The Secret of the Unseen Treasure Page 3

  Now she scanned the story in last week’s paper about the stolen checks. Mrs. Elliots name was not on the list of people whose checks had been stolen.

  Trixie called to the man sitting at a desk behind the counter. “Is this a complete list of the people who had their Social Security checks stolen?”

  The man looked up. “Everyone who reported that they hadn’t received their checks is listed.” Trixie left the newspaper office. If Mrs. Elliot had not received her check, why hadn’t she reported it? Maybe her name had been accidentally omitted from the list in the story.

  Jim, waiting beside the car, grinned as she approached. “Sergeant Molinson said that he never got rid of you that easily before.”

  “He’s not going to discourage me,” Trixie replied stiffly. “Did he say anything else about the arsonist after I left?”

  Jim shook his head.

  “What about fingerprints on that gas can?” Trixie asked.

  “After mine were eliminated, most of the others seemed to be the same particular pattern. They’re probably Max’s. There were also some smudges that could have been made by gloves.” Trixie gave an exasperated sigh. “So I guess Sergeant Molinson’s not going to do anything else about it.”

  “He didn’t say,” Jim said wryly.

  “I wish we had time to go out to Mrs. Elliot’s again,” Trixie said. “There’s something I’d like to ask her.”

  Jim hesitated, then shook his head. “From what Mart said, you’d better get home. If you get in trouble with your folks for skipping your chores, you might be grounded. Then you would have to leave everything up to Sergeant Molinson.”

  Trixie sighed again. “I guess you’re right. Better get me home. Fast.”

  “Something Spishy” • 3

  TRIXIE SUFFERED through her chores—dusting, getting Bobby washed up and into clean clothes, and helping prepare supper.

  The main topic of conversation during supper was the arson attempt at Mrs. Elliot’s. Peter Belden, Trixie’s father, listened indulgently as Trixie insisted, “Somebody is trying to put Mrs. Elliot out of business.”

  “I’m afraid you’re jumping to conclusions,” her father said. “Mrs. Elliot doesn’t make enough competition for anyone to need to ‘put her out of business.’ I’m inclined to think it’s just a case of malicious behavior. Some vandals seem to concentrate on making the elderly their victims. They probably figure that if their vandalism is discovered, their victims will be unable to retaliate.”

  Mrs. Belden frowned. “‘Retaliate’ isn’t the word you want. ‘Defend themselves’ is probably what you mean.”

  Trixie spoke up. “Retaliate! That’s it!”

  “Brainstorm coming!” Mart exclaimed loudly. “Everyone batten down the hatches!”

  “Mart,” Mrs. Belden chided, “we don’t shout at the table.”

  “Sorry,” Mart murmured. He glanced slyly at Trixie and took a bracing grip on the edge of the table. “Proceed,” he said.

  “I wasn’t talking to you anyway,” Trixie replied. She faced her father. “Suppose Mrs. Elliot saw who stole the Social Security checks from the mailboxes on the rural route. Maybe the attempt today was a warning to keep silent about what she knows.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Brian observed. “The checks were stolen more than a week ago. Today’s warning,’ if it was one, was kind of late.”

  “Maybe there was another warning earlier,” Trixie persisted. “One we don’t know about. Maybe Mrs. Elliot was changing her mind about keeping quiet, so the arson attempt was a second, stronger warning.”

  “I’ve known Ethel Elliot most of my life,” said Trixie’s mother. “If she saw something illegal, she’d report it.”

  “Well,” Trixie said slowly, “you know her better than I do. But there’s one thing she didn’t report. At least, from what I read in the paper, she didn’t report it.”

  “What’s that?” Mart asked. He wasn’t deriding Trixie now; his curiosity had obviously been aroused.

  “Mrs. Elliot didn’t report the theft of her Social Security check,” Trixie announced.

  Peter Belden shook his head. “There’s a very simple explanation for that: Her check wasn’t stolen. It’s not delivered to her roadside box.

  She has Social Security mail her check directly to the bank, where it’s credited to her checking account.”

  “Oh,” said Trixie, deflated.

  Peter Belden looked as though he shared her disappointment. “Of course, I wouldn’t know that if I didn’t work at the bank. But there you go again, Trixie, jumping to conclusions. If you and Honey were really involved someday with an investigative agency—”

  “The Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency,” Trixie interrupted.

  Her father nodded and went on. “If you were actually doing detective work, you would have to concentrate on facts, not assumptions.” He smiled. “Now it’s a fact that I would like another helping of beans, please.”

  After supper, Mart came into the kitchen, where Trixie was morosely taking her turn at washing the dishes.

  “I was as disappointed as you were about the supposedly stolen check,” he confessed. “I thought you were really getting onto something, until Dad stuck a pin in it.”

  Trixie nodded. “Here,” she said, extending a dish towel. “As long as you’re—”

  Mart quickly backed away from the towel. “My sympathy doesn’t extend that far!”

  “Oooooh!” Trixie chased him from the room and threw the towel after him.

  In the morning, Honey telephoned. “Jim and I are going swimming in the lake this afternoon. Care to join us?”

  “If I can,” Trixie replied. “I’ll have to find out first what Moms has planned. You know how it is.”

  “Yes, it’s the same with Miss Trask.” There was no resentment in Honey’s voice, but Trixie understood what she meant. Honey’s mother was nearly helpless about running the household, and she was constantly involved with social affairs or accompanying her husband on business trips. Miss Trask ran the Wheeler household.

  “Mother’s planning to leave for Washington with Daddy,” Honey went on. “And Miss Trask thinks I ought to stay close to home. That explains the swimming this afternoon. Not that I don’t enjoy swimming, but—”

  “You had something else in mind?” Trixie asked.

  “Mrs. Elliot,” Honey replied. “I’d sure like to go back and check on her, to make sure everything is all right. But Miss Trask thinks we’re trying to get too involved.”

  “I know what you mean,” Trixie said. She told Honey about her father’s remarks at supper.

  Honey sighed. “They tell us they ‘know how we feel’ because they were young once. Then they turn right around and refuse to understand how we feel. Trixie, I just know that something is wrong at Mrs. Elliot’s.”

  “How do you know?” Trixie asked.

  “It’s just a feeling. Has Dan been in touch with you?”

  “No,” said Trixie in a puzzled tone. “Why do you ask?”

  “There’s something very strange about his attitude.”

  “I noticed that yesterday when he said we should stay out of it and leave everything to Sergeant Molinson,” Trixie agreed. “That’s not like Dan. He’s usually as interested in a case as we are.”

  “Oh, he’s interested all right,” Honey declared. “But not in the usual way. Listen: I went to the stable last night to help Regan bed down the horses. Dan was there. He often drops by to visit his uncle. But I got the feeling this was more than a casual visit. Dan went out of his way to talk to me about what happened at Mrs. Elliot’s.”

  “So?” Trixie prompted.

  “He tried to make it sound offhand, but he was digging for something, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yep!” Trixie understood. “Just like Moms or Dad does when they’re trying to get me to own up to something that they’ve already found out about.”

  Honey laughed. “Miss Trask, too. But, anyway, that’s what Dan was do
ing. In an offhand sort of way—that didn’t fool me for a minute— he wanted to know if we had seen something about that man that we would recognize again. Then he started asking about the car, still trying to sound casual. Were we sure it was a gray car? Didn’t we notice anything else about it? What make was it? What color were the license plates? Things like that.”

  Trixie frowned. “That sounds like he had a definite car in mind.”

  “That’s the feeling I got, too!” Honey exclaimed.

  “Did you try to find out what Dan’s theory is?”

  “He must have known I was going to try. He suddenly remembered that he had something else to do. As he left, though, he said again that we ought to leave it to Sergeant Molinson. Miss Trask was out walking and overheard that part. I tried to tell her my feelings about Dan, but she said that he was right and that we should keep out of it.”

  “I know. I’ve heard that, too,” Trixie commented dryly.

  “So Miss Trask laid down the law about staying close to home.” Honey sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to sort of work under cover.”

  “Underwater, since we’re going swimming,” Trixie said. “See you at the lake this afternoon if it’s okay with Moms.”

  As she hung up the phone, Trixie saw her mother in the doorway.

  “The vegetables are waiting to see you do something about the weeds,” Mrs. Belden said. “Please take Bobby with you. Hell help you keep your mind off other things.”

  “Oh, Moms!” Trixie tried to explain. “It’s just that-”

  “I know,” Mrs. Belden said patiently. “I don’t want anything else to happen to Ethel Elliot, either. But there’s nothing to suggest that anything else will happen. If we act as if we expect something, we’ll only cause the poor dear needless worry.”

  After finishing their chores, Trixie, Brian, and Mart headed for the lake on the Wheeler estate. They wore their swimsuits under their clothes, since someone often got pushed into the water before he or she had a chance to change. At the boathouse, Mart made a lunge for Trixie, but she dodged out of the way and he splashed into the lake. Laughing and shouting, the others got out of jeans and shirts before joining him in the water.

  The Water Witch, Jim’s large rowboat, was their diving platform and resting place—for as long as anyone could keep from being thrown overboard.

  When Di arrived, there was a contest to see who could stay underwater the longest. Jim lasted for two minutes. Surprisingly, Di almost matched that time. Brian was a close third, and Mart was next. Trixie and Honey tied for last place.

  “The girls should have won,” Brian said as everyone except Trixie and Honey relaxed in the rowboat. “It’s a scientifically proven medical fact that women require less oxygen than men, so—”

  Mart hooted. “Never mind the facts! It’s a simple matter of predilection to loquaciousness. Trix and Honey just couldn’t stand to keep quiet long enough!”

  Trixie reached up over the gunwale and grabbed Mart’s leg. Honey reached for his other leg.

  “Give him a push, Di!” Trixie screamed.

  The rowboat rocked wildly. With too many struggling people on one side, the gunwale dipped under, and water poured in. The boat capsized, spilling everyone in a laughing, splashing tangle.

  Rolling the boat over upright, the Bob-Whites reached in with cupped hands and began bailing. Much of the water went back into the boat as they slapped it at one another.

  “This’ll go faster if I can work with both hands,” Mart panted. He started to hoist himself into the boat. The gunwale went under again and the boat filled up once more.

  “Big help you are!” Trixie declared.

  “Let’s take it into the shallows,” Jim suggested. “Everybody grab hold with one hand and swim. Somebody get the oars.”

  Brian and Honey each got an oar and stowed them in the swamped boat. Kicking and stroking with free arms, they gradually moved the waterlogged boat toward shore.

  When the water was only hip-deep, they stood up and began bailing again with cupped hands. They were too exhausted and breathless for any more horseplay.

  Trixie felt her feet sinking into the soft bed of the lake. Something beneath her right foot gave way slightly, and a rush of bubbles brushed her ankles. Trixie shuddered.

  “What’s the matter?” Jim asked.

  “Nothing,” said Trixie. “It’s just squishy on the bottom.”

  Standing together on one side of the boat, the young people tipped it on its side to dump out most of the remaining water.

  “Be careful getting aboard,” Jim advised. “I’m too pooped to go through that again!”

  “Wait.” Brian waded toward something in the water. It was a brown envelope. “Who does this belong to? Was it in the boat?”

  “I didn’t bring it,” said Trixie.

  “It’s not mine,” said Honey.

  Di shook her head.

  Brian turned the envelope over to see if it was addressed. “We’ll soon find out—” He gaped in amazement at the envelope. “I can’t believe this.”

  “What?” Trixie asked. “Who’s it addressed to?”

  “Charles Hartman,” Brian said slowly, still staring at the envelope.

  “He lives up on Glen Road,” said Trixie in disbelief. “What would an envelope addressed to him be doing in the Wheelers’ lake?”

  “Here, you take a look for yourself,” Brian said. He extended the soggy brown envelope to Trixie.

  The envelope was imprinted in black with the words DELIVER BY THIRD DAY OF MONTH. Charles Hartman’s name and address showed through the little window in front. There was no stamp; the envelope had a postage-paid impression. When Trixie’s eyes shifted to the return address in the upper left comer, she yelped.

  “This is from Social Security!” she exclaimed. “It’s Mr. Hartman’s Social Security check!”

  Di screamed with excitement, pointing. “There’s another one!”

  Jim plunged into the water and held up another brown envelope. “This one still has the check in it, too!”

  “Where are they coming from?” Honey asked.

  “The bottom of the lake,” Trixie cried. “I stepped on something when we were bailing out the boat. Where were we then?”

  “Out there,” Brian said. “About where Jim is.

  Jim, hip-deep in water, squatted and put his face below the surface. Trixie pushed forward, sweeping herself under. She opened her eyes and peered through murky water stirred up by all the activity. Tiny fish glinted like diamonds in the sunlight filtering into the water. Trixie pulled herself deeper, searching the bottom. Honey, her hair streaming, appeared beside her. Trixie surfaced to gulp air.

  “We’re too far out,” she called.

  Before she could plunge under again, Jim shouted. “Wait! Let’s get organized. Mart, over here, to the right of Trixie. Di, Honey”—he pointed—“form a line, about an arm’s length apart. Everybody ready? All right, let’s work our way in.”

  The line of B.W.G.’s dipped below the surface, and the young people swam toward the shore, scanning the lake bottom.

  Now were getting too far in, Trixie thought. Then she spotted something. Her legs propelled her outstretched hand closer. It was a tom paper bag, and it was filled with brown envelopes. Sliding both hands under it, Trixie felt a large stone that had been used to weight the bag and make it sink. She planted her feet in the slimy bottom and stood up, gently lifting her discovery clear of the water.

  “I found it!” she cried.

  Wading shoreward, Trixie stepped on a rock and tottered. Jim grasped her arm to support her. At the water’s edge, Trixie placed the sodden, tom bag on the grassy bank.

  “Those must be the stolen Social Security checks!” Brian declared.

  Trixie nodded. “I don’t remember how many names I read in the paper, but I’ll bet all of their checks are right here.”

  Jim was spreading the envelopes on the grass. “They’re all Glen Road addresses,” he said.

&
nbsp; “How did they get in the lake?” Di asked in a puzzled tone.

  “I’ll bet they were thrown in,” Trixie said. “With this stone to make the bag sink. When I stepped on the bag and broke it, one of the envelopes floated to the surface.”

  “But why would anyone want to throw them in the lake?” Di wondered. “It couldn’t have been to hide them.”

  Brian shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would anyone steal checks and then throw them away?”

  “Incriminating evidence,” Mart suggested. “Maybe the thief thought he was going to be caught, so he disposed of the checks.”

  “That makes sense,” Trixie said. Maybe Mrs. Elliot had seen the thief and scared him. The arson attempt was to keep her quiet. Then Trixie remembered what her mother had said: Mrs. Elliot wouldn’t keep quiet about anything illegal. “On the other hand, maybe it doesn’t make sense,” Trixie said slowly.

  Jim gathered the envelopes. “We’d better notify Sergeant Molinson. Maybe he can come up with an answer.”

  “If Trixie hasn’t already got it,” Mart said. “Not yet,” Trixie admitted. “Not yet...

  Mr. Hartman’s Secret • 4

  WHEN SERGEANT MOLINSON ARRIVED, he frowned at the envelopes drying out in the sun on the boathouse dock.

  “You shouldn’t have moved them from where you found them,” he grumbled. “Too late now. Show me where, and let’s hope you didn’t destroy any other evidence that might have been in the area.”

  Trixie smiled impishly. “Jim, you’re closest to the sergeant’s size. Have you got an extra pair of swimming trunks to lend him?” Molinson scowled at her.

  Trixie broadened her smile. “We found them at the bottom of the lake. They were in a bag, weighted with that stone.”