The Red Trailer Mystery

Trixie saw her father’s car turn into the driveway from Glen Road, and she raced out of the back door to stop him before he reached the garage.

“Dad! Dad!” she shouted. “We’re going on a trailer trip, Honey Wheeler and I, with her governess, Miss Trask, to try and find Jim Frayne who has run away again.”

Mr. Belden stopped the car by the steps leading to the back terrace. He leaned out of the window, smiling, but there was a puzzled frown on his face too. “What on earth are you talking about, Trixie? Who is Jim Frayne?”

Trixie put her arm on the car door. “He’s old Mr. Frayne’s great-nephew, Dad,” she said, remembering that her parents hadn’t guessed the secret of the mansion. “And now that Mr. Frayne is dead, Jim is his sole heir to a fortune of over half a million dollars. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Mr. Belden nodded. “So they found the missing heir at last? When I left to drive your mother and Bobby to
the seashore, they were still looking for the widow and her son.”

“Jim’s mother is dead, Dad,” Trixie said. “And he ran away from his stepfather who beats him and makes him work on his farm for nothing. And Honey and I found him,” Trixie went on excitedly, “and brought him food while he was hiding in the mansion, but now he’s run away again. And, oh, Dad, I forgot to tell you, the old mansion burned to the ground last night.”

Mr. Belden glanced up at the ruins on the eastern hill above the hollow. “I thought I smelled stale smoke when I turned into Glen Road,” he said soberly. “That crumbling old house must have burned like tinder. It’s a wonder, in the drought we’ve been having until the rain this morning, that the fire didn’t spread through the woods to our place and the Wheeler estate.”

“We were awfully afraid it would,” Trixie told him as he got out of the car and walked with her to sit on the terrace. “And, Dad, this morning when Honey and I were up there, Mr. Rainsford arrived from New York. He’s the executor of the estate, you know, and was looking for Jim because Mr. Frayne left all his money in trust for his nephew’s son, who is Jim, you see. But Jim doesn’t know that because he ran away early this morning. So now we’ve got to find him, Honey and I. That’s why we’re
going on the trailer trip in the Wheelers’
Silver Swan
, which is really the darlingest little house on wheels you ever saw.”

Trixie reached out and clutched her father’s sleeve, begging, “Please, Dad, say I can go,
please!
Miss Trask, Honey’s governess, is a wonderful driver and the best sport in the world. She has already phoned to Honey’s parents in Canada for permission, and Mr. Rainsford is counting on our help.”

Mr. Belden laughed and patted Trixie’s brown hand. “It looks like it’s pretty much settled, and I can’t see any reason why I should object if Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler approve of the trip. But I don’t quite see why a trailer trip is necessary. Couldn’t Mr. Rainsford advertise in the papers for Jim and put detectives on his trail? It seems to me—”

“Oh, no, Dad,” Trixie put in quickly, “that would ruin everything. Jonesy, Jim’s stepfather, is his legal guardian, and Jim has made up his mind that he will never, never go back and live with him. Jonesy thinks Jim died in the fire last night—that’s what the morning papers said—so now he has stopped looking for him. Jonesy doesn’t care anything about Jim, Dad. He just wants to get control of the Frayne money. If anything appears in the papers about Jim being still alive, Jonesy
will start looking for him again, and then Jim will run away and hide somewhere so we’ll never find him.”

“I’m beginning to understand something of what you’re saying.” Mr. Belden smiled. “But if Jim’s stepfather is as cruel as you claim he is, why can’t Mr. Rainsford take the matter to court and have another guardian appointed?”

“He’s working on that now, Dad,” Trixie said. “He’s even got written proof from Jonesy’s neighbors and everything, but the point is, we’ve got to find Jim first and tell him all that before Jonesy even guesses that Jim isn’t dead.”

Trixie hugged her knees rocking back and forth. “Oh, Dad, Jim is really the most wonderful boy I ever knew. His ambition in life is to own and run a camp for orphan boys so they can learn how to be good at sports and how to get along in the woods at the same time that they have school lessons. So that’s why we feel sure he’s trying now to get a job at one of those three big camps upstate. He could be a junior counselor, like Brian and Mart, or junior athletic instructor, because he’s very good at everything, and although he’s only fifteen, he did two years of high school in one, and won a scholarship to college—” Trixie stopped, completely out of breath.

“He sounds like a great lad,” her father said, laughing.
“But he’s not going to have an easy time getting a job without written permission from his parents or guardian. I wrote several letters and had personal interviews with the operators of the camp where your brothers now have junior counselor jobs.”

“I know,” Trixie admitted. “And that’s why we have to start right away to find him. He told Honey and me that if he didn’t get a job at one of those three big camps, he’d ship aboard a cattle boat and go to Europe. And then we’d
never
find him.”

“Well, then,” Mr. Belden said mildly, “it seems to me that Mr. Rainsford should put detectives on the case immediately.”

“Oh, don’t you see, Dad?” Trixie moaned. “If Jim suspects detectives are trying to find him, he’ll think for sure Jonesy hired them, and he’ll leave the country right away. But if he hears that two girls are looking for him, he won’t be worried at all because he trusts Honey and me. Please, Dad,” she begged. “We want to start tomorrow early. Please say I may go!”

Mr. Belden stood up. “You have my permission, Trixie. How long do you plan to be gone?”

“Less than a week, Dad.” Trixie followed her father into the house. “Shall I telephone Mother and see if she thinks it’s all right?”

“I’ll call her myself,” Mr. Belden said. “As a matter of fact, this will work out very well. Your mother and Bobby planned to stay at the seashore until next weekend anyway, so it would be lonely here for you. I can get Mrs. Green out from the village to keep house for me.”

As he picked up the phone with one hand he handed Trixie a crisp five-dollar bill with the other. “Here’s your first week’s salary,” he grinned and, imitating Trixie, added, “Boy, oh boy, will you have a lot of weeding to do when you get back!”

“Thanks, Dad.” Trixie laughed. “I’ll go over every inch of the garden with eyebrow tweezers!”

“Well, a hoe anyway,” her father returned. “Run along now and start packing if you want to leave early in the morning.”

Trixie was yanking clothes out of her bureau drawers when her father called up the stair well that he had received her mother’s approval of the plan. Leaving everything helter-skelter, she raced out of the house and up the hill to the Wheeler estate.

Trixie and her three brothers and their parents lived in a little white frame house down in the hollow, and the name of their place was Crabapple Farm. Recently the luxurious Manor House with its stables and
lake and acres of rolling green lawn up on the western hill had been purchased by the Wheeler family from New York. Honey Wheeler and Trixie, who were both thirteen, had soon become fast friends.

“Honey! Honey!” Trixie shouted as she took the steps to the Manor House veranda two at a time. “Dad says I can. Oh, I can hardly wait!”

Honey and her governess were upstairs packing when Trixie burst into the dainty room with its white ruffled organdy curtains and matching bedspread. Miss Trask, an athletic-looking, middle-aged woman, pushed back a strand of her short gray hair and smiled at Trixie. “I’m so glad it’s all settled,” she said. “I was so sure your parents would approve that I sent Regan to the village for supplies. I want you girls to do most of the cooking on this trip. There’s quite an efficient little kitchenette on the
Silver Swan
, and some of the trailer camps we may want to stop at along the way have water and electrical connections. I think it would be good for you and lots of fun to keep house while we’re searching for Jim.”