The Mystery of the Velvet Gown

  © 1980 by Western Publishing Company, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Produced in U.S.A.

  GOLDEN® , GOLDEN PRESS® , and TRIXIE BELDEN® are

  registered trademarks of Western Publishing Company, Inc.

  No part of this book may be reproductor' copied in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  0-307-21550-4

  All names, characters, and events in this story are entirely fictitious.

  The Stage Is Set ● 1

  FACE FLUSHED and sandy curls tousled in disarray, fourteen-year-old Trixie Belden raced down the south corridor of Sleepyside Junior-Senior High School.

  “Hold on there, Miss Belden,” a voice boomed. Trixie came to a sudden halt. The clock in science class had ticked away the seconds with painful slowness; every minute had seemed to hold back with selfish disregard, until finally the bell of freedom had rung—and now this!

  Trixie turned to find her math teacher, Mr. Sanborn, gazing sternly at her from a classroom doorway, his arms folded on his chest.

  “It seems to me, Trixie, that if you were as quick with algebra problems as you are at tearing through the halls between classes, we’d both be a little better off. Now, just where do you think you’re going at such a racetrack speed? Is there really a fire?”

  “Oh, Mr. Sanborn,” Trixie cried, relieved to note the twinkle of amusement in his eyes, “the results of the tryouts for Romeo and Juliet are being posted right now, and I’m dying to know if-”

  “Well, well,” Mr. Sanborn reflected, scratching his chin. “In the name of the arts and William Shakespeare—and in order to spare you an untimely death—I’ll let you go this time. But let’s try to keep it to a slow jog.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Sanborn,” Trixie said quickly, before he had a chance to say something else about her math ability—or inability. At a slightly slower pace, she headed for the drama club office at the end of the long corridor.

  The freshman class play was an annual event at Sleepyside High. On the first day of school after the Christmas holidays, tryouts were held.

  Every freshman took part in some way, as a member of either the cast or the crew. Experienced juniors and seniors acted as aides, giving help to the freshmen on lighting sets, makeup, stage direction, and costumes.

  Trixie had already signed up as a stagehand. Her best friend, Honey Wheeler, was an excellent seamstress and was on the costume crew. The most exciting thing was that their good friend Diana Lynch had actually tried out for the part of Juliet. Di had spent weeks working on her speaking voice, projection, and poise, and on learning her lines. It had taken a lot of prompting from both Honey and Trixie to get Di to go through with the tryout, for she was shyer than either of her friends.

  As Trixie hurried down the hallway, she thought, Di is so pretty, with her shiny black hair and violet-colored eyes, she’d make a perfect Juliet. She’s just got to get the part!

  Trixie was so preoccupied with thoughts of the play and of Di as Juliet that she forgot to watch where she was going, and she collided with someone in front of her.

  “Oh, excuse me!” she cried as books fell to the floor and papers flew in all directions.

  “Well, Miss Bulldozer!”

  “Oh, it’s only you,” Trixie sighed, realizing that the victim was her brother Mart.

  “Only me! Only your ever-diligent, always supportive big brother! What’s with you, fuzz-brain, running into innocent bystanders like that? Especially when I happen to be the innocent bystander!”

  “Oh, Mart, my mind was on the play and Di and—”

  “And if you ever concentrated on one thing at a time,” Mart interrupted, “even something as elementary as getting yourself from one place to another—”

  “Mart, puh-leeze don’t start that. All I wanted to do was find out if Di got the part or not.”

  “Relax, Trixie,” Mart said, helping her retrieve her books and papers. “The notice hasn’t been posted yet. But somewhere in that mob over there,” he continued, motioning toward the large group crowded around the drama club office, “I’m sure you’ll find our aspiring thespian friend.”

  Just then, Honey joined them. She was taller and slimmer than Trixie, and she had hazel eyes. Her shoulder-length, golden-brown hair and her sweet disposition had earned her the nickname of Honey.

  “I tried to get here sooner,” Honey gasped, trying to catch her breath, “but I had to help wash petri dishes in biology lab, and then I dropped one and it broke and I had to clean it up, and you know how I hate that slimy stuff—”

  “Hold it, hold it!” Mart cried. “First I act as a set of brakes for Trixie, and then I have to hear a thirty-three rpm record playing at seventy-eight. Calm down, Honey. There’s no news yet.”

  As he spoke, a small woman with short, curly dark hair and bright green eyes emerged from the drama club office.

  Trixie whispered to Mart, “That’s the new drama teacher, Miss Darcy.” Mart nodded but didn’t turn his head. Why, he’s as excited as I am, Trixie thought.

  “Boys and girls,” Miss Darcy was saying, “I know you are all very anxious to hear the results of the tryouts, so instead of posting them and having you all fight for a view, I shall read the list.” She glanced down at the paper in her hand. “Tybalt will be played by Paul Victors,

  Mercutio by John Munter, Romeo by Jamie Kenworthy, and Juliet by Diana Lynch. All other parts, including the chorus and attendants, will be posted. The play will open on Valentine’s Day, February fourteenth, so we have lots of work to do in the next six weeks. Drama class and rehearsals begin tomorrow. Congratulations, everyone.”

  The hush that had descended over the group while Miss Darcy was speaking was broken as a wave of cheers and shouts swept through the crowd. Trixie, Honey, and Mart spotted Di, looking somewhat dazed as other classmates offered her their congratulations.

  “I knew you’d get the part, Di. I just knew it!” Trixie cried, giving Di a quick hug.

  “You’ll be wonderful,” Honey added warmly. “Imagine—a Shakespearean heroine in our midst. Congratulations, fair Juliet!” Mart exclaimed, falling to one knee.

  Di giggled nervously. “I still can’t believe it—” she began, but the sudden jangling of a bell interrupted her.

  “Jeepers!” cried Trixie. “I don’t have my math book, and I’ve got algebra this hour, and now I’m late for class, and—oh, Mr. Sanborn is sure to have my head this time!”

  “Frankly, Beatrix,” Mart snickered, “I don’t know what he’d do with such a totally useless container.”

  “Oooh, Mart Belden, I’ll....” Trixie shouted over her shoulder as she ran down the hallway. She could hear Mart laughing behind her, but she didn’t have time for revenge now; she’d get back at him later. In addition, she hated to be called Beatrix!

  Trixie managed to slide into her seat just as Mr. Sanborn arrived. She was called on to do the first problem, but fortunately, Brian had helped her with all those x and xy equations the night before, and she had the answer. After that, though, her thoughts quickly drifted away from the classroom. Algebra was certainly mysterious, but it was not the kind of mystery that Trixie most liked to tackle.

  Trixie seldom questioned her seemingly uncanny ability to attract mysteries wherever she went. She and Honey had solved a number of baffling cases together, and they were determined that one day they would have their own detective agency.

  Trixie began to relive some of their past adventures. I wonder how Uncle Andrew is doing, she thought, recalling the time that she and her friends had visited the Iowa sheep farm that belonged to her father’s brother. She shuddered slightly as she remembered how she, Honey, and Jim had been strand
ed on top of an old barn while floodwaters rushed and swirled ominously below them. They had climbed higher and higher as the threatening waters rose, until finally, Mart had come to their rescue. Of course, Trixie thought to herself, we did solve the mystery of Uncle Andrew’s missing sheep, which made it all worthwhile.

  That memory triggered another and then still more as Trixie slipped deeper into her daydreaming. She had just begun doodling BELDEN-WHEELER DETECTIVE AGENCY on her notebook, when the sound of Mr. Sanborn’s voice snapped her back to the reality of the classroom.

  “Trixie?” he questioned sternly. “Are you with us, or are you contemplating the achievements of Euclid?”

  “I—I—” Trixie began, but miraculously the bell rang. “Saved again,” she mumbled under her breath, and not daring even to glance at Mr. Sanborn, she gathered up her books and quickly left the classroom. She then went to study hall, since drama class was not meeting that day.

  Tonight I’m really going to study, she thought as she headed for her locker following study hall. How am I going to be a great detective and solve mysteries if I can’t even solve these awful algebra problems?

  Trixie opened her locker and was met with an avalanche of books and papers. “Oh, no!” she groaned, bending down to pick up the mess. If Moms saw this, Trixie thought guiltily, she’d never forgive me. I guess I need to get a little more organized—but not now. She grabbed her lunch, threw everything else back into the locker, and quickly slammed the door before the assemblage of junk had a chance to counterattack. “I’ll leave lunch early and clean it up,” she said firmly as she headed for the cafeteria to meet her friends.

  Honey, Di, and Mart were already there when Trixie arrived.

  “Well, Trixie,” Mart teased, “I see you haven’t been decapitated, after all. You probably conned Mr. Sanborn with some quick answers, courtesy of our benevolent older brother.”

  “Why don’t you spend lunch hour in the library, Mart—eating dictionaries?” Trixie retorted, not yet ready to forgive him for having called her by her hated full name. Besides, Mart’s constant use of big words irritated her.

  “Where is that famous older brother of yours? And where’s my brother?” Honey asked quickly, well aware that arguments between Mart and Trixie could sometimes get out of hand. “I’m sure Di is anxious to tell them about the play.”

  “I believe,” Mart answered, “that they were recently in the pursuit of physical adeptness and skill in aquatic sports, and they are undoubtedly waiting to cleanse themselves of chlorinated H two O.”

  “You mean they just had swimming class and probably got held up in the line for showers,” Honey interpreted.

  “Exactly,” Mart said, smiling.

  Just then, the duo joined them at the table. Brian Belden, Trixie and Mart’s older brother, was tall and good-looking, with dark, wavy hair. He was often told that he was an exact duplicate of his father, while fair-haired, blueeyed Mart, Trixie, and six-year-old Bobby, the youngest Belden, resembled their mother.

  Jim Frayne was Honey’s adopted brother. He’d had a hard life with a cruel stepfather who mistreated him. He had finally run away, and primarily through Trixie and Honey’s efforts, he had been adopted by Honey’s parents. He had a quick temper, which Trixie attributed to his red hair, but he also had a quick smile and a generous nature. He hoped to open a school for boys one day, with the money he had inherited from his great-uncle, a wealthy old miser who had lived near the Belden home. Jim had come to Sleepyside to find his great-uncle after running away from his stepfather, but the old man had died before Jim ever reached him.

  The two boys sat down at the table, and Trixie began excitedly, “Brian, Jim, you’ll never guess what happened to—”

  “Trixie,” Honey interrupted, “maybe Di would like to tell her own news.”

  “Gleeps!” Trixie cried, putting her hand over her mouth. “You’re right. Sometimes I think I only open my mouth to change feet. I’m sorry, Di. You tell them.”

  “Well,” Di began, blushing slightly, “I got the part of Juliet in the freshman class play....”

  Her voice trailed off uncertainly.

  “Congratulations!” Brian and Jim said in unison.

  “But what’s wrong, Di?” Brian asked. “You’re not exactly acting like you’re on cloud nine—or even cloud eight-and-a-half.”

  “Oh, no,” Di answered quickly. “I’m really very excited and honored. It’s just that now that I have the part, I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it.”

  “Opening night jitters before rehearsals have started!” Jim exclaimed. “Don’t worry, Di. We’ll all help you learn your lines, if that’s what you’re worried about. You’ll be great.”

  “I hope so,” Di sighed. “It’s just that I feel like a hundred butterflies have been let loose in my stomach.”

  “Lepidoptera could not possibly survive the intestinal secretions of the digestive cavity,” Mart spouted.

  “And one Trixieda,” said Trixie, “cannot possibly survive the pain in the digestive tract one brother gives her.”

  “Ah, little sister,” Mart began, with emphasis on the word “little.” People often mistook them for twins because they looked so much alike. Mart was always careful to explain that he was a full eleven months older than Trixie. If she hated being called Beatrix, the thing he hated the most was for people to think that they were twins.

  “Peace, siblings, peace,” Brian laughed. “No one will be able to keep anything in his or her digestive tract with you two causing such an uproar. Besides, I want to hear more about the play.”

  “Well, okay,” Trixie began. “I’m going to be a stagehand and Honey’s on the costume crew.”

  “It’s lucky that it’s not the other way around,” Brian teased, “knowing your dexterity with a needle.”

  “Are you kidding?” Trixie laughed good-naturedly. “Me on a costume crew? They don’t need Halloween costumes, Brian. This is Shakespeare! But Honey will be great,” she continued. “She did such a terrific job on our club jackets.”

  The “club” was the Bob-Whites of the Glen, or B.W.G.’s, for short. It was a semisecret club formed to help people in need. The members included all those at the lunch table, plus Dan Mangan, the most recent member of the group.

  Dan, whose goal was to become a policeman, had been brought to Sleepyside by his uncle, Bill Regan, the Wheelers’ groom. Having once been in trouble as a member of a tough New York City street gang, Dan was now interested in finding solutions to the problem of juvenile crime. He had received special permission from his school counselor to attend a two-week seminar in New York City on neighborhood youth programs.

  “It will be great working with Miss Darcy. She’s a terrific drama teacher,” Di said.

  “And Miss Trask is so glad to have her here,” Honey said.

  Honey’s parents were wealthy, and she had always had a governess. Miss Trask had been her governess for a while, but now that Honey was old enough, she no longer needed one. Miss Trask had stayed on with the Wheelers, however, to manage their huge estate.

  “Isn’t Miss Trask a friend of Miss Darcy’s mother?” Trixie asked.

  “Yes,” Honey answered. “Her mother died when Miss Darcy was a little girl, and then she and her father moved to London. He’s an assistant to an ambassador there. Miss Trask hadn’t seen Miss Darcy in years, and then Miss Darcy came to New York for a visit, and she just decided to stay. Teaching jobs are very difficult to find in London, and when one opened up right here—well, it was just too good to pass up!”

  “You know what else is nice?” Trixie added. “We’ve never been able to participate in extracurricular activities, living so far from town. But with rehearsals during drama class and the second half of lunch hour, we can do it.”

  “Extra curricular!” Jim hooted. “You’ve been enough ‘extracurricular activity’ for every high school in New York State ever since I met you, Trixie. Wherever you go, you always get us into something. The B.W.G.’s have alw
ays had a one-person activity department.”

  Trixie sniffed, pretending to be offended. “I’m not quite sure how to take that.”

  “The right way,” Jim said, smiling. “It’s a compliment.”

  Trixie smiled, too, as she got up from the table. “Right now I have a little extracurricular activity of my own, called ‘Locker Clean-Up,’ or I might get a concussion the next time I try to open it when I’m in a hurry.”

  “Which is about ninety-nine percent of the time,” Mart laughed.

  Trixie excused herself from the table, while the others stayed on to talk before their next classes.

  The halls were empty when Trixie returned to her locker. She dialed the lock combination and opened the door. Much to her relief, everything stayed in place. She quickly began pulling out gym equipment, textbooks, notebooks, and other odds and ends, attempting to give the whole mess some semblance of order. She was working busily, when suddenly she became aware of voices nearby.

  “I don’t know how Di Lynch got that part.“

  “Now, Jane, everyone can’t have the lead. Besides, you’re on costume crew.”

  “So what? I should be playing Juliet. I took drama lessons all through elementary school,” the one called Jane replied. “That whole gang makes me sick, Patty. Honey’s so rich, and Trixie thinks she’s such a smart detective. I think she’s just plain nosy.”

  “That’s not fair, Jane. She’s done a lot of good. Remember, she got Hoppy back for the town hall.”

  Trixie froze. She wasn’t sure whether or not to step out from behind the concealment of her locker door, but she decided to stay put. When she heard the two girls turn and go down the side corridor, Trixie strained to hear the rest of their conversation.

  “I suppose that’s true,” she heard Jane say, “but the police could have done the same thing, and that’s their job, not Trixie Belden’s.”

  Tears stung Trixie’s eyes. She recognized the voices as those of Jane Morgan and Patty Morris, two classmates. She had never imagined that anyone felt that way.