The Mystery of the Velvet Gown Read online

  Mart whistled softly. “What’s with Trixie? That’s the quietest I’ve seen her since birth. She’s not onto some mystery, is she?” he asked Honey.

  “No,” Honey laughed, “not that I know of, anyway.”

  “You’d be the first to hear if she was,” Brian said, “so I guess we can all rest easy for a while.”

  Trixie knocked softly on Miss Darcy’s office door, but there was no answer. She must have gone out to eat, Trixie thought. The door was slightly ajar, so she let herself in.

  Trixie looked around the small office. Many interesting posters advertising London and Broadway plays hung on the walls. One, for a London production of Romeo and Juliet, depicted Juliet standing on a balcony wearing a dress very similar to the velvet gown sent from England. Trixie wondered if Miss Darcy’s friend had designed that one, too.

  She sat down to wait for the drama teacher. She picked up a catalog that she found on a small table next to the chair. Honey and Di would love to see these costumes, Trixie thought, flipping through the catalog, which was entitled The Shakespearean Costume Guide.

  Suddenly the door flew open, and in walked Peter Ashbury. Trixie jumped at the sudden intrusion, nearly dropping the catalog she’d been looking at. A deep scowl creased Ashbury’s forehead.

  “Now what are you doing?” he growled. “Snooping around, I suppose.” He snatched the catalog from her hands. “Someone should teach you some manners!”

  Trixie, momentarily flustered, stumbled through an apology. “I— Miss Darcy wanted to see me. I was just waiting for her. The door was open.”

  “She’ll be here in a minute,” he said sullenly.

  Trixie, completely puzzled by his outburst, was now suddenly angry. “I don’t know why you’re shouting at me,” she said indignantly. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Just then Eileen Darcy came into the room. “What’s going on here?” she demanded. “I could hear you all the way down the hall.” Ashbury answered before Trixie could say a word. “I came in here and caught her,” he said, pointing an accusing finger, “going through your things.”

  “Trixie!” Miss Darcy exclaimed.

  “I was just looking through the costume catalog that was set out on your table,” Trixie explained. Her anger was gone, but she was more puzzled than ever. “The door was open. You told me you wanted to see me, Miss Darcy. I was just waiting for you.”

  “That’s true. I did ask you to stop in before rehearsal, didn’t I?” Eileen Darcy ran her fingers through her hair distractedly. Then she said, “Oh! Yes. I spoke to Dr. Samet this morning. He assured me that Reddy would be fine and that he’ll be able to go home tomorrow. It seems that when your mother and Bobby visited him yesterday, your mother paid the veterinarian’s bill. I do want to reimburse her, so would you please give her this check?” she asked, handing Trixie an envelope. “And please tell your family, especially Bobby, how sorry I am.”

  “Of course,” Trixie answered, accepting the envelope.

  “I’ll see you at rehearsal in a few minutes,” Miss Darcy added. As Trixie left, she glanced back and saw the drama teacher give Peter Ashbury a cool look.

  There’s something very strange going on here, Trixie thought as she closed the office door behind her. She was about to start walking toward the auditorium, when she heard Peter Ashbury and Eileen Darcy’s voices rise in angry tones.

  I know I shouldn’t eavesdrop, Trixie thought. Common sense told her to leave quietly, but her curiosity about what was going on was stronger, and she stayed.

  “Where did you disappear to earlier?” she heard Miss Darcy ask. “I had to have some of the students help me carry the costumes back here, and then I spent the rest of the time looking for you. I thought we were supposed to have lunch together. And then, when I finally did find you, you were shouting at one of my students!”

  “I had some errands to do.”

  “Errands? What kind of errands do you have at noon in a high school?”

  “Listen, Eileen, if you don’t want me around here, just say so. Work is slow now, and with your father missing, I thought you might appreciate having me around more often. I don’t have to drive up from New York City every day, you know. And now that....”

  “Now that what?” Miss Darcy demanded quietly. To Trixie’s ears, the drama teacher’s tone sounded ominous.

  “Now that—now that you think I’m interfering with your work, I won’t bother coming!” he said with finality. Trixie heard footsteps approaching on the other side of the door, so she quickly tiptoed to the next classroom and slipped inside. She heard the office door open and then close with a resounding slam. She waited until she could no longer hear the heavy footsteps receding down the hall. Then she hurried to the auditorium for rehearsal.

  The rest of the class was already there, waiting for Miss Darcy. Trixie scanned the group, looking for Honey; not seeing her, she hurried to the wardrobe room backstage. “What’s wrong?” Honey asked immediately, seeing the look on Trixie’s face.

  “I’ll tell you after school,” Trixie whispered, catching Jane Morgan’s hostile, inquisitive glance.

  “I’ve got to get back to the auditorium. Miss Darcy will be here any minute,” Trixie said. “I just wanted to see if you had a second to talk, but I guess not,” Trixie added, rolling her eyes toward Jane.

  “I understand,” Honey said. “I’ve got some things to tell you, too!”

  Trixie ran back to the auditorium, arriving just as Miss Darcy walked in. The drama teacher’s eyes were red and puffy—she looked as if she had been crying.

  “I’m sorry I’m late, class,” she apologized. “We only have twenty-five minutes left in this period, but we’ll start where we left off before lunch. Diana, will you please begin? All stagehands, please assemble in the wings. Jeff Hoffer will show you how to work the equipment for the backdrops you’ve been painting.”

  After rehearsal, the rest of the afternoon seemed to drag on and on. Trixie couldn’t concentrate on Napoleon during history class or on The Grapes of Wrath—although she enjoyed the book—during English. She was so preoccupied with the day’s events that everything else seemed to pale next to them.

  Finally, the dismissal bell for the last class rang, and Trixie hurried to meet Honey and the rest of the Bob-Whites in front of school to wait for the school bus.

  “Honey,” she asked anxiously, “why don’t you come home with me tonight? I’m sure Moms will be glad to have you for dinner, and I’ve just got to talk to you—privately!”

  “Buzz, buzz, buzz—the sound only an apiculturist loves,” Mart laughed. “Now what are you two busy bees buzzing about?”

  “Afraid you’re missing out on something?” Trixie asked coyly.

  “No,” Mart began, “but you’ve been acting strangely all day, Trixie. I hope you’re not into one of your maybe-this-or-maybe-that wild-goose chases.”

  “Not at all.” Trixie laughed lightly and boarded the bus.

  They all chattered happily on the way home, and as they neared Crabapple Farm, Honey said that she would go home first and ask Miss Trask if she could spend the night.

  Mart, Brian, and Trixie were met at the door by Bobby. “Guess what, guess what?” the little boy demanded, jumping up and down excitedly. “Reddy’s coming home tomorrow!”

  “So I heard,” Trixie said, giving Bobby a hug and a kiss.

  “Oh, did you call Dr. Samet today?” her mother asked.

  “No, but Miss Darcy did, and she told me,” Trixie replied. Then she took out the envelope Miss Darcy had given her and handed it to her mother. “She also asked me to give you this check.”

  “I told her that wasn’t necessary,” Helen Belden said, opening the envelope. “Why, this isn’t a check, Trixie. This is a receipt for a safe-deposit box—and some pictures of costumes!”

  “It is?” Trixie asked, her eyes widening.

  “She must have given you the wrong envelope. Will you return this to her tomorrow?” Mrs. Belden asked. She
handed the envelope back to Trixie.

  “Sure, Moms,” Trixie answered, trying to contain her excitement. “Oh, Moms, can Honey have dinner with us and then spend the night?”

  “Honey is welcome for dinner any night, but you know how I feel about friends sleeping over during the school week,” her mother answered.

  “I know, Moms. But just this once, please?” Trixie pleaded. “We have something important to discuss.”

  “One of these days, you’re going to use up your quota of ‘just this onces,’ ” Mrs. Belden laughed, “but I suppose it’s all right—‘just this once.’ ”

  “Thanks, Moms! You’re super! And I promise we won’t stay up late.”

  “What’s so important that it has to be discussed tonight?” Mrs. Belden asked.

  “You know better than to ask Trixie to divulge her important business, Moms,” Brian laughed.

  But Trixie didn’t hear them—she was already on her way upstairs, the envelope clutched tightly in her hand.

  Strange Happenings • 6

  HONEY CALLED to say that Miss Trask had given her permission to spend the night, on the condition that she finish her homework first.

  “Well, hurry up and finish,” Trixie said urgently, “and then come right over. I’ll finish my drudgery, too, and then it’ll all be out of the way.” She said good-bye and hung up the phone.

  Less than an hour later, Honey arrived with her overnight case. Trixie was upstairs, finishing the last of her algebra problems, when she heard Bobby’s enthusiastic welcome.

  Trixie slammed her book shut, raced down the stairs, and began to literally drag Honey toward the stairway.

  “Sorry, everyone,” Trixie called over her shoulder. “You can talk to her at dinner!“

  “What is going on?” Trixie heard her mother ask Mart, who was in the process of raiding the cookie jar.

  “It’s either one of Trixie’s clever ways of getting out of work—in this case, setting the table —or there’s been some terrible catastrophe. For as long as I live, Moms, I’ll never understand teen-age girls or aspiring detectives, especially if you combine the two. Then you’ve got a really volatile mixture!”

  “On that point, I agree with you, Mart,” Mrs. Belden said, laughing. “And I’m glad you brought up the matter of setting the table, because that’s exactly what needs to be done, as soon as you’re done with the cookies.”

  “Me and my big mouth,” Mart groaned. Upstairs, Honey and Trixie sat side by side on Trixie’s bed.

  “Finally!” Trixie exclaimed. “I’ve been on the verge of bursting all day long, waiting to talk to you.”

  “Me, too,” Honey said. “Do you want to go first, or should I?”

  “You first,” Trixie said anxiously.

  “Okay,” Honey began. “After you left the lunchroom, I took a couple of minutes to go to the library to get some of those new history pamphlets. And....”

  “Honey!” Trixie cried with exasperation. “Tell the story!”

  Honey giggled. “Sometimes I do get sidetracked. After I got the pamphlets, I was walking back to my locker, and I saw Mr. Ashbury talking with Bill and Jane Morgan in front of the newspaper office. I thought it seemed a little bit funny that he would be talking to them, and I was still bothered about where I had seen Mr. Ashbury before, so I turned down the side corridor and listened.”

  “Honey!” Trixie exclaimed, pretending to be shocked. “I’m surprised at you! Fm usually the one who does that sort of thing and gets scolded by you.”

  “I know,” Honey laughed. “It must be getting into my blood! Anyway,” she continued, “they were talking about the photographs that Bill took of the costumes today. Mr. Ashbury asked Bill for copies of the pictures, and then he gave him his address. I didn’t hear all of it—just New York City—and then I suddenly remembered where I had seen Peter Ashbury before!”

  Trixie was leaning forward, listening eagerly to every word and trying to piece this new information into the patchwork of things she had so far.

  “Mother was helping with a Halloween benefit dinner last October for some club in New York,” Honey continued, “and I went into the city with her one day. One of the stops we made was at a costume company, and I’m almost certain that Peter Ashbury was the man who helped her. We were there for quite a while, and I remember looking at a lot of the costumes. I asked Miss Trask about it, but she said she didn’t know what kind of work Mr. Ashbury did. And Mother and Daddy left for Miami last night and won’t be back until next week, so I can’t ask Mother if she remembers him.

  “After Bill and Jane and Mr. Ashbury finished talking,” Honey continued, “I waited a few minutes and then headed back to the auditorium for rehearsal. I saw Jane and Bill in the hallway, but Mr. Ashbury wasn’t with them.”

  “Unfortunately, I know where he was,” Trixie interrupted. “But I’ll tell you that later. Then what happened?”

  “I walked behind Bill and Jane for a few minutes. They didn’t see me at first. Bill said that he was going to do a whole article on the play, with pictures of Di and the rest of the cast in Shakespearean costume. Jane said that he’d better wait to take the pictures, because Di wasn’t going to be playing Juliet!

  “Unfortunately, Jane turned her head just then and saw that I was following them, so she stopped talking. She whispered something to Bill and then, very nicely, offered to walk to the auditorium with me. I didn’t let on that I had heard her, but I was seething!”

  “Whew!” Trixie exclaimed. “This gets stranger and stranger!” Then she related the whole story of what had happened in the drama office, including the argument she had overheard between Miss Darcy and Peter Ashbury.

  “And now this!” With a flourish, Trixie produced the envelope containing the pictures and safe-deposit box receipt.

  Honey looked at them quizzically. “What do these have to do with the rest of it?” she asked.

  “I must admit I don’t know yet,” Trixie answered slowly. She explained to Honey about Miss Darcy giving her the wrong envelope.

  “Something very strange is going on here,” Trixie sighed. “Remember how upset Mr. Ashbury got when I started opening the costume boxes at rehearsal? Maybe—if he is in the business—he wants to steal them. Maybe they’re very valuable costumes, and that’s why Miss Darcy is going to keep them in a safe-deposit box!”

  “Trixie,” Honey laughed, “safe-deposit boxes are too small for costumes. They’re for things like jewelry and valuable papers, not clothes!“

  “Oh,” Trixie said. “But what about fur coats? They’re valuable. Where do people keep them in summer?”

  “Certainly not in safe-deposit boxes!” Honey said. “In the summer, my mother has hers stored in a furrier’s vault.”

  “Well, scratch that explanation,” Trixie sighed. “Jane Morgan worries me, too. I wonder if we should tell Di about this. That’s the second time Jane’s said something threatening about Di playing Juliet. Maybe Jane plans to kidnap Di on the night of the performance!”

  Trixie said, her eyes widening.

  “Oh, Trixie, Jane wouldn’t go that far!” Honey rolled her eyes.

  “I don’t know about that,” Trixie began, but she was interrupted by Mrs. Belden’s call for dinner.

  “Uh-oh,” Trixie groaned. “I’ll probably get a talking-to about chores, plus some ribbing from Mart, who probably ended up setting the table for me.”

  Just as Trixie had predicted, Mart gave her a hard time once they were all seated at the dining room table.

  “Did you solve all the world’s problems while I did your work, Trixie?” Mart asked.

  “Almost,” Trixie answered. “We’ve got just one problem left: what to do about older brothers.”

  “Now, now,” Peter Belden interjected. “Let’s try to have a peaceful dinner—and, I hope, a calmer evening than the last one Honey spent with us.”

  “That reminds me, Peter,” Helen Belden said. “Reddy can come home tomorrow. I thought Brian could drive ev
eryone to school, and then they can pick Reddy up on their way home. I’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow, and I won’t have time to drive into town.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Brian said. “I know someone here who will sure be glad to welcome Reddy home,” he added, ruffling Bobby’s hair.

  “I’ve got everything all set,” Bobby said. “I’m going to sign Reddy’s cast.”

  “You’re going to do what?” Mr. Belden asked.

  “When Jimmy Baker broked his arm,” Bobby explained patiently, “everyone in my class got to sign his cast. I remember how to do it, so I’m going to sign Reddy’s.”

  “Well, we’ll see,” Mr. Belden said, chuckling. “You know, Bobby, you’re going to have to let Reddy rest a lot.”

  “I know. I checked out some libarry books this week, so I can read him lots and lots of stories. Trixie can help me with the words. Right, Trixie?”

  “Sure, half-pint,” Trixie answered, smiling down at her little brother. “Let’s start with how to pronounce ‘library.’ ”

  They were just finishing dessert when the telephone rang. “I’ll get it,” Trixie said, jumping up.

  “It never fails,” Mart groaned. “Right on cue—just when it’s time to do dishes!”

  “I’ll help tonight,” Honey said. “Thank you very much for the delicious dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Belden.”

  Trixie was gone only a few minutes before coming back to the table.

  “Shortest conversation you’ve ever had, Trix. What was it, a wrong number?” Mart teased.

  “Nope,” Trixie answered. “Wrong envelope. It was Miss Darcy. She was so embarrassed about giving me the wrong envelope. I told her I would return it tomorrow morning and pick up the right one. That was all.” Trixie shrugged, but she gave Honey a knowing look.

  Mr. and Mrs. Belden went into the living room to read the evening paper. Honey, Trixie, Brian, and Mart cleared the table and started the dishes.

  Bobby wanted to “help,” but Mart quickly diverted him by suggesting that he make a welcome-home sign for Reddy. Soon Bobby was stationed at the dining room table, eagerly at work with paper and crayons.