The Red Trailer Mystery (12 page)

I can’t give him away now
, Trixie silenced her conscience.
On top of the locket’s disappearance, even kindhearted Mrs. Smith would feel she had to notify the police, and even if she didn’t, Mr. Smith would never give Mr. Darnell his job back
.

Trixie looked up suddenly and realized that Mrs. Smith’s sharp black eyes had been trying to read her mind. She felt her cheeks grow hot, and for a moment she was tempted to blurt out the whole story and leave the decision up to someone else. But before she could open her mouth Mrs. Smith said soothingly, “Now, now, dearie, you mustn’t worry any more about my troubles. You’ve cheered me up so I think I can get through the day. I’ll keep right on believing the Darnells just borrowed my album locket and that they’ll bring it back soon.”

“But what about the bean crop?” Trixie asked, anxious to change the subject. “Is Mr. Smith down in the garden trying to pick them all by himself?”

“Heavens, no,” Mrs. Smith said as she led the way back to the kitchen. “They’d be covered with rust if anyone went near the vines until the sun has dried off the
dew. Nat drove into the village just before you came to see if he could get some help there. But I doubt if he’ll have any luck,” she sighed. “People just don’t like to pick beans, and I can’t say that I blame them in all this heat.” She fanned her red face with her apron. “I must get to my baking before it gets any hotter. You and your honey-haired friend come back for tea. Grape juice and chocolate layer cake. Spiced juice from my own grapes that I bottled myself last year. You must help us drink it up.”

“We’d love to,” Trixie said. “But I’m not sure we’ll have time. We have to ride to Rushkill Farms and then—”

“Rushkill Farms!” Mrs. Smith interrupted. “Why that’s much too far for you girls to ride in this heat. Oh, dearie me, if only I had a hired hand or could spare Nat, I’d send you over in the small truck. Whatever are you going to do at a boys’ camp? You won’t receive a hearty welcome, I can tell you right now. They’re very strict about visitors. I ought to know. I drove over there once, when I could still wedge myself behind a steering wheel, looking for a lost calf. The man who runs the camp is about as disagreeable a creature as I ever had the misfortune to come across.”

Trixie glanced at the clock over the stove and saw
that it was almost eight. “I’ve got to hurry,” she said. “Honey’s governess will be worried about me. I left a note saying I’d gone for a walk but I thought I’d be back before they woke up.”

“Then run along, lamb,” Mrs. Smith said. “And try to come back for tea. Nat and I can’t eat that cake all by ourselves and tomorrow is my pie day. Every Wednesday I make lemon chiffon pie. Nat’s mother always did and so I have to live up to her reputation.” She chuckled, her own cheerful self again, as she waved good-by to Trixie.

Trixie hurried down the highway to the Autoville road. She had stayed at the Smith farm much longer than she had expected to and was worried for fear Miss Trask would be cross over her long absence. Miss Trask seldom scolded, but nervous as she had grown since the trailer thefts, anxious to return it to the safety of the Wheelers’ garage, she might feel annoyed that Trixie had added to her worries.

As she trudged along, Trixie tried to organize her jumbled thoughts. The Darnells had left suddenly in the night. An album locket was missing. But money and valuable silver had been left behind.

“I’ll talk it all over with Honey,” she decided out loud, “while we ride to Rushkill Farms. Mrs. Smith gets me so mixed up when she rambles on and on I just can’t think. I’ll let Honey try to figure it all out.”

When she arrived at the
Swan
, she found everything in confusion. The dogs were racing in and out of the open door, daubs of boiled-over cereal covered the top of the stove, and flies were everywhere. But there
was no sign of either Miss Trask or Honey.

Trixie stared about her in bewilderment. What could have happened to them? They had obviously left the trailer in a frightful hurry. Why?

Trixie shut the door and began swatting flies. Reddy and Bud promptly settled down in front of their empty bowls and looked at her hopefully with mournful eyes.

“Didn’t anybody feed you?” she asked, opening a can of dog food and adding it to the scorched cereal. She stirred in some bacon fat and set the mixture in front of the hungry dogs. Then she put the empty cereal pan in the sink and filled it with cold water. Out of the corner of her eyes she noticed that somebody had knocked over a package of baking soda on the drainboard. “Baking soda,” she said, puzzled. “What on earth were they doing with baking soda at this time of the morning? Not biscuits because I remember Miss Trask complaining last night that Regan had forgotten to buy flour.”

And then she knew. A solution of baking soda and warm water was one of the best things to use on burns. Somebody had been burned. She stared at the scorched pan in the sink. Boiling cereal could cause one of the worst kind of burns. How had it happened and who had been hurt?

As though in answer to her inner questions, Honey called from the door, “Trixie! Trixie, are you back?”

Trixie hurried out of the galley. Behind Honey was Miss Trask holding her bandaged right hand against her chest. “I’m a clumsy idiot.” She smiled. “Yanked the cover off that pot that sticks and knocked scalding cereal all over myself.”

“It was a nasty burn and terribly painful,” Honey added. “I made her go right over to the camp first-aid station.”

Miss Trask’s normally tanned face was quite pale, and she sat down on one of the bunks trying hard to disguise how much her hand hurt. “It’s an ill wind,” she said cheerfully, “that blows nobody good. The doctor said I couldn’t possibly drive a car for a few days. So now you two have lots more time to look for Jim.”

“Oh, Miss Trask,” Trixie cried sympathetically. “I’m so sorry. You must lie down and rest and let us take care of you.”

“Not at all,” Miss Trask said briskly. “I’ll be perfectly all right in a minute. You girls run along. It’s a long ride to Rushkill Farms.”

“We wouldn’t think of leaving you,” Honey insisted. “You can’t do a thing—” She stopped as someone rapped on the trailer door.

Trixie opened it and a uniformed attendant handed her a yellow envelope. “Telegram for Miss Trask,” he said. “We signed for it at the gate. Okay?” Trixie nodded.

“Open it, please,” Miss Trask said. “And read it out loud. I haven’t any secrets.”

The telegram was from Honey’s mother and Trixie read it slowly.

Returning home Thursday evening would like Honey there when we arrive
.

“Oh dear,” Trixie gasped. “This ruins everything. Your hand won’t be well enough for you to drive back Thursday morning.”

“Of course it will,” Miss Trask said quickly. “I won’t even know I burned it by then. I’m quite ambidextrous anyway and get along with my left hand almost as well as I can with my right. Run along, you two.”

The girls cleaned up the trailer and left a lunch of salad and sandwiches and iced tea for Miss Trask. So it was after ten o’clock when they set off on Prince and Peanuts for the long ride to Rushkill Farms. They took both dogs so Miss Trask would not have to worry about them, but it was so hot they stayed close to the bridle path and showed no desire of running away.

The deer flies clustered on the horses’ sweaty necks, and Trixie and Honey were kept busy brushing
them off with evergreen branches. “This is awful,” Trixie groaned, “and I know we’re just wasting our time. We won’t find Jim at Rushkill Farms. He’s found out by now that he won’t get a job at any camp without a reference. And Mrs. Smith says the man who runs the Rushkill place is an old cross patch.”

“When did she tell you that?” Honey demanded. “So that’s where you walked to this morning!”

Trixie then told Honey that the red trailer family had left in the night and that Mrs. Smith’s album locket was missing. “I’m so confused now,” she admitted, “that I can’t make head nor tail out of anything. What are your ideas?”

“Why, it’s very simple,” Honey said, “although knowing Mrs. Smith I don’t blame you for being confused. Don’t you see, Trixie? The Darnells had to sneak away in the night after they heard that Sally had seen us. They must have heard the radio reports about the theft of the
Robin
and can guess that we must have heard them too. They couldn’t risk leaving that trailer at the Smith farm another day after we visited the place. You said yourself yesterday that we ought to notify the police of our suspicions.”

“I never thought about that,” Trixie said. “And to be honest with you, I went back there this morning to see if
the Darnell trailer
was
the
Robin
. I felt I ought to tell Mrs. Smith it had been stolen.”

“So did I,” Honey said quietly, “but I sort of think Mrs. Smith must have heard the broadcasts of the trailer thefts too. That woman is no fool for all her kindheartedness. My guess is that she liked the family and felt they deserved a break. As long as she never set eyes on their trailer she wouldn’t have to face the fact that it was the missing
Robin
.”

“That sounds just like Mrs. Smith,” Trixie cried. “And according to her, her husband is just as kindhearted. But what I don’t see is, if Mr. Darnell ran away because he was afraid we would report him to the police, how did he dare stop at the Smith farm in the first place?”

“He had to take that risk,” Honey explained. “He couldn’t leave the trailer stuck in the mud. And actually it wasn’t much of a risk then. The theft of the
Robin
probably didn’t come over the air until late Sunday afternoon, and with all that rain there must have been so much static he could feel pretty sure people living out in the country wouldn’t turn on their radios.”

“And Mr. Smith,” Trixie finished, “is so busy with those beans he probably never has time to listen to the radio.”

Honey nodded. “And his wife is such a darling she probably
wouldn’t
listen. Remember how mad she got when she told us the Darnells had been evicted from their home because they couldn’t pay the rent?”

“What I can’t understand,” Trixie sighed, “is how that family could steal her babies’ pictures after all her kindness. And if they did, why didn’t they take along the silver and the money too?”

“It must be as Mrs. Smith said herself. They must be planning to borrow money on the locket for their train fare back to the farm after they return the
Robin
.” Honey suddenly straightened in the saddle. “Oh, Trixie,” she gasped. “The poor things haven’t got a chance. State troopers will catch them the minute they hit a main highway, and they can’t stick to back roads forever.”

Trixie uttered a groan of despair. “If only they had sense enough to abandon the
Robin
somewhere in the woods. Then when the troopers find it they’ll think it was stolen by the gang that dismantled the other ones.”

“Well, let’s hope they do just that.” Honey nudged Peanuts into a canter. “I know it’s wrong of me to hope the Darnells don’t get caught and punished, but I can’t help it. It doesn’t seem fair that I have so much money and they haven’t got enough to live on.”

“I know,” Trixie agreed. “We’re not rich but at least
we have a roof over our heads and plenty to eat.”

They cantered along the trail with the dogs trotting behind them until they came to a large “No Trespassing” sign.

“This must be where the Rushkill property begins,” Honey said. “And look on the other side of that field. A barbed-wire fence!”

“Maybe there’s a gate,” Trixie said, leading the way across the meadow.

But although they followed the fence for more than a mile, the only gate they saw was securely bolted. And then they heard a loud gruff voice and saw a man on a dusty gray horse riding toward them.

His light-brown, almost yellow eyes were expressionless, and he smiled coldly through thin lips. “Were you looking for someone?”

“Yes,” Trixie said. “Is this the entrance to Rushkill Farms?”

“That’s right. Didn’t you see the ‘No Trespassing’ signs?” He twirled his crop impatiently.

Honey edged Peanuts closer to the fence and gave the man her warmest smile. “We would like very much to see the head of the camp,” she said.

He gazed at her as though she were something on exhibit in a circus sideshow. “I am Mr. Snell. I am a very
busy man. Kindly state your business as quickly as possible.”

The sun was beating down hotly on Trixie’s bare head. “We’re looking for a redheaded boy who may have applied here for a job,” she said.

Stiffly he turned from Honey to Trixie. “No one has applied here for a position since camp opened. Is that all?”

“Yes, thank you very much,” Trixie replied with an edge of sarcasm in her voice.

He watched them impassively as they turned their horses’ heads and rode away, and he was still watching when they cantered across the meadow and re-entered the woods.

“Thank goodness Jim didn’t ask that old cross patch for a job,” Trixie said. “That man would have smelled a rat and reported him to the police.”

“Jim’s awfully smart,” Honey said. “I’ll bet he took one look at Mr. Snell and decided he’d be better off working for Jonesy.”

“So that’s that,” Trixie said. “Jim’s been and gone. Our only hope is to find some trace of him at the spot where we saw the blue jeans. Let’s return the horses right away. It’s only a short walk from Autoville to the Pine Hollow road.”

“All right,” Honey agreed. “We can save time by
eating these sandwiches on the way.” She handed one to Trixie and then gasped, “Oh, my golly! The dogs! Where have they disappeared?”

“Honestly,” Trixie groaned. “This is too much! They tore across that meadow after a field mouse when we started following the fence, and that’s the last time I saw them.”

“We can’t leave them. We’re miles from home.” Honey turned Peanuts around and Prince automatically followed.

“Wait a minute,” Trixie cried. “Let’s not go all the way back. There must be a fork off this trail that goes straight up the hill instead of around it. It’s practically a young mountain. From the top we should be able to see the entire valley and catch sight of the dogs without searching for hours.”