The Mystery on the Mississippi Page 13

  As Honey faltered, Trixie’s mind darted quickly from one thing to another. She thought of the first meeting with Lontard at the motel and how his piercing dark eyes bored through her. She remembered the menacing bulk of the Mercedes as it crowded their helpless car on the highway—helpless till Jim’s quick recovery eluded the car bearing down on them. Oh, if the boys were only with them now! She remembered how she had almost stumbled into the river from the barge far in front of the Catfish Princess. She recalled the thieves in her stateroom and the person she saw swimming away from the towboat. It certainly was Lontard.

  She remembered the false message sent to Mr. Wheeler from Cairo, the way Bob had acted on the Comet, and the landings he had attempted to make. She remembered the one he did make, with the Coast Guard in pursuit.

  She remembered, shivering, her struggle in the swimming pool and the man who disappeared as she sat on the edge of the pool.

  She thought of Jackson’s Island and the evidence Lontard had left there. Everything clicked into focus, even the car that roared onto the highway as their car left the old house.

  Now here they were, right back on the same road, and ahead of them a watery death in the river!

  “There’s an old boat!” Honey cried as the trees ended in a great open space. “It’s the Mississippi River and an old steamboat, Trixie! Now, that’s where we’re going to meet my dad and all the others. Did they come by boat? Why didn’t we meet them and come by boat, too? This is a terrible way to come to the old steamboat. My feet are soaking wet, and I’m so cold and scared.”

  “That won’t bother you much longer,” Mr. Aguilera snarled. He pushed the two girls up the old plank to the main deck of the dilapidated steamboat.

  “Go on!” he ordered. “Up the next steps to the pilothouse! Go on. Move faster.”

  “The others?” Honey asked, stumbling ahead and reaching back for Trixie’s hand. “Aren’t they here yet?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Mr. Aguilera chuckled. “The others are here, all right. Open up, Frenchy!”

  A huge light flashed on the deck above.

  Trixie and Honey, shaking and faltering, walked the few steps across the top deck to the pilothouse. As they neared, rusty hinges creaked, and the door swung wide into a dimly lighted room.

  There, his feet planted far apart, rocking back and forth on his heels, stood Pierre Lontard. He was exultant; a grin covered his face.

  On the Steamboat ● 15

  GREETINGS, MY DEAR little detective friends!” Lontard said, his voice as oily as that of Red Riding Hood’s wolf. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  Trixie and Honey could not answer.

  “Well, aren’t you? You’ve played cat and mouse with me for far too long. So you thought your dear friends Elena and Juan Aguilera were protecting you from me!” He laughed again, a deep, throaty, evil laugh that sent Trixie’s blood racing cold to the very tips of her fingers.

  Honey was deathly pale.

  “What do you intend to do?” Trixie asked with superhuman courage. “What do you want from us? Are you going to kill us?”

  “One question at a time, my pretty little spitfire. First, what do I want? My papers you stole from me and that you still keep from me. I want those immediately. Search her thoroughly!” he commanded Mrs. Aguilera.

  “Then, for the second question, what am I going to do to you? Am I going to kill you? The answer to that question depends entirely on you, Miss Trixie. For your companion, I do not care, except that what happens to you must happen to her, too, for she has a tongue.

  “In my country, to steal private papers means certain death to a thief. In your country, men are more compassionate. Perhaps I have learned compassion from your people, yes? What have you to report, Elena? You have found nothing?”

  In the light of the huge battery-charged lamp, Trixie could see the contents of her purse strewn on the floor.

  “Nothing!” Mrs. Aguilera repeated.

  Pierre Lontard turned furiously on Trixie. “Where are they? Where are the papers?” He gave her such a shove that she nearly fell to the floor.

  “I don’t have them.”

  Suddenly Honey rushed to him and scratched him furiously across the face. Half blinded by her attack, he swung on her and would have struck her, but Mrs. Aguilera stepped between them. “Wait,” she commanded. “We do not yet have the papers.”

  “That is right. We do not. Where are they?” he demanded of Trixie in a cold, hard voice. “Answer me, miss, immediately. Beware of what will happen to you if those papers are not returned! You have cost me thousands of dollars already, evading me and withholding from me my rightful property. Where are they?” He stood over Trixie, arm upraised, waiting for the answer.

  “Don’t you see she doesn’t have them?” Honey answered. “How could she? They’re—”

  “Honey, no!” Trixie cautioned. “Let me talk, please.”

  Honey put her hand over her mouth and nodded pitifully.

  “Then, speak!” Lontard howled in fury. “Speak! Where are my papers?”

  A thought raced through Trixie’s mind. If I tell him now that the police have the papers, he will certainly kill us. Her voice never faltered as she said bravely, “I can say nothing except that I don’t have them. They are no longer in my possession.”

  “That is very plain. Where have you put them? Where have you hidden them? Speak immediately, or take the consequences.” Lontard’s voice was filled with rage, and his face reddened.

  “I have said all I can. I don’t have them.”

  “Then you have hidden them. Where?” He swore fiercely. “Now I must go and find where you have hidden them. Very well. If I do not find the papers where they are almost certain to be—in your room at the motel—then, my pretty little Trixie, you will no longer be pretty. Bind her! Take care of both of these interfering meddlers! Never mind gentleness, Elena! Think what they have done to us! Think what their actions have cost us!”

  “Don’t you dare touch Honey!” Trixie cried. “She had nothing to do with the papers. I don’t know what they mean, but they must be terribly important and very dangerous to make you do what you’re doing. Don’t you dare touch Honey!” she cried again as Mr. Aguilera seized Honey’s arms.

  “Silence!” Lontard ordered.

  “You’ll be sorry for what you’re doing!” Trixie warned. “If we’re hurt, our parents will track you down to the far corners of the earth.”

  At this, Lontard laughed again, wickedly and cruelly. “Then let your parents find you. They will look for you, maybe, in the weeds of the river down there, eh?”

  Honey cried out pitifully, “Oh, Trixie, do, tell them where to find the papers. They’ll kill you! Oh, Trixie!”

  “Trust me, Honey,” Trixie begged. To Lontard she said, “You’re far too smart to think you’ll go unpunished. Our relatives and friends will never rest till they hunt you out.”

  “Find me?” Lontard laughed sarcastically. “You weak, cowardly Americans couldn’t find the letter A in the alphabet. You’re a bunch of spineless idiots.”

  “You can’t say that!” Trixie shouted defiantly. “If you dare to touch us, to harm us, you’ll suffer all the days of your life, and they’ll be few and short.”

  “Let them go!” Mrs. Aguilera said. “I’ve been in this country longer than you have, Pierre. I know the penalty for kidnapping... and for murder!”

  “You evidently do not know, or have forgotten, my power and who is behind me,” Lontard answered coldly. “I am afraid of no one. I am Pierre Lontard! As for letting them go, have you lost your mind? We would abandon everything we have worked for. Is that your wish? We would give up all we have planned, all we have risked lives and fortunes to acquire. Is that what you want now?” He spat contemptuously.

  “Even if you do not care for the fortune that is waiting for us,” he went on scornfully, “what about our lives? With two smart girls like these alive, how far could we get? Nowhere. No, Elena Aguilera. Proceed! Waste no more
time. Keep your pity for yourself. You make me sick! Let them go? When did Lontard ever do that? Never! Tie them! Gag them!

  We must get going immediately.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Aguilera, spurred on by Lontard, seized the girls, crossed their arms behind their backs, and bound them. Then they pushed them roughly to the floor and tied their ankles together.

  This done, they rolled the girls over and bound their mouths. “There! Is that satisfactory?” Juan Aguilera asked his master.

  “It will keep them from interfering for a while,” Lontard said grimly. “Perhaps forever. Much depends upon what we find, and how quickly we find it, at the motel. We must go immediately. There is always the danger that the boys may have tried to communicate with the girls after the exhibit was over. You can still hear what I am saying, young ladies. I shall give you one last chance to tell me where the papers are, or you will be left here until it is our desire to return. Nod your head, Trixie, if you are ready to talk to me.”

  Trixie did not move.

  Lontard took out his watch. “I shall wait sixty seconds for your answer.”

  Trixie did not move.

  “Speak, girls,” Mrs. Aguilera pleaded. “Make some motion that you will do as he asks. He can be very cruel.”

  Neither Trixie nor Honey moved.

  Lontard counted the seconds with a motion of his long forefinger, then, with a growl, clicked shut the cover of his foreign-looking watch.

  “Now you deserve no consideration, and you will get none. Come!” he told his confederates. He put out the flash lantern and pushed Mr. and Mrs. Aguilera ahead of him through the door. Outside, the rusty key scraped ominously as Lontard turned it in the lock.

  Trixie could hear quick steps descending the rickety stairs and walking across the plank to shore, then nothing. No sound. No light. No hope. Nothing but black darkness.

  Bumping her bruised body, Trixie tried to move herself closer to Honey. She mumbled through the tight gag, and Honey mumbled back. In this way, she was able to locate her friend and finally to feel her nearness. There was some comfort in that.

  Through the cracked and broken windows of the pilothouse, Trixie could hear the lapping of waves against the low-hanging willows.

  Out on the river, there was nothing but silence. In the marsh around them, a fish occasionally jumped and fell back into the water, the splash echoing and reechoing.

  Gradually, on shore, animals that had been frightened by the presence of Lontard and the Aguileras took courage again from the silence and continued their stealthy hunt for food, making small, unfamiliar noises. Muskrats swished through the grasses, hunting clams, cracking them with a snap, and sucking their rubbery flesh. The peeping of small tree frogs rose shrilly above the bass arrumph of bullfrogs.

  Trixie, listening, struggled mightily at the cords that held her. She rolled over and pushed her back against Honey, hoping that maybe their captors had left at least one of her friend’s fingers free to work at the knots.

  Honey seemed to sense her intent, but if her hands were not as closely bound as Trixie’s, they were so numbed by the pressure of the cord that they were useless.

  Back in her throat, Honey made strange bleating noises, but if they meant anything, Trixie could not interpret them. She answered, though, with glugging moans, for any human sound in the great black void gave her courage.

  From up the river, a towboat whistled mournfully, and far off, on the Illinois side of the river, another boat answered. As it slowly made its way downriver, the boat threw its searchlight from shore to shore. Surely they'll see this old wreck, Trixie thought. But what good will it do us? It's probably been rotting here for nearly a hundred years.

  Gradually the light from the towboat disappeared, and the floor under the girls rocked in the wake of boat and barges.

  If only I could talk to Honey! Trixie thought. If only I could tell her why I couldn’t tell Lontard where the papers are. I know she thinks I should have told. She doesn't realize that I was trying to save us from sure death, once he knew the authorities were on his track. On his track? Trixie’s heart quickened. Could the police possibly know about the Aguileras? Know the whereabouts of Lontard? If they did, perhaps.... No, the time was too short now for any help to come. When Lontard had searched their room in the motel without finding the papers, he would return immediately, dispose of both of them in some frightful way, and then be off.

  Frantically Trixie’s mind explored every possible source of hope—and ended in a blind alley. There seemed nothing to do but accept, numbly, the fate that seemed inevitable.

  In the darkness that followed the passing of the towboat, Trixie heard again the furtive rustling of animals and birds outside. Slowly, too, she became aware of sounds nearer to her. She raised her head. In the corner of the old room, she could see bright pinpoints of eyes that glittered in the faint moonlight. Then she heard the scurry of little feet and the squeaks of hurrying mice. She bumped her body to frighten them away. Honey must not know they were there. She was so afraid of mice. Slowly, hopelessly, she realized how unimportant this was, in the face of the more horrible things they now had to fear.

  The mice, frightened by her movements, soon disappeared. Stillness came again, absolute stillness. A cloud passed over the moon and blackness surrounded Trixie and Honey. Finally, exhausted emotionally and physically, the two girls slept.

  A Key ● 16

  DAYLIGHT WAS REACHING through the shattered windows of the pilothouse when Trixie awakened with a start. Honey, close to her, didn’t move.

  Trixie had been dreaming—a horrible nightmare. She was glad to awaken and find her dream just a dream. Then reality swept over her, and she realized that no nightmare could be worse than the thing that was actually happening to her and Honey.

  When she tried to move, her body would not respond. The tight bonds had slowed her circulation, numbing her arms and legs. I must move, she thought, and I must move Honey. Summoning all her strength, she threw her body feebly against Honey’s. Her friend stirred, awakened, realized where she was, and moved her body closer to Trixie.

  Trixie was surprised that Lontard and his accomplices had not yet returned. She well knew that the time would soon come when they would know the fate that was in store for them. Her first waking thoughts were prayers for help.

  The sun was just coming up. There was no sound from the shore except the stirring of birds in their nests. There was no sound on the river. Towboats must have tied up for the night, and fishing boats had not yet appeared.

  Trixie was aware of extreme dryness in her throat. She longed for water. She was not hungry, but the vision of a glass of clear, cool water haunted her. Honey must be very thirsty, too.

  Since the moment of awakening and her small movement toward Trixie, Honey had not stirred. Maybe she had fainted! Trixie bumped her body against her friend’s. Honey answered with a low moan from the back of her throat.

  Sustained by the thought that Honey was alive and conscious, a little of Trixie’s courage returned. She raised her head and looked about. In the early morning light, she could see signs of her captors’ recent activity. Empty cans from soup and baked beans were collected in a corner. There were chicken bones on the floor, along with discarded milk cartons and empty wine bottles.

  The floor near the girls was strewn with torn paper and scattered tissues. Trix saw the broken mirror of her compact there, too, glistening in the morning light. Nearby lay her address book, and on the floor near her purse, where Mrs. Aguilera had hastily thrown it, lay the key to their room at Vacation Inn. By some queer chance, not one of the three had noticed the key.

  What a fool I was ever to come here with the Aguileras! Trixie thought tragically. It was bad enough for me to take a chance, when I always suspected Mrs. Aguilera’s motives. It was worse for me to involve Honey. Now we’ll never again see our homes in Sleepyside. Mr. Wheeler will think I even deserve to die, because I will have caused Honey’s death! Oh, I do wish my dad could know wh
ere I am. And my mom! I’ll never see my little brother, Bobby, again! Where can the boys be? Don’t they know how badly we need them? Jim, where are you? Brian, Mart, Dan? I’m sure something would tell me if they were in danger. They’re sleeping, safe in their room at the motel.

  Trixie concentrated with all her might on trying to send a mental message for help. Try as she would, she couldn’t feel she had reached the mind of anyone—the boys, Mr. Wheeler, Mr. Brandio.

  Gradually, in the midst of her thinking, Trixie became aware of voices. On the shore somewhere she could hear faint voices. They were young voices. Mart? Dan? Brian? Jim? The voices came nearer. She could hear words. The voices were those of strangers, but someone alive and near was speaking, someone who wasn’t Pierre Lontard, who wasn’t the Aguileras!

  Trixie alerted Honey. Both girls raised their heads to listen.

  “I sure would like to get that old bass,” a boy’s voice said.

  “I’ve got dibs on that old fish myself,” another answered. “I saw him first. Why’d you suppose I got up so early?”

  “To get here before I did,” the first one answered, laughing. “I caught you, though, didn’t I, just as you stepped out of your yard?”

  There was a sound of crackling branches pushed aside and the sloshing of rubber boots through marshy grass.

  “There’s bass enough here for both of us. Over there on the other side of that log, see? Near the old steamboat. That’s the best fishin’ hole for miles. Drop your line over there, Dave.”

  Dave’s reel spun, and his line whined off toward the far end of the steamboat. “I got a fish, Mike!” he called exultantly. “It’s your turn.”

  Inside, listening, Trixie’s mind tried desperately to think of a way to attract the boys’ attention. What could she do? Her feet were bound. She couldn’t stand. Her arms were bound. She couldn’t reach for anything. Her mouth was gagged. She couldn’t cry out.

  Beside her, Honey groaned feebly back in her throat. She was apparently going through the same agony of frustration.