stopped. “Oh, I see what you mean. They must have stolen
the trailer because they haven’t any other place to live.”

“That’s it,” Trixie cried. “If you had all those children and no home for them and you saw a trailer all hitched up and ready to go, wouldn’t you be tempted?”

Honey nodded her head up and down sympathetically. “The man who owns the
Robin
shouldn’t have gone off and left his keys in the tow car. It serves him right, and I’m glad we didn’t tell the state trooper anything.”

“We didn’t have anything to tell him,” Trixie pointed out, “except that we saw a red trailer at the picnic grounds, and Miss Trask told him that.”

Honey sighed. “I hope we never run across that poor family again. If we should see the
Robin
while we’re looking for Jim we’d have to notify the police, wouldn’t we? I mean, if the father is a thief, it wouldn’t be right to withhold information that would lead to his arrest.”

“Well, anyway,” Trixie said, “he’s not the same thief who’s been stealing trailer equipment. If you ask me, Jeff and his bushy-haired friend have something to do with those robberies.”

“It certainly looks like it,” Honey said thoughtfully. “A hidden van and all that talk you just heard about an abandoned barn! Shouldn’t we tell the troopers what we suspect?”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” Trixie told her. “I gather they’re not going to hide the van in the woods any more. And we haven’t the vaguest idea where the abandoned barn is. We’ve got to get some proof before we can report anything to the police. If I told them I suspected Jeff, they’d think I was trying to get him into trouble because he bumped into me with a tray of dishes.”

“Oh, golly,” Honey moaned. “It seems to me we’ve got too many things to do in such a short time. We want to find Jim and Joeanne, and we don’t want to find the red trailer, and at the same time we ought to be looking for that van and an abandoned barn.”

Trixie laughed. “We don’t really
have
to do anything but find Jim, but I hope we find Joeanne too. I can’t bear the thought of that poor little girl wandering around all by herself.”

“Maybe she isn’t any more,” Honey said without much hope. “Maybe she knew where her family was going in the trailer and has caught up with them by now.”

Trixie shook her head. “Then why did she run away in the first place?”

“I don’t know,” Honey began and then she said with a little gasp, “Oh, Trixie, did you ever think that the person in faded blue jeans who disappeared into the woods back at the Pine Hollow trail might have been Joeanne?
Both the dogs know her pretty well, and especially Bud!”

Trixie’s mouth fell open in amazement. “We don’t need a quiz test to prove who’s the smartest,” she said ruefully. “I never thought about that, Honey, and I’ll bet it
was
Joeanne. Let’s go back there and explore some more as soon as we can.”

“You mean tomorrow as soon as we’ve cleaned up the
Swan?
” Honey demanded. “Don’t you think we’d better ride to Wilson Ranch first? We don’t want to lose track of Jim.”

“Of course not,” Trixie agreed. “We’ll look for clues to Joeanne in the afternoon.”

Miss Trask beckoned to them from the doorway then, and they hurried to follow her into the dining-room. As they stood in line with their trays in the cafeteria, the radio began to blare forth the latest news and weather reports.

“Upstate,” the announcer in the New York broadcasting station said, “police are searching for a gang of trailer thieves. Three of the four stolen trailers have already been located only a short distance from where their owners left them, stripped of all valuable and movable equipment. But so far state troopers have found no trace of the luxury trailer, named the
Robin
.” The announcer repeated several times the license plates on
the
Robin
and on the tow car and then issued the warning, “All trailer owners are cautioned against parking in side roads or in the woods and are especially urged not to abandon their homes-on-wheels at any time unless they are parked in supervised trailer camps.”

“This whole business is making me rather nervous,” Miss Trask said when they were seated at a table. “I feel terribly responsible for the
Swan
. If anything should happen to it, I’d never forgive myself, although I suppose it is heavily insured.”

“And it’s perfectly safe while we’re in Autoville,” Honey said quickly.

“Nevertheless,” Miss Trask told her, “I’d like to take it back home as soon as possible. You two can inquire for Jim at Wilson Ranch tomorrow and at Rushkill Farms on Tuesday. Then I think we ought to make an early start for Sleepyside Wednesday morning.”

Honey and Trixie stared at each other in dismay. Only two more days, and they had so much to do!

Honey immediately began to plead for more time, but Trixie had suddenly caught sight of the waiter, Jeff. He was clearing the soiled dishes from a table which some young people had just vacated, but he was working so slowly, stacking the plates with exaggerated care, wiping carefully at unseen spots, that Trixie became
suspicious. And then she realized that he was listening to every word a man and woman at the next table were saying.

The middle-aged couple had a map spread out in front of them, and while they sipped after-dinner coffee, they were discussing plans for a trip.