The Mystery of the Missing Heiress (12 page)

“Out!” Jim ordered. “Mrs. Belden, do you think you could keep Patch shut up somewhere till I come back?”

Mrs. Belden had come out of the house, drying her hands on her apron. “Of course I can, Jim.” She turned to Honey’s father and mother. “You haven’t met Janie,” she said, presenting the tall, gentle girl. “She has wanted especially to meet you,” she told Mrs. Wheeler.

“I wanted to thank you for the pretty clothes you gave me through Miss Trask—” Janie began.

“Shhhh!” Mrs. Wheeler answered, taking Janie’s hands in hers. “Things have been happening to you pretty fast, haven’t they?”

“Nice things,” Janie said, “ever since I met the Bob-Whites and their families. Now Trixie and Honey have found my own family, I hope. And you and Mr. Wheeler are going to take me to them. I can hardly wait— I mean—well, I hate to leave everyone who has been so good to me.”

“You were thinking, then, we ought to beat you?” Mart asked, and everyone laughed, breaking the tension.

At the airport, Bob, Mr. Wheeler’s big, jovial pilot, had wheeled the plane into readiness. “Is this gang all going?” he asked anxiously. “I don’t think there’s quite enough room.”

Mr. Wheeler laughed. “Don’t worry, Bob. Jim, Brian, and Mart have just come to wave us off. Do you mind if Bobby sits with you? He wants to help spot enemy planes.”

“Climb right in, Ace,” Bob told the little boy. “Do you have your telescope ready?”

Quietly, Trixie asked Jim, “Did Juliana talk to you this morning?”

“Yes, she did.” Jim’s freckled face sobered. “I feel sorry for her. She’s missing most of that vacation she expected to have in the Poconos. She gets terribly nervous, just sitting around waiting. She wants to send off another letter to Holland, for immediate answer. I’ll help her when I get back.”

Jim’s so good,
Trixie thought to herself.
I'm ashamed when I'm so hateful. It’s a wonder he ever puts up with me. I didn’t have to say what I did to Juliana. Maybe Moms is right—that 1 hate to share any of the Bob-Whites with anyone else. To be real honest, I hate particularly to share Jim. He’s so special. I guess I expected his cousin to be special, too.
Trixie’s eyes grew wistful.
More like Janie...
maybe.

“Hey, Trixie, are you with us?” Bob shouted. “In you go.
And
off you go!” he told Jim, Brian, and Mart. “You’re supposed to have scrammed off this field minutes ago. You can watch from the airport deck.”

The propellers spun. The passengers settled in their seats. The engine roared. There was a rush of wind, and they were airborne.

Bobby, all eyes and ears, whitened a little as the plane gained altitude but sat bravely alert till the ship leveled off and the roar subsided to a pleasant hum.

Down below, familiar buildings blurred, then finally disappeared when a floor of fluffy white clouds obscured the view.

Trixie and Honey kept up a constant chatter, leaning forward now and then to speak to Janie, who sat with Mrs. Wheeler in the seat in front of them. Mostly, Trixie thought, they were all talking to keep Janie from having any time to think.

As Trixie had thought, Miss Trask had provided a hamper of food. Honey found it, at her mother’s request, and passed around chicken sandwiches, apples, cookies, popcorn, and small cartons of milk with straws.

Bobby spilled popcorn all over the floor, then puckered his face, expecting to be scolded, and scrambled around trying to pick it up.

“Forget it, Bobby,” Mr. Wheeler told him. “There’s plenty more. Just ask Honey for some.”

Even as Mr. Wheeler spoke the plane began to lose altitude, and Trixie guessed they were nearing the Illinois airport.

Janie’s face had lost its high color. She gazed down from the window, drew her head back, looked around at her friends in the plane, then peered down again at the earth, which was coming closer all the time.

“It’s easy to see how jittery she is,” Trixie thought.

When the plane bumped on the runway and taxied to a stop, Janie held back. When the doors opened and the stairway came up, Bob, the pilot, led Bobby out first. They had landed at a part of the field reserved for private planes, so Janie’s ordeal of meeting her family was postponed. A waiting jeep swept them all up and took them to the airport gate.

Inside the long corridor, Trixie walked on one side of Janie, Honey on the other. Then, as the waiting crowd beyond the rope grew nearer, the girls each put an arm around Janie’s waist. Their eyes darted here and there, trying to seek out someone who could be Janie’s sister. They expected to hear a glad cry at any moment.

People met people, then disappeared to cars or taxis. The oncoming crowd melted into the great surging mass inside the huge waiting room.

A woman, standing apart, looked in their direction and waved wildly. Trixie, Honey, and Janie waved back. Trixie watched the woman s eyes on Janie, waiting to see recognition in the face so bright with anticipation. The woman came nearer and nearer. Her husband waved his hat in greeting, and they both passed by to be swept into the arms of a middle-aged couple just behind Janie.

“It wasn’t anyone who knew me,” Janie’s voice was low, sick with disappointment. Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler, Trixie, and Honey exchanged glances of sympathetic frustration.

“I’ll bet that’s Janie’s sister over by the big window,” Bobby cried. “See, Trixie?”

A young woman watching, shading her eyes with her cupped hands, turned eagerly. “Trixie? Did someone say ‘Trixie’?”

“Yes!” Trixie cried eagerly. “Are you Mrs. Meredith, Janie’s—I mean, Barbara’s sister?”

“Yes, I am,” the young woman said, her face anxious and inquiring. “Didn’t Barbara come with you? Was she too sick?”

Janie, with a low moan, dropped down on a waiting-room bench, her voice despairing. “Then I’m not Barbara.”

“Oh, you aren’t my sister,” Mrs. Meredith cried. “Oh, Tom.” She turned to her husband, deep disappointment in her voice. “This girl isn’t Barbara at all. Where
is
Barbara?”

Janie moaned. “I’m still
nobody.”

Trixie felt the bottom fall out of her stomach. She had been
so
sure.

Barbara’s sister turned to Janie. “You can’t be nobody’—not with friends like yours. They’ll help you find your family someday. You
are
alive.” Her voice filled with anguish. “I
don’t even know whether my sister is alive or not.’’

She started to cry, and her husband, with a quick word of thanks, led his wife away.

Bobby, unable to understand what had been going on and upset by what he saw, began to cry, too. It had been such fun up until now.

Janie instantly forgot herself in her concern for Mrs. Meredith and for the little boy in his panic. She pulled Bobby close to comfort him. “See that newsstand right over there?” She pointed. “They have ice-cream cones over there—big ones, all colors, double ones—for little boys. Shall we see if we can find one?”

Mrs. Wheeler clicked her tongue in amazement at the girl’s courage in the face of such bitter disappointment.

Trixie and Honey just stood, wordless.

“Well, what’s keeping us from those cones?” Mr. Wheeler asked heartily and lifted Bobby to his shoulder as they crossed the great width of the waiting room and lined up at the ice cream bar.

It was Janie who kept up everybody’s spirits all the way home. It was Janie who thought of gay riddles for Bobby to guess. It was Janie, joined by Bob, the pilot, who hummed familiar tunes and had everyone singing.

As the plane came closer to the green trees of New York State, however, and the Hudson spread its silvery brown ribbon far below them, they all became quiet.

Down there Jim, Brian, and Mart—quite probably Mr. and Mrs. Belden, too—would be watching for a speck in the sky. They would be waiting for the glad details of Janie’s happy reunion with her family.

Trixie saw the shadow cross Janie’s face, saw her draw herself in tensely, as if preparing herself for still another cruel blow. Then she fell behind the others as the party left the plane.

Someone else—not she—would have to announce the bad news.

Mystery Car at the Treasure Hunt • 11

THE BOB-WHITES of the Glen had gathered at their clubhouse to tell Diana and Dan what had occurred the day before. Too, they wanted to discuss the problem with all the members present, to see if they could figure out what to do next.

“The one thing about this business of Janie that I never can understand,” said Dan, “is that everyone who has ever met her likes her, so—”

“That’s true,” Trixie interrupted. “It was true at the hospital, with all the nurses, and the first thing all the other Candy Stripers ask us when we go to the hospital is ‘How’s Janie?’ ”

“That’s what I mean,” Dan went on. There was a frown on his deep-tanned face. “So why hasn’t there been just one little inquiry from somewhere about a girl like her, who must have turned up missing?”

“It’s a mystery, for sure,” Trixie said. “Don’t think it doesn’t worry Janie. We told you how marvelous she was on the plane coming home.”

“Yeah, and all of it put on.” Mart sat down at the clubhouse table on the bench next to Trixie. “Why don’t you just work on Janie’s identity, instead of wasting time worrying over ‘mysterious’ calls about Jim’s aunt, and a mysterious’ man at the marsh, and a ‘mysterious’ guy who jimmied up our car in the Bronx and left a ‘mysterious’ pipe?”

“If you’ll just give me time—” Trixie began.

“If all of us do give you time, you’ll find out who Janie is. I know you will,” Honey said loyally. “You may make some mistakes, but you’ll find out eventually. I’m going to help you every way I can.”

“Gosh, so are we,” Mart said quickly. “I just wish she’d concentrate on Janie.”

“How do you know I’m not?” Trixie asked with spirit. “You’re not a detective, Mart, and you don’t know how to recognize clues when you see them or how to sense the way the wind blows.”

“I know this much: It’s blowing up a storm for Janie just now, and not even the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency is protecting her from it.” “We’re trying, Mart Belden,” Honey said. “Why don’t you come up with one of your marvellous ideas?”

“Sarcasm ill becomes you,” Mart said loftily. “Anyway, if I don’t do anything, I don’t keep making mistakes.”

“Heaven knows I don’t want to make any more mistakes,” Trixie said sadly. “When I saw that bewildered look come over Janie’s face when Mrs. Meredith didn’t recognize her, and when I realize how brave she’s been....”

“That’s the worst thing about amnesia,” Brian, the future doctor, said. “I never knew anything about loss of memory till that day Trixie and Honey came home from the hospital and told us about Janie. Since then, I’ve been reading up on it. There doesn’t seem to be a lot anyone can do.”

“You were saying, ‘That’s the worst thing about amnesia,’ ” Honey said. “What is, Brian?”

“The fact that some contact with the person’s past is necessary to stimulate his memory. Then, in a flash, it all comes back. We just don’t seem to be able to dig up that trigger. I was so sure you’d bring back good news yesterday.”

“I wouldn’t go through that experience again for anything,” Trixie said. “Next time I’ll be sure.”

Jim broke in quietly, “If anyone asks me, and they haven’t, I think it would help Janie a lot, and us, too, if we’d think up some fun for her.”

“Shake!” Mart said, extending his hand. “You sound more like a doctor than Brian. Now, what will we do, and when?”

“Why not a barbecue tonight?” Dan suggested.

“At our house!” Trixie cried. “A surprise one, for Janie.“

“With a treasure hunt,” Honey said.

“Maybe Janie’s too old for a treasure hunt,” Diana suggested, but she was hooted down by the others.

“Janie may be past twenty, but she sure doesn’t look it. She likes everything we do, too,” Trixie insisted. Then her face fell. “What chance would we have for a surprise party with Bobby....”

“He’s a darling,” Honey said, “but I know what you mean. Just try to keep a secret around him.”

“Well,” Mart said, “how could we have a surprise for Janie, anyway, when she’s right there all the time?”

“Miss Trask is the answer,” Jim said. “If Honey and I ask her, she'll figure out some sort of expedition today that will include Bobby
and
Janie. Let’s see—” He looked at his wristwatch. “It’s past twelve o’clock now. You beat it home for lunch, all of you, and about one fifteen, see if Miss Trask doesn’t show up at Crabapple Farm.”

It was one fifteen on the dot when Miss Trask did, indeed, show up.

Bobby was ecstatic, for, next to Old Brom, Miss Trask was his favorite best friend.”

“We’re going to the zoo,” he cried. “They have a new baby elephant there.”

Janie, invited, went along.

Reddy, uninvited, went along, too, his tail a semaphore, his whole body wagging happily.

As the car disappeared down Glen Road, Trixie drew a little notebook from her pocket. “Now, food first. We’ll get it at Mr. Lytell’s grocery. Miss Trask always wants us to buy all the groceries we can from him.”