The Mystery of the Blinking Eye Read online

  “She saw more here than many people who have their sight,” Honey said thoughtfully.

  “It makes an ordinary guy ashamed.... Say, let’s go on up to the tower,” Mart said. “You’re really swinging in space up there—a hundred and two floors up!”

  “Not me!” Diana said quickly. “I have the strangest feeling that something terrible may happen!”

  “It’s because you’re afraid of high places,” Mart said. “Come on, Di; try to get over it.”

  “No. You can all go without me. I’ve never been up there, and I’m never going.” She shuddered.

  “I’ll stay here with you,” Trixie told her. “I’ve seen it often. I wouldn’t want Barbara and Bob to miss it, though, if they aren’t afraid. Di and I will look around here a little while, everybody, then meet you downstairs later.”

  “Don’t go far from the elevators when you get downstairs, Trixie,” Jim warned. “Even if you have to wait a long time for us, please stay right there.”

  “I will,” Trixie promised. She put her arm around Diana protectively as the rest of her crowd scrambled for the elevator to take them to the tower.

  While they were in the enclosed area, Diana was quite brave. “I never had any idea it could be so beautiful,” she said. “It almost seems as though we were looking down from heaven, doesn’t it? Trixie, I’m sorry you didn’t go with the rest of them. I’m sorry I’m such a fraidycat.”

  “Don’t think a thing about it. Lots of people much older than you have a fear of going up in high places. It has some kind of name—that fear—but I can’t think of it. I’ve been to the tower many times, as I told you, so forget it. I’m not disappointed.”

  The two girls were so absorbed in the view from inside the windows that they didn’t realize that the crowd had become much smaller. Many had gone to the higher parapet. Others apparently had seen all they wanted to see and had gone down on the elevators.

  Aware, finally, of the lack of chatter and bustle around them, Trixie turned away from the windows to look about. .

  “Jeepers, we’re almost the last ones up here!” she gasped. “How long have we been here? Maybe the others are waiting for us downstairs. We’ve just been standing here gazing so much we’ve forgotten the time. Let’s go, Di!”

  Diana whirled around. Then she caught Trixie’s arm. “Don’t look!” she warned. “But those two men over there look awfully suspiciously like— They are! Trixie, run! There’s nobody up here but us and those men. Run! Run for the elevator!”

  Trixie caught Diana’s hand, and they both sprinted down the corridor.

  “Where’s the guard who’s supposed to be here?” Trixie gasped as she ran.

  “Way up there at the other end of the platform, I suppose,” Diana cried. “Trixie, they’re right back of us. It’s those thieves! I know it is! Oh, I told you I knew something awful was going to happen. Run! Run faster!”

  “It is those men!” Trixie gasped. Running, she called back to them, “I don’t have the statue! I don’t have it! Stay away from us.”

  The men caught up and dodged around them.

  “They’re in front of the elevator!” Diana’s voice was frantic. “They’re going to stop us! Trixie! Don’t go that way!”

  “You got our idol! You give it back!” the taller man called, guarding the bell so the girls couldn’t reach it to signal the elevator.

  “I don't have it, I tell you. I gave it to somebody else! Get away from that bell! Let us out of here! Guard! Guard!” Trixie screamed.

  “I don’t see a soul in sight to help us,” Diana moaned. “They’ll kill us, Trixie!”

  “Keep quiet!” Trixie commanded, realizing that Diana was almost hysterical. “The stairway, Di! Pretend we’re going back along the corridor—here! Duck down here! Be quick!”

  The girls pushed through the door leading to the stairway and flew down the steps. As they turned at the bend, they heard the door above them swish. The sound of footsteps followed.

  “We—can’t—possibly—run—like—this—for eighty —six—floors,” Diana gasped. “Help! Help! Help!”

  As they passed lighted floors, not a soul was visible. Above them, hardly a floor away, the men’s heavy footsteps followed.

  “In here!” Trixie cried and pulled Diana through one of the stair doorways, then down a hall. “We’re sure to find someone here!”

  “There’s no one! We’re lost! That—awful—statue!”

  “Hush! We’ll be all right. I don’t think they followed us through that door. Walk quietly now, Di—hush— don’t make a sound—softly—there! Look down the hall! There’s an office door open. In there, quickly!” Trixie shoved Diana ahead of her through the halfopened door, closed it after her, and turned around to face two very puzzled cleaning women.

  “See here, girls, you just get out of here. You’re not supposed—”

  “Oh, please let us stay!” Trixie cried. “Please! Lock the door! Some terrible men are following us—they followed us from the promenade deck—please!”

  The older woman looked at her companion. “Well, now, the two little girls seem to need help. Two little girls—and nice-lookin’ little girls they are, too—can’t do a body any harm now, can they?”

  “What’s up?” the younger woman asked. She opened the door and peered down the hall. “There’s no one after you that I can see.”

  “There will be! There surely will be as soon as they know we’ve slipped away!” Diana trembled.

  “Well, they’re not goin’ to harm you, whoever they are!” The older woman snapped the lock on the door. “Calm down, darlin’s. There’ll be no one harmin’ you. I’ll just call the maintenance department. Sit down there, the two of you. We’ll get to the bottom of this in no time at all.”

  She telephoned to another floor, and in a few minutes a service elevator stopped far down the hall. A man from the maintenance department came to the door.

  Trixie, unnerved now that help had come, told her story in a shaking voice.

  The man and two women listened as she related everything that had happened since she bought the statue.

  “I wasn’t sure before that it was the idol they were after, but I am now,” Trixie said positively.

  “You’re right. They’ll stop at nothing now to get it,” the maintenance man said. “How does it happen that two young girls like you are out by yourselves at this time of night?”

  “We’re not by ourselves,” Trixie told him. “Six boys and two other girls went up to the tower. I thought I told you that. They’re waiting downstairs for us right now. Where do you think those men went?”

  “It’s anyone’s guess,” the man said. “Come with me now, on the service elevator. If there were men following you, and if they’re still going down the stairs, maybe we’ll get to the first floor ahead of them.”

  Trixie and Diana thanked the cleaning women and went with the man. He operated the service elevator himself and slowed the pace so he could glance down each floor as he passed.

  When the elevator stopped at the first floor, Jim and Brian were pacing up and down impatiently in front of the passenger elevators. When Trixie ran up to Jim, he threw his arm around her. “I thought you were lost! Oh, Trixie, I didn’t know what had happened to you! Mart’s up on the eighty-sixth floor now. We have the whole building staff looking for you!”

  As quickly as she could, supplemented by the comments of Diana and the maintenance man, Trixie told

  the waiting, worried group what had happened.

  Before long Mart came back. Several men were with him. A large crowd had gathered and passers-by stopped to listen. A policeman dispersed the onlookers. “Now, let’s hear what this is about,” he said.

  Wearily, Trixie and Diana told their story again. The policeman made notes. The maintenance man made notes. The elevators resumed their continuous up, down, up, down.

  There was no sight of the two men. They were not seen again that night, either, though the maintenance staff sear
ched each floor.

  Finally, exasperated, the maintenance men turned the matter over to the policeman.

  “There’s only one thing to do, the way I see it,” the officer announced. “It’s this. The hands of the police are tied unless they have some real description of the men. All you seem to know now is that one is tall and one is short and has a scar.”

  “I know that,” Trixie said unhappily. “No matter where I saw them, I’d know them, but I can’t describe them any better than I have. What makes it even more puzzling is that we’re so mixed up about the short man. He either looks different almost every time he shows up, or there is a third man. It’s so confusing.”

  “Then do this. The minute you catch sight of them anyplace, call a policeman. We can hold anyone as a suspect for twenty-four hours if we have a shred of evidence. They’ve given us the slip tonight. It’s not hard to figure out how this happened. There are thousands of tourists in the building right now. You just happened, by some freak of chance, to be up there in a slack time. For a second, you were the only ones on that observation deck, aside from those men. When you escaped, they could have gone back up there and lost themselves in the crowd coming down. Okay, sister, keep your eyes open, and remember what I said. In the meantime, you’d better stick close together, all of you in a group.”

  Dr. Joe ● 13

  OUTSIDE THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING, THE BOB-WHITES, SOBERED, CROWDED INTO CABS. EVEN THE ENTHUSIASTIC COMMENTS OF THE IOWA VISITORS DIDN’T TAKE THE WORRIED FROWN FROM TRIXIE’S FOREHEAD.

  “So many things have happened to spoil everything for you,” she told them. “Now tonight was the worst of all.”

  “What do you mean? You’ve said that before. It’s the thrill of a lifetime for Ned and Barbara and me!” Bob exclaimed.

  “I’ll say,” Ned agreed. “I only wish I could have been with you and Di up there when you ran into those gangsters!”

  “You could have substituted for me. Welcome to it,” Diana said, shivering. “I don’t enjoy Trixie’s narrow escapes. You’ll find out Miss Trask doesn’t think much of them, either.”

  Diana was right. When Miss Trask learned of the latest episode, she wanted to telephone Mr. Wheeler immediately.

  “Daddy is in Washington,” Honey reminded her. “And anyway—”

  “Anyway, I can call the Beldens,” Miss Trask went on. “I just don’t want the responsibility of looking after all of you when these things keep happening. The very next time those men show up—and they will show up, you can depend on that—something tragic could happen.”

  “Not those guys,” Mart said. “I think they’re chicken.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because they’ve had half a dozen chances already to do real harm if they’d intended to. They’ve acted like one of those old cops-and-robbers comedies we see on late TV. They run for cover all the time. Take tonight, even. If they’d really wanted—”

  “You’d have been as frightened as we were, Mart Belden,” Trixie interrupted, “if you’d been way up there in that building all alone. I guess if you had my sore knee from being knocked down in the park, too, you wouldn’t make fun of it.”

  “Trixie could have been badly injured when those men tripped her,” Jim said soberly. “No, Mart, it won’t do to write those men off as comics. On the other hand, if they really are after the statue, we must find some way of talking to them to find out why they want it. If you’d call Dad, Miss Trask, or Trixie’s folks, we’d all have to go back home to Sleepyside right away.”

  “Oh, please, let’s not have to do that,” Barbara begged. “We’d never have such a wonderful opportunity again to see and do things in New York. We’re thrilled to pieces about the whole business.”

  “I’m not,” Miss Trask said emphatically. “Jim, what was it you were going to say?”

  “Let me say something first, please,” Brian said soberly. “We’re inside the apartment now, and no one is going to come here when we’re all home. Tomorrow Bob and Ned and Barbara want to see all the Lionel trains in action. Bob has been looking forward to it. It will be in daylight. Will you be willing to call off getting in touch with any of our parents till after then and if those men don’t show up again, forget it till Bob and Barbara and Ned have finished their visit to the city?”

  “I certainly don’t want to be a spoilsport,” Miss Trask said uncomfortably.

  “Jeepers, thanks!” Trixie cried.

  “You didn’t let me finish what I started to say, Trixie.” Miss Trask was sober. “It’s just this: I’ll agree to the daylight visit to the trains, but no more going about at night!”

  “Not even if you’d come with us?” Barbara asked. “I can’t do that, Barbara. At least, I don’t think I can, unless my sister gets much better—”

  “Which we hope happens, no matter how it affects what we do,” Honey said sincerely.

  “I know that, dear. Let’s just see what tomorrow brings. We’ll take it from there. Is that all right?”

  “Fine!” the twins chorused.

  “People in New York City practically live in taxicabs, it seems to me,” Barbara said the next day as she settled back into the seat next to Trixie.

  “It would be a long walk from here to the Lionel showroom. We’ll get there sooner this way.”

  “If we get there at all,” Diana told Trixie, shivering as the driver went down a narrow street, with only inches separating him from the parked cars.

  He turned to the girls in the backseat. “Don’t you kids ever try that!” he chuckled, then turned back to fight his way over potholes in the pavement and in and around cars and trucks. Finally, with a flourish, he drew up in front of the Lionel trains showroom.

  “There you are, buddy,” he told Jim in the seat next to him. “Delivered safe and sound. Never thought I’d make it, did you, little lady?” he asked Barbara as she hurried out of the cab.

  “I honestly didn’t,” she told him.

  Then she colored as he shouted with satisfaction, “I always do! Ride with me, and you won’t have to mess around gawking at scenic railways in the park for a thrill.”

  Inside the showroom, there was a maze of trains— big, little, antique, diesel, electric. Cars for every conceivable use stood on tracks leading to every conceivable kind of terminal.

  “Here are your hats,” a smiling attendant told them as he met them at the door and fitted them out with blue-and-white-striped caps bearing the inscription LIONEL ENGINEER. The boys pocketed theirs, for they really were intended for little-boy heads. The girls jauntily pulled theirs on.

  “Make yourselves at home,” the guide told them. “Stay as long as you want. Go wherever you want. If you don’t find the train you’re looking for, let me know. We’ve got it someplace.”

  “I’m sure you have,” Barbara said, bewildered. “I’ve never seen so many trains before in all my life. Even big ones. There’s a railroad junction at Valley Park in Iowa near where we live. Ned and Bob and I and our gang have gone there to watch the engines turn around in the roundhouse, but, heavens, there must be a million trains here!”

  “I still like the trains over at Reeds’ better,” Jim said, looking around him.

  “Is that a boy you know?” Barbara asked, then blushed when the Bob-Whites laughed.

  “I’m sorry,” Jim said when he saw Barbara’s embarrassment. “I mean the model railroad that belongs to Dr. Joe.”

  “Dr. Reed,” Trixie explained. “He’s just about the most important orthopedic surgeon in the whole city of New York.”

  “In the whole world!” Diana insisted. “He operated on my little brother’s leg when he broke it in three places. It’s as good as ever now. That’s when we met Dr. Joe. I do wish you could see his trains. It’s a wonder he isn’t here today. Trains are his hobby, and he haunts this place whenever he can get a minute off. Today is the day most of the doctors take off each week, isn’t it, Jim?”

  “Right! I’ll bet a penny we’ll find him in one of th
ese rooms before we go, probably buying some kind of equipment. He calls his railroad the ‘B and J.’ ”

  “It’s for ‘Bone and Joint,’ ” Trixie explained. “I wish we’d run into him. We’re all just crazy about him. Everyone who knows him is—big, little, any age. His wife, Betty, is just as wonderful, and their children are honeys. There’s Tex—he’s about ten and the oldest —then Chris and Jeff, twins, about seven, and little Nancy, four.”

  “I suppose he built the railroad for his kids,” Ned said.

  “Heavens, no!” Trixie answered. “He’s the owner, builder, chief dispatcher, chief engineer— Hey, there he is! Dr. Joe! Dr. Joe!”

  A big, handsome, dark-haired man put down the transformer he was examining and hurried to the young people, both hands outstretched. “Your father told me you were all here in the city, Diana, but I never thought I’d run into you. Is one of your visitors a model railroad bug?”

  “Bob is, I guess,” Trixie said. “Dr. Joe, these are our friends from Iowa—Barbara and Bob Hubbell, and Ned Schulz.”

  “I’m a railroad bug, all right,” Bob acknowledged with a smile, “but I don’t have a railroad.”

  “He has a collection of old trains he saved from when he was little,” Barbara said. “Now he’s adding other antique trains as he finds them.”

  “The Bob-Whites have just been telling us about your Bone and Joint Railroad, sir. That’s a great name for it,” Ned said.

  Mart grinned. “It’s a great railroad.”

  “Why don’t you come home with me to our apartment and have a look at it?” Dr. Reed suggested cordially. “My wife and the kids would be delighted. Do you have time to fit it into your schedule?”

  “Oh, Dr. Joe, you must know we were waiting here with our fingers crossed, just hoping you’d ask us. We’re shameless, but, jeepers, it’d be terrific!” Trixie was overjoyed to think the Iowans would have a chance to see the B & J.

  “Then come along with me. I’ve parked the station wagon down on Twenty-sixth. We can all crowd into it. Betty uses it to take twelve kids to school in her car pool. I’ll take this transformer along and try it,” he told the salesman.