The Hudson River Mystery Page 9

  The small black mare seemed just as glad to see Trixie, neighing gleefully even before Trixie fed her several sugar cubes.

  ”Whoa, Susie,” said Trixie. ”Bet you think I’ve deserted you! Well, I haven’t—I’ve just been waylaid by vegetables, sick brothers, and history tests, not to mention by making a complete fool of myself at least once a day.”

  Trixie saddled the mare and rode out of the Wheeler stable.

  ”Whoa yourself, Trixie,” Jim said, cantering up behind her on Jupiter. ”You’re being pretty rough on yourself these days, aren’t you?”

  Honey mounted Lady and joined the others, calling, ”How does somebody get waylaid by a vegetable, anyway? Sounds like fun!”

  ”This is more fun, take my word for it,” yelled Trixie. She broke into a gallop that soon had the others chasing her.

  The riders halted for a rest on a ridge not far from Killifish Road. Despite the vague shroud of mist that hung over the game preserve, they felt alive and glad to be outdoors. A flock of starlings disappeared into the fog with an angry flutter.

  Jim watched them and chuckled. ”Your brother was giving me some cockeyed story about starlings the other day, Trixie,” he said. ”Something about how they came to be in this area.”

  ”You mean my know-it-all brother?”

  ”Right—Mart. He said that during the nineteenth century, there was a Shakespeare fan in New York City who decided that America should have some of every bird species ever mentioned in a Shakespeare play. We apparently lacked starlings, so this man released a bunch of them in Central Park, and they worked their way all over from there.”

  ”Mr. Maypenny says starlings are real pests, too,” remarked Honey.

  ”So’s Mart,” Trixie said immediately.

  Jim’s green eyes twinkled at her. ”You’ll have to admit he has the oddest assortment of facts rattling around in his head.”

  ”I just wish he’d keep more of them to himself,” said Trixie. ”Oh, don’t mind me. I’m still holding it against him that he said what I saw in the river was a sea serpent, not a shark.”

  Jim and Honey were strangely silent.

  ”And I’ll bet you guys agree with him,” Trixie went on. She patted Susie absently and released a heavy sigh. ”Yipes, it’s really true what I was telling Loyola—I am definitely going to be the world’s most feeble-brained detective.”

  ”Trix, stop knocking yourself,” said Jim. ”You’re a perfectly perfect detective,” Honey added. ”Why, look how fast you figured out Brian’s problem, I mean, the problem that was giving him problems—well, you know what I mean. You had it figured out even before the doctors did.”

  ”That was smooth work,” Jim agreed.

  Trixie flushed. ”I’m not fishing for compliments, you two,” she said. ”I just think maybe I should forget about that ambition and concentrate on something I’m better at. Vegetables, for example.”

  ”Maybe you just need your eyes checked,” Jim said matter-of-factly.

  ”It’s my ears I can’t believe!” said Trixie. ”Why can’t anyone take my word for it that I saw a shark?”

  Honey and Jim exchanged looks. ”It’s not that we doubt your word all the time,” Honey said, then hesitated. ”It’s just that—well, it’s hard to take you seriously when you talk about something that’s plainly impossible.”

  ”You mean, you’re laughing at me,” accused Trixie.

  ”Yes,” Jim said bluntly. ”Look at it this way, Trixie: You’d be laughing at me if I told you I saw, say, a unicorn in the game preserve, or if Honey started blabbering about Dracula inside the clubhouse.”

  ”That’s not the same—” Trixie began hotly. She chewed her lip. Her strongest impulse was to jerk Susie around and take off into the woods in a huff. On the other hand, a temper tantrum wasn’t going to solve anything. These were her close friends, and surely they meant well.

  Jim saw her turmoil. ”Maybe you could report what you saw to the authorities,” he said doubtfully. ”Sergeant Molinson might have something helpful to say.”

  ”The sergeant would laugh at me if I said, ’The sun is shining today,’ ” Trixie grumbled. ”I can just imagine what he’d do if I told him about the shark.”

  ”But the sun isn’t shining today,” said Honey, unable to stop a broad smile from spreading across her face.

  Trixie glared at her. ”You know perfectly well what I mean, Honey Wheeler. And anyway, I’ve already thought of reporting what I saw to the authorities. I just think I should see it one more time—”

  Abruptly she sat up in her saddle. ”There’s Killifish Road right up there. We can take that down to the river and see if we spot anything mysterious. Come on, let’s go!”

  Jim stopped her with a shake of his head. ”Your ears do need checking. Didn’t you hear Honey? The sun isn’t shining. You won’t be able to see a thing, the way this fog is rolling in.”

  ”You’re right,” Trixie said glumly. ”As my brilliant brother would say, it’s getting to be as thick as sea poup. Anyway, speaking of authorities—and I don’t mean Mart—the person I’d really like to talk to is Thea. She’s supposed to be the Hudson expert. I was dying to talk to her last night, but I didn’t get the chance.”

  ”She’s an interesting person, isn’t she?” remarked Honey. ”Not at all what we pictured! I like her, except she seems to be a little moody.”

  ”Mysterious,” Trixie agreed.

  Jim and Honey shared a chuckle. ”What do you mean—mysterious?” they chorused.

  Trixie flushed again. ”Well, the fact that she has an expensive car but claims to be underpaid.” At Honey’s warning look, she added quickly, ”I know, I know—we’ve sort of got that question under control. But then there’s what Brian told me this morning—that Thea’s always been simply crazy about sharks. Plus I found out that Thea feels uncomfortable around children! How do you explain that in a children’s book writer?”

  Jim thought for a moment. ”Maybe that’s why she’s a writer.”

  ”What?”

  ”Instead of a teacher or librarian or mother,” he went on. ”This way, she doesn’t have to be around kids that much, but she can still be working with them, so to speak.”

  ”And Loyola said that Thea was interested in Hudson River fish,” Honey said. ”And sharks are fish, aren’t they?”

  ”Not in the-Hudson, they’re not, apparently,” grumbled Trixie. ”Oh, well, I still would like to get to know Thea better. She just strikes me as a little mys—”

  ”Please don’t use that word again,” Jim said. ”Please,” Honey repeated. ”Pretty soon you’re bound to start applying it to Jim and me!”

  ”You’re going to be a wonderful detective,” said Jim, leaning over to tap Trixie’s hand, ”so don’t go around putting yourself down. Only— try to remember that not everything holds a mystery, the way you sometimes think.” Embarrassed at Jim’s compliment, Trixie sought for a means of getting the spotlight off herself. ”Aren’t you guys freezing?” she asked hastily. ”Well, I’ll bet the horses are. Poor Susie’s going to wish I’d stuck to vegetables.”

  ”We’d better get back,” Jim agreed, ”before this fog gets any soupier.”

  The three riders wound their way carefully back to the Wheeler stable. Trixie was silent, not just because she was concentrating on not getting herself lost in the mist. She was still brooding over Jim’s frankness in telling her she was becoming a laughingstock.

  Well, they can laugh all they want, she fumed silently. And much as I hate to admit it, there probably is no mystery involved. But if there is something weird going on around here, I’m going to get to the bottom of it... somehow.

  Unexpected Clues • 12

  A SQUABBLE WITH MART that night led Trixie to plot her next move.

  ”I trust my equestrienne sibling had a felicitous outing,” he said over dinner. ”Although leave it to you to select such a vaporous day for it.”

  Trixie mentally counted to ten while she helped herself t
o more spaghetti. ”I’m not your questionable sibling,” she said.

  Mart roared with laughter. ”Equestrienne, I said. That’s ’horsey,’ to you.”

  ”I’m not horsey, either,” she retorted. ”If you can’t talk English, can’t you at least talk nice at the dinner table?”

  ”I spent the afternoon at the library,” he said with a saintly expression, ”unlike some siblings—who shall remain nameless—who could better benefit from such an experience. How can I be expected not to reflect my improved state of learning?” He did his best to look mysterious and added, ”I was doing some—ahem—significant research.”

  Trixie refused to take the bait. She smiled sourly at him and concentrated on her meal.

  Suddenly she burst out with ”Library!”

  ”The bibliotheca,” Mart agreed, while the rest of her family stared at her in astonishment.

  Trixie turned a tomato red, mumbled something about an overdue book, and changed the subject.

  Before the week was over, however, Trixie managed an after-school trip to the public library, and it was only incidentally to return her overdue book. The Sleepyside library was small, housed as it was in one of the original homes of the area. It was well stocked, though, and its librarian was always helpful.

  Trixie marched up to the librarian’s desk in the main reading room. ”I’d like to find out something about sharks,” she announced after paying her fine which amounted to about thirty cents.

  ”Sshhh,” the librarian said with a smile. ”Have you tried the encyclopedias?”

  Trixie shook her head.

  ”I would suggest that first,” whispered the librarian. ”Then look in the card catalog under ’shark.’ I know we have several excellent books on fishes. Just let me know if you’re unable to find anything.”

  ”Thanks,” Trixie whispered back. She walked over to the encyclopedia section and was disappointed to find that the ”S” volume of every set of encyclopedias was missing.

  ”So much for that,” she said softly. Next she went to the card catalog and jotted down the call numbers of some of the books listed under the ”shark” heading. Without much trouble, she located the correct shelf for the first book on her list. The spot where it should have been was empty.

  The other books on her list had nearby numbers. To Trixie’s consternation, not one of the books was in its proper place.

  Totally baffled, Trixie strode to the librarian’s desk and said, ”I did everything you told me, and I still can’t find a single one of the books on sharks!”

  ”Sshhh,” the librarian said automatically. She stared at Trixie a moment, then laughed. Trixie was about to say ”sshhh,” when the librarian explained, ”I forgot all about the fact that someone else has been in here this week doing research on the same thing. All of the information we have on the subject is piled up over there.” She pointed to a large reading table in the corner of the room. ”Help yourself!”

  Trixie obeyed and was soon immersed in a wealth of information on sharks. In fact, there was much more material than she really needed, and it took her a long time to wade through it to find the answer to her one question: Were there or were there not sharks in the Hudson River?

  Eventually Trixie found out the answer, but it left her more bewildered than ever. She leaned back in her chair and frowned.

  So, there are no sharks in this part of the Hudson! she thought, her mind racing. And what’s more, everything in these books corr—corrob— agrees with what Bunker told me. The last shark around here was captured about thirty years ago, up at Peekskill, just like he said. And sharks were always a rarity around here, never common. Bunker was right! And that means—that means that Thea was wrong!

  Trixie decided that, at her earliest opportunity, she had to find Thea and tell her of the results of her research. She hated the thought of Thea’s obviously incorrect information slipping into the writer’s new book on the Hudson.

  On a sudden impulse, Trixie pushed back her chair and returned to the card catalog. Not surprisingly, she found no books listed in it by Thea Van Loon. This library’s too small to have every single children’s book, she figured, walking slowly back to her chair.

  One of the books in the stack on her table was called Fabulous Underwater Phenomena, and Trixie wanted to have a closer look at it. There was an entire chapter on sea serpents and the various ”sightings” people had reported, mostly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Fascinated, she read description after description of horrible monsters with fangs, long tongues, and bright eyes.

  Without thinking, she exclaimed, ”Gleeps! I hope Mart never sees this. He’ll have ammunition to tease me with for a whole year!”

  Trixie heard a ”sshhh” aimed at her from across the room. She looked up guiltily and then flipped to the next chapter, called ”Sunken Treasure.”

  Immediately, Trixie hunched over the book, engrossed by text and pictures. Despite Thea’s scoffing, Trixie still loved to think about the possibility of sunken treasure lying close to home. Perhaps she could pick up a few facts to tell Thea.

  ”Are you finding what you need?” came a quiet voice beside her.

  Trixie nearly jumped out of her chair. ”Wh-why, yes,” she stammered.

  ”Good,” said the librarian, smiling. She peered over Trixie’s shoulder. ”Sunken treasure, hmm?”

  ”I’ve always liked reading about that,” Trixie confessed.

  ”Really? You know about our file downstairs, then?”

  ”What file?”

  ”Oh, you simply must look at it sometime,” whispered the librarian. ”It’s in the downstairs reference room—a folder full of newspaper clippings on local treasure-hunting. It’s a very popular file. Just a few weeks ago, there was a man—a young man with a mustache, from out of town, he said—who wanted to see it.”

  ”I’d love to look at it!” Trixie glanced at her watch and decided that she still had some time left before Brian was due to pick her up.

  ”Watch your step going downstairs,” the librarian warned softly. ”The folder is labeled ’Treasure’ and—”

  Trixie was already walking toward the door to the basement. ”Thanks a lot!” she said.

  The librarian smiled wearily and put her forefinger to her lips.

  Hastily Trixie opened the door and took the steps two at a time. The lighting on the stairway was indeed poor. Trixie missed her footing on the last step and landed with a painful, noisy clatter. Picking herself up, she giggled as she pictured the librarian’s downward look of resignation.

  Trixie found the correct file and sifted carefully through its faded clippings. A headline citing Killifish Point jumped, out at her from a two-year-old article. Two paragraphs down, the name ”Lawrence Krull” snared her attention.

  ”Bunker’s partner!” she exclaimed and began reading:

  Lawrence Krull was believed to be the only victim of the boating accident involving the Kruller. It is not known how Krull, a professional fisherman for over forty years, happened to lose control of his boat in yesterday’s storm. Kathleen, his ex-wife, stated that Krull hunted sunken treasure to supplement his fishing income. There is speculation that his boat was loaded down too heavily to be controlled in the storm.

  ”How fascinating,” Trixie murmured. She started to search through the folder for further information on the accident.

  ”What in the world are you doing?”

  This time, Trixie jumped so fast that she dropped the file. Clippings scattered all over the floor. She bent down to pick them up, complaining, ”Brian, must you wear sneakers? Are you trying to scare me? What did I do to deserve this?”

  Brian crouched to help her. ”You didn’t meet me out by the library door, like you were supposed to, that’s what. You’re the one who scared me—I thought they decided to put you in the card catalog under ’long-lost sisters.’ ”

  ”Very funny,” said Trixie.

  ”And when I asked the librarian,” Brian went on, ”she wanted
to know if my sister was a talkative, curly-haired blond. I said, ’That’s Trixie,’ and she pointed down here.”

  ”She was talking just as much as I was!”

  ”Probably more quietly, though,” said Brian. ”Anyway, let’s get out of here. We re going to be late for dinner.”

  ”You’ve been ravenous ever since you got home from the hospital,” Trixie observed as they walked out to Brian’s jalopy. ”Worse than Mart.”

  Brian chuckled as he held the door open for Trixie. ”I cringe at the thought of Mart’s appetite if he were in the same position as me, just recovered from cyanide poisoning!”

  ”You are all recovered, aren’t you?” Trixie asked anxiously.

  ”You bet,” said Brian cheerfully. ”I was just in to see Dr. Ferris this afternoon, and he says I’m as good as new—whatever that means! He didn’t think much of my judgment when I told him about rescuing Ken and Carl, but he said there was no harm done.”

  ”There certainly wasn’t,” said Trixie. ”You saved those boys’ lives, that’s all!”

  ”Well, anyway, there’s even better news than that,” Brian said.

  Even by the dim light of the streetlights, Trixie could see that his eyes were sparkling. ”Tell me!” she commanded.

  ”Well, pardon me for bragging, but I received a perfect grade on this week’s chemistry test.”

  ”That’s wonderful!”

  ”And Mrs. Cowles told Loyola and me today that, based on what they’ve seen of our project so far, the Conservation Committee has definitely decided to award our school the money for the floating lab! They’re a little short of the full amount we’ll need right now, but it’s just a matter of time.”

  ”Congratulations!” Trixie cheered. ”I’ll bet that makes you feel great. Say, that reminds me— would you mind if I went with you two down to Killifish Point after school tomorrow? I want to see if Thea’s there, so I can tell her what I found out.” She filled Brian in on her shark research.