The Mystery of the Millionaire Page 7

  The girls continued their cleanup in uncomfortable silence. Then Di joined Mart, Brian, and Dan in the shade of the boathouse, while Honey slathered herself with suntan oil and lay out on the beach in the sun.

  Trixie ambled down the beach, digging her toes into the sand, concentrating hard on thinking of nothing at all. Suddenly she stood stockstill as she heard a noise at the top of the slope. She scrambled up the slope, grabbing the weeds that grew there to help her up. Pushing aside the last bush that stood between her and the road, she saw a small, battered green car make a fast turn and pull off quickly down the road. She peered after it, trying to see the license plate, but the dust churned up by the car’s spinning tires obscured it.

  Trixie scrambled back down the bank and ran to the boathouse, where everyone had regathered. “Somebody’s been spying on us,” she shouted.

  Laura Ramsey gasped and raised her hand to her throat.

  “Now, Trixie, calm down. What are you talking about?” Jim demanded.

  “I was walking along the beach there,” Trixie said, pointing, “and I heard a noise. I climbed up the bank just in time to see a car turn around—fast—and drive back down the road.”

  “And that’s what you call ‘spying on us’?” Brian asked calmly.

  “Well, what do you call it?” Trixie retorted.

  “I call it a car driving down the road,” Brian said.

  “Why would he be in such a hurry to get away, if he hadn’t been spying?” Trixie persisted irritably.

  “He could have been trespassing,” Jim pointed out. “Lots of people come here without permission, even though the path to the boathouse is posted with ‘No Trespassing’ signs. It’s an attractive spot, especially in this heat.”

  “Of course,” Honey said. “Someone was coming here to swim, then saw us, or heard us, and realized they could get in trouble if they got caught here. So they turned around and left. That’s perfectly logical.”

  “Is it logical for them to park up there and wait, when there are two cars already parked here?” Trixie demanded.

  “They might have thought they could just stay hidden up there, in the shade, until we left,” Jim said. “Then they could come down and enjoy their swim. When they saw you walking toward them, they were afraid of getting caught, so they left.”

  “If they were parked up there watching us, waiting for us to leave, that’s spying!” Trixie said triumphantly, no

  “Ah, my sibling sleuth,” Mart said indulgently. “Perennially perpetuating a paucity of circumstances into pandemonious preconceptions.”

  Trixie, furious at her friends’ refusal to take her seriously, turned on Mart. “If you’re saying I’m making up a mystery, I don’t have to. I know about some pretty mysterious goings-on that I could get involved with if I wanted to—and they’re much closer to home than this. Do you know what I mean?”

  For once, Mart was speechless. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally just nodded. He knew that Trixie was threatening to turn her attentions to his own strange behavior—and that, it seemed, was something he didn’t want to happen.

  Trixie Trespasses ● 7

  IT WAS JIM who finally spoke. “If you want to use the word spying to describe somebody watching for us to leave the lake so they can go for a swim, that’s fine with me, Trix. We’ll call it ‘spying.’ ” Jim’s patronizing tone did nothing to calm Trixie down. “Well, if it is spying, what are we going to do about it?” she demanded.

  “Nothing,” Jim said.

  “But—” Trixie began to protest.

  “Nothing,” Jim repeated emphatically. “Unless you want to count changing back into swimsuits and having another swim before we go home. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Hear, hear!” Mart shouted, turning to follow Jim to the boathouse.

  Trixie stood helplessly, watching them go. Honey came over to her friend and put one arm around her shoulders. “I think another swim sounds like a good idea, Trixie,” she said gently.

  “I think it’s a terrible idea, but I can’t think of a better one,” Trixie said miserably. “I don’t understand how everybody can admit they were being spied on and not want to do anything about it.”

  “All Jim really admitted was that someone was watching us, waiting for us to leave so they could go for a swim,” Laura Ramsey corrected her. “Frankly, on a day as hot as this, that kind of trespassing might not be perfectly legal, but it’s certainly understandable.”

  “You’re right,” Di said. “If I didn’t know the owners of this lake, I don’t think I’d let a little thing like trespassing keep me away.”

  Di sounded so earnest that Trixie, in spite of herself, began to giggle. “All right, Di. If even you don’t see anything wrong in trespassing, it must be okay. So I’ll give up on the spies. But,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she watched Mart emerge from the boathouse and run to the lake, “there are other mysteries going on that I’m going to keep an eye on.”

  Trixie made a point of being in the house the next morning when the mail delivery was due.

  As before, Mart tore out the back door when the mail carrier’s truck approached. Trixie watched him through the kitchen window, and her heartbeat quickened when she saw him walking back toward the house with a large package under his arm.

  She ran to the hall closet, opened the door, and began rummaging through the shelves as if looking for something. From this position, with her back turned, she could avoid scaring Mart into hiding his package, while her ears told her where he went with it.

  The ploy worked. Mart walked by quickly and quietly and went up the stairs. Straining her ears, Trixie heard the door to his room close softly.

  She hurriedly restraightened the contents of the closet and closed the door, leaning against it while she pondered her next move. She was convinced that this mysterious parcel was somehow tied to Mart’s strange behavior over the past few weeks, but she wasn’t sure how to go about finding out what was in it. In the Belden household, bedrooms were considered private territory. Barging in unannounced was forbidden. If she knocked, Mart would have plenty of time to hide the package before inviting her in, and he might not even let her come in the room.

  Trixie thought over her options for a moment, then rapped her knuckles against the closet door for luck. “Yesterday Mart agreed that trespassing is all right sometimes. Today I guess I’ll agree to that, too,” she said aloud.

  She marched up the stairs, walked down the hall to Mart’s room, and wrapped her right hand around the doorknob. Then she knocked sharply twice with her left hand, opened the door immediately, and walked in. “Hi!” she said brightly.

  Mart Belden was taken completely by surprise. He scrambled frantically, trying to put the contents of the package back into the box, trying to hide the box under his bed. When he saw that the box was too big to hide, he stopped abruptly, head down, for a moment, then straightened and looked up. “Hi!” he said, sarcastically imitating his sister’s cheerful tone. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

  “Oh, Mart, you know why I’m here. I’m sorry for bursting in like that, I really am. But I’m just dying to know what’s in that package—and why you’ve been acting so funny lately,” Trixie told him sincerely.

  Mart glowered angrily for a moment, then his face relaxed into an expression that looked almost relieved. “Actually, surreptitious behavior is not my forte,” he said. “But, as you will soon see, the arcane events of the recent past have been motivated by necessity.”

  “What’s in the package?” Trixie said through gritted teeth. She thought that Mart had just told her he was going to explain everything, but she didn’t want to suffer through a long-winded explanation first.

  Mart held up one hand in a wait-a-minute gesture. “First,” he said, “voila!” He took a magazine off the top of his dresser and handed it to Trixie.

  She wrinkled her nose when she saw the cover. “This is that dumb boy’s magazine that Uncle Mart still gives
you a subscription to every Christmas. Don’t you think you’re getting a little old for it?”

  “I grant you that the editorial content is somewhat beneath my current intellectual plane,” Mart said. “However, a casual perusal of the posterior contents one evening introduced me to a veritable plethora of economic opportunities.”

  “There’s something interesting in the back of the magazine?” Trixie guessed.

  Mart nodded, and Trixie turned to the last few pages, which consisted of dozens of ads in print so tiny that she had to hold the magazine almost to her nose to read them. “ ‘Opportunity Knocks.’ ‘Money in Your Mailbox.’ ‘Start Your Career Today.’ ” Trixie paused in her reading of the headlines and looked up at Mart, still confused as to what he was trying to tell her.

  Mart reached across her and turned the page of the magazine. He pointed at one of the ads, which had been circled in red.

  Trixie read the ad to herself. “Guaranteed Profits,” the headline said. The small print underneath added:

  Start your own business at home for just $10.00. We supply materials, you assemble them, we buy back the finished product. 500% profit guaranteed for proper assembly. Write today for further details.

  An address in New York City followed. Trixie looked up again. “Did you write to them?” she asked.

  Again Mart nodded. He walked to his desk, opened the top drawer, and pulled out an envelope, which he handed to Trixie.

  She took the letter out of the envelope and read it aloud:

  “Dear Mr. Belden:

  “Thank you for responding to our request for home assemblers for our gift items.

  “In our many years in business, we have come to believe strongly in home assembly as a sound economic policy. It enables us to keep our overhead low, since we do not need expensive office space for our employees. It also provides worthwhile careers for people who otherwise might find employment difficult.

  “For just ten dollars, which barely covers the cost of materials, mailing, and handling, we will send you everything you need to assemble five lovely decoupage plaques, each bearing the inspiring message of our founding fathers, the Declaration of Independence.

  “This is one of our best-selling gift items, so the quantity we buy is limited only by how many you produce. When the kits are properly assembled, just send them back to Carlson Crafts, postage paid, and you will receive fifty dollars by return mail—a profit of five hundred percent on your investment.

  “We look forward to hearing from you.

  Sincerely,

  John Brown

  President, Carlson Crafts

  “P.S. We prefer to work with no more than fifty home assemblers at one time, so that we can give each of you personal attention. For that reason, we urge you to mail your check immediately.”

  When Trixie finished reading, Mart picked up the box from its place beside the bed and hoisted

  it onto his lap. “I sent them the ten dollars a couple of weeks ago, and my first five kits came today. See?” Mart took wood plaques, sheets of parchment with the Declaration of Independence printed on them, a bottle of glue, and a sheet of instructions out of the box, one by one, and held them up for Trixie to see. His face shone with excitement, and, Trixie noted, he wasn’t even bothering with his big words.

  “It’s very nice,” she said slowly. “But I don’t understand why you’ve been so secretive about it.”

  Mart returned the items carefully to the box and put the box back on the floor. “Need I remind you that our parents are, shall we say, fiscally conservative?”

  “You mean they wouldn’t approve of your spending your money this way,” Trixie guessed.

  “Precisely,” Mart said. “And, of course, they’re right. Most of these get-rich-quick schemes are just that—schemes. They ask you to send in money, but they don’t really tell you what you get in return. Certainly they don’t offer guarantees. But Carlson Crafts spelled it all out in that letter, before they asked me for a cent. And my profit is guaranteed!”

  His excitement increasing, Mart jumped up from the bed and went to his desk, returning with another sheet of paper. “Look,” he said, “I’ve worked it all out. I’m sure I can do five plaques a week. That’s less than one a day. So that’s forty dollars a week. Let’s say I work fifty weeks a year—that gives me two weeks off in case we go away for a vacation or something. That means I make two thousand dollars a year. That’s six thousand dollars before I finish high school. Maybe more, if I keep assembling faster and faster as I go along.”

  Trixie looked from the piece of paper covered with numbers and charts to Mart’s gleaming blue eyes. “It sounds good,” she admitted. “But I don’t understand why you’re so anxious to make all this money. What are you going to do with it?”

  “There’s college, for one thing,” Mart said. “We can’t expect Dad to pick up the whole tab for all four of us. That’s a fortune! And then afterward....”

  “Afterward, what?” Trixie asked. “You’ve already decided that you’re going to work at Jim’s school for boys. He has his whole trust fund set aside for the school. I’m sure he’ll pay you a good salary.”

  Mart grunted impatiently, stood up again, and began to pace the room. “That whole idea has been bothering me lately,” he said.

  “What idea? The boys’ school? Do you mean you don’t want to work at the boys’ school anymore?” Trixie asked in disbelief.

  “No, no, it isn’t that,” Mart reassured her. “The boys’ school is a wonderful idea, and it’s terrific of Jim to put all his money aside for it. That’s the problem. I keep thinking about how Jim lived so many years in poverty, beaten by that mean stepfather of his. When he inherited all that money from his uncle, it would have been the most natural thing in the world if he’d decided to keep it all for himself—to travel and buy expensive cars and whatever he wanted. But he didn’t. He set all the money aside so that someday, when he’s finished school, he can provide a home and an education for boys who are as unfortunate as he used to be.”

  Trixie nodded, swallowing hard as a lump formed suddenly in her throat. “It’s wonderful, all right,” she said softly. “I don’t understand why you don’t want to be a part of it.”

  “But I do!” Mart was almost shouting. “That’s the whole thing. I want to be a real part of it. I don’t want to just go to school and study agriculture on Dad’s money, then become a teacher using Jim’s. He’s contributing his whole inheritance to the project. I want to contribute something, too.”

  “Oh,” Trixie breathed as she finally saw the reason for Mart’s frustration. She stood up and threw her arms around her brother, and he, for once, didn’t worm away. “That’s just beautiful, Mart—for you to feel that way and want to do something, I mean. But Jim wouldn’t mind a bit if you came to the school without a cent. It’s your time and your dedication and your brains that he’s interested in.”

  “Maybe he wouldn’t mind,” Mart muttered, “but I would.”

  Trixie nodded, sitting back down. “Well, if you mind, then you have to do something about it.” She glanced down at the box from Carlson Crafts. “This might be a way to start—I guess.”

  “Of course it is,” Mart said, his enthusiasm returning. “Five hundred percent profit—guaranteed! What could be easier?”

  “Mmm,” Trixie said, letting Mart interpret the sound as one of agreement if he wanted to. What she was really thinking, however, was that the last time she’d heard someone say, “What could be easier?” it had been Honey, talking about the return of Anthony Ramsey’s wallet. That task had turned out to be far from easy. It had, in fact, been very upsetting—to Trixie, at least. She couldn’t help but feel that this project of Mart’s might have some hidden difficulties, too. But she understood his feelings of helplessness and frustration too well to want to put a damper on his excitement.

  “It’s guaranteed,” she said aloud, with as much spirit as she could muster.

  “Precisely,” Mart said with an
emphatic nod of his head.

  “Well,” Trixie said finally, standing up and moving toward the door, “good luck.”

  “Your fond aspirations for my success are appreciated but superfluous,” Mart said jauntily. “However, I would request that you endeavor to maintain the clandestine aspect of the operation, at least until my initial remuneration has arrived.”

  “I’ll keep your secret,” Trixie promised. She left the room and pulled the door closed behind her.

  The mystery of Mart’s strange behavior was solved, but the solution hadn’t left Trixie feeling any better. For one thing, she didn’t like being involved in another secret. It was hard enough not to be able to tell anyone about Mr. Lytell’s back room full of money. It would be even harder to keep her parents from finding out that she knew about Mart’s project, especially when she’d shown so much curiosity about it over the past few days. But getting Mr. Lytell to lend Laura Ramsey the money, with her car as collateral, had been Trixie’s idea. Then she had barged into Mart’s room. That, as far as she was concerned, made keeping their secrets her responsibility.

  Sometimes I wish I weren't so honest, Trixie thought. Or so curious!

  The Green Car Returns ● 8

  AS SHE STOOD in the upstairs hallway, lost in thought, Trixie was only dimly aware of the ringing of the telephone downstairs. She was jolted back to the present by Brian’s voice calling, “Trixie! Telephone for you. It’s Honey.” Trixie raced down the stairs and picked up the phone. “Hi, Honey,” she said. “Any news?”

  “There’s nothing new on the Ramsey case, if that’s what you mean,” Honey told her. “I just called to tell you that Jim is going to drive Laura into town this afternoon, to pick up a few things she’s been needing. I’m going to ride along, just because it’s been ages and ages since I’ve been to town. I thought I’d ask if you want to come, too.”