The Mystery of the Blinking Eye Read online

  “I did an awful thing...” Trixie began.

  “Oh, Trixie, why... why... why?” Honey asked, clutching Trixie’s arm. “We were sure you had been murdered. When Dan told us about that terrible place—”

  “Dan told you about what?” Trixie asked.

  “Sit down in this big chair, Trixie,” Miss Trask told her quietly, giving Trixie a glass of hot milk. “Try to relax. Then we’ll tell you about Dan.”

  “Yes, do,” Mr. Wheeler said, and he put a pillow at Trixie’s back.

  “Don’t anyone be kind to me!” Trixie protested. “Instead, you should think of the worst words in the world to say to me. They said they’d pay me a thousand dollars if I’d turn that idol over to them!”

  “When did anyone say that to you?” Honey asked. “We’ve been with you everyplace you’ve gone.”

  “It was that telephone call last night!” Mart said triumphantly. “Wasn’t it, Trixie?”

  “Yes, it was,” Trixie admitted reluctantly. “It was Blinky. He told me I had to go alone. He said I’d be in no danger, that he was a member of the secret police, and that he’d meet me in a restaurant filled with people in broad daylight.”

  “But we promised we’d never go anyplace by ourselves,” Diana reminded her. Her face was tear-stained.

  “I forgot about that part of it,” Trixie said truthfully. “I was so anxious to get that thousand-dollar reward. How was I to know it would be a dingy old place in a horrible neighborhood?”

  “You could have confided in one of us,” Mart said sternly.

  “In me, at least,” Honey added.

  “Not one of you would have let me go!”

  “You never spoke a truer word,” Mart answered. “For someone smart, you sure can be—”

  “Dumb. I know it, Mart.” Trixie’s shoulders slumped. “It was dumb of me to think I could outsmart big city crooks. I do still have the little idol, though. They didn’t get that away from me. They told me it belongs to a nobleman in Peru, that it was stolen from him. We don’t even know if that’s true.”

  “I’ll take the idol now,” Mr. Wheeler said firmly. “If it’s worth a thousand-dollar reward to a couple of thieves, it has too much value for a young girl to be carrying around. How do you feel now, Trixie?”

  “I feel all right physically, if that’s what you mean. But I sure do feel awful otherwise. I’m trying not to think what Moms and Dad will say when they find out what I did.”

  “Wait till you’re back home safely before we tell about this part of your New York stay,” Mr. Wheeler said wisely.

  “Oh, will you do that? I’ll be grateful to you all the rest of my life.”

  “I’ll not expect that.” Mr. Wheeler smiled. “The reason I’m willing to wait to tell them is that I’ll keep the idol with me. I’ll be right with you, too, everywhere you go in the evening. I’m sure Trixie won’t run off to any wild place again. I’ll keep in close touch with the police; you can depend on that.”

  “Dad, you’re the greatest!” Jim exclaimed. “I think Trixie’s had enough punishment for now. You are feeling better, aren’t you, Trixie? Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m sure. Even if I don’t deserve to be, I am.” Trixie smiled wanly. “What I don’t understand is how anyone knew where to find me. I thought it was a miracle when you all came through the door of that horrible place. What did you mean about Dan and the doorman?”

  “Let Dan tell it,” Honey suggested. “We sure are lucky to have him for a Bob-White member.”

  “It was one time my knowledge of the shady part of this town paid off,” Dan said. “When you didn’t come back for such a long time, we started to worry. First we thought you’d been in a street accident. Then we went downstairs and asked Mr. Hawkins, the doorman, if you had said anything when you left.”

  “When he told us you hadn’t, we really were scared,” Diana s'aid.

  “Then he remembered you’d asked him for a piece of paper to copy something you’d written on the phone book in the booth,” Diana went on. “Have you ever looked inside the cover of a telephone book in a public booth? Everyone writes something there—telephone numbers, addresses....”

  “How could you tell what I’d written? It was only the number of the place where they told me to meet them.”

  “I haven’t tutored you in math for nothing,” Jim said. “I recognized the funny figure four you always make. That was enough for Dan. He knew exactly where you’d gone, and he knew you’d be sure to run into danger.”

  “It was near the neighborhood where I lived after my mother died,” Dan put in. “I know every inch of it, and it’s bad. The joint where you went is a place a ‘fence’ operates. A fence disposes of stuff thieves take to him.”

  Dan paced up and down the room nervously. “So then we called the police, and they came right away. That ride in the squad car was the longest ride I ever took in my life.”

  “It was for me, too,” Jim declared. “Trixie, I’ll never forget how I felt when we found you!”

  Trixie held Jim’s hand tightly. With her other hand she caught Dan’s hand. For a long time she didn’t speak.

  “Three of them!” she finally said. “That was what was so puzzling and why we were never able to tell the police exactly what they looked like. Big Tony was the tall one of the pair who followed us. Pedro was the one who pretended to be a Peruvian. He talked to us at the United Nations.”

  “And at the Museum of Natural History!” Honey added. “Trixie, we never trusted him. And what about the other man, the one with the scar across his eye?”

  “Blinky, yes.” Trixie hid her face. “He’s so horrible-looking with his big bald head and squinting eye—” ‘Great-headed man, with blinking eye’!” Mart cried. “It’s Blinky to a T!”

  Trixie jumped from her chair. “It is! It is! Where’s my purse? That policeman gathered up my things from the floor and gave me my purse. Where is it? Oh, yes... here’s the prophecy. What else did that Mexican woman say after the line about the TV studio? Here it is:

  “A lonesome journey, gleaming gun,

  Foolish girl, what have you done?

  “ ‘Foolish girl,’ ” Trixie repeated sadly. “That’s me, all right!”

  Lost Forever • 16

  SINCE THE IOWANS had to leave the next afternoon, Trixie insisted she was well enough to carry out their original plan for dinner on the plaza at Rockefeller Center that evening. Her experience with the men that morning had left her unnerved, though. Only one good thing emerged from it: The police knew now exactly who the men were who had been pursuing Trixie. They still did not know why. Mr. Wheeler had promised to take the small Incan idol to the police the next day, after the visitors left, so they might try to discover its attraction for the thieves.

  The telephone rang. Mr. Wheeler answered it.

  “Yes, Joe. Say, thanks for the way you put all these kids back on the right track. If your advice had only been taken.... You should have been around here this morning. Miss Trask and I went through several bad hours. Some of the young people did, too. Sure, you might know it was Trixie. Hold on; I’ll let her tell all about it. It’s Dr. Reed, Trixie... Trixie, where are you?”

  “As soon as she heard you say ‘Joe’ she beat it to her room, sir,” Mart said. “I don’t wonder that she doesn’t want to talk to him. He told us we might get into trouble, and she’s ashamed to tell him she went off by herself. Let me talk to him. I’ll tell him if you don’t want to.”

  “No, thanks, Mart.” Mr. Wheeler smiled. “I’ll tell him. Your version might be too vivid. Trixie has learned her lesson.”

  “Maybe she has this time,” Miss Trask said doubtfully. “We always think so till something else happens.” So Mr. Wheeler told Dr. Reed about the events of the morning. He hadn’t finished talking when Trixie came back into the room and asked to say something. Honey’s father handed her the receiver.

  “Dr. Joe, I’m so ashamed. I know it was a crazy thing to do, especially aft
er what you said to us. Now those men have disappeared completely. There were three of them, instead of two. The police didn’t have to look at the video tape after all. Blinky, Big Tony, and Pedro are well known to them. They think they’re the slipperiest crooks they’ve ever encountered. Please don’t tell Tex what I did. He thinks I’m a real detective. I’m going to be, too, one of these days. Next time

  I won’t be fooled so easily. Dr. Joe, are you still my friend?”

  “Did he say he was your friend?” Diana asked after Trixie had put down the receiver. “Don’t answer. I know he did. Dr. Joe seems to understand everything.”

  “He does, doesn’t he?” Trixie answered thoughtfully. “He told me not to be so impatient to get started on a career. He’s right, I know. I don’t suppose we’ll ever find out the real truth about my Incan statue. We’ve seen the last of those men, anyway. Or have we? Honey, if you ever catch a glimpse of Blinky— you couldn’t miss him in a crowd—you tell me right away.”

  “There you go again!” Mart sighed.

  “See here”—Mr. Wheeler’s voice was very serious— “if anyone ever catches sight of any of those men, we want to know it. Only don’t bother to tell Trixie first; just—”

  “Call a cop!” Dan interrupted.

  “Right!” Mr. Wheeler said. “Do it immediately. Now that they know the police are onto them, they just might try to make a last desperate move. Let’s be alert constantly. Let’s make the rest of the time count, too, before Barbara and Bob and Ned must leave. I’m going to stay right with you till we see the Iowans on the plane.”

  “Don’t forget, Daddy,” Honey reminded him, “that the plane from Orly Airport in Paris gets in not long before the Maine plane leaves. We told Sally, Billy, and Bob Wellington we’d meet them when they arrived. They live near us in Westchester County,” Honey explained to the Iowans, “only we never met them till we went to Di’s uncle’s ranch in Arizona. They’ve been traveling in Europe. Do you think you’d like to go with us to meet them?”

  “And see a plane arriving from Paris?” Barbara asked enthusiastically. “I’d love to go.”

  “Someday you’ll be taking a plane to Paris, when you and Bob are famous musicians,” Trixie told the twins. “Even if you stick to your intention of teaching, you’ll both be famous teachers!”

  While Trixie, at Miss Trask’s insistence, rested, Bob and Barbara and Ned packed everything except the clothes they needed to wear for dinner that night and on the plane to Maine the next day.

  That night at Rockefeller Center, the plaza was a blaze of flowers, lights, fountains, and music. Everywhere people milled and crowded—some of them just walking down the concourse, many of them seeking seats in the open-air restaurant.

  “We’ll be lucky if we ever get a table in all this mob,” Mart said, looking around him at the crowd.

  “Daddy reserved one before we left the apartment,” Honey said. “They’re arranging it right now.”

  Busy busboys pushed smaller tables together to make room for the party of twelve, wedging the big table in close to other diners. The Bob-Whites apologized for crowding other guests.

  Across from them, against the wall, the statue of Prometheus stood out, two figures on either side, a boy and a girl. A lighted fountain played around them. Barbara could hardly take her eyes from it. “Everything in New York is terrific!” she sighed.

  “Even Blinky, Big Tony, and Pedro?” Mart teased. Trixie shivered. “Let’s not talk about them. I’m still ashamed. I’m ashamed, too, to think that Honey and I couldn’t solve the mystery.”

  “You didn’t give Honey much chance, Trix,” Mart reminded her gently.

  Honey went immediately to Trixie’s defense. “I knew about all of it except the visit to that hamburger place. Trixie would have let me go there with her, too, except that Blinky told her she wouldn’t get the thousand dollars unless she went alone.”

  “She didn’t get it anyway, did she?” Mart was still critical.

  “Not yet, but I seem to remember that the prophecy said she’ll get a fortune. Did anyone read the next part of that verse?”

  “I guess not, Honey,” Brian said, speaking for the rest. “We were in too much of a stir about Trixie.”

  “That’s what makes me so angry with myself, to think I was so dumb—” Trixie couldn’t finish.

  “Now, now, Trixie,” Mr. Wheeler counseled, “let’s forget it and all have a good time. Let the police take it from now on. I’m glad I have the idol now, instead of Trixie’s carrying it around.”

  He reached into his pocket and brought it out. Suddenly someone passing jostled his arm. The statue fell to the ground. Frantic, he bent to retrieve it, then came up red-faced. “Who grabbed it from me?” He glared at Dan, next to him. “Was it you... for a joke?”

  “What do you mean?” Dan looked bewildered. “I don’t have it. When I bent over after it fell, I saw you pick it up. At least an arm—holy cow! Does anyone have it?”

  In a second they were all down on the stone floor hunting about.

  “I saw an arm reach for it,” Mr. Wheeler insisted. “I felt someone push me. Where is the blasted statue?”

  Neighboring diners and passersby—men, women, and children—most of them not even realizing what they were after, went down on their knees to help. The maître d’hôtel, quickly summoned, didn’t like the commotion and said so.

  “Ladies and gentlemen...” he began, then softened his voice as Mr. Wheeler pressed a bill into his hand. “Is there something I can do to help?”

  “Not a thing!” Mr. Wheeler said tersely. “Trixie, come with me to telephone to the lieutenant at the police station. Jim, tell them to hold back my order, please. We’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Please tell them to hold mine back, too,” Trixie whispered to Jim.

  “It was Blinky, of course,” Trixie told Mr. Wheeler sadly. “It’s fantastic the way he’s appeared and disappeared.”

  “Like a greased monkey,” Mr. Wheeler agreed. “No one could ever believe it. He’s so short he can slide in and out of a crowd like a snake. It finally paid off, didn’t it, Trixie? Blinky and his pals have the statue now. I doubt if even the police will ever get it back.”

  “Don’t say that! Honey and I will get it back, if we have to hunt it down the rest of our lives!”

  “I don’t think you’d be that foolish. If it’s gone, it’s gone. We might just as well accept it.”

  “It makes me furious.” Trixie frowned fiercely. “We’ve never lost a case before. If I hadn’t muffed this one! I can’t bear not knowing why they wanted that statue. Now it’s gone. Jeepers, Mr. Wheeler, I’ve just got to find out—”

  “Here’s the telephone. I’ll call the police. I know the number. I should know it by this time. Calm down, Trixie. We’re doing the only thing I know to try to get your statue back.”

  When they rejoined the group at the table, everyone tried to talk at once.

  “I just made the report to the police. Trixie will tell you about it,” Mr. Wheeler said.

  “Hurry up!” Honey begged. “Were they excited when you told them the latest?”

  “You bet they were!” Trixie’s eyes shone. “There are some representatives of the Peruvian police here on the trail of international jewel thieves. They’re sure Blinky, Big Tony, and Pedro are the ringleaders!”

  “Gee!” Bob exclaimed, all ears. “What’s going to be the next move?”

  “That’s up to the police,” Mr. Wheeler said.

  “I guess it is,” Trixie agreed. “The whole thing is queer, though.”

  “Of course it’s queer, but do you mean something in particular? As if I didn’t already know you do, without asking. You always mean something in particular when you use that tone of voice. What gives?” Mart asked curiously.

  “I think I know what Trixie is talking about,” Honey said thoughtfully. “It’s that prophecy again, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Trixie hunted for the paper, found it, and spread
it on the table. “It says here—”

  “Read it out loud,” Bob begged. “From the first. Maybe it’ll give us a lead on what’s going to happen next.”

  “I won’t have time before they bring our food. I hope this works out before you have to leave.”

  “At least read the next few lines—the ones after ‘foolish girl.’ ”

  “That’s me, Bob. Well, here it is... Jeepers! Listen!

  “Great-headed man does prostrate lie,

  A bright stone in his blinking eye.

  “Heavens, what do you think of that? I thought ‘great-headed man’ meant that cab driver in the park at first. Then I thought it meant Blinky. But he doesn’t ‘prostrate lie.’ At least, if he does, I certainly don’t know about it.”

  Honey jumped to her feet, so excited she could hardly speak. “It’s the statue! Its blinking eye must have hidden a jewel!”

  “It didn’t have a blinking eye. I looked over every inch of it—unless—jeepers, Honey, its eyes were enamel. I’d never call them ‘blinking.’ We never did look at the statue in the bright light, though. Maybe there was a crack in the enamel!”

  “Before we get too carried away with that Mexican woman’s words—” Miss Trask began.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” Trixie interrupted. “But the prophecy has been right so far, hasn’t it?”

  “A person can twist words to get almost any meaning out of them he wants,” Miss Trask said quietly. “Right now you’re endowing that little idol with qualities no one ever noticed before.”

  “Miss Trask is dead right,” Mr. Wheeler said. “Suppose we eat dinner. Let’s descend from fancy to fact, before everything gets cold. We’ll just let the law take its course.”

  “But they’re so poky,” Trixie said impatiently. “What’s so urgent about it?” Mart asked. “I’m with Miss Trask part of the way. There’s a lot of gobbledy-gook in that so-called prophecy. What about toward the end: ‘silver wings’ and ‘river’s bend’?”