The Mystery of the Millionaire Page 10

  “What purposes would the syndicate use them for?” It was Honey who spoke, and Trixie looked at her gratefully. She had wondered the same thing, but she was reluctant to draw McGraw’s scorn again.

  “Numbers rackets and dope peddling are a couple of things that come to mind immediately,” McGraw said casually, “but it’s more likely that they’d want them for ‘laundering’ their money. That’s where they alter the accounts of legitimate businesses to include their illegitimate gains so that it looks like they’d got them on the up and up.”

  “Oh!” Laura wailed. “I can’t bear the thought of my father’s stores being used for things like that!”

  “Maybe he can’t, either,” McGraw suggested. “Let’s say the mob approaches him and makes him an offer—a nice percentage of the take in return for the use of his stores. Your father refuses. They make him another offer. He refuses again. Maybe he even threatens to go to the cops. Now he’s got the mob over a barrel. He has something on them, but they have nothing on him. They have to try a little harder to ‘convince’ him.”

  “But why would they make him an offer in the first place?” Laura asked. “You said yourself that my father’s stores have a reputation for honesty.”

  “They’d have to have some reason for thinking their offer would be accepted,” McGraw said. “Some good reason, like Frank Riebe telling them it would be.”

  “Frank!” Laura’s voice betrayed her disgust. “I’ve fought so hard against believing that Frank could be involved in this. But everywhere I turn, I see more and more evidence that he’s behind all of it.”

  “I think we’re getting away from the subject,” Jim pointed out. “A man resembling Laura’s father was spotted in Buffalo. What’s the next step in finding out if it really is Mr. Ramsey, and in getting him back, if it is?”

  “The only way for me to find out for sure is to go to Buffalo. But I’ll need more money,” McGraw said.

  “But that’s impossible! I’ve already paid you two thousand dollars!” Laura protested.

  “Seven days at two hundred a day is fourteen hundred dollars right there. Plus expenses. Information doesn’t come cheap these days. Plus I’m now working on your father’s disappearance ' and the appearance of this green car. I’m doing you a favor not to charge you double, lady,” McGraw said bluntly.

  Trixie’s hands clenched in angry fists. She and Honey wanted to be detectives because they enjoyed helping people to solve their problems. This man was in it only for the money. Laura Ramsey’s problems meant nothing to him.

  “I’ll try to get you more money,” Laura said feebly.

  “You’d better do more than try,” McGraw told her. “I don’t go to Buffalo until the money is in my hands. You know where to send it.” Abruptly, he turned and left the room.

  Laura sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands.

  “Maybe we could take over the case from here,” Honey said desperately. “We’d do it for free.”

  “Oh, sure,” Jim said. “We just drive to Buffalo and go from one seedy restaurant to another. At each one, we ask a waiter, ‘Excuse me, sir. Is this a syndicate hangout?’ Then, when one says yes, we say, ‘Would you please point out the men who are holding Anthony Ramsey prisoner?’ ”

  “Very funny!” Honey said bitterly. Her temper, which so rarely surfaced, was flaring now because of the helplessness she felt. “I suppose you have a better suggestion.”

  Jim hung his head. “No, I haven’t. I’m sorry for making fun of your idea, Honey. I know you just want to help.”

  “You all want to help,” Laura said, raising her head. “I appreciate that more than you can possibly know. But it’s still my problem.”

  “My parents will be home on Sunday,” Honey said. “If you can just wait that long, you can borrow the money from them. I’m sure of it.”

  Laura shook her head. “That will raise questions we’re forbidden to answer.”

  Trixie darted a look at Jim, who nodded. “I know that the first two thousand dollars came from Mr. Lytell, Trix. Laura had to borrow a few dollars from us for the things she needed from town. The whole story came out then.” Relieved that she could say what was on her mind, Trixie mused aloud, “That’s why Laura can’t go to Mr. Wheeler for money. There would be no way of asking without letting him know that Mr. Lytell already lent her some money. That’s what we’re forbidden to do.”

  Laura nodded. “I’m afraid Mr. Lytell has left me no choice but to go back to him for more money. I have nowhere else to turn. Besides, the fastest way that I know of for him to get his two thousand back is to find my father. And the only way to do that, it seems, is to borrow more money. Jim—” she began.

  “I’ll get the station wagon right away,” Jim told her.

  “Would you like us to ride along?” Honey asked.

  Laura shook her head. “I’d be grateful for your company, but I think it would be better if I went alone.”

  I think so, too, Trixie told herself silently. She didn’t envy Laura her dealings with the crotchety old storekeeper.

  Jumping to Conclusions ● 11

  WHEN LAURA AND JIM had left the room, Honey turned to Trixie and said, “Mr. McGraw seemed to take what you said about the census taker pretty seriously. That ought to make you feel a little better.”

  “It ought to,” Trixie agreed, “but I don’t think it does.”

  “Why not?” Honey asked, surprised.

  Trixie stared at the ceiling for a moment, trying to think. “For one thing,” she began reflectively, “Mr. McGraw seems to get carried away with his own theories. I realized that the other day, when it took me so long to figure out why the man in the green car was posing as a census taker. Mr. McGraw had made up his mind that Laura had already been identified, and I sort of took his word for it. But those phony census questions don’t make any sense unless he hadn't identified her, and he was trying to get her name.”

  “But the main thing is that Mr. McGraw warned us that the man in the green car might try to trick us into talking to him. Mr. McGraw’s theory about that wasn’t so farfetched,” Honey pointed out.

  “Well, yes,” Trixie admitted. “That isn’t the only time he’s jumped to a conclusion, though. Laura said that Frank Riebe always seems to be at the bottom of things—but that’s because Mr. McGraw puts him there. He decided right away that the man in the green car was Frank Riebe’s detective; he never even tried to think of another explanation. He brought him up in connection with the syndicate, too.”

  “It sounds perfectly logical to me,” Honey said. “After all, Trixie, Mr. McGraw is a professional detective. He’s been involved in a lot of mysteries. If he jumps to a conclusion, it’s probably because his experience tells him it’s the right one.”

  “That’s just it, Honey,” Trixie protested. “We’ve been in a lot of mysteries, too, and I’d say what we’ve learned is that jumping to conclusions is exactly the wrong thing to do. Remember the time we decided Mr. Maypenny was a poacher?”

  Honey looked at the floor, temporarily taken aback by Trixie’s embarrassing reminder. “All right,” she said, “I’m willing to admit that we should take what Mr. McGraw says with a grain of sand, but—” She broke off as Trixie burst into gales of laughter. “What’s so funny?” she asked in confusion.

  “Y-You said,” Trixie gasped, “that we should take it with a grain of sand! If you don’t know the difference between a grain of salt and a grain of sand—”

  “I’d better not volunteer to make hamburgers at the beach!” Honey finished for her, laughing as she realized her mistake.

  As the laughter died down, Trixie became unusually serious. “I want to tell you something else, Honey,” she said suddenly. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but I don’t feel honest not telling you about it.”

  “What is it?” Honey said, reflecting her friend’s serious mood as she had her hilarious one.

  Trixie chewed her lower lip for a moment before speaking again. “The
main reason I decided to stay away from this case isn’t Mr. McGraw at all. It’s Laura Ramsey.”

  “Oh, Trixie,” Honey wailed. “Don’t tell me you’re still jealous.”

  “That isn’t it,” Trixie said. “I mean, I am jealous, a little bit, because Jim’s been so nice to her, and because she’s staying here with you, so I feel a little bit like an outsider. But that isn’t all of it. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I know that isn’t all of it.”

  “Well, then, what else is it?” Honey asked with a perplexed look on her face.

  Trixie raised her shoulders helplessly. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I do,” Honey said. “You just said Mr. McGraw gets carried away with his own theories, and I think you’re even more guilty of that.” Before Honey could continue, Trixie held up one hand, palm outward, to stop her. “All right, all right. I don’t want to talk about it. I know you like Laura. I don’t. Not entirely, anyway. I don’t want to get into a fight about it. I just felt as though I had to tell you how I feel.”

  Honey pressed her lips together as if she were stifling angry words. When she finally spoke, her tone was mild. “I respect your feelings, Trixie, even though I don’t agree with them. I don’t think we ought to talk about it anymore.”

  “I don’t, either,” Trixie agreed, remembering the one time that she and Honey had let their friendship be affected by a difference of opinion about another person. That time, she thought uncomfortably, Honey had turned out to be right. “I guess I’d better get home,” she said out loud.

  “Why don’t you sleep over tomorrow night?” Honey asked impulsively. “That might make you feel less like an outsider, anyway.”

  Trixie grinned. “As if I have any real reason to feel like an outsider at Manor House!” she said. “I would like to stay over, though. I’ll ask Moms if it’s all right when I get home, and I’ll give you a call. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Honey said, smiling with her hazel eyes as well as with her mouth. “ ‘Bye, Trix.”

  Mrs. Belden agreed readily to letting Trixie stay over at Manor House on Saturday night. “In fact,” she said, “I think I’ll declare tomorrow a day of rest for everyone. If the weatherman is right, this heat wave will break tomorrow or Sunday. Then we can all throw ourselves back into our work. Right now, we’re all too limp and cranky to do anything cheerfully.”

  Accordingly, Mrs. Belden announced the following morning that the kitchen was on a one-day vacation schedule. “We’ll have a big brunch at eleven o’clock,” she said. “Before and after that, everyone’s on their own.”

  “Everyone?” Trixie asked pointedly, with a sidelong glance at Bobby, who was waiting expectantly next to the refrigerator.

  Mrs. Belden laughed. “As I said, this is a day of rest. For that reason, I’ll see to it that Bobby is fed—I don’t want to spend my vacation cleaning up the kitchen!”

  The entire family seized on the day-off idea as if it were a week-long trip to an exotic land. Brian and Mart, with a minimum of quarreling, worked out a schedule for use of the backyard hammock. Trixie volunteered to give up a couple of hours of her vacation so that her parents could go for a drive unhampered by their youngest son.

  In a holiday mood, the family gathered around the table for their combination breakfast and lunch. Mart asked permission to change places with Trixie, so that he could watch out the kitchen window for the mail carrier during the meal. “In anticipation of the arrival of auspicious information,” he explained long-windedly.

  When the mail carrier’s truck did pull up, Mart dropped his fork with a clatter and raced out the door.

  “What’s the matter with that boy?” Peter Belden wondered aloud.

  “The only ones who seem to know the answer to that are Mart and Trixie, and neither one of them is telling,” Helen Belden said, with a meaningful glance at her only daughter.

  Trixie concentrated very hard on her plate. This was the first hint her mother had given that she knew Trixie was in on Mart’s secret.

  Trixie was saved from having to say anything by the return of Mart, who was waving a legalsized envelope over his head. “It’s here!” he shouted. He stood at the table and ripped open the envelope. He took out a folded letter, unfolded it, and looked in the envelope as if something was missing. Eyebrows drawn together in a frown, he read the letter. Then, without a word, he sank into his chair.

  “What is it, Mart?” Trixie asked.

  Mart handed her the letter. “Read it,” he said.

  “ ‘Dear Mr. Belden,’ ” Trixie read aloud. “ ‘As you can understand, Carlson Crafts must maintain the highest possible quality in our products in order to compete in the marketplace. We regret to inform you that the products you assembled do not meet our standards; therefore, we are unable to remit your fifty dollars.’ ” Trixie looked up from the letter to Mart, who was sitting with his face hidden in his hands.

  ‘It is not unusual for our suppliers’ first efforts to be unsatisfactory,’ ” the letter continued. “ ‘Generally, more practice is sufficient to correct the initial errors in assembly. If you will send us ten dollars immediately, we will gladly maintain your place on our list of home assemblers and send you an additional five kits. We will also be happy to return your initial product, C.O.D., at your request.’ ”

  Trixie folded the letter carefully, although her impulse was to tear it into a hundred pieces. “I thought the plaques looked fine, Mart,” she said. “Are you going to try another five?”

  Mart lowered his hands and raised his head to look at Trixie. His face was flaming red, but he spoke with as much dignity as he could muster. “I am possessed of a modicum of intelligence,” he said. “At least enough to be cognizant of the fact that, in the current patois, I’ve been ripped off.”

  “Suppose you explain what this is all about,” Peter Belden requested softly.

  Mart turned to his father. “I answered an ad in the back of a magazine. They said they wanted home assemblers for craft products. I sent them ten dollars, and this is what I got,” Mart concluded, waving one hand at the letter.

  “I’m glad it was only ten dollars,” Peter Belden told him. “Most of these get-rich-quick schemes require a bigger investment, although the results are always about the same.”

  “But the ad said your money was guaranteed,” Trixie said. “They have to give you fifty dollars for those plaques.”

  Mart shook his head. “If you’ll recall, the exact wording of the ad said the profit was guaranteed for proper assembly. If they claim the kits weren’t properly assembled, they don’t have to pay.”

  “That’s right,” Peter Belden said. “I’m sure that if you protest, you’ll get another letter, detailing all the so-called flaws in the products. That gets them off the hook. I must admit it’s a clever con job, but con job it is.”

  “Isn’t there anything we can do?” Trixie asked. “Can’t we report them to the Better Business Bureau, or sue, or—or something?”

  “A lawsuit would cost much more than the ten dollars Mart has already lost, and there’s very little chance of winning. A letter to the Better Business Bureau is a good idea, but there’s probably a list of complaints a mile long already on file. The problem is that the people who are lured in by schemes like this are the very ones who are unlikely to check up on the reputation of the company.”

  “Like me,” Mart said miserably.

  “Like you in some ways,” his father agreed. “They’re people who want jobs and money and the things that money can buy, but who are too young or too old or in some other way unqualified for most work.”

  “Those are the very people who can least afford to spend ten dollars on a crooked scheme like this,” Helen Belden said in a pained voice.

  “There must be something we can do,” Trixie said.

  “I think you’d have to start by changing our whole society,” Brian said solemnly. “You’d have to get rid of all the ads on television and in the papers that make people want things they don�
�t really need. You’d have to convince people that there’s more to life than owning more and more things every year.”

  “You’d also have to make people realize that their worth as human beings doesn’t depend on how much money they have,” Peter Belden added.

  “Ouch! That was ‘a very palpable hit,’ as the Bard put it,” Mart said.

  “Mart wanted to make some money so that he could help out with his college tuition and help Jim support the boys’ school,” Trixie explained.

  Peter Belden reached out and put his hand on Mart’s shoulder. “That’s a very worthy ambition, son,” he said sympathetically. “It’s one you’ll achieve, too, I’m sure. That’s how you’re different from some of the other people who answer ads like that one. You have the intelligence and ability to get a good, legitimate job one day soon.”

  “If I have so much intelligence, why did I answer that ad?” Mart asked miserably.

  “Because you wanted to help Dad and Jim,” Trixie told him loyally.

  “And because the people at this Carlson Company are more intelligent than you are when it comes to deception,” his father added. “They’re so clever, in fact, that I think you can pride yourself on seeing through the scheme as soon as you did. I’m sure there are many people who send a second ten dollars and a third—and possibly even a fourth, still believing that they’ll be able to turn out a product the company will pay them for.”

  Mart gave his father a lopsided smile. “Faint praise, but a source of consolation, nonetheless.” He reached for a bowl of fried potatoes. “I will assuage my aching pride with alimentary delights.”

  His family laughed, relieved that Mart was taking his defeat with good humor. Trixie knew, though, that Mart’s hurt and embarrassment would last a long, long time.