The Mystery of the Millionaire Page 3

  “Can’t you call Mr. Lytell back and find out? Four o’clock is three hours away. I don’t think I can wait that long.”

  “You’ll have to, Trix. You know how touchy Mr. Lytell is. If that’s all the message he wanted to give, I’m not going to risk irritating him by calling back and asking for more.”

  “All right. I’ll come to your house first. We can ride our bikes over. See you then.” Trixie hung up the phone and walked back to the kitchen.

  Her brothers had finished lunch and disappeared, as they usually did when there was kitchen cleanup to be faced if they stuck around.

  Trixie began, absentmindedly, to clean up the kitchen.

  “Was that Honey?” Mrs. Belden asked, jolting her daughter out of her dream world.

  “Yes. Mr. Lytell wants us to meet him at his store at four o’clock. It must have something to do with the wallet, but I don’t know what,” Trixie said.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” Mrs. Belden said.

  “Not soon enough for me,” Trixie said. “Can I do my chores now, in case I’m late getting back from Mr. Lytell’s?”

  Instead of answering, Mrs. Belden craned her neck to look out the window above the kitchen sink.

  “What are you doing?” Trixie asked.

  “Well, less than an hour ago, Mart said he wasn’t hungry. Now you’re asking permission to do your chores early. I just thought I’d check and see if the sky was falling,” Mrs. Belden said with a smile.

  Trixie giggled. “I guess it would be more like me to let the chores go until the last minute, then ask permission to skip them ‘just this once.’ But the time will go faster if I have something to do while I’m waiting for three-thirty to roll around.”

  Mrs. Belden had plenty of suggestions for things to do, but Trixie found that the time dragged, anyway. By three-fifteen, she could stand it no longer. She went to the garage, got her bike, and pedaled to Manor House, the hot August sun again beating down on her.

  Trixie found Honey already waiting on the front step, her bike propped against one of the stately trees that lined the Wheelers’ long driveway. Honey had changed into a fresh blouse and a pair of shorts, Trixie noticed. She glanced down at her own bedraggled clothes. I didn’t even think about changing, she thought disgustedly.

  “Let’s go!” Honey shouted as soon as she saw Trixie riding up the drive.

  “Wait a minute!” Trixie said. “Let me catch my breath. It’s even hotter than it was when we were riding this morning—and now I’m supplying my own horsepower!”

  Trixie took a few deep breaths, but Honey was so impatient that the girls were soon pedaling their bikes east along Glen Road toward Mr. Lytell’s store.

  When they pulled up in front of the store, both girls gasped at the sight of a low, sleek, red sports car parked outside.

  “Mr. Ramsey!” Trixie shouted. “That must be why Mr. Lytell called. Anthony Ramsey is here in person, to claim his wallet.” She pushed down the kickstand on her bike and raced to the door, with Honey close behind.

  When the girls entered the store, they did not see anyone who could possibly be Anthony Ramsey, however. Besides Mr. Lytell, the only person in the store was a young woman.

  Trixie stopped short when she saw Mr. Lytell’s customer, self-consciously running a hand through her tangled curls. The young woman seemed to be about twenty years old. She was tall and slender, with blond hair that formed a cascading mane down to her shoulders. She was wearing a simple sundress and thick-soled sandals. A thin gold chain encircled one wrist, and a small gold dot decorated each of her ears.

  The young woman turned to the girls. She smiled, revealing gleaming white teeth, but Trixie noticed dark circles under her eyes. “Are you Trixie and Honey?” she asked.

  Trixie nodded, and Honey said, “Yes, we are.”

  “Then you’re the ones who found my father’s wallet,” the woman said.

  “If your father is Anthony Ramsey, we did,” Trixie said.

  “I’m Laura Ramsey. I’d like you to tell me anything you can about finding the wallet,” she said. There was an urgency in her voice that puzzled Trixie.

  The girls looked at one another, then looked back at Laura Ramsey. “There’s really nothing to tell,” Honey said apologetically. “We were riding along Glen Road around eleven-thirty this morning when we saw it—” Honey broke off with a shrug, unable to think of anything else.

  “The wallet couldn’t have been there long,” Trixie added. “We’ve had a hot, dry summer, and anything that stays out very long gets a thick coat of dust on it. The wallet was still pretty clean, so I’d say it was dropped no earlier than last night. There was a hundred-dollar bill still inside, so I think we can assume that nothing had been taken. And... let’s see....”

  Trixie started to think again about what the wallet’s location and condition had told her about its loss, but she became self-conscious when she observed Laura Ramsey’s startled expression.

  “Don’t mind her,” Mr. Lytell said. “Trixie Belden likes to think of herself as a detective. She’ll detective-ize all day, if you let her.”

  “Miss Ramsey asked us for the information, Mr. Lytell,” Honey said in an unusually firm tone of voice. “Trixie is giving her what she asked for. And she’s doing a wonderful job of it, too. She’s thought of a lot of things that never would have occurred to me.”

  “That’s right,” Laura Ramsey said hastily. “This is exactly the sort of information I was interested in. Please go on.”

  Trixie was too embarrassed to do any more “detective-izing.” She shook her head, her face reddening. “That’s about all I can think of, Miss Ramsey. It really isn’t much. But it should be enough to jog your father’s memory. Once you tell him where he lost the wallet, and approximately when, he should be able to tell you the rest.”

  Laura Ramsey turned away abruptly, leaving Mr. Lytell and the two girls to stare at her back in confusion.

  When Laura turned back to face them, there were tears brimming in her blue eyes. “I—I can’t ask my father,” she said in a choked voice. “He’s—he’s missing!”

  Laura’s Story ● 3

  LAURA RAMSEY buried her face in her hands. She stood silent, with only the movement of her shoulders showing that she was crying.

  Trixie and Mr. Lytell watched Laura awkwardly, ready to look away if the young woman raised her head.

  Honey moved quickly to Laura’s side and put an arm around her. “You poor thing,” she murmured. “Would you like to tell us about it?” Laura breathed deeply, then lowered her hands and looked at Honey gratefully. “Y-Yes, I would like that,” she said.

  “Mr. Lytell, could we move into the back room, so we can all sit down while Laura tells her story?” Honey asked softly.

  Mr. Lytell shot a nervous glance over his shoulder at the back room. Then he turned back and looked distrustfully at Trixie and with curiosity at Laura Ramsey. His love of carefully guarded privacy was at war with his love of gossip. “Well, all right,” he said reluctantly.

  Trixie followed Mr. Lytell into the back room, and Honey guided Laura in after them.

  The room was tiny, dusty, and crowded. Like the store, the room had shelves running along the walls. But unlike the sparsely filled shelves in front, the shelves in the back room were jammed—with ledger books and cardboard boxes from which receipts overflowed. Mr. Lytell’s desk overflowed with paperwork, too. The only decoration in the room was a calendar with “Compliments of A&B Wholesalers” printed across the bottom.

  There were only two chairs in the room: the swivel chair that went with Mr. Lytell’s desk and a straight-backed wooden chair that stood beside the desk. Mr. Lytell quickly took his swivel chair, and Honey led Laura Ramsey to the guest chair. Trixie looked around for a place to sit, then gave up and sat cross-legged on the floor. Honey, after a futile glance around the room, sat next to Trixie on the dusty floor.

  Laura Ramsey reached into the trim shoulder bag she’d been carrying and took out
a tissue. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose delicately, and then looked up at the trio who were watching her. “I—I hardly know where to begin,” she said helplessly.

  “Just begin,” Trixie told her. “We’ll ask questions about anything we don’t understand.”

  “My father and I live alone,” she said. “My mother died when I was just a baby. When I was younger we had a live-in housekeeper, but I took over running the household when she retired a few years ago. I’ll be a sophomore at Columbia University when school starts next month.

  “My father owns a chain of grocery stores. He built it up from one store very much like this one. He’s always loved his work, but, because of me, he’s managed his business so that he isn’t away very much, and he doesn’t work overly long hours. What he does is to find experienced grocery store managers—like you, Mr. Lytell— and give them pretty much free rein at his stores.”

  Laura Ramsey smiled feebly at her listeners. “I’m sorry to be so slow in getting to my father’s disappearance, but I think it’s important that you know these things.”

  “Take all the time you need,” Honey said reassuringly.

  “Well, what I’m getting at is that my father is always home by six o’clock. We have a long, leisurely dinner together and talk about the events of the day. It’s an ironclad rule with us.

  “Last night—” Laura broke off and pressed her lips together. She looked at the ceiling for a moment to calm herself. “Last night, he didn’t come home at all.” The words came out in a rush, and Laura once again buried her face in her hands for a moment.

  “Naturally, I’ve been frantic with worry,” she continued. “The call from Mr. Lytell was the first word I’d had, so I decided to come here immediately, to see if there was anything I could find out.”

  “Who have you told about your father’s disappearance?” Trixie asked.

  “No one,” Laura said.

  Trixie looked at Honey in confusion. “Well, it seems to me that you ought to go to the po—”

  “No!” Laura interrupted with a choked shout. Then she shook her head regretfully. “I’m sorry. Of course that would seem logical to you, but— Well, I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest in what I’ve told you. That is, our life is not as tranquil as I’ve made it sound.

  “My father has a partner. His name is Frank Riebe. My father and Frank each owned a small grocery store twenty years ago, and they formed their partnership so that they could buy in larger quantities from the wholesalers. The larger the quantity, the better the price,” she explained to Trixie and Honey.

  “Only reasonable,” Mr. Lytell said curtly.

  Laura smiled at the storekeeper appreciatively. “The chain started with those two stores, and it started to build. Somewhere along the way, Frank got greedy. He began pushing to expand faster. My father resisted, because he puts family life ahead of business.

  “More recently, Frank has been suggesting that they change their whole way of doing things. He wants central control of the stores. He wants all the buildings to look the same and have exactly the same inventory. My father hates that idea. He thinks that leaving the control with the managers is the basis of the chain’s success, because only the individual store manager can really know his customers’ needs.”

  “Smart man,” Mr. Lytell commented.

  “But how does any of this affect your telling people about your father’s disappearance?” Trixie asked impatiently.

  “If anything... happens to my father, Frank can take over the chain,” Laura told her.

  “Then you don’t want to tell Frank, but everyone else—” Trixie began.

  Laura shook her head. “Frank and my father have been partners for twenty years, remember? There’s no one I can tell who doesn’t know Frank. And Frank has been using that fact to his advantage. He’s convinced many of our old friends that my father is foolish to resist change. It’s gotten to the point that we don’t know who our real friends are anymore.”

  “You mean you think your friends would go to Frank and tell him your father had disappeared?” Trixie asked.

  “I’m sure that many of them would,” Laura said. “I think Frank has bribed some of them— offered them high positions in the company if they can persuade my father to go along with his plans. Others might be motivated by friendship—that is, they really believe that my father is being unfair to me, because he won’t keep building his fortune. They don’t understand that my father’s companionship means more to me than an extra few million dollars.”

  “I understand that,” Honey said soberly.

  “But why not go to the police?” Trixie asked. Laura shrugged. “Where else would they start, if not with Frank? Two partners haggle over how the company is to be run, and then one of the partners disappears. They’d laugh in my face if I asked them to investigate my father’s disappearance without talking to Frank.”

  “Do you think Frank was responsible for your father’s disappearance?” Trixie asked, suddenly realizing that the possible reasons had not been discussed.

  “Oh, I’d hate to think so,” Laura said. “They’ve been partners for a long time, and for most of that time, they really were good friends. I’m not willing to suspect Frank—not yet.”

  “What other explanations are there?” Trixie persisted.

  Laura gave a soft, helpless moan. “There aren’t any others that I like better, I suppose. Kidnapping occurred to me, but there’s been no ransom demand.

  “The only other explanation—which, once again, is very difficult for me to accept—is that the strain of the quarrel with Frank got to be too much for my father, and he simply had to get away for a while.”

  “Would he go without telling you?” Trixie asked. “Not if he were... well, himself,” Laura said. “You see, that’s what I’m most worried about. He’s been so troubled, so distracted for the past few weeks. He’s a man who cares deeply about people. The quarrel with Frank distressed him from the beginning, and lately there’s been the added burden of friends choosing sides. I’m just afraid he might have—” Laura shrugged. “He might have had a nervous breakdown, snapped... maybe even taken his own life.”

  Honey scrambled to her feet and rushed to Laura’s side. “Don’t even think about that. Not yet. I’m sure your father is alive, and we’ll think of some way of finding him.”

  Trixie thought of another question she wanted to ask, but she didn’t want to intrude on the young woman’s grief.

  A few moments later, Honey asked the question that had been in Trixie’s mind. “How have you explained your father’s absence? Wasn’t he expected at the office this morning?”

  Laura rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I still can’t believe the story I invented. I’m so unused to doing that sort of thing. I called his office this morning, and when my father’s secretary answered, I just sort of chatted with her casually for a while. I thought something might come out that way—you know, that she’d suddenly say, ‘Oh, my goodness, I was supposed to call you last night to tell you your father wouldn’t be home.’ Or that she’d ask me if I wanted to talk to him, and I’d find out he was already at the office.

  “Well, what happened was that eventually she asked me where he was. My heart sank, but I told her the story I’d invented, that my father had received a call from an old college chum who was headed upstate on a fishing trip, and my father decided, on the spur of the moment, to go along.”

  “Did she believe you?” Trixie asked.

  “I think so,” Laura replied. “As I told you, people are very important to my father. That makes it easier to believe that he’d want to spend some time with an old friend. And Esther—that’s my father’s secretary—is aware of the strain he’s been under. She told me she was glad he’d taken some time off, that she thought he could use the rest.”

  The room fell silent, everyone wondering what could be done to find Anthony Ramsey.

  “I’ve got it!” Trixie exclaimed. “Why don’t you hire a private de
tective?”

  “Oh, Trix, that’s a great idea!” Honey exclaimed. “He wouldn’t have to tell anyone about Mr. Ramsey’s disappearance. He could just sort of nose around and find clues.”

  “It is a good idea,” Laura Ramsey agreed. “It was one of the first things I thought of, but I’m afraid it’s impossible.”

  “Why?” Trixie asked.

  “Detectives cost money, a lot of money. Why, when a friend of mine hired a detective a few months ago to find a stolen diamond necklace, she had to pay two hundred dollars a day, plus expenses!”

  Trixie whistled. “That is a lot of money!”

  “From the way you’ve described your father, I’d say he could afford it,” Mr. Lytell said gruffly.

  “He can. But he’s the one who disappeared. I have some money in the bank, but I also have bills to pay, bills that my father takes—took care of. If I don’t make payments on the house and keep our other bills paid up, someone will get suspicious. I can’t draw on my father’s company expense account, because Frank would find out about it. And I don’t think private detectives take credit cards,” she concluded with a wry smile.

  “We have fifteen dollars in the Bob-White treasury,” Trixie said. “I’m sure you could have that.”

  “I could ask my parents to help, but you’d have to wait several days until they get home,” Honey added.

  Laura smiled at the girls bravely. “You’re very kind, but I’m afraid I need a lot more than fifteen dollars, and I need it immediately.”

  Silence reigned again. Trixie looked around the room, as if hoping to find an answer there.

  And, gazing at Mr. Lytell’s ledgers, she suddenly did. “Mr. Lytell—” she began.

  “No!” The storekeeper had read Trixie’s mind. “I’m sorry for Miss Ramsey, and I hope she finds her father, but I’m not going to give her any money.”

  “Oh, no!” Laura Ramsey exclaimed. “No, Mr. Lytell, of course not. You’ve done so much to help already, calling to tell me about my father’s wallet and listening so patiently to my whole story. I wouldn’t dream of asking you for anything more.”