The Mystery of the Velvet Gown Page 10

  “Dad took the car in for a tune-up, and Brian is over at the Wheelers’ with Jim. They’re helping Regan with the horses. In fact, I just came from there before you got home. Regan is pretty annoyed with us, you know. Under the threat of never being able to ride again, we all have to get over there and exercise the horses.”

  Trixie groaned. “I do feel guilty about that. It’s just that it’s so hard to do everything. We’ve all been so busy lately. Regan is such a good sport about it, though—I don’t want to get on his bad side.”

  “Well, I think Regan’s good humor is fading fast, so I promised him we’d all be there bright and early tomorrow morning for a ride.“

  “Okay,” Trixie agreed. She finished dusting the last piece of furniture and went into the kitchen to put away the cloth and polish.

  Brian came in the back door carrying Bobby, who was covered with snow. “Look what I found in a snowdrift!” Brian laughed.

  “Brian threw me in the snowdrift, then he founded me there.” The little boy chortled happily as Brian set him down.

  “Oh, no!” Mrs. Belden wailed. “My clean floor—now look at it!”

  “Sorry, Moms,” Brian apologized as he scooped Bobby up in his arms again. “I’ll take him outside and de-snow him first.”

  When Brian and Bobby had returned and Trixie was helping her little brother out of his wet snowsuit, Brian leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Get on the hot line, kid. Your partner has something to tell you. She’s already filled Jim and me in on the Ashbury news.”

  Trixie nodded, then nonchalantly announced that she was going to call and invite Jim and Honey to dinner.

  “Tell them to come at about five o’clock,” her mother called after her.

  “Thanks, Moms, I will,” Trixie responded as she dialed the Wheelers’ number.

  “What is it?” Trixie asked anxiously when Honey answered the phone.

  “Trixie,” Honey began excitedly, “Mother and Daddy came back early from Miami. Miss Trask showed them the newspaper article, and Mother does remember Mr. Ashbury, but she just never connected the name with Miss Darcy, and she’d never met him with her, so—”

  “Yes, yes,” Trixie interrupted impatiently. “So,” Honey went on, “she didn’t realize it was the same person. Well, Mother said she thought he was married! In fact, she remembered distinctly that she once talked to him about his two children—”

  “So that wasn’t his sister!” Trixie interrupted. “Why, that....”

  “I know,” Honey sighed. “Miss Trask feels just terrible about it—and, of course, I couldn’t say that we saw him and his children and his wife today,” she added in a whisper.

  “I certainly hope not!” Trixie cried. “Honey, what about the jewelry your mother bought from Park Avenue Jewelers: Did Peter Ashbury sell it to her?”

  “Yes,” Honey answered. “Mother is going to arrange to remove it from the safe-deposit box the first thing Monday morning, and she and Daddy are taking it into New York City.” Trixie whistled. “It seems like everyone is getting involved in some way.”

  “It sure does,” Honey agreed. “Oh, by the way, I told Jim and Brian—”

  “I know,” Trixie interrupted. “I told Mart, too. I just had to discuss it with someone. In fact, can you and Jim come here for dinner tonight? Moms and Dad are going out for the evening.”

  “We’d love to,” Honey answered, “but Mother and Daddy just got home, and I don’t know how they’d feel if Jim and I raced off to your house for dinner.”

  “Gleeps!” Trixie cried. “What a dope I am. Of course you should eat with them.” She was well aware that Honey and Jim rarely saw their parents because they traveled so much. She knew that Honey sometimes envied the close relationship that the Beldens had with their parents, and so, whenever Honey’s parents were home, she and Jim made a special effort to be with them.

  “I’ll see you and Jim first thing in the morning, anyway, and we’ll talk then,” Trixie assured her. “Mart informed me that Regan’s going to be out for our blood if we don’t exercise the horses.”

  “Yes,” Honey said guiltily, “and you know what a temper he has!”

  “Don’t remind me,” Trixie sighed. “Mart and Brian and I will be there. What about Di—is she coming, too?”

  “No,” Honey said. “I called and asked her, but she said she needed to stay home and practice her lines for the play.”

  “Trixie!” Helen Belden called.

  “Oops, my dime must have run out,” Trixie laughed. “Moms is calling me. I’ll talk to you later.” She said good-bye and hung up.

  “Yes, Moms,” Trixie answered, going into the kitchen.

  “Your father and I are leaving now. Are Jim and Honey coming?”

  Trixie explained why their friends wanted to stay home. Her mother nodded and said, “Well, you children have a nice evening.”

  As soon as Mr. and Mrs. Belden had left, Brian and Mart turned to Trixie.

  “Okay, out with everything,” Brian demanded, folding his arms and leaning against the kitchen counter. “Jim and I got a breathless account and only snatches of information from your sidekick. Now I want the whole story.“

  “And try not to exaggerate too much,” Mart added.

  “What does ’zaggerate mean, Mart?” Bobby asked.

  “It’s what your sister does about ninety-eight percent of the time,” Mart chuckled.

  Bobby looked at him quizzically. “I’ll explain it while I give you a piggyback ride upstairs, Bobby,” Brian said. “You and Reddy can play up there while we get dinner ready.”

  “Okey-dokey.” Bobby smiled and hopped up on Brian’s back.

  “Small ears pick up a lot of big ideas,” Trixie said to Mart after Brian and Bobby had left the room. “Sometimes I forget that he’s around and that he listens to us!”

  “And you know how well Bobby keeps a ‘see-crud,’ ” Mart laughed.

  “I know,” Trixie sighed. “I’m afraid Bobby’s love for secrets is only for the word itself.”

  Brian came back to the kitchen. “All right, time for the conference,” he said. “Bobby is happily playing ‘camping trip’ with Reddy. He’s made a tent with an old blanket.”

  Trixie related the whole story to her brothers. “And what do you make out of all this?” Brian asked when she’d finished.

  “That’s the trouble,” Trixie sighed. “I definitely think those costumes and the catalog have something to do with it, but now we know that Peter Ashbury is a gemolgist and that he’s married, and I can’t figure out if Miss Darcy knows it, too, and is working with him, or—” Trixie stopped and her eyes widened. “That’s it! He must be blackmailing her. Maybe he knows where her father is!”

  “But the newspaper article said that Ashbury’s been living in New York for the past six months,” Brian pointed out.

  “That’s true,” Trixie mused. “But those costumes are from England, and that’s where Miss Darcy’s father is. And come to think of it,”

  Trixie said slowly, raising her eyes to look at her brothers, “that’s where Miss Darcy was—up until six months ago...

  At that moment, Bobby came running into the kitchen. “Hey, you guys, me and Reddy’s tummies are grumbling.”

  “And what are they grumbling about?” Mart teased.

  “They’re hungry!” Bobby exclaimed. “And Reddy’s tired of playing camping trip.”

  “Oh, no!” Trixie cried. “I completely forgot about the baked beans Moms left in the oven.” She quickly grabbed two potholders.

  “Hmmmm, charred beans is going to be more like it,” Mart said, surveying the steaming dish Trixie had gingerly removed from the oven.

  “Mart, why don’t you try helping instead of criticizing,” she snapped.

  “Okay, okay!” he cried. “I’ll fry the hamburgers. At least we’ll have something to eat.”

  After dinner, Brian said that he and Mart would do the dishes—overriding Mart’s howl of protest.

  “I�
��ll read to Bobby for a while,” Trixie offered gratefully. She helped the little boy get ready for bed, then tucked him in. She began to feel very sleepy herself, though, as she read to him.

  It's been a long day, Trixie sighed to herself. She glanced at Bobby. He was sound asleep, holding his teddy bear. Trixie kissed him lightly on the forehead and crept downstairs, where she found Mart and Brian watching television.

  “Well, are you ready to tell us all your fantastic deductions, Miss Sherlock?” Mart asked.

  Trixie yawned and stretched. “I’m too tired to tell deductions from reductions right now.” She yawned again. “I’m going to hit the hay. See you bright and early for our ride.”

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell Mart and Brian what she suspected, Trixie reasoned as she climbed the stairs. It was just that she wanted some time alone to really think things through, and she was exhausted. As she drifted off to sleep, though, questions kept running through her head. What's the connection between the costumes and Peter Ashbury? she wondered. And where does Miss Darcy fit in all of it?

  Trixie awoke the next day to bright winter sunlight streaming through her windows. She got up and quickly pulled on a pair of dungarees and two heavy sweaters. Got to bundle up for the ride, she reminded herself.

  Mart and Brian were already in the kitchen eating breakfast when Trixie came downstairs.

  “We were just about to come up and shag you out of bed, sleepyhead,” Brian said.

  The trio finished eating and donned heavy jackets. The morning was peacefully quiet as they walked over to Manor House. The only sound was the crunching of their footsteps through the crusty top layer of icy snow. Their boots sank into the six inches of soft powder beneath.

  Jim and Honey were waiting for them at the stable. Regan had already saddled the horses. “I have to encourage you to ride these poor brutes as much as I can,” he said gruffly.

  “Gee, we’re sorry, Regan, but it’s hard to get away sometimes, with all the other things we have to do,” Trixie explained.

  Regan sighed, but his green eyes were twinkling. “Well, you’ll only have yourselves to blame when spring rolls around and all we’ve got is a stableful of fat, lazy horses when you want to go riding every day.”

  Trixie swung up onto Lady, Honey took Strawberry, Jim rode Jupe, Brian chose Starlight, and Mart took Susie. They all started off at a slow gait.

  The horses picked their way along the snow-covered path, their breath creating smokelike clouds in the cold air.

  “They seem glad to be out,” Honey said, gently stroking Strawberry’s neck. “We have neglected them terribly.”

  They started toward the woods on the north side of Glen Road, when suddenly Trixie reined Lady to a halt. “Stop!” she hissed, and the others slowed their horses.

  “What is it?” Jim whispered, but Trixie had already swung out of her saddle and dropped to the ground. She began running toward the woods.

  “Hey!” Jim called after her. Then they heard a crackle of branches and the roaring of a car’s engine. The three boys all swung down from their mounts and raced after Trixie.

  Jewels and Jealousy ● 10

  WHAT WAS IT?” Honey demanded as the others returned to the clearing where she had stayed to watch the horses. Mart was limping, and blood dripped from a gash in his leg. “And what happened to you?” she cried.

  “At least you had enough sense to stay behind and watch the horses,” Jim said sheepishly. “We would have been in a fine mess with Regan if they had gotten away the way Trixie’s ‘spy’ did.”

  Trixie broke in excitedly. “I know there was someone there! He was holding something in

  front of his face—a camera or a pair of binoculars. When you called after me, Jim, he ran. You all heard the car start! I wish we could have gotten a good look at him, but we couldn’t run through the snow fast enough. And then Mart tripped over a branch and went flying.“

  “Old eagle eyes here,” Mart said, gingerly pulling back the tear in his jeans and examining the bloody gash.

  Brian tied a clean handkerchief loosely around Mart’s leg. “You’ll live,” he told his brother. Then he turned to Trixie. “Maybe that guy was just a friendly neighborhood bird watcher.“

  “Friendly neighborhood bird watchers don’t take off like jackrabbits when they’re spotted,” Trixie retorted stubbornly. “That man was spying on us—I know it!”

  “Maybe he was afraid of getting caught for trespassing on private property,” Honey said. “Ah, a sane, sensible explanation,” Mart sighed. Trixie glared. “You saw him run! You said you did! I don’t think he was a bird watcher, but Honey may be right; he probably was afraid of getting caught, and not for trespassing, either. I have a sneaking suspicion that our sneaky spy was Peter Ashbury.”

  Brian’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Trixie, I think you’ve got Ashbury on the brain. Anything the least bit mysterious that happens within the next week you’ll blame on him. You may be right about his being a crook, but what in the world would he be doing here in the woods, on a cold Sunday morning?”

  Trixie blushed. “I... I don’t really know. But let’s just ride down that road and take another look. Maybe we’ll find a clue. How’s your leg, Mart?”

  “As Dr. Belden said, I’ll survive, Trixie, but I don’t see any point in looking again.”

  “If you don’t want to come along, then don’t,” she said impatiently, and she turned Lady toward the old lane.

  Mart sighed in resignation. “It is very tempting not to go with her,” he said, as if Trixie weren’t there. “If she’s angry enough, she won’t speak to us, which would be a nice reprieve. But then, again, she might stumble onto something interesting....”

  “Stumble!” Trixie cried indignantly. “It looks as though you’re the only one who’s stumbling today.”

  “Sure—on one of your wild-goose chases!” Mart retorted. Trixie gave him a look that matched the morning’s chill.

  “Okay, that’s enough!” Brian laughed. “I don’t know about you two sometimes. Let’s all go take another look at the tire tracks.”

  “What I don’t understand,” Honey said, “is how someone could drive on that old road with all this snow. It certainly hasn’t been plowed or sanded all winter.”

  “Whoever it was wasn’t driving a car,” Jim explained. “We took a look at his tire tracks before, and he had either a small truck or a four-wheel drive vehicle. But I agree with Trixie: Let’s go take another look. Maybe we will find a clue. He might have dropped his driver’s license or something.”

  Trixie glanced sharply at Jim, but when she saw that he was half-teasing, she laughed good-naturedly. “I’m sorry I got so snappy. Sometimes I do act like a moron. It’s just that I get so excited—”

  “We know,” Brian said, chuckling.

  The Bob-Whites made their way over to the old back road and followed the fresh tracks out to the highway. They found nothing along the way that would identify the trespasser, and once on Glen Road, they couldn’t distinguish his tire tracks among the slushy collection of hundreds of others.

  Trixie was subdued as they finished their ride and slowly started back to the Wheeler estate.

  Sensing her friend’s mood, Honey drew Trixie aside as they were cleaning tack in the stable. “Don’t worry, Trixie,” she whispered. “We’ll find out more tomorrow—I’m sure of it!”

  Trixie grinned. “We sure will—or my name isn’t Trixie Belden!”

  The rest of the day was uneventful, and it seemed to drag on endlessly for Trixie. She had chores to do and homework to finish, and she helped to prepare Sunday dinner, but she couldn’t wait for Monday morning to come. I never thought I’d be excited about going to school. She smiled to herself. But I’ve got to see those costumes again!

  Monday morning finally came, and Trixie was the first one up. “My goodness!” her mother exclaimed when she saw her dressed and ready for school. “Did you get up before the sun this morning?”

 
; “Almost,” Trixie laughed. “I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

  Trixie had almost finished her breakfast by the time the rest of the family sat down at the table. Brian and Mart grumbled as their sister hurried them through their meal, into their coats, and out to the bus stop. As they waited, Trixie anxiously shifted her books from one arm to the other. “Of all mornings for that bus to be late!” she wailed.

  “Patience, Beatrix,” Mart said, glancing at his watch. “The bus isn’t late; we’re early. You’ll get to school on time.”

  “Obviously it’s not school she’s worried about,” Brian said. “What is it, Trix—some quick sleuthing before the first bell?”

  “I’ve got a plan that I’m dying to put into action,” she answered mysteriously.

  “Are you going to let us in on it, or do you plan to wait until the last minute to call for our expert assistance?” Mart probed.

  “You’ll have to wait,” Trixie .sniffed as the bus finally arrived and they boarded.

  But there was no time to set the wheels of her plan in motion, because the bus arrived at school just in time for her first class.

  “How come,” Trixie wailed as she and Honey hurried to their lockers, “when I actually plan something, get up early, and for once in my life am completely organized, something happens to ruin the whole thing?”

  Trixie slid into her seat as the general school announcements were being made over the PA system. At the end, there was a special announcement from the principal.

  “Students,” he began in a very stern voice, “as those of you who are involved with the freshman class play know, several Shakespearean costumes were very graciously lent to us by a friend of Miss Darcy’s. One of those costumes, a velvet gown, has disappeared. Any student who has any information concerning the whereabouts of this costume, please come forward at once and report either to Miss Darcy or to me. The costume was last seen by Miss Darcy on Friday evening after school.”

  Trixie gasped and sat bolt upright in her seat. Now what? she wondered. Can it be Peter Ashbury again? Oh, I can’t wait until rehearsal! But she didn’t have to wait that long. Half an hour after the first announcement, the PA system clicked on again.