The Mystery on the Mississippi Read online

  “All cars are black when it’s dark outside,” the cook said, grinning. “My granddad used to say, ‘At night, all cats are gray.’ ”

  “Yes, yes, I see,” the manager said impatiently. “It must have been some smart-aleck kid stealing a swim when he thought no one would see him. They’ll do any kind of damage, these smart kids, wreck anything just for kicks.”

  “I don’t think it was a boy I saw,” Trixie said slowly and quietly.

  “Whoever it was, I’ll make it my business to find out. I’ll put someone on it right away this morning. In the meantime, young lady, I’d better take you to the house physician. He must sleep like a dead man, not to have heard all this fuss. I want to know that you weren’t injured.”

  “There’s no need for me to see a doctor,” Trixie said hastily. “I was scared, more than anything. I don’t want to see a doctor. I’m all right. As soon as Mr. Wheeler gets here, we’ll all talk to you again. In the meantime—here’s Honey now—in the meantime, we’ll go back to our rooms. I’m sorry as I can be that I was the cause of all this bother.”

  “I might, just as a warning, call your attention to one thing, Miss Trixie,” the manager said sternly. “The hours for swimming are clearly posted above the pool. It may be a good idea if you observe them strictly in the future.”

  “I will. I will,” Trixie said meekly.

  “Boy, would you save us a lot of trouble if you were that humble all the time!” Mart remarked.

  Honey bristled. “I like Trixie just exactly the way she is all the time. So there, Mart Belden!”

  Trixie was still subdued when they lined up along the counter in the restaurant for hot chocolate.

  “Daddy said he’d be here right away,” Honey told them. “This is where he said for us to be, and he told us to get some hot chocolate. Trixie, your teeth are chattering.”

  “I guess I’m still nervous. I’m not cold. Was your father terribly angry at me?”

  “Heavens, no! Did you ever know a time when Daddy was terribly angry at any of us? He was worried, and that’s no surprise. He said for us not to move from this restaurant till he can get here. Do you really think that man you saw at the pool was Pierre Lontard?”

  “I’m just as sure of it as I can possibly be. He really must be desperate, to do a thing like that.”

  “That’s right. I don’t see why the authorities don’t arrest him right now. What are they waiting for?”

  “Evidence,” Dan said abruptly. “They haven’t confided in us, but they can’t just walk up to a man and arrest him, unless they have evidence. We don’t know if they know where he is or what he’s done.”

  “Well, I should think they have plenty of evidence,” Mart said.

  “No. There’s plenty of suspicion, but that’s not evidence,” Dan insisted.

  “Don’t they ever arrest anyone on suspicion?”

  “Sure they do, Mart,” Dan replied. “Sometimes they get into some pretty bad messes doing that, too. Don’t forget that Pierre Lontard is pretty smart. He might know that Mr. Wheeler is a millionaire. He may have destroyed any evidence that could convict him of whatever the authorities suspect he’s done. Then he’d like to be arrested and sue Mr. Wheeler.” Mart wasn’t convinced. “That sounds pretty unlikely... kind of crazy, really. I just hope they know where to pick him up when the time comes.”

  “If anyone is interested in what I think,” Jim said, taking a long drink from a steaming mug of chocolate, “I think that we may be in on a pretty big case. It may even be an international thing.”

  “If the federal agents know so much, why did they let the Coast Guard take Bob off so quickly without questioning him?” Honey asked.

  Trixie laughed. “With all the indictments they had against him, they knew where they’d find him when they got around to questioning him, didn’t they, Honey?”

  “Jeepers, I didn’t think of that. I’m glad to hear you laugh, though, Trixie. My, but this chocolate tastes good. I’m hungry, too. We might as well order some bacon and waffles and eggs, don’t you think? We have to wait right here for Daddy, anyway.”

  They were eating ravenously when Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Brandio came in. The early sun was shining brightly outside, and the motel was alive with morning activity. The coffee shop had begun to fill up. Mr. Wheeler took a stool next to Trixie. Mr. Brandio sat on the other side. “Tell us about it, Trixie,” Mr. Wheeler said quietly.

  Trixie’s eyes lowered to her plate. She didn’t answer. She seemed to be summoning courage to tell him.

  “Speak up!” Mr. Wheeler urged. “Honey has told me, of course, that you went swimming in the pool before daylight, all alone. That was very unwise. You know that now, so I’ll say no more about it. How you survive the dangers you get into, I’ll never know. Honey told me of the drain. Just tell Mr. Brandio and me about the man you think you saw running away from the pool.”

  When Trixie had told them, Mr. Wheeler rose abruptly and went to the telephone in the corner of the coffee shop. The Bob-Whites watched him as he talked. They saw him nod, shake his head, listen for a long time, then place the receiver back on the hook.

  “The man I talked with said he wished you were all back in New York. I must say I agree with him. .If it weren’t for the big meeting coming up today—”

  “Don’t let that influence you,” Mr. Brandio said hastily.

  “Oh, please, Mr. Wheeler, we’ll do anything you think we should do.” Trixie was contrite. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’ve certainly had my lesson. Tell us what you think we should do.”

  “I do want to attend that meeting,” Mr. Wheeler said thoughtfully. “What would you think about moving the Bob-Whites to another motel, maybe to a downtown hotel, Mr. Brandio?”

  Mr. Brandio considered the question for a while, then said, “I’m not sure that would be a good idea. The manager here will be more alert. He seemed quite concerned when we talked to him a few minutes ago in the office. Of course, we can’t tell him about Lontard or those papers.”

  “Not without permission from the authorities,” Mr. Wheeler said. “They assured me, though, that they’re right on the job, and I’m sure they have their eye on Lontard.”

  “They sure had their eyes closed last night,” Mart said.

  “I guess they thought that, once we were locked in, we’d stay locked in for the night,” Trixie said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Heck, we can find plenty to do right here at the motel,” Dan said, “if Trixie will agree to lay low and not take any more risks.”

  “Oh, I will, Mr. Wheeler, I will. I’ll be just as careful as I can be. We won’t move from here till it’s time for us to leave for New York.”

  Mart groaned aloud and hit the counter with his fist. “I did want to go to Hannibal,” he said under his breath.

  “Hannibal?” Mr. Brandio repeated, his face light-ingup.

  “Oh, don’t pay any attention to him, sir,” Brian said hastily. “We sort of wanted to see Mark Twain’s country, you know—where Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn used to hang out. Mart’s been especially hipped on the subject, but that’s unimportant now.”

  “I’m not so sure it is,” Mr. Brandio answered. “Don’t you see,” he said to Mr. Wheeler, “they’d be miles from this area around the factories.”

  “How could they possibly go, after the rugged experience Trixie’s had?” Mr. Wheeler was dubious.

  Trixie interrupted hastily. “I’m fine! I’m just as good as ever. Nobody needs to worry one bit about how I feel. It never takes very long for me to snap back.”

  Mr. Wheeler smiled. “I should know that by this time. That isn’t all, though,” he said, turning to Mr. Brandio. “If Lontard followed them on the towboat, don’t you think he’d follow them to Hannibal, too? No, I can’t say it’s a very good idea.”

  “After last night’s episode, he’ll take cover, I’d say,” Mr. Brandio argued. “How about leaving it up to the authorities?”

  “If Trixie feels equal to the trip
to Hannibal, will you be satisfied to have the federal agents decide whether or not it is wise?” Mr. Wheeler asked the Bob-Whites.

  “I’m sure we’d feel a lot better about going if they knew about it and said it would be all right,” Mart said hopefully. “Gosh, I’d sure like to go.”

  Mr. Wheeler went again to the telephone. He was smiling when he returned. “The man I talked with told me that, next to shipping you all back to New York right away, the best idea is for you kids to go off to Hannibal. He said you can make it easily in a day, have some time there, and be back before it’s too late. Then we’ll take off for New York tomorrow, with Mr. Brandio.”

  “Did he say anything more about Pierre Lontard?” Trixie asked.

  “No, he didn’t, but he did give me a special message for you, Trixie.”

  “You don’t even need to tell me. I promised I’d not take any chances, and I won’t. That’s what you were going to say to me, wasn’t it?”

  “Substantially, yes. He put it a little plainer. He said to tell you again to please let them handle the case from now on... that if they wanted your cooperation—that is, the cooperation of the Belden-Wheeler Agency—they’d ask for it.”

  “He needn’t have said that,” Trixie answered unhappily.

  “Stick close to us, and we’ll see that you remember what he said,” Mart told her. “Shall we get going? I’ve got the map all marked, Jim. It’s a straight shoot north from here. Boy, am I glad we’re going! This motel is jinxed. I’ll be glad to get away to where there’s some fun—Jackson’s Island, the old cave! Huck Finn, here we come!”

  They said good-bye hastily to Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Brandio and all crowded into the car. With Jim at the wheel, they rounded the curve from the airport and headed south first, then turned directly north. For the moment, they seemed to have forgotten the events of the early morning.

  Mercifully, they didn’t know what still lay ahead of them.

  Surprise at Jackson’s Island • 11

  WASN’T IT GOOD of Mr. Brandio to let us take this car?” Jim said as he guided the little automobile along the busy highway. “We sure wouldn’t have been able to get very far without it.”

  “He’s been great!” Mart said as he squirmed to find more room in the backseat. “Boy, this car wouldn’t carry another pound, would it?”

  “But there are only six people in it,” Trixie said, laughing. “Why, back home we’ve crowded more than that into a car.”

  “Not if they weighed as much as Brian and Dan.”

  “You know where you’d be sitting now if Diana could be with us? I miss her so much!” Trixie sighed, then settled back in her seat.

  “Since I’m the youngest, I’d be out on the hood, I guess,” Honey chuckled. “There or back of the rear seat, up against the window. I wish Diana could be here, too. We could use her. She can almost read people’s minds at times, can’t she?”

  “We could sure use a mind reader right now,” Brian said solemnly. “I’m about as much in the dark as a person could be about Pierre Lontard and those papers.”

  Trixie spoke up thoughtfully. “Do you know something? I wish we’d made a copy of those papers.”

  “How did we know they were going to be taken away from us, silly?” Mart answered. “Anyway, who’d want the old things?”

  “The government,” Dan answered sharply. “What would you want the papers for, Trixie? I think we’re better off to have them in the hands of the authorities. It isn’t so dangerous.”

  “You mean it wouldn’t be so dangerous for us if Lontard knew the authorities have them. He still thinks they’re in my purse. I’d at least like to have that map of the Mississippi, with those queer sketches. I know they mean something. I didn’t have the papers long enough to study them carefully.”

  “I still think the authorities may come up with egg on their faces,” Mart insisted. “They’ll find they’ve been chasing up a blind alley. Nothing much has happened lately, has it?”

  “Nothing much except that Trixie nearly drowned,” Dan said with sarcasm.

  “That didn’t have to be Lontard’s fault. Even the manager thought it was some crazy kid who monkeyed with the drain.”

  “You believe what you want to believe, Mart, and I’ll believe what I want... and I have absolute faith in the federal investigators.”

  “Why not? You’re going to be a policeman yourself someday. Aren’t law enforcement officers usually supportive of one another?”

  “You’re right about that,” Jim said. “Why don’t we forget the whole business for today? Dad and Mr. Brandio, and the agents, too, were glad we were going to be away from the airport area for a day.”

  “Yeah, and we’d better get back in time to see some of that exhibit the airplane factories are getting ready for the big brass from Washington,” Mart said. “If we have to leave tomorrow, I’d like at least to get a squint at a space capsule. What do you think they’ll say at school if we tell them—”

  Brian laughed out loud. “That’s the argument you use about everything.”

  “It’s how I get to see almost everything. Anyway, we should be able to get around a bit in Hannibal—see most everything we want to see—and still take in the exhibit tonight.”

  “That’s the old spirit, Mart,” Jim said. “Let the authorities handle Lontard and the rest of that business. Let’s forget it. How about it, Trixie?”

  “I don’t want to let them handle it all by themselves. That’s no way for our agency to act, is it, Honey? Honey and I are the only ones, as far as I know, who’ve really seen Lontard. I doubt if the authorities can handle it without us.”

  “They’re going to have to, sis,” Mart said. “We’re out of communication today, I hope. Then tomorrow we fly back to New York.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t like it, that’s all.”

  “How about forgetting it for today, at least?” Jim asked good-naturedly. “Is it a deal?”

  “I’ll try,” Trixie said grudgingly. “We’re sure making time on this wide highway, aren’t we?”

  “Uh-huh. We’re already more than halfway there,” Jim replied. “Is anyone hungry?”

  “I am!” Mart shouted.

  “That’s chronic,” his brother remarked.

  “But even if I am, I’d like to wait till we get to Hannibal,” Mart went on. “There’s a cafe in the Becky Thatcher house. It said so in the article we read about Tom Sawyer’s hometown. It was in the National Geographic, remember? I’d like to eat there. I’ll bet they serve the same things they ate in Hannibal in Tom Sawyer’s day.”

  “Like the bats Injun Joe ate in the cave?” Brian asked.

  “How do you know a bat wouldn’t taste good?”

  “Ugh, I hope I never find out,” Trixie said, shivering. “It’ll be fun, though, to eat in Becky Thatcher’s house. Part of it is a library, I think. Hundreds of thousands of people must visit Hannibal every year, and all because of Mark Twain’s stories.”

  Mart grunted. “What I’d like to do would be to see some of the things tourists don’t get to see.”

  “We won’t have time to hunt out anything that isn’t on a regular tour,” Jim told him. “Just be grateful you’ll have a chance to see any of it.”

  “That’s Sunny Jim talking,” Mart said sourly. “And it makes a lot of sense,” Brian told him. “You can’t cover the whole waterfront in a couple of hours. Didn’t that last road sign say we’re pretty near Hannibal, Jim?”

  “We should be there in about twenty minutes if the going’s as good as it has been.” Jim took a right turn on a small country road. “This one will take us right along the river. Gosh, the Mississippi is wide out there. It looks as though there’s no current at all. Lots of good fishing places along here. There’s a kid ahead of us with a fishing pole.”

  “From the back, he looks just like Huckleberry Finn,” Trixie shouted.

  Honey touched Jim on the shoulder. “Let’s slow down and talk to him.”

  “Yeah,”
Mart agreed. “Maybe he can give us the lowdown on where to go and what to see.”

  Jim pulled the car over to the side of the road. “Hi!” the Bob-Whites called out.

  The boy swung his fish pole over to the other shoulder and walked up to the car. “Hi! Where you from?” When they told him they lived in New York, he exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be a catfish! Come all the way in that car?”

  Jim laughed. “No, we didn’t. We all think you look just like Huck Finn. You aren’t, are you?”

  “Huh-uh. I ain’t even his ghost. But if I ain’t Huck Finn, I was born and raised right here on the river near Hannibal, an’ I know every inch Huck and Tom traveled when they was here.”

  “You do?” Mart asked eagerly. “Could you show us? How about coming along with us up to town? We haven’t had anything to eat. We’ll buy your lunch at the cafe in Becky Thatcher’s house. Can you come?”

  The boy’s face lighted. “I don’t care if I do. But how can you stuff another person in this car ’thout a can opener?”

  “I’ll show you,” Mart answered, and he squeezed far back into the corner. “Have a square inch or two,” he said, waving airily to the space beside him.

  When the Bob-Whites told the boy their names, he repeated each one, then said, “I’m Lem Watkins. As I told you, I live right here on the river. My dad works down on the wharf. I’ve got three brothers. They work there, too. Say, are you awful hungry?”

  “Not exactly starving,” Trixie answered. “Why?”

  “Well, it’s this way. If you’ll slow down a mite, I’ll show you the road that leads over to the cave—you know, that cave where Tom and Becky was lost... where old Injun Joe died. Would you like to see it? Wouldn’t take you more’n part of an hour. Yeah?” His face was covered with a freckled smile. “Then turn here!”

  Jim followed Lem’s directions and stopped the car near a triangular entrance to a big cave. A number of other cars were parked there.

  “Tourists!” Lem said disgustedly. “You have to pay to get in. I forgot to tell you that. It’s the only thing you have to pay to see in all the Mark Twain places. You see, a man bought it from the city, an’ he has to charge admittance to get his money back. You don’t have to pay for me. I can wait here. If you did get me a ticket, though, I could sneak you around to some places they don’t let tourists into.”