The Mysterious Visitor Read online

  "That sounds good," Diana said, laughing.

  "Or how about bobbing for apples?" Trixie asked. "It’s the thing to do on Halloween, isn’t it?"

  "No," Di said emphatically. "You don’t mind getting your hair wet, because it’s naturally curly, but a lot of girls wouldn’t like it."

  "Personally," Honey said, "I think we’re all too old for that kind of game. After Murder at Midnight, if there’s time, I think we ought to play guessing games. You know. A group acts out a line from Shakespeare or something, and the others have to guess what they’re trying to say." "Okay." Trixie agreed. "Charades are always fun. Not that I’d know a line from Shakespeare from a straight line somebody drew with a ruler." "Oh, stop it," Honey protested. "You get very high marks in English, Trixie. Why must you always go around acting as though you were illiterate? I think the theme you wrote yesterday was just wonderful, and I’ll bet the teacher thinks so, too."

  "If she can read my horrible handwriting," Trixie said with a rueful grin. "And that gives me an idea for another game. We can analyze one another’s handwriting. Mart’s got a book on the subject. If things get dull, we can always make a fortune-teller out of him. He’d love it."

  All week, when the girls met at school or on the bus, they added to the list, but in the end it wouldn’t have mattered if they hadn’t made any plans at all.

  Lots of Surprises • 7

  THE BOB-WHITES, as assistant hosts and hostesses, were the first guests to arrive at the party.

  Diana greeted them tearfully. "It’s all happened just the way I told you it would. And he did it on purpose just to be mean. I know he did." "Who did what?" Trixie asked in amazement. "Don’t tell me Harrison didn’t take the night off, after all?" .

  "He’s still here, too," Di said exasperatedly. "But I told him flatly he couldn’t answer the door. But I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about Uncle Monty. He’s running everything, and it’s all such a horrible mess that I don’t know what to do!"

  Sure enough, Uncle Monty was running everything. As a "surprise" for Diana, he had persuaded Mrs. Lynch to order caterers, a five-piece orchestra, and even decorators from New York. The walls of the downstairs rooms were draped in black sateen on which weird, luminescent shapes had been painted. Witches, cats with huge fangs and arched backs, pumpkins, and spiders—all done in luminous paint—grinned eerily down from the black drapes hanging near the entrance.

  "Wow, just look at these decorations," Brian said.

  "It certainly looks like a Halloween party, doesn’t it, Trixie?" Jim said.

  "It looks like something out of a movie," Trixie gasped, trying to see it all at once.

  "That’s just it," Diana wailed. "Hollywood! And I planned that everything would be so nice and simple." She led them into the long room which was called the art gallery. You couldn’t see any of the pictures now because of the ghostly draperies, and the carpet and all of the furniture had been moved to the terrace. The orchestra was tuning up on a raised platform at one end, and the folding doors at the other end of the room were closed.

  "Even if they were open," Di said, "you couldn’t get out on the terrace, it’s so packed with furniture. And I guess they’ve thrown out all the stuff I ordered. Wait till you see the dining room. The table is positively groaning under turkeys and hams and all sorts of fancy appetizers. And it looks to me as though there must be a waiter for every guest."

  "Never mind, Di," Honey said soothingly. "Everyone’s going to have a wonderful time." "That’s right; just wait and see, Di," Trixie said, and the boys heartily agreed.

  "But what are we going to do?" Di demanded. "A lot of the kids who are coming don’t know how to dance. I don’t myself. But you can’t get that through Uncle Monty’s head. He has made up his mind that we’re going to spend the whole evening dancing and eating. How are we going to play the games we planned with the orchestra making so much noise and all the rooms cluttered up with waiters and fancy decorations?"

  Honey smiled. "The caterers won’t bother us, Di. They’ll serve supper, then clean up everything and go back to New York. And if nobody wants to dance, why the orchestra can leave then, too. Your mother is still here, isn’t she? Couldn’t you ask her if that would be all right? I’m sure she’d say it was."

  Diana shook her head. "You don’t understand. I c-can’t explain."

  "I understand," Trixie cried impulsively. "You don’t want to hurt your mother’s feelings. She thought that you would be pleased with these arrangements."

  "That’s right," Di said, her cheeks flaming. "She let Uncle Monty talk her into thinking all of this would be a grand surprise. Dad is perfectly furious, because he knows how I feel. I mean, he’s awfully mad at Uncle Monty. If you want my candied—I mean, my candid—opinion, Dad can’t stand the sight of Uncle Monty. That’s what I was trying to tell you all on Saturday when I got all mixed up and acted so babyish. I think Dad would give all of his money to Uncle Monty if it meant that Uncle Monty would go away and stay away." Di crammed her clenched fists into the pockets of her red B.W.G. jacket. "Oh, I wish he would. I hate Dad’s money almost as much as I do Uncle Monty." She ran out of the room.

  Honey shook her head. "I think Di’s uncle was mean to ruin her plans, but she shouldn’t hate her mother’s brother."

  "I understand how she feels," Jim said sympathetically. "I hated my own stepfather. Remember, Honey?"

  "That was different," Honey said. "Jonesy was, well, a beast. And he wasn’t a blood relative. He wasn’t any more related to you than David Copperfield was to that awful Mr. Murdstone his mother married. But David’s great-aunt Betsy Trotwood, who didn’t sound very nice in the beginning of the book, was a blood relative, and —well, you’ve all read David Copperfield, so you know what I mean."

  "You mean that blood is thicker than water," Brian said soberly. "And it is. Usually."

  Mart chuckled. "True, true. We have an aunt named Alicia who keeps on thinking that Trix will become a lady someday and manage to handle a needle as though it were not a crowbar. Aunt Alicia even went so far as to try to teach our sister to tat once, but Trix doesn’t hate her, do you, Trix?"

  "Brown eyes," Trixie said suddenly.

  They all stared at her in amazement.

  "Well, he has got brown eyes," Trixie said defensively. "Mr. Wilson has. And Mrs. Lynch’s eyes are as blue as blue delphiniums."

  "So what?" Mart demanded. "You and I and Bobby have Moms’s blue eyes, and Brian’s are black like Dad’s. Does that prove that Brian is an adopted child?"

  "No one in his right mind would have adopted you, that’s for sure," Trixie said with a sniff. "I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I was just thinking out loud, as usual." Suddenly she remembered what Regan had said: "Don’t think." And what Honey had said: "Even if Mr. Wilson isn’t quite honest, I don’t think we ought to talk about it in front of Di."

  She opened her mouth to change the subject, but Jim was saying cheerfully, "Speaking of adopted children, I’m one, and my eyes are neither black nor blue. They’re green. What does that make me, Trix?"

  At that moment Di and her uncle joined them at the entrance to the gallery. Mr. Wilson was dressed as a cowboy, complete with chaps and toy pistols, and looked to Trixie rather like a wizened little boy. Rubbing his hands together gleefully, he said, "On with your wigs and masks, podners. The other guests will be arriving soon. I’ve got it all arranged. No unmasking until the bell rings for chow. Soon as everyone gets here, we’ll have a grand march around the ballroom, with me as judge. First prize goes to the best costume. Booby prize goes to the worst. Then we’ll do some square dancing, podners, until we work up an appetite for grub. I’ll do the calling. There’s not much old Uncle Monty doesn’t know about square dancing. Why, if I had my fiddle

  here, I’d play ‘Turkey in the Straw’ as you never heard it before. If I had my accordion and mouth organ here, I’d show all of the guests what a real one-man orchestra was like. Music right out of the West!"

&
nbsp; "I’m sure you would, Uncle Monty," Di said, forcing a smile to her taut lips. "But since almost none of the boys and girls I’ve invited know how to dance, I thought we might let the orchestra leave when the caterers go. Is that all right?" "Oh, no, no, no, no!" her diminutive uncle cried, hopping up and down with each "no" as though he were the dwarf, Rumpelstiltskin. "If your guests can’t dance, there are plenty of games we can play to music. Musical Chairs, London Bridge Is Falling Down, and all that sort of thing."

  "But, Uncle Monty," Di cried, "we’re too old for that kind of game."

  "Then you’re old enough to waltz and do the two-step and the polka," he said firmly. The orchestra struck up the "Blue Danube," and he bowed gallantly in front of Honey. "This little lady can waltz, I’ll betcha. May I have this dance, miss?"

  Trixie held her breath. Now was the time for Honey to be her most tactful self! And Honey was. She dropped a curtsy and said sweetly, "I’d rather not, Mr. Wilson, but I do think your idea of keeping the orchestra on is just great. With you as master of ceremonies, we could have a real quiz show. The orchestra can play a few bars of a song, and the one who names the song first gets a prize." She laid a slim hand on the decorated cuff of his sleeve. "Why don’t you and I go into Mr. Lynch’s study and make a fist of the songs we think the orchestra ought to play for that contest?"

  He followed her out of the gallery and into the room across the hall as meekly as a lamb. Trixie let out her breath in a long sigh. "That’s the answer, of course," she said. "From now on we’ve all got to take turns keeping Uncle Monty from being an emcee."

  The boys nodded solemnly, and Di said gratefully, "Oh, will you? I can’t help because I’m the hostess." The front-door bell rang then, and she hurried off, completely forgetting to don her false face and wig in her eagerness to greet the guests before her uncle did.

  Without saying a word, the Beldens and Jim took their wigs and masks from the pockets of their jackets and put them on. They all looked very funny, but nobody laughed. For a moment Trixie felt dizzy. In their shapeless jackets, black curly wigs, and realistic rubber devil’s faces, it was impossible to tell the boys apart. Mart wasn’t, of course, quite as tall as Brian and Jim, but somehow they all seemed now to be exactly the same height. They stood there, as motionless as the luminescent ghosts, witches, skeletons, and dragons on the black draperies. It was hard to breathe behind the close-fitting mask, and, for the first time in her life, Trixie felt weak and wobbly-kneed, as though she might faint at any moment.

  The folding doors at this end of the gallery had been pushed back as far as they would go. Trixie grabbed one of the brass handles to steady herself, and something big and black and horrible with skinny, wiggly legs sprang at her. It dropped on her outstretched hand, then slithered to the floor at her feet

  Hidden Portraits • 8

  IT WAS A black widow spider! But, Trixie realized as she stifled the scream in her throat, far too large to be real. Thinking that one of the boys had played the trick on her, Trixie said over her shoulder:

  "Very funny.Very funny. You’d better not scare Honey with spiders. She has a phobia about them."

  Then she heard Jim’s voice, cold with anger. "It wasn’t funny at all. That kind of practical joke can be downright dangerous. You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you, Brian and Mart?"

  Both the Belden boys shook their heads and said, "No," in unison.

  "It’s probably Uncle Monty’s idea of fun," Mart said, and Trixie could tell that he was even angrier than Jim was. "I don’t like that guy." He tucked Trixie’s cold hand protectively through the crook of his arm. "Anybody but you would have screamed, fainted, or gotten hysterical."

  Brian gave Trixie’s free hand a brotherly squeeze. "For two cents," he said, "I’d say we all might just as well go home. It’s not going to be any fun taking turns keeping Uncle Monty out of everybody’s hair. I don’t dislike him personally, but he’s certainly doing his best to make Di miserable."

  Jim, who had been examining the handle on the folding door, straightened. "I see how the contraption works. A rubber band and a thumbtack is the secret. I’m darned glad it wasn’t Honey who grabbed that handle, Trixie. She’s just beginning to get over her fear of spiders. Something like this would have been a serious setback. I wonder how many more booby traps Uncle Monty’s set around the place."

  "Ah, the place is probably crawling with them," Mart said disgustedly. "As I said before and I’ll say again, I don’t like that guy."

  "Neither do I," Trixie agreed. "I’m becoming

  more and more certain that he’s an impostor." "Now, Trix," Brian said cautiously, "just because he’s different from other people and sort of eccentric in his ways and has a pretty warped sense of humor—"

  "It’s not that," Trixie interrupted. "He doesn’t look anything like Mrs. Lynch. She’s so plump and pretty and really quite tall, with those blue, blue eyes. And he’s so shriveled and little with eyes that always make me think of olive pits." "That doesn’t mean a thing," Mart pointed out. "Aunt Alicia doesn’t look a thing like Moms, and yet they’re sisters."

  "Yes," Trixie said, "but we know that Aunt Alicia looks like our grandfather and Moms looks like our grandmother. If we knew that Mrs. Lynch’s parents both had blue eyes, we’d know for sure that Uncle Monty was an impostor."

  Brian whistled. "You’ve got something there. Blue is recessive, so blue-eyed parents can’t have a brown-eyed child."

  "It’s the Mendelian theory of heredity," Trixie said. "Moms told me all about genes and things when we were working in the garden last summer. She’s crazy about the subject of dominant colors on account of flower seeds, you know. It’s why her flowers almost always win prizes at the Garden Club shows."

  "It’s an interesting subject," Jim said, "but as I recall, Mrs. Lynch’s parents died when she was a baby, so how will you ever find out whether or not they both had blue eyes?"

  "That’s right," Mart said. "Now, take me, for instance. I have a fabulous memory, but I can’t remember a thing that happened to me when I was a babe in arms. In fact, my earliest recollection is my third birthday party, when Trix fell into my cake. My mental picture of her at that time is not that her eyes were blue, but that her eyelashes were plastered with pink frosting." Trixie sniffed. "My earliest recollection is your fourth birthday party, when you scorched your eyelashes trying to blow out all the candles on your cake at once."

  "Children, children," Brian admonished them. "Can’t you let bygones be bygones?"

  "If Mart would stop interrupting," Trixie complained, "I have something important to say." Mart snapped his fingers over her head. "Speak, girl, but bark; don’t growl."

  Trixie took a deep breath. "Last spring, as I’ve already told you, Di invited me out here for lunch. It was all very elaborate with everything from soup to nuts, Jim, and I didn’t have much fun. I realize now that Di didn’t, either, but—"

  "You know what?" Jim interrupted thoughtfully. "Di has a phobia about being rich. We’ve got to cure her of it, just as we have almost cured Honey of her phobia about spiders and snakes."

  "That’s right," Brian agreed. "Being rich is nothing to be ashamed of, and just because this party isn’t going to turn out the way Di planned it is no reason why everyone shouldn’t have a swell time."

  "True, true," said Mart. "Personally, I prefer ham and turkey to hamburgers and franks, and as for a couple of dozen waiters hanging around to clean up the mess afterward, why, that strikes me as a good idea. Isn’t there an old saying that nothing is quite so dull as dishwater? Last summer when Brian and I were junior counselors at camp, we must have washed fifty million dishes. Speaking of phobias, I have one very definite phobia about dirty dishes. In fact—"

  "Never mind," Trixie interrupted, grinning. "We all know that you cringe at the sight of a kitchen sink and that you spend your nights dreaming up ways to sneak out of the house after meals so that your poor, overworked sister is stuck with the dirty work."

  Mar
t eyed her critically. "Poor, yes. Overworked, no. But it seems to me, Cinderella, that we have strayed far from the subject of that memorable luncheon you enjoyed out here last spring.

  Did you bring the subject up simply to stimulate our appetites, or did you have something in mind which you felt was pertinent to the subject of blue-eyed parents?"

  "You must be a mind reader," Trixie said sarcastically. "In words of one syllable, the answer to your question is yes. After lunch, Di’s mother showed me through the house. Di, I remember now, trailed forlornly along behind us, but the point is, when Mrs. Lynch took me through the gallery, we spent a lot of time gazing at the portraits of her parents, which had been painted by a famous artist whose name I’ve forgotten." "What a retentive memory you have, Cinderella!" Mart said, bowing so low that his wig fell off. "Don’t tell me you recall whether or not said parents of Mrs. Lynch had blue eyes?"

  Trixie shook her head sadly. "My memory isn’t that good. But I do remember almost exactly where those portraits were hanging. If the walls weren’t draped now, I could lead you boys right to them, and then we’d know for sure."

  "Exactly," Mart said. "But since the walls are covered, where does that get us?"

  "Don’t be such a moron," Trixie cried impatiently. "The musicians in the orchestra will probably have supper when we have ours. This room will be empty then. What’s to prevent me from sneaking in here and peering behind that huge bat on the wall over there?"

  "Nothing," Mart said, "unless it happens to be your turn to keep Uncle Monty from running things. In which case, I shall be very happy to do the peeking and peering, myself."

  "Wait a minute," Jim interrupted. "Peeking isn’t going to do any good unless Trixie happens to know where the master switch is that turns on the lights above the portraits. They’re usually in the top part of each frame, but they’re sure to be turned off now. In this dim light you won’t be able to tell whether Di’s grandparents had blue or black eyes."