The Mystery on the Mississippi Page 15
Reward ● 18
PANIC-STRICKEN, Lontard stiffened in fury. “What goes on here?” he asked, closing his hand over Trixie’s mouth. “Don’t you dare make a sound again!”
“We’re lost!” Mrs. Aguilera cried out. “That whistle is their club signal! We’re surrounded!”
On shore a gun cracked. Suddenly the two men released their hold on the captives. With Elena Aguilera following close behind, they ran down the plank-straight into the arms of the authorities! They were immediately handcuffed and hustled aboard a waiting Coast Guard boat.
Mr. Wheeler, Mr. Brandio, and the four boys took gentle charge of the two girls. They were so deeply affected that they couldn’t say a word. All they seemed to want to do was to touch Trixie and Honey, unbelievably still alive.
“You’re safe!” Mr. Wheeler repeated over and over.
For once, words failed Mart.
“We’ve brought a doctor with us,” Mr. Brandio finally said. “Are the girls all right?” he asked the Coast Guard medical officer.
“We’re... all... right, Daddy,” Honey said, tears of joy running down her cheeks. “It was awful, though! It was awful, Daddy. I fainted. Trixie was so much braver.” She collapsed in her father’s arms.
“All they did was... tie... our... arms... and... legs... and put gags in our mouths... and leave us overnight that way,” Trixie said, her voice gaining strength.
“All they did was what?” Mart cried.
White-faced, Jim declared in a cold voice, “Killing’s far too good for them!”
“Even the electric chair!” Brian added grimly.
“They should get that—at least!” Dan said sternly. “They kidnapped Trixie and Honey.”
Trixie, trembling with relief at their miraculous rescue, asked, “How did you know where to look for us, Mr. Wheeler?”
“It’s a long story, dear. Right now it must wait. I must be sure neither of you has been permanently harmed. Doctor?” Mr. Wheeler’s voice trembled as he waited for the doctor’s answer.
“I can see no sign of serious harm,” the officer reported. “They are suffering from shock and from the pain of the tight bonds and gags. I’d like to take them to the hospital. Our boat is waiting out there.”
“Not a hospital!” Trixie cried. Honey echoed the, cry. “All we want, Mr. Wheeler, is to go back to the motel, then take the plane home. I want to see my mom. So does Honey. We thought we’d never see them again in this world.”
“We will do as you wish, dear,” Mr. Wheeler said gently, tears in his dark eyes. “That is, we will do almost as you wish. You must rest for a while in the hospital. Honey fainted, you know. Yesterday morning, you almost drowned. I shall have a difficult time explaining my negligence to your parents, Trixie, and to your mother, Honey. We’ll go home just as soon as we possibly can. I wish with all my heart that we had never come here.”
Trixie, truly repentant, said quickly, “You don’t know how much I wish we never had gone in that car with Mr. and Mrs. Aguilera. You told me to leave it to the authorities. Can you ever forgive me? It was all my fault and not Honey’s at all.”
“It was not all your fault,” Honey insisted. “You thought you were doing what the authorities wanted when Mrs. Aguilera gave you that phony note from Chief Ogilvie. Even then you suspected her. I was so dumb I thought she really liked us. If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s mine.”
“Let’s not talk about faults right now,” Mr. Wheeler insisted. “I’m just so thankful that you two girls are safe. I say it again: I’m sorry I brought you out here.”
At that, a listening Coast Guard seaman spoke. His voice was emphatic. “It’s a terrible thing that has happened to these girls. They’ve been frightened cruelly. Think, though, what it will mean to their country!”
“Oh, were those people... that Pierre Lontard... really trying to steal plans from the airplane factories? Were they, Mr. Brandio?” Trixie asked.
“Here’s the answer to that, miss,” the seaman answered. “Come over here, and I’ll show you!”
The two girls walked haltingly across the deck. The seaman lifted a plank. There, packed as close together as possible, were guns—hundreds of guns!
“Guns?” Trixie asked, awed. “What would anyone who was stealing space secrets want with so many guns?”
Mr. Brandio answered. “This time this trio wasn’t after space secrets. It’s an even bigger thing you girls have helped to uncover. Those guns were meant to stir up trouble in South America! We believe there are thousands more like them cached up and down the Mississippi River. Those cryptograms will lead to other secret stores.”
“Then that map really was important?” Trixie asked excitedly.
“Important? It was the most important piece of paper the federal investigators have picked up in many years,” an officer answered.
“Did that picture of St. Peter on the map really tell you where to find us?” Trixie asked. “Is that what happened? How did you save us?”
“The picture helped,” the officer answered. “That and some other things.”
“As I told you, we’ll get to that later,” Mr. Wheeler added. “Right now we must go with the doctor. You’ve both had a shocking experience. Just think, Trixie—that accident in the pool, then... I can’t bear to think about what followed. Please realize that you must do as the doctor says. You must rest.”
“I guess maybe we do need it,” Trixie admitted reluctantly. “I’m so thankful to be saved that I can’t feel anything else. Honey needs to rest, I know that. I can’t honestly believe we’re really free—and alive.” Trixie and Honey spent the rest of the day and the night in a beautiful new hospital near the airport. They wanted to go there instead of the Coast Guard base hospital, and the doctor did not object. They shared a double room. Relief at their rescue, exhaustion from their ordeal, and the happy thought that they’d soon be going home again let them sleep the clock around.
When the girls had been taken to their room at the hospital, Jim announced to his father and Mr. Brandio, “The Bob-Whites aren’t leaving this hospital. We’ll stay right here till the girls leave. If we’d stayed close to them before and hadn’t gone to that space exhibit, Trixie and Honey would have been all right.”
“I’m staying here, too,” Mr. Wheeler said. “I share the blame. I thought the girls would be safe while you were at that exhibit. Most anyone would have thought so... locked in their room. They would have been, too, if it hadn’t been for Lontard’s cunning. He’s a desperate man... one of the most wanted smugglers operating in this country. Even though they have him in custody now, my blood runs cold.”
So, in spite of Mr. Brandio’s suggestions to the contrary and his reassurance that everything possible was being done for the girls, Mr. Wheeler and the boys did not leave. They spent the night in the waiting room. From time to time they napped in the big comfortable chairs, but at the sound of a nurse’s or a doctor’s footfall, they were instantly on their feet.
The next morning, the girls, Mr. Wheeler, Mr. Brandio, and Chief Ogilvie waited in the lounge at the motel. Bags were packed. At the airfield nearby, a plane, which would return them to New York, was being readied. Mr. Brandio’s car stood outside, awaiting word that the plane was prepared.
Trixie’s voice broke the silence.
“No one has said one word yet about how you knew where to find us. I couldn’t think of a way we could possibly be saved. It was awful! After those boys picked up the key, I had a little bit of hope. Even that left when I heard the man who was fishing tell them to throw the key away. What did happen, Mr. Wheeler?”
“The boys were a lot smarter than you expected them to be. They took the key to a motel on the highway. They told the manager there about where they had found it and that they thought someone was in the pilothouse. He called the motel here.”
“Jeepers!” Trixie’s mouth fell open. “Jeepers! Then what happened?”
Chief Ogilvie took up the story. “I can understand why you�
��d want to keep faith with that boy Lem at Hannibal.”
Trixie’s mouth fell open.
“Oh, I knew when I talked to you, Trixie, that something pretty important had happened at Jackson’s Island. I could tell that, for some reason, you weren’t going to talk about it. So I called one of our men in Hannibal. Lem and Soapy had just been in to tell him about the piece of paper they found. They said one of you told Lem that the paper could be pretty important to the United States. After they’d talked it over, they thought the police should be in on their secret. Of course, the paper was important, Trixie. It was the link that we needed in the chain. From it and the cryptograms, it wasn’t hard to deduce that the Lontard gang was working south from Hannibal.”
“I still don’t know what happened after the motel manager called about the key,” Trixie interrupted.
“I’m getting to that.” Chief Ogilvie smiled. “You see, when you and Honey tried to do things on your own, you interfered with what we were trying to do. We thought we had halted the operation of the Belden-Wheeler Agency, but we sure underestimated Trixie’s doggedness.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Trixie said humbly.
“You won’t be, when I’m through with my story. As I told you, we were pretty sure the gang led by Lontard was working south. By the way, his name isn’t Lontard at all. That’s one of his aliases. His real name is Diego Martinez. He encouraged the nickname ‘Frenchy’ to throw people off. But I’m digressing.
“We had set up headquarters at that highway junction just below St. Peter, and we had channeled all telephone calls and information to our office there. When the manager of this motel relayed the message he had received about the old steamboat, we could act immediately, and we did. You know what happened from then on. The Coast Guard boats were waiting on the river nearby, motors running. In less time than I’m taking to tell you, we were at the old steamboat—and not one minute too soon. Thank heaven for that Bob-White whistle. Its shrillness paralyzed Lontard and the Aguileras till we could get a drop on them with our guns.”
“Once again the boys had to rescue us!” Trixie said sadly. “All the Belden-Wheeler Agency did was to slow things down, wasn’t it?”
“Not at all!Not at all!” Chief Ogilvie said briskly. “I can’t say I’d ever approve of international intrigue and politics as a game for young girls to play, but I’ll have to give your agency credit that is due. That stunt of yours, pushing that key under the door, was sheer genius. If you’ll forgive a pun, it was the key that unlocked everything—that and your recognition, in the first place, that the papers were significant.”
Trixie’s blue eyes brightened. She sat up straight, listening.
Honey was all ears, too.
“Yes, sir, the papers you found in your room here were the first tangible clue we had to the operation of this gang. The map, which looked like a child’s drawing, was invaluable. Our department had known for a long time that heavy shipments of arms were being sent to countries in this hemisphere where there has been unrest. We couldn’t figure where they were being assembled or how they were being shipped. Thanks to the charts, the figures, and the cryptographical map, we have been able to solve a puzzling case.”
Trixie looked exultantly at Honey. “Jeepers!”
“Ah, but that isn’t all,” Chief Ogilvie continued. “There’s more?” Trixie asked excitedly.
“Indeed there is. Lontard, or rather Martinez, really was trying to buy an old steamboat. It was an excellent cover for his scheme. He has assembled what probably will prove to be an appalling amount of arms and ammunition at the various places marked on the map. He’s used caves, abandoned houses—half a dozen different types of caches. He had expected to load the ammunition on the old steamer and float it to New Orleans, to be shipped from there to insurgent armies. It was a unique method of transportation. I wonder if it would ever have been discovered if it hadn’t been for the activity of you two girls. So, you see, we can’t be too severe in our criticism of your free-lance operations.”
“I still say I’m terribly sorry about all the worry we’ve caused,” Trixie said. “I think your department is marvelous. I’m sure it would have turned up the Martinez gang long before they succeeded in getting that ammunition out of this country.”
“That may be,” Chief Ogilvie said. “Right now our government isn’t too sure that you are right.” Trixie’s eyebrows went up, questioning.
“That’s true,” Chief Ogilvie nodded. “After our investigation is completed, and after an appraisal has been made of the value of the arms that were being smuggled, you may be surprised. You see, the government rewards people who supply information leading to the capture of smugglers. Twenty-five percent of the tax that would have been realized on the smuggled goods will be coming to you girls. How does that sound?”
“It sounds wonderful!” Trixie cried happily. “We’ll put it in the Bob-White fund for charity.”
“What’ll we ever do with that much money?” Honey wondered in a dazed voice.
Mart laughed. “Gleeps! That won’t take too much thinking. We have half a dozen places to put money. There’s always the United Nations Children’s Fund.”
“And CARE,” Brian added.
“Red Cross, the United Fund,” Dan suggested. Honey’s eyes shone like stars. “Do you know what I’d like most of all in the world? I remember pictures of little Vietnamese orphans I saw in a magazine. They were in an ad asking for people to adopt one of them—not really to bring them to this country, but to send money every month to take care of them. Do you possibly think the Bob-Whites could do that?”
“It might cost an awful lot of money,” Trixie said dubiously.
“There’ll be quite a lot,” Chief Ogilvie said. “There’ll be enough, I think, to take care of a Vietnamese orphan for quite a while.”
“Imagine—the Bob-Whites foster parents of a real live baby!” Trixie cried. “Wouldn’t it be too perfectly perfect? Do you vote for it?” she asked the boys excitedly.
Dan’s hand flew up.
Then Brian’s.
And Jim’s.
“It’s okay with me, just so the orphan’s a boy,” Mart shouted.
“It doesn’t make one bit of difference to me whether it’s a boy or a girl,” Trixie said dreamily. “I guess we’ll take whatever the agency says. It makes this whole trip worthwhile, doesn’t it, Honey?” Honey agreed vigorously.
Just then a messenger came in to inform Mr. Brandio that his plane was ready to take off.
Trixie was the last of the Bob-Whites to thank Chief Ogilvie and to say good-bye. “Now I can go home happy,” she said. “This was one of the most exciting trips ever—and I guess we really have something worthwhile to show for it.”
Promise of Adventure ● 1
Catfish Princess • 2
Good News • 3
Something in the Air ● 4
Moonlight Music • 5
Stowaway ● 6
Bob-White Luck • 7
Rescued ● 8
Early-Morning Swim • 9
Off to Hannibal ● 10
Surprise at Jackson’s Island • 11
St Peter • 12
The Aguileras Again ● 13
A New Development ● 14
On the Steamboat ● 15
A Key ● 16
Bob-White! ● 17
Reward ● 18
Table of Contents
Promise of Adventure ● 1
Catfish Princess • 2
Good News • 3
Something in the Air ● 4
Moonlight Music • 5
Stowaway ● 6
Bob-White Luck • 7
Rescued ● 8
Early-Morning Swim • 9
Off to Hannibal ● 10
Surprise at Jackson’s Island • 11
St Peter • 12
The Aguileras Again ● 13
A New Development ● 14
On the Steamboat ● 15
A Key �
�� 16
Bob-White! ● 17
Reward ● 18