The Mystery of the Uninvited Ghost Page 4

  “Every one,” Trixie told him.

  “Even Di’s portable radio shaped like a doughnut?” Bobby persisted.

  “That, too,” Mart agreed.

  “Boy,” Bobby mourned, “that’s sad. I liked that radio. Di was going to let me hang it on the handlebar of my bike. If I ever get a bike.”

  “That’s nice, Bobby.” Mr. Belden winked solemnly, then ducked behind his newspaper to hide a grin.

  “No,” Bobby declared. “It isn’t nice at all. The radio is just plain took. Now I can’t borrow it.”

  Trixie thought of all the hours of fun she had shared in that family room at the Lynch mansion. “It is sad, Bobby. I’m sorry the radio was ‘just plain took.’ ” Only Trixie and Hallie sat with Mr. Belden while he drank his second cup of coffee. They were faced by the printed wall of his propped-up newspaper. All they could see were the want ads.

  “Need your gutters cleaned?” Hallie droned. “Interested in self-hypnosis? Swimming lessons? Wrecking service?”

  Trixie broke in. “Listen to this! ‘Lost: Wheelchair. Vicinity Lytell Store on Glen Road. Reward. Call Teed Moving Service.’ ”

  Hallie wrinkled her straight nose. “So that’s what happened. A wheelchair rolled out of a truck.”

  Trixie shrugged and reached for more toast. “There goes our mystery.” She snapped her fingers. “Gleeps! We can try for the reward money anyway. With the wedding coming up, the Bob-Whites can use extra money. When Moms lets me out of the kitchen, I’ll look for the wheel marks. That wheelchair didn’t just land beside the road like a helicopter.”

  Hallie grinned. "Count me in.” Trixie agreed unwillingly.

  She felt more cheerful when Hallie offered to dust. It was a chore Trixie hated.

  Wearing a pair of Trixie’s shorts and a knit shirt, Hallie padded barefoot to the end of the lane with Trixie. The Belden mailbox stood in a clump of daisies. “No marks,” Trixie muttered.

  “What did you expect?” Hallie retorted. “The mail truck’s stopped here. Brian’s jalopy’s gone up the lane. Uncle Peter’s come and gone. I don’t see any marks farther up the road, either. Could Bobby have seen somebody else’s mailbox?”

  Trixie looked toward the Belden house in the valley. She studied its height and the placement of her window. Out of sight beyond a strip of forestland lay the Wheeler estate with its many buildings. In that short distance to Manor House, several mailboxes served people, like Mr. Maypenny and Tom and Celia Delanoy, who lived off the county road. Hidden on a hilltop in the distance stood Di Lynch’s large stone home. It was visible only in winter when the trees were bare. Their mile-long private road twisted downhill to Glen Road, where their mailbox stood at the intersection. The Frayne mansion had burned, so that property had no use for a box. Mr. Lytell’s store couldn’t be seen.

  Trixie sighed. “No, I can’t see mailboxes from my window. Not even our own.”

  “Well, neither could Bobby without binoculars.” To cover a feeling of pique that Hallie had made a point, Trixie opened the mailbox. She drew out five heavy white envelopes, each addressed in Miss Trask’s perfect script.

  “Our invitations!” Trixie’s voice softened with the wonder of holding proof in her hand that Juliana and Hans were to be married, and that Trixie Belden was to be maid of honor. “Look. Here’s a separate invitation for Bobby. They knew he’d like one for a souvenir.” Waving her fan of white envelopes, she ran up the lane shouting, “Mail! It’s important!”

  In the backyard, Trixie dealt out the mail, then ran into the house to call Honey.

  In the window seat at the end of the upstairs hall^ Trixie dialed the familiar number. While the call went through, she propped the receiver on her shoulder and opened the outer envelope. She wiped her warm fingers on her shorts before pulling the engraved invitation from the second envelope. There were the magic words:

  Suddenly Trixie became aware of Honey saying over and over again, “Hello? Hello?”

  “Hello, Honey!” Trixie squealed. “I’m reading it, Honey. I’m reading my invitation, and it’s beautiful! Is Juliana up yet?”

  “Oh, my goodness, yes! She and Hans are down by the sundial looking at travel folios. Anyway, that’s what they’re doing when they’re not just holding hands and looking at each other.” Honey laughed softly. “They think they’re out of sight of the whole world, but they’re not. I can look right down into that part of the garden, where Miss Trask had all the old-fashioned flowers planted this year.”

  For the briefest of moments, Trixie had a vision of Bobby looking into some secret glade from a second-floor window at Crabapple Farm. She told herself she had wheelchair on the brain. “See you later, Honey. I’m going to call Di. I’ll talk to Juliana later.”

  “Tell Di that the Bob-Whites are invited here for lunch. We’ll swim first.”

  It took several minutes to reach Diana. Harrison took the call. He relayed the message to a maid before Di was located and answered the phone.

  “Di, isn’t it wonderful?” Trixie sang out. “This is the very first wedding invitation I ever got. I’ve been included before with the family, of course, but....” Brows knitted, Trixie listened to uneven breathing sounds. Was Di crying? Guiltily Trixie realized that her excitement about the invitation had momentarily wiped out the memory of the trouble at Di’s house.

  “Oh, Di! I’m sorry I rattled on like that. Is something else wrong? Did the robbers come back?”

  Di sniffled. Then she said very quietly, “We re fine. The robbers didn’t come back. Mother and Dad got an invitation, but I didn’t.”

  “Di!” Trixie gasped. “There’s some mistake.”

  “I didn’t get one,” Di repeated stiffly.

  “Please don’t be like that, Di,” Trixie begged. “Let me call Honey and tell her what happened. You’ve addressed Christmas cards. You know how easy it is to skip a name on the fist.”

  “Well... yes,” Di agreed reluctantly.

  “Honey says we’re invited there for lunch,” Trixie added.

  “If she wants me, she can call me.”

  “Oh, Di!” Trixie wailed. The minute she heard Di hang up, Trixie dialed Honey’s number again. This time Honey was not in her room.

  The maid, Celia, was making beds and told Trixie to call the stable. “Honey is exercising Lady and Starlight.”

  Trixie knew that meant Jim was handling Jupiter, Strawberry, and Susie, the small black mare reserved for Trixie’s own use.

  Usually the young Beldens helped with the stable work in exchange for the privilege of riding the Wheeler horses at any time they chose. But due to their work at home, they hadn’t been to the stable for some days. Even Bobby was helping harvest the raspberries at Crabapple Farm. Trixie had been excused this one day only because it was the first full day of Hallie’s visit. There simply was no time for the horses, in spite of the coming Turf Show.

  Regan, the groom, wouldn’t like this interruption of the horses’ exercise, but he’d certainly understand if he knew Di’s feelings were hurt. Regan and Miss Trask were the Bob-Whites’ best friends. Trixie made the call to the stable.

  Again she had to wait. The chauffeur, Tom, answered. He shouted to Regan, who used his megaphone to call in Honey.

  Breathlessly Honey asked, “Is something wrong, Trixie? Didn’t Celia tell you that I—”

  “She told me,” Trixie said briefly. “Honey, something awful has happened. Di didn’t get an invitation, and she’s been crying.”

  “Oh!” Tenderhearted Honey drew a quivering breath of dismay. “There’s some mistake. I know Di was sent an invitation. I’ll call the house and have Miss Trask send another, right this minute. Di’s had enough trouble. We can’t allow her to be hurt. We simply can’t! I have to get back to the horses now. See you at lunch.”

  Even with a guest in the house and other people’s troubles on her mind, Trixie had work to do. To her surprise, Hallie worked hard. “I thought you had maids,” Trixie said.

  Hallie shrugged. �
��One. But you know my parents. Slave drivers!”

  “It runs in the Belden family,” Trixie retorted, as naturally as if she were working with Honey herself. On one of his many trips to the cooler with berries,

  Brian called Miss Trask. He asked her to excuse Mart and himself from lunch at Manor House. They both felt they should spend as much time as possible picking berries.

  Having prepared lunch for the stay-at-home Beldens, Trixie and Hallie biked up Glen Road. They rode slowly, watching for narrow wheel marks in the dust beside the road. About halfway between the lane and the Manor House turnoff, they saw something that made them start. A young, nearly bald man was pushing an empty wheelchair toward them.

  “Gleeps! That’s our wheelchair!” Trixie exclaimed.

  Hallie shrugged. “So what? He found it first.”

  Trying not to feel disappointed, Trixie said, “No sense calling Teed Moving Service now.”

  “No wheelchair, no reward,” Hallie agreed.

  “And no mystery,” Trixie added. But if that were true, why did she have the uneasy feeling that this man wished he hadn’t been seen? As they came face-to-face, she noticed a look of softness about the man that Mart would have called sissiness. Still, he was a broad-shouldered, rather tall man, clean-shaven and ordinary-looking.

  Trixie glanced back several times. Once she caught the man looking back at her.

  Again a prickle of uneasiness caused Trixie to scan the road. Glen Road itself had a hard surface and yielded little in the way of clues. But, there, some distance before the Wheeler mailbox, a wilted clematis vine lay across the edge of the road.

  A Distorting Phone Call • 5

  TRIXIE BRAKED HER BICYCLE for a closer look at the wilted vine. This could be the spot where Jim and Hans had seen the chair. There was room for a wheelchair to have been hidden among those dusty bushes.

  On the other hand, last night’s fleeing thieves could have bruised the clematis. After a close look, both Hallie and Trixie agreed they could see no track tire marks beyond the traffic lane, nor could they find wheelchair marks.

  Beside the Wheeler mailbox, Di waited for the cousins. She looked so sober that Trixie decided not to mention either the robbery or the missing invitation unless she had to. She was glad to talk about the mystery that was no mystery. “That man must have found the chair yesterday and shoved it out of the way of traffic. When he read his paper, he came back for the reward.”

  Di made no response. After a tactful silence, Hallie raised the possibility that two men could have been involved. In any case, she still wondered how Bobby could have seen a man from that upstairs window the day before.

  When they reached the clubhouse, they found that Jim and Honey had already changed into bathing suits. Dan rode up on Spartan. As he came closer, he began an off-key whistle. Spartan had been a circus horse and responded to the melody with a ponderous dance. Hallie applauded the performance enthusiastically.

  Dan was so obviously pleased by Hallie’s reaction that Trixie didn’t mind—much—when Jim walked to the lake with her cousin. It gave her a chance to walk with Honey. That left Dan with Di, and Trixie heard him ask, “Your dad had insurance on your furniture, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, sure,” Di answered, “but it’s difficult to make an exact list of everything that was in the room last night-like my doughnut-shaped portable radio. I’m pretty sure it was in the family room yesterday. I never leave it on my bike handle, and there’s no sense carrying it to my room. I have a stereo up there.”

  “I’m sorry, Di. If I could have prevented this... Dan’s voice dwindled to a mumble. Trixie wondered how on earth Dan thought he could have prevented that robbery.

  By the time they reached the dock at the lake, Di was almost cheerful again, and so was Dan.

  Lunch at Manor House was served at a large round picnic table set on the flagstone area near a very old birdbath. Black-faced cardinals sang, “Wet year, wet year, weet, weet, weet!” Dan found a couple of melon seeds in his fruit cup and flipped them out to the birds. This started the whole red-feathered flock strutting around the table, looking for more handouts. Even Mr. Wheeler hunted for stray seeds and sent Jim to the kitchen to rescue some from the garbage disposal.

  In this gay setting, Hans glowed each time he looked at Juliana, and so did Jim. Once Jim turned to Trixie to say, “There’s something special about knowing that another person has the same ancestry as you do.”

  Again Trixie was reminded that Jim wouldn’t understand her wariness toward Hallie—the wariness that she was trying so hard to conceal. She had to admit that Hallie was easier to get along with than she had expected.

  In a fresh white pants suit loaned by Honey, Hallie looked relaxed and totally at home. She didn’t stand in awe of Honey’s parents. Trixie heard her ask their red-haired host, “Are you sure Jim is adopted?”

  Mr. Wheeler touched his red sideburns as he grinned at red-haired, freckled Jim. “I’m sure, but we don’t advertise it, not with our carrottops.”

  At that moment, Celia brought the garden telephone to the table. “Excuse me, Mrs. Wheeler. There’s a call for Mr. Hans.”

  “Would you like to take the call over by the bird-bath?” Mrs. Wheeler asked her guest.

  With a quick little bow that included everyone at the table, Hans took the phone from Celia. He walked across the grass to sit on the edge of the birdbath. Trixie was facing him. She saw him straighten suddenly and turn his back to the table. His whole pose was that of a person being presented with a problem. Trixie glanced at Juliana but saw that she had not noticed.

  Juliana was asking permission to be driven to Sleepyside by Tom, the chauffeur. Her own blue Volkswagen was being repaired as a result of the wreck that had caused her loss of memory for a time. “I’ll drive you, Juliana,” Jim offered.

  Juliana giggled. “I’m afraid you’ll be bored with my window-shopping, Jim.” She smiled brightly as Hans returned to the table. “Tell Jim, Hans, what a slowpoke I am when I shop.”

  “She’s the worst,” Hans agreed indulgently, “but I have good arches.” Reseated, he picked up his napkin and asked, “By the way, Juliana, was your family on friendly terms with some people named Ryks?”

  “I—I’m sure I don’t know,” Juliana answered. “I was very young when the accident took both my parents. When the Schimmels took me in, their friends

  became my friends. Among them I can’t recall the name Ryks. Is it important?”

  “It seemed important to the Miss Ryks who telephoned,” Hans told her. He shook his blond head as if to clear away cobwebs. “Do you know, now that I try to reconstruct her conversation, I am not clear as to whether she considers herself a friend of my family or yours?”

  “Does it matter?” Juliana asked gaily. “In a few days, there won’t be any difference. Your family will be my family.”

  Miss Trask asked, “May I help, Hans?”

  “Thank you, Miss Trask,” Hans said. “This person who called from the Glen Road Inn has asked if it is possible for her to be included on the guest list for our wedding.”

  Honey’s mother lifted both hands and let them drop as if she emptied them of all responsibility, as, indeed, she did on every possible occasion. “My dear Miss Trask, whatever you decide is quite all right.” Miss Trask leaned across the table to speak with Jim. “Since you two are related, it’s conceivable that your two families might have had friends in common. Do you recall the name Ryks?”

  “No,” Jim said soberly. “I’m sharing the boat with Juliana. I have no strong link with the past. My mother remarried after my father’s death. You all know how that turned out. Being a friend of my stepfather is a poor recommendation.”

  “Well, let me call the inn and see what I can find out,” Miss Trask said. “Is that agreeable with you, Hans? Juliana?” Both agreed.

  As a signal that their young guests were free to do as they chose, Honey’s parents left the table to walk through the well-kept grounds.

  Befo
re any more of the group left, Trixie reminded everyone that they were invited to Crabapple Farm for dinner that evening. The get-together had been planned a week earlier.

  “We’ll be there. Now let’s drop off your bikes at Crabapple Farm and then all go to Sleepyside with Juliana,” Honey said eagerly.

  Dan asked to be excused to return to work. As he left the terrace, he looked back. Trixie knew he would rather have remained with his friends.

  There were several nice shops in Sleepyside, small village though it was. Customers included the wealthy owners of the estates lining the Hudson. Trixie, Honey, Hallie, and Di trooped from counter to counter, helping Juliana to make choices. Jim and Hans carried packages. Several times Trixie saw them in sober conversation. When curiosity got the better of her, she asked Jim if he’d like a break.

  “Sure. Hans, let’s take the packages to the car.”

  Juliana objected prettily. “I’m not quite finished here, Hans.”

  “Jim, you and Trixie go ahead,” Honey urged. “We’ll meet you later.”

  After they had locked the packages in the station wagon in the village parking lot, Trixie and Jim walked the short distance to Wimpy s. They waved at the counterboy and hurried to their favorite booth. “Root beer—a tall one, please,” Trixie ordered.

  “Make it two,” Jim added.

  When their frosted mugs came, Trixie waited impatiently for Jim to tell her what was on his mind. Like Bobby, Jim couldn’t be hurried. She filled him in on the story of the wheelchair, but he listened with only part of his attention. He cut in to say, “That phone call worries Hans.”

  “I don’t see why it should bother him,” Trixie said. “It was a local call. Glen Road Inn can’t be more than a couple of miles from Manor House.”

  “It isn’t even that far,” Jim corrected. “That’s the part that worries Hans. He doesn’t know anyone in the valley, and Juliana doesn’t know anyone we don’t know. Hans thinks it’s strange that Miss Ryks didn’t call when Juliana was in trouble, if she’s all that much of a friend of the family. On the other hand, if Miss Ryks just arrived at the inn, how did she know where to find Juliana? And why did she ask for Hans, not Juliana?”