The Red Trailer Mystery (13 page)

“You and your forks.” Honey giggled. “We’re sure to get lost again, but let’s go.”

Again they turned and, with Trixie in the lead, rode along until she held up her hand for a halt. “This looks like it might have been a path once. Let’s try it; it’s going in the right direction.”

“That’s about all I can say for it.” Honey laughed. “Nobody bigger than a field mouse would consider it a path now.”

Trixie twisted around in the saddle to grin back at Honey. “One good thing about it is that it’s so tiny the deer flies haven’t discovered it yet. Next time we go searching for missing heirs I’m going to take along a spray gun!” She turned around just in time to receive a smart slap in the face from an overhanging vine that twined itself around her neck and stayed there for several minutes. “Don’t look now,” she called back to Honey, “but the forest is following me!”

Honey laughed so hard at the sight of Trixie trying to extricate herself with the reins in one hand and a sandwich in the other, that she almost fell off her horse. But the path gradually widened as it grew steeper, and in the end it did lead to the crest of the hill.

As Trixie had said, the hill was really a small mountain, and they had an excellent view of the smaller hills and valleys below. To the east sprawled Rushkill Farms with its neat sloping garden and pasture lands. On the west they could see Autoville, a toy village. North of them, tucked between thickly wooded areas, lay the Smith farm. And, as an anticlimax, bounding up the steep trail toward them, were Reddy and Bud, tongues lolling.

“Let’s ignore them,” Trixie said grimly. “We’re the ones who always get lost; they never do.”

They started down the hill, taking another trail that looked as though it would take them straight to the trailer camp. But it didn’t; it zigzagged in all directions, and by the time the girls arrived at the bottom they had no idea which was north and which was south. The dogs had left them long ago and they stared at each other in despair.

“Boy Scouts,” Honey said forlornly, “lick their fingers and hold them up to the wind or something.”

“There’s no wind in the first place,” Trixie muttered sourly, “and if there were how would we know in which direction it was blowing?”

Honey looked up at the thick canopy of evergreen branches overhead. “If we could only see the sun,” she said thoughtfully. “It rises in the west and sets in the east, doesn’t it?”

“No!” Trixie almost yelled. “It’s the other way round. Besides, it must be just about midway between the two now, so that’s no help.”

“I suppose we could just give the horses their heads,” Honey mumbled to herself. “They’d take us back to the academy eventually.”

“I wouldn’t trust them,” Trixie sniffed. “They’re so hot and tired I’ll bet they’d head for the nearest stall which is probably at Rushkill Farms. All I need
to finish me is one look at sour-faced Snell.”

Honey, who was never as impatient as Trixie, smiled. “Remember the time you and Jim and I got lost in the woods near home? He said if we could see the river we’d be all right. He was going to climb a tree, but we were so far down in the valley—”

“Honey!” Trixie interrupted. “You’re a genius. We’re not in the valley now, this is a plateau. Here, hold my reins. I’ll climb this black walnut. It’s got the shortest trunk and the strongest-looking branches of any of the trees around here.” As she shinnied up the trunk she said, “Wonder what a black walnut’s doing in these woods. They’re very valuable trees. We must be near or on private property.”

At the first fork she stopped for breath, then climbed higher. At the third, she uttered a little scream. “Honey Wheeler, I don’t know how we do it! We’re on the very edge of the Smiths’ abandoned orchard.”

“What-at?” Honey demanded incredulously. “You mean if we had kept going instead of stopping we would have known where we were in a few seconds?”

Trixie grinned down at her. “That’s right. We are too dumb to be allowed away from home without guides.” Perched in the fork she went on, “I forgot to tell you that this morning on my way to the Smiths’ I saw
something shiny and metal gleaming in the sunlight on a rise of ground west of the main highway. I thought it might be the handlebars of Jim’s bike because that mound is only a short distance from where we saw the blue jeans.”

“Oh, Trixie!” Honey gasped, head thrown back. “You did investigate, didn’t you?”

“I tried to,” Trixie said ruefully. “But I just couldn’t push my way through the thicket. But now I’m going to climb higher and see what I can see. Like the bear who went over the mountain,” she finished with a chuckle.

Honey giggled and sang the old song as Trixie pulled herself farther up the old black walnut.

The other side of the mountain
,

The other side of the mountain
,

The other side of the moun—tain
,

Was all that he could see!

She stopped with her mouth open as Trixie suddenly screamed, “Oh, oh, oh! Now I know who stole Mrs. Smith’s album locket!”

Honey craned her neck so hard it hurt. “Trixie,” she got out, “you’ve climbed so high the rarefied air is making you dizzy. Come down from that lookout before you fall out!”

From the leafy branches high up in the tree, Trixie called back, “I’m in a crow’s nest all right, and I do mean
crow!
In this fork is where Mrs. Smith’s pet, Jimmy, hides his loot. So far I’ve counted two gold thimbles, three silver ones, a dollar bill, four quarters, several yards of tarnished Christmas ribbons, a brass key—” She started downward still chanting the list.

“—six marbles, enough bits of bright cloth to make a patchwork quilt, four silver spoons, a rusty razor blade, a ball of red yarn, and last but not least,” she finished triumphantly as she slid to the ground, “one solid gold album locket studded with real pearls and turquoises.”

She handed the lovely piece of jewelry to Honey. “See if all the baby pictures are intact. Thank goodness it hasn’t rained since yesterday morning. That crow probably flew out of the parlor window with the locket right after Mrs. Smith showed the pictures to Mrs. Darnell.”

“Crow.”
Honey giggled as she released the clasp and unfolded the tiny sections. “He must be a magpie.”

“A first cousin,” Trixie told her as she mounted Prince, “and even closer to the raven. Jimmy’s as bad as the one who perched on Edgar Allan Poe’s door. ‘If bird or devil,’ ” she quoted. “What comes next?”

“I don’t know,” Honey answered, gazing at the baby faces in the album locket. “Something about, ‘Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!’ ”

“ ‘Quoth the Raven, Nevermore!’ ” they shouted in unison.

“And that’s no joke,” Trixie continued soberly. “That crow could have caused a lot of innocent people an awful lot of trouble. Oh, aren’t those babies cute? This one looks just like his mother. Let’s take the locket back to Mrs. Smith right away, Honey. The farmhouse is only half a mile or so from where I saw that shiny piece of metal on the mound in the woods.”

“Let’s,” Honey agreed, closing the locket and handing it to Trixie. “As a matter of fact, I’m starved. Those sandwiches we slapped together were awful. Didn’t you
say something about spiced grape juice and chocolate layer cake?”

“I did.” Trixie licked her lips. “But let’s be rude for once and eat and run. We might even have time to look for that abandoned barn before we explore the woods on the other side of the highway.”

“Is there any reason why we can’t look for it now?” Honey asked as they guided their horses between the rows of gnarled apple trees. “If this is the right orchard, it must be near here.”

“I know,” Trixie agreed, “but I think we ought to give Mrs. Smith her locket right away. She was terribly upset this morning, and that barn isn’t going to be easy to find. It must be way down in a hollow and almost covered by the branches of trees. Otherwise we could have seen it from the top of that big hill.”

“That’s true,” Honey admitted. “And we can’t be sure this is the orchard Jeff and his bushy-haired friend were talking about. After all, if there is an abandoned barn near here, it seems to me Mrs. Smith would have known about it.”

“Not necessarily,” Trixie argued. “It’s funny how you can miss seeing things on your own place. I’ll bet you’ve never seen the old tenant house on your property.”

Honey stared at her. “No. Is there one?”

Trixie grinned. “Mart and Brian and I found it one day when we were exploring. It’s down in a hollow, too, and almost completely covered with wisteria and honeysuckle vines.”

They were nearing the farmhouse now, and Laddie began to bark before he even caught sight of them. His bark was answered defiantly by Reddy and Bud who burst out of the wooded area just north of the orchard.

“Oh, golly,” Honey gasped, “now we’re in for a dog fight.”

Laddie ignored the black puppy and challenged Reddy with a threatening growl. But the happy-go-lucky Irish setter, unaware that he was trespassing, immediately began to frolic invitingly around the collie. Laddie promptly gave in and the dogs raced off together, the best of friends.

“Reddy,” Trixie chuckled with relief, “hasn’t got sense enough to recognize an enemy when he sees one.”

“Bud doesn’t even know there is such a thing,” Honey said, laughing. “Oh, there’s Mrs. Smith at the kitchen window beckoning to us. I’ll tie the horses while you take her the locket. I can’t bear to keep the darling in suspense another minute.”

“Neither can I,” Trixie called over one shoulder as she raced up the back steps to the farmhouse. She let the
screen door slam behind her with a loud bang and dangled the locket in front of Mrs. Smith’s startled red face.

“Oh, dearie me,” Mrs. Smith choked, collapsing into the huge rocker by the stove and hugging her babies’ pictures to her wide bosom. “Where on earth did you find it, lamb?”

“In Jimmy Crow’s nest,” Trixie told her breathlessly. “High up in a black walnut tree. And here’s the rest of his loot.” She had tied the most valuable items in her handkerchief and now she spread them out on the kitchen table.

Rocking with laughter, Mrs. Smith kissed each one of her babies’ faces and pinned the locket to the front of her flowered house dress. “This is where it stays from now on,” she declared, “and at night it goes under my pillow. This time I make Jimmy Crow into a pie for sure.” She sobered suddenly, her sharp eyes misty with tears. “And to think I suspected that poor little Darnell woman who wouldn’t so much as borrow a straight pin she found in a crack of the floor without permission.”

Trixie bit her lip. Should she tell Mrs. Smith now that the Darnells had borrowed the
Robin
without permission? Before she could make up her mind, Honey came into the kitchen, and Mrs. Smith immediately began to set the table for a feast.

“It’s not the best cake I ever baked,” she apologized although Trixie and Honey had never tasted anything like it. “Somehow my baking reflects my moods. I was so depressed this morning all four layers fell, and I couldn’t do a thing with the icing. But this grape juice is the best in the county if I do say so myself.”

The girls ate hungrily and drank several tall glasses of the delicious spiced juice. They were so busy eating and listening to Mrs. Smith ramble on and on that they didn’t notice how dark it had suddenly become as storm clouds scudded across the sky.

“And to think,” Mrs. Smith was saying, “I might have called in the police. Oh, dearie me, heaven be praised that I didn’t. Nat would never have forgiven me. But he’ll shoot that crow this very night or my name’s not Mary Smith.”

Trixie and Honey winked at each other. They knew very well Jimmy Crow would go right on stealing without so much as a scolding.

“That trailer,” their hostess went on, “is the answer to their mysterious disappearance in the night. Poor Mr. Darnell is the nervous type. Afraid something might happen to borrowed property while it was in his possession. Although why anyone would want such a contraption is more than I can imagine. A house on wheels!
What will they think of next? I declare I’m glad our radio broke down so Nat can’t make the loudmouthed thing screech all during supper. I’d be just as glad if something would happen to the telephone too. It rings all day and when I get to it it’s always for somebody else on the party line, or whoever is calling us rings off before I can drag my body down that long hall. Such a nuisance.”

Trixie, who was facing the window, saw lightning flicker in the sky and suddenly noticed how overcast it had become. If they wanted to look for traces of Jim, they couldn’t afford the time now to go into a long explanation of the Darnells’ stolen trailer. She pushed back her chair. “We’ve got to go, Mrs. Smith. It’s going to pour any minute. Oh dear,” she finished sympathetically, “that means your beans will get soaked. You’ll never get them picked at this rate.”

“Now don’t you girls worry about me and my problems,” she said. “Again the Lord has sent us help. Right after you left this morning, Trixie, two boys bicycled up the driveway looking for work. They’re down in the garden now with Nat, and such a husky lad the big one is. Knows his way around a farm all right and will eat me out of house and home before the crop’s in.” She chuckled happily. “The younger brother is a puny little thing, but
willing, I’ll say that for him. Beans or no beans, I’m not going to let them leave this house until I’ve put a few pounds on Joe, that’s all there is to it. If the Darnells come back after they return that trailer, all the better. We have plenty of room for them all, and I could use that little boy around the house, polishing the woodwork and doing up the dishes and such.”